Is America's taste really this bad?

Pirates was a typical bad sequel. Take characters from the first and try to throw in even more stuff and mix.

The first was good because the characters -- especially Jack Sparrow -- were funny and interesting. This one didn't have characters. It had people rushing from one scene to the next.

Cars was much superior, IMHO.

 

You mean the ones that universally praised Memento?

 

You didn't like "Memento" ?

 

I loved Memento. However, there was no inspiring or moral message to the movie. It was just a great story.

 

The movie-going public are like zombies. They go see movies because they think they have to. Anything with Star Wars, Star Trek or Harry Potter in the title or Keanu Reeves in the cast, they line up like cattle and go see, even though they're horrible movies. Sequels are the same way. You think people would learn by now.

 

There's a HBO half documentary, half -puff piece called "Boffo".

They interview various Hollywood types--Clooney, Jodie Foster, Danny DeVito and some high profile directors and producers. The question is simple. "What makes for a commercially and critically successful  movie"?

Of course, there's no formula but someone said, "You can make a bad movie even if you have a good script but you can never make a good movie with a bad script".

They all generally agreed with William Goldman's famous "Nobody knows nothing".

 

Amen. My SO and I saw it, and both came away with the same reaction, all this was was a setup for next summer's movie.

 

Ditto. This movie was BORING! Johnny Depp was one of the few redeeming qualities - slightly amusing at times.

 

Johnny Depp was the ONLY redeeming quality in the first movie. Once again he singlehandedly makes a movie successful when it had no business making it past the second weekend.

It's ironic that the Disney suits were scared shitless of his portrayal of the character.

 

Dead Man's Chest was a wretched, steaming pile of crap. I took my 9-year-old son to see it, and I've got to say, he's coming up with far more interesting plots with the Pirates toys his friends game him for his birthday than anything I saw on screen. Not saying my son is a budding genius. It's just that he's actually coming up with a story, which is more than I can say for Dead Man's Chest. It was just rushing from situation to situation for no plausible reason, other than that's what the script said. And then to spend three fucking hours for it to be a SET-UP for the next movie? How about you edit like hell and just come up with a story that has a beginning, middle and end? At least when Johnny Depp is onscreen things can get semi-interesting -- the scenes revolving around anyone else are death.

Never have I checked the clock on my cell as much as I have during Dead Man's Chest. Now that's the sort of hype quote I want to see in a movie ad: "Never have I checked the clock on my cell as much as I have during Dead Man's Chest!!!" -- Bob Cook

 

i believe it's called "tinseltown." very well done.

 

Agreed. Lots of good folks.

FWIW, William Goldman is great. His books on Hollywood and screen writing are worth checking out.