Ow, my head.

So the Lovely Emily arrived chez Cleo at about 6:30; we wolfed down a couple of small steaks and headed out to the Rave a touch before seven. Keep in mind, the movie was to be at 8:30. That's okay; we'll pick up our preordered tickets and just hang out in various parking lots until we see a mass exodus of cars from the 5:00 showing.

A little after seven, we hit the Publix soda fountain for carryout drinks. We fill the cups about 3/4 full.

Back in the car, I fish a soda bottle of Cuban rum out of my purse and we spike the Cokes.

We're a little bit drunk by 7:40.

At 7:45, I suggest that we try circling the Rave parking deck one more time, and we snag a prime spot right at the front of the lower level.

A little before eight, there's two major masses of people: one on the right side of the building, where the Pirates theaters are, and one great giant morass in front of concessions. This latter is the ravening horde, and they all want the Captain Jack Combo Deal: two giant Cokes (in commemorative tumblers) and a massive bucket of popcorn. You think I mean "bucket" like "cardboard tub." You, my friend, are wrong. This is a plastic bucket, and it has a handle. You could go trick-or-treating with it.

I get in line for one (1) frozen Coke that we are going to split, as we sometimes do. Em gets into the line to get into the other half of the theater.

A few eons later, the woman in front of me finally herds her children off (register total: $29.50), and I get my one (1) frozen Coke.

We have some rum left in the soda bottle. A good bit, actually--probably about two shots' worth. Em masterminds a complex maneuver in which I hold the frozen Coke below seat level and she pours the rest of the rum in. Anyone making "But why is all the rum gone?!" jokes will get a taste of the cat.

We each make quick runs to the restroom, since it's not even 8:30 yet. And then I come back, and... there's a man sitting in the once-empty seat next to mine, the sole empty seat between the two of us and another group of people. The theater's getting packed; this isn't surprising. What does surprise me is that this man, by my conservative estimate, weighs four hundred pounds. Now, mind you, I'm no Kate Moss. But this man has claimed both the armrests for Spain and a little bit of my seat as well. Em offers to raise the armrests between our seats, but that's the rumrest, thank you very much, and I am not going to let this man cadge my seat. So I settle in and make him share the armrest with me, and if he doesn't like full-arm body contact, that's his problem.

He begins to snore.

Seriously, this man is 400 pounds of What the Fuck. He already reeks; now he's snoring. He continues to snore through the previews and the first ten minutes or so of the movie. "Conditions on pirate ships," I lean over and mutter to Em, "were often hot, crowded, and smelly. But there was always plenty of rum."

After the first ten minutes of the movie, the man gets up and never comes back, apparently having woken up and realized he wasn't in his recliner at home.

The movie itself: good times. I walked out a little shellshocked from the sheer hectic noise, but I spent most of the movie with my hand clapped over my mouth, which is also a good sign. Also, we, by which I mean "I," did the Kraken Dance every time it showed up. It's funny--without actually having the movie spoiled for me blow-by-blow, I'd heard a ton of criticisms that didn't make any sense to me once I actually saw the movie. I didn't think there was too much kraken (well, I wouldn't, would I?), because each time there was a little bit more. I didn't think the beginning was slow, although I could have lived without Jack's Fruit Kabob; I do think there was a lot of very hectic action that could have been trimmed to make the scenes feel cleaner, making the craziness of that second island, the one with the chest and the hamster wheel, that much wilder in comparison. But I didn't feel like they spent too much time on Pelegosto in general.

And I didn't really see the cannibals as being racist, because there were plenty of other black characters, such as the sailors with Will on his first ship, who weren't... well, cartoonish cannibals. I thought the cannibals were more like something out of Looney Tunes, precisely because they didn't seem like anything real; if you think they're an offensive stereotype, that's valid and your prerogative and all that, but I didn't, because I didn't think of them being a stereotype of anything. Of course, I'm a little white girl, so I admit freely that maybe I'm not the one who can judge whether that's offensive or not.

And maybe because I've just seen the first movie fairly recently--I really didn't think Jack was any mincier than previously. In fact, I think the mincing is a bit more pronounced in the first half of the first movie--it's more deliberate and drawn-out, certainly. I see where people are getting the thing about jokes/throwbacks to the first movie being tiresome, but they didn't bother me. Orlando Bloom is actually pretty good in this movie; shouting orders seems to suit him. Elizabeth was sort of unusually hot and bothered, but all right--I was startled when she basically tried to jump Will through the prison bars. She was kind of shrieky, but I love Keira and she's got enough comic timing to pull off a lot of that ("Stop! STOP! THIS IS MADNESS!," etc.). I'm really excited about Geoffrey Rush coming back, though.

I sound like I'm focusing on fairly picky things, but that's partly because I'm tired, I've got stepfamily on the way over, and the rest of the movie was a blur of awesome. I mean, just the three-pirates-two-swords thing going on in the middle of the hamster-wheel fight was amazing. I probably won't get to see it again until next weekend, sadly.

Off to grab some lunch before family gets here.

Tags: pirates of the caribbean