Barking at shovels

Master and Commander

Hm. Sorry it's been two weeks since my last entry. I guess I'm finding I only feel properly motivated to post when I'm enthusiastic about something -- mere news is work to write down, and if I'm already feeling kind of cranky, I blow off optional work. I do have a whole bunch of semi-news stuff to report in a post, but this is not that post. This is a movie review post.

So, Master and Commander is a movie I've been waiting for ever since I first saw it announced. I love Age of Sail stories, and this one was based on probably the best series of novels about that era, the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian.

Naturally, I was nervous.

I'm happy to report I didn't have to worry. The movie rearranges the books somewhat, but I think it captures the spirit. Crowe is excellent, the dialogue is dense with strange naval jargon, the South Pacific is gorgeous, and HMS Surprise is a wonder to behold. If you think you might like this movie, I don't think it will disappoint you.

I've seen some political bloggers complain that this movie makes the French out to be evil or inhuman; I think they're too caught up in their own arguments to let the movie stand on its own. It's the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars -- of course the French are evil. Anything else would play false.

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