December | 2011 | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Alvin & The Chipmunks – Chipwrecked

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Darren

I know it’s not exactly fair to blame Alvin & The Chipmunks, but I feel a bit spoilt by modern family entertainment. It’s easy to point to Pixar’s work, but I’m talking about the general standard of the output from Dreamworks and others like Despicable Me. However, Alvin & The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked feels like what might have passed for children’s entertainment ten years ago, when it seemed like Disney was the only major American studio capable of producing consistently high-quality entertainment. Alvin and his friends feel out of place in a movie that might have been passable over a decade ago. It doesn’t help that the movie mistakes pop culture references and Lady Gaga songs for relevance.

All at sea?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alvin, alvin & the chipmunks, alvin & the chipmunks: chipwrecked, alvin and the chipmunks, alvin and the chipmunks: chipwrecked, chipmunks, chipwrecked, non-review review, review | 1 Comment »

The Adventures of Tintin: The Broken Ear (Review)

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in the United States later this month, I’ll be taking a look at some of nineties animated television show. Check back daily!

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

I have to admit, I was curious about how the animated series would handle some of the more political material Hergé inserted into his work. I admired the way that Cigars of the Pharaoh handled international drug smuggling, but I suspected that broad political satire set in a banana republic might catch some viewers completely off guard. And, to be honest, there’s a lot of other stuff in Hergé’s The Broken Ear that makes it one of the tougher stories to adapt as a cartoon adventure. It’s very close to farce, and while the cartoon acknowledges that this business is a little sillier than usual, it never feels like the episode fully embraces the story it’s trying to tell, instead settling for a fairly generic run-around featuring characters and locales from the origin story.

Spotlight on the fetish...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Comics, general alcazar, Hergé, HG, review, South America, Television, the adventures of tintin, the adventures of tintin: the broken ear, the broken ear, tintin, tintin: the broken ear | 3 Comments »

The Adventures of Tintin: The Blue Lotus (Review)

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Darren

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

While I think that the early run of stories from Cigars of the Pharaoh were among Hergé’s most impressively pulpy output, populated with opium traders and sinister conspiracies seemingly spanning the globe, I do tend to have rather eclectic taste. For example, I am quite partial to The Black Island and The Shooting Star, two of the oft-malign chapters in The Adventures of Tintin. Similarly, I’ve found myself slightly underwhelmed by widely-praised instalments like The Secret of the Unicorn or The Blue Lotus. It’s not that I think they’re bad (far from it), merely that I feel they aren’t as good. Still, the animated adaptation of Tintin in America managed to construct an engaging little adventure from a disjointed story, so I wonder how this episode will handle its source material?

Shang-hai Noon...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adventures of Tintin, Black Island, blue lotus, China, Colin O'Meara, Hergé, japan, Orient, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, the adventures of tintin: the blue lotus, the blue lotus, tintin, tintin in america | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Resident

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Darren

While I was watching The Resident, I couldn’t help but think of Pacific Heights. Maybe it was the fact that I had just watched Jackie Brown and Michael Keaton was fresh in my head, but I really couldn’t get the comparison out of my head. Both movies have a rather fascinating central premise, and a fertile ground for horror – the notion that we know next-to-nothing about the people we finding ourselves living with – but both also fail to follow through on some truly great potential. There are moments when The Resident seems to be working, but they’re all too briefly brushed aside in a movie that doesn’t seem willing to build or develop its unsettling undertones.

This relationship is suffocating her...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Christopher Lee, film, hammer horror, hilary swank, Horror film, Jackie Brown, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, michael keaton, Movie, non-review review, Pacific Heights, Resident, review | Leave a comment »

The Adventures of Tintin: Cigars of the Pharaoh (Review)

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Darren

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

This is more like it. After a single twenty-three minute episode to cover Tintin in America, Cigars of the Pharaoh gets a bit more space. It’s a very faithful take on the classic story, split over two episodes to retain as much as possible. It’s a good thing, too, as I’d argue that Cigars of the Pharaoh is easily one of the best stories Hergé ever wrote, and certainly the first truly classic entry in the series. So it’s great to see the animated series kicking everything into gear.

Mapping out the show...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adventures of Tintin, cigars of the pharaoh, Crab With the Golden Claws, Hergé, Pharaoh, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, The Adventures of Tintin: The Cigars of the Pharaoh, tintin, tintin in america | Leave a comment »

Jameson Cult Film Club: Alien

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Darren

I had the privilege of attending the Jameson Cult Film Club screening of Alien on Tuesday night, which was a great way of celebrating the release of a whole bunch of images from Ridley Scott’s quasi-Alien-related new film Prometheus. Not that you need an excuse to celebrate Ridley Scott’s Alien, one of the towering accomplishments in the horror and science-fiction genres. I had never seen it on a big screen, and it was an absolute hoot to be invited along. For those Irish readers who aren’t already members of the Jameson Cult Film Club, you can join on their site. I don’t normally do these sorts of endorsements, but they really are the highlight of Ireland’s movie calendar, crafted with remarkable love and enthusiasm for the films that they show.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: alien, cult film, dublin, films, jameson, jameson cult film, jameson cult film club, Movies, nostromo, ridley scott | 6 Comments »

The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in America (Review)

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Darren

Note: This is our review of the animated episode, check out our review of the book here.

I remember catching a few of the animated Adventure of Tintin when I was smaller, and really enjoying them. They were a series produced to adapt Hergé’s stories into easy-to-digest half-hour instalments for kids. Naturally, the early adventures (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo) weren’t deemed suitable for this form of adaptation, so the series jumped right in with the third entry in Hergé’s long-running saga. Which is grand, because I started reading The Adventures of Tintin with Tintin in America.

Tintin gets animated!

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adventure of Tintin, Colin O'Meara, Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin in America, tintin, tintin in america, Tintin in the Congo, United States | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Three Colours Red

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Darren

This week we’re taking a look at Krzysztof Kieślowski’s celebrated “Three Colours” Trilogy. We’ll be publishing reviews on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, so check back and sound off.

Three Colours Red has been described as “the best film among equals”, and it’s a position I can’t quite bring myself to disagree with. While I adore the beautiful synergy between the colour, the imagery and the mood of Three Colours Blue, I think that the final film in the trilogy perfectly captures the essence of what director Krzysztof Kieślowski seems to have been trying to accomplish. Three Colours Red beautifully ties together his central themes about the way that people relate to and interact with each other. It’s a film that works well be itself, viewed in isolation, but it’s also a fitting end to a piece of cinematic history. And, like so much of Kieślowski’s work, it’s dense without being oblique and elegant without being exclusive. For all we talk about the depth of meaning in the work, it’s just an astoundingly well-made piece of cinema.