Bloody Russell Crowe

[tamaranth]

At the weekend I was in Plymouth again on another brief family visit. I'd taken last month's Empire with me, because it had stills from the Peter Weir movie based (extremely loosely) on a couple of Patrick O'Brian's novels. My father introduced me to O'Brian when I was about 13 (it was a reciprocal deal: 'so what's so wonderful about your favourite author?' I got him reading and liking Zelazny ...).

Anyway, I've mentioned the movie to my father on the last few visits, but seldom got much of a response. This time, though, the photos worked wonders, even if (a) they do make bloody Russell Crowe look remarkably like reddragdiva and (b) bloody Russell Crowe is All Wrong as Jack Aubrey.

My father and I had a conversation. About whether bloody Russell Crowe matched our inner images of Jack Aubrey, and what those images included, and whether Aubrey is quintessentially English (unlike Russell Crowe). We ended up agreeing to differ.

I can't remember the last time we had a proper conversation, i.e. the call-and-response variety rather than the "How are you? Are you well? Have you been anywhere nice?" or the hallucination-narratives. (Actually, we had some of that as well, after Russell Crowe).

Determined to get the DVD as soon as it's available. And desperately hoping that my father lasts long enough to see the movie.

The trailer does look good, but I didn't see any close ups of Paul Bettany, so cannot yet determine whether casting him as Maturin was genius or madness. (Apparently there's a fine line between the two.)

Comments

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

The trailer looks very good. (I've seen it on both PC and cinema screen.) There's even a glossy hardback The Making Of... book, with lots of stills from the film and photos of the set. (And an outline of the plot, which borrows large elements from The Far Side Of The World but substitutes a French frigate for the American vessel.) I shall certainly see the film, but I don't expect to see a dramatisation of an actual Patrick O'Brian novel; just a story that uses his characters.