Friday, August 18, 2017

On Really, Really Weird Tides

Spent most of a dark, gloomy late morning writing. The motorcyclists on the road are, indeed, the Imperial Gang, lead by one of Vader's top boys, Ozzie Ozzel. Han and Leia flee across the tennis courts. Luke and his friends manage to get some of them off their bikes with rope and surfboards, but the damage is done. The bikers have run roughshod over the party, knocking over tents and destroying tables and equipment. Luke and Wedge run to Chip and Arturro, who are hiding at the Tea Room. Luke's ready to head to Dagobah Bay to see Yoda Yamagachi. Arturro (translated by Chip) asks to come along - he has relatives in the area and no car.

Ran my Chip & Dale shorts DVD during breakfast and lunch. "Chicken In the Rough" has Dale mistaken for a chick by a mother hen. "Two Chips and a Miss" are the chipmunks and the nightclub singer they both pine for, Clarice. They try very hard to outdo each other, but their musical act works better when they all perform in harmony. Pluto's in the spotlight in "Food For Feudin'" when the chipmunks try to get their nuts back from his dog house. Their tree home is "Out of Scale" on Donald's model railroad. The duo take over a house instead, then the train it's on. They're all "On a Limb" when Donald attacks the chipmunks with his tree pruner and tar. He also teases them in "Dragon Around," making the two think his steam shovel is a dragon. But here, he has a real purpose - he wants to get rid of their castle-shaped tree for a freeway project. The two do whatever they can to defend their home.

Headed to work around 1. The weather was awful today, cloudy, hot, and thickly humid. Every time I went inside and out, my glasses fogged. I spent the first few hours doing returns. I should have been outside the whole day, humidity be damned. We were crazy-busy up until 5. Not only did I have no help after 3, but the bagger who was out there earlier shouldn't have been doing it all alone. The items that needed to be shelved could have waited. By 5, heavy dark clouds were gathering, and while it grew even more damp, it also got windier, which helped with the heat. At the very least, it cleared out the customers. I had a far easier time gathering carts than I had earlier.

I did get my schedule today. It's kind of odd. I mostly work fairly early, except for two afternoon-evening shifts on Monday and Friday. Tuesday and Saturday off, which is good. I'll actually make it to the Collingswood Farm Market next week.

By the time I got off at 6, it was thundering and lightning could be seen, though it hadn't yet rained. A manager said to wait until the storm had passed to go home, but I couldn't wait. I had no idea how long that would take. I did end up hurrying home. I was inside for ten minutes and had just started the next chapter of Double Fudge Brownie Murder when the rain finally arrived.

After my shower, I had a quick leftovers dinner while finishing out the cartoons and watching Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Well, the title's accurate, anyway. This is one weird pirate flick. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is ordered by none other than King George II (Richard Griffiths) to lead an expedition to find the Fountain of Youth in Florida. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) is involved, too. They're not the only ones searching for it. None other than the infamous Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his daughter Angelica (Penelope Cruz) are after the Fountain as well (to Jack's dismay, as he and Angelica had once had a relationship). He's even less happy to learn that Blackbeard has shrunk his ship the Black Pearl down and inserted it in a bottle. Meanwhile, a missionary who is a prisoner on Blackbeard's ship (Sam Clafin) has fallen in love with a mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) who was also captured by the ruthless pirate.

Uh...yeah. I didn't understand a lick of this. While I love the idea of them searching for the Fountain of Youth and thought Cruz was a perfect partner for Sparrow's goofiness, almost nothing else worked besides some neat special effects. The missionary/mermaid romance in particular seemed shoehorned in to give the teen girls something to moon at. It wasn't really horrible, just...too much.

And now that we've gotten to the end of this series (for now - I'll catch the one currently in theaters when it shows up on DVD), I can safely say that while At World's End tries hard, none of the follow-up movies have ever really recaptured the magic of Curse of the Black Pearl. Curse is highly recommended and a lot of fun. I'd only do the others if you really loved Curse or this series' cast or pirate tales.

(The next series will likely be either The Matrix or the Divergence trilogy. I'm also considering the Transformers Movieverse.)

No comments: