Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Saw it with those glasses in 3D in our top modern 'Old Cow House' cinema theatre last saturday eve. Didn't go on wednesday when they had the world premier because 'Game of Thrones' - three episodes - came from Canals and I wanted to see that, too. I have spectacles and the other glasses on top of them are inconvenient, but  not unbearable. They should have a model developed for spectacled customers.

The 3D was not so impressive as I had heard: swords strike straight out of the canvas and ships sail to the auditorium! No. It was quite usual and the only really titillating feature was how mist and smoke drifted out of the picture. Wonder how it would work in a snowstorm...

The movie was full of everything: different places, crowds of people in different groups, all happening in chaotic way... In the beginning - London - it was interesting. The audience with the king and Sparrows escape with finally landing on Judy Dench's bosom in a carriage got me laughing out loud. Sparrow meeting his father was even conversational, a slower  moment in between, but then it got to running and jumping... The dark interiors and steadily same kind of camera-work are not so interesting... With a quite expensive picture like this one might expect some ambition - other than 3D - in cinematography and lighting, but no - same movements and same cuts follow and give the same stuffy impression of everything. F ex by lighting the faces differently in different pictures due to fire or some explosion or just swinging lamp would give depth and insight to the characters... Now everything is up to make-up and clothes! And acting of course - but even that seems to be somehow monotonous and recurrent. And this is of Jack Sparrow and the girl Angelica, Penelope Cruz and Johnny Depp - one might expect nuances, not just large scale...

And then the fighting with swords in hand - they are not sword-fights, no. They are messy bits and pieces with no real choreography - and that is needed if a fight is supposed to work like a fight. It is the same as with space -  how do you perceive a space containing different rooms and floors? It is easy only when you know how to do it, otherwise it is just making a mess...

Well a deck of a ship is a deck of a ship. Blackbeard is a new character - with some strange powers -  and daughter Angelica. B needs the fountain of youth as do many others, too many. It might be interesting to follow one or two parties galloping to the fountain, but three... Everything is kind of rhythmless rampage from one complex surrounding to another - must have given work to many, really, if one tries to find good points!

Of course they find the fountain, all parties find it, and then there is fight and destruction and spectacular stuff... but sadly it is not interesting... except the old lighthouse...  There are the nicely made mermaids that have vicious appetite, and there is the pure, innocent priest, and the love between the priest and Syrena mermaid who'll cry of joy and thus provide the tear needed for the ritual...

I truly like Johnny Depp - he has an expressive face and a lot of energy. I like Penelope Cruz - she is passionate and soft at the same time. And Ian McShane is wonderfully exhilarating! But it is just too much...

I don't think I want to see the next Pirates.... neither normal nor 3D...

passing

I don't really like flying.   I like stenches and scents,  train stations and trains, places where people are forced to stay and wait.

All stations have the same smell: old cold piss and detergents. Before there also was the scent of diesel, metallic and strong, but no more. Electricity is kind of faceless. No character. Just some oil and vaseline.

And the voices, sounds, all of it: people, machines, echoes, pigeons. You sit there somewhere with a coffee and close your eyes. Somewhere. Anywhere. A woman laughing. Some boys heating each other. A fay man screaming and a child running away after a sparrow.  Everywhere, too, there are the birds inside the buildings, station halls.

And the announcements echo... You can just and just figure out the message, half guessing: departure of a train is due in...  People are rushing to the platform and others rush out of the train towards the station and taxis, underground and trams. Or just to get an ice cream from a kiosk.

Thousands of people. Every day. Each with a life, coming from somewhere and going somewhere, with a goal or just aimlessly wandering - amazing puzzle of life... never ending kaleidoscope...