Caraccioli

A skinned rabbit is cheaper still. (I think people view those items because they're all in the "weird" section on Amazon. It's kind of like the "Everything Else>Weird Stuff" category on eBay (once you get past all the "paid for top-listing crappy services" banner ads, that is. (These people need to go back to putting their "services" in the back pages of the National Enquirer. Or, better yet, Weakly World News..."Use the product Bat Boy used to make his millions!"))) For more complete lack of insight into the product, look up "badonkadonk" on Wiki. Someone just pointed out to me what this meant...I had no idea. (Apparently I need to listen to more popular music so's I can understand popular culture...or maybe not.)

No, I know. Ted and Terry are quite talented as their resume proves. It's still funny (as you implied - whether you meant to or not) that they could use the plot holes to construct a story, though. (In BTTF 2, they created a bunch of plot holes and inconsistencies that weren't in the (wonderful) BTTF and then they filled the self-created holes in BTTF 3, but created some new ones. I see a template... Of course, they never made a BTTF 4. Probably just as well. )

Using the plot holes for potential story lines! If you search for info on Google on some of the plot holes (like why Liz can't visit Will on the Dutchman), you'll find they're widely debated on forums all across the great wide web. All Ted and Terry have to do is read the forums and stitch the best questions together to create a plausible fourth script!! (When the second one came out, I commented here that it reminded me of the second Back to the Future movie. Now I'm convinced they're using BTTF as their template. )

JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank Be sure to read the first review of this fine product! (I don't know what's more bizarre, the fact that such a thing is publicly sold or the fact that Amazon lists it - and claims to have two in stock!) How can you not like the internet? (I wonder if you can get one for cheap on eBay...?)

Did you draw the tiger? I once started a drawing of a tiger in mid-leap. It might have been really cool (if I had finished it...) I still have the sketch laying about somewhere.

Rosa Klebb as a pirate femme fatale?! I'd have to agree that that is not Lotte Lenya. (Did you know that her husband was one of the composers of The Threepenny Opera? She married 'im twice!)

Is it what happens at the end of the 2.5 series? Because what he does in the beginning for his new found friend is just about what I expected of him.

Wil won't look like Davy Jones because his love, Elizabeth, is faithful to him. Unlike how Tia Dalma/Calypso was to Davy Jones. He also wasn't doing other things he was supposed to as well. Wil becomes free of the curse in 10 years because of Elizabeth staying faithful to him. I thought Davy (and crew) was changing primarily because he wasn't doing what he was supposed to (ferrying the dead). I don't remember anything about his love being faithful, only that he gave up his "mission" after 10 years because she wasn't there when he got off the ship. (But then I only saw it once and have apparently confused other things.)

Well, well, well. Hasbro is finally going to release the last figure I wanted them to release when I was a kid! (well, it was Kenner at the time, not Hasbro - Hasbro bought Kenner out.) CZ-3 is scheduled for release with the new 30th Anniversary figures. http://www.toywiz.com/swsaga07s4clown.html http://www.xiii.dk/ccccd/Droids/_DroidsHCR.htm Actually, I wanted CZ-OR6 who is seen in the Jawa Sandcrawler, but the CZ-3 droid is the same model (and, most likely the same suit - the original SW had this fairly tight budget...) CZ-3 is seen in the streets of Mos Eisley (or is that CZ-1? Who can tell?) and apparently in Jabba's Palace. I always liked CZ-OR6 because it had a distinct skeletal look in the pictures I had of it at in the 70s. (See, there is this theme in my life...) I was a great one for generating lists of figure that Kenner should release. I also wanted things like the silver C-3PO (now called U-3PO) who is seen in the very beginning of ANH, more R2 units and, the holy grail, the cantina band. When I was a kid, I actually got about 200 people to sign petitions to get them to release the Cantina band. I dutifully sent it into Kenner and they dutifully sent me a form letter. They never did release them. (Until the new series, that is. The band was originally released as an Entertainment Earth exclusive set, but you can now get them as an exclusive set at Wal~Mart.) I suppose (once I procure one), this will close a once important chapter in my life. Funny thing, that.

Curiously, Zimmer is much reviled in many soundtrack "expert" circles while Goldsmith is quite revered. (Which, in Goldsmith's case, makes since to me since his body of work is nothing short of astounding IMHO. The man crossed so many styles in his career that I think most people would be hard pressed to say much bad about him. But that's just my thoughts.) Williams has his boosters and detractors - mostly, I suspect, because he has long been one of the most recognized and sought-after soundtrack composers. His soundtrack for Star Wars (or A New Hope for all you youngsters who never saw it the first time it was released ) is probably most responsible for purely compositional soundtracks enjoying the much greater mainstream success they have in recent decades. My personal opinion on this is that whenever you become successful, there are a group of people who are unsuccessful and, thus, often jealous of the fact that someone else made it when they didn't (or, more likely, wouldn't do what is required), so they pick the successful person apart in an effort to make themselves look and/or feel better. Ironically, this almost never works because tearing other people down actually (subconsciously) makes one feel worse. In the soundtrack fandom arena, I think this is part of the issue. The other part is that some people just want to be different and not like the person whom everyone else likes, so they find the inevitable faults in their work and then focus on them. In music, as in life, you get more of what you focus upon - so if you focus on the Sousa-like aspects of William's work, that's all I suspect you're going to hear. But I digress, per usual. Williams aside, the primary complaints I've heard about Zimmer is that he basically gets a bunch of lesser or un-known composers to do the bulk of the work for him and then slaps his name on the project. He is also accused of stealing styles and ideas rather outright from other composers, as the Morricone track attests. So a lot of soundtrack aficionados are biased against him. There is some validity to this from my POV, however, I think the whole "my favorite composer is better than your favorite composer" mantra is absurd beyond reason. Who cares who composed the music? Does it make sense to listen to music primarily because of the personality whose name is attached to it? In the end, if I like the music, I like the music and I could generally give a good gorram whose name is attached to the enclosed CD literature. But that's just me.

I dunno...they're kind of explicit on this point. "I feel nothing. Not the wind on my face nor the spray of the sea. Nor the warmth of a woman's flesh." -Barbossa

Actually, I really liked that part of the film. But then I'm a fan of goofy WB cartoons like Bugs Bunny and the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit? (which featured killable dopplegangers, unlike the Disney film). I hadn't even begun to assume that there was a serious aspect to Jack's killing off select selves...that's not near as much fun. Barbossa was especially good in this film, but he's no Jack. And Jack better damn well take the Pearl back (and lose it again) if there's a fourth film. That's half the fun!

How did the Barbossa's undead crew do in the first movie? (That's what they really need to bring back.) Did they even run extensive poll test on the first movie? I get the impression that its success surprised even Disney. Of course, when a bunch of people who post on a pirate site and pose as pirates view a movie like this, we must realize that we're probably going to mostly like the pirates. Our opinions are a bit, er, biased. (Lest we forget. Making movies for interest groups is usually the work of independent film-makers, not Disney. )

Oh, ah. Thanks, Bess! (So, they're dead then? But didn't they come back to life...? Oh, never mind. )

I am completely with you there. (I didn't even finish watching the movie Sin City because it was just unrelentingly dark in outlook and I got weary of it before the second story was even partway through.) They manage to walk a nice line between dark, reality and even humor and light in this show. The episode where Tyroll decided to building that ship was a nice touch. (Baltar is going to do something stupid with or about that other ship's female cylon prisoner, isn't he? No, no, don't tell me...)

As I have stated repeatedly, I am quite for responsibility (in all things, including caring for the environment). What I am against is enforcing it, even under the guise of "governmentally responsible" actions so that money accrues to certain causes and individuals because they have staked out the territory. There are leagues of reasons for this that I won't recite, but it ultimately goes back to freedom, which grows quite naturally out of responsibility. The two are inextricably intertwined. If we give up our responsibility, we are inadvertently giving up our freedoms as we must be treated like children by some overseer. However, that places the responsibility with what are ultimately soulless organizations like the government and various action groups. This really not what I suspect people generally want. I think most people are quite willing to take responsibility for their actions if the explanation is presented rightly - not all, but most. If you want proof, look to your own views on freedom and responsibility and then multiply that. I've found that most people want what I want to varying degrees and I think it's true for everyone. (Not to say that we are homogeneous, but there is a lot of overlap.) As for 7" - 25", that's completely hypothetical anyhow. It gets smaller and smaller everytime they release that stupid report on which most of this is based. (And it certainly isn't enough to created surfboard-style waves in Greenland.) My point is that the model has changed so dramatically that I don't think it's valid. In fact, I don't think most of the environmental computer models are worth the sand used to make the circuit boards that calculate them. There are an absolute gob of input simplification in them. They use such large areas to calculate their models that they can't even figure the effects of clouds because the cloud cover is too small to fit into the model. (see that other post for more on the effects of clouds on global warming.) There are a lot of other broad assumptions that get little ink in the press as well. CO2 equivalents growth in greenhouse gasses peaked at .76 percent in the 1980s, but since the 90s has been down as low as 0.58 percent, yet the IPCC models all use 1% for convenience. In IPCC/DDC 2000, they even admitted, "The forcing scenarios used by the models do not originate directly from any coherent future view of the world. They are an arbitrary imposition of a 1 percent per annum growth in future greenhouse gas concentrations." Of all the world issues we can spend our time and money addressing, a possible future based upon admittedly inaccurate models seems nothing short of irresponsible to me. The one good thing about it is that it raises the awareness of the average person as to their responsibility in regard to the environment and (hopefully - as it has with me) causes them to take at least some action in this regard. But enforcement because of a possible future danger that may not even exist...*shudder* That's just usurping freedom to divert more taxpayer money to one person or group's little cottage cause. But if you feel bad, you can get carbon credits from the company through which Al Gore sells them. Uh huh.

That's a good point about shivering in the snow. I missed that one. It seems to me that a similar point was raised about some of the undead in CotBP, however. Something like Ragetti was upset because the bedwarmer was hot. It's one of those things where the movie rules take a back seat to comedy, methinks. (It's sort of bad form on the movie-makers part, really.) I suspect Jack the monkey will always be cursed - as long as there's humor to be gleaned from it. The coin's probably sitting in the water at Isla de Muerta in sight of the chest. (Small, comedic animals are a Disney family tradition after all.)

Ah, a thread devoted to AWE imponderables. Let me pull my questions from the review thread (where I guess they shouldn't really be) and put them in here. I'm sure this was explained somewhere in the second movie, but I must have forgotten it. 1. Why did Will killing Jones release all the imprisoned seamen? I got the notion in AWE that Jones wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing (ferrying the dead - although he must have been since the dead were where they should be and more came in during the movie - albeit in their own boats). So the punishment for not following the, er, "rules" was apparently to grow sea-oriented appendages. But how does his behavior force the unwilling-to-die to be enslaved to the ship? 2. Did Jones saving them from death make them slaves to him and his ship? 3. If so, when they were released, why didn't they die since they were basically dead or soon-to-be dead before he "rescued" them?

....I know something you don't know!! (ducking) What do you mean? Based on some of the stuff I read from Iron Bess, it would seem that Davy Jones may be one of main characters in one (or more) of several story ideas they are batting around at Disney for a possible 4th movie. Personally, I say leave him (and Calypso) be and focus on Jack and Barbossa. While I love the plethora of recurring minor characters, the weight of all those major characters and their convoluted motives and interactions in AWE was something of a detriment to the clarity of the story. (Plus I personally don't find that whole "mystical" storyline very compelling. I understand that they started with the mystical Cortez and his curse, but that doesn't mean you have to go and create a whole batch of new mystical stuff just to fit the bill. But that's just my opinion. (If they're gonna do mystical, they should stick to walking skeletons! (That's definitely just me.) ))

I can use Beetlejuice as my source material. (Been there, done that.) The point wasn't originally to totally satirize the ride, it was more of a "re-imagination of the ride" in Hollywood lingo. Still, I've never made molds before and that might be interesting. (Back when I had my HEDZ business making props, I had another company making the molds for me because I wasn't interested in doing that, I was interested in creating new ideas. You can see the HEDZ here. I actually quit making them when I got tired of focusing a lot of my creative and mental energy on that stuff. It skews your world-view in what are not necessarily good ways when you spend a lot of time trying to figure out what bizarre new thing you could do to someone's head to destroy it.)

My thought on suspension of disbelief... I will suspend my disbelief as long as 1) The concepts presented within a given movie adhere to the rules they set down within that film. 2) There aren't plot holes large enough to sail the Armada through. At some point, suspending disbelief becomes nigh impossible; they do something so absurd that you find your engineering mind thinking "that would never happen" (think of the Mission Impossible movies for example), but that may just be me. Still, this movie wasn't too bad for such stuff. In fact, I liked it overall (see previous post). It's not quite as good as the first one, but sequels rarely are - all that baggage, I guess. It is curious that they wound up trimming this and the last film at the last minute when both contained scenes and even storylines that really had no importance to the main thrust of the film. I think it may be just because Gore Verbinski just likes cool-looking things (the mostly pointless Singapore Set - they could have got the map from Sao Feng's ship) and Ted and Terry like to incorporate stuff from other pirate movies (the mostly pointless Pelagosti storyline that caused all the nonsensical trouble a year or so ago). But I've a friend who says he likes movies that either show ordinary people doing extraordinary things or extraordinary people doing ordinary things. (Extraordinary people doing extraordinary things isn't notable in his opinion - I wonder where that leaves Superman?) So maybe there's something to headhunter huts that are supposed to look like skulls and mushrooms growing out of people's ears from sitting in dirty bathwater too long.

Say, I like the multi-cultural idea, although I wasn't planning to rip the ride off quite that much. Plus, I only have 3 full-sized skeletons...and one of them will be disassembled to create the large skull flowers. The skull filials could have hats, but since people will be able to reach them, the wouldn't last very long. People have no respect for props in haunted houses and sometimes steal them just to do so. (I've found some left in the parking lot after hours.) I almost bought a day-of-the-dead life sized skeleton carved from wood in Mexico. My sister lives there for her company. I couldn't quite stomach the price for a delicate curio like that, however. I could never have used it in a haunted house without putting it in a protected cage of something.

Depp was clearly having more fun in this movie IMO. It made the movie more fun. If I do go back to see it again, it will be partially to pay more attention to what Johnny is saying. (Captain Jack tends to slur.)

Oops! *blush* I'm remembering it wrong. It was nearly 2am when I left the theatre. Films like this shouldn't have previews!

Well! Quite an improvement over the 2nd one. Still not as good as the first one. I liked some, didn't like some, wondered "What?!" about still others. (Note: there are a buttload of spoilers in what follows. Ye have been warned.) Good •The return of some of the minor characters from the first movie. (Murtogg and Mullroy, the officer from CotBP who said, "That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen.") •Jack and his mad friends I'll bet Depp loved that. •The stone crabs (it was cute "We've never seen this before.") •Firing the monkey (The people behind me saw him sitting in the maw of the cannon and said, "Oh no!" "You just don't get it, do ya', Scott?" I wonder if they understood why the monkey was back later in the movie?) •Captain Teague (Someone on the pirate site I used to post on said that if they brought Richards in he would spoil the whole series. Hardly. I would have liked to have seen more of him myself.) •Jack's trick swinging around the lines. •Ragetti's eye When Barbossa popped it back into his head, I burst out laughing. I think I was the only one in the theatre who thought it was funny. •Barbossa and Jack's ongoing rivalry •Barbossa's fate (perfect) •Jack's fate (perfect) •Will's fate (almost perfect) •Norrington's fate (less than perfect, but it worked. I, and probably no one else on this earth, would like to see a TV special, The Adventures of Jack Norrington - Between Losing his Commission and Rejoining the B.R.N. I'd write a fan fic, but I've wasted enough time doing things like that in the past.) Bad •Calypso ("We need more strong female characters! Quick! Let's add Calypso!") Why bother with this whole mostly pointless, confusing, insipid subplot? So they can battle in a maelstrom? Eh. The stone crabs could have been explained another way and she could have been left where she belonged. (Although she did give Harry Belafonte a medium...ha ha. ) •The fact that they didn't explain the Pirate Lord's Council in POTC2 ("We need someplace to put Keith Richards! Quick! Let's add a pirate lord's council!" ) •Having a whole friggin' armada turn tail because two fast ships were heading toward them. C'mon. Superior numbers can nearly always defeat an opponent. See Gremlins and The Birds and a hundred other documentaries on the subject. •Elizabeth's fate (A ten year workday? Sheesh.) How would a single woman with a child survive in the disease (and pirate) infested Caribbean? She's a tough girl, but her father's dead and her husband isn't going to be around...But I'm carping about reality... •Sir Butler Crockett or whomever's sudden lapse in judgment/courage. Fire the guns, you fool! How hard is this? Here's the man who killed the Kraken and he can't give a simple command under the pressure of two approaching ships? •Having the Betler-Cocky ship blow up. That was just silly. (Well, it is a Bruckheimer flick, I guess...) •Not enough undead effects. We got Barbossa's arm and an implication that the monkey was undead and people floating in the water in and out of ships, but there definitely should have been more. Or maybe that's just me... •Yet another film vilifying business. I forget the statistic, but it's near, if not greater than, half the films put out in the last twenty or thirty years. Ugly (Well, maybe Weird or Huh?) •Why on earth would Barbossa want to maroon Ragetti? ("Ye scare me" or something like that is what he said.) Ragetti had the eye! •Jack as a Pirate Lord (How would this ever happen? And how could both he and Barbossa be pirate lords? They sailed on the same ship! And of the two of them...) •Murtogg and Mullroy turning pirate. Why would they do that? It was neat having them dressed in pirate togs in the same scene with Pintel and Ragetti, but... •Why, exactly, couldn't Elizabeth go on the ship with Will, at least while they were above water? Because she wasn't dead? She was on the ship before! I wish they would have explained this better. It was apparently just Will and Bootstrap, so Elizabeth shouldn't have been a huge problem during the "this world" voyages. They could leave her in the nearest port when submerging. •More of this "Pirate's were the first great seekers of societal freedom" nonsense. Films have peddled this garbage for decades and it makes all the idealistic teenagers and raving loonies out there who don't actually research piracy think this is the truth. (And, my favorite pirate, the fictional Captain Misson is one of their favorite examples. Ah, you wily old, politically motivated devil, Captain Johnson - you created a monster.) I've read reviews that say the movie is too long the first two hours are dull. As I was leaving the theatre I heard two girls talking, and I quote: "It was too long. I fell asleep for a few minutes." "How could you with all that noise?" I actually didn't notice the time (which I often do in long movies - sometimes even short movies - especially those starring Will Ferrell - but I digress). So it wasn't too long for me. It might get that way on a second viewing, but I don't know that I'll take in a second viewing myself. (I will buy it on DVD, though. I want to see the extras. It'll be the first trilogy that I only own two of the three films. Although I wouldn't have owned Jedi if someone hadn't given it to me.) Nor did I think the first two hours dull. I found them to be far more interesting than the last 40 minutes myself. Mostly because the end didn't make as much sense as I thought it should. But it is a summer movie... Overall, it's a 4 star on the 5 star Netflix rating scale for me (on which I rely to get movies suggestions.) So I think it's well worth seeing. End note: If they are going to make a fourth as I've seen hinted around here, they can at last write Will and Elizabeth out of the story. I originally said somewhere when the idea of sequels reared its head (either here or the other site I used to post on) that if they were going to make sequels, they should be about the continuing adventures of Captain Jack anyhow. Now that they've brought Barbossa back in a fairly reasonable fashion, having those two vie for the same prize could be fun.