Favorite Films: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

“You are, without doubt, the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of.”
“But you have heard of me.”

Ahoy me hearties and landlubbers alike! Today be September 19, a most special day on the calendar. Fer in the year o’ our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-five, two scurvy scallywags from the town o’ Albany, Oregon did land themselves a whale o’ an idea fer a holiday. Callin’ theirselfs Cap’n Slappy an’ Ol’ Chumbucket, these two bilgerats declared the nineteenth o’ September to be “Talk Like a Pirate Day”, dedicated to recreatin’ the authentic sound o’ the inauthentic romanticized view o’ the Golden Age o’ Piracy. The two kept the date as a joke between them for sev’ral years, until finally they shared it with the luminary Dave Barry in two thousand and two, and the holiday truly went international. The very next summer, a new motion picture did debut that were all about pirates, and though the producers may claim it just a coincidence, and indeed probably ’twere so. But ’twere a most fortuitous coincidence indeed, as the film inspired a resurgence o’ love fer all things piratical, an’ cemented the success o’ the newly inaugurated International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And so, on the tenth anniversary o’ that auspicious day, I can find no more appropriate tribute ta the day than ta spend it talkin’ wit’ me chums and mateys about the wondrous film that fueled the fire, as it were. So grab a mug o’ grog, and we’ll talk o’ Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

I’m a sucker for a good fantasy movie. And after sitting down to watch 2010′s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, hoping for a good fantasy movie, I certainly felt like a sucker. Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer probably did too when they were done; there’s a lot this movie actually does reasonably well, but it’s dragged down heavily by all the inferior elements.

If some movies are more than the sums of their parts, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is less.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Bein’ that the 19th of September be “Talk Like a Pirate Day”, as it were, and finding mine pockets laden down with a dozen pieces of eight, I took meself down to the local second-run theatre to partake in the viewin’ of the fourth movie ’bout the Pirates of the Caribbean. As circumstances had conspired to prevent me from witnessin’ the spectacle in 3D, I opted for the standard picture-showing format instead. I can’t say as it would have a tremendous difference in any case.

Seein’ the fourth movie in a series is enough to give any savvy scallywag some stirrings of trepidation. A man goes into it wonderin’ whether ‘twil hold up to the better entries in the series, particularly when the series had shown some signs of succumbing ta scurvy. Givin’ extra pause for consideration was the new helmsman, Rob Marshall, replacing Gore Verbinski, and the logical though somewhat lamentable departures of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. True, their story had come to its nat’ral conclusion, and their persons being in the film would have been out of place. But it did set me to wonderin’ if the erstwhile Captain Jack Sparrow would be nearly as entertainin’ without his favorite foils.