Monthly Archives: March 2015

Kinky Boots

Draft Day

The girl behind the counter shrugged when I asked her if Draft Day was any good and told me that she didn’t know much about football. I can relate. Jay and Sean had to explain pretty much every play to me when we went to see the Ottawa Redblacks play last year. In fact, the joke I made at the video store was “The only thing I hate more than sports is sports in movies”. To which she replied incredulously “Then what are you renting this for?”.

I didn’t know what to tell her and still wouldn’t. I guess my thinking was that having this site is going to sometimes involve taking the time to check out movies that I would normally have given a pass.

Set almost entirely in the hours leading up to the impending NFL draft, Draft Day- as I was relieved to discover- barely has any football in it and assumes pretty much zero knowledge of the game or the NFL. Seattle is even introduced as “Home of the Seahawks”. Instead, the action takes places off the field as we get a behind the scenes look at the trades, negotiations, and strategizing as unpopular Cleveland Browns GM Sonny Weaver (Kevin Costner) tries to make a big enough splash to save his job.

Draft Day is a strange movie and I’m not sure who director Ivan Reitman (who I’m pleasantly surprised to see is still working) was hoping would embrace it. Instead of inspiring locker room speeches and risky plays we get contract negotiations and conference calls. Costner throwing a laptop across the room in frustration is really the most action we can hope for here. So there’s more Moneyball than Remember the Titans but even Moneyball found the time to show us some baseball.

Sadly, Aaron Sorkin, who co-wrote Moneyball, was not available to write Draft Day and, while the former was witty and suspenseful the latter is exposition-heavy and surprisingly predictable. So who is the target audience for a sports film that is too blandly written for film fans and too talky for sports fans? I’m starting to think it was written for me. The diligence it takes in explaining to the audience what just happened, while probably insultingly patron to most, provided me with the only real pleasure I got from the experience as I continually found myself patting myself on the back for keeping up with it.

Black and white films since 1970

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Time for more Thursday Movie Picks! All the Assholes have assembled Avengers-style to talk about their favourite black and white films made post-1970

Luc

Full disclosure. I hate black and white movies, especially if they were shot past 1917 when Technicolor was invented. Why would anyone want to even go that route? I find it distracting and somewhat pretentious (The Artist comes to mind), I recognize that this is my own personal bias and you may completely disagree with me. That’s fine. That being said, if I was forced to pick some of my favorites, I would have to start with Kevin Smith’s Clerks.

A true cult classic that any obsessive movie goer has surely seen more than once. There’s so many things to like about this movie! It was shot in black in white in order to save money. This might be the only acceptable reason to shoot in black & white. It’s much cheaper to make a movie this way since lighting issues are non-existent. Post production colour temperature problems? None. Lighting problems? Nope. There’s many advantages to shooting in black & white, but aesthetics is not one of them, in my opinion.

I also admire Kevin Smith’s ambition as a filmmaker. The story goes like this, Kevin smith, who wanted nothing more than to shoot his first feature length, decided to max out his 30,000$ credit card and gave himself 21 days to accomplish this incredibly inspiring goal. How can you not support and admire this feat?

In regards to the movie itself, I find the writing absolutely brilliant, not much actually happens throughout the 122 minutes of conversations about movies, hockey, women, and blowjobs. Now that I think about it, it’s quite amazing that with a cast of friends and family members (hired to save money), this movie did so well.. It grossed over 3 million dollars, was critically acclaimed and really launched Jay & Silent Bob’s career.

This film is about the mundane, daily struggles of an apathetic convenience store clerk (Dante), who seems to have no real direction in life, and his best friend, Randal, a video store clerk, who’s in a similar predicament. Did I mention that Dante and Randall love hockey? Well, they love it so much that their sole purpose throughout the movie is to figure out how they can ditch work in order to play a quick game of pick up hockey on the rooftop of the convenience store and yes, I am talking about two grown men. We also get to meet two great characters, Jay and Silent Bob. Two pot smoking friends who sell marijuana, shoplift and give golden advice on women and relationships.

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you might want to get out from under your rock and get on it! Seriously. Sean seconds this nomination and adds that it’s a movie he could really relate to at the age of 18 (and maybe still). “I remember always having similar conversations with my friends to those in the movie, just ridiculous things we threw at each other that led to hours of stupid discussions.”

Back to Luc. My second pick is no other than Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (might actually be my #1) but the movie was shot in 1948 and all the assholes agreed to choose movies post 1970, I’ll have to go with Frank Miller’s Sin City. I’m not sure this counts as a typical black and white film, considering that some scenes have bright red, yellow and green, but as I said before, I find it somewhat difficult to choose my “favorite” black and white movie since I generally don’t appreciate them. I love the themes that are explored in this movie: crime, corruption, loyalty. The graphics are also pretty stellar. I’ve never actually seen anything quite like it and if you’re familiar with Frank Miller’s graphic novels, you will surely recognize the artistry from beginning to end.

My third favourite black & white movie would have to be Good Night, and Good Luck, directed by no other than George Clooney. Frankly, I can’t remember all that much about the movie other than it being politically driven. You might say “dude, you write for a movie review site, can’t you at least take a couple of hours to watch the damn movie?” And the simplest answer is no. No, I can’t, it’s in black and white.

Matt

The pickings of great black and white movies aren’t as slim as Luc would have you believe. I don’t love black and white movies, I just don’t give a shit. If the filmmakers are telling a good story in an interesting way, I don’t care if it’s in black or white.

In fact, there’s lots of good reasons besides saving money to shoot in black and white. Actually, I would be tempted to argue that saving money is the worst reason. The Artist was a silent film about silent films so Michel Hazanavicius shot in the style of the classics he loved. Martin Scorsese wanted to avoid making a gratuitously bloody boxing movie so he shot Raging Bull in black and white to soften the blow.

Black and white films can feel timeless. Last year’s Ida didn’t feel like a new movie to me. It felt like a classic that had been around for years that I am only now just getting to see. Conversely, Schindler’s List doesn’t look nearly as dated as other films released in 1993.

Good Night, and Good Luck- I hate to say anything against George Clooney but, as a director, he’s never really come close to living up to the promise he showed in one of the best movies of 2005. To refresh Luc’s memory, it tells the story of news anchor Edward R. Morrow and his fearless coverage of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist witch-hunt. I don’t know if it needed to be in black and white but, because it recreates live television featuring real footage of McCarthy that would have originally been presented that way, it seems appropriate. It takes a smarter and less dramatic approach than most films that are based on real events and definitely a must-see.

Schindler’s List- Steven Spielberg’s 1993 passion project hasn’t seemed to age a day. I rewatched it for the fifth or sixth time yesterday and couldn’t help feeling that everyone involved from cast to crew to extras shared his passion. It’s a beautiful film from start to finish, with even the controversially sentimentality working for me. I feel a heart-wrenching sadness every time I watch it unlike anything else I’ve experienced at the movies and, when it’s over, I feel almost cleaned out.

Sin City- Robert Rodriguez’s 2005 film is almost a panel-for-panel adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novels. The comics were black and white (mostly) so the film had to be too. It works mostly thanks to Miller, whose writing ranges from as pulpy as it gets to almost poetic. “When it comes to reassuring a traumatized 19 year-old, I’m about as expert as a palsy victim doing brain surgery with a pipe wrench” is my personal favourite. Moments like that are almost enough to make me forgive last year’s disappointing sequel.

Jay

I like wondering why directors choose to shoot in black or white – what are they trying to tell me by presenting their movie in this way? One of Sean’s picks, Paper Moon (Sean says: it’s fun to see Tatum O’Neal as a little grifter, with her real life father helping out while thinking he’s in charge) is a great example of a careful choice. Set in the depression era, the black and white adds an evocative nostalgia factor. As Matt might point out, it’s a movie that refuses to age because it was purposely dated when released. It means to take you back to a “simpler” time, and then make you question what exactly was so simple about people trying so hard not to starve. Cinematographer Lazlo Kovacs uses black and white to great advantage, with a deep focus that keeps everything razor-sharp.

Pleasantville, in my opinion, uses black and white very wisely. It doesn’t just demarcate “old” and “new” but comes to symbolize enlightenment. Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play teenaged siblings who get thrown into a 1950s sitcom, again, the “simpler” times that turn out to be not-so-simple. Although everything is superficially pleasant in grayscale, the two rapidly come to miss the highs and lows of life back home. As they influence the sitcom’s residents to challenge their notions and beliefs, the characters are engulfed in colour. They are set ablaze with their newfound edification but some are ashamed of their obvious (colourful) sophistication and seek to cover it up. Now the black and white is a symbol of repression and shame.

Sean chose Frankenweenie as his third and final film. It’s an animated and touching story of a boy scientist and his resurrected dog that’s sweeter than it has any right to be. Director Tim Burton has said “I find black and white very beautiful. It gives a real sense of emotion. I was really excited about seeing this in black and white because there’s a depth to it that I love. It’s not right for every project but when you take the colour out of something, sometimes you start looking at other things, such as textures and characters. I was very happy that the studio [Disney] went along with the idea. If they’d wanted it in colour, I wouldn’t have done it.”

I’m happy to report that this week’s theme made me seek out movies I hadn’t seen before. I watched Chris Nolan’s first feature-length film, Following, and enjoyed trying to pick out early hints of his trademarks. Why did he shoot in black and white? Perhaps to enhance the stylistic look of a film noir, but also, I suspect, like Kevin Smith, because he was shooting on a tight budget. Clerks was big-budget compared to Nolan’s six grand and he made the choice to get the biggest bang for his buck.

Denis Villeneuve, on the other hand, seemed to be more in camp Scorsese. He directed a Canadian film called Polytechnique that’s about the Montreal Massacre – the day a gunman decided to target women and killed 14 of them while they were in school, dismissing their male classmates while voicing his hatred of feminism. It’s a bloody day in Canadian history but Villeneuve seemed to want to minimize the impact of the blood, allowing the audience to think about the killing spree in perhaps a slightly more abstract way. The film rises above the tragedy and is quite cool in its presentation, some might even call it dispassionate.

Joss Whedon made a Shakespeare adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing shot in black and white – maybe to highlight the sexiness that’s supposed to be in the movie, or to make the comedy’s dark side come alive, maybe to help mask and mistake California for Italy, and maybe it’s because it’s as far as he could possibly get from his simultaneous project, The Avengers.

The hardest movie you’ll ever watch is almost certainly Man Bites Dog. A mockumentary that shadows a serial killer who engages in increasingly graphic crime, you can’t look away but you’ll want to. It’s hard to swallow but carries an important message. It was shot in gritty black and white, a tip of the hat to cinema verite style, which is falsely considered more objective. In this case, the medium is just as stark as the message.

We look forward to hearing all of your picks – be sure to let us know your favourite black and white in the comments!

p.s. You might want to check out last week’s theme, father-son movies.

Man Bites Dog (C’est arrivé près de chez vous)

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I feel like the word “mockumentary” was not invented for a film like this. Mockumentary, with the word mock front row and centre, seems better suited to something like Spinal Tap. A movie like Man Bites Dog, however, should have its own set of rules.

“Man Bites Dog” is journalism shorthand for how unusual events are more likely to be reported in the news. A (fake) documentary team is following and filming a charismatic serial killer named Ben as he commits his increasingly gruesome crimes. Of course the crew gets drawn in and soon find themselves to be accomplices. Ben takes advantage of the rolling cameras to boast about the murders he’s racking up, but loves the sound of his own voice so much delivers stream-of-consciousness monologues on just about any subject.

It doesn’t exactly surprise the audience that he’s a misogynist, a racist, and that he preys on the elderly. We witness his crimes in graphic detail. Yes, it’s horrible to watch the crew help to subdue a young boy who will then be smothered to death. Not for everyone. But this is not a violent for no reason film. Remember the mock part? Well think of it more as satire, or critique – a sad, sad critique of what sells at the movie theatre, or for that matter, on your 6 o’clock news. Why are we attracted as a society to serial killers, why do we find so magnetic, and why do so many seem to glorify them? Serial killers are the new icons. The media isn’t about the story, which is horrifying, but about the personality. We often learn more about the man committing the crimes than about his defenseless victims. If you think back to the last school shooting, for example, you are more likely to know the name of the gunman than the name of the innocent kid that he shot.

This is a highly interesting film out of Belgium, shot on a dime as I understand it, but it has garnered quite a cult following from people who recognize it as intelligently deviant. I found it hard to watch but I liked the questions I found myself asking. Plus, I learned how to successfully sink the corpse of a dead baby, and how to save a bullet by scaring the elderly to death, and that seems like it’ll come in handy, right?

Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

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We’re on a black and white theme this week, so I used it as an excuse to finally check out Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing (2012). It’s one of those adaptations that use Shakespearean language but has modern setting and costumes. I feel like moving Shakespeare’s plays into modern times is startlingly easy to do and helps give me a new level of understanding for the words.

Joss Whedon shot this movie in just 12 days, while also working on The Avengers, like a palette-cleaning sorbet during a big, disgusting meal. He shot it in his own home in lieu of taking an anniversary trip with his wife – apparently with her consent.

This play is actually a soap opera. The premise is completely ridiculous – one dude spurns his fiancée at the altar because of an unconfirmed piece of third-hand gossip, which leads the jilted bride to fake her death to exact revenge, while another dude is tricked into falling in love with a woman he claims to hate after being flattered for about half an hour. Double wedding! As much as I may poke fun of it, the words themselves are just beautiful, and brilliant. A particular favourite snippet of mine: “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.”

I enjoyed this movie. Clark Gregg was a stand-out for me, and Nathan Fillion acquitted himself quite well and actually injects some funny into what Shakespeare intended as a comedy. Alexis Denisof, however, seemed like he was in way over his head. With so many words fighting a war of attrition inside his mouth, I just couldn’t relax into this movie.

I can see the allure of this stripped-down black and white piece after the Marvel smorgasbord The Avengers and I think Whedon is a wonderfully versatile director. I just didn’t enjoy this one half as much as I enjoyed Kenneth Branagh’s 1992 version starring Emma Thompson, and I suggest you check that one out instead.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

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It’s possible that director Matthew Vaughn cast Colin Firth just because the man looks damn fine in a suit. A whole clothing line was conceived for this film, which actually does hinge on refined bespoke menswear.

While in France, I saw this movie advertised as a cross between James Bond and Quentin Tarantino. Watching the film, the James Bond references slap you in the face – the martinis (gin, stirred for ten seconds while glancing at an unopened bottle of vermouth), the gadgets, the weaponized body parts! And while it’s not quite a spoof, it’s definitely subversive. Colin Firth is a Kingsman, one of many gentlemen spies who teach the uncouth of the world lessons in manners while being blood-lustfully unmannered themselves. He will beat you to a pulp, but he will do so with his couture umbrella. Which is possibly where the Tarantino flavour seeps in – not just in the casting of Firth, who took home an Oscar for his portrayal of a King, but was sent by Vaughn to a gym for 6 months, equipped with a signet ring\hand grenade, and unleashed on the world as an action star to take notice of – but in Firth’s character itself, “tea and testosterone” they’re calling it, a razor-sharp dichotomy you won’t be able to take your eyes off of. Nor should you – Vaughn dives right into the action, and that’s where he stays.

Is this a good movie? Having just wrapped up Oscar season, it’s hard to say a resounding yes. But it IS an awful lot of fun. It’s gleefully violent, unapologetically politically incorrect, and often seems to make a joke out of itself (not all of them land but there was a lot of laughter from the surprisingly hearty Kanata audience). Sam Jackson as the supervillain, lisping away as he takes over the world, is brilliant. He and Firth are having fun. And the young street punk recruited by Firth – played by newcomer Taron Egerton – who must compete with more conventional types to win a spot on the elite spy team brings not only a nice juxtaposition but yet another excuse for non-stop action. Vaughn has plenty of other movies to his credit (Layer Cake and Kick Ass) but this is the one he was born to direct, finally melding gangsters with superheroes and coming up with something all his own.

This movie is definitely not fit for grandma, nor for gentlemen. It’s an energetic bloodbath. It’s exuberantly excessive in its ultraviolence, stylishly brutal, an extravagant killfest. And it’s a massacre to which you’ll enjoy having a front-row seat.

50 Shades of #BlueAboutGrey

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Fifty Shades of Grey is a sad testament to the dumbing down of America. The source material was written by a middle-aged woman who read books meant for teenage girls about twinkly vampires. The boy vampire was such an under-aged thrill to her, she started writing erotic fan fiction about him, and other bored housewives were so titillated by her stories that for copyright reasons she changed the Edwards to Christians and before you know it, one underachieving trilogy had spawned another.

It’s garbage. It was embarrassing enough when grown adults read books found in the youth section, but now we’ve got women lining up to glorify an abusive relationship. Because the thing about the sex in 50 Shades of Grey is that it’s not really consensual. She’s a very young girl, and a meek one at that. He’s older than her, and a very powerful man. She’s intimidated, and he’s manipulative. He makes her sign a contract that he of all people knows is meaningless. Meanwhile, he stalks her, plies her with alcohol, and even though she’s constantly expressing doubt and stress, he violates her boundaries to get what he wants.

This is not my opinion, by the way. This is based on scientific research that’s been done in the wake and the fall-out from these books. But even real-life practitioners of BDSM don’t like the book because they feel it depicts an abusive relationship too, and colours their lifestyle negatively. S&M may have a healthy place in some people’s bedrooms, but they insist that this series confuses BDSM with abuse, and uses dangerous techniques. Researchers meanwhile, are concerned about the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the books and movie. The study finds that almost every interaction between the two leads is emotionally abusive in nature, including isolation, sexual violence, and the circumvention of consent. Meanwhile, Ana, the young woman in question, exhibits classic symptoms of an abused woman – the constant perceived threats, the stress, the altered identity. There is no equality in this relationship. We’re talking about a controlling narcissist and a vulnerable, insecure woman. This is the breeding ground of the worst domestic abuse.

Why are real-life women paying to romanticize sexual violence and the emotional abuse of women? Not only is this not a love story, it’s not even “kinky” sex. It’s a bad situation, and if this was your sister or your friend, you would want to get her the fuck out. And the movie? Even worse.

When Christian whales on Ana with a belt until she cries big fat tears of pain and humiliation, finally forcing her to angrily ban such a practise ever again, that’s not romance. RED FLASHING LIGHT: that’s not romance! That’s coercive sex. It’s rapey. It is NOT a date movie and mistaking it for something naughty and fun is dangerous to your own sexual health.

People rushed to theatres on Valentine’s day to see this and were so turned off that the movie suffered the second biggest week-to-week drop ever (only Gigli did worse). But the damage is done. Opening box office was huge. The books have sold in the millions. And the poor theatres screening the movie have had to put up with some really disturbing viewers:

– One woman in Mexico slapped on her own handcuffs and proceeded to masturbate.

– Two women in Scotland got so rowdy and drunk they barfed in the aisles and when they were shushed, they stabbed the shusher with a broken wine bottle.

– In England, a woman was so into the movie she lost control of every last bodily function. Probably made the stabbed dude in Scotland be glad all those women did was puke.

– Foot fetishists in the UK used their own socks to blindfold themselves during the movie. The moans were very disruptive but it was the bad foot odour that lead to the most complaints to management.

These are (I hope) extreme reactions to the movie. But I can’t figure out for the life of me why the reaction is not one of disbelief and disgust. There is nothing sexy to see here (and I don’t just mean the lack of passion reported by people who actually saw it). This isn’t sex. We need to label it correctly and we need to be more responsible about what we as a society consume.

Following

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Everyone has to start somewhere, and for genius director Christopher Nolan, that movie was Following.

Shot in stark, black and white 16mm stock, Nolan sets the stage for a modern film noir (postnoir?). Bill, between jobs, starts following people in the street. He starts out innocuously, restrained by a code of strict rules, but then begins to take risks when a well-groomed man piques his interest. This man, Cobb, confronts him, and soon the two partner up in Cobb’s break-ins. The burglaries are interesting because Cobb seems more interested in learning about and fucking with the lives of his victims than with stealing their stuff. Bill is seduced by this mysterious and glamorous lifestyle and is soon acting without his mentor. This of course leads him down an even more dangerous path of crime. The movie ends abruptly, I felt (I had to check of maybe it was a two-parter), after a quick 70 minutes.

Do you see a lot of Chris Nolan in this film? Initially I thought no. I’m used to his big, cinematic scapes, whereas this movie has a lot of very tight, close shots. But the story is told out of sequence, keeping us off balance, reminding us that we don’t know as much as we think we do – and that non-linear kind of story-telling is, as you know, very Nolan. To attempt this on a first feature, with no budget, took a whole heap of faith. It marked him as a director with a lot of imagination and a meticulousness for details – both of which helped qualify him for his astonishing follow-up, Momento.

He shot Following just on weekends because his actors and crew all had full-time jobs. He used film conservatively to keep costs down and usually only managed to capture about 15 minutes a day. At that rate, it took them a year to film on a no-budget of just $6000. Nolan wrote, directed and filmed his baby, and helped to edit it too. His friends gave up their apartments for locations and his Mum made sandwiches for the cast and crew. This is obviously not his great oeuvre but it does show a confident young man and tonnes of promise. A tidy little movie that still manages to include a cross, a double cross, a tripe cross – maybe this film isn’t quite so far off the Nolan mark as I first thought. The characters are brooding and enigmatic. The look of the film achieves something atmospheric despite the absence of movie lighting. And the over-arching theme of obsession? That’s pretty familiar Nolan territory.

So I suppose we can watch this decent little indie flick and see hints of coming greatness. Certainly it’s a step in the direction of darkness – and Mr. Nolan is known not just for reviving the Batman franchise but for injecting the whole superhero industry with a trend toward darker reboots. He can be demanding of his audience and he can infuriatingly reward us with an ambiguous ending – but isn’t that just the Nolan charm?

What’s your favourite Chris Nolan?

Movies on Airplanes

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Watching a movie on an airplane isn’t exactly optimal viewing conditions. No director plans a scene thinking “But how will this look on a teeny tiny screen located approximately 15 inches from your face?” And putting the volume control on a shared arm rest is just asking for trouble. But you persist, because flights are long and seats are uncomfortable and for the love of god you’ve got to do something to block out the noise coming out of that baby. Of course, you must choose your movie well. I know someone who watched The Grey on a plane: not a wise choice. Weird of the airline, I thought, to even offer it, but apparently it did come with the too-mild warning of “not suitable for nervous fliers.” In The Grey, Liam Neeson barely survives a horrific plane crash only to have his life further threatened by a really spiteful pack of wolves.

Here were by recent choices, for better or worse:

The Skeleton Twins: Estranged siblings played by Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader reconnect after one’s attempted suicide interrupts the other’s. Comedies are good choices for planes and both Wiig and Hader give really strong performances although beware, this one is rife with family drama. They have an ease and charm together that’s really engaging, though the movie does suffer from the worst aspects of SNL – a tendency for a skit to go on way too long. So if you find Bill Hader lip-synching to an 80s power ballad, you’re in it for the full 3m48s and you’ll cringe through every second.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: This one mostly confused me. Sean really liked it and I’m sure a glowing review is imminent. He’s explained to me that this one was basically correcting a crappy previous film, but I struggled to keep up not just with the fast pace, which is appropriately engrossing for a plane ride, but with mutants I wasn’t familiar with interacting with mutants who I was pretty sure had already been killed off. I know this movie is time-warpy and rule-bendy, but does it also have to be a complete mind fuck? I’m suffering from super-hero fatigue (probably have been for at least a decade), but I really liked James McAvoy. And really hated Peter Dinklage, as usual. But the bits where Quicksilver is doing his thing almost make the movie worthwhile on their own – this is Bryan Singer at his best.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: I had the feeling that I’d already seen this family feature like half a dozen times. I’ve never seen this one before, but it feels like a pretty uninspired copy, so you try telling it apart. Lots of horrible\”funny” things happen to a family on what I hope is an atypical day. You know it’s supposed to be funny because Steve Carrell is flailing about on fire, but it doesn’t quite evoke out-loud laughter. I happened to be watching this on the very same day that Carrell would walk the red carpet as an Oscar nominee and it’s kind of nice to see that it hasn’t gone to his head. He’s still making room for bad movies. Well okay, it’s not terrible. It’s horrible and terrible and no good. But it’s also Steve Carrell (and a game Jennifer Garner) doing physical comedy with full gusto. Steve Carrell doing goofball antics just plain goes down easily so while you know this movie is mediocre at most, you just can’t bring yourself to hate it. A pirate accent forgives a lot.