Ahoy, me hearties... 9 days to go: Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (trailers): Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides -Official trailer #1:
http://youtu.be/KR_9A-cUEJc



Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides -Official trailer #2:
http://youtu.be/wukFJEvke7E

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, starring Johnny Depp,Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane (as Blackbeard -her father) and Geoffrey Rush (as Barbarossa). Jerry Bruckheimer Films in association with Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Rob Marshall, opens in the U.S. on Friday May 20th.

The official YouTube Channel for the fourth film in the Pirates series is easily THE single best-designed media promotional resource for a film I've ever seen, and could well become the industry template for all future blockbuster releases, as they've literally thought of everything a fan could want to see or know, inc. Twitter updates from producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

The videos are set to run automatically, so all you have to do is go to the URL and watch the various ways that Rob Marshall, Jerry Bruckheimer & Co., the Mouse House, and the Lego folks combine to find ways to entertain you.

It's damn impressive and shows what can happen when you have so many smart and savvy people who want to give the consumer a value for his entertainment dollar.
If this YouTube Channel doesn't persuade you to see the film, nothing will.
http://www.youtube.com/user/disneypirates


The Jack Sparrow escape scene -by chandelier!- was filmed in Greenwich's Old Royal Naval College.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1316457/Pirates-Caribbean-River-Thames-Johnny-Depp-films-London.html

And before you ask via email from your corner of the world, far from the ocean-side city I live in, no, the fountain of youth is NOT located here in Hallandale Beach, otherwise, things here would be very, very different -better!




First Day of Filming - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
http://youtu.be/RWrCvlsjzTk

From the genius that was Walt Disney!



From Disneyland to the Big Screen - An exclusive look at Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides http://youtu.be/iB_WP4fwGow

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Jack Sparrow (feat. Michael Bolton)http://youtu.be/GI6CfKcMhjY

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Wow!
The Peter Mountain/Disney Enterprises photo of Penelope in costume in this LA Times story, which I hadn't seen anywhere else before, is just AMAZING!

Los Angeles Times
The Actors: A seagoing Cruz's adventurous turn Penélope Cruz plays a take-charge swashbuckler in the latest installment of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' franchise.

By Steven Zeitchik, Los Angeles Times
May 1, 2011

Penélope Cruz has won an Oscar, worked with such famed directors as Woody Allen and Pedro Almodóvar and counts Tom Cruise and Daniel Day-Lewis among her famed costars. But in a roughly 15-year career spanning two continents, the Spanish actress had never tackled a particular acting challenge: swashbuckling on a pirate ship.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-penelope-cruz-20110501,0,5154439.story

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Fandamonium - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
http://youtu.be/3OeASbdbGhE




World Premiere - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Disneyland, Anaheim, California, May 7, 2011.
http://youtu.be/kHpMd-hx3S8

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Los Angeles Times
Disneyland prepares for the 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' premiere A 3-D screen on Tom Sawyer Island, food for 2,000 people, musical acts — it takes a seaworthy crew.

By Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times
May 6, 2011

For the last few weeks, after Disneyland has closed its gates for the night, a team of workers, including eight divers, has labored through into the morning in Frontierland and New Orleans Square, ferrying building materials to Tom Sawyer Island and sinking support structures into the floor of the surrounding "river."

Meanwhile, at corporate headquarters in Burbank, Laura-Lee Hartung has been combing through her list of a select 700 guests, checking such details as whether Disneyland's catering chef has prepared a menu that meets the needs of a visiting girl with certain food allergies. And Kevin Frawley has been lining up a cast of nearly 100 musical acts and other entertainers for a one-time-only show with a pirate theme.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-pirates-premiere-20110506,0,6856127.story

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Los Angeles Times
Ministry of Gossip blog
'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' premieres outdoors at Disneyland with Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz
May 8, 2011 11:43 am
By Jessica Gelt

A grown man cried after failing to nab Johnny Depp's autograph along the 2,700-foot-long black carpet that lined Main Street in Disneyland on Saturday, leading to the world premiere of "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stanger Tides," which also stars Penelope Cruz and Geoffrey Rush.

Nearly 25,000 rabid fans had waited, some for up to 10 hours, to catch sight of stars such as Depp, Cruz, Rush, Ian McShane, Kevin McNally, Sam Claflin, Jodie Foster, Martin Short, Teri Hatcher, Kirstie Alley, Joey Lawrence, Cat Cora and more as they arrived at the premiere over a period of two hours Saturday evening.

Read the rest of the article (plus photos) at: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2011/05/pirates-of-the-caribbean-stranger-tides-johnny-depp-penelope-cruz.html

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Lots of photos of Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz and the rest of the cast plus celens attending the film premiere at Disneyland:
http://www.popsugar.com/Johnny-Depp-Penelope-Cruz-Disneyland-Premiere-Pirates-Caribbean-Stranger-Tides-16364246

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Pop Sugar (with lots of photos)
Johnny Depp Plays Host For a Special Oprah Screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
http://www.popsugar.com/Pictures-Johnny-Depp-Oprah-16285934

USA Today
Knightley on 'Pirates': I wanted to do something else
By Arienne Thompson, USA TODAY
May 10, 2011 10:00 AM
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2011/05/knightley-on-pirates-i-wanted-to-do-something-else-/1

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TheWrap
Report: Disney Planning 'Pirates of the Caribbean' 5 & 6

December 03, 2010 @ 12:33 pm

http://www.thewrap.com/deal-central/column-post/report-disney-planning-pirates-caribbean-5-6-22996


Screenshot by South Beach Hoosier, i.e. yours truly, who snapped this during a Miami Dolphins at Arizona Cardinals broadcast.

My first post mentioning Johnny Depp was on September 14, 2008 titled, Johnny Depp shows up for ballgame, Dolphins don't!
That featured some of the first articles about him in South Florida newspapers, circa mid-1980's.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/johnny-depp-shows-up-for-ballgame.html

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A great mini-history lesson of sorts on pirates was written by foreign policy analyst and best-selling author Max Boot in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, titled, Pirates, Then and Now - How Piracy Was Defeated in the Past and Can Be Again.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65156/max-boot/pirates-then-and-now

I'll excerpt this portion since it pertains to one of the main characters in the film, Barbarosa, played by Academy Award-winner Geoffrey Rush.

THE SWARMING SEAS
Piracy was once a far more serious problem than it is today. In a history of piracy published in 1907, Colonel John Biddulph, a retired British army officer, wrote of the early 1700s:

From the moment of losing sight of the Lizard [the southernmost post in England] till the day of casting anchor in the port of destination an East India ship was never safe from attack, with the chance of slavery or a cruel death to crew and passengers in case of capture. From Finisterre to Cape Verd[e] the Moorish pirates made the seas unsafe, sometimes venturing into the mouth of the [English] channel to make a capture. Farther south, every watering-place on the African coast was infested by the English and French pirates who had their headquarters in the West Indies. From the Cape of Good Hope to the Head of the Persian Gulf, from Cape Comorin to Sumatra, every coast was beset by English, French, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Arab, Malay or other local pirates.

There was no peace on the ocean. The sea was a vast No Man's domain, where every man might take his prey.

Biddulph was not exaggerating. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, pirate communities flourished in and around the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Pirates were also prevalent in East Asia, with the seas around the Malay archipelago -- modern-day Indonesia and Malaysia -- infested for centuries by pirates such as the fierce Dyaks of Borneo and the Ilanun of the Philippines. Koxinga, a Chinese pirate and anti-Manchu rebel, at one point led as many as 100,000 men, and in 1661 he seized Taiwan from the Dutch. In the early eighteenth century, a confederation of 40,000 pirates based in Canton dominated the South China Sea, first under the leadership of Cheng Yih and then, after his death in 1807, under that of his widow, Cheng Shi, a former prostitute better known as Madam Cheng.

The North African corsair Barbarossa -- known as Khayr ad-Din in Arabic -- born to a Turkish father and a Greek mother on the Aegean island of Lesbos, was even more successful. In the early sixteenth century, he conquered Algiers and Tunis and, with the blessing of the Ottoman emperor, turned them into bases for sea raiding, which they would remain for the next three centuries. Although commonly called piracy, this activity was more properly known as "privateering," the term for state-sanctioned piracy. Morocco and Tripoli, the other states along the Barbary Coast, joined in this lucrative business, which involved hijacking ships from Christian nations, selling their cargoes, and either ransoming the passengers and crew back to their families or selling them into slavery. In the early sixteenth century, Algiers alone was estimated to have a hundred sailing ships manned by thousands of sailors all engaged in privateering. With such a formidable force at its disposal, Algiers was able to hold 30,000 Christian captives (including, at one point, the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes). These Muslim corsairs were matched by Christian adversaries from the Knights of St. John, who used bases first in Rhodes and then in Malta to plunder Muslim ships around the Mediterranean. Europeans also took many Muslims as slaves; Barbarossa's brother served for a time as a galley slave to the Knights of St. John.

Seriously, where else but my blog would you get the real back-story on a guy like Barbarosa?

And in case you didn't ever think about it before, you know that reference to "The Shores of Tripoli" in the U.S. Marines Hymn, i.e fight song?
Who do you think the Marines were fighting then?
To quote Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley): "Pirates!""

http://www.marineband.usmc.mil/learning_tools/library_and_archives/resources_and_references/marines_hymn.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Decatur

The Decatur House is located just around the corner from The White House (and across from Lafayette Park) is one of my favorite places in all of historical Washington, D.C., so the next time you visit Washington, make sure you make time to check it out.
You won't be sorry.

http://www.decaturhouse.org/
http://www.whitehousehistory.org/
http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehousehistory

Secretariat, starring Diane Lane & John Malkovich, opening October 8th, from Walt Disney Pictures; Wither Gulfstream Park Race Track?

Girls and horses?
That's a license to print money.
Always has been, always will be.

Secretariat by William Nack
http://www.hyperionmedianet.com/web/showpage/bookpage.aspx?program_id=3131354&type=lead

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/secretariat/

And featuring the return of Fred Thompson to feature films!

Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKmuvjL2cVw



Secretariat at the 1973 Belmont Stakes, winning by 25 lengths to win the Triple Crown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFquax2F-k

Amanda "AJ" Michalka - "It's Who You Are" Music Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kShUvrr7QVU




http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/secretariat/videos/making_of/index.html


Above, the Gulfstream Park street sign for the north-south road from the grandstand to Hallandale Beach Blvd., and the north entrance monument sign on U.S.-1/South Federal Highway.
October 5, 2010 photos by South Beach Hoosier.

I've been thinking about this Secretariat film quite a lot the last few weeks as I walk or drive thru the empty NW parking lot of Gulfstream Park Race Track, not far from my home, which I take as a short-cut when doing errands, grabbing something to eat at one of my usual spots or heading over to the beach, which is less than two miles away.

(Anything to avoid the notorious red-light surveillance camera on north-bound U.S.-1 at Hallandale Beach Blvd., which the HB City Commission installed, supposedly, for safety purposes, but which has turned-out to be nothing but a cash cow for the city's coffers, as well over 95% of all tickets issued thus far are for right turn on red violations, NOT for running the intersection, the purpose cited. Because of local area driver's great reluctance to turn too quickly now, east-bound traffic is often stalled for two or three blocks along U.S.-1, with no alternatives open to you but the race track short-cut.
Despite the public disclosure of the statistics, financial and otherwise -city revenue from citations for the month of July 2010 for that one camera was $119,613.987, of which the overwhelming majority were for right turn on red violations- the HB City Commission doesn't care, and is now expanding the use of red-light cameras. Not for safety purposes, mind you, but strictly to get their hands on more money! It's that simple!)


October 5, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Looking east at the three Gulfstream Park dorms, and in the distance, on the beach at A1A, the three condos that comprise The Beach Club complex.

As always, I have my trusty camera with me, ever-ready to snap a shot that captures my fancy. But after several years of being back in South Florida, after being so long up in the Chicago and Washington, D.C. areas, having been so geographically close to this race track, being in or near it every single day fro seven years, I almost have come to take it for granted.
Almost.

The same way I became blase walking from my home on Capitol Hill at night during the summer, after I first moved to Washington in 1988, to nearby places you may have heard of.

First past the U.S. Capitol, along the pathways of The National Mall, past the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian, past the Washington Monument and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 'till I was finally at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Even when it's hot as hell during the summer at night, which is always since there's no Gulfstream breeze, the place is so magnetic, the sense of history so strong and palpable, that it's hard not to get wistful, reflective and philosophical.

For the first few years I lived in the Washington area, it was all so terribly exciting, but eventually, the excitement of the history that is all around me turns into a rather mundane routine, except for when friends and family came to visit and it became alive for me all over again, especially when I was with my adorable nieces, who lived in suburban Maryland.

The everyday existence and hustle -and sheer tension- of living in the Washington, D.C. area really wears you out, so after awhile, once I'd moved across the Potomac to Arlington County (VA), since I wasn't one of those person with a summer house share in Delaware, every so often, when I was free on weekends, I started going with friends down to Charlottesville and other places in Virginia where the sense and pull of America's early history is still both strong and palpable. (Or out thru the hills to West Virgina.)

I've always liked being in places where I couldn't take things for granted, though to be sure, every time I ever walked past The White House on the Pennsylvania Avenue side, so many thousands and thousands of times over those 15 years, I never took THAT view for granted.
Not once.
But I saw plenty of people who did, and I never wanted to be one of those people.

So, all that being said, and knowing that I'm someone who has always been a voracious reader and a person who particularly loves history, and American cultural history at that, one of my biggest disappointments living here in Hallandale Beach has been witnessing the way the current owners of Gulfstream Race Track, MAGNA Entertainment, have allowed some of its history, beauty and majesty to recede.

See a glimpse of what the race track once looked like at:
http://www.cardcow.com/search3.php?substring=gulfstream%20park

October 5, 2010 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
Looking south from the NW parking lot towards the grandstand and the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex.

Churchill Downs would never tolerate the way things are routinely done here, and neither would Disney or Universal or any other consumer-oriented attraction that wants visitors to spend money.
I suppose that's precisely why I get so very angry when I see how poorly-maintained parts of the admittedly huge facility are, and how unattractively it presents itself to visitors.

It's almost like the MAGNA people take it for granted that people will come.
But they aren't, are they?

Nope, the Village at Gulfstream Park retail complex is far from a success, yet at least some of the reasons for that discomforting reality could hardly be more obvious.

Personally, as I've previously written here, I can't fathom how you could own that place and allow a large Gulfstream Park advertising sign that you have that is visible to busy U.S.-1 traffic to be unlit at night for years, yet they do.
I've shown you photos of that very sign here many times, haven't I, as well as the plant overgrowth that obstructed some of the signage?
It's not a secret, it's common knowledge.

I've often written in this space about my litany of well-founded criticisms of Gulfstream Park, complete with my photos to highlight and buttress my contentions, self-evident facts that have been well-nigh invisible to the very people who actually ought to have been MOST concerned with what customers actually thought about them: MAGNA Entertainment.

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Gulfstream%20Park%20Race%20Track%20and%20Casino
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Village%20at%20Gulfstream%20Park

Yet they continue to be blasé and ignore what is right in front of them, seemingly content to have nobody in charge of Quality Control, someone able to whip the place into shape so that consumers find it inviting and interesting and FUN.
It simply isn't ANY FUN at all.
It's the opposite of fun -it repels!

That months-old promise I made here once to discuss some constructive suggestions for improving things at Gulfstream Park will finally be posted soon, along with some helpful aids to hammer those points home.

But I wanted to say now while I could that my genuine hope is that the great success of the Secretariat film will do something -anything!- to shake the MAGNA folks out of their sleepwalking stupor, and realize once and for all that if they aren't in it to win, they need to sell the place to someone who will manage this historic facility with the foresight, intelligence, care and marketing savvy it deserves.
All of those factors are currently MIA.

I'll also have a lot to say soon about the prospects of night racing at Gulfstream Park, too, as I've been sitting on that subject since last year while getting more and more information from reliable sources.

Though I am personally in favor of a racing schedule that includes limited night racing, as usual, the folks at MAGNA are completely f-ing botching this possibility thru their careless words and actions, seemingly oblivious to their need to first communicate openly and honestly with the citizens and communities most directly affected: Hallandale Beach, Aventura, Hollywood and Broward County.
They haven't done that.

Frankly, MAGNA operates like all they need to do to secure the ability to hold night racing is to curry favor with enough Florida State Senators, esp. those from the Panhandle, perhaps thru their favorite lobbyists, and magically, after they snap their fingers, it'll just happen.
NOPE!

For starters, the reality is that are looking at first having to hold lots of public meetings, and they are going to have to completely STOP with the transparent half-truths and lies, and actually level with the citizens who already live near here.
Night racing is NOT something that MAGNA is entitled to have simply for asking for it.

Personally, I'm starting to believe that the best thing for everyone concerned would be for there to be no night racing at Gulfstream Park until after MAGNA sells the race track and associated property to an entity with the financial resources to run it in a creative, first-class manner, so that it really is a FUN place to be.
That is NOT what Gulfstream Park is now.

http://www.gulfstreampark.com/

Wow! Just saw new trailer for Disney's/Tim Burton's 3D "Alice in Wonderland," starring Johnny Depp

Above, actress Mia Wasikowska as Alice
in Walt Disney Pictures forthcoming
Alice in Wonderland.

Wow!
Over the weekend, I saw the new trailer for
Disney's newest little dividend that'll keep
on giving, Tim Burton's 3-D Alice in
Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp,
Ann Hathaway and Helena Bonham
Carter, with twenty-year old Australian
actress Mia Wasikowska starring as
Alice.

(She'll also be playing Jane Eyre in a new
film out in 2011 produced by BBC Films.
Once Alice comes out, her life of relative
anonymity disappears forever.)

Alice is slated to come out March 5th and
based on what I've seen thus far, it's a
safe bet I'll be among those in line to see it
the first weekend.

It's really the damnedest thing I ever saw,
and the music by Danny Elfman is both
weirdly and instantly familiar once you
hear it, like so many other memorable
Disney TV/film scores and themes in my
head and yours, though mine, necessarily
includes ones from things you may well
have forgotten, like, say, well,
The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh,
starring Patrick McGoohan.


The particular Alice trailer link I have here
is the one that I believe has the most context
of the various trailers on the Internet, since
it includes the very reason she is trying to
escape from things in the first place:
http://adisney.go.com/disneypictures/aliceinwonderland/#/epk/video/

Looks like the Mouse House has invented
a new Billion $$$ printing press again!

I actually spent a good 45 minutes on the
ingenious movie website over the weekend
trying different things out, and it's just
amazing how ridiculously clever they are:
http://adisney.go.com/disneypictures/aliceinwonderland/

Really looks like film director Tim Burton
is firmly back in the GENIUS camp -again!
This time, to stay.

Speaking of 3D films, at her her Wax Word
blog today, Sharon Waxman, editor of
The Wrap, the best new addition to the
Hollywood scene this year, waxes about
some well-known Hollywood film directors
with a strong hankering to make some 3D
films in the future -and she names the names.

Hollywood Seized by 3D Mania
http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/hollywood-seized-3d-mania-12141