Oh no! ;)

Doctor Unheimlich has diagnosed me with Graculus' Syndrome
Cause:	lack of fresh air
Symptoms:	extreme death, occasional tooth loss, green blotches, flacidity
Cure:	wake up and realise it was all just a dream
Enter your name, for your own diagnosis:

Master and Commander

Anyone who knows me probably knows I love the Patrick O'Brian books, so it was with some trepidation that I went to see the movie adaptation of Far Side of the World. How could anyone possibly a) cast the movie without making the usual Hollywood bodge job of it, and b) do a decent job of bringing the intimacy of the Aubrey-Maturin relationship from print to screen?

If only I'd seen the Peter Weir documentary that's on the 2-disc dvd, I'm sure I wouldn't have been anything like so worried. The reverence he has for the original books, the well-thumbed copies he's clearly carted around with him for weeks on end, would have been enough to sell me.

Now all I hope is that they decide to make another one, since they spent so much money on building ships for this one! :)

My only regret is that Stephen's less public side doesn't get much of an airing in the movie, which means people coming to the books from seeing him onscreen might be a little puzzled to see the misanthropically secretive Maturin of the books up against the obsessive naturalist as portrayed so brilliantly by Paul Bettany. They're both Stephen and it's a shame the book they chose to do didn't allow for both aspects to be given a chance to show through. I can understand why, and they talk about it in the documentary, but that doesn't mean I can't regret it...