#dirk pitt

[trexalicious]

It's like something out of a Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novel...

500-Year-Old Treasure Ship Found Buried in Namib Desert, Packed With Gold, Ivory, and Lost Empire Secrets

A lost 16th-century ship buried deep in a Namibian desert has stunned archaeologists with a treasure haul that rewrites the story of early g

[all-action-all-picture]

1998 UK printing of Raise the Titanic by Clive Cussler (1931-2020). Cover by David Scutt. Originally published in 1976 and the third novel to feature his popular Dirk Pitt character. Made in to a movie in 1980 starring Richard Jordan as Pitt. The movie upped the stakes even further by slightly changing the title to Raise the Titanic! but this didn't really help. The famous quote about the film was from either special effects wiz John Richardson or producer Lew Grade - "It would be cheaper to lower the Atlantic than raise the Titanic!". The books (very much escapist entertainment and not realistic in any way) should really have been able to spawn a movie franchise but, for whatever reason, it just didn't happen.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Favorite treasure hunter?

Benjamin Gates (National Treasure)

Flynn Carsten (The Librarian)

Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Nathan Drake (Uncharted)

Dirk Pitt

Indiana Jones

Jim Hawkins (Treasure Island / Treasure Planet)

Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)

Miguel and Tulio (Road to El Dorado)

Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece)

Rick O’Connell (The Mummy)

Someone not listed here (feel free to share in the comments)

Voting ended onDec 4, 2023

NOTE: If you like a different treasure hunter from a franchise listed above, vote “someone not listed here”. For example, if you prefer Chloe Frazer over Nate.

NOTE 2: Whoops, misspelled Flynn CarSEN. That’s my bad.

[lostinmirkwood]

Does anyone remember Sahara (2005)?

This one?

It’s a great popcorn adventure flick. Funny, decent action, easy plot, Penelope Cruz being wildly attractive in a black tank top and cargo pants, Matthew McConaughey as the squashbuckling adventurer with a hilarious side kick (Steve Zahn) who you genuinely believe have been friends since they were kids.

It’s based on an adventure book series that my high school librarian got me into. Like Indiana Jones meets James Bond with a dash of Rick O’Connell and The Mummy.

[thewolveswithin]

Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt in Sahara (2005)

[grigori77]

Which potentially awesome movie franchise that we were denied after the criminally underrated original unfairly tanked do you MOST wish had actually gotten greenlit?

Judge Dredd (Dredd, 2012)

Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom saga (John Carter, 2012)

Dirk Pitt Adventures (Sahara, 2005)

David Fincher's Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, 2011)

Female Ghostbuster reboot (Ghostbusters, 2016)

Guy Ritchie's The Man From UNCLE (2015)

Megamind (2010)

Sky Captain Adventures (Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow, 2004)

Guy Ritchie's Arthurian saga (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, 2018)

Post Dark Fate Terminator franchise (Terminator: Dark Fate, 2019)

Voting ended onFeb 16, 2023

PLEASE reblog this one as far and wide as you can, I wanna hear from everybody I can about this one, it's particularly near and dear to my heart ...

[evco-productions]

Revisiting “Sahara” (2005) (Repost from Quora)

Today, I want to talk about the 2005 action-adventure movie Sahara. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s based on a novel by Clive Cussler, and it’s from a series following this suave explorer guy named Dirk Pitt, which totally sounds like a real person’s name.

I’ve never read the book, but I once heard it described as an “airport novel,” meaning it’s a book you might pick up at the airport for seven bucks, read on your flight, be casually entertained, and then forget about. And I remembered that and thought to myself, “Wait a minute, that’s exactly the kind of movie I want to champion on this blog.”

Honestly, at this point, there’s not many movies I think I’ve seen more times than Sahara. Not even because I set out to rewatch it so many times, it’s just the go-to lazy Saturday afternoon movie for me when I can’t find anything else I feel like watching.

What makes this movie the kind of movie Just Admit It was made for? Well, what doesn’t? Its budget was 130 million dollars, but it only made 119 million dollars worldwide. Very few professional critics had anything good to say about it. But in spite of all that…it’s good.

The main stars are Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, and Penelope Cruz. Some good character actors also have supporting roles—Rainn Wilson, Delroy Lindo, William H. Macy. But it’s McConaughey and Zahn that bring this home. Their chemistry is great. I listen to them banter and I think, “I totally buy that these guys have been friends for most of their lives.”

And I’m sure you’re thinking, “Well, McConaughey’s obviously a great actor, and I don’t watch as many movies as EvCo Productions does, but I’m sure this Steve Zahn fella has good comedic timing. So, what’s the big deal?”

Well, that kinda leads me into the major point I want to make with this movie. I have this theory that the only people who care about things like cinematography are the filmmakers themselves and cinephiles. And I’m sure you’re thinking “Well, yeah, duh,” but really think about that for a second.

There’s so many hundreds of people who want to dissect movies and go “Oh, this shot was so masterful because yada-yada-yada,” but you know what? The average audience member doesn’t think like that. All they want is to be entertained. Now obviously, you have to have at least acceptable writing and cinematography to be entertained, but at the end of the day, what does your average audience member connect with?

Two things: one, actors. People love actors. They love seeing familiar faces, they love faces that emote well. Human beings are largely sympathetic creatures. If an actor is good at their job, we will watch a movie that we otherwise wouldn’t watch.

Two, soundtracks. Nothing connects with the human soul like music. This is a technique every movie uses; the music in any given scene is meant to help bring out a certain reaction in the audience. However, a lot of movies turn this technique into a trick. If you put into your movie an instantly familiar or at least a very likable song, that song has the potential to win the audience over for the rest of the movie. There’s a reason the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack is ten times more popular than the actual movie. This trick works. And even though it is a trick, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad trick. Some movies totally overuse it (*cough* Suicide Squad *cough*) but in the right dosage, I think it’s a reasonable method.

The point is, Sahara has both of these things. It’s got great actors and great music. These are the things that elevate it, that make it enjoyable and for me, memorable. The actors and music choices are so good, in fact, that I can enjoy this movie even though there are a couple of really bad editing choices. Like there’s this one part where Steve Zahn’s character is getting shot at by this guy, and he hits the deck, and then it just cuts to the shooter going, “Where’d he go?” and Steve Zahn just apparates behind him and takes him out. How did he do that?!

But then for every dumb part like that there’s a part that has the makings of an iconic action-adventure sequence like the “We need to pull a Panama!” scene.

In a lot of ways, Sahara really stands for what I believe movies were meant to be all about. It’s this big treasure hunt adventure with a bad guy who has an evil lair made out of solar panels and they blow up a helicopter with a 200-year-old cannonball. Does it make sense when you take the time to think about it, no, but so what? Whoever said movies have to be realistic was wrong. Realism isn’t fun, this movie is fun.

Needless to say, I rate Sahara a W for Watch, and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. See you next time.

[squirrelfm]

“What a lovely thing she was... Standing as high in the water as one of your skyscrapers, longer than two rugby fields, and furnishings to match the finest mansions in England. She was one of a kind, no question about it, and God himself, they said, couldn't sink her. Then in two hours she was gone... and fifteen hundred souls with her.” ~ John Bigalow