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krpalmerCarving the time out of a week to “watch a movie” can take a bit of work for me. Finding the motivation to watch a movie in that time, rather than just winding up poking away at a bunch of things to perhaps be most left with worried thoughts about a “shortened attention span,” is a different challenge.
In going through the boxes of DVDs I recorded off Turner Classic Movies to make “disk image” backups, though, I did begin considering one title, then got around to watching it at last. It might not be “canonical” (although not that long ago I did manage to watch Singin’ in the Rain, which was entertaining even if I wondered about enjoying the non-musical parts more than its numbers, aware I haven’t had much engagement with “musicals”), but I was interested all the same in Captain Horatio Hornblower.
I’d started reading C.S. Forester’s novels years ago, letting the nautical details wash over and by me, although it took a while until I had what seemed a full set of paperback omnibus editions assembled. The unfortunate thought that if I’m not sweating and struggling to get through “literary merit” prose fiction must be “on too low a level to really be worth reading” was around as it often is, although in looking up a Wikipedia article after I’d seen the movie I did notice it reference Ernest Hemingway “recommend Forester to everyone literate.” As for the movie, I might have started thinking about it when a volume in a series of “Star Trek essay books” I’d sampled took on the novels being given as one of the influences on the TV show by purporting to examine the film from within the Star Trek universe itself. (Hornblower’s constant self-doubt and self-criticism has me wondering about where the original Captain Pike might have gone, although the eventual interest of women in him reminds me of certain cautions Captain Kirk’s character has become a bit oversimplified in popular assumptions.) I did eventually read a more fantastical take on the historical period in some of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels, signing them out of the library after the Science Fiction Book club went out of business, although I have to admit to losing track of the series before its end.
The movie rolls together events from three core novels of the series, sufficient to both introduce Hornblower and give him a happy ending. With Gregory Peck playing him, I suppose I did wonder about the film brushing by how the novels had Hornblower forever dwelling on hair loss and weight gain. Acknowledging it as a condensation, though, I was able to find interest in its Technicolor action, with the thought it’s now seventy years old a mere point of amused note.
In going through the boxes of DVDs I recorded off Turner Classic Movies to make “disk image” backups, though, I did begin considering one title, then got around to watching it at last. It might not be “canonical” (although not that long ago I did manage to watch Singin’ in the Rain, which was entertaining even if I wondered about enjoying the non-musical parts more than its numbers, aware I haven’t had much engagement with “musicals”), but I was interested all the same in Captain Horatio Hornblower.
I’d started reading C.S. Forester’s novels years ago, letting the nautical details wash over and by me, although it took a while until I had what seemed a full set of paperback omnibus editions assembled. The unfortunate thought that if I’m not sweating and struggling to get through “literary merit” prose fiction must be “on too low a level to really be worth reading” was around as it often is, although in looking up a Wikipedia article after I’d seen the movie I did notice it reference Ernest Hemingway “recommend Forester to everyone literate.” As for the movie, I might have started thinking about it when a volume in a series of “Star Trek essay books” I’d sampled took on the novels being given as one of the influences on the TV show by purporting to examine the film from within the Star Trek universe itself. (Hornblower’s constant self-doubt and self-criticism has me wondering about where the original Captain Pike might have gone, although the eventual interest of women in him reminds me of certain cautions Captain Kirk’s character has become a bit oversimplified in popular assumptions.) I did eventually read a more fantastical take on the historical period in some of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire novels, signing them out of the library after the Science Fiction Book club went out of business, although I have to admit to losing track of the series before its end.
The movie rolls together events from three core novels of the series, sufficient to both introduce Hornblower and give him a happy ending. With Gregory Peck playing him, I suppose I did wonder about the film brushing by how the novels had Hornblower forever dwelling on hair loss and weight gain. Acknowledging it as a condensation, though, I was able to find interest in its Technicolor action, with the thought it’s now seventy years old a mere point of amused note.