Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides

Picture this – Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has his arms held in a vice like grip, much against his wishes by 2 soldiers in King George’s palace and that too in front of his old foe or pal if you would like to call him that – Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). Not that its going to last for too long. In a swift move, Sparrow knocks the soldiers away with an unexpected jab on their family jewels. He then crosses their bayonets to fire into the chandelier above, jumps onto the dining table and proceeds to use all the lovely eats as his defence against the other charging 20 odd soldiers and running towards the window simultaneously. He uses a chair to shatter the window and also dispose a charging soldier through the same while in the same motion grabbing the curtain cord to propel himself upwards towards a ledge. He uses the same as a launching platform towards the chandelier that is half hanging and is therefore an extremely effective method to swing on to the balcony opposite the window, taking care of a couple of soldiers en route and yes not forgetting the sugar coated croissant that he had kicked onto the chandelier a few seconds before His Majesty came into the room. He then proceeds to knock off a soldiers cap – much like Jack Sparrow does – just to embarrass and un-expectant soldier and in the same breath leads him down towards a room but conveniently loses him by hiding behind a piano. He then goes to the nearest window and is making is way behind the horizontal flag staff but not before a soldier notices this and chops the cord off getting Sparrow to swing down towards the road, barely miss it and conveniently land into a chariot with an old woman who is as surprised as 2 year old getting her first birthday present. He kisses the old woman on the neck and relieves her of her earring (the kleptomaniac that Sparrow is) and proceeds to jump onto the roof of the chariot. He also manages to balance himself on another chariot for a few 100 meters before moving onto the roof of the other and eventually uses the signage of the “Spanish Daughter” to escape from the gaurds.


Hows that for vintage Pirates of the Caribbean???? Watch part of the snippet here http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2399378713/

Sword Fights with gorgeous Spanish women (read Penélope Cruz - Angelica), Mermaids who are fiercely protective about themselves (Astrid Berges-Frisbey – Syrena), the Spanish Armada, The Royal Navy, Ponce De Leon’s grounded ship on a ledge where Barbossa and Sparrow fight for a couple of silver chalices and the piece de resistance – Zombies aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship captained by the most feared pirate of them all – George Teach a.k.a Blackbeard (Ian McShane). The fourth edition of this absolutely fantabulous fantasy adventure has it all. The director of Nine, Memoirs of a Geisha and Chicago, Rob Marshall, has set himself up for another slew of nominations (read hopefully wins) at this year’s Oscars – Costumes, Make Up and Art Direction – and hopefully some more. Nearly picture perfect execution with just a couple of slip ups to the very trained eye. Lovely camera work and superb editing along with great special effects make this edition of the Pirates an utter joy to watch. Fabulous entertainment for even the uninitiated because this one is not related much to the ones that came in before. Garnished with the traditional Pirates Track albeit in very small 5-10 second doses, the 4th edition also smartly sets itself up for one more to follow. That would mean more happy Pirate fans all over the world - Lip smacking I say!!! The humour is slick as always and the dialogues nearly poetic in parts. Johnny Depp scores yet again!!!

What amazes you everytime you see a Pirates movie is the sheer capability to take up something simple and blow it into something that’s larger than life to say the least. My Pirates brain gives this a 9 on 10 but the earnest, honest critic in movie says 8 on 10 folks for certain. In pure layman terms - Superb movie!!! Must Must Must watch for both fans and non-fans alike. Would have loved this to be the 200th post of my blog but that credit will go to Arthur unfortunately. This post could not wait till I finish writing Arthur which would be tomorrow morning.

Watch the trailers at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi762617113/ & http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3649608985/. This one truly deserves 2 trailers at least.

ROMANCING THE STONE

OK I am not trying to brag out here but when you have a reasonably large collection of DVDs, it is only obvious that you have a choice to re-live the moments that you grew up with. The year was 1984 and Robert Zemeckis gave us his 2nd movie. I would probably call it his first coz Used Cars (1980) wasn’t really big at the BO. Nevertheless, 30 years down the road and old Bob has given us nearly 15 movies that can be watched almost anytime of the day. This is the one that started the very misconceived notion of a trilogy – Romancing the Stone (1984), Jewel of the Nile (1985) & War of the Roses (1989). War of the Roses did star the magical trio of Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito but was in no way related to the Jack T Colton and Joan Wilder adventures that were released before.


Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner – did they make women more beautiful then or is it just a figment of my imagination and my singledom talking) is a successful romance novelist. She writes Western Romance novels with a principle characters called Angelina and Jessie who she believes is the manifestation of the ideal man. She believes that her Jessie is somewhere out there and is waiting to be found. He publisher, Gloria (Holland Taylor) is also continuously on the look-out for a potential man for Joan. As she is about to leave home in a massive hurry to give Gloria her next book, she gets a nondescript envelope which she doesn’t bother opening. She returns to find her house ransacked and turned completely inside out. To make matters worse, she gets a call at the same time from Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor), her sister who has been kidnapped.

Elaine asks Joan to come to Cartagena (pronounced Cartahena), Columbia with the package. Her kidnappers are Ira (Zack Norman) and his cousin Ralph (Danny DeVito). Joan lands into Columbia and boards the wrong bus thanks to being incorrectly led by Zolo (Manuel Ojeda) – the guy responsible for ransacking her home. Ralph is also present @ the airport but misses her and realizes it only when the bus has already left. A few hours later Joan finds herself up in the hills of Columbia. As she asks the bus driver as to how much longer it would take to Cartagena, the bus crashes into a stationary jeep and obviously breaks down. Using this opportunity, Zolo tries to extract the map out of Joan at gun point. However, our hero, Jack T Colton (Michael Douglas), the owner of the now trashed jeep and the birds worth nearly $20K appears. A gun fight ensues and Zolo runs away unsuccessfully.

Romancing the Stone, as mentioned earlier, released in 1984. The challenge in rating the movie right now would be to get to a comparable level that existed in the early 80s. In its time, RTS was a very well made movie. But if you look at it today, you can easily make out the use of blank cartridges in the guns and you would probably laugh at the ease with which our protagonists dodge bullets. It does have a charm of its own – heroes dodging bullets that is – but very honestly thoda far fetched. Unlike a James Bond where anything is considered possible, Jack Colton is not really associated with doing the impossible.

Lesser known fact I am sure would be that Michael Douglas also produced RTS. I guess it helped being born to a family where acting was in the genes and loads of money in the bank. What makes it admirable is that he actually produced his first movie 10 years before RTS @ the age of 30. Surprise Surprise – One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. He doesn’t look a day over 30 even in RTS. Strong performances by the 3 lead characters make RTS an evergreen classic. Zemeckis’ direction seems to be just about moving in the right direction at this stage. One which would peak with Forrest Gump a few years later. Fast Paced & never short of action but a little stretched at the beginning. Takes a while for the action to start. Lets hope the remake which is due to release next year addresses some of these issues. Not too tough an act to emulate. 6 on 10. Next up is Jewel of the Nile followed by a weekend of releases. So it would be back to current movies. Watch out this space for more. HAPPY DIWALI FOLKS!!!!!