Movie Beat 5/20/11 – A Beautiful Life, Midnight In Paris, And POTC: On Stranger Tides

Three new movies out today – A Beautiful Life, Midnight in Paris, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I broke the rules and actually saw one of them this week!

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A Beautiful Life:

Dana Delany and Debi Mazar star in the story of two people who are struggling to get their life together. One is escaping an abusive past and stays with an illegal immigrant friend or a friend, and the two fall in love, but face turmoil in this limited release film. This sounds horrible.

Midnight in Paris:

Also opening up is Midnight in Paris – the new movie from the “Woodman,” I mean, Woody Allen. His new comedy stars Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Marion Cotillard.

It’s a romantic comedy about a family traveling to the French capital of Pa-reeee (Paris), and a young, engaged couple forced to confront the illusion that life is a little different from their own.

This is an awesome cast. I like Woody Allen films. If you’re a Woody Allen fan,  you will also enjoy this.

My pick of the week:
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides:

I really enjoyed this film, savvy? I really enjoyed seeing Penelope Cruz be a pirate, wielding a sword.Ian McShane is Blackbeard. Johnny Depp returns as Captain Jack Sparrow. Geoffrey Rush returns as captain Hector Barbosa. Great cast!

Here’s the thing about this film – it is exactly what you think it’s going to be, and that’s enough. I think it’s entertaining. I enjoyed it. I think there’s some parts of the film that are a little derivative that reminded me a little bit of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – sort of the ending of this film – they’re looking for the fountain of youth.

The romantic interest of the young couple that’s sort of forced into the screenplay now that Orlando Bloom is gone and Keira Knightly is gone, felt a little heavy-handed to me. It doesn’t really feed the story very much. Overall, it looks great, there’s a lot of adventure to it, it’s in 3D – it was a good time. It’s a fine, fine summer movie.