You sir, are a philistine!

Ah, Sunday morning. I read the funnies and opened The Parade, a delightful weekend magazine which comes with The Denver Post. The first page is Personality Parade, a section devoted to painfully dumb questions on celebrities. This innocent enough looking page has never rankled me before today.

After insinuating that the Olson twins are little sluts, informing America that Darrel Hammond is the longest-running member of SNL, and giving Condoleezza Rice "a gentlewoman's C" for a grade, Walter Scott answered a question regarding nude scenes.

The question asked why so many good actresses are in nude scenes. Scott said there are two reasons: Because of the paycheck, or because they like being naked on camera. He paints a fairly bleak picture, and implies that only high-budget films have nudity, and there is no such thing as tasteful nudity. Au Contraire, buster! *pushes glasses higher on nose, straightens papers*

First of all, most nude scenes I have seen were in independent films where the actors worked for peanuts. Secondly, many movies have nude scenes which are no fun, and were probably not a stroll in the park for the actors. However, they are still tasteful. Example: The critically acclaimed Mysterious Skin. It is based on a true story and follows two boys who were sexually abused. It was not romanticized or flashy, but it was very explicit. In my humble opinion that's the only way you could have told the story, and it should be told. One's not enough for you? Try watching Adaptation, Little Children, Mean Streets, Do the Right Thing, and Leaving Las Vegas and tell me they're trash. (For the record they are not.)

I would suggest this Walter Scott character open his mind a little, and start acknowledging even art with mankind's "icky parts" can be true, tactful, and moving. Either that or take it up with Michelangelo.

I only wish I could have found my eyepatch...

Last night I went to the sneak peek preview of *dun da dun!* Pirates of the Caribbean; At World's End! I went at 8:00pm with friends, and all decked out in pirate garb. I knew it would be a bad movie--I've known that since Dead Man's Chest came out--and my predictions were met.

Even though Barbossa oozed pirate charisma, and Will and Elizabeth are easy on the eyes, it's no secret Jack Sparrow is the best part of the movie, so I was very disappointed when he didn't show for the whole first part. The rest of the movie had much switching of sides and double-agenting, which got very confusing very fast. Halfway through I gave up all hope of trying to follow the plot, and merely wondered at who was going to shack up with whom. Things were rocky with Will and Elizabeth, and there were enough outside-relationship kisses to make me wonder. Apart from that I was most upset by SOMEONE DYING. *sniff* I will not divulge, but they were killed right after they got INTERESTING. Also, at the end it was completely set up for another sequel. Yay, I just adore sequels of sequels of sequels of movies based on theme park rides. You know it's high class humor when most the jokes revolve around a once-undead monkey.

But despite my complaining and snobbery, Pirates of the Caribbean in general is one of the most entertaining series I've seen.