By Peter Celauro
A&E Editor
“Arrrgh! Board the ship, ye scalliwags, ‘ere I’m forced to see this movie all by me onesies!”
Maybe it was the poor pirate accent and eye patch. Or maybe it was the fact that my “ship” was actually a white 1995 Chrysler minivan. But whatever it was that kept my friends from following my orders and hopping into the car with me for my fourth viewing of “Pirates of the Caribbean” this summer, it also awoke in me a startling realization: unlike them, I never grew up.
The symptoms have always been there. At 14, I endured endless ridicule as the only eighth-grader who still ate Play-Doh when nobody was looking. As a high school sophomore, I was the only one whose stuffed animals never quite made the move from the bed to their swingin’ bachelor pad in the closet. I’m the guy who can’t help but giggle when Pooh bear comes on television, who will always choose an orange crayon over a black pen, who’d invite Muppets to his birthday party instead of models any day.
It wasn’t until this year, though, that the problem got too big to ignore. In a year when two “Matrix” movies, two “Lord of the Rings” movies, a new “Terminator,” a flick about S.W.A.T. teams and another “Charlie’s Angels” should be enough to keep any self-respecting male entertained for months, Disney went ahead and blew the roof off the box-office. “Finding Nemo,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Freaky Friday” took the nation by storm, raked in a combined $698.6 million and knocked me on my Hilary-loving duff.
But who can blame me? “Nemo” was just one more sign that Pixar can’t miss, with an exciting script, hilarious dialogue and characters, and an environment more colorful than the language in a Tarantino film.
And the triumph of “Pirates of the Caribbean” shouldn’t surprise anyone, either. Not only did it feature Johnny Depp in a role that was practically tailor-made for him, it was also about pirates, meaning that by its very nature it must involve swordplay, wordplay, horseplay and general rope-swinging, swash-buckling silliness — the recipe for movie success in anybody’s book.
Then, last but not least, there was “Freaky Friday.” Having bought a ticket purely to feed my unhealthy fixation with Lindsay Lohan, I was surprised to find that the remake was well-written, well-acted and hilarious. Jamie Lee Curtis performs brilliantly as Tess Coleman, mother of the young Anna Coleman (Lohan), and the interaction between the two is both touching and entertaining. (It didn’t hurt that Lohan’s character was a misunderstood female teenage rock star, a demographic of which I’ve always longed to be a part).
Maybe it’s not my childishness, after all. There’s certainly something to be said for quality, family-friendly films that can entertain everyone. Where most of the major film companies are trying to rake in box-office dollars with an alarming kill count, a more erotic sex scene or more footage of a yellow Hummer, Disney took the high road and made movies that bank on three time-tested Hollywood gimmicks: excitement, humor and warm fuzzies. (Well, “Pirates” also banked heavily on Keira Knightley’s cleavage, but nobody’s really complaining).
In the end, you may not eat Flintstones vitamins, use Elmo toothpaste or wear pajamas with a detachable Velcro cape. But that doesn’t mean you can’t love these movies as much as I did. You must admit, after a Hollywood year like this, it’s refreshing to see a movie that isn’t about an army of evil clones bent on world domination and complete annihilation of the human race.
Not sure exactly which of this year’s blockbusters I’m talking about? Me neither … but I think that’s the point.
September 11, 2003
