6A — Friday, October 6, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

DISNEY

Reappraisal: ‘Dead Man’s 
Chest’ and ‘At World’s End’

In Reappraisals, Michigan 

Daily film writers attempt to 
defend films that have been 
critically maligned.

This week: Two “Pirates of 

the Caribbean” films, 2006’s 
“Dead 
Man’s 
Chest” 
(54 

percent on Rotten Tomatoes) 
and 2007’s “At World’s End” (45 
percent on Rotten Tomatoes).

“Pirates of the Caribbean”: 
 

It’s 
a 
franchise 
that 
is 

uttered in the same breath 
as “Transformers,” symbols 
of the Hollywood machine 
intent on cranking out as 
many sequels per year as is 
physically possible. To read 
reviews of the recent “Pirates” 
film is to be assaulted with 
descriptive 
language 
so 

unabashedly negative that it 
seems impossible there was 
ever anything good to be found 
in this series. The accepted 
consensus in the media world 
is that the “Pirates of the 
Caribbean” series has been 
garbage since the first one. I 
think this is absolutely unfair. 
In a cinematic landscape filled 
with generic, uninspired and 
mindlessly 
unimaginative 

blockbusters, to see “Dead 
Man’s Chest” and “At World’s 
End” lumped in with all the 
rest strikes me as ludicrous.

Far from being repetitive 

and derivative schlock like 
the more recent “Pirates” 
films, the original should 
be 
considered 
the 
gold 

standard for modern trilogy 
storytelling. The first film 
tells a complete story that 
leaves the door open for 

more. Parts two and three 
continue and then conclude 
the arcs of all major and minor 
characters, eventually uniting 
all the heroes and villains 
from the original film against 
a much more dangerous and 
chilling foe. People forget that 
before Jack Sparrow became 
a bumbling idiot, he was the 
smartest man in the room. In 
all three of the original films, 
Jack 
Sparrow 
continually 

outsmarts and outthinks his 
enemies, and we watch him 
grow from a selfish rogue to 
a true hero over the course of 
the three films.

Many 
blockbusters 

nowadays 
are 
rightfully 

critiqued for having basic and 
predictable plots, yet “Dead 
Man’s Chest” and “At World’s 
End” are both criticized for 
having plots that actually 
require the audience to think. 
“World’s End” in particular 
is accused of being byzantine 
and confusing, but the truth 
is that it’s almost like a heist 
movie: The more you watch 
it the more you understand. 
There are a lot of different 
layers to that movie, and yes, 
almost every character has a 
hidden agenda. That doesn’t 
mean the movie is bad though, 
or that it should be blamed for 
its audience’s stupidity. I for 
one would prefer more movies 
that actually ask something of 
the audience rather than hand 
them everything on a silver 
platter.

The films also boast wildly 

creative 
action 
sequences. 

From the three way wheel 
sword fight in “Chest” to the 
final ship-on-ship maelstrom 
at 
the 
end 
of 
“World’s 

End” these are imaginative 

sequences 
that 
are 
still 

remembered today and have 
stood the test of time. These 
first two “Pirates” sequels 
also succeed at world building 
in a way almost all other 
franchises fail to do. Like 
“Star Wars,” “The Lord of 
the Rings” and maybe a few 
others, the original “Pirates” 
trilogy 
feels 
like 
a 
fully 

realized world, with each 
addition uncovering a new 
part of the universe that feels 
like it was always there and 
you just couldn’t see it.

Unlike so many more recent 

blockbusters, 
the 
original 

“Pirates” 
films 
are 
both 

serious and fun. It seems like 
every Marvel or DC movie 
has to make a choice between 
being serious and having fun. 
The original “Pirates” movies 
remind us that there doesn’t 
have to always be a choice. 
These 
films 
have 
serious 

themes and dark moments and 
are also an absolute blast to 
watch. Directed by the same 
director all the way through 
and with the same writers, 
cast and crew throughout, 
they feel like a complete 
whole in a way the later films 
and most other franchises 
don’t. There’s a reason why 
“Dead Man’s Chest” and “At 
World’s End” were at one time 
two of the highest grossing 
films ever made but the fourth 
and fifth films have faltered. 
“Dead 
Man’s 
Chest” 
and 

“At World’s End” are smart, 
sophisticated 
blockbusters 

with compelling characters 
and emotional storytelling. 
Forget about throwing them 
in with the meaningless later 
“Pirates” movies. We need 
more trilogies like this one. 

IAN HARRIS
Daily Arts Writer

DO YOU LIKE ALL THINGS 

FASHION & LIFESTYLE? 
LIKE PRETENTIOUSLY 

RUMINATING OVER YOUR 

FAVORITE BOOKS AND 

AUTHORS?

Daily Arts is looking to bring on new writers to 

their Style and Book Review beats! Email 

arts@michigandaily.com for an application.

BOOK REVIEW
‘Funeral Platter: Stories’ 
encapsulates the absurd

Greg Ames, the author of 

“Buffalo Lockjaw” — a novel 
that won the 2009 Book of 
the 
Year 
Award 
from 
the 

New 
Atlantic 
Booksellers 

Association — has written a 
collection of short stories that 
might be one of 
the most absurd 
collections of the 
past 
few 
years. 

The 
only 
way 

I 
can 
think 
to 

describe the pace 
of “Funeral Platter: 
Stories” is to say 
that it moves like 
the galloping horse 
in 
every 
horse 

movie you’ve seen, 
at the moment the 
plucky protagonist 
aims 
too 
high 

and rides the wild horse that 
everyone warns can’t be tamed.

The 
characters 
in 
every 

story of “Funeral Platter” are 
unhinged; many of them have 
cast off the cloak of propriety 
and run around as if naked (not 
literally — for the most part). 
Many of them have no filters, 
either verbally or mentally, 
and we are privy to their 

most bizarre, uncomfortable 
thoughts. They are eccentric, 
erratic, 
sometimes 
ecstatic 

— and the style is stripped 
down to match. There are no 
unnecessary stylizations, just 
stenographic observations and 
dialogue that moves feverishly.

The first story sets the tone 

for the rest. A blind date — or 
what seems like a blind date — 
begins to take peculiar turns 

the second both 
people are there. 
At 
times, 
it 

feels like we are 
witnessing 
an 

eyeroll-worthy 
quirky 
meet-

cute, but it never 
builds 
to 
that 

recognizable 
rom-com 
crescendo; 
rather, 
they 

argue, and make 
up, and argue, 
and 
make 
up, 

and each time it gets more 
and more confusing as to how 
either of them got here. The 
ending leaves you even more 
bewildered than you were in 
the middle; and when looked at 
retrospectively, the beginning 
makes no sense either.

Stories that could be cute 

are missing the glossy facade 
that would make them so. One 

story is told from the point 
of view of a wisecracking 
thirteen-year-old who thinks 
his crossing guard returns his 
romantic affections — their 
significant age difference is 
but a gauntlet thrown down 
by a society determined to 
keep the star crossed lovers 
apart — but he isn’t exactly the 
most likeable of incorrigible 
boys. In another tale, a man 
casually dismembers himself 
as a form of revenge against an 
ex girlfriend, recounting each 
of his self-inflicted wounds, 
growing 
in 
severity, 
with 

savage satisfaction until he 
dies; you can almost hear his 
maniacal 
laughter. 
Another 

man follows an elaborate five 
step plan to get a wonderful 
girlfriend to break up with him 
(this one is eerily reminiscent 
of “Fight Club”). The final story 
ends what the first one begins; 
it is a tale of two idiosyncratic 
old lovers for whom “till death 
do us part” is but a challenge to 
be laughed at.

Some of the stories are more 

outlandish than others; even the 
ones that would be depressing 
are often just too baffling to be 
so. Where other authors have 
worked tirelessly to capture the 
pathos of the human condition, 
Greg Ames has effortlessly 
captured the absurd. 

“Funeral 
Platter: 
Stories”

Greg Ames

Arcade Publishing

Oct. 3

SOPHIA KAUFMAN

Book Review Editor

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

If you were to make a checklist 
of things you might find in a fun 
and lighthearted music video, it 
would probably include dancing. 
Fashionable clothes. Attrac-
tive, young people who look like 
they’re having a really, really 
good time. Some hip setting — a 
club, maybe, or some other place 
where people go to let loose and 
have fun.

HAIM’s new music video for 
“Little of Your Love” hits every 
single one of these checkmarks. 
Sisters Alana, Danielle and Este 
Haim spend the entire video 
dancing and striding around a 
retro cafe space, complete with 

arcade games, pool tables and 
a nice big wooden dancefloor. 
A crowd of extras surrounds 
them, shuffling and clapping and 
tapping their feet. It’s a dance 
that looks coordinated, but also 
fun and approachable, in a you-
could-totally-learn-this-at-home 
type of way.

It’s nothing we haven’t seen 
before, but then again, the 
young-people-grinning-and-
dancing formula is tried and true 
for a reason. The “Little of Your 
Love” video is fun to watch, if 
not particularly inventive, and 
it’s interesting to see the ways 
in which the camera slips and 

slides easily between the three 
sisters as they trade vocal parts. 
It’s a video that beckons the 
viewer to join in with the joyful 
spirit of the song, and by the end, 
when the song escalates into 
jumping and clapping and then 
slams into silence, that effort 
does feel like it’s paid off. The 
dancers all stamp their feet in 
unison and freeze, and the video 
and the song wrap up quickly 
and neatly. It’s as if they’re say-
ing: “We’re all done, and wasn’t 
that a fun time? Wouldn’t you do 
it again?”

- LAURA DZUBAY

COLUMBIA

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