Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: "On Stranger Tides"

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is the return of Johnny Depp as "Captain Jack Sparrow" in an action packed film. Captain Jack not only crosses paths with Angelica (played by Penelope Cruz) but is tricked by her and becomes a shipmate on "Queen Anne's Revenge" only to find out it is run by zombies and the infamous "Blackbeard" who is played by Ian McShane. 

They set out to find the fountain of youth because of a prophecy that Blackbeard will die at the hands of a one legged man. In order to defeat his death, he must find the fountain of youth and not only drink from it, but also have added the tear of a mermaid to the water. Of course they set out to capture a mermaid who are beautiful creatures, but man eaters.

The one legged man in this story is none other than Captain Barbossa played by Geoffrey Rush. Barbossa is out for vengeance and eventually teams up with Captain Jack to betray Blackbeard.

In the meantime there is a great deal of sexual tension between Captain Jack and Angelica. The two have a history and the movie reveals a little about Angelica being corrupted by Jack when she was in a convent and he stumbled across her thinking it was a brothel.

Throughout the movie, Captain Jack is fooled by the con artist and sometimes ruthless Angelica. However, it is obvious that Captain Jack has feelings for her. Captain Jack admits to Joshamee Gibbs "I think I have stirrings for her." Gibbs then says "Stirrings for her? you mean feelings." No says Jack "almost feelings." Gibbs was the character that plays Jack's first shipmate in previous films.

There are new faces besides Penelope Cruz in the movie. Sam Claffin plays "Phillip" in the movie, a young bible thumping lad who was abducted by Blackbeard. He is kept around solely for his connection with God and per the pleading of Angelica, who has convinced Blackbeard that she is his daughter and wants to save his soul.

There is twist in the ending and some unfinished business that leaves the audience wondering.

Dineen thoughts:

The movie definitely has action as much as the first three movies of the series. Captain Jack is still the funny, awkward, ornery character he is in the past films. He is well known for his short humorous anecdotes throughout the movie. In this particular film there are a lot of sexual innuendos but tastefully done and very subtle because the children in the audience did not seem to catch on to them.

The die hard fans of the series of Pirates of the Caribbean, may miss the presence of Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley but the newbies Penelope Cruz and Sam Claffin do an okay job. I was not particularly impressed with Penelope Cruz's acting, luckily she did not have a great deal of speaking parts.

Captain Jack still steals the show and a close second is Captain Barbosa played by Geoffrey Rush. Rush did an excellent job of portraying a pirate sold out to the "Parliament." He pretends to be proper and there were funny scenes of him drinking tea with unclean hands and dirty long fingernails, and adorning the wig of a Parliament official on his head.

I did not understand the role of the zombies in the film. They did not say how they became zombies and how at times they seemed very, well not like zombies. Even though there was an ending there were unanswered questions that were not addressed. I am sure they did this on purpose to set the stage for the next film

I am a fan of all the Pirates of the Caribbean series and will buy this one to add to my collection. This was a good movie but not great movie. It was entertaining and had a great deal of action but it was lacking something, and I just can't put my finger on it. I just wasn't on the edge of my seat as I was with the first three in the series.

My daughter is a diehard fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean and she said "I can not have a favorite,Disney goes all out in every one of these movies, how can you even try to compare them."

Carla’s Input:

I did not start out as a Pirates fan. However, with the insistence of our son encouraging us to give it a chance, it does have a way of growing on a person. Viewing the first three, The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, and At World’s End, repeatedly, seems to condition your brain to expect even more from the fourth, On Stranger Tides.

Johnny Depp has been in some 45 movies in his lifetime. He was born in Owensboro Kentucky in 1963. His parents divorced when he was 16. He did not seek his fame in the movies. In fact he wanted to be in a band and make music. Unfortunately drugs and alcohol became too much for Depp to handle. Depp went through multiple relationships. He did marry and have two children. Unfortunately the marriage didn’t last. Depp’s first wife introduced actor Nicolas Cage, to him, Cage encourage Depp to get more involved in acting. In 1987 Depp stared in a television series 21 Jump Street. But Depp was quoted saying he felt, “forced into the role of product.” He vowed then to only make movies.

On Stranger Tides, Depp does remarkably well. With the last Pirates back in ’07, he was still to keep the charterer of Captain Jack Sparrow full of energy and wit. His hair is not quite the same, but that I think can be overlooked.

For the audience that thrives on the mysteries and action of the Pirates of the Caribbean, I think it will fill the need of swords and action for all ages. Well, PG-13 ages anyway. There are many that share the excitement of sequels and like to add on to their future collections of movies, this will be a good addition. If the trend of Pirates continues, I think it will continue to be a success, provided that Johnny Depp is always the star roll.

It was interesting how the actor that portrays the Christian man Philip (Sam Claflin) was worked into the film. He was disregarded as human, treated very poorly, even to the point of being abused, yet he still held on to his faith. Even the mermaid Syrena (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) saw something special in him. Regarding the Syrena and Philip, it’s really hard to analyze their relationship. They seem to have a deep care for one another. Yet, in parts of the film that trust is seemingly broken. When it come to the end it’s hard to say what the actual fate of Philip. Is it a good thing he went or did Philip get manipulated and killed by Syrena.

I would like to have given more positive feedback regarding the actress Penélope Cruz, but it was so difficult to pick out the English in such a strong accent it made her charterer get kind of lost. As far as Captain Sparrow I think his work in the film will be remember as yet another great acting position.

Other characters such as Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), I felt were a bit weak. I am glad however that the actress Keira Knightley, is not in this film. Her acting might be good in other films but in the Pirates, it’s just, bad. Her acting is just too flighty and not realistic.

When the movie comes out on DVD I will buy it and watch it repeatedly. Our youngest son says he’s looking forward to viewing it again, as sure as all our kids will do likewise.

Looking back and comparing it to now, I hope the series will continue. This movie, On Stranger Tides is a great film for teens and up. In conclusion I have to say, it is remarkable to see the variety of acting talent in Johnny Depp. We have since purchased other films he has performed in and have yet to be disappointed. I'm glad the Mr. Cage encouraged him to move to the acting career.
One final note; stay for the entire movie all the way to the end of the credits, you might like it, you might not.

Reviewing Print Edition Versus Online; The Gazette Times

In reviewing the printed edition of the May 6, 2011, Corvallis Gazette-Times we found the focus to be too much on national news and not enough on local news.

The front page had one article of global news, nationwide news and a local news story. The front page photographs while not exciting, were nicely done. The captions were informative. The use of color in the front page snippets that directed you to other stories in the paper was nice.

There are six main sections; Front page, Community & Northwest, Business, Opinion, Sports, and Classified. This paper is very standardized nothing out of the ordinary. 

The second and third pages of the newspaper were organized with each page having nationwide and local news. There was not a great deal of annoying advertisements, which was pleasing. We liked that there was a "Crime Watch," area inside of the first page. Included was the daily comics and Sudoku puzzle, enjoyed by many.

On page five, the "In Business Section" was a nice color photo showing a new local business.

The three sections that were allowed color photos were the first page, In Business, and Sports section. While there wasn't a huge amount of photos, the ones displayed seemed appropriate to the story. We would have like to see more cropped up close shots instead of overall pictures.

Throughout the paper there were short and long well written articles. We felt the long articles could have trimmed some of the context and placed it in an "At a Glance."

A total of 20 advertisements were placed in the paper, not including the basic classified "make money type of ads." The advertisements were all in black and not very impressive. The ads varied from Psychic Reader, Permanent Makeup, National Guard, Insurance, Fitness center, Good Samaritan, to Landscaping and only two ads had discount coupons attached.

We believe the target demographics of the Gazette-Times to be the age group of 40 and older.The news articles were not of interest for younger people. There were articles that were nationally based, I did not find a great deal of articles about the internet which might have drawn a younger crowd. It seemed like the paper could use some fresh new young writers.

We did not find any stereotypical articles or offensive articles. The ads on the pages did not always fit the articles on most pages. For example, we weren't sure how an ad for a Psychic reading fit in to the section, "Daybreak."

The next review we did was the online version of the Gazette-Times. At first glance, the click through ads jumped out more than the online articles. It was not as organized as we would like it to be, it seemed as though they were just trying to fill in space. Also, we could not find a place to look for previous papers, or maneuver around the current day. It took awhile to figure out how to use the advance settings.When using the advance setting to search for previous papers by date what would appear were singular articles instead of the front page of the original version.

While some articles showed a singular website , you have to cut and paste to get there. Has anyone taught them how to use links? A couple of pages had sponsored links if you scrolled completely down to the bottom of the page. However, there were not any in the content of the story.

When we found an "At a Glance" it was positioned in a bad place on the article. For example, in an article on tornados, the At A Glance was on the left side and in a very large text box. It swallowed up the regular article.

Of course, since this was online, color photos were throughout and much better. There were stories in the on-line version that were not in the paper version, they came from a different source but were much more interesting.

Dineens thought:

I feel like the paper version of the Gazette-Times is just another newspaper. Unfortunately, it does not do anything special to make it appear any different from the standardized paper. The colored photo's are good, would love to see more. I would also read it more if it had more local stories.

I would have like to see the local human interest story on the front page. It was an article about a little boy named Mason with cancer, and the community race to raise money to help with his medical costs. The Philomath Sunday Market story could have been put on page three it wasn't as important.

The internet version needs some serious work. Has anyone been trained in the art of digital journalism at the Gazette?

The Gazette needs links within its stories, the streamlined stories coming from other places should not be more interesting than the stories in its own paper. One should be able to access the full previous paper more easily.

I feel as if the editors are "old school." If they wish to keep up with the new age of journalism they should have a crew that specializes in the online version. I almost have the urge to send them a copy of Jeff Jarvis's book "What Would Google Do?"

Although this assignment was difficult, it gave me a chance to really see the differences between print and online addition newspapers. 

Carla's thought: When looking at the sports pages I felt it was stating, don't mess with the sports page! Because there was only two real advertisements on the pages. One area of advertising is very surprising, most advertisements are located in the front sections. The sports only had two outside advertisements on it. 

It seems very odd that the GT puts on their web page; to refer to the actual newspaper. Instead of the paper encouraging the reader to go the internet for more information.

The editor must be a huge sports fan. Of all the information for sports took four pages. 

I would prefer the paper version because if I want to go back on an article I can get it. If I try on the internet site, its almost impossible to find. Even searching for stories they don't always come up. 

I would be more inclined to by the paper version if more local news was printed.

Internet version has the stories, people are able to comment on each article, they are kept up to date. Paper version is in your hand and its organized, and you can easily go back and reread if you desire. The disadvantage would be its not totally current.
It hard to say which audience is best served by way of internet or paper, I suppose it would depend if a person was an online style reader.

I felt like I did take away some new information from this assignment. Comparing of other online papers to the GT. Another is how much the I appreciate the written version. It would be great if the online version of the newspaper was set up like the paper version.

THE GODFATHER OF THE BAKING WORLD...THE CAKE BOSS

Video one gives you an insight into the characters of the show Cake Boss .

Italian baker Buddy Valastro is one of the best cake artists in the United States. He is also the Master Baker of Carlo's City Hall Bake Shop in Hoboken, New Jersey; he has earned the nickname "Cake Boss."

His series Cake Boss is a reality show about the everyday drama of running a thriving bakery as well as supervising his whole very Italian family. Everyone works in the bakery including his mother, four older sisters and three brothers-in-law. They are loud, obnoxious, and loving family.

In this segment Buddy, aka the "Cake Boss," has a 100th anniversary cake-off. Because there is a great deal of competitiveness in the bakery, he decides to have a cake-off with three bakers from his bakery. However, all three are family members, his brothers-in-law Mauro Castano, Joe Faugno, and Remey.

Buddy's brother-in-law "Remey," wins the bake off. He built two cake buildings that were replicas of the bakery in its original location and the present bakery in its new location. The cake was used to showcase the 100th anniversary of the bakery.

During the show the commercials that aired were family oriented ads like Disney Land and pet commercials.We believe their target audience to be 35 and above and family oriented. 

This show definitely had all the patterns of most reality shows. It had drama, and colorful characters, "each one had a personality almost everyone can relate to." It also portrayed the every day struggles of running a small business in America.

Other countries may find this show interesting and wonder if all the families in America are so loud mouthed.

Dineen's thought: I love this show. I am from a large Italian East Coast family. The everyday competition and drama that occurs in the bakery reminds me of my childhood. I have three big mouth sisters and three brothers who were always competing in sports, school, you name it. Like the show my family had two volumes, loud and louder.

Carla's opinion:Having owned my own bakery business, the stress of baking and decorating cakes is no stranger to me. The predicament of having a time crunch is especially memorable.The “Bake Off” idea I thought was fantastic. It puts the fun back into competition.

Toward the end when the competitors had to move their cake to the judging room, it brought back memories of close-call cake dumps and a real one. In most of the episodes the cakes are transported as one unit. This is the most difficult way of transporting.  The recipe they use must be some style of a pound cake,  or they are freezing them.

We both agreed that this show works because of the stereotypes of the Italian family down to the intense fights, the flying hands (Italians tend to talk with their hands.) This is a comical rendition of a mafia family set in a bakery. Even though at times is seems like certain scenes are staged.

For a great laugh and amazing views of the most artistic designed cakes, everyone should see this show at least once! The Cake Boss airs on TLC Mondays at 9 pm/ 8 pm Central time.

My one warning, at the end of the show you will find yourself driving to the store, for some reason you will be craving cake.

The critics on the "Common Sense Media" warned parents about the obnoxious loud nature of the people on the show. However, there are real families like this one, so I am not sure shielding children from loud people is good advice.



The critics have called it an "okay show that hasn't perfected its recipe yet." We feel perhaps the critics should work on their really bad puns.