Saturday, September 19th, 2009: International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Arr me hardies! I hope the massive consumption of grog, raping and pillaging of International Talk Like A Pirate Day hasn't completely exhausted your impulse to be an angry riotous group. What I mean by this is, I keep trying to take up for The Walt Disney Company. Because of them we have Pixar, we have Miramax's money supply, and we have American distribution of Studio Ghibli films. Still, the bastardry went a little too far late last night, when on the eve of ILAP, Disney told the man responsible for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise to walk the plank, or in more precise terms, the Los Angeles Times reports that Disney chairman Dick Cook was fired last night with an immediate impact being seen as Johnny Depp gave an interview showing his concerns and doubts on going forward with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides without Cook's involvement with the company. To put out the largest swashbuckling film franchise on the holy day might as well been the equivalent of allowing Mickey Mouse to defecate on any of the religious relics found sacred to The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Just terrible.

Before I get angrier at Disney's mockery of the one day we can truly reach out to people in hopes of them being touched by thine noodly appendage, and despite the fact that instead of any real rape or adventurin', I was reduced to daydreams of swords, busty wenches, barrels of rum and battling mythical sea monsters while writing twenty pages of notes on barbiturate abuse. Still, I can further slip into the imaginary fantasy via a few clips of great pirates in cinematic history. First, is the great sword fight/fencing scene from the 1935 Errol Flynn vehicle, Captain Blood. Next, I included a rather inappropriate clip of bad acting from the first big budget porn, the swashbuckling hardcore Pirates. Lastly, I'll end with all of our favorite movie pirate... the Dread Pirate Roberts, and his battle of wits against the Great Vizzini. Also, as a bonus, here's a link to the LastFM page featuring the best pirate of song of all time, The Sex Pistols' "Friggin' in the Rigging".




P.S. I know it breaks the entire piratey theme, but Mania has an article arguing to whom should be cast in the beloved role of Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro's The Hobbit adaptation. It will give you enough reason to bitch for the next week or so. David Tennant and Martin Freeman are feasible by the way. Maybe not right, but feasible.