Brain Tilt

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley

My initial thought about this movie was “First they turn video games into movies and now they turn Disneyland rides into movies??” I must admit that I didn’t have very high hopes for this one. In fact, I didn’t even see it when it came out in the theaters. Just something about a ride turned into a movie that I couldn’t get into.

However, I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be pretty good. I even like how they mixed in little subtleties from the ride (like the dog in the prison that won’t move). It had a good blend of comedy and action. And Johnny Depp was the absolute perfect choice for the role of Jack Sparrow. I can’t imagine too many more actors being able to replace him and do as good a job.

Just as I was getting into the movie, the disc freezes. So I rewind a bit, thinking that maybe it was a one time glitch.

Nope. Freezes again.

So now I’m pissed. Because the disc froze right at a tense, climactic-type moment. Netflix screwed me out of a decent movie experience.

After I was finally able to get it working again (a lot of playing around with FF and REW), it moved along pretty well for about 20 minutes. And then it froze again.

So my POTC experience was diminished a bit due to the fact that Netflix sent me a crappy disc. (I will say that it wasn’t near as bad as when I rented The Exorcist from Blockbuster and it skipped an froze at the end of the movie, when the priest is finally drawing the demon out of Linda Blair)

The rest of the movie was pretty good, but I wasn’t really into it since I was pissed at Netflix. I did manage to notice, however, that Orlando Bloom was able to save the girl by the end of the movie.

And dress like a Three Musketeer.

What was that about??

The Island (2005)

Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson

“I want to know answers and I wish there was more.”

This quote from the movie sums it all up. I had loads of questions for the movie and got zero answers. And I wish there were more to it. So let’s get to my questions that need answers.

If men aren’t allowed in the women’s dorms, then how does Lincoln know EXACTLY where Jordan’s room is?? As he’s running through the dorm, women are gasping as if men aren’t allowed in that area, so it’s startling to see one there. Yet Lincoln is able to go DIRECTLY to Jordan’s room.

If you don’t want people to escape from where ever you are keeping them, why don’t you make air shafts that are impossible for humans to fit into?? This is not a problem isolated to The Island. This happens a LOT in movies. When building your inescapable fortress, make sure a grown man or woman can’t fit into the air shafts. That will cut off at least one escape route.

Does Jordan clearly understand the concept of stealth?? I’m guessing not, since as they were trying to sneak out of the facility, she was SCREMING at Lincoln. “STOP!” “RUN!” “LINCOLN!” They didn’t need all the fancy technology to locate Jordan and Lincoln during their escape. Just listen for Jordan’s stealth like screams.

Is it possible to make the Chevy SSR look any worse?? Actually, this one was answered in the movie. Yes. It is possible.

Why is Amtrak still around in the future?? No one rides it now. Are we all of a sudden all going to start riding Amtrak in the future?? And where are they getting the money to convert all their regular trains into hover trains??

Speaking of which, why does everything hover?? Who decided that in the future everything will hover??

When did Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart start acting?? If you’ve seen the movie and watched the WWF in the 80’s then you know exactly who I’m talking about.

What’s worse than 1 sub-par performance by Ewan McGregor?? Two sub-par performances by Ewan McGregor.

Did they mean to make Ewan McGregor’s human counter part (Tom Lincoln) look like one of The Proclaimers?? I was waiting for him to ask if his insurance policy had walked 500 miles.

Lastly, why was this movie over 2 hours long?? I’m pretty sure they could have fit in all the necessary plot points in an hour and a half. And it might have been a better movie for it.

Master and Commander: Far Side of the World (2003)

Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany

If you wanted to read a book, would you pick it up and start reading in the middle?? No. That’s what Master and Commander feels like. We pick up the story in time to see this battle between 2 ships. No build up to the fight. No character development. We know we are supposed to care about Russell Crowe because he is the star of the movie and you don’t typically kill the star in the first 10 minutes. I was a good 48 minutes into the movie before I finally asked my wife “What the hell is going on??” And she didn’t have a good answer.

In addition to having zero character development, you can only understand about every 3^rd word uttered by the actors. That made for an enjoyable evening of the “What did he say?” game at the Beezer home.

And is it just me or does Russell Crowe seem to play the same character in every movie he’s in?? Don’t get me wrong, he’s not as bad as George Clooney or Katie Holmes, but it seems like you can lift his character out of this movie and drop it into any of his other movies and it’d be hard to tell a difference.

Despite not knowing what was going on, or why I should care about the people that were dying, the part of the movie that drove me absolutely crazy was the guy who had part of his brain scooped out with a spoon. He was making more coherent sentences than the rest of the cast. How is this possible?? He had the procedure done on the deck of a boat while at sea, with the most rudimentary of tools (a SPOON), and yet is able to function as normal. Does this not bother anyone else?? What kind of healing powers does this man posses?? Were all doctors this good in the 1700’s?? Did his HMO cover the procedure??

I think one sentence from my wife sums up this movie perfectly:

“I may die of boredom at any moment.”

Super Troopers (2001)

Erik Stolhanske, Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, Paul Soter

This movie was terrible for two reasons:

1) This is one of those movies that you have to watch with that buddy of yours who makes any movie (no matter how boring it is) funny as hell. We all have this buddy. We don’t know why movies are funnier with them than without. But I didn’t watch this movie with the Dubber, so it was not near as funny as it could have been.

2) Ever since this movie came out, I’ve had people tell me how funny it was. But for whatever reason, I never got around to watching it. So when I finally got around to it (5 years after its release), my friends had hyped it up so much that there was no way it would ever be able to live up to that hype.

In retrospect, I would have rather stabbed myself in the eyes with a red hot spork than watch this movie.

Flightplan (2005)

Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard

I’m not sure who to feel more sorry for in this move: Jodie Foster, who can’t figure out what was painfully obvious to me within 20 minutes (the identity and plan of the bad guy) or her daughter, who is routinely ignored by Jodie. Seriously, are there any parents out there who would allow their child to stray away from them in an obviously crowded airport in a foreign country?? Probably.

If you were on crack and were meeting your dealer for your next score.

As if that wasn’t enough to have child services knocking on her door, she put her daughter in a row by herself to sleep, while she blacks out in the next row. Isn’t this what actual crack addicts do?? Pass out after a night partying only to awaken and find that their kids are missing. Did I miss the part of the movie that explained Jodie’s smack addiction??

I’d also like to point out a few things to those that have never flown internationally:

1) There is no way someone in coach is boarding before fist class. Coach passengers are treated as second class citizens on international flights. Plus, they want you to board after first class so that you can walk through first class and see them sipping champagne, eating steak, getting massages and being given briefcases of money from the flight attendants. Makes you feel real good about the 9 hour flight sitting between the crying baby and the fat, sweaty guy whose routine breathing sounds like a 20 year old lawnmower on its last legs.

2) The seats on a real international flight are not near as big as those depicted in the film. In a real coach seat, parts of Fatty McSweatsalot would ooze over into your seat throughout the duration of the flight. They make coach seats for 10 year old girls with eating disorders and dwarves, not for regular sized humans.

3) Every international flight I have ever been on has been jammed packed. Don’t count on there being 15 empty rows in the back of the plane for you to stretch out on and use to come down off your crack high. If there are, expect the flight attendants to defend those rows more fiercely than the Vietcong.

Movies that can be figured out in less than 20 minutes suck. So this one sucked.