Der Sturm

The Perfect Storm, I just love it so much. "The fog's just lifting, you throw off your bow line, you throw off your stern-you head out to South Chanel past Rocky Neck...Ten Pound Island, past Niles Pond where I skated as a kid-and you blow your air horn and throw a wave to the lighthouse keepers kid on Thatcher's Island - then the birds show up, black backs and herring gulls, big dump ducks - …

I recently watched this for the second time, many years after my initial viewing. I confess I didn't always give it my full attention, not just because I had seen it once but also because the plot isn't very subtle, and careful viewing isn't necessary. The dialogue is realistic and well done, but the characters seem a bit stereotypical. You have the grizzled captain whose skills and luck seem to b…

Perhaps if Wolfgang Petersen had just done without all the dysfunctional family stuff and just taken this crew on their ill-fated mission right from the start, I might have enjoyed this more. As it is, we spend almost an hour learning all about the relationships of "Billy" (George Clooney), "Bobby" (Mark Wahlberg) and of the rivalry between "Murph" (John C. Reilly) and "Sully" (William Fichter) an…