Saturday, October 08, 2016
Master and Commander
A ship's captain on a British Man of War maintained the power of life and death over his men and at a time when a cruise might be up to five years and the only communication was by mail there was no appeal from his decisions. Ship's captains to this day retain the right to perform marriages. Discipline was harsh but considering the ranks were often filled by emptying the jails it had to be. Lads as young as twelve served on board as Midshipmen, officers in training.
The book upon which this movie is based borrows much from the story of Darwin and his sail to the Galopogos on the Beagle. The ship's doctor would have been the most educated man on board a ship after her captain. Men lived at very close quarters and watches measured in 8 bells rotated day and night. Sails were manually set, reefed, or stowed by men clinging to rat lines at great heights while the ship pitched at sea. Although rough seas held their perils and sea-sickness being becalmed with the threat of starvation and thirst when supplies ran out was even worse. In a damp marine environment before refrigeration meat was pickled and ship's biscuit and flour bred weavels.
Storms at sea and rough water are part and parcel of sailing. The deeper the water the greater the distance between waves, shallow water making for the most dangerous conditions. Sailing directly into the wind being impossible being caught on a lee shore or upwind from shoals made for perilous conditions and possible shipwreck. Lightening strikes on tall masts were a hazard. A man overboard was in grave danger when a ship could not stop or reverse course.
Without invoking spoilers all the above figure in the movie here reviewed. Whereas the storms and waves that toss the Surprise would turn most landlubbers green, especially if viewed on a large screen; the conditions rounding the Horn were mild compared with the real thing. Aside from discomfort the build-up of ice and snow on a ship poses a weight problem and imbalance making the ship top-heavy.
Casting Aussie Russell Crowe as ship's Captain is an interesting choice given the number of people transported there for crime.
Thursday, October 06, 2016
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The trek plods on finally arriving at the misty mountain after encountering the spiders of Mirkwood and running into the woodland elves including Legolas. Throw in a dwarf/elf romance and a picture of Gimli as a boy with his mother--no beard. The ‘visit’ with Smaug drags on and on and on. Coating him with liquid goal seems (?)
And suddenly we come to an abrupt end.
Wednesday, October 05, 2016
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Dwarfish cast have the deepest basso profundo voices the agents could find and their voices rumbling in song vibrate the window panes as much as their snoring does later.
Somehow the pacing here seems to drag.... By contrast the pivotal scene in the entire 24-hour-long saga in which Bilbo burgles the one ring passes rather quickly. It’s been too many decades since I read the original for me to comment on the faithfulness of the adaptation
We get to see extended views of spectacular New Zealand scenery, lengthy fight and chase scenes riddled with special effects but three hours is a long time to sit.
Tuesday, October 04, 2016
Battleship
Canadian actor Taylor Kitch has not had much good fortune in finding starring roles in action/thrillers. Possessed of everyman good looks he does not often take his clothes off onscreen. This film plays very much like the video game upon which it is based. It blows up real good, the actors play secondary roles to the transformers, what acting skills they possess played mostly for laughs. The movie box office failed to recoup the cost of production, never a good sign. he battleships look like toys on screen their main function being to lob shells and blow up. Although thousands die it is all rather bloodless and we see very few injured or dead. The women on screen are there for eye-candy value, not their brains.
I Am Number Four
Not unusual for a movie to deviate radically from the original text but the emphasis here is on making a summer action blockbuster. From the opening scenes this flick blows up real good. Gone are many of the scenes between Four and Henri in which Four learns of his past history and is trained for his coming mission.
As I’ve commented about book two in the series it appears to have been written with film adaptation in mind.
Saturday, October 01, 2016
Planet Earth
The series offers a seemingly unending glimpse of the wonders of the world. Ranging from the highest mountains to profound ocean depths, steaming jungles to frozen arctic ice sheets and glaciers, volcanic eruptions to spectacular water falls, spiraling cyclonic weather patterns to millions of migrating birds and mammals, beautiful flowers to nightmarish feeding frenzies. Little can be more intimidating than the sight of a great white shark tossing a one-ton seal into the air and opening that massive tooth encircled jaw to engulf it in one bite like some teenage boy tossing a french fry.
The wonder is that organizations such as the BBC still exist and receive funding that allows them to support the scientific research and talent that makes series such as this possible. Surely allowing people to see the wonders of their planet is more rewarding than the development of more efficient means of waging warfare and money better spent. Mind you the two butted heads in Afghanistan where conflict hampered filming.
Film crews spend weeks, months, and even years gaining footage that sometimes occupy only seconds on screen. The enthusiasm, dedication, and skill of these crews is immeasurable. Be it diving the murky Amazon to film pirrana, waiting in frigid hides for an illusive feline to appear, racing uneven terrain to catch a wild dog hunt, or flying in turbulent air pockets; there are dangers involved.
Organizations such as the BBC provide unique resources for projects such as this. The orchestra that provides the background music, film processing and editing resources, and the voice of natural history, Sir Richard himself. Time-lapse photography speeds things up and high speed slows them down up to 40 times.
The whale shark is a 30-ton fish because it has gills, the 150-ton Blue Whale and the Orca are mammals because they have lungs.
Watching sea creatures such as the rays and even the whales swim reminds me that moving through water distinctly resembles flying through air though being denser water is eminently more supportive. Studying whale fins has led to breakthroughs in wing flight technology that also makes propellers and wind turbines quieter and more efficient. Microscopic plankton in our oceans accounts for 2/3rds of the oxygen we breath, the arboreal forest in the taiga nearly 1/3rd, all other sources are infinitesimal by comparison.
The final disk highlights the need for preservation. When watching footage of millions of birds migrating in seemingly limitless numbers we must remember that the passenger pidgeons once wondered the skies in similar numbers and now there are none. The millions of bison that once wandered our great plains indeed creating that environment are now but a token herd. This prospect is depressing and this final disk in the series constitutes a plea to save the creatures the team spent so many months and years capturing on film in the hopes that theirs won't be the last time these animals have been seen in the wild.
Ironic that I be reading Prince Charles' Harmony while I watch this. Although conservation efforts focus on the cute and cuddly--the WWF's Panda for example; and the majestic lions, tigers, elephants; every creature is important including the microbes we cannot see but may be even more important to our well being in the long run. Conservation cannot be solely the concern of rich Western Nations at the expense of the third world poor. If we are to save species and habitats we must find the means to fight poverty so that local populations to not destroy habitat for temporary farmland, hunt bush meat, or poach tusk, horns, pelts to make a meagre living.
Before Sunrise
This is the first in a trilogy of movies Ethan Hawke has made with his favourite director Richard Linklater. In it Hawke sits in the car of an fast electric train while the scenery of Europe whizzes by in the window and romances Julie Delphy. The fast-talking motor-mouth Hawke rattles on like a late-night infomercial host while they tour the sights of Vienna and he finds romantic locals to seduce her. Critics raved and your interest will vary according to your tolerance of the verbal diarrhea. His consort for this romp does her share of talking as well.
Delphy gets more opportunity to talk than I remembered at least in this outing. The train they come in on has overhead electric wires. The one shown leaving the station does not, just saying. The same sequence is used at the end of the movie and again, not the same train. The music store they enter, Alt und Neu, is vinyl records.
