It’s been about a month since Disney announced that Ian McShane (HBO’s Deadwood) and Penelope Cruz (Vanilla Sky, last year’s Broken Embraces) would be joining the cast of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. McShane was immediately revealed to be playing legendary pirate Captain Blackbeard, the film’s central antagonist to Johnny Depp’s now classic [...]

Queens of Langkasuka is one big mess. Spreading palace intrigue, ancient world power struggles, naval warfare, martial arts, sorcery, sea beasties and roving pirates over a sagging 133 minutes, Langkasuka has no idea how to manage any of it. Fortunately for the audience, this high-profile Thai fantasy happens to be an entertaining and enjoyable mess. [...]

Okay. How do you generate interest in a film franchise that feels like it should have ended already? Well, for one, you bring back Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow, and then you pit him against a classic character; Blackbeard. Finally, and most importantly, get a great character actor like the gruff but suave Ian McShane [...]

I have trained myself to roll my eyes every time I read the words “pirate film” in the headline of an article, but this is different: we’re not dealing with swashbuckling Jack Sparrow or a gaunt Kiera Knightley, but instead real life Somali pirates that have peppered the news for over a year. Columbia Pictures [...]