Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Christmas viewing sorted

The Adventures of Tintin - Rotten Tomatoes

Initial reviews for Spielberg's Tintin movie seem pretty good. But it doesn't start here until Boxing Day. :(

UPDATE:  There are some really glowing reviews coming out, but as might be expected with any "classic" comic which nerdy adult men obsess about, there are those who are outraged by the movie.  The Guardian (which really operates as nerd/geek central in the English press, given the amount of time their blog gives to the likes of Dr Who) has a half funny, over the top reaction:

Coming out of the new Tintin film directed by Steven Spielberg, I found myself, for a few seconds, too stunned and sickened to speak; for I had been obliged to watch two hours of literally senseless violence being perpetrated on something I loved dearly. In fact, the sense of violation was so strong that it felt as though I had witnessed a rape....

The sense of outrage is palpable, and even after two days I find myself moved to pity; to pick up my shuddering, weeping copy of HergĂ©'s The Secret of the Unicorn, cradle it in my arms, and whisper soothingly to it that everything will be all right; but all the time knowing that, after this, it won't be; nothing will be the same again. The forces of marketing, and of global idiocy, will see to that. But I will try to make things better as well as I can and remind you of some of the things that made HergĂ©'s original one of the consistently great works of art of the 20th century.
As someone says in comments:
Dare I suggest you get out a bit more?

4 comments:

Anne said...

I'll probably give Tintin a miss, but thought you might like to read this if you haven't already:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/10/space-travel

Anne said...

Sorry, the link's bloggered. After the "2011/10" above, it's "/space-travel" - an article in The Economist blog about the returning Apollo 11 crew.

Steve said...

Thanks for that, Anne. I have a feeling I have seen that form somewhere a long time ago - perhaps in a book?

In any event, I had certainly forgotten how long they were kept in isolation. I remember a photo of them looking out and waving through the window of the trailer, but I would have guessed they were only in there for a few day.

Are you an old space travel fan yourself?

Anne said...

Not seriously, but I'm old enough to remember it. I wish the US would spend more on space and less on military mistakes. What has happened to the space programme is tragic.