WORLD TOUR Day 54 - Coastal waters off South America
BEFORE: This may be the film that made me decide to organize the Virtual World Tour - once I had the nautical link from Asia/Australia to South America, the deal was sealed in my mind. It's a vast distance, and of course I could have just gone from Vietnam to Chile or something, but this gave me validation, it proved that I was at least thinking of all of the possible stops along the route.
It's rather fitting to be watching these "ships at sea" films since they always seem to encounter storms, and right now the whole East Coast is bracing for a big storm to hit. Our advance preparations included hosting a party for my wife's co-workers, which gave us plenty of leftovers to eat at home, along with extra beer and soda. With NYC subways shut down and work cancelled, there's now no reason for us to leave the house for the next 2 days, unless the power goes out and we need ice, or the roof blows off.
Linking from "The Bounty", Bernard Hill was also in the film "Wimbledon" with Paul Bettany (last seen in "Creation").
THE PLOT: During the Napoleonic Wars, a brash British captain pushes his ship and crew to their limits in pursuit of a formidable French war vessel around South America.
AFTER: Well, this film did a little better at the box office than "The Bounty" did, but it still didn't turn much of a profit. This was intended to be the first film in a series based off the novels of Patrick O'Bryan, but it seems that no more films in the series have been scheduled. It's too bad, I enjoyed this one for its nautical authenticity, even if it didn't stay completely true to the books. (The year was changed, for one, to enable the British ship to fight a French ship rather than an American one.)
I dug this one, because it seemed like a crash course in maritime life, circa 1805. The respect for Lord Nelson, the military tactics at sea, the chain of command - all rich, rich stuff. I'm not familiar with the novels, but this is manly men doing manly man things, like tracking other ships through fog banks, and performing shipboard surgery. Men who can fight with swords one day and then play violin the next. Men who practice now-lost arts, like firing cannons and carving ship's figureheads.
The story was solid, because the ship they were chasing was elusive, always out of reach (except for the times that it, umm, wasn't) which gave a nice framework to the action, a sense of purpose that drove the plot.
The ship covered a lot of ground (water?) tonight - from the coast of Brazil around Cape Horn, and up to near Ecuador, it seems. But for my mileage purposes I'm going to just pick one prominent stop on its journey and measure from there, because it'll be just a quick jump from there to tomorrow's location.
Also starring Russell Crowe (last seen in "The Quick and the Dead"), Billy Boyd, James D'Arcy,
DISTANCE TRAVELED TODAY: 4,188 miles / 6,740 km (Papeete, French Polynesia to Galapagos Islands)
DISTANCE TRAVELED SO FAR: 35,637 miles / 57,357 km
RATING: 7 out of 10 iguanas
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