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Author Topic: Master and Commander Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 11-17-2003 04:18 PM                        I think steel strings were made as early as the 18th century, but for a long time they were rarely used. Gut strings were still in use in the first decades of the 20th century, and only slowly replaced by steel strings. Steel strings give a more "brilliant" and also a louder tone, and they are more reliable than gut, while gut strings have a softer, silkier tone. The period instrument and historical performance practice movement brought gut strings back in the 70s. Today, steel strings are the norm, but gut is used in period performance. A lot of Jazz bass players also prefer gut strings since they have less tension, and give a more bell-like "swinging" sound.  |  IP: Logged Mitchell Cope Master Film Handler Posts: 256 From: Overland Park, KS, United States Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-17-2003 05:23 PM                     I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. To me, it served as a supposedly realistic version of being on a British war ship at the beginning of the 19th century. None of the photography or sound bothered me. I was really fooled by its CGI. "Titanic", on the other hand, had not quite adequate CGI, but that was half a decade ago. What did distract me was the "crap code". It wouldn't go away in the storm sequence. About every 20 seconds or so, "ding". If you're going to do it, do it and be done with it. That code destroyed that scene for me. I'm half inclined to ask for a refund when I see that much "crap", pardon my French. Any director ought to be fuming to have that much stuff over their work. Highly intrusive!  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 11-19-2003 10:46 PM                        11/19/2003, 3:10PM, Regal Cinema World 8, Eugene OR, House #3. DTS-ES Sound (they just upgraded - woo hoo!!). Attendance about 25. The show started slightly out of frame - I told someone, and they did fix it. Aside from that the presentation was very good, and DTS-ES is awesome!! But there were WAY WAY too many ads and trailers -- 30 minutes worth. Audience members were audibly groaning as this went on and on. This film has elements of greatness, but doesn't quite attain that level overall. I thoroughly enjoyed it as a story of life aboard one of those ships. The attention to detail was very evident. Russell Crowe was OK. A film like this cries out for 65mm origination (as others have noted). As it is, the image was mostly OK, but quite grainy. And the scenes on land looked like badly-colorized b&w footage. Very strange look. The CGI work is mostly very good, almost doesn't call any special attention to itself. The big storm scene was LOADED with CRAP Code!!??? WHY WHY WHY??? It was like every 30 seconds, seemed to be a different code each time (dots arranged differently), and the dot cluster moved around to different parts of the screen!!?? Whoever is responsible for this should be, umm, keelhauled!!! It's horribly distracting.  |  IP: Logged Greg Mueller Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1687 From: Port Gamble, WA Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-23-2003 12:04 AM                        Just saw this at the 7 pm show (11/22) Sold out show. The wife and I enjoyed this film. To bad they can't put them damn dots somewhere else or at least make them the same color as the background or something. They were all over in the big storm scenes which were really gray. Then bzzt...red dots. Very noticeable. I don't know if it played this way everywhere, but the music seemed to predominately come from the left speaker and was sort of strange in that respect Russel did a good job, I thought, but his character wasn't given the right lines or screen time to endure us to him. Maybe too much was left on the cutting room floor? I like the young lord that lost his arm. Pretty smart kid All in all a film worth seeing. The lesser of two weavels....  |  IP: Logged Pravin Ratnam Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 844 From: Atlanta, GA,USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 11-23-2003 11:22 AM                     Saw it at a Regal Hollywood 24. There was slight image bleed outside the frame. The projector bulb was not dim which I was grateful for because of the low lighting for many scenes. I actually liked the movie. It is certainly not as good as the critics make it out to be. But the movie was pretty good for what it is. While I usually hate gloomy cinematography, I think it worked for this movie to set the mood with all the foggy and stormy days. But you definitely have to be in a very relaxed mood to watch this movie or you might get bored, especially with the first half hour. Not a great movie to check out with a bunch of buddies. The movie works much better if you go alone to the theater or with a likeminded person. The plot itself is very minimalist. The movie is more of a slice of life on the ship. The ending was a little abrupt for me. But I guess the ending is not totally without merit as it lightens the mood of the movie. And yes, the use of the CRAP CODE IS THE WORST EVER. You know, I didn't mind it as much in Freddy vs Jason because the dots weren't in clean patterns like they use in other movies. Now, they use these red dots in clean straight lines forming a T or L or something like that. And they used the Crap Code at least FIVE TIMES in a 2 or 3 minute sequence when the kid gets separated from the ship during the storm. I plan on complaining to theater management. Would it make a difference? Probably not. But if more people complain, maybe that will give theater management some incentive to complain to the distributor or whoever has any kind of leverage. Can't those NATO or Showest expos discuss these kind of issues? Maybe if theaters band together, they can make the use of these codes less blatant. [ 11-23-2003, 04:27 PM: Message edited by: Pravin Ratnam ]  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 11-24-2003 03:51 AM                        The HMS Surprise can now be seen in San Diego harbor. The ship will be opened to the public on December 5.  |  IP: Logged Ron Yost Master Film Handler Posts: 344 From: Paso Robles, CA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 11-24-2003 01:41 PM                     Michael, do you know who owns it now? I'm curious if it was sold again after the filming was completed. Hope it makes a 'tour' up the west coast and stops at Morro Bay. I took a very short 'voyage' on the replica of "The Golden Hinde" years ago. Great fun! Wonder where it is now? BTW, it's the ship that was used in "Shogun", if I remember correctly. Edit: The Hinde is docked in London, to answer my own Q. Ron Yost  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 11-24-2003 03:18 PM                     Ahem! Take it elsewhere guys.  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 11-27-2003 06:04 PM                     I found M & C entertaining, but even two hours after seeing it it fades away from my mind. Russell Crowe played it well, the cast was fine, but there was too much confusion and camera shaking during the fight scenes. Certainly a ship of the British Navy was no Love Boat, but I found these always bluish, dark pictures very tiring. Some matte shots (especially at Galapagos) were awful, all in all the picture would IMHO benefitted from a more epic look without giving up the realistic details. Very poor definition in all long shots, some clos up shots of Crowe and the Doctor looked almost duped with strange color shifts and more grain. All in all, the film was OK, but nothing special. I noticed a strange black matting at the bottom of the frame, it was only visible during some scenes. Much wider than a frameline, I have no idea what causes it as the presentation was flawless.  |  IP: Logged John Anastasio Master Film Handler Posts: 325 From: Trenton, NJ, USA Registered: Sep 2000 posted 11-29-2003 09:45 PM                        Just saw it at the Hamilton AMC 24 in a realtively small auditorium. Someone had obviously taken the time to tone down the sound, because I had no problem with levels. The cap code popped in a couple of times during battle scenes and wasn't that noticeable because there was so much going on, but I DID see them. I too thought that the film was very grainy and unsaturated, almost black and white at times. The plot's pretty thin, but I thought it portrayed life on board a naval vessel much more realistically than other nautical films I've seen.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-11-2003 08:56 PM                     OK Michael, You're right, its a great film but does have a couple of slow spots in it. As much as I love Ralph Vaughn Williams music he wasn't alive when these guys were blowing off those incredible cannons so that part of the score was out of place in this film at least per the dates. And no, I didn't get seasick watching it. Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-07-2004 08:54 AM                        I finally saw the whole film (as opposed to bits and pieces from the booth). I loved the attention to historical detail and have great respect for all who were involved in the set and costume designs. As a film, I thought it was something of a flawed masterpiece. There wasn't quite enough background material to follow the story completely and we didn't really get to know any of the characters (aside from Russel Crowe's character) well enough to care deeply about them. The print that I saw was pretty bad. There wasn't much shadow detail, sharpness wasn't good, and R3 was _loaded_ with crap code. I thought that the sound was OK; it wasn't a fantastic mix, but it wasn't as bad as Brad said it was, either. The editing needed some help; there were a number of continuity errors and there were times when the show just dragged. Other scenes were great. It's worth checking out at a second-run house, but I'm glad that I didn't pay full price for it.  |  IP: Logged

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