Still loving Tintin after all these years

I’ve been reading a lot of Tintin books lately. Katie bought me four or five a couple of months ago and I got four more for Christmas.

I finished reading the last one, Tintin and The Seven Crystal Balls, today. It was a rare to-be-continued ending. Annoying, but at least it gives me a good reason to go buy The Prisoners of the Sun to find out what happens next.

I'm planning to collect the entire series, but here is a list of the ones I now own:


- Cigars of the Pharaoh
- The Blue Lotus
- The Broken Ear
- The Crab with the Golden Claws
- The Secret of the Unicorn
- The Castafiore Emerald
- Tintin in Tibet
- Destination Moon

My aunt Sandy and uncle Dave, whose son Scott, my cousin, is about 10 years older than me, used to pass on a lot of his old books to me when I was a kid. Among them were classics like “Lost in the Barrens” and “Curse of the Viking Grave” – which I’ve mentioned in past blogs -- and a bunch of Asterix and Tintin books.

Not quite graphic novels, not quite comic books, the Tintin installments are more like short adventure novels with illustrations. Both Asterix and Tintin fit that rare genre of books that are meant primarily for kids, but are accessible to adults on a whole different level.

Or maybe I’m trying to be way too deep or sentimental here, and the simple fact is that I love adventure stories and comic books and Tintin combines both. The writing is smart and clever and you can read them over and over again. They’re the kind of books you want to keep in your collection forever, so that your own kids can one day appreciate how awesome they are.

Tintin, the central character, is a young Belgian reporter who finds himself embroiled in all kinds of sleuthing adventures, travelling around the world to unravel mysteries of science, history and politics.

His fox terrier Snowy and a cast of characters that includes, off and on, the loyal but troublesome Captain Haddock, the bumbling detectives Thompson and Thomson, and the hard-of-hearing Professor Calculus, always accompany him.


The books were written by Georges Rémi Under the pen name Herge. Apparently he became famous for his trademark simplistic, minimalist style of illustration. That makes sense. Reading his books you appreciate how much he can convey with simple, uncluttered illustrations.

Wikipedia says the series first appeared in a Belgian newspaper as a comic strip in 1929, but became so popular it was soon released in book form, and a movie and theatre show were also created.

And I’m excited that Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, is slated for release in 2010, with Jamie Bell playing Tintin alongside Daniel Craig as Red Rackham and Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock. Steven Spielberg is directing. The movie is probably the reason why Tintin books are once again back on the shelves and easy to find. I’m happy about that.

Anyone out there a Tintin fan? Any ideas why these books are so popular?

“The Warriors” can’t sleep ‘til Coney Island (1979, directed by Walter Hill)

“The Outsiders” – first the book and then the movie – made me and pretty much every other adolescent boy want to be in a gang. It just seemed so cool to be a member of a tight-knit group of hoods with hearts who always had each other’s back.

As you grow up it steadily gets drilled into your head that gangs are bad and any decent human being wants nothing to do with them – but still I think most guys, deep down, like the idea of being associated with a group of dangerous people who look out for each other.

The opening scenes of “The Warriors,” which was playing at the Bloor Cinema this week, evoked that same feeling. The Warriors, a gang of seven or eight guys from Coney Island, have travelled across the city to Prospect Park in the Bronx for a gathering of all the city’s syndicates.

Cyrus, the “one and only” leader of the Gramercy Riffs, the city’s largest and most powerful gang, wants to unite them all under one banner, saying they would outnumber the police three to one and could have the run of the city.

The first five minutes of the movie is a massive montage of gangs wearing their ‘colours’ and making their way to the meet. Some of them, like the Warriors, wear leather vests embossed with their emblem. Others are a little more creative, like the Furies, who paint their faces in garish colours, wear baseball uniforms and carry bats, and another group that wears hillbilly outfits.

Shortly after the gangs gather, the plot is laid out. A crazy gang member named Luther (David Patrick Kelly) shoots Cyrus in the middle of his speech, then blames the Warriors.

The Riffs – a scary gang of martial-arts trained black dudes (I kept waiting for Kareem Abdul Jabar to come out) -- put a bounty on the Warriors and the members spend the rest of the movie desperately trying to get home under the leadership of Swan (Michael Beck), their “war chief.”

One thing my friend Phil and I both said was that we expected to laugh more. Not that we thought it would be funny, but we did think it would be slightly ridiculous. But that wasn’t really the case. The director and the actors – none of whom I could name and only one or two I recognized – treated this film really seriously. Sometimes that can look really cheesy and dated 30 years on, but in this case it didn’t.

First of all, the suspense works. For about the first third of the film there’s a palpable sense of tension as the Warriors try to survive, deciding when to run and when to stay and fight, racing or “bopping” (fighting) through subway stations, on platforms and through tunnels.

Other times they’re roaming through eerily silent parks, cemeteries or empty, creepy strange neighbourhoods, always on the lookout for the next gang trying to take them out.

You get the feeling this is the New York that exists for strangers at night who have no place to go home to. It’s cold and harsh and you have to watch out.

I love this vision of the city. It’s so different from the usual images of New York – Times Square, Ground Zero, Central Park. This is the non-touristy NYC , and the camera’s explore gritty neighbourhoods and cityscapes in a really refreshing way.

Coney Island, with its ramshackle houses and broken down amusement park – with its awesome Wonder Wheel -- is one of the most compelling canvases in the film.

"Is this what we fought all night to get back to?” one of the Warriors asks as they ramble through their own turf at dawn, finally home, to safety – they think.
This film could have just petered out, but it ends strongly with the kind of justice you hope to see in a movie where the “good” guys have spent most of their screen time running away.

All in all, this movie works really well. The acting, by a huge cast of virtual nobodies, is strong, the dialogue is really interesting and almost poetic at times (these gang members are almost artsy) but not cheesy.

I just went to New York, but this movie makes me want to go back and see a little different side this time around. Maybe there’s a Warriors” subway tour I could take. Hmm, or maybe I could make one!

If you can find this film, it’s definitely worth watching. The print we saw was scratchy and the sound was a little fuzzy, and you could almost feel the ghosts of the thousands of people that have probably sat in theatres just like the Bloor and watched that very copy of the movie. That made the experience even cooler.

**A quick IMDB search seems to say there’s a remake of this in pre-production for 2010. That would be cool, or terrible, depending.

"Moon" is awesome but Kevin Spacey still sucks ("Moon," 2009, directed by Duncan Jones)

Kevin Spacey sucks. Lets just get that out of the way right off the bat. In my opinion he hasn’t done a good movie since “American Beauty.”

He was my least favourite part of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and he was also my least favourite part of “Moon” starring him and Sam Rockwell, which I watched last night. But I’m happy to say his role was minor enough that he didn’t have too detrimental an effect and the movie was still pretty amazing.

But wait a minute, why am I starting a blog about a movie I loved with the one part I didn’t? Let me start over:

"Moon" stars Sam Rockwell as astronaut Sam Bell, and Kevin Spacey as Gerty, the Hal-like (Think “2001: A Space Odyssey”) computer/robot assistant who keeps him company on the moon.

Sam is nearing the end of his three-year contract running a fuel-mining station on the far side of the moon, and is looking forward to going home to see his wife and young daughter.

The film is set in the future (though it’s not clear how far) and is entirely set on the moon. The inside of the station is mostly cold and industrial. Sam’s messy quarters, a room where he prunes and talks to his plant collection, and a makeshift table where he is carving a miniature town -- though he only remembers making a few of the buildings -- are the main personal touches.

When Sam leaves the station to repair the Helium-3 harvesters when they go offline, the moonscape is silent, eerie and monochromatic, pretty much how you’d expect it to look and feel.

In the scenes where Sam’s little moon-rover is seen trekking across the surface, the moonscape almost looks like it was shot in miniature using a paper mache model and a toy moon-mobile -- and it works. The scenes look fantastic, especially when the Earth is visible hanging over the horizon, a beautiful, far-away world.

It all helps add to the mystery of why Sam is there, what’s really going on with his wife – from whom he receives cryptic, puzzling video messages – and how he’s going to survive until it’s time to go home.

Rockwell is fantastic in this role, changing his stripes like a chameleon several times during the film, convincingly every time. One moment he’s the grungy, worn out astronaut, the next he’s the guilt-plagued absentee father, then the slick clean-cut keener or the suspicious outsider.

And in some cases he’s seamlessly carrying out conversations between those characters, dialogue that is also somehow believable. Nancy, my slightly crazy video store lady, told me today: "You would never think for a SECOND that it was one actor!", even though the evidence is staring you in the face.

My friend Tyrone says this is one of those movies you shouldn’t spend too much time trying to figure out, or you’ll ruin the ending. I mostly disagree. It’s not a big surprise finish, it’s more of a steady burn that builds and builds, the story getting better as the truth is revealed.

The movie was directed by Duncan Zowie Heywood Jones, who now goes by Duncan Jones, and is the son of David Bowie. It’s his directorial debut, and a solid effort.

"Blankets" (2003, Craig Thompson)

Years ago a friend recommended I read “Blankets,” a graphic novel by Craig Thompson. We had both had a very ‘Christian’ upbringing, complete with church camps and Sunday school and a good dose of old-fashioned guilt, and she thought this book would resonate since it deals with a lot of those issues.

I’ve always kept that title in the back of my mind, and whenever I’d end up browsing the graphic novel section of a bookstore, I’d keep an eye out for it.

I’ve never seen it, and had started to doubt it actually existed, when it’s white and blue spine jumped out at me on a shelf a few weeks back. There was just one copy and I snatched it up right away and started reading it that night.

My friend Meghan Sheffield was right when she said that this book is relevant to anyone who grew up the way she and I did. At some points I cringed in embarrassment at the honesty in those pages, other times I laughed, and I even got a little misty at one point.

The writing is powerful and honest, and is a perfect match to the rich black and white drawings that go along with it, illustrating the emotions, feelings and ideas described in the text.

“Blankets” is mostly autobiographical, and traces Thompson’s life, beginning when he is just a young boy growing up in a poor Wisconsin family with his parents and brother, right up to what seems like his present day life.

Along the way he wrestles with faith, fitting in, growing up, falling in love, then struggling as that love falls apart.


I found his experiences at church camp the most relevant to my own experience. The way Thompson describes and draws it, it could almost be one of the camps I went to. The camp he attends is even called 'Sno Camp’ – exactly the same name as one I went to.

He expects camp to be a haven of escape from his hometown school, where his faith has made him an outcast and the mockery of the ‘popular’ kids. But when he arrives, he quickly discovers he doesn’t fit in there either, and feels surrounded by cliques, hypocrites and fakes.

“Something about being rejected at church camp felt so much more awful than being rejected at school,” he writes, suggesting that it felt like God himself was disappointed that he couldn’t fit in.

But as he grows up and starts to figure out who he is, he learns to spot the other outsiders and band together with them. One of those is Raina, a girl from Michigan who is also trying to figure out her faith and her place in the world.

They fall in love and most of the second half of the book describes their relationship, from smitten bliss, to disappointment and depression – basically all the things you feel when you fall in love as a teenager.

There are two especially poignant moments in the book, in my opinion.

The first is a scene where, overcome by the spirit of guilt and old-fashioned Bible-thumping that he has received at church, Craig decides his love of drawing is a sin or an idol in his life.

Acting on it, he fills a bag with all the artwork he has ever done, and burns it in a barrel behind his parents home.

The second, and this is where I got pretty torn up, is when things hit rock bottom in his relationship, and he severs all ties. Once again, he sets out to burn everything related to that part of his life, including a patchwork quilt Raina spent weeks making for him. It’s a terrible moment and I regretted it for him – but at the same time I respected his passion and the courage to do something so final.

Thompson is an expert at matching pictures with words -- or using pictures to illustrate the feeling that one experiences after reading those words. He’s patient and takes his time when he needs to – sometimes using a nearly blank page to illustrate a feeling of emptiness or loneliness, other times cramming images into a panel to show excitement or exuberance or an overwhelming feeling of joy on the part of the characters.

He does what a good graphic novelist should – uses the combination of pictures and words to creat something bigger than the sum of its parts. I like that.

There were many parts of Thompson’s Christian experience that I didn’t go through in my own personal life and couldn’t fully relate to. But they all hit home either through friends’ experiences, time I spent working as a youth leader, or just as a cautionary tale about the power of organized religion and it’s potential negative effect on sincere faith.

A brave and honest memoir, Blankets is recommended reading for anyone who has struggled to fit in, gone to church camp, fallen in love or questioned their faith. Wait, I think that’s pretty much all of us…

Here's an interesting sidebar from Exclaim! magazine about the fallout from Thompson's decision to be so honest and open in the book.

'Touching the Void' (2003) directed by Kevin Macdonald)

‘Touching the Void” starts out bleak and windswept and stays that way for the duration -- much like the brutal Peruvian mountain where most of the story takes place.

Shot in a pseudo-documentary style, it’s the true story of British mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates and their near-fatal attempt to climb Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes.

But it’s more than just a mountain climbing movie – it quickly turns into a story about trust, integrity and the tenuous connection that exists between two people relying on each other for survival.

Here’s the quick version of what happens:

They set up camp at the base of the mountain after days of travelling, and without much delay they start to climb -- Alpine style, carrying their gear with them in an attempt to summit and come down as quickly as possible.

They reach the summit, making a first ascent by following a route that has never before been climbed successfully.

On the way down, the climb takes a near-tragic twist. A storm sets in, visibility drops to near zero, and the two climbers – roped together for safety – get disoriented.

Unable to see more than a few inches in front of them, Simpson falls when a cornice crumbles underneath him. In the process his leg is badly broken – to the point that the shinbone is driven into the femur, splitting it into pieces.

When Yates catches up to his climbing partner, there’s little discussion about the situation, though both realize how grim it is. Darkness is setting in, and they come up with a desperate plan. Yates will lower Simpson down the steep mountainside – with him basically scraping across the ice and snow in a barely-controlled slide -- and eventually they may reach the bottom.

It’s not long before this risky plan falls apart. Simpson drops off a cliff and ends up suspended in mid-air, Yates hunkering down at the other end trying to hang onto a shifting snow bank to keep from being pulled over the edge himself.

This stalemate lasts for some time – Simpson tries to climb up but his hands are too frozen to tie the proper ascending device, and Yates can do little at his end.

Eventually, Yates does the unthinkable (but perhaps, arguably, the unavoidable) – and cuts the rope.

As if the story isn’t crazy enough, this is where it gets insane. Simpson drops smack into a glacial crevice, his life saved only by the fact he lands on a snow bridge that partially broke his fall.

I’ll try not to give too much away, but if you’re worried about spoilers you might want to stop reading here.

Joe is in an impossible position, but he’s confident that Yates, having severed the lifeline, will now hike down and find him, and help him climb out.

But he doesn’t, and this is where the story gets really sketchy.

About half of the film comprises interviews with Simpson and Yates done long after the incident. They look straight into the camera and tell their versions of what happened.

When explaining why he walked by the crevasse without bothering to look in, Yates said he quite simply just didn’t think of it. He assumed Simpson was dead, and thought he had a death sentence too, so he just kept going.

Meanwhile, Simpson was stranded in an ice cave faced with the horrifying decision: wait to die, or descend further down with the faint hope of finding another way out.

We know that they both make it out, because they’re alive to tell the story, but what Simpson goes through from there on, is an incredible story about fighting to survive when all signs point to pending death.

Yates, on the other hand, trots back to camp, admitting later that he tried to figure out along the way what he would tell Joe’s family about what happened.

And when he does finally arrive back, he decides to burn all his climbing partner’s gear – possibly the creepiest thing he did during the whole ordeal.

Meanwhile, Joe has been exposed for four or five days without food and little water, and is dragging his broken body down a rocky glacier.

What’s interesting is that the filmmaker doesn’t pass judgment on the climbers and the decisions they made. He doesn’t need to. The acted portions of the film show what happened in harsh detail, and the interviews with Yates and Simpson describe their different viewpoints.

Simpson never blames Yates and never condemns him for what he did -- he even absurdly dedicated his book about the incident to him. But at the same time, there’s not a scrap of warmth of camaraderie in his description of his climbing partner – he’s simply telling the story.

I thought that spoke volumes.

Yates too, never has a bad word to say about Simpson. He simply explains his thought-process and the rationale behind what he did – acutely aware that the audience is judging every word.

The film was shot on location with actors playing the climbers. But their faces are so bearded, wind-burned and frostbitten, that you barely notice when the shot goes form the interview room to the mountainside – and the people are different. In fact, it took a while before I even figured out that they were actors and this was a re-enactment of what took place, not actual documentary footage. That’s how well it’s done.

There’s a lot to this film. I’ve been thinking about it for a week now and trying to work out how I feel about what Yates did. I’d like to say I would have stuck it out – dragged my friend back up the mountain or died hanging on, refusing to let go. But who knows. Maybe I too would have eventually made the logical decision to cut the rope. I’m just glad I’ve never had to face that choice.

"The Fantastic Mr. Fox," directed by Wes Anderson, starting George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman (2009)

I went to see “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” on Sunday afternoon. That was a mistake. Not the decision to go see the film, which was awesome, but the timing.

The theatre was filled with kids and families, and when I saw all those chattering, excited children ramped up to see the film, I got a little worried that I had made a mistake and I was in for a full-on kids’ movie.

But it wasn’t at all. Though the stop-animation and the family-friendly story line (based on a book by Roald Dahl) make this movie appeal to families, it’s equally a great story for grown ups.

I mean, I pretty much knew that. Director Wes Anderson has a way of making films that give back as much as you put into them. You know what I mean?

“Rushmore,” “The Life Aquatic” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” are perfect examples of this. The first time you watch them they’re funny and entertaining and beautiful to watch – but every time you go back you learn something new, you pick up on a whole other layer of detail and wit that you didn’t notice before.

“Mr. Fox” is Anderson’s first animated film, but it has many of the characteristics of his other movie -- smart writing, clever dialogue, perfect composition in every frame, a vintage-y throwback look -– all of those features are there.

It’s also starring many of the cast-members he likes to work with – Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray – and some other new additions, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Willem Dafoe as the villainous rat. It’s a good cast.

So here’s what happens.

As Mr. Fox, George Clooney partly reprises his Danny Ocean role – but with fatherhood, family and responsibility mixed in.

He’s a fox whose God-given ability to steal birds of all sorts, has been clipped by a promise to his wife (Streep), made after an incident when his cockiness nearly got them killed.

He’s okay with the arrangement for about two years (that’s 12 in fox-years) but then he gets restless and decides to pull off one last big job before settling into retirement (“Ocean’s 11” much??)

Of course it goes brilliantly – and he realizes he’s too good not to steal.

“If what I think is happening, is happening… it better not be,” says Mrs. Fox when she starts to get suspicious

It doesn’t take long before Mr. Fox upsets the wrong group of farmers, and they launch a revenge mission against him and the rest of the local animal kingdom.

While the farmer and his neighbors try to destroy the animals, they rally and try to steal as much as they possibly can from the farmers.

It’s a pretty simple story, but cleverly told and with the kind of depth that Anderson fans will be searching for. And it has such a beautiful look too. The puppets are a perfect blend of human and animal characteristics, with a unique texture that makes them look so real. You can actually see the fur move where it was touched by the animators.

The animal/human connection is clear in a couple of other places too. At one point Mr. Fox is arguing with his lawyer – Bill Murray’s badger – about purchasing property, and their discussion quickly turns into a vicious but brief animal scrap, after which they go back to their civilized discussion.

Owen Wilson has a small role – and his character looks nothing like his voice sounds. But don’t get too excited because he’s only in a scene or two.

Willem Dafoe is a nice surprise as the alcoholic rat that guards the farmer’s cider supply.

Almost all of the actors in the film voice their characters in a subtle and understated way, which is really refreshing.

Clooney is the only character that is sort of in-your-face and unmistakable – maybe a little over-acted. And there’s a little too much of him. It seems like he’s in almost every scene of the film. I could have done with a little less, but it was no big deal.

This is a great movie! If you have kids, use them as an excuse to go see it. If not, be brave and go see it on your own, but go late or early to avoid the kids, if you possible can.

"Stand By Me" (1986) Directed by Rob Reiner, based on the novella by Stephen King

“Stand By Me.”

Those words alone, for a lot of people, are enough to evoke a warm sense of nostalgia. In part, I think that’s because many of us 20-somethings watched the film when we were kids, and it reminds us of that time and place in our lives.

But also, I think that title has the effect of conjuring up warm memories of the adventures, friendships and scrapes of our own childhood, which helped shape us into the people we are today.

Like the narrator of the film, we look back on those times as some of the best in our lives, and we can connect to the kids in the story and what they go through over the course of two days, walking down the train tracks, searching for a dead body.

I bought the DVD a while back and watched the film this afternoon for the first time in a long time.

It’s such a simple but brilliant story.

Four friends, Gordie (Wil Wheaton), Chris (River Phoenix), Teddy (Corey Feldman) and Vern (Jerry O’Connell) overhear one of their older brothers talking about seeing the body of a boy their age, who has been missing for most of the summer.

The older brother, a member of the local Cobra Snakes gang – led by bad-ass Ace (Kiefer Sutherland) -- wants to keep the discovery a secret because he was in a stolen car when he spotted the body outside of town, near the railway tracks.

As a result, the younger boys set out on-foot to find it, believing they will be hailed as local heroes for making the discovery.

They’re the perfect band of small-town misfits – thrown together more by the fact they live in the same place and are roughly the same age, than anything else – a reality of small town or rural life.

Gordie is a sensitive, deep thinker, Chris is the tough leader, Teddy is the fun, crazy and a little bit dangerous member of the group, and Vern is the self-described “fat kid” who tends to get picked on but is still a lot of fun to have around.

They’re about 12 years old, the summer is winding down, and they do a lifetime of growing up on that two-day trek, from facing down their own demons and fears, to battling leach-infested waters and the infamous train-racing incident.

The story is told by Richard Dreyfuss, a writer and the grown-up version of one of the kids, who decides to put the story down on paper after reading that one of his childhood companions had been killed.

In the opening scene he’s pulled over on the side of a country road in a truck, holding the newspaper in his hand, stunned by the news of his friend’s death.

Then he begins to recall the adventure and disappears only to show up periodically to help tell the story.

Reiner somehow manages to shoot the film in that patina of memory. You know some
elements of the tale are being exaggerated slightly, and others played down – and some elements have probably developed into mythic proportions in the years between the story happening and him telling it. Simpy put, we’re seeing the story as it is being remembered.

It works. We all tell stories that way, or remember key moments in our lives that way.
Somehow they take on a little bit of a life of their own, and Reiner manages to suggest that that’s happening here, but the story still comes across as authentic and real.

The dialogue, for instance, is perfect. At times, the boys act much older than they are, adopting lines they have probably heard form adults. For instance: “That’s when a cigarette tastes best, after dinner.”

But at other times it’s clear that they’re just kids – like when Gordie confesses to Chris that he thinks his dad hates him.

Also, they swear all the time in the way that kids do when they’re just figuring out how to do it.

Though there are many childish moments along the way, the climax of the film is a very grown up one, where Chris and Gordie learn what it means to stand together and stand up for what’s right – facing down the Cobra Snakes.

In that moment, they become men in a small way, and I think that’s why this film resonates with so many of us. Looking back we see those milestone moments too, where years of growing up seemed to be crammed into a few brief moments and decisions.

Still relevant, timeless and beautiful. If you haven’t seen this movie, well, you just have to.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes from the movie:

Gordie: Shut up.
Teddy, Vern, Chris: I don't shut up. I grow up. And when I look at you, I throw up. Aghhh!
Gordie: And then your mom goes around the corner and she licks it up.

Teddy: This is my age! I'm in the prime of my youth, and I'll only be young once!
Chris: Yeah, but you're gonna be stupid for the rest of your life.

Vern: Nothing like a smoke after a meal.
Teddy: Yeah... I cherish these moments.
[group chuckles]
Teddy: What? What did I say?

Vern: Ha-ha! You flinched! Two for flinching! Two for flinching!

Vern: Come on you guys. Let's get moving.
Teddy: Yeah, by the time we get there, the kid won't even be dead anymore.
I think this film – based on a book by Stephen King and directed by Rob Reiner --