Captain Blood (1935), dir. Michael Curtiz. Friday, January 27, Streaming at Home.

For no reason other than we were exhausted and just wanted some mindless fun, we checked out Michael Curtiz’ Captain Blood, a rollicking swashbuckler with a ludicrous plot that was just tremendous fun. It involves rebellion against an evil English king, slavery on a Jamaican island, escape to become pirates, sword fighting against English actors with silly French accents (I’m looking at you, Basil Rathbone), two very real ships beating against one another and getting blown to bits, models of ships being blown to bits, and two stars in Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland, both sexy as hell and having as much fun as we were. I have no clue when anyone would watch the moronic Pirates of the Caribbean and all of its cheap CGI and mediocre acting when you have Captain Blood. Did I mention that two enormous ships were genuinely smashing against one another and blown apart? Fucking amazing.