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Now in our eleventh calendar year!
PCR #514 (Vol. 11, No. 5). This edition is for the week of January 25--31, 2010.

MOVIE REVIEW
"Edge of Darkness"  by Mike Smith
RETRORAMA
Forgotten Horrors: Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things  by ED Tucker
THE AUDIO PHILES
January Albums  by Terence Nuzum
FANGRRL
Ahoy! Pirates In Pop Culture  by Lisa Scherer
THE ASIAN APERTURE
Curse of Japanese Toy Shopping  by Jason Fetters
LAMPIN' @ THE 6TH BOROUGH
I Love St. Pete @ ARTpool  by John Miller
MIKE'S RANT
Love Is... .... Movie Notes .... Passing On .... .... .... .... .... .... Mike's Record Shelf o  by Mike Smith
FANGRRL by Lisa Scherer

Ahoy! Pirates In Pop Culture

Arrrrgh. I don’t like pirates.

I know that it’s sacriligious for a Tampa resident to say that on the eve of Gasparilla, but it’s true. Historically-faithful tales of bloody, brutal piratical adventures don’t interest me. Cutesy, cuddly, sappy swashbucklers annoy me. And turning real-life vicious, seafaring, murderous thieves into romanticized, sanitized, family-friendly, fashionable heroes?? Well, that just pisses me off.


Bilge-Sucking Blaggards That Should Be Forced To Walk The Plank:

**Cutthroat Island – The 1995 big-budget abomination with Geena Davis (and her big teeth) that had big plot holes and was a big waste of my time.

**Stupid, crazy drunks who will do just about anything for Gasparilla parade beads.

**Muppet Treasure Island Sigh.

**Batman:Leatherwing Batman as a pirate? Keelhaul that, buckos.

**The ghost pirate episode of Scooby Doo.

**Pirate re-enactors – People who are even geekier than Trekkers.

**Having to read Robinson Crusoe in high school.

**Hook -- Robin Williams as Peter Pan, Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook. Ugh. This movie belongs in Never Watch Again Land.


Well, Shiver Me Timbers!

Despite my irrational yet immovable dislike of all things pirate-y, I will admit to loving the following:

**The Princess Bride – A swashbuckling fairy tale with a beautiful princess, a wicked prince, giants, swordfights, haunted forests, shrieking eels and the Dread Pirate Roberts. One of my top ten favorite movies of all time.

**Eating at Long John Silver’s. Yeah, ok, and wearing the hat too.

**The Pirate Movie – Yep, I’m talking about the 1982 musical with Kristy McNichol and Christopher Atkins. The only defense I have is that I was 12 years old at the time.

**The Veggie Tales’ The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything song. Haven’t seen the movie yet, but I know every word of the “Silly Song” (which mentions Tampa, if that makes it any less pathetic).

**Captain Memo’s Original Pirate Cruise in Clearwater. I did one of the half-day cruises several years ago and enjoyed it immensely.

**Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Johnny Depp -- yo ho ho.


On The Lookout From The Crow’s Nest

I can’t hate ‘em or love ‘em because I don’t know much about ‘em:

**Hammer’s pirate films from the early 60s: Pirates of Blood River, Night Creatures, The Scarlet Blade and The Devil Ship Pirates. Hammer pirate movies!!

**Michael Crichton’s posthumous novel Pirate Latitudes, a tale of 17th century pillage, plundering and debauchery, the film rights to which have already been purchased by Steven Spielberg.

**The Ice Pirates (1984) is both a pirate spoof and a space pirate movie. Sweet.

**Buccaneer’s Girl and Sea Devils with Yvonne DeCarlo. For future Schlock reviews, of course.

** International Scurvy Awareness Day -- Aye, matey.

**The Island -- both the novel by Peter Benchley and the 1980 film with Michael Caine.


That’s all for now from this landlubber.


"FANGRRL" is ©2010 by Lisa Scherer.   All graphics, except where otherwise noted, are creations of Nolan B. Canova.  All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2010 by Nolan B. Canova.