Master and Commander
We rented Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World this weekend. This is the swashbuckling Patrick O’Brien story brought to the screen by director Peter Weir and starring Russell Crowe. I didn’t actually get to see it. We had dinner with friends on Saturday evening and tonight was the Sopranos (nothing gets in the way of the Sopranos). The only opportunity I had to watch the movie was this afternoon. Unfortunately, I was preoccupied with yard work. And when I say yard work, I mean I was taking a nap to the sounds of all my neighbors doing yard work.
My nine-year-old son, Conor, watched the movie with his friend. It’s a PG-13 movie, but his mother agreed to let him see it. Again, I was busy with yard work and she didn’t want to disturb me to see if I objected (I didn’t). Conor had this to say about Master and Commander when I quizzed him at dinner.
“So, you guys watch the movie.”
“Yeah. Some of it.”
“You didn’t see it all?”
“Well, you know, Dad, it was pretty bloody.”
“Oh.”
“And there was a lot of talking.”
“I see.”
“They shot off a bunch of cannonballs.”
“Well, that’s cool.”
“Yeah. But then they talked some more.”
“Hmm.”
“Cannonballs and talking. That’s pretty much the whole movie.”
“Gotcha.”
“Except this one time when they went into town.”
“What happened then?”
“They bought more cannonballs.”
I went to the IMDb site to see what they had to say about the movie. This sentence in the plot summary caught my eye: “While the naval battle sequences are quite fantastic (cannonballs), the film is successful because director Weir chose to build the story to get to know the men (talking) who are locked aboard the tight quarters of a small ship...”
And then there was the film’s rating: “Rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences (cannonballs)…and brief language (talking).
I’d say the boy got it just about right.
11:25:01 PM 
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