Directed by Gore Verbinski
Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightly, Geoffrey Rush, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, and a monkey.
Released in 2003

Yo ho yo ho a pirate’s life for me
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
(X. Atencio and George Bruns)

I’m late, I know, it’s inexcusable and I do apologize. Enough groveling and on with the pirates.

I have to admit this is the movie in which I decided whether or not Orlando Bloom was an unobtainable crush worth or not. Yeah, he was cute in Lord of the Rings, but the blond hair just didn’t do it for me. The man is much, much better looking as a brunette. Then again, most of the unobtainable crushes are.

Which would bring me to item two, Johnny Depp. Oh dear gods the man was a hoot in this film. Having based his Jack Sparrow character off the mannerisms and style of Keith Richards he turned the character into a silver screen legend.

The banter between Will Turner and Jack Sparrow is the heart of the film I think. The eunuch lines that Depp improvised to insult Turner are some of the funniest in the film. Add in the escapades of young Elizabeth Swann and you have the makings of a masterpiece. Is it any wonder Disney has been able to achieve three successful films from this franchise so far.

Cursed gold calls to cursed pirates and the call of Elisabeth Swann’s (Knightly) necklace brings Barbossa (Rush) and the Black Pearl into the town of Port Royal to reclaim the cursed piece. When he and his crew take Elizabeth along for the ride, William Turner (Bloom) must defy both Commodore Norrington (Davenport) and Governor Swann (Pryce), and team up with the infamous pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp), to rescue her.

The plot is brilliant and just a lot of run with smaller roles like Gibbs, Pintel and Ragetti that simply endear themselves to you for the duration of the film. Jack, the monkey, is a delightful addition to the cast and one you need to watch closely just to see what he’s up to.

However, as good as the movie is and as desperate as you are to turn off the credits, don’t. Or you’ll miss the goodie at the very end.

Rating:

The weekly recipe is up on Your Cre8tivity, this time I recovered my failure at making cookie bars by turning them into ice cream crumblies.

Tomorrow I’m off to see Pirates 3 – At Worlds End with Jenn and Sloane.  I think I’ll break my currency rule and write posts on all three films over the weekend.

Monday I’m conquering the 5th season of Babylon 5.  I’ll have to start that one over and write about those too.

Currently I have my nose buried in a Xanth book which it’s taking me FOREVER to read.  I just can’t get into the puns and such that Piers Anthony writes.  Best thing I think he ever did was If I Pay Thee Not in Gold with Mercedes Lackey.  I also just finished Anne Rice’s The Mummy and was reminded of how much she pissed me off by never working on the hinted at sequel.  The Mummy and The Witching Hour are two of her best pieces of writing, better than any of the Lestat books she wrote.  I’m also reading Jude Deveroux’s The Black Lion for the umpteenth time.

Books books and more books.  Jenn and I are working on a sister site to this one which we hope to have up and running soon.  I’ll do a formal announcement on that one when it’s finished and ready to be read.

I’m on a Pixar kick….  Watched Cars and Monsters Inc yesterday and enjoyed the hell out of the fact John Ratzenburger has a voice in every Pixar film.

Ok, enough rambling from me.  Go cook, go read, go watch a movie, but whatever you do, enjoy it.  Pirates tomorrow.

Co-directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
Starring Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, and Geoffery Rush
Released in 2003

My mantra in life has become “Just Keep Swimming.” As I looked around the house and saw a few plushy clown fish and Dory looking at me from the guest bath mirror, I decided I had to write about one of my favorite movies.

Finding Nemo has endeared itself to me for many reasons. I can make Jenn cringe by sticking my head in the door of her home office and going, “Mine?” Though I think Sloane does it best when he sacrifices her cats to the ceiling fan using the Sharkbait speech with Mount Wannahawkaloogie. Other than tormenting one of my dearest friends, it’s simply just a good movie, especially since I can understand the estrangement between father and child.

I discovered Finding Nemo through another friend while I was at ITT. I’d missed the first ten minutes as I was in the kitchen finishing dinner but heartily enjoyed everything I saw after. The next time I watched it I saw the whole thing, which made me very happy that I had seen the rest of the movie first else I would have likely turned it off. I know Sloane confessed that he almost didn’t finish it the first time through because of those opening moments. Nothing like seeing a vicious ocean predator devour a nest of clown fish eggs in the first ten minutes of the movie.

Okay, so you’ve been warned and slightly spoiled, but don’t let that ruin the movie for you because you’ll miss a very good movie with a very strong message of parental love.

Marlin (Brooks), a widower clown fish, loses his son Nemo (Gould) to a diver on the first day of school and Marlin must fight his fear of the ocean to find his son. Nemo, meanwhile, is tanked in a dentist’s aquarium where he meets Gil (Dafoe), Bloat (Garrett) and Peach (Janney) among the fish in the office. Marlin’s quest takes him to Sydney with the assistance of Dory (DeGeneres) and Nigel (Rush) while Gil works to free Nemo from the aquarium.

If you haven’t seen it I have to wonder what rock you’ve been living under. Or should that be chunk of coral? Outside of the clownfish themselves, which as much as I enjoy the movie I find them particularly annoying (especially Nemo himself), the other fish and sea life they meet make the movie what it is.

Rating:

I’m late, very late, in getting this post up. I was reminded of it by perhaps the most loyal of my readers, hellfire she prints posts and takes them home. But too, she’s a little biased, having known me for all my life.

What prompted the idea about doing a spotlight on Cruise was Cilla reminding me that I was ga-ga over the man most of my life. I knew plenty of others who were as well, but I would pull the age card now and then, especially around some of my younger cousin. I still have to admit he’s hot, and when I was a kid I’d turn movies on just to watch him and that smile. The man has dimples deep enough to swim in after all.

Where as before you’ve seen me discuss how the best thing about Legend is Tim Curry’s Darkness I didn’t always think that way. I drooled over the sleep figure of Cruise as Jack in his little tights. Yum. And I followed him film to film, anxious to see each one he starred in. He was the best thing about Top Gun, the only reason to watch The Color of Money and the hottest uncredited cowboy in Young Guns. His Irish brogue was hideous but he could get me to watch a movie about NASCAR and then there was his turn as Lestat.

At that point I knew I had a crush on a god. It wasn’t just his acting though, this man saved people. Headlines ran rampant with news on how he kept someone from getting run over a car, of how he was helping and saving people left and right. The man was not only cute, but a hero as well, could it get any better?

No, it got worse. Right about the time he and Nicole Kidman divorced. He just got weird. Sounded like he was dating everything that crossed his path and then he introduced his Scientology on top of it. The headlines about rescues vanished and he showed up as Austin Powers in Goldmember. Don’t get me wring, I like the Austin Powers movies, but UGH!

After that he began to oversaturate the market. Hell you saw his name more than you did Tom Hanks. Over the last few years what little privacy he kept went out the window and everything he did was exposed, but still, showing how crazy you are by hopping up and down on Oprah’s couch was just a little too much, the god of my crush started looking like an absolute moron.

Around that time, for me, he committed the ultimate sin, him and Spielberg. They remade War of the Worlds and modernized it. Down came the posters, the movies were only watched on cable and I hadn’t bought a Cruise film since. My interest waned to the point the only reason I want to see MI:III is to see Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Admittedly the man can still act, but he lost the perfect shine he had in my eyes. I don’t hurry to see his films, I don’t care who he’s dating or married to and I have no interest in that child, which makes me all the happier that he’s not shoving it all into the limelight again.

Looks like he has a pretty busy schedule though, which means he’ll be flooding the market again. Even rumors of either playing Hitler or one of his cronies. Meh, unless the movie looks good I’ll pass. I won’t ay just to see him on the screen anymore.

I’ll confess though… as I said before, he is a decent actor. Perhaps he may even approve once he remembers the world does not revolve around him.

I’m cheating today. I have cookies and potato salad to make for a party tomorrow.

Considering I co-author Your Cre8tivity and decided to start posting recipes there on Fridays I thought I would link back to the first one of the series and will continue to link to the recipes I post. After all, what is cooking but time very well wasted?

Today I started with Peanut Butter Fudge Refrigerator Cookies which I swiped from my dad and added notes for diabetics. I made these with Splenda recently and they turned out very good, at least Sloane and I thought so.

I may, eventually, post a variation of enchiladas that runs in the family. The absolute original I’m forsworn not to share.

If cooking isn’t your thing then I have another distraction for you.

As good as the graphics on today’s games are I still find myself longing for the good ol days when I was in the single digits of age and the Nintendo came out. The fact that Pong turned 40 this month made that need for nostalgia all the more powerful and I’ve been spending time more and more on vNES.

vNES offers over 500 hundred titles for your pleasure and memory of the 8 bit Nintendo games and I’ve been drowning myself in Solomon’s Key lately. Hellfire I still remember sitting for hours on end with my mom playing that game.

Go cook or go play but above everything else, enjoy what you do.

By Laurell K. Hamilton
Published 1996

I have been reminded that I trailed away from the Anitaverse longer than was intended. So today we pick up at book five, Bloody Bones.

The nice thing here is that we get a break from the turmoil of St. Louis and leave the werewolf and the vampire behind for the most part. This is the first of only two where I can remember her taking this route and while the werewolf remains behind, the same can’t be said about the vampire.

Investors want to raise a graveyard in Branson over a land dispute, but the living landowners will to go any length to keep Anita from discovering the truth. Finding three dead in the forests however becomes the bigger issue at hand and it doesn’t take a degree in preternatural biology to know something was afoot in and around the city.

What makes this one a good read is you get a look at other preternatural beings and it’s an interesting take on the fae folk. Plus, bonus in my opinion, we get to see a lot more of Jason. Other than Edward, I think Jason is one of my favorites.

Enjoy chapter one on Laurell’s site and see if you don’t get hooks, if you aren’t already.

Rating:

By Shamus Young

I’ve only been reading this one for about a month. Its certainly a different way to re-live the Lord of the Rings and I have to give kudos to Shamus for this idea. On the other hand I really need to swat Xeno for introducing me to another addictive webcomic.

DM of the Rings takes Tolken’s beloved books and Peter Jackson’s widely accepted films and turns them into a D&D Campaign. The characters are suddenly Player Characters with a dungeon master who is desperately trying to keep the players on track for the game. Aragon becomes a total letch who has the hots for “Leg-o-lass” and darling Frodo becomes even more of a pain in the ass played by some guy named Dave.

As wonderful as the comic itself is, and the side tracking the players do, it’s the DM himself that makes it funny. Having done the dungeon master thing once myself, I can feel the pain of trying to keep the players interested. Shamus takes it a step further and at the end of each comic has some little side note about personal experiences and admittedly some of these are actually funnier than the comics themselves.

If you enjoy The Lord of the Rings then this is definitely a comic worth wasting time with. Bonus, the website is very in-depth about other geek culture items, such as anime, movies and video games.

In the meantime, here’s hoping the DM of the Rings continues successfully.

Rating:

Before I get started I want to thank everyone who’s stopped by the site and commented or linked back to the original post. I really appreciate the link love.

Also, to my steady readers, be you few and far between, an apology for my recent absence. Sloane’s grandmother has been in the hospital and it’s been stressy. Not to mention looking for a full time job so I can take care of my kitties.

So, on with the show.

I don’t know it is because I felt like I needed to rush my entry to the Problogger contest, but I missed a number of people on my list of actors who could read me a phonebook. Some of these I was reminded of in the comments and some I remembered as I saw them on the boob tube.

Now then, let’s kick it into high gear with number five.

5. Nicole Kidman – While I am not a huge fan of Kidman I have to admit she’s got one of those velvet voices, the kind that you can almost feel while you listen to her. She’s excellent at maintaining an accent and can even sing. This is always a plus in my opinion.

4. Ewan McGregor – This is one of those actors I can close my eyes and enjoy the movie without even looking at the screen. He’s still got a trace of that delicious Scottish burr in his voice which he can manipulate into being full and thick to non-existent. Bonus, like Kidman he sings and hell, I’ll admit it; if he ever released a CD I’d be all over it.

3. Sean Connery – Speaking of Scottish burrs, this man has it aced. It does help that he still resides in Scotland, at least last time I looked. The down side is that Connery has a harder time dissolving his accent, but honestly, who really minds when it rubs you all over every time he opens his mouth?

2. Alan Rickman – Oh yummy. He has such skill with his voice alone, able to pitch evil and threat into his tones just with a few words. He’s the perfect person to embody evil and a drool fest if he ever teamed up with Tim Curry for a dastardly duo. With Rickman what’s nice is that he can emote with his voice, you seem to always know what his character is thinking and feeling when he speaks.

1. James Earl Jones – Let’s hear it for Darth Vader. Admit it, as bad as so many felt that Star Wars Episode 3 was, hearing the voice behind the mask again was worth it. He rivals Morgan Freeman for best voice and if there were awards he’d have to tie for it. Best thing I ever heard/saw in my life was Jones and Patrick Stewart reading Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. It was only them and a pair of podiums on stage with a pretty Christmas backdrop. I’d love to find a copy of this on DVD.

Again, please feel free to share your favorites or think there’s someone else I need to give a better listen to.

Jenn found this in her blog feeds and sent it to me. I had to share because the title is just too amusing… at least to a movie nerd like me.