Favorite Movies

Tom: Do you go to the cinema a lot Martin?

Martin: I used to quite often, Tom, but lately I just haven't found the time or the cinemas around here aren't quite as big here.

Tom: So, I guess you've had time to contemplate on it. What's your favorite movie of all time? Well, my favorite movie, and the best movie I've ever seen would have to be Seven Samurai, the story about a small peasant village in Japan, hired in Seven Samurai to protect it and the ensuing struggles that the villagers had with the samurai, and the Samurai did with themselves and then the final fight that they has with the bandits that were trying to take the peasants grain. It's a magnificent story.

Martin: It's a classic. It's black and white, right?

Tom: Yes, it is. It was made by the Japanese director Akira Kurasawa. I think it was 1956 or 57, but it's affected so many other movies, Tom.

Martin: I mean if you look at the Magnificent Seven, the Western, it's modeled directly after that, as well as some other modern movies that you might not think as much about. Roger Corman's, Battle Beyond the Stars with George Peppard (Are you serious?) was modeled straight off of Seven Samurai, and even Bug's Life.

Tom: Wow. Now that I think of that I can see that.

Martin: Yeah, it's a really important movie.

Martin: How about you Tom? What's your favorite movie of all time?

Tom: I don't know about of old time, but recently, and don't laugh when I say this, Pirates of the Caribbean was an absolute masterpiece. I saw the trailer so many times in the cinema and just thought it was going to be rubbish, but when I eventually got around to seeing it, it was full of good jokes and it was Jonny Depp as a pirate going around the Caribbean. There was a ghost story. There was a love story in it. There was a young man who'd run away to join the Pirate's. The whole thing was just action packed, funny and colorful. It was a really entertaining movie.

Martin: Yeah, I would agree with you Tom. It was very fun and Johnny Depp was great, modelling Keith Richards as a pirate. I think that...

Tom: Well, I heard that he was modelling the original ride at Disneyland.

Martin: Oh, really.

Tom: The mechanical models jerking around on the pirate ship, the mannequins, I heard that was what he modeled his character on.

Martin: I heard he modeled after Keith Richards.

Tom: He's the kind of actor who comes up with a different story at every interview.

Martin: Well, I guess that's why he's acting.