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ruinitpop · 4 years

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2500+ mostly unedited words on why I love Simple Plan

Here we go, I’ll try not to ruin it:

Come with me back to my childhood. Far enough back that you might not remember when you first saw something that is extremely important to you, for me apparently that’s 2002. The live-action adaptation Scooby-Doo comes out that summer and it has what I like to call “kick ASS pop-punk soundtrack”. I remember liking the movie so much that my friends and I definitely tried to reenact the entire thing on the playground one day. Anyway, Simple Plan had a song on the soundtrack, It was Grow Up and it plays over an establishing shot of Spooky Island. Yes, I’ve seen the movie several times and I know the song by heart.

Go forward a year and another movie comes out with a “kick-ass pop-punk soundtrack”. It was 2003...anyone have any guesses? Steve Martin fans in the room? It was Cheaper By the Dozen, a movie kind of about a book that I don’t know if anyone has actually read. But the movie is great, I love it. You may not think so but I reserve the right to life things that are objectively bad. (See my love of the live-action Scoo-Doo movies) Anyway, Simple Plan had a song on the soundtrack. It was I’m Just A Kid and it plays over the scene where all the kids have their first day at the new school and some preppy asshole shouts “MY LATTE!”.

One more year passes and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed comes out and it, for a period of time, becomes MY FAVORITE movie. Like, I went on a trip for a kinda nerdy thing I did in 4th grade and we watched Scooby-Doo 2 easily 4 times over the course of that one week trip. AND I’m pretty sure this trip is the first time remember listening to No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls from beginning to end. Anyway, again, Simple Plan had a song written for the film on the soundtrack. It was Don’t Wanna Think About You and it’s seriously...just...so good! It’s emotional, and it like perfectly accents what’s happening in the movie! I cry when Shaggy says “They’re like totally having a montage in there without us Scoob”

Now I’m just gonna rattle off a ranking of their soundtrack appearances as they appear in my brain:

Don’t Wanna Think About You from Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

Because duh

I’m Just A Kid from Cheaper by the Dozen.

Kinda scandalous for this to beat Grow Up but I like the scene it plays over better

Grow Up from Scooby-Doo.

This could be purely nostalgia-driven but I just love the movie so much and it was basically where so many people first heard them and there is a huge significance to that in my head.

What’s New Scooby-Doo from the show of the same name.

This song is awesome and I remember seeing them play it for what they claimed was the first time in over a decade in Santa Anna California in 2016 and I remember Pierre doing a little intro but not saying what song it was and I looked at my sister and said “holy shit they’re about to play What’s New Scooby-Doo!” so that’s why it’s on this list even though it’s TV and it’s my list I’ll do what I want. That memory warms my cold heart

Christmas List from the Unaccompanied Minors soundtrack

Full Disclosure I still haven’t this movie (what kind of movie guy am I?) but the song is also a bonus track and also full of dated pop culture references like PlayStation2 and DVDs which I love to chuckle at to this day. When I got my first MacBook in early 2012 one of the first things I did was use garage band to split the bonus track off as it’s own track.

Vacation from New York Minute

I had a weird interaction a little over a year ago where a Gen Z kid was randomly singing it and I was like “How do you know this song?” and he was like “oh some Mary-Kate and Ashley movie” and I said “So it is Vacation by Simple Plan. Accept I know it because I love Simple Plan. To this day I have never seen that movie but I know it’s from that movie and this little memory gives that song a special place.

Happy Together, a cover that was produced and on the soundtrack to Freaky Friday

This song it the top cover because it’s actually good AND the movie has grown in a significant tentpole of pop culture

Can’t Keep My Hands Off You from Disney’s Prom

This came out in 2011, I haven’t seen it. I imagine it’s not great but seeing as how the song is pretty good on its own and I have no other attached feelings it goes here on the list. But even this movie appearance isn’t as unsatisfying as...

Surrender from the Fantastic Four (2005)

We all remember this movie, people have mixed opinions. Mine are basically that the movie is fine, there are definitely better superhero movies now but this doesn’t necessarily deserve to be panned at trash or anything. It was 2005 and it’s at least as good and Sam Rami’s Spiderman.

Apparently there is a site for this but it doesn’t include New York Minute but it does include Clockstoppers. A movie I know I’ve seen but I don’t remember noticing there was a Simple Plan in it. There was a cool scene where they pause time next to a sprinkler and they push the droplets around and stuff. I just found this out after I typed my list. You can look at the link but it doesn’t have my opinions on it so why would you?

So, if you’ve read this blog before or maybe even know me in person you know I’m a big movie buff so it’s no surprise that I kinda discovered my love for them through movies. However, Simple Plans music nostalgia goes really deep.

I remember my first MP3 player. It was terrible, I’m going to date myself a little here but it only has physical buttons, it worked like a flash drive so if you didn’t organize your file folders properly it was basically impossible to navigate, and it only held like 100 songs. In comparison, my old sister had a Microsoft Zune. (You know Zune? The thing that Star Lord gets and the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 which was directed by James Gunn; the same guy who did the screenplays for both the live action Scooby-Doo movies that introduced me to Simple Plan in the first place! Which is part of why I’m writing this post!! If that dumb full-circle moment doesn’t give you warm and fuzzies you can stop reading) She had a pretty substantial library already and I had to carefully pick and choose what to put on it and I remember one the first songs was My Alien which isn’t a super popular track but it spoke to middle school me. There were definitely more of their songs from NPNHJB and Still Not Getting Any because self-titled Simple Plan didn’t come out until 2008. Eventually, I got an iPod nano with a whopping 16gb of storage and my life changed! I could hold basically all the music I wanted and that included all three of the Simple Plan albums that were out at the time. I have a very clear memory of making my mom listen to them a few times on the way to/from the orthodontist (which was a 40 minute drive because everything is far away in rural America) and she told me that I was just as good as a singer as Pierre. There’s no way, Pierre is an icon.

Over the course of the last decade, a few Simple Plan experiences have occurred around my birthday and I’m convinced they must know when my birthday is. The first time this happened was 2011 when they released Get Your Heart On! Which might be my favorite album if I was going to pick one but they’ve literally never written a bad song so why actually pick favorites? I remember a friend saying “This sounds like their old stuff and I love it” and I was offended. Like, how dare they slander Still Not Getting Any and Simple Plan like that?

As high school went on I started to have a very stressful Junior year. I bit off more than I could shew academically and one day I had a massive stress attack and I basically shut down but Untitled really got me through, I listened to so much Simple Plan that night but Untitled really helped me calm down and relax enough to get my head straight. While I’m talking about the song I’m gonna mention it was a charity track and the music video WILL make you cry but it’s super important and you should watch it.

Forward a couple more years and I’m in my first semester of college. I had chosen the wrong path at the time and I was in the process of fixing that by completely changing up my education including changing schools and giving up a rather big scholarship. I was feeling pretty good but uneasy about what I was doing at the time and what do you know? Right when I needed something comforting Simple Plan gave me an early Christmas present and released the EP Get Your Heart On - The Second Coming and every track on the EP reached into my soul and helped me process. I also started to GYHO again heavily and Gone Too Soon helped my deal with how much I was missing home and how much I missed a lot of my friends (I know the song isn’t really “about” that but it helped).

At this point in my life, I’ve mostly given up hiding my fandom. I started following the band members on social media and I was VERY closely following the release of the next album. Which I was sure was going to be released by my birthday. (this is the second time a birthday coincidence happened) The band had another plan, which was to hype me up for an album drop and then only release a non-album single Saturday that wasn’t even on the album that came out later! I accepted their gift though because I wanted more songs so desperately! I was so thirsty for Simple Plan content that I also listened to an episode of the Lead Singer Syndrome podcast with Pierre and learned so much about the band and their careers together, it warmed my heart! The album Taking One For the Team wouldn’t drop for almost an entire year! But when it did they also announce their first tour in the US in years!

In early October 2016, I finally saw then live for the first time. I already talked about this, it’s when they played What’s New Scooby-Doo! The place where my sister and I chose to stand was near a stantioned-off area that looked VIP. Before the band went on their families came out escorted by security and watched the set right behind me! That trip was so fun! It was also my first concert ever, I had been to Warped Tour the previous summer but I choose to call that my first festival.

The tour I saw them on kinda just morphed into the 15th-anniversary tour for NPNHJB. Remember when I went on about Scooby-Doo? Yeah reader, it’s been 15 years. I saw Simple Plan for the second time in April 2017 and I was able to convince a bunch of Set It Off (great band) fans to come with me because they were also playing. My roommate at the time said that seeing me at the concert was one of the times they’d seen me happiest. I thought that was very sweet and I’m glad I was able to have that experience with those people. Weirdly enough though, I had just started a new job and my new boss was also at the show. There isn’t much more to that particular story but I still think it’s funny.

After this I closed a chapter of my life by leaving the fraternity I was a part of for most of my college experience. At the alumni ceremony, people often do personal things for those leaving, gifts, speeches, etc. For me, a few of my Brothers played Welcome To My Life. It was one of the sweetest things anyone could have done.

The next time I saw them was on the final Warped Tour. I was so excited! I took time off so I could go and see them in San Diego because it was closer to (this is the 3rd coincidence) my birthday! I drove to San Diego alone and stayed in a hotel alone and had a couple of meals alone and saw a movie alone all so I could see Simple Plan. I did meet up with some friends at the festival on the day of and it was amazing! One of the people is very close to me and we shared a lot of music that day. I waited in line for over an hour at the SP merch tent and I was going to have sign some stuff with a happy birthday but they ended up having to leave the tent to get ready for their set and I nabbed a quick picture with Pierre. They closed their set with Perfect and everything felt melancholy but very “right” you know?

Most recently I saw Simple Plan alone in Phoenix. It was awesome! I was uneasy just seeing a show alone but being in that room with people who probably have a ton of stories just like this one (though probably not so many words) was exhilarating. They definitely had the best set and this time I noticed some of the things they kinda always do at shows. Like Chuck crowd surfing or the same call response to their most popular songs and another rendition of What’s New Scooby-Doo!

This pretty much brings us to the present, thanks for taking this 2500+ word journey down memory lane with me. Currently, I’m feeling upset that the tour planned for this summer was called off because of the COVID-19 epidemic and I kinda have no idea when the album might drop. I am in no way diminishing anything that has happened to anyone else but for me, the current way of the world has taken a lot of what makes me happy away. My career is on hold, I can’t go to movies, and it even took away Simple Plan. Writing this has been mildly therapeutic and that was the point. If for some reason this post reaches the band I just want to thank them all. Pierre, Chuck, Seb, David, and Jeff. You guys are unbelievably amazing! Thank you for being somehow integrated into a lot of things that I really hold dear but most importantly thank you for the music! I can’t wait for more! Now, I’ll leave this train of thought before all this nostalgia makes me sick (get it?).

I tried not to ruin it but this is almost 2600 words so I probably did.

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ruinitpop · 7 years

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American Graffiti: The most important movie you’ve never seen

These are my thoughts. I’ll try not to ruin it.

The history of the film industry never ceases to amaze me. The impact that a single movie can make on the entire entertainment industry. Generations of people. Pop culture.

In 1973’s American Graffiti George Lucas takes us back to the summer of 1962. We follow a group of recent high school graduates looking for some new experiences and a couple of final memories before going on to college and beyond. That’s the bare bones of it. Go watch it for yourself, you won’t be disappointed.

Despite a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 84% (over 64,000 votes cast), it would be too easy to find a person who hasn’t or heard of George Lucas’ second studio film. I recently watched this movie again as part of a sort of “day-in-the-life-of-teens” genre kick I was on and something occurred to me. This is one of the most culturally significant films of all time. I know that’s a loaded sentence but I need to stick with me on this.

Alright, now I’m just going to ramble about pieces of pop culture that were made possible by the success of this film:

Richard Dreyfuss had pretty much only appeared in television before this film and would soon be the star of Jaws (the film that created the summer blockbuster as we know it today) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

George Lucas is basically a household name all over the world at this point. Without the success of this film (made on an estimated budget of $777,000 and a 1973 gross of $21.3 million), George Lucas would not have been able to make Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Star Wars changed the world. If you think Star Wars is culturally insignificant then why are you reading my blog?

Harrison Ford. Like Dreyfuss, he had almost exclusively done tv before this movie. But the professional relationship that he developed with Lucas resulted in two of the most iconic roles in American cinema; Han Solo and Indiana Jones.

Ron Howard. It’s hard for me to credit this film with the success of Ron Howard. So I won’t. Ron Howard is an amazing director with a long a career behind and in front of the camera. This film marks Ron Howard transition from child actor (remember Opie on the Andy Griffith Show?) to a young man with promise. This segues us perfectly into the last on the list.

Happy Days. American Graffiti was the inspiration for hit ABC show that ran from ‘74-’84. This show can be seen as the starting point for Ron Howard (who started his directing and producing career on the show), Henry Winkler (The Fonz, one of the most iconic characters in the tv history), Scott Baio (one of the mildly famous celebs that threw his hat in with Donald Trump), and Robin Williams (who first appeared on the show as the alien Mork who was later given his own show)

American Graffiti marks an important moment in American cinema and the reverberations are still being felt anytime you think to yourself “That guy is the Han Solo character” or anytime you let out an “Ayyee” when you tap a jukebox and even when the next trailer for The Last Jedi drops. Just remember that you have a tightly woven teen dramedy to thank for all of it.

Those are my thoughts. I hope I didn’t ruin it.

#american graffiti #Movie Recommendation #george lucas #star wars

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ruinitpop · 7 years

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Spider-Man: Homecoming/Clearing the high bar each time

These are my thoughts. I’ll try not to ruin it.

On July 7th Marvel (and Sony) gave us the third introduction to Spider-Man we’ve seen in less than 20 years and the second in the last 5 years. Emotions surrounding this Spider-Man: Homecoming are varied. I’ve talked to people who are just burnt out over the character. Others are just excited for the character to be in the hands of its creators again. Still, others will be going to see it just because they love the character. Personally, I’m a good mix of all three. I’m so glad Spidey is back with Marvel but I really did like the Sam Raimi film starring Tobey Maguire (fight me).

Marvel teased us with this new imagining of the character in 2016s Captain America: Civil War. Fans loved it. He was young, naive, in love with being a hero, and extremely self-confident. Pretty much all of the things audiences want in a young hero. All of these carried over into his solo film. We got more of what we loved with a healthy amount of B-plot relating to what it’s like being a teen; something Marvel hasn’t done yet because they haven’t focused on a teen hero with a social life (or a character with a real social life at all).

We have Peter Parker, Tom Holland, as the titular web crawler. He’s pitted against the evil Vulture (Adrian Toomes), played by Michael Keaton, a criminal who really needs to learn the lesson Tony Stark did in 2008s Iron Man. But that’s just the main story. What drives Peter throughout the film is his urge to do what he thinks is right in the moment without thinking ahead to other possible ways to help or even what the immediate consequences of his actions. Which is something that works when Wonder Woman does it but doesn’t really work out for Peter (details withheld so I don’t ruin it). This doesn’t really set well his superiors, Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark and Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, because Iron Man’s new “thing” post Civil War is trying to get all parties (heroes and the government) to play nicely together. Peter also has to navigate his social life while trying to keep all his secrets which leads to him letting people down as Peter because Spider-Man was out being a hero. This is a challenge we haven’t seen an MCU hero face in a while. Most of the current MCU heroes don’t have “secret” identities (the world knows Tony is Iron Man, Steve is Captain America, Thor is Thor, Bucky is the Winter Soldier, etc.). Honestly, there’s a lot to go through here and if I keep describing the film I’ll reach spoiler territory and that’s not a place I want to go too deep into.

So what makes this movie stand out compared to the rest of the MCU?

The short answer is...nothing. The long answer is more complicated.

I’m not saying I didn’t like it because I did. I’m just pretty unaffected by it. I think the issue I’m having is that we’ve finally reached a point in the MCU where each film is at least as good as the one that came before it. Kudos to Marvel for just cranking out great movies but it means that Marvel is setting their own bar of quality and clearing that bar each time. All Marvel movies look the same, by design, and because they all take place in the same universe they should look similar. I think Marvel realizes this is becoming an issue and is making changes accordingly. They’ve moved the Thor and Hulk story lines off world so they can cash in on the popular aesthetic of the Guardians of the Galaxy films and Black Panther looks fantastic and vibrant, but it’s the new Wakandan culture and its isolation from the rest of the world that does that and not the visuals of the universe as a whole. It doesn’t help that the low bar is set by non-Marvel Marvel films (I’m looking at you Fant4stic). I don’t leave the theater after seeing a Marvel movie feeling blown away by how great it was. I often leave thinking “that was just as good as I expected it to be”. Which is a compliment I swear! It’s way better to be as good as I expect than fall short (see Dead Men Tell No Tales).

After all this back and forth my final verdict is that you should definitely see this movie. Despite lacking uniqueness compared to other films in the universe I was thoroughly engrossed in the movie from beginning to end. Underneath the web slinging and fighting is a decent coming-of-age story about navigating your personal life when you’re facing something new and exciting/potentially deadly.

There’s a lot to unpack here but as much I love going over potential future for the MCU or how all the side characters are connected. Unfortunately, that’s all speculative right now and this isn’t a fan theory blog (yet?). So I’ll just have to leave you wondering what Donald Glover’s character has to do with anything or what the Avengers are going to do with the web slinger in the future.

Those are my thoughts. I hope I didn’t ruin it.

#spider-man: homecoming #movie review #movie recommendation

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ruinitpop · 7 years

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Baby Driver/The hunt for fresh IP

These are my thoughts. I’ll try not to ruin it.

I’m going to start this post with four words that sum up all my thoughts.

Go. See. This. Movie.

This is director Edgar Wright's sixth feature length film. You may know Wright from his previous films that include Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (one of my all time favorites) but also several fantastic action comedies starring Simon Pegg; Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End. Any fan of these movies is going to love Baby Driver.

We meet Baby, played by Ansel Elgort. A reluctant professional getaway driver with tinnitus (“hum in the drum”) from an accident that he was in as a child that resulted in the death of his parents. Baby listens to music almost all the time to drown out the ringing and Wright uses this to set the film to Baby’s personal soundtrack for his life. Baby lives with his foster father, CJ Jones, a deaf man who loves music. We meet Baby’s love interest, Debora played by Lily James, a waitress at a cafe that Baby frequents. It’s a harmonious relationship based on their taste in music but Baby’s begrudging ties to crime become a problem. Baby is working for Doc, Kevin Spacey, a crime kingpin and a father figure of sorts for baby. Doc employs several other characters throughout the film. Namely Buddy, Darlin, and Bats played by John Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez, and Jamie Foxx respectively. For the sake of not giving away too much of the plot, I’m not going to dive too deep into these characters but I will say that it’s pretty obvious from the start that no one that works for Doc is a stable person (with the exception of Baby, of course).

That’s pretty much it. A barebones plot with a few holes and a small cast of characters with big personalities (aka Edgar Wright’s bread and butter). It doesn't’ sound like this movie would be that great until you’re watching it. The beauty of this film is in the details. I want to mention that this is one of few movies I’ve seen in the last few years that actually credits the choreographer in the opening credits. The scenes that are set to Baby’s soundtrack are expertly choreographed and filmed. We see gunshots going to the rhythm and characters strolling to the beat while song lyrics are cleverly hidden in the background. All while scenes follow the feel of the song that’s playing. They ebb and flow, crescendo and decrescendo. It’s as if Baby has a superpower that allows him to control the flow of events when he’s listening to music (that’s definitely not supposed to be true, this isn’t that kind of movie). However, we see early on that not everything is in Baby’s music.

One of my favorite shots in the film is the introduction of Debora. The scene places Baby in the diner Baby frequents and she happens to work at. Everything in the scene so far has fallen into Baby’s music, that is until Debora enters the frame. She’s listening to her own music in her own headphones and walks outside of Baby’s beat. I just can’t describe how much I love that little detail! It’s so perfect!

It’s hard to talk about this film without being able to show what I mean. I just love his style. The way he uses deliberate transitions to move the plot. All of the hidden details in the set. It’s just...you know what? Just watch these:

https://youtu.be/pij5lihbC6k

https://youtu.be/3FOzD4Sfgag

Any bad things you may hear. Even with it’s imperfections. Baby Driver is one of the most original movies I’ve seen so far this year and in a summer full of reboots, remakes, extended universes, and sequels it was a refreshing experience to sit in the theater and see something that was genuinely artistic, fantastically directed, brand new, and has a soundtrack full of song’s I’ve never heard before but are total bangers (I’m listening to it right now)! You’ll know what I’m talking about as soon as the movie starts, trust me.

Those are my thoughts. I hope I didn’t ruin it.

#baby driver #movie review #movie recommendation

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ruinitpop · 7 years

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The Mummy/Defending the cinematic universe

These are my thoughts. I’ll try not to ruin it.

To start I’d like to mention to all of you that my taste in cinema, while extensive, has huge holes in it. For example, I don’t have an affinity for horror or monster movies (giant or regular size). I also hadn’t seen the Brendan Fraser story until fairly recently. So for this review keep in mind that I’m not drawing on years of appreciation for this genre or nostalgia for the turn of the century. What I do love is the idea of the cinematic universe, but I’ll get to that later.

On June 9th of this year, Universal launched a new telling of a classic monster movie, The Mummy. This film stars Tom Cruise as Nick Morton, a hero with a lot to learn about being a hero. He is pitted against Ahmanet played by the rising star Sofia Boutella. The eventual love interest, Jenny Halsey, is played by Annabelle Wallis. To round out the core of the movie we have Jake Johnson as the zany sidekick, Chris Vail, and Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll.

The story follows Cruise and Johnson to an ancient Egyptian burial tomb in what used to be early Mesopotamia where they proceed to, you guessed it, find something old and weird and overtly evil. Shortly after, a clandestine government organization takes over and moves the whole shebang to the UK where the rest of the movie revolves around tracking down the two pieces of the macguffin that The Mummy needs to turn Nick Morton into her weapon of mass evil.

Now, I get that this movie was not very well received (40% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes) but to quote myself “Rotten Tomatoes isn’t the end-all of the quality of a movie”. I want to talk about what I think the movie IS.

What is the purpose of this movie in the big picture?

Universal is going all in on their new Dark Universe (Universal Dark Universe or UDU for short) which is a new cinematic universe involving the likes of The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Dracula, Van Helsing, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Bride of Frankenstein (just to name a few). That’s a lot of stories that need to be born out this one film! So what was the purpose?

Build the world and set the tone.

It may seem like this movie is getting lost in the exposition but I assure you that it’s all necessary and, when I thought about, actually adds a lot to the story. I’ve heard many complaints about the Russell Crowe character. His presence moves the story into future films. I like the character, he runs the clandestine organization and the spin the film puts on the character is cool. He must use his science to keep his evil at bay instead of using it to become the infamous Mr. Hyde. Great! A leader with something to hide and everything to hold back! We need this character. He’s the Nick Fury of the UDU and I’m looking forward to having his backstory explained through the next few movies instead of a solo film. Also, keeping Dr. Jekyll as the leader means that all of the UDU characters don’t need to appear in each film because the side characters are connecting threads until the universe takes off. Remember the early MCU when the only thing connecting each film was Sam Jackson showing up in all the post credit scenes? This feels less messy.

The tone of these movies is going to be tough to keep up. It has to be dark, it is called the Dark Universe after all, which could potentially lead the UDU down the path of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) to a point where audiences are not responding to how much of a dirge the movies are (I’m looking at you, Zack Snyder). What this movie has to correct this potential issue is Jake Johnson's character, Chris Vail. Now, I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the 1981 John Landis film An American Werewolf In London so I’m going to give a little back story here (you’ve had 36 years to see it, please don’t yell at me). Early in the film, the protagonist's friend is killed. This character then continues to appear in the film mostly to provide more exposition. He is more and more “dead” each time we see him and it’s played very light heartedly and adds an element of humor to an otherwise heavy film. Chris Vail is used by director Alex Kurtzman the same way this type of character was used by Landis. It plays really well to me but that might just be because the first time Chris shows up again after his “death” I immediately thought “Oh! Like An American Werewolf In London! Dope!”

Was this movie amazing? No. But I’d argue that it doesn’t have to be. I want it to be, but it doesn’t have to be. This was a foundational film to launch a massive and risky venture into a new trend of long-form cinema. It had to introduce core characters (it did). It had to set ground rules for the world (see above). Finally, it had to be entertaining enough for me to want to see where next movie takes us (I do). If we as audience members want to embrace this new trend of long-form interconnected film series then we need to understand that not every movie has to be a multi-billion dollar success.

Those are my thoughts. I hope I didn’t ruin it.

#movie review #movie recommendation #the mummy

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ruinitpop · 7 years

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Dead Men Tell No Tales/Character steroetypes

These are my thoughts, I’ll try not to ruin it.

I’m gonna take everyone back to 2003. Disney, after the lackluster success of the Haunted Mansion, has another attempt to cash in on the popularity of one of their park attractions. They gave us Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. A feat of special effects loaded with good jokes, fun action, and a pretty decent story. This movie went on to become one of my favorites growing up and with a Rotten Tomatoes score of almost 80% it’s safe to say it was very well liked. All that being said I’m going to talk about how Disney has ruined everyone's favorite drunk rum connoisseur, Captain Jack Sparrow.

When we’re first introduced to Jack Sparrow we’re shown a man who is aloof, self confident, driven, and flying by the seat of his pants all the time. While all of that may be true about how he’s first shown to us it’s not WHO he is. I know there are some of you out there who will disagree but hear me out. One scene in particular stands out to me as an example that the aloofness and disorder is all an act. Remember the first interaction between Jack and Will Turner, in the blacksmiths shop?

There are two moments in the scene that tell me that the persona Jack reveals to the audience is actually a calculated ruse that hinges on his reputation preceding him. Toward the end of this scene we see the ruse that is “Jack Sparrow” fall away and Jack pleads with Will, “Please move!” and later, in a darker tone, “this shot is not meant for you” the thought of a man with a grand plan and the drive to do anything it takes get him there. Jack is cunning, adaptable, and in control right when you think he isn’t.

This version of Jack Sparrow is what we were shown in 2003. I love this version. He has depth. He has a plan. He understands his enemies. But I don’t think he’s smart, he just thinks everything through. There’s more to it than that obviously but I think I’ve talked this point out enough.

This brings us to 2017. Now, I’ll be the first admit that each sequel in the Pirates franchise is, at least, slightly less enjoyable than the first. But that doesn’t mean you have to go in already thinking it is going to be bad. Disney tried their best to get us all hyped up about the latest installment, Dead Men Tell No Tales. They brought back Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley as Will and Elizabeth Turner respectively and that was a huge draw for me. It felt like it was going to a sort of “return to form” for the franchise. An opportunity to reign in the huge and rapidly growing lore that the stories draw from. Instead, Disney gave us over two hours of overacting, ultra extravagant special effects (some of which were fantastic), dick jokes, and twists that don’t make sense. The macguffin is overpowered and yet we never see what it can do. The resolution is so final that future movies won’t make sense. However, if the post-credit scene is to be believed that isn’t going to stop Disney from attempting another film in the near future.

Let’s go back to our hero, Jack! What could all of the lessons he’s learned over four movies have done to help him grow? Is he maturing? Training someone to take over?

NOPE!

The character of Sparrow has instead been given an extra layer of aloofness, dysfunction, and dumb luck while taking out any lines/shots/facial expressions that give the character any substance. No more plans. No more ruse, he just IS a drunk and lucky idiot. That’s all there is to it.

Clearly, this movie rubbed me the wrong way. That’s not to say there aren’t good parts. I’ll even say that a few of the subplots are pretty good but not fleshed out. There are unnecessary parts and information left out. I’d say that if Disney had trimmed more fat and done a little more exposition this could have been a good movie.

Those are my thoughts. I hope I didn’t ruin it.

#pirates of the caribbean #movie recommendation #movie review #dead men tell no tales

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