4th Friday - Pizza + Movie Night

Pizza + Movie

Occurs every Fourth Friday from October 2024 to February 2025.

This Friday, 1/24, is the fourth Friday of January. That means MOVIE NIGHT at BERKELEY YACHT CLUB!

This month we are back to a maritime theme. First up, at 6:00 PM, is the 1950 Gregory Peck version of Captain Horatio Hornblower. Aficionados of both C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian know that Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubry are both based on a real historic character, Captain Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald. Chochrane's naval exploits were every bit as impressive as his fictional imitators.

There is consensus that O'Brian writes rings around Forester in terms of contemporary authenticity and photo-realistic prose, but the movie adaptation of Hornblower has much to recommend it. There's less of the dark realities of war at sea, and more good clean shoot-em-up family fun. Also some really good model work, so the naval actions and strategies are easier to follow. See if you can guess the size of the very detailed radio-controlled models. (You have to allow for slowing down the frame rate for Froude scaling, and adding a little soap to the water to scale the foam correctly.) Required viewing if you've been exposed to either Forester or O'brian.

Then at 08:30 PM (allowing time for pizza) we go to more modern naval warfare with with Hot Shots, the 1991 parody of Top Gun. Directed by Jim Abraham of Airplane fame. Like Airplane it co-stars Lloyd Bridges in a brilliant comic role.