Shiver me timbers, but Cutthroat Island is (probably not) the Greatest Movie EVER!
Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring long-awaited return of Katherin the Great.
Review in a Nutshell: A big-budget pirate adventure that torpedoed an entire movie studio, Cuttroat Island hasn’t aged very well due to its thin script and questionable casting choices, but a scene-chewing performance by Frank Langella as the villainous pirate Dawg helps a bit.
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
I knew this movie would finally be talked about sooner or later.
Havent listened yet but to me this movie is notable for two things.
One of the best explosions in movie history. Harlin has a pretty good track record with blowing up planes, helicopters, ships, and bridges.
Second, John Debneys quite spectacular musical score.
Longitude was the tough one, latitude is the height of the sun at noon (shot with a sextant). Longitude is time-difference of local noon from a known noon (Greenwich), so you need 2 clocks that stay accurate.. Longitude WAS on charts, it just wasn’t something you could measure from a ship (with the right tables, you could find it ashore, but the observations were too tricky for shipboard, checking Jovian moons or somesuch). If you knew where to go, you’d start at a known point and use dead-reckoning (educated guess of speed) along the latitude.
BTW, the prize WAS for ANY way of finding longitude aboard ship, the clocks were NOT the favorite of the Royal Society (astronomers and mathematicians all). That’s why it took so long for the clocks to win.
Hey, Paul – I’ll do THE DUNGEONMASTER with you! I remember seeing that in a theater with my friend Raquel – don’t remember much of the movie, except that it had a hunky computer nerd hero with his Personal Computer “Cal” (Model X-CAL-BR8 – pay attention, that will be important later), which his cute but naggy girlfriend kept saying he spent more time with than he did with her! Some Evil Wizard Dude sucks the guy and his girlfriend into the computer because he wants to Rule The World With the cheapo Lightsaber Knockoff “Excalibrate” (see, told you the computer’s clunky model number would be important!).
I seem to remember the hero having a force-feedback glove that he used as a gauntlet, and in the end his girlfriend and “Cal” come to an accommodation so she can agree to marry him….
Oh, yeah – the “Dungeonmaster” Evil Wizard Dude was played by Bull from Night Court, and apparently Adam Savage of Mythbusters‘s catchphrase, “I reject your reality and substitute my own!” was originally said in this movie. (Nothing I can find says if Adam Savage worked on the movie or not.)