Broke Hoedown

And the winner for weird ad campaign for the month is . . . Keith Richard for Louis Vuitton!

See Mr Broke Hoedown’s blog for details.

I look at that picture and all I can think of is, “What becomes a legend most?”

Your Souvenir Guide has a mash note tonight for the doubloon-stamping machine that used to reside in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square. A snippet:

. . . for the first and last time, I will address the Disney decision-makers who will never, ever lay eyes on this bl-g: Please bring back the coin-stamping machine formerly located at Pieces of Eight. (And if it’s there now, please keep it there.) Oh, I’m sure that you have your reasons for having removed the machine, reasons that seem valid to you: I imagine that it’s fairly expensive to maintain and stock the machine, and considering how skittish you’ve become about stitching nicknames on souvenir hats, I’m sure that you don’t want today’s teenage gangsta goths imprinting your souvenirs with four-letter words, gang slogans and Fall Out Boy lyrics.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t remotely care about any of that. Yours is a billion-dollar concern and you can afford to eat a few thousand bucks a year. If you you have the wherewithal to make three Pirates of the Craibbean movies, you can build a second doubloon-stamping machine to sit in for the broken one. And if you’re worried about teenaged kids putting blue words on their coins, get this: The coin on my keychain has bore a prodigious number of filthy words for nearly twenty years now, and as near as I can tell, it has created no great rift in the public decency. It’s a pirate coin; what do you want? Pirates say naughty words, ye cowardly cacklefruits. An’ no sea rat e’er palmed a coin that weren’t already dirty.

Naughty pirates? Amen to that.

Kudos, SparkleXmotion!

Ask a Ninja doesn’t seem to have enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Go fig.

As if Chow Yun-Fat wasn’t already suffering from a lack of sufficient screen time in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End . . . Chinese censors have cut him back even further:

Chinese movie star Chow Yun-Fat’s role in “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” has been slashed in half by censors in China for vilifying and defacing the Chinese and insulting Singapore.

The film, which was released on the mainland early this week, shows only about 10 minutes of Chow’s scenes while in the Hollywood version his scenes take up about 20 minutes of the film.

Kudos to Leprechaun Productions!

Did you leave the theater before the credits were over, at Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? Quick, go here and watch the scene that played at the very end, when a bunch of us were already in the lobby.

In case the video disappears (quite likely, given copyright issues), here’s a summary from Wikipedia:

In a post-credits scene set ten years later, Will reunites with Elizabeth and their son. As the Dutchman appears, it is accompanied by a green flash.

Do I deserve a rap on the knuckles with a wooden ruler? Or the Parent of the Year Award? I dunno which, but I can tell you it was worth it to keep my ten-year-old son up waaaaay past his bedtime for last night’s 8:00 p.m. showing of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds’ End.

Had we not seen the first show, we might not have seen so many pirates decked out in their finest regalia! Curse my poor camera phone . . . lots of pirates kindly let me take their pictures, but only one picture came out even vaguely viewable. Thank you, anonymous young pirates! We certainly couldn’t have hoped for a better audience to watch the film with.

[MAJOR spoilers from this point on, proceed at your own risk.] I’d been keeping my expectations low, as I was disappointed in Dead Man’s Chest. And I was pleasantly surprised. The movie doesn’t quite rise to the level of Curse of the Black Pearl, but it takes full advantage of the depth of key characters, and take them to the next level. In many ways this is Keira Knightley’s movie, as she not only ascends to Pirate King, but also marries her longtime sweetheart in the funniest, most romantic sequence in the film. And of course Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow is always brilliant. But this time Orlando Bloom finally becomes the gritty, ruthless pirate Elizabeth has longed for, and Geoffrey Rush plays a surprisingly key role as the pivot for many of the complicated relationships in the film. Sadly, Chow Yun Fat dies far too soon. But Keith Richards’ brief cameo is spot-on, and exactly the right dose.

There’s a very nice little nod to the POTC ride, just as you’re entering Worlds’ End. I’m sure there were plenty more ride references in there, but not as readily apparent as those in the earlier films. Anybody spot any Hidden Mickeys?

I was surprised and delighted by the open (some might say heavy-handed) political commentary in the film. The chilling opening sequence reads like a membership solicitation from the American Civil Liberties Union. And when the pirates begin to sing their song of unity and protest, I could almost imagine them breaking into The Internationale. Really quite heartwarming for a leftie like myself.

And of course, the movie resolves the major themes of the POTC trilogy, while setting the stage quite effectively for POTC 4 (Jim Hill mentioned on this week’s Magical Definition Podcast that this is slated for release in 2010 or 2011, pending Johnny Depp’s availability, and if you’re a POTC fan you really wanna listen to that podcast for Hill’s indepth comments on POTC).

But I’ll confess, I’m not too eager yet for the next POTC. The franchise has declined a bit in coherence of narrative structure, and I’d like to see the producers have a little breathing room before conceptualizing Jack’s next adventure. And even with the excellent special effects in POTC: AWE, who knows what technical advances might mean for the next time around? Let’s give these characters a rest, and come back to them fresh a good while down the road.