Monthly Archives: May 2007

Pirates 4 Concept – Contains Pirates 3 Spoilers

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Elizabeth did not stay on that island for 10 years. She just came back 10 years later to meet Will. A cut scene has Tia Dalma saying that if Calypso had met Davy Jones again after 10 years, his curse would have been lifted and he could become mortal again (no solution for who captains the Flying Dutchman). That’s why there’s a green flash – it signals that a soul has returned from the land of the dead…to stay.
Thusly, with suggested story ideas for the fourth film involving Barbossa and Jack meeting up in the newly formed town of New Orleans to go after the fountain of youth somewhere in Florida, I would love the story to have a pirate Elizabeth Turner begging out of being hanged because she is with child and someone saying, “Off to Will Turner’s Locker!”
That is all. Belay! Belay! BELAY! Stow it!
Utterly deceptive twaddlespeak, says I.
Let us not forget our dear friend the cuttlefish.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End – The World Premiere and The Midnight Showing

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Pictures. So last Saturday I went to Disneyland at 6 in the morning. Why? Not to sit and wait all day to see celebrities – to take advantage of an empty Disneyland at 6:30 in the morning. I got several great shots of New Orleans completely empty and had an entire Splash Mountain log to myself (probably the only time I’ve ever walked onto that attraction and had the offer of staying on for a 2nd ride). After that I went to Swing Team Rehearsal with the intention of joining some friends later that day in Disneyland for the Red Carpet walk-by’s. But not before going into Jamba Juice and watching Orlando Bloom walk through Downtown Disney incognitos with a little girl (not his daughter…maybe his niece? No idea).
I came back around 5 pm and I’m on the hub right across from Tomorrowland. Unfortunately, by the time the celebrities get to us, most of them were hurrying past because Main Street was a real chore (as can be seen from this excellent review on MiceAge.com by Sue Kruse, or at Mouseplanet…or at Visions Fantastic).

In the category of rushed past waving
Geoffrey Rush w/ Monkey Jack and trainer
Kevin McNally – Joshamee Gibbs
Johnny Depp
Orlando Bloom
John Voight
Jonathon Pryce – Governor Weatherby Swan
Arnold Schwarzenegger – not on red carpet – walked out of Tomorrowland and across the carpet
Bill Nighy
Keith Richards
David Baillie – Cotton

In the category of walked by waving or sacrificed even more time to sign even more autographs
Lee Arenberg – Pintel (not the wooden eye guy, the other one)
Gore Verbinski
Martin Landau
Chow Yun Fat
Terry Rosio (he threw me 2 hacky sacks!)
Joey Fatone
Christy Carlson Romano
Wilmer Valderrama (aside from Johnny and Orlando, he was the biggest thing on the red carpet…I think it was because he kept signing autographs…half an hour after he passed, he was still working the crowd on the other side of the hub…people would be screaming and you could say, “Oh it’s just Wilmer”)

So after Johnny walked slowly past, I hurried over the DCA for swing dancing and that was my Saturday.

Last night I went to the midnight showing at Big Newport. I got there around 5 to stake my place in line (I was roughly the 5th group in line) but had to leave at 8 for rehearsal…saved my place with an umbrella…and by letting the people around me know. Got back around 11:15 and the line had not only grown length wise, but breadth wise. The best way to describe it like this: every person in line was already saving a place for 10 people, but each of those 10 people showed up with 10 friends. It was ridiculously crowded. And when they opened the doors to the theatre, the line just disappeared in the mad rush for the door. It was ridiculous. Then when we got into the theatre, there were people throwing tortillas…disgusting. Someone dressed up as Jack Sparrow made an announcement about checking under your seat for a medallion for a prize. I didn’t get anything, he didn’t project very well, but it was a very nice costume.

Finally the movie started. I was actually a little disappointed in this midnight crowd. They were rowdier during the trailers than they were during the movie (Transformers, Christian Bale and Steve Zahn as Vietnam POW’s, Live Free or Die Hard, Evan Almighty). But maybe that can happen with a less complex movie like Spiderman 3 and not with Pirates. The movie was absolutely phenomenal. Everything that was promised to us in Dead Man’s Chest was delivered one-hundred-fold. Learn Barbossa’s first name. Meet the 9 pirate lords. See the pirate code (and it’s guitar-pickin’ keeper). Discover Davy Jones’ true love.
The music was really good. The Davy Jones theme (the locket song) was weaved in and out of just about every theme because it plays so heavily into one of the core stories of the movie (the other core stories being Elizabeth, Will and Jack). That core story really ties a heavy element of mythology into the movie which I just love (I’m a HUGE fan of mythology, always have been, though I don’t know why…maybe I really am a fantasy fan). But what a lot of reviews are suggesting is that this makes the 3-hour epic into two movies: Elizabeth, Will, Jack, Barbossa and all the pirate-y fun in one movie and the mythological back story in the other. While this makes sense, I can’t really find a reason to disagree with the decision to make the film 3 hours long and have both stories in there. Although maybe it takes away from what people claimed to enjoy so much about the first film (the piratical banter between the major characters).
Regardless of all of that, the true glory for the movie goes to it’s truly epic final battle. This battle will be remembered long after the pirate phenomenon has faded from memory. I mean you get a small tease of the sheer scale from the trailer, but when you see the Flying Dutchman and the Black Pearl charging into the maelstrom at each other and hear Barbossa laughing maniacally as he turns the Black Pearl deeper into the deadly whirlpool…I was utterly speechless. It was just gorgeous.
All in all this was a really great film that I can’t wait to see again.

Oh What A Beautiful Morning!

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That’s right…I’m quoting Rodgers and Hammerstein. But it really is a beautiful morning…that nice cold morning indicative of spring where you can’t wear a jacket because in another hour it’s going to be hot. If only my sinuses weren’t plugged, I probably would have been able to smell that mountainesque air that I so adore. But anyways, this beautiful morning reminded me that there are several things to share with y’all.

I came up with an alternative storyline while watching The Mask the other day. It was right after the scene where Tina (an undiscovered Cameron Diaz) visits Stanley (Jim Carrey) in jail and says she’s going away for a while.

I didn’t see or hear from Tina for a couple of months. Dorian succeeded in taking over the city…unfortunately, being a petty thug, his empire quickly devolved into civil war…Lieutenant Kelloway was killed in the resulting crossfire and in the political backstabbing, I was able to barter my way out of jail.

I know they couldn’t take the story in that direction, but it was an interesting turn for the characters to take…make it a film noir movie.

I saw the midnight showing of Spiderman 3 last week at Big Newport. That’s always fun…a group of geeks cheering at Bruce Campbell and Stan Lee while booing and hissing at Kirsten Dunst. I thought it was an interesting and fun movie, but lots of people are complaining, mainly about the lack of character development for the 3 major villains. I came up with this question:

Can we sacrifice character development for a deeper story connection? There wasn’t enough time really to develop all the characters of the movie…but do they actually reflect the internal conflict in Peter’s life?

But I don’t really know. I’d go see the movie again just to watch that awesome scene in the bar where Dark Peter shows off to upset Mary Jane. And I’m super pissed off that they’re not giving us the instrumental soundtrack to this movie! I’m so frigging tired of them short-changing us. Although I just found out that there’s an instrumental soundtrack for Spiderman 2, so maybe eventually we’ll get one. I really want it because the fist fight between Dark Peter and Goblin 2.0 is really jazzy and very cool.

I keep thinking there was something else I wanted to talk about, but I’ve forgotten it now. So thanks for tuning in. See ya next time and all that crazy jazz.

OH! Now I remember what it was. It was about how depressing my Wednesday night was. Why for? I watched movies. But it was the content/characters of those movies that really depressed me. I watched (back to back mind you) The Last Kiss (TLK) with Zach Braff and The Pursuit of Happyness (TPOH) with Will Smith. TLK was about Zach’s character having a pregnant girlfriend and getting caught up in this “extramarital” relationship with a college co-ed (8 year age difference about) because he was scared of growing up. TPOH (as i’m sure everybody already knows) is about Will’s character scrambling to make ends meet in the early 1980′s because it’s hard to be an adult. The thing was, I got so wrapped up in these two films that I just got depressed about my future, even though I’m doing fine! It was just a really weird trip.