Adventures of Tintin Abbey

You know what movie this is. The one that goes deep into the Uncanny Valley. And it certainly does. Pretty much any time there was a close up on Tintin, especially full face on, it just creeped me out. His face was too small for his head!

Anyway, in this movie they make an extraordinary meal of the comic, extending panels out to ten minute sequences. Tintin stumbles onto a clue that leads him deep into finding out the secret of the Unicorn, meeting up with Captain Haddock, yadda yadda, most of us have read the comic by now, and they mostly follow the story. By mostly, as I say, they expand it a lot to reach the 1 hour 40 minute mark. [And note I'm only referring to The Secret of the Unicorn here. There's still Red Rackham's Treasure to go.]

Performance-wise, it's decent enough. Creepiness aside, Tintin looks proper. Haddock is shorter (or Tintin taller?) than I would have thought, and looks like someone (somewhat Serkis) with a large prosthetic nose. Thompson and Thomson are more round of face than I would have expected. Nestor is pretty much spot on.

Ultimately, this is easily the start of a new franchise of Tintin portrayals, but I'm not sure I'm willing to sit through every one of them... (well, some of them definitely...)

[END]

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I Ron Druid

Recently listened to the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne. Set in the present day, an urban fantasy of the last druid who is trying to get by when shit starts happening in his neighbourhood. (Three books out so far, with a fourth to come next year.)

As it is urban fantasy, the most common reference for this is The Dresden Files. Only... this isn't that good. While a lot of books could be considered self-insertion fantasy, this doesn't give any pause before jumping in that pool. The last druid is able to take down everything that comes his way, with minimal effort (this aspect does get better in later books), and by taking advantages of plot holes (aka "little known lore" and "loopholes" in continuity) to exhibit powers and abilities not displayed by other series.

And then there's the whole lot of padding, where Dresden would have had three fights and gotten messed with by three different plots in the same time.

And yet... it's still entertaining. While I was annoyed and frustrated by what was happening, I continued to listen. And, dammit, I'm glad there's a fourth book, and I do want to know what else is going to happen.

This series doesn't come out polished, but there's a nugget of decency in there.

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Mission Ghost: Impossible Protocol

[I saw this movie in the Titan XC theatre at Readings. I'm not sure what makes it so much 'Titan XC'ly, but it looked nice.]

This is the latest Tom Cruise Production (that's the credit!), and one thing that amazed me was that this, unlike all the previous movies, is an actual team movie, in that Ethan Hunt is not the one doing everything. The other main male lead gets some action sequences, the female lead (I can't remember names) nearly gets some action, but has to leave a lot of it to the males. And Simon Pegg is the comic relief... and nearly screws that up. It's a fine line, being the comic relief, between being relief and being painful, but Pegg stays on the side of tolerable.

Anyway, in the movie, some stuff happens, people die and once again Ethan (and his team) is left alone to deal with some threat... seriously, that seems to the basic plot of all the movies. Something happens to make Ethan removed from the resources of the team... then he gets resources anyway. There are some neat sequences, but nothing really amazing. [There was one plot point with the goggles that I did like. Really, it was a little point, but it nicely pays off, and could easily have come across as too easy.] (There might be links with MI3, but haven't seen that since I saw it at the movies when it came out, I can't remember... and not that keen to re-experience it, to be honest.)

With Ethan not being the sole focus, that makes Tom Cruise far more tolerable as well. Jeremy Renner is a more generic action hero than he is. Lea Seydoux... is extremely attractive (although she reminded me of someone else, I can't remember who).

Not a brilliant movie, watchable (seems like an action moment every five minutes). Worth seeing if you can see it cheap enough.

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Oops...

I'm in the middle of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (part 2, chapter 2, paragraph 2...). While it seems perfectly logical that I would make my way around behind the building that contains people that want to shoot me, I don't think I've done it right.

Usually Valve are pretty good at indicating the clear way to go. A reward, or linear path, or some obvious visual cue to point the player in the right way. This time... I think I went somewhere I wasn't supposed to (at least, not yet).

Why am I thinking this? This:

That's Alyx. Standing in the middle of a stream of radioactive slime. Umm... yeah, that's not supposed to happen...

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DW: 7.0X (Christmas!)

Hmm... not sure about all that. It starts out being a Christmas story, but then gets sidetracked and finally ends up... something?


We start following on from the prelude with a moment more ridiculous than the cricket ball, then immediately hit a bad comedic note with Madge falling off her bike. Oh, the hilarity! This story has problems shifting from poignant moments to the inane wackiness that indicates multiple personality order of different scripts stuck together than the seamless story it should have been.

Dancing chairs! Think of it until it hurts. Look, she's piloting the platform! All the souls are trying to evacuate (from being destroyed by the enemy dropping pain from above... the war imagery is about as half-formed as the story)...

But, the ending, of course, we all saw coming. Of course she saved him. We all knew he was going to get out alive. The problem of ricocheting emotional tones ruins that as well though.

Still, quite a few continuity references were shoe-horned in. And what about Bill Bailey? Eh? Eh? Well... what about him? What was the point? Could have taken those scenes out, and nothing would have been missed.

Moffat, you've done better than this...


Next time: What? No next time? Well, I suppose, it is going to be nine months or so, right?

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Best Christmas Movie Evah!

I think there's only one winner:

Bruce Willis at the start of his action career, Alan Rickman being really cool, and a fantastic soundtrack by Michael Kamen (brilliantly rescoring the Ninth Symphony to fit perfectly with the action on screen). Great stuff!

Number 2 was good... not great, but good. Not quite a Christmas movie, too much of a retread. (And William Sandler is looking damn fine at 40.)

With a Vengeance is only good because of Bruce, Samuel Jackson and lesserly Jeremy Irons. The plot is fun, but the ending falls apart a lot.

Live Free is... a movie that happens to star Bruce Willis pretending to be a character he's played before. (Check out Threevening for great stories about that movie.)

To be honest, the decline of the series is nicely paralleled by the declining versus in the Guyz Nite song...

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Against Santa Claus

There seems to be a continual resurgence of the idea of 'do we tell kids that Santa Claus is not real?' The latest being from a minister of an Anglican Parish. Gee? Why would anyone want someone to believe there is someone monitoring them, ready to give out rewards and punishments for good/bad behaviour?

Unsurprising to anyone, my take is "Santa Claus is a real as God, and for exactly the same reasons."

[A better question is: why do we tell kids that Santa Claus exists in the first place? Why is it that? Let's bring back Saturnalia and just have it as a general mid-season festival that gathers the family together?]

I can't remember how old I was when I realised it, possibly from having hints dropped. I do remember one Christmas moment, coming out to find presents from Santa... and nothing from mum and dad...

And, you know what? I'd rather have presents from people who know and love me than from some entity that only shows up once a year to dispense random gifts if they think I'm worthy according to their criteria...

So, yes, let's get rid of Santa Claus. Because family is the reason for the season.

[END]

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