herbiehancock

No 475 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Director - Gore Verbinski Oh, it starts so well. Beautifully in fact . The opening shot of rain pouring into overflowing tea cups is not only gorgeous cinematography, it is the most openly English shot I have ever seen in my life. There is some wonderful slow motion running about and we're introduced to the new big bad... well little bad.. Lord Bennett, representing the East India Trading Company and representing something else, something important. This is, after all, the time in which the East India Trading Company got massive. When I was reading up on Tea (as one does) I began to get an idea of how massive the company was, but this film makes it instantly clear - it is big. Bigger and more powerful than an island's Governor. He has warrants for the arrest of everyone who aided Captain Jack. So Elizabeth, Will and even Norrington are pulled back in to Captain Jack Sparrow's mad little world. In fact this film ma...

No 371 - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Director - Gore Verbinski It is a brave move to base a film on a funfair ride. It is not the most common of occurrences , I can only think of one other attempt. So thank goodness that this ended up much better than The Haunted Mansion . But where Disney's ghost train had a plot of sorts (a tragic tale of possession on a wedding night) Pirates of the Caribbean didn't. It was a series of tableaux ... showing Pirate towns and battles and the weird skeletal shipwreck. POTC took elements of those visuals and made a really interesting story. Keeping enough little nods (the dog with keys , the skeleton pirates and the excellent jaunty song ) to merit the film's link to the ride without forcing a structure which doesn't work The story is wonderful, set in the 17 th (or maybe early 18 th ) century as the cliches of piracy are shown. After all these are proper grimacing rum swilling pirates who go out and kidnap g...