AVAST AND AHOY, MATEYS! Despite some dodgy effects work in the final act (Davy Jones and his crew are great, the Kraken, in many shots, less so) and a slightly messy first act that takes a bit too long to get the main characters in one place, I quite enjoyed Pirates 2. I won't spoil up here, but two suggested topics for discussion in the comments (which is a land for spoilers, matey!):

1. Discuss the ways in which the film borrows from the second volume of other movie trilogies. There's one in particular I thought it hewed to quite closely (and to good effect).
2. Compare and contrast--Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Malcolm Reynolds.

IT SOUNDED LIKE A SPRITE AD TO ME: Spurred by Rescue Me producer Peter Tolan's defense of his show's controversial plotting this year, today's Times has an interesting article about how showrunners are using the Internet to communicate with fans, noting such things as the Grey's Anatomy writers' blog, blogs run by showrunners for Battlestar Galactica and The Closer, and how Tolan and Veronica Mars mastermind Rob Thomas both post on TWOP from time to time. Indeed, Thomas admits to the Times that a character was modified from his original vision due to TWOP comments. However, how they managed to go without mentioning how TWOP actually inspired a quite memorable storyline on a major TV show escapes me. The TWOP recap of "The U.S. Poet Laureate" explains.

OVERTIME: Results of the literature fight being inconclusive, we're going to have to move to an extra frame to try to settle our France v. Italy showdown in advance of tomorrow's final.

So, and I'm not quite sure how to define it, but let's call this round Positive Contributions To World Civilization (1648-present), leaving aside anything culinary or literary which fit into the first two rounds.

Which has done more for the world -- the land of Marcel Duchamp, Louis Braille and Le Pétomane, or the peninsula which produced Alessandro Volta, Guglielmo Marconi, and a heck of a lot of film directors?

THE TOURETTE'S SYNDROME OF JOKES: A year after the hoopla, I finally got around to watching The Aristocrats last night. While I enjoyed it (particular highlights for me were Paul Reiser -- for the analysis, not for the telling of the joke itself -- Billy the Mime, Murder High's Favorite Son Bob Saget, the non-Friar's Club Roast Gilbert Gottfried stuff, and Mario Cantone-as-Liza-Minnelli), I found myself sharing Chris Rock's reaction -- "uh huh, and?" Once you accept the premise that every comedian is trying to be as filthy as humanly (or inhumanly) possible, what's one more element of incest or defecation among friends? As far as breaking all taboos is concerned, I was actually expecting more in the racist / sexist / pick your Title VII violation category.

As for the famed Gilbert Gottfried sequence: I get it, I get it, I get it because I saw a preview of Noises Off mere weeks after 9/11 and witnessed firsthand the howling catharsis of laughing your ass off when everyone is in a lot of pain. But I do agree with a point Adam made -- I would have preferred to see that particular telling in its entirety, without all the back and forthing about how funny it was.

On a related note: we rented both The Aristocrats and The 40 Year Old Virgin at an actual Blockbuster store last night. This marked the first time in I don't know how long that I've walked into a Blockbuster and actually picked up a pile of movies (including the two we rented plus Syriana, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Good Night and Good Luck, Serenity, and a couple others that are escaping me) that I would have been happy to watch. At least a couple of times over the last few years, I've walked into Blockbuster and walked out emptyhanded for lack of interest in a single movie. I guess that when you stop going to the movies, eventually enough solid content piles up that even Hollywood's best efforts otherwise can't prevent me from wanting to see a movie.

ROGER: Roger Ebert is recuperating from emergency surgery. Let's all wish him a speedy recovery. He is truly a gifted film critic. I know that many of you agree. There is a statement about his condition here.

HE'S A REAL DOCTOR: I don't know why, but Here Comes Dr. Tran never fails to make me laugh. (NSFW, folks.) Hat tip to Douglasse for the reminder, whose blog is well worth checking out, now that he's restarted, especially for those who are studying for the bar exam (as he is).

I READ ABOUT THEM IN TIME MAGAZINE: Ok, so much to Adam's chagrin (I'm guessing) not many people have seen The Searchers, but let's try this film appreciation thing again with a slightly more popular film. Kenji Fujishima has a really nice piece about Die Hard on Matt Zoller Seitz's site today:

Screenwriters Jeb Stuart and Steven E. De Souza differentiate their hero from the other macho men of the era by making McClane fallible and vulnerable while being undeniably heroic. He is prone to making mistakes, whether in his relationship with his wife—who's just as sassy as her husband—or in his various fights with bad guys. At an inopportune time, he brings up an old bone of contention with Holly; at another point, while trying to stop two terrorists from bombarding police with a rocket launcher, he drops too much plastique down an elevator shaft and causes a bigger-than-expected explosion inside the building. Through it all, the filmmakers keep reminding you of McClane's desperation: how he’s trying to save the hostages while staying alive himself. As an actor, Bruce Willis contributes by allowing his character to seem sweaty and fearful at times: when the going gets tough, not only is does his tank top shirt get dirtier, he talks to himself. All of this deepens the emotional stakes of the action sequences. In such a context, the story's violent crests aren't mere "fun." They actually seem to matter. . . .

Walking in the bootprints of cruder 1980s action spectaculars (Rambo, Commando), Die Hard didn’t need to add brains to brawn; the filmmakers could have simply bombarded the audience with a lot of noisy action scenes, and most viewers still might have felt they'd gotten their money’s worth. But this movie understands that a great action film shouldn't just deliver action, but also construct an authentic emotional framework to support the action—to make us care about what is happening onscreen rather than just setting up the next sensory assault. For all its self-mocking humor, it's a rare pyrotechnic blockbuster dares to take the characters and situations seriously— a sense of conviction rarely seen in eighteen years' worth of imitators.

Via IMDB: "Bruce Willis was the fifth choice for the main character. It originally went to Arnold Schwarzenegger, then Sylvester Stallone, then Burt Reynolds, then Richard Gere before Willis got it."