don't look
One of my undergrads once told me that "The Curse of the Black Pearl turned the pirate movie genre on it's head." Me, "The pirate-movie genre?" Undergrad, "Uh, maybe it's not exactly a genre." Me, "How many pirate movies have you seen?"Well, it seems, one is enough. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is really not that good. Where the first took the anti-national quality essential to piracy and extended that sort of lovely, liberating lawlessness to race, ethnicity, gender and history the second really closed down the possibilties for pirating quite a bit, with some tired old (or tired new) stereotypes and cliches. A.O. Scott was right, the only real lawlessness was a physical lawlessness that appeared to be, (one might flatter the creators) inspired by Pynchon's Mason and Dixon.
posted by zoe p. at 11:26 AM
2 Comments:
the first movie wasn't really that good, but nobody realized it, because johnny was so fantabulous that we got all distracted and woozy. but now we're ready for it, so the overall goofiness of the thing we're looking at is brought into slightly sharper focus. or will be, i guess, when it comes out.
i must agree about what's-his-face, that bloom character; infinitely bland, easily upstaged by any octopus or plank, or white sport sock, or field of negative space.
I stand by the first one.
Um, at least, I think I do.
Maybe that's another twist A.O. Scott didn't quite catch - we'll be tempted to rent the first one again to see if could possibly have been as exciting as we remember it being after this sad attempt. Doesn't A.O. Scott know we have Netflix . . . ?
Actually, A.O. Scott doesn't know me at all well. He thought I wasn't waiting for a Bullock-Reeves reprise and I was . . .
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