Master and Commander - Anybody going to see this?

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Osweld
Alright, so it's an internationaly backed cheese-fest.

Well, I haven't seen it - you haven't seen it.

Therefore I am not in a position to comment.

Just because something doesn't 'float your boat' doesn't mean you should dismiss it out of hand without seeing it. I could say the same about LOTR.

[st_swithin]

Jennifer Connelly is a very, very lucky woman - she's married to Paul Bettany.

Crowe did a great job. I'm beginning to think he might've really deserved that Oscar.

And the best-ever performance by the Galapagos marine iguanas - they'd get my nomination for best supporting species.

[Boris Godunov]

I'm seeing it in 30 minutes. Will report back.

[Boris Godunov]

Baaaack.

Ok, I give it a 7.5/10.

It's pretty entertaining at some points, drags a little aimlessly in others. Of course, of particular interest to me was the use of Vaughan Williams "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" during the real emotional moments...heh!

The script ranges from acceptable to really bad, and the amount of cliches is really astounding. I mean, there's only so many salty dogs muttering about curses I can take in modern cinema. The rather obvious references to the Odyssey didn't help, either. The ludicrous notion that a single French frigate operating in the Pacific would be enough to tip the balance of the war was also a laughable stretch.

Crowe was typical, but the other performances were pretty good, especially the kid who plays the young officer. Most child actors make me wretch, but he was genuinely good. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really make you care about anyone except the doctor (very well played), so the emotional impact of the casualties isn't what it should be.

Note to DPs: Until peripheral vision in movie theaters is utilized, the technique of wildly swinging the camera around in battle sequences is not only ineffective, it just makes the scenes unwatchable. Please stop.

The chief thing about this evening is that it has solidified my dislike of going to theaters. The past four theater experiences I've had were frought with one terrible aspect--the audience members. People are just incomprehensibly rude. For ****'s sake, I was at a concert at Carnegie Hall last week, and some idiots had brought their little kids along to kick the seats, whine and rifle through bags of candy. Tonight some guy was commenting loudly on everything in the movie, even repeating lines after they were spoken! Do these people have no manners or consideration for others at all? Grrr!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ned
Spoiler -

Oh come on...that was one of the lame, contrived parts of the film. Whomever wrote the script had been reading one too many internet pun e-mails.

[Lancer]

I read all of O'Brian's books at leat 3 times over the years. Read both 'Master and Commander' and 'The Far Side of the World', and wonder why the put them together as 'Post Captian' comes after 'Master'.

Likely I'll see the flick a few times too.

Love the Napoleonic era, line of battle ships under sail, frigates sweeping the ocean and captains chasing prize money.

I'm as excited to see this flick as a 15 year old about to kiss the cutest girl in the class.

[Dis]

This looks pretty good.

But I predict it will bomb at the box office. I hear there are virtually no women in this film.

This is a great film for sailors like me who like big sweaty men

[JohnT]

Originally posted by monolith94
"It's why I went to go see Luther about a month ago - I never dreamed that I'd see a biopic on his life, not in this secular age, not on the big screen."

I heard that that was a terrible film - it looked pretty bad. Was it?

Eh, it was OK. The timeline was correct, they didn't add people who didn't exist, Peter Ustinov was enjoyable as Frederick the Great, they quoted Luther accurately in words if not tone... as a recounting of the events of the Reformation, it is surprisingly true, with a few exceptions (below).

I wrote a review of Luther (and how historically accurate it was) on the Straight Dope. In short: The got the events correct, they just did a horrible job on Luther himself.

Alright, to answer the question.

In a general sense the history in Luther is pretty much accurate - the liberties taken with history were few, but there were a number of errors which include:

1. The use of a couple of terms and concepts that were not fully developed/in use in Luther's times or not accepted by Luther. Frederick the Great used the word inertia, which, iirc, was an invention of Newtons (or Galileos). Luther also mentioned "fixed stars" which do not exist in the geocentric universe that he accepted.

2. Johann Tetzel never made it to Wittenberg, much less Saxony, as Frederick the Great banned him from his territories. But Tetzel, not to be outsmarted, went to towns close to the border thereby still drawing Saxony coin, which drew the ire of both Luther and Frederick.

3. Ulrich von Hutton is a lot calmer in the movie than the accounts I've read of him. IIRC, he was banned even before Luther was in Worms.

A number of things were also understated or completely omitted:

1. Luther's influence in creating a German identity was understated (except for the translation plot.)

2. It is never revealed that the main reason the German princes supported Luther was because they were tired of their gold going to Rome.

3. Luther's anti-semitism and the reasons for it? Not touched on at all.

4. Luther had rather psychotic and abusive parents who constantly beat him and treated him in ways that would get them arrested today. His treatment at their hands had profound effects on his psyche, effects that were completely ignored.

Odds and ends that they included but didn't have to:

1. Luther's scatalogical obsessions.

2. His spells where he saw and spoke to the Devil. He even claims to have beaten back the Devil with Luther's own fecal matter.

Now about the movie...

While Joseph Fiennes did a good job expressing how deeply Luther believed in his God, overall he did a pretty poor job of portraying Martin Luther. Luther was not a timid man - he was forged of anger and rage, passion and fire. Except for a period immediately following the publishing of the Theses he wasn't a person given to self doubt and quiet talk. Luther hated, and hated well.

Luther was also more worldly than the script gave him credit for. He knew what he was doing when he crouched his arguments in the terms of German nationalism and the Volk. One of the biggest weaknesses of the movie was the complete lack of Latin and German - in the real world, when Luther was at Worms the entire trial had been conducted in Latin, until the very last pronouncement by Luther, which he made in German. That would've helped driven home the point that Luther succeeded not because of theology and faith, but because of politics and economics. And the "real" Luther knew this.

Fiennes (or the script) didn't portray any of this at all - Fiennes' Luther was the sort of man who'd get his ass kicked up and down the Elbe and would've been of even lesser import than Jan Hus. Fiennes' Luther just kinda floated along in the world, largely propped up by the machinations of others...

until, in one bizarre scene before the Augsburg meeting, Luther is sitting at the head of the table issuing the Princes their marching orders for when they meet the Emperor.

But what the hell - I've been waiting for a big-screen biopic of Luther's life and am pleased that I actually got one. I'll give it an 8.5 on a scale of 10, but I will say that you probably won't miss much if you wait until it comes out on DVD.

[JohnT]

"The script ranges from acceptable to really bad, and the amount of cliches is really astounding. I mean, there's only so many salty dogs muttering about curses I can take in modern cinema(a). The rather obvious references to the Odyssey didn't help, either(b). The ludicrous notion that a single French frigate operating in the Pacific would be enough to tip the balance of the war was also a laughable stretch(c)."

A: But salty sea dogs are superstitious, and were even more so in 1805. Just because every script about long voyages at sea have this "cliche" in it, doesn't make them any less so (and I remember no talk about curses in Titanic, btw). Hell, even the officer halfway believed that he was cursed, else he wouldn't have taken the action that he took while saying what he said.

B. Granted, but being an uncultured lout, all but two went over my head. Were there more?

C. The ship "tipping the balance of war" was a lie that Lucky Jack told the crew to get them to accede to continue fighting the Phantom w/o mutinous talk. Jack as much admitted so when he

Spoiler:

told Malkovich that he exceeded his orders from the Admirality the moment they left Brazilian waters.

[JohnT]

"Crowe was typical, but the other performances were pretty good, especially the kid who plays the young officer. Most child actors make me wretch, but he was genuinely good. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really make you care about anyone except the doctor (very well played), so the emotional impact of the casualties isn't what it should be."

Well, the story is Jacks and the doctors story, not the crews, and since Jack and the doctor lived, the casualties weren't supposed to be jarring other than how they effected Jack.

I thought Crowe was excellent in this movie, doing a lot of acting with his face and not his mouth.

"Note to DPs: Until peripheral vision in movie theaters is utilized, the technique of wildly swinging the camera around in battle sequences is not only ineffective, it just makes the scenes unwatchable. Please stop."

Ah, yes, the Saving Private Ryan effect. Just wait 'til they combine the Matrix's "bullet time" with SPR's staccato chaos.

"The chief thing about this evening is that it has solidified my dislike of going to theaters. The past four theater experiences I've had were frought with one terrible aspect--the audience members. People are just incomprehensibly rude. For ****'s sake, I was at a concert at Carnegie Hall last week, and some idiots had brought their little kids along to kick the seats, whine and rifle through bags of candy. Tonight some guy was commenting loudly on everything in the movie, even repeating lines after they were spoken! Do these people have no manners or consideration for others at all? Grrr!"

There was an actual 4 year old in the theater I went to, who stayed and complained the entire time.

But you know something Boris? We failed too as an audience because not a single person complained. To anybody.

[Ned]

Well, Boris, you and I at least agree on the "swinging camera." It was really annoying an almost ruined the picture for me. Combine that with the habit of showing a particular battle scene for only a fraction of a second before moving on to the next and the overall effect is confusion. I suspect real battles are like that, but it does not make for good cinema.

[JohnT]

Given that ones perspective is from a boat, proper "perspective" would've had a sway to the camera throughout the entire film.

[Buck Birdseed]

I saw the trailer. It looked like utter war-heroic cack to me.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by JohnT
The timeline was correct, they didn't add people who didn't exist, Peter Ustinov was enjoyable as Frederick the Great, they quoted Luther accurately in words if not tone... as a recounting of the events of the Reformation, it is surprisingly true, with a few exceptions (below).

I haven´t seen Luther, but just to nitpick: I´m quite sure Ustinov played Frederick the Wise of Saxony. Frederick the Great would be the Prussian King (18th century).

[Dr Strangelove]

Yeah, if Martin Luther had had Fredrick the Great on his side the Italians would all be speaking Lutheran now!