On Stranger Tides — Jolly Sailor Bold

Tim Powers was kind enough to send me a note of congratulations when I entered the bosom of the Catholic Church.

In return for his favor, I would like to do him the courtesy of recommending the movie PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN ON STRANGER TIDES.

If you squint at the film just right, you will see appear momentarily his name in the credits, something like: “Inspired by an idea vaguely related indirectly to a dream I once had about a book called ON STRANGER TIDES by Tim Powers, and basically we just wanted to use a cool name for a movie based on a Disneyland ride.”

I think Tim Powers gets a nickle each time the film is shown, so rush right out, watch it twice, or better yet, go buy some of his books.

Well, I liked the movie, because, when it comes to movies, I am easy to please. (I was secretly rooting for the Spaniards, dontchyaknow).

As long as the film makers do not insult my comfortably modest intelligence, and they include a few fistfights, swords duels, gunfights and dogfights, a tapdance scene, a duel between submarines, at least one prehistorical monster, a species-creating monolith from beyond the stars, a talking llama, a robot, a gorilla, and if a startling new insight into the human condition for me to ponder is expressed in terms memorable and elegant, and the guy gets the girl at the end, I am happy.

Actually, I have never seen nor heard of a movie that had all those things in it. So never mind: I am impossible to please. What stupid standards I have. If only I eliminated the requirement for a tapdance and a space monolith, and the talking llama, my taste would be broader.

My new standard is that any movie with pirates, mermaids, ninja, and a mystical fountain of youth is all right by me. This one has three of the requirements. And there is a song!

In this scene some evil pirates are set out as bait by some more evil pirates in order to attract some evil mermaids, whose tears are needed by very evil pirate (being helped by a somewhat evil pirate and being hunted by a medium evil pirate) to unlock the secret of the Fountain of Youth, being sought at the same time by an evil-looking Spaniard in order to stop the ambitions of the evil Monarch of England, ruled at that time by one of the Dursleys, a muggle. Got it? The only guy clearly and unambiguously good in this film is a man of the cloth. How that one slipped by the censor, I don’t know.
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