Best Boating-Related Movie?

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:iagree: 150%. Make some room on that horse for me.

Certainly the best historical fiction I ever read. O'Brian paced his books methodically, weaving the accounts of daily life at sea and the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin with some of the most memorable action in literature. His accounts of naval engagements and rounding the Horn are spectacular. My whole family devoured the entire series and I plan to read them a second time.

People can opine all they want about Rocna's vs SARCAS or chain vs rope. But they should not screw with universal truths like the quality and inspirational value of O'Brian's epic novels. :D
 
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Andy G said:
However, what you end up with is one of the great literary friendships, equal to that of Holmes & Watson, Horatio and Hamlet, Tom and Huckleberry Finn, to mention a few.

These books are simply to good to dismiss in that way.
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The O'Brian series isn't worthy of being in the same bookstore as the others you mention, let alone the same league in my opinion. I was bored with the first book by the time I was halfway through but I forced myself to finish it as my friend had waxed so eloquently about the series.

I found the writing style uninteresting, the dialogue trite and the characters bland, but the worst thing was that at the end I didn't care enough about the characters to want to learn any more about them. And a writer who can't make me care about the characters is not a writer worth reading.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Shakespeare and Samuel Clemens created universally relevant and fascinating characters that capture the imagination. O'Brian clearly didn't have a clue how to do that.

He wrote nice sea stories I guess but the one I read reminded me very much of an [American] western novel. An easy read in a juvenile sort of way but nothing that you come out the other end of feeling like you've gained anything meaningful.

Dana's Two Years Before the Mast is a vastly superior read and it's "just" a memoir.

Everybody's taste is different and I know there are a lot of people who really like O'Brian's stuff. But for me life's too short and there are too many truly good books to read to warrant spending any more time with O'Brian's stories than I already have. Even Hollywood had to combine a bunch of the books together to get one story worth turning into a screenplay. And the movie had a hell of a lot more life and dynamics to it than the book I read.
 
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Marin:
Arthur Conan Doyle, Shakespeare and Samuel Clemens created universally relevant and fascinating characters that capture the imagination. O'Brian clearly didn't have a clue how to do that.

Well, actually he did, and did it very well. However to judge him you need to read the entire work, not just one book.

It's a little like taking a Ferrari for a test drive in peak hour traffic, then saying to the salesman it's rubbish.
 
Andy G said:
However to judge him you need to read the entire work, not just one book.

It's a little like taking a Ferrari for a test drive in peak hour traffic, then saying to the salesman it's rubbish.
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If the first book is uninspiring and pedantic writing, there is no reason to expect the rest of them are any different.

A Ferrari in peak traffic is still a Ferrari. Even standing still it's inspiring.

I had high hopes for O'Brian's series based on my friend's rave review. But it started out trite and became increasingly so.

I'm not saying his basic premise was no good. He just had a writing style that put me to sleep. I like writing where I find the very use of the language to be clever or thought provoking. It's been some years since I took a stab at the thing, but I recall his use of the language was very "See Spot Run."

And his dialogue was really bad, I recall. I remember repeatedly thinking, "People just don't talk like that." And nothing kills a book faster for me than unrealistic dialogue

He was simply unable to make his characters three dimensional, real, and interesting enough to keep reading about. I found myself skipping ahead to find sections that looked interesting enough to read word for word.

Were I a professional book reviewr I would give his writing one and a half stars. The extra half star would be for effort as he wrote a bloody ton of them.

Contrast this with a series I had no interest whatsoever in reading: the Ring Trilogy. I don't care for fantasy and I don't care for science fiction. A friend in college was nuts for the Trilogy and kept pestering me to read it. I resisted for half a year and then just to shut him up I said I'd try it.

I was hooked after the first couple of pages and read the whole trilogy in about a week. I stayed up all night, every night, reading. Tolkien had everything: a great, fast-moving story, a mastery of the language that was like watching a movie on the page, terrific characters that intrigued the hell out of me, dialogue unique to each character and perfectly matched to the character.... It was an amazing experience reading those three books. I still don't like fantasy or science fiction. But THAT was an experience.

In comparison, reading O'Brian's writing was like reading an instruction manual for a washing machine.
 
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Definitely Captain Ron and Gone Fishin' but strangely no mention of Riddle of the Sands? - sticks and rags I know but a good old film.
 
Marin said:
In comparison, reading O'Brian's writing was like reading an instruction manual for a washing machine.
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We must not have been reading the same books. I've read the entire series 3 times and discover and/or come to understand something new each time. Far from being shallow, I found the series to be rich in detail and complexity, both in plot and the characters. I thought the movie, M&C, was definitely OK, but barely skimmed the surface of the various books that were cobbled together to produce a script. But that's what's needed to keep the action going in a 2 hour movie that should have been a mini-series.

OTOH - I could never get through the Rings trilogy. I found that to be the most plodding reading, other than von Clauswitz, I had ever experienced. Loved the movies though.

Different strokes for different folks. And that's what makes the world go 'round!
 
One last observation on O'Brian's books.

I enjoyed the Master & Commander film, a good yarn. By the way did you know Russell Crowe was very keen to do a sequel but couldn't get the studio interested, pity.

My main gripe about the film was the way Maturin's character was reduced to the supporting role of Crowe's Jack Aubrey.

What elevated the O'Brian books (IMHO) to more than say C S Forrester's Hornblower novels was the wonderful complexity of Maturin's character, so at odds with the bluff English sea going Aubrey.

Maturin is an Irish bastard, somewhat complicit in the Irish rebellion, brought up by his Catalan godfather, who instilled into him a fierce belief in freedom, yet we find him working as an unpaid agent for the English to defeat Bonaparte. Throw in his hopeless & desperate infatuation with a woman who treats him badly, coupled his sometime addiction to opium and you have a character to savour. He is to me the heart of the novels.
 
Andy G said:
By the way did you know Russell Crowe was very keen to do a sequel but couldn't get the studio interested, pity..
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Probably because the studio heads tried reading the books.

Sorry, couldn't resist.:)
 
Marin said:
Probably because the studio heads tried reading the books.

Sorry, couldn't resist.:)
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Lovely shot, just inside the baseline. 15 -0, new balls please ballboy. :rolleyes:
 
Someone mentioned the movie Riddle of the Sands earlier. I haven't seen the movie or the TV series that were produced, but I read the book a number of years ago when it caught my eye in the marine store we use in Bellingham harbor.

Written in 1903, the writing style is different than what we are more used to today, but it is very good. What really intrigued me was that the author, a Britiish citizen I know nothing about, was astute enough to realize there was "something up with Germany" years before the accelleration of the arms race that helped spur WWI.

I have read that the book was immensly popular in Britain and remained so for some ten years. It helped raise the awareness in Great Britain the the country was very ill-prepared for a conflict with Germany (or anyone for that matter).

Speaking of a conflict with Germany, there are two books that in my opinon are among the very best histories of a specfic subject I have ever read in my life. Both are by the same author, a outstanding British historian named Robert K. Massie.

The books do not have to be read in order--- I read them the wrong way round--- as each one stands on its own.

The first one, titled Dreadnaught, chronicles the political, geographic, and naval armaments events that led to the start of the Great War.

The second book, titled Castles of Steel, is about the naval conflicts between Great Britain and Germany during the war.

There are a lot of books on these subjects and I 've read a fair amount of them. I have found none better than these two.
 
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Marin, I noted you liked Shadow Divers. I finally was able to muster the courage to read it after it sat on my bookshelf for many years. The book was actually quite good. I was active in tech diving in the early years and spent a lot of time on forums back in the day. I had been trading barbs with the Rouses just a few days before they were killed in the worst way possible. I had never met them in person, but that event was pretty horrific just the same. It really impacted the whole community. A few years later when my number finally came up and my own legs went out from under me in the doorway of the compressor room at Egmont, I suddenly thought a lot about Chris and his son. I got lucky, they didn't. I'll tell you one thing, when we get so passionate about our arguments, everyone stops learning. Always makes me wonder if things had to turn out the way they did.

Anyhow, good book. The sub history of u-who is cool, and it gives a pretty strikingly real description of the way things really were at that time. I did not find the accounts to be embellishments at all, that's pretty much how it was.



As far as movies, I think the sand pebbles is vastly under rated. Good show. I had to stop watching my copies of Das boot. You would think it would get less stressful over time. For me, it's just the opposite. That movie is hard core.
 
Here is a decent movie I saw in high school days.

Pursuit of the Graf Spee

 
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Marin said:
Someone mentioned the movie Riddle of the Sands earlier. I haven't seen the movie or the TV series that were produced, but I read the book a number of years ago when it caught my eye in the marine store we use in Bellingham harbor.

Written in 1903, the writing style is different than what we are more used to today, but it is very good. What really intrigued me was that the author, a Britiish citizen I know nothing about, was astute enough to realize there was "something up with Germany" years before the accelleration of the arms race that helped spur WWI.
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As you probably know, Erskine Childers met an early end at the hands of a firing squad.

The 1979 Riddle Of The Sands movie is actually pretty decent. It was directed by Tony Maylam, who also directed the Victory By Design documentary series on auto racing marques. Good footage and informative dialogue on some beautiful cars.
 
ghost said:
Marin, I noted you liked Shadow Divers.
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It was actually a title that my wife's book club read. She had it on her Kindle and as all our devices are on the same account I downloaded it to my Kindle based on her recommendation.

I took SCUBA lessons as a kid as a councilor trainee at a summer camp on Lake Michigan. It was a fun experience but I could not master the ditch and recovery excersise (I could not keep myself on the bottom to put the gear back on to save my life) so I finally gave up and took up another activity. (My "master," what I was taught to teach that summer, was canoeing).

So I know next to nothing about SCUBA diving other than you go under the water and breathe and don't come up too fast.

So Shadow Divers was a fascinating book to me because it exposed me to a world I know virtually nothing about. When I read it I had no idea how truthful the writiing, events, and opinions about the various characters and factions in the book were, and I still don't.

But as a book about a remarkable undertaking, I think it's terrific.
 
Marin,
I'm with you on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. My all time favorite books. But i think you're way off on the O'Brian series. O'Brian went to great lengths to write an authentic account of how life was in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. He did his research and reportedly kept true to the dialogue of the time (or as true as he could make it based on available evidence and contemporaneous writings). In fact, the dialogue is what makes the books difficult to read because it is hard to figure out what the characters are saying sometimes.

I, too, am a stickler for believable dialogue in books. But I don't remember being put off by that in the O'Brian books. Unlike John MacDonald's Travis McGee series, in which the dialogue is so laughable I almost gave up. But, if I suspended belief and took those books for what they are -- pure pulp -- they are an entertaining read. Particularly the boating scenes.

Just my 2 cents... I realize that nothing anybody can say can convince you to enjoy those books. Nothing wrong with that!
 
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MrJim said:
Just my 2 cents... I realize that nothing anybody can say can convince you to enjoy those books. Nothing wrong with that!
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I don't doubt that O'Brian researched his subject very thoroughly. I've done the same things on the books I've written and the one I'm writing now. For me, it's half the challenge and satisfaction of the project, and I'm sure it was for him, too.

Where I run on the rocks with his stuff is how he conveyed what he'd learned.

But as Baltimore Lurker very correctly said, everyone has different tastes and different beliefs in what makes good writing. By my standards, which apply only to me, O'Brian was an ineffective writer for the reasons I've already conveyed.

Which is too bad because he picked a great subject and a great time period and he certainly had a staggering amount of accurate and interesting information in his arsenal. I was eager to start reading the series when my friend so highly recommended it and loaned me the first few books. I like series stories that follow the central characters, particularly well-written British mysteries. But i just couldn't deal with O'Brian's poor writing (by my standards, remember:))

I've had no inclination to try them again, not when there is FAR too much truly good writing out there to be read. That's one of my real disappointments in the the length of a human life. I'm going to die knowing there is so much more great stuff to read and learn on this planet.

Bummer.
 
Marin;313647 [B said:
But as Baltimore Lurker very correctly said, everyone has different tastes and different beliefs in what makes good writing. By my standards, which apply only to me, O'Brian was an ineffective writer for the reasons I've already conveyed.
[/B]

Sorry, can't let that one go unchallenged.

When I was 14 years old I was made to study Shakespeare, hated it, couldn't understand the language, the plot was asinine, load of rubbish!

It was only later I learned that as Shakespeare said 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves'.The corollary of that is it is not really our personal likes or dislikes that determine a great writer, that is outside our ken.

'Good' writing is hard to define, I can only give you its anathema,it is he who goes by the name of Clive Cussler. :eek:

(well this should stir things up)
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Right Andy. You can find good writing in amazing places. I was an early reader of Sports Cars Illustrated which later became Car & Driver. I would wait each month for its delivery as much for the writing as the cars. I always got a good chuckle out of it. It was not stilted as was Road & Track.

I lifted the following from a website:

Car and Driver once featured Bruce McCall, Jean Shepherd, Dick Smothers, and Brock Yates as columnists, and PJ O'Rourke as a frequent contributor. Former editors include William Jeanes and David E. Davis, the latter of whom led some employees to defect in order to create Automobile Magazine.
 
Moonstruck said:
Right Andy. You can find good writing in amazing places. I was an early reader of Sports Cars Illustrated which later became Car & Driver. I would wait each month for its delivery as much for the writing as the cars. I always got a good chuckle out of it. It was not stilted as was Road & Track.

I lifted the following from a website:

Car and Driver once featured Bruce McCall, Jean Shepherd, Dick Smothers, and Brock Yates as columnists, and PJ O'Rourke as a frequent contributor. Former editors include William Jeanes and David E. Davis, the latter of whom led some employees to defect in order to create Automobile Magazine.
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Car & Driver was some outstanding reading and entertainment back in the day! It's still my go-to car mag, but, it just ain't the same.
 
Greetings,
I haven't read the whole thread but I doubt my FAVORITE movie has been mentioned...The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. It DOES start off on a boat and there IS a nice Chris Craft (can't remember the model) shown near the end. Norwegians......Hahahaha....

 
"Misfortunatley, the answer to all your questions is...yes!"


1983 Present 42 Sundeck
Twin Lehman 135's
✌️
 
Andy G said:
'Good' writing is hard to define, I can only give you its anathema,it is he who goes by the name of Clive Cussler. :eek:

(well this should stir things up)
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I agree with that. I read a Clive Cussler book once and found his writing style very "See Spot Run." That and his computer-programmed plots make for a very easy and fast read which is why his stuff is so popular.

O'Brian at least had a unique and original plot line but I thought his telling of the story was so poorly done that I simply could not justify wasting any more time with his stuff after that first book.

I got my degree in drama and theatre in college and I had to deal with a fair amount of Shakespeare. His stuff is a bitch to read, no question, but what I grew to appreciate were the complexity of his characters and the fascinating situations and relationships he put them in.

O'Brian's stuff is an easy enough read but he fell flat on his face when it came to making his characters interesting enough to care about. They were two-dimensional, predictable, and uninspiring people (to me) and after the first book I could not have cared less what happened to them after that.

To me, creating characters the reader doesn't care about is very bad writing no matter how well the writer might use the language itself.
 
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Not movies, but a couple of entertaining books (not necessarily great literature) about ships, boats and the sea:

The Grey Seas Under and The Boat Who Wouldn't Float by Farley Mowat.

HMS Ulysses By Alistair McLean.

The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat (there is a 1953 movie).

The several sailing novels by Bernard Cornwell.
 
dwhatty said:
Not movies, but a couple of entertaining books (not necessarily great literature) about ships, boats and the sea:

The Grey Seas Under and The Boat Who Wouldn't Float by Farley Mowat.

HMS Ulysses By Alistair McLean.

The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat (there is a 1953 movie).

The several sailing novels by Bernard Cornwell.
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Hear! Hear! Grey Seas Under is a great non fiction book about an ocean going tug and its rescues. Mowat died last May. Other books are good reads too. That movie is darn good as well.
 
Probably not the right place for my first post but topic is relevant. Previous owners of my 73 CHB say that this boat was originaly owned by Ernest Borgnine and that it made a cameo appearance in one of his movies. Anybody recall seeing one in his movies?
 
If your CHB boat has a green glowing nuclear reactor it might be the film Ice Station Zebra, when Earnest proclaims that "It looks so benevolent'.

However, if it has a Ford Lehman, it was probably a different movie.
 
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