Redbox, the Blu-ray and DVD kiosk renter, announced with a little fanfare their movies that were rented the most, by genre, during the course of last year. You will notice that most of the popular rentals were not award winners or box office stand outs.

Here are the results announced via a 5-minute video presentation by Redbox:

•Most Rented Action Movie: Green Hornet
•Most Rented Family Movie: Rango
•Most Rented Horror Movie: Insidious
•Most Rented Comedy Movie: Just Go With It
•Most Rented Drama Movie: The Tourist

Looking at the Redbox’s tally for individuals, we start with Natalie Portman who is honored with the most-rented actress of 2011, due to Black Swan, Your Highness, No Strings Attached and Thor.

Your Highness

Next is Kevin James who took the praise as lifetime achievement award for entertaining Redbox users year-after-year. His Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) is the fastest Redbox DVD to reach the one millionth mark.

Thus, it’s hard for me to believe, the most rented Redbox film of 2011 was Just Go With It. The silly comedy stars Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston. Anniston was even honored with a bonus award for her other comedy role as the sex-crazed dentist in the dark-comedy Horrible Bosses.

Just Go With It

You may be asking yourself why relatively unsuccessful box office movies, like Green Hornet, are so popular at Redbox. It’s easy to surmise that movie goers wait for the box office duds to arrive on the disc rental market to rent them. If you do the math, box office money makers stay in the theaters longer, such as Fast Five, Kung Fu Panda 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and their Blu-ray and DVDs counter-parts are purchased by movie goers – instead of rented — whereas less-popular movies are rented via kiosks or Netflix.

The Redbox results indicate the older releases have better records because titles like Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean, arrived closer to the end of the year. Still, not a single one of the award winners takes a position on the current Redbox Top 20.

It will be interesting to watch Redbox during 2012 because from the looks of it, see the above graphic, the kiosk movie renter is sure to expand even more.

Well, folks, you know it’s truly summer movie season when the 12:01 shows start cropping up, and I’ve just come back from a great one indeed–the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie in years, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides kind of picks up where the third left off, with Captain Jack Sparrow back in the hunt for the Black Pearl, which as you’ll remember he lost back in the last one. And this time, he’s heading for Florida to hunt down the Fountain of Youth. He’s joined by old friends and new alike, as well as some less than friends. But he’s not the only one hunting down the fountain, and when the Spanish crown gets involved, as well as the English crown–whose forces are led by no less than now-privateer Captain Barbossa–it’s going to make things not only complicated but also downright dangerous for the pirate we’ve all come to know and love.

As Pirates movies go, this is not the best installment. While there’s plenty of swordfighting and comically irrational behavior from our own Witty Jack, it lacks a certain extra punch that we got from having Elizabeth Swan (now apparently off somewhere being Queen of the Pirates) and William Turner (now off for some reason being Davy Jones’ replacement) around, and frankly, there’s nothing to replace them. Penelope Cruz tries her level best, heaven help her, but she’s just not the same.

In fact, thanks to On Stranger Tides, we’ve made an important discovery–Jack Sparrow cannot pilot a ship or carry a movie all by his onesies, savvy? He needs straight men around to be thunderstruck by his lunacy, and having other marginal lunatics around just kind of dilutes the effect of Jack’s crazy.

But it does have to be said…this is supposedly the start of another trilogy, and with that in mind, this could be the start of a much larger, much broader Pirates series that gets well out of the Caribbean (though the third of the original did get us to Asia, so that’s a good start). This one got us to a good chunk of Europe, and frankly, there are still plenty of loose ends to tie up. Watch this and ask yourself what happened to the voodoo doll, for one. And we haven’t even seen the French and the Dutch get involved yet, and they were pretty substantial powers in the Caribbean in their own right.

So the big question here: should you watch this? The answer, of course, is yes, absolutely. But keep in mind that we’re just getting started, so you’ll be a lot less disappointed in light of the fact that things are just getting started, and it’ll feel a lot better.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides a seven out of ten for kicking off a new trilogy in a somewhat lackluster but still very much worthwhile fashion.

Rango is directed by Gore Verbinski, who also directed the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The voices for the reptiles and animals are Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, Timothy Olyphant, Alfred Molina, Ned Beatty, Abigail Breslin and Isla Fisher.

The clip conveys the idea that the movie is fun. What do you think?

The movie opens March 4, 2011.

This interview is for all you Johnny Depp fans!  He doesn’t say much about the role of Captain Jack Sparrow, but he sure is cute.

Disney sent me a whole bunch of photos of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  Here are two that I picked out from the batch. I like the look of Penelope Cruz. Lucky girl, she gets to be a pirate. 

The first picture is Captain Jack (Depp) and Angelica (Cruz) making their watery way through the jungle in search of the Fountain of Youth.

The second picture is Captain Jack, Angelica, Blackbeard (McShane) and their eerie crew land on an island where they hope to find the fabled Fountain of Youth.

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Rob Marshall, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The hit franchise will this time in Disney Digital 3D.

Johnny Depp returns to his iconic role of Captain Jack Sparrow in an action-packed tale of truth, betrayal, youth and demise.  When Jack crosses paths with a woman from his past (Penelope Cruz), he’s not sure if it’s love—or if she’s a ruthless con artist who’s using him to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. 

When she forces him aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship of the formidable pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane), Jack finds himself on an unexpected adventure in which he doesn’t know who to fear more:  Blackbeard or the woman from his past. 

The international cast includes franchise vets Geoffrey Rush as the vengeful Captain Hector Barbossa, and Kevin R. McNally as Captain Jack’s longtime comrade Joshamee Gibbs, plus Sam Claflin as a stalwart missionary and Astrid Berges-Frisbey as a mysterious mermaid.

For those of you wondering what Rupert Grint was going to do once the Weasley train derailed with the last Harry Potter, take heart, as he’s got at least one other project ready to go–Wild Target.

It’ll be hitting the United Kingdom this October, and it features Grint, along with Pirates of the Caribbean’s own Bill Nighy. Nighy plays an assassin prized for his skill, but his mother is a whole other story. But when he spares one target, he sets in motion a chain of events that he may not survive.

First, Bill Nighy really looks different without all those tentacles.

Second, the trailer looks like British action done best, with a good splash of comedy. I have to hand it to the Brits–they can do a pretty good movie, and here’s the proof.

Johnny Depp is on the set of his next Pirate movie as Jack Sparrow.  Penelope Cruz is with him as well as, it looks like, the director discussing the scene with Blackbeard paying close attention to the details of the scene.

If you want to see more pictures of Johnny Depp on the set you can go to Popsugar.com.

Stephen Graham is set to work as Captain Jack Sparrow’s sidekick in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Of course, Johnny Depp plays Sparrow in the fourth installment of the franchise. This time Sparrow seeks out the fountain of youth.

Graham will portray Scram, a Machiavellian pirate. Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane are also starring with the film set for release May 20, 2011.

Filming begins this month in Hawaii with Rob Marshall directing.

I was pretty upset that Ian McShane’s series Kings was canceled last year. The modern-day retelling of the story of Saul and David was something that had never been seen on television before, which was probably why it didn’t do so well.

McShane played the role of a king as good as as he did Al Swearengen on Deadwood, and he will now have a chance to play a legendary role as Blackbeard the pirate.

Yes, this will be for another one of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies, this one subtitled On Stranger Tides. He’s definitely got a lot of Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa fans that they have got to please. By the way, they will be in the movie too.

Source

I would love to see Penelope Cruz and Johnny Depp in a movie together. It looks like that is going to happen. Cruz is in negotiations for Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opposite Johnny Depp. 

“Cruz and Depp” I can see it on the movie poster now! 

The fourth Pirates will be directed by Rob Marshall.  Shooting is scheduled to start in Hawaiithis summer with Jerry Bruckheimer producing. Disney has scheduled a release date for May 20, 2011.

The story is under wrapswith the script written by Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot.