I loved Ronin. The only thing about that movie that really drives me nuts is the HORRIBLE smoke effect in one scene. They added it to fix a continuity problem, but it would have been so much better looking if they had just reshot one or the other of those two shots.

The monkey and the parrot would also be mortal enemies if it were an animated film. That is, until they became close friends by the end of the second act. And they'd look like Apu and Iago.

Honestly, if they were to stick Jack Sparrow into just about any shit movie, I would instantly want to see that movie. I'm a firm believer that characters and their relationships are the most important aspect of a film and override any other aspect. If you make characters that are good enough, you can have the rest of the movie be substandard in just about every way and still walk away with a big hit on your hands. Pirates had one of the most iconic characters ever, and had that character craftily manipulating all the other characters to achieve his goals. What you guys said about him not being the main character but being the reason people went to see the flick is spot on.

That's one thing that I think Brad Bird has backwards. He claims that story is the most important thing, but he's also been smart enough to put really interesting and endearing characters into all of his movies. There are plenty of movies that are brought out of mediocrity by their awesome characters.

That said, I know full well that the following Pirates movies had lots of issues and got worse as the films went on. But the fact that there were at least two or three characters that I totally fucking loved in each installment meant that I couldn't really care less if the movies are too convoluted or have scenes that are effectively padding. I get to see these awesome characters throw banter around or act like... well... like themselves. That just makes these movies way more fun to watch than a lot of big action blockbuster movies where you're watching Action Hero Cliche #2 go head to head with Over Acted Eeeeviiiiiilllll Guy Cliche #4.

Movies like Live Free Or Die Hard, X-Men: Wolverine, xXx, G.I.Joe, Expendables, Prince of Persia.

Not that they don't often have their own little moments, it's just that a really great character will give you tons of opportunity to have tons of great moments, where you'll only manage to stumble accidentally onto a funny line or something once in a while if you don't have a good character to work off of.

I dunno. I don't get the objection. Incoherent isn't the word I would use. Maybe "too busy", in that there are like 4 or 5 plot threads going on in the third flick, but by the end they've all pretty well converged into the one sequence. They pull a few things out of their ass, to be sure, but aside from maybe a bit of lazy writing I didn't find the flicks to be at all hard to follow along with or understand what was going on.

But yeah, I have to agree with Kyle that the sequels were good, or at least satisfactory to my viewing needs. I think the first was the best, the second one was right up there (had some awkward humor bits which I generally don't like in any movie beyond Woody Allen flicks and their ilk), and the third one was slightly worse due to the kinda weak "pirate king" section with Fat. They're all still very watchable, entertaining, etc.

But lets put them into perspective, now... Compared to a movie that has actually been crafted in an effort to be a 'good' movie, and not just an entertaining movie, ALL of the POTC movies are kinda crap. They're all really good for big stupid action/adventure movies, but it's not like the creators went out of their way to inject tons of subtlety, nuance or emotionally or intellectually complex subject matter into them. Curse, boat, kidnap, swordfights, save the damsel in distress, beat the bag guy, the end.

Not a lot to say that you guys didn't cover already in the commentary. Awesome flick. I remember when it came out and everyone made a huge deal about the car scene, not only because it was such an awesome shot, but because no one could figure out how they did it and no one on the film would talk about it in interviews or anything. It actually worked in their favor and created a sense of mystery as to how the hell they managed to pull off all these crazy complex long shots.

"If I were in a war, I wouldn't throw grenades. I'd throw bananas. Then while they're confused, I'd throw grenades."

It's just perception here in the US is so screwed up and one dimensional. I went to see Princess Mononoke in the theater twice when it was showing and both times there was a large audience, and both times that audience would laugh at parts that were clearly not meant to be funny. There's a massacre going on in an early scene where samurai are hacking down fleeing peasants (laughter), and Ashitaka attacks them to stop the slaughter. He takes one guy's arms off (laughter) and then beheads another guy (laughter).

Basically all of the violent bits in the film were punctuated by laughter from the audience. It started getting really annoying by the end of the film when there was a pretty graphic battle sequence going on and the audience was making the sort of sound effects that you'd expect coming from a group of kids watching pro wrestling. I had hoped that the second screening would have either fewer people or a more sensible audience, but it was the same.

I think adults here have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept that a cartoon doesn't have to be funny. Even the anime fans generally tend to focus primarily on shows that are either humorous or extremely graphic (which is apparently pretty god damn funny when it's animated for some reason).

I do have hope, tho, with some of these more recent kids' shows that have been coming out that do have some comedy elements but are more focused on telling a decent story with decent characters in various dramatic situations. The Last Airbender is a good example. The rebooted TMNT show was decent as well. The new Thundercats series looks like it'll be up there. A lot of the marvel / DC animated shows and movies are pretty good at keeping the comedy at a reasonable level.

I think my generation was drawn to darker animated stuff in general thanks to some bad-ass early anime stuff like Akira and Nausicaa (Warriors of the Wind... bleh...), Bakshi's movies and Secret of NIMH. There was a lot of dark kids movies in general released around the time that VHS became pervasive, so a lot of us grew up with stacks of these kids movies that our parents bought us or that we taped off TV that were amazingly violent or depressing for kids movies (at least when you compare them to today's crap).

I guess the problem with those movies is that even tho I absolutely adore them, and most people in my generation grew up with ET, Nimh, Watership Down, Bakshi's stuff, Neverending Story, Dark Crystal, Willy Wonka and all this other dark, weird stuff, not many of them actually made that much money. But then they made Home Alone, Hook, Problem Child and crap like that in the early 90's and those movies made so much money they had to build new buildings just to store it all, so the trend went from good movies about characters learning a valuable lesson while having some kind of adventure - usually in an effort to help, resue or protect some other character - to soulless crap movies generated by a committee that featured spoiled petulant brats in some situation where they didn't get their way, so the film follows their antics of vengeance or manipulation through deceit, theft, physical violence, etc and the only valuable lesson they end up learning is "you should do whatever it takes to get your way".

I guess Pixar's films aren't as bad as a lot of other kid's films, but a lot of the character arcs still involve selfish motivations - especially the arcs of the main characters. Granted, the characters generally learn that valuable lesson of giving a shit about the other characters, but in the older films it was never an issue. Mrs Brisby was trying to save her kids, Elliot was trying to protect ET, Nausicaa was trying to save her village, etc. There were tons of examples of characters whose goal was to help some other character or group. How many modern kids films have plots like that? How To Train Your Dragon. uh... Bug's Life?

Maybe it's just me, tho. Sorry for the kinda long rambling post(s) I make here. I tend to end up in a line of thought and just explore it for a while to see where it's going. You should see some of the insane crap I have written in the various notebooks and sketch pads I have strewn about the house.

I totally missed the April Fool's joke front page

Is there a mirror of it or something?

If I lived anywhere within driving distance, I would totally be there.

Unfortunately I don't, so I won't be.

I'm not popular enough to have anyone give a shit about what I tweet, either. I might know some people, tho.

Well, it's not hard when you think about all the various ways they padded out the other films. The first film was over an hour of "character development" before any kind of traditional plot actually kicked in.