Leftovers/Third Helpings, by Ric Meyers
Ah, holidays: a time to get together with family and friends … and watch all the DVDs you missed during the year. In my case, it’s with my teen and preteen nieces, so sooner or later they get control of the remote, and they call the shots. So it was in this cozy, tinsel-lined environment that we settled in to watch the special features on two of the second sequels that so galvanized marketing types a few weeks ago.First up: Pirates of the Caribbean At World’s End, which more than half of the nation’s critics found loud and confusing. But I, a market share of one, have always felt that they missed the point. Lurching, unfocused, overstuffed, yes. But this effort was nothing short than a largely successful attempt to dismantle, then refashion, what it means to be a “Disney Film," a seeming attempt that successfully continued with Ratatouille and Enchanted.
This, after all, is a film that starts with the death by hanging of a ten … year … old … boy, then continues with piles of corpses, cutthroats staring up Keira Knightley’s dress, extended existential sequences in the land of death itself, and a central appearance by the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards. The extras on the Two-Disc Collector’s Edition don’t rip the wrapping paper off this concept and slap it in your face, but there’s enough hints in the giddy declarations of director Gore Verbinski and writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio that something was up their sleeves besides arm hair.
Basically all of them contend that they were given the freedom to have fun and entertain themselves. Even so, none were absolutely sure that this independence (and the more than 200 million which bought it) wouldn’t come back to bite them. At one point, coming from the bright-eyed, sheet-eating grinning face of one writer was the passive/aggressive statement that the boy-hanging opening was his idea … except it might not have been, depending on the then-up-coming audience reaction.
Every time I backtrack to some last-century comic book or movie or teevee show that purports to portray Bat Masterson, I come away with a greater appreciation of the historical model as a bigger-than-real figure. Granted that some of Masterson’s real-life exploits and con-games aren’t quite the stuff of sensationalized melodrama, I’ll take the genuine article every time for Puckish wit and adaptability to wildly differing environments.
The Financial Times 
Geez, this is the week for medium birthdays, isn’t it?
On this day in 1895, the Lumiere Brothers opened the world’s first movie theater at Paris. Their opening night feature is a collection of 46-second shorts, including the riveting verite masterpiece ‘Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory.’
