After getting off the bus today to get to work, I noticed something distinctly different. That difference was the general vacancy on the autobus, there weren’t any students riding on it. It was officially summer in my head, although a meteorologist would probably have an alternative argument. Last week was finals week and this past weekend was graduation.
Acknowledging summer’s existence usually puts all kinds of thoughts into my head: vacation plans (Virginia here I come!), work transitions (new office!), no student workers (well, maybe three), general nostalgia (how doing nothing but swimming and playing outside for two and half months was absolute bliss), and the summer blockbuster (all the action flicks and sequels).
Summer blockbusters become a staple conversation for many of the common people. This topic almost replaces the “how’s the weather” conversation that many folks tend to divert to when they find a lull in some form of discussion with another human being. The films that get released in the theater will find their way into the hearts of many, whether it ranges from taking the kids out, a possible date, entertaining friends, recognizing that guilty pleasure, or the remake that rekindles your childhood (Transformers anybody?).
However, in the tradition of summer releases, there is always a theme: sequels! It’s a guarantee you will see a parade of sequels, whether they are parts of an overall series, third installments wrapping up a trilogy, a part two you were expecting, or a fourth installment that you didn’t see coming due to a thirteen year hiatus. Currently there has been quite the streak of non-originals out like Shrek the Third, Ocean’s Thirteen, 28 Weeks Later, Spiderman 3, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The ones due out soon are Rush Hour 3, Aliens vs. Predator 2, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4), and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5). The one that I want to talk about is Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
The latest Pirates movie was released a few weeks ago and is the third (and hopefully) final feature in this, now, trilogy. The summer of 2003 is when the first Pirates film was released. I remember I had some negative thoughts about this flick when I first saw the poster for it at a movie theater. Two things bothered me about this: a) it’s a movie based on the amusement park ride and b) it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who was responsible for such hits as Armageddon, The Rock, Gone in 60 Seconds, and CSI. Come that summer, it was released and everyone and their mother went and saw it. Some selling points were the fact that Johnny Depp was the main star, which many people love the Depp, and that Orlando Bloom was in it, which any girl between the age of fourteen and twenty-five is in love with. I’m not going to advocate Kiera Knightley’s role in it because I don’t find her all that attractive and I don’t know many other guys who do either.
I did not see the first Pirates in the theater, I, instead, went and saw many other quality films such as S.W.A.T., League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Matrix Reloaded, and Terminator 3. I waited for its rental release and this was when I was working at the video store. It wasn’t until this movie, specifically, came out for rent was when I decided that humans are going to go extinct very soon. Seeing this movie get rented out the day it was released, and then for almost five weeks it was still checked out, I saw people at their worst.
“When the fuck do you think you’ll have a copy?!”
“I’ve been here everyday for the last two weeks!!! You owe me something. I’m not leaving here until I get something that I didn’t pay for!!!” I promoted that he should steal something but then I would call the cops.
During my time at the video store, I saw people get driven to insanity over four films: Pirates of the Caribbean, Lost in Translation, Kill Bill Vol. 1, and The Incredibles. These four were constantly checked out for a great period of time, and people literally cut their own arms in the store (not entirely true). If someone is so upset that a movie about pirates is checked out, his life must be pretty good then. I just never understood why you would pull your own hair out or threaten people due to the absence of some movie.
I saw Pirates, and it was decent. I didn’t (and still haven’t) figure out what all the insanity was about. Well, apparently this movie was so good that Bruckheimer and the Nazis at Disney decided to make another Pirates movie (and secretly make a third one simultaneously). The sequel was released last summer and everyone I knew went and saw it. The common reactions were:
“It was really boring.”
“That movie should have been an hour shorter.”
“Some of those scenes could have been ten minutes shorter.”
However, the common thread amongst all the viewers I knew of that movie was:
“But the last two minutes were so good, I’ll go and see the third one.”
All I can say is that you are a sucker. Just because a character from the first film makes a cameo in the last two minutes of this near three hour feature doesn’t mean you have to cough up another ten dollars for the third installment a year from now. Here we are, the next summer, and almost everyone I know went in line to get his or her Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ticket.
When friends and colleagues would tell me they were planning on seeing this film, I would usually role my eyes or pass some form of judgment. As usual, they would have their argument on why they were seeing this film, and the follow up argument on why I should shut up and see the film anyway.
“Come on, it’s entertaining.”
When someone says this, that person is walking into dangerous territory. The word “entertaining” can go in various directions. If you want to use entertaining as a valid reason of why this movie is good, then I can argue that the action flick Swordfish is an entertaining film. Why? One may ask. Simple. The film has a pretty hip soundtrack by Paul Oakenfold, you get to see Halle Berry’s breasts, and there is a scene where Hugh Jackman has to crack a computer code within a minute while having a gun to his head… oh yeah, and he’s getting a blowjob while this is all going down (no pun intended). That’s entertaining.
The other direction is that entertaining is one of the ugliest words in the English language. Entertaining falls into a triad of words that people should do their best to avoid. That triad is:
Entertaining – Interesting – Nice
Interesting is usually used when one is not quite sure how to sum something up. It’s mentioned when someone wants to describe a specific topic, whether it was a presidential debate, or a woman’s singing vocals, and that person lacks any other adjective or is not totally familiar with the English language and will then bust out with, “well, it was sort of interesting.” It’s possible that some elaboration may arise after the I word was dropped. Sometimes the person will use the I word in order to avoid a phrase like, “that chick was totally cool!” In most common situations, the person who used interesting is worried about not sounding like a complete idiot and that interesting is, maybe, somewhat, of an academic word.
Nice is used when someone doesn’t want to hurt another person’s feelings. Nice can encompass a person’s comments on the color of a house, the looks of your best friend’s girlfriend, or the cuteness of a dog. “Oh, it’s… nice.” “Oh, she seemed… nice.” You know you have used it, you have heard your friends use it, and you hate it when someone uses it on you. Nice is a dirty word that upsets everybody involved, because the one using it knows he is not being honest and the person hearing it knows he is full of shit.
Entertaining is involved when an individual has just watched a crappy film and won’t admit it or hasn’t quite recognized the fact that it was a crappy film. Sometimes entertaining is an escape route to hide the fact that the following movie is actually a guilty pleasure of yours and your friends just won’t understand. The e word is also a defense mechanism to those who liked the crappy movie and his entire circle of friends hated it.
“Oh my god, Fast and the Furious was probably the worst movie ever made!”
“Seriously! I could have made a better film with $12 and Bazooka Joe gum!”
“Hey, it was at least entertaining,” dirty looks then arrive.
In the same conversation where the friend or colleague is trying to persuade me to go see the new Pirates movie, the mention of it being based on the infamous Disneyland ride comes up. Like entertaining, this argument can be steered in different directions.
The fact that Pirates of the Caribbean is based on the internationally recognized amusement park ride can seem charming. Many people may not realize, or maybe chose to forget, that Pirates was not the first or last movie to be based on a Disneyland ride. A year, maybe two years, before the first Pirates flick came out, Disney released The Country Bears with the talents of Haley Joel Osment and Christopher Walken. How many people saw that film? 4500. The film that came after the first Pirates based on a ride was The Haunted Mansion, an Eddie Murphy classic. It’s up there with Boomerang.
The flipside of this concept of the film being based on a ride, is that THIS FILM IS BASED ON A RIDE!!! I find the value and appreciation of films slowly draining due to this reason. I can’t wait until the day that all the ideas have run dry and all the rides have been made into feature length films, producers will then pitch such potential hits as Bumper Cars starring George Clooney, Mandy Moore, and Al Pacino as the crazy bolt of electricity, or Tall Water Slide starring Ethan Hawke, Natalie Portman, and Michael Ironside as the fear of heights. I’m sure Disney knows the money they are going to make from this new franchise; they have an entire amusement park of ideas to choose from for their next films.
The third Pirates movie has already been released and now many more summer features are coming out, every Friday to be exact. Come this October, Pirates will most likely be released out on DVD. Everyone will go out and buy their copy to add to their shelves with their copies of the first two Pirates movies. Then by Christmas time, the ultimate trilogy edition will be released. By summer of 2008, the Treasure Chest trilogy edition will be released that will include 12 discs of pure pirate booty fun. The funny part is that everyone who bought the third pirate movie in fall, will buy the ultimate trilogy edition in wintertime, and then will buy the special treasure edition in the summer time. I saw people do it with the Lords of the Rings and The Matrix.
In the meantime, everyone should get excited as It’s a Small World comes out Christmas of 2007 with Matthew McCounaghey and Rebecca Romijn. Next May we will see Space Mountain starring Jude Law and Cillian Murphy. Don’t forget the Thanksgiving after that will be The Tiki Tiki Room with Jake Gyllenhal and the voices of Danny DeVito, Bruce Willis, and Sarah Silverman. This is only the beginning, you realize.
Acknowledging summer’s existence usually puts all kinds of thoughts into my head: vacation plans (Virginia here I come!), work transitions (new office!), no student workers (well, maybe three), general nostalgia (how doing nothing but swimming and playing outside for two and half months was absolute bliss), and the summer blockbuster (all the action flicks and sequels).
Summer blockbusters become a staple conversation for many of the common people. This topic almost replaces the “how’s the weather” conversation that many folks tend to divert to when they find a lull in some form of discussion with another human being. The films that get released in the theater will find their way into the hearts of many, whether it ranges from taking the kids out, a possible date, entertaining friends, recognizing that guilty pleasure, or the remake that rekindles your childhood (Transformers anybody?).
However, in the tradition of summer releases, there is always a theme: sequels! It’s a guarantee you will see a parade of sequels, whether they are parts of an overall series, third installments wrapping up a trilogy, a part two you were expecting, or a fourth installment that you didn’t see coming due to a thirteen year hiatus. Currently there has been quite the streak of non-originals out like Shrek the Third, Ocean’s Thirteen, 28 Weeks Later, Spiderman 3, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The ones due out soon are Rush Hour 3, Aliens vs. Predator 2, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4), and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5). The one that I want to talk about is Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
The latest Pirates movie was released a few weeks ago and is the third (and hopefully) final feature in this, now, trilogy. The summer of 2003 is when the first Pirates film was released. I remember I had some negative thoughts about this flick when I first saw the poster for it at a movie theater. Two things bothered me about this: a) it’s a movie based on the amusement park ride and b) it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who was responsible for such hits as Armageddon, The Rock, Gone in 60 Seconds, and CSI. Come that summer, it was released and everyone and their mother went and saw it. Some selling points were the fact that Johnny Depp was the main star, which many people love the Depp, and that Orlando Bloom was in it, which any girl between the age of fourteen and twenty-five is in love with. I’m not going to advocate Kiera Knightley’s role in it because I don’t find her all that attractive and I don’t know many other guys who do either.
I did not see the first Pirates in the theater, I, instead, went and saw many other quality films such as S.W.A.T., League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Matrix Reloaded, and Terminator 3. I waited for its rental release and this was when I was working at the video store. It wasn’t until this movie, specifically, came out for rent was when I decided that humans are going to go extinct very soon. Seeing this movie get rented out the day it was released, and then for almost five weeks it was still checked out, I saw people at their worst.
“When the fuck do you think you’ll have a copy?!”
“I’ve been here everyday for the last two weeks!!! You owe me something. I’m not leaving here until I get something that I didn’t pay for!!!” I promoted that he should steal something but then I would call the cops.
During my time at the video store, I saw people get driven to insanity over four films: Pirates of the Caribbean, Lost in Translation, Kill Bill Vol. 1, and The Incredibles. These four were constantly checked out for a great period of time, and people literally cut their own arms in the store (not entirely true). If someone is so upset that a movie about pirates is checked out, his life must be pretty good then. I just never understood why you would pull your own hair out or threaten people due to the absence of some movie.
I saw Pirates, and it was decent. I didn’t (and still haven’t) figure out what all the insanity was about. Well, apparently this movie was so good that Bruckheimer and the Nazis at Disney decided to make another Pirates movie (and secretly make a third one simultaneously). The sequel was released last summer and everyone I knew went and saw it. The common reactions were:
“It was really boring.”
“That movie should have been an hour shorter.”
“Some of those scenes could have been ten minutes shorter.”
However, the common thread amongst all the viewers I knew of that movie was:
“But the last two minutes were so good, I’ll go and see the third one.”
All I can say is that you are a sucker. Just because a character from the first film makes a cameo in the last two minutes of this near three hour feature doesn’t mean you have to cough up another ten dollars for the third installment a year from now. Here we are, the next summer, and almost everyone I know went in line to get his or her Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ticket.
When friends and colleagues would tell me they were planning on seeing this film, I would usually role my eyes or pass some form of judgment. As usual, they would have their argument on why they were seeing this film, and the follow up argument on why I should shut up and see the film anyway.
“Come on, it’s entertaining.”
When someone says this, that person is walking into dangerous territory. The word “entertaining” can go in various directions. If you want to use entertaining as a valid reason of why this movie is good, then I can argue that the action flick Swordfish is an entertaining film. Why? One may ask. Simple. The film has a pretty hip soundtrack by Paul Oakenfold, you get to see Halle Berry’s breasts, and there is a scene where Hugh Jackman has to crack a computer code within a minute while having a gun to his head… oh yeah, and he’s getting a blowjob while this is all going down (no pun intended). That’s entertaining.
The other direction is that entertaining is one of the ugliest words in the English language. Entertaining falls into a triad of words that people should do their best to avoid. That triad is:
Entertaining – Interesting – Nice
Interesting is usually used when one is not quite sure how to sum something up. It’s mentioned when someone wants to describe a specific topic, whether it was a presidential debate, or a woman’s singing vocals, and that person lacks any other adjective or is not totally familiar with the English language and will then bust out with, “well, it was sort of interesting.” It’s possible that some elaboration may arise after the I word was dropped. Sometimes the person will use the I word in order to avoid a phrase like, “that chick was totally cool!” In most common situations, the person who used interesting is worried about not sounding like a complete idiot and that interesting is, maybe, somewhat, of an academic word.
Nice is used when someone doesn’t want to hurt another person’s feelings. Nice can encompass a person’s comments on the color of a house, the looks of your best friend’s girlfriend, or the cuteness of a dog. “Oh, it’s… nice.” “Oh, she seemed… nice.” You know you have used it, you have heard your friends use it, and you hate it when someone uses it on you. Nice is a dirty word that upsets everybody involved, because the one using it knows he is not being honest and the person hearing it knows he is full of shit.
Entertaining is involved when an individual has just watched a crappy film and won’t admit it or hasn’t quite recognized the fact that it was a crappy film. Sometimes entertaining is an escape route to hide the fact that the following movie is actually a guilty pleasure of yours and your friends just won’t understand. The e word is also a defense mechanism to those who liked the crappy movie and his entire circle of friends hated it.
“Oh my god, Fast and the Furious was probably the worst movie ever made!”
“Seriously! I could have made a better film with $12 and Bazooka Joe gum!”
“Hey, it was at least entertaining,” dirty looks then arrive.
In the same conversation where the friend or colleague is trying to persuade me to go see the new Pirates movie, the mention of it being based on the infamous Disneyland ride comes up. Like entertaining, this argument can be steered in different directions.
The fact that Pirates of the Caribbean is based on the internationally recognized amusement park ride can seem charming. Many people may not realize, or maybe chose to forget, that Pirates was not the first or last movie to be based on a Disneyland ride. A year, maybe two years, before the first Pirates flick came out, Disney released The Country Bears with the talents of Haley Joel Osment and Christopher Walken. How many people saw that film? 4500. The film that came after the first Pirates based on a ride was The Haunted Mansion, an Eddie Murphy classic. It’s up there with Boomerang.
The flipside of this concept of the film being based on a ride, is that THIS FILM IS BASED ON A RIDE!!! I find the value and appreciation of films slowly draining due to this reason. I can’t wait until the day that all the ideas have run dry and all the rides have been made into feature length films, producers will then pitch such potential hits as Bumper Cars starring George Clooney, Mandy Moore, and Al Pacino as the crazy bolt of electricity, or Tall Water Slide starring Ethan Hawke, Natalie Portman, and Michael Ironside as the fear of heights. I’m sure Disney knows the money they are going to make from this new franchise; they have an entire amusement park of ideas to choose from for their next films.
The third Pirates movie has already been released and now many more summer features are coming out, every Friday to be exact. Come this October, Pirates will most likely be released out on DVD. Everyone will go out and buy their copy to add to their shelves with their copies of the first two Pirates movies. Then by Christmas time, the ultimate trilogy edition will be released. By summer of 2008, the Treasure Chest trilogy edition will be released that will include 12 discs of pure pirate booty fun. The funny part is that everyone who bought the third pirate movie in fall, will buy the ultimate trilogy edition in wintertime, and then will buy the special treasure edition in the summer time. I saw people do it with the Lords of the Rings and The Matrix.
In the meantime, everyone should get excited as It’s a Small World comes out Christmas of 2007 with Matthew McCounaghey and Rebecca Romijn. Next May we will see Space Mountain starring Jude Law and Cillian Murphy. Don’t forget the Thanksgiving after that will be The Tiki Tiki Room with Jake Gyllenhal and the voices of Danny DeVito, Bruce Willis, and Sarah Silverman. This is only the beginning, you realize.
2 comments:
Seriously, I am so excited about Tiki Tiki Room!
Dude, do not underestimate the power of Johnny Depp in a little outfit. It hurts to have so much pretty on one screen ... and we must obey.
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