Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Extraordinary Similarities Between Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars

One might even think that Pirates of the Caribbean did it on purpose!

To start the comparison, let's look at character.

The blonde protagonist who is searching for a captured "princess like person" and the truth about his father - Will Turner/Luke Skywalker

The rouge/pilot/captain - Jack Sparrow/Han Solo

The lady - Elizabeth Swann/Princess Leia

Now, Pirates of the Caribbean had two sets of droids. A good set, and an evil set. Both sets came complete with their C-3PO character (the know-it-all,) and their more R2D2ish character, (the funnier one.)
C-3PO - Pintel (pirate) and Murtogg (Naval Man)
R2D2 - Ragetti (pirate) and Mullroy (Naval Man)

Now, plot wise - Will wants to rescue a lady, so he seeks out the help of a rouge "pilot." Together they stop the Empire, I mean the evil pirates, ("evil pirates?" Shouldn't that be redundant?) blow up the Death Star, I mean they steal back Jack's ship, and then they have a big ceremony at the end where they get medals. Okay, they don't get medals, and in fact Jack is almost hung, but what are you gonna do?

In the SECOND (and dreadful) Pirates of the Caribbean, they continue their Star Wars-eskness by putting the Jack/Han character in limbo at the end. Carbonite, Kraken... same thing.

Also notice how Jack Sparrow owes a DEBT to a squid-faced dude, (Davy Jones,) much in the same way Han Solo owes a debt to the slightly rotund Jaba the Hutt. What's with rouges and their debts to ugly guys?

(Look at this ridiculous picture of Han and Jaba. Why did Lucas feel the need to add this scene? It's so poorly done and unnecessary. Han doesn't even look like he's looking at Jaba. And what is Chewy doing? Waiting?!? If I were Chewy I'd be like, "I'm going inside while you talk to this guy." Then I'd go inside, grab a Coke, put my incredibly large feet up, and talk smack about Han and his debts to Luke and Obi Wan. Well... maybe just Luke since Obi Wan keeps holding people back. Captain Bring Down.)

I invite you to find other movies that are similar to Star Wars. Don't take Anacondas II; that one's spoken for.

Quick! Catch up!

Check out our first The Hobbit preview. 

Now check out all this Ender's Game business. If you haven't read the books, I suggest you get on that. At the very least, read Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, by Orson Scott Card.




And... that's about it for updates... unless you care about the Clash of the Titans sequel... didn't think so.

Monday, December 19, 2011

How I Spent My Monday

I recently started a new job, and even more recently I started another. But today I took the time and energy to do something BESIDES work.

I went and saw Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows.

I was pleasantly surprised by a NEW Dark Knight Rises trailer. Which looks incredible. If it weren't for Anne Hathaway this might be the best movie ever. After that they gave us a The Hunger Games preview, which we're not going to say no to, but we've seen. It was still awesome and worrisome at the same time.

Then the movie started. It was great. What's weird is that I neither like it less nor like it more than Sherlock Holmes I. I like it exactly the same. Unfortunately, I didn't blog about the first one since it came out in 2009, and I started this afterwards. Isn't that strange?

Well, here's what seeing a Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows is like. It's like James Bond, (specifically Quantum of Solace,) meets Iron Man, Enemy at the Gates, Mean Girls, and Ever After, during the turn of the century, (LAST century, not THIS century,) with ridiculously cool music, snazzy special effects, and a few cutesy, non-avoidable, sequel forms.

Our villain, Jared Harris, was uber creepy. He was like Hannibal Lecter creepy.

Robert Downey Jr. would do this new thing, where he would turn around quickly and stand straight right before he went into a deep thought/realization thing. I liked it. It seemed to bring character and purpose to the moment.

Parts were predictable, (because I'm a movie genius,) and parts were not.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Pregnant Women in Movies

One thing I promised myself I would never do once I started my acting career, was to never give birth on stage or on screen, (sorry, Sarah, whom I wrote a birth scene for.) As long as I keep playing nuns, I'll probably never have to worry about this....

Yet, how often are audiences stuck suffering through the really awkward experience of fake-birth?

I don't even want to talk about it, that's how awkward it is. Instead, let's just talk about all the pregnant characters in the movies.

Now, most animated movies don't bother with pregnancy. In fact, only one comes to mind: The Emperor's New Groove (below). Chicha is a witty, tough, pregnant lady. If she were in her husband's shoes, the movie would have been over a lot quicker... because she would have eaten Kuzco, (not because she had weird, pregnant cravings, but because she's like a bear!)

Next up is an example from one of the stupidest movies ever, Star Wars Episode III... whatever the rest of the title is, (above). Padme, or Amidala, or whoever, is pregnant with twins. They made a pregnant action figure out of this character.... Regrettably, the action figure didn't come with He-Man Thunder Punch action.

I know there are more, but those are the only two that make me go, "Oh weird! She's pregnant!"

Edit: Of COURSE there's also Breaking Dawn. But we've already discussed that disturbing pregmasacre.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Why Are THESE My Most Popular Posts?

What are people Googeling that leads them to these posts?

(I'm talking about the ones to the right of this. Why are these they?)

While We're On The Subject...

People keep saying, "Breaking Dawn is the greatest Twilight movie yet." But... is it? What do you think? It's fine if you agree, but how do you compare Twilight movies? Do you grade based on how much better Rosalie's hair looks? Do you grade based on Bella's slight acting improvements? (Come on, emotion! I know you're in there somewhere!) Do you grade based on how often Jacob takes his shirt off? Or do you grade on plot, writing, direction, acting, and all that boring stuff? (Like me.)

I know we're not DONE with Twilight yet. We still have one more movie to go, but, you know, we might as well start our comparisons now. Right?

I'm seriously asking YOU this question, by the way. I just realized I don't have a favorite. I really don't. I don't know. The first movie had great moments, the third one had the greatest moment and Bryce Dallas Howard, New Moon had too much Jacob but had a great Volturiesk ending, and the fourth one... well, you know what I think of the fourth one; it's great, if you like watching people slowly deteriorate! It's like watching the death scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade very, very slowly. VERY SLOWLY!

If you haven't seen the movies, then guess what, you don't get a vote, but I'll still be your friend... unless you haven't seen these movies and you haven't seen Indiana Jones. Then, well, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Jack and Jill

I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe!

Katie Holmes was in it, but she wasn't that bad. She didn't have to do any "hard acting," like pretending to talk on a phone or anything.

But seriously, this was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a LONG time. I know! I was skeptical! I was like, "A PG Adam Sandler movie? Whaaaaaaa?" And I know some of you are thinking, "I saw that movie, Boon, and it was so dumb." But I laughed so hard, and I laughed often. I FULLY enjoyed myself, and I recommend you all go see it. A lot of movies I've seen lately, I've tolerated but I didn't love, I LOVED this movie. It made me laugh. It wasn't sad. Was it formulaic? Sure. Did I predict everything? Of course, it's what I'm good at. But, I also laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

By the way, David Spade has never been hotter.