the m0vie blog

The Adventures of Tintin: The Blue Lotus (Review)

Posted on December 3, 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.

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...

Continue reading →

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...

Continue reading →

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...

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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!

Continue reading →

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.

A model citizen?

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 3 Colours Red, action, art, Color, film, games, Irène Jacob, Kieślowski, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Peter Bradshaw, Secondary color, The Three Colors Trilogy, Three Colors: Blue, Three Colors: White, three colours blue, three colours red, trois couleurs rouge, Valentine, video games, voyeurism | Leave a comment »

November 2011 In Review

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Darren

I’m running a bit behind on everything this week, so I’ll try to keep this brief and get it published before midnight. This is just a post I do at the end of the month to help people who might end up trawling the archives by months trying to make sense of what’s going on. Being honest, it’s mainly for me, if I ever want to trawl back and marvel at how poorly formulated (and occasionally just incorrect) my ideas happened to be.

Anyway, November 2011 was a strange month. A lot to get done, and so little time to get it done in. It’s Christmas soon, which is insane. Anyway, I got very lucky and happened to get featured on the IMDb hit list twice in the month, in quick succession.

The first piece, an article about the lesser-regarded works of well-known directors went up over a weekend…

And the second, a more controversial and divisive piece about suspension of disbelief, went up the Tuesday of the next week.

I know that I don’t do this for the kudos – and that this is a very nice cherry on top of something I do just to vent my own crazy and insane thoughts on film – but it’s always awesome to be honoured by those people who know film. I’m always glad to see a link come from a forum or another article, because it means that I’m hopefully contributing in some small way to a discussion.

But enough of that. Onwards and upwards! 2012 approaches, and I’ve got some medium-scale plans. 2013 is where the action is. Mark your diaries for that!

Filed under: Months in Review | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Puss in Boots

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Darren

Puss in Boots is a fun film. It’s a very fun family film that works because it never takes itself too serious. Breaking free of the increasingly irrelevant Shrek films, which devolved into exactly the type of feel-good fairy tale stories they originally savagely lampooned, Puss in Boots benefits from the freedom to define its own identity. Of course, it retains the trappings (after all, Puss inhabits a world with Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty and Little Boy Blue), but it doesn’t carry the same level of baggage that its parent series does. It’s not a vicious parody of Disney values, and in fact feels remarkably straight-forward. However, the simplicity of its approach is remarkably endearing, and means it’s easy to sit back and enjoy the ride. Puss in Boots is solidly entertaining family fair, arriving perfectly in time for the holidays.

Here, kitty kitty kitty...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Antonio Banderas, billy bob thornton, film, Humpty Dumpty, Jack & Jill, Lady Gaga, Movie, non-review review, Puss, Puss in Boots, review, salma hayek, San Ricardo Southern Leyte, shrek, Zach Galifianakis | 2 Comments »

Ultimate Comics: Doomsday (Hardcover) (Review)

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Darren

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fantastic Four, I’m taking a look at some of the stories featuring the characters over the past half-century.

Ultimate Comics: Doomsday is a bit of a weird beast. After the events of Ultimatum, Mark Millar’s Ultimates was relaunched both as Ultimate Comics: Avengers and the clunkily-titled (and written) Ultimate Comics: New Ultimates, while Ultimate Spider-Man became Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men spun off into Ultimate Comics: X. That meant that the only on-going series that hadn’t fed into a relaunched series was Ultimate Fantastic Four. Perhaps it’s understandable, since the series was arguably the weakest of Marvel’s Ultimate reimaginings of popular heroes, suffering from adapting Marvel’s most innocent scientific heroes in a grim and hyper-modern context. Ultimate Comics: Doomsday collects three miniseries (Ultimate Comics: Enemy, Ultimate Comics: Mystery and Ultimate Comics: Doom), which tell a gigantic crossover crisis set in the shared universe that the “ultimate” characters inhabit, but it’s really just a vehicle to allow Brian Michael Bendis to play with the left-over bits and pieces from Ultimate Fantastic Four.

This little Spider...

Continue reading →

Filed under: Comics | Tagged: brian michael bendis, marvel, Rafa Sandoval, spider man, stan lee, Ultimat Comics: Doomsday, ultimate comics, ultimate comics spider-man, Ultimate Comics: Doom, Ultimate Comics: Doomsday, Ultimate Comics: Enemy, Ultimate Comics: Mystery, Ultimate Doom, Ultimate Doomsday, Ultimate Enemy, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Ultimate Galactus Trilogy, ultimate marvel, Ultimate Mystery, Ultimates | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Three Colours White

Posted on November 30, 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.

There’s a general critical consensus that Three Colours White represents the weakest instalment in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy. I have to admit, it’s not a position that I disagree with. It’s not a bad film by any stretch (it’s quite a good one), but it never reaches quite the same levels of depth and development that the two films bookending the trilogy attain so easily. When I was younger, I could never quite put my finger on why that might be, but – as I got older – I think I might have figured out why this instalment leaves me cold.