something queer going on

I saw Tintin a few days before Christmas but didn't get around to posting about it until now. I don't actually have a whole lot to say. It was fun! I was worried about the animation, which looks very weird in still photos/screencaps, but it worked beautifully in motion without any uncanny valley effect. The 3D was sometimes worthwhile and never terribly annoying. Jamie Bell's voicing of Tintin was charming; I was less enamored of the movie's Haddock than a lot of other folks, because I think he was played a little too much for broad comedy. There was moderate slashiness, but less so than the comics. One particularly telling moment for me was the scene where (mild spoiler) (skip) Haddock sets fire to the lifeboat. In the film, he does it because he's drunk and cold. This is true in the comics too, but there, his primary motivation is that he thinks Tintin is cold. By taking that out, the movie both makes Haddock looks more selfish and ridiculous than in the comics and downplays Haddock's immediate and intense devotion to Tintin. And in general the movie downplays how lonely and broken and depressed Haddock was before Tintin happened to him.

My main problem with the movie was that the action sequences just went on and on and bloody on, to the expense of coherency and character development. I was reminded a bit of the ending of Hot Fuzz (also directed by Edgar Wright), except that in that case there's a layer of parody. (ETA: Oops, Wright didn't direct this, he co-wrote it. Still, my main point stands, I think.)

So, it was enjoyable, but I haven't felt any particular urge to watch it again. I remain primarily a comicsverse fan.


In other movie news, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is finally going to open here this weekend, so I finally will get to see it. I'm looking forward to it, although I'm sure this is another case where I'll prefer the bookverse.

Before the Yuletide reveal I mentioned wanting to talk about something in my source that I'd noticed (I wrote TTSS bookverse fic). It was (not a major spoiler, but cut anyway) ( click here to read )

I am trying not to hate the entire world today, but things like this charming piece of fanart (warning for homophobic violence) are not making it easy.

Apparently the artist and their friends think it's the cutest thing ever, too.

*rages*

I happened across some rather nice gen pictures by Baru here and here. They also have a lovely page of shippy but G-rated doodles (well, one's about a PG-13) here on Y-Gallery, which you won't be able to see unless you're logged in.

I'd quite like to search Tumblr for more fanart, but I have no idea if it's even possible to search Tumblr. There doesn't seem to be any way to navigate the thing. Or maybe you can only navigate if you have an account?

ETA: Okay, I seem to have managed to search for all Tumblr posts tagged "Tintin." Most of them are reactions to the film, of course.


ETA2: Here's a cute drawing of Haddock playing golf.

ETA3: Tintin at the Mountains of Madness. The artist has some other cool Tintin-meets-Lovecraft covers, too.

1) Fiddle with sentences.

2) Fiddle with sentences.

3) Double-check canon to make sure Moulinsart's furniture was actually described as Louis XIII.

4) Discover it was. Google Louis XIII furniture.

5) Be thrilled to discover that enormous curtained beds are a Louis XIII feature. Consider delightful ramifications for porn that isn't in this fic anyway.

6) Decide original sentence mentioning Louis XIII furniture doesn't work. Remove it.

7) Look at canon again and discover that the captain's bed does not have curtains.

8) Decide it's sometimes okay to ignore canon.

9) Fiddle with sentences.

10) Post about the above.


Okay, I've also baked bread and cookies, done a load of laundry, and discovered (thanks to QI) that Dr. Ben Goldacre is charming and attractive as well as smart. But mostly I have been thinking about beds.

A few days ago I finished The Broken Ear, the first of the pre-Haddock Tintin comics I've read. Looping back to it after reading Tintin and the Picaros really highlights how much Hergé's art and storytelling matured over the years.

I tried not to hold The Broken Ear's Haddocklessness against it, but the story still felt a little bit lacking. And Tintin's life--early to bed, early to rise and do calisthenics with Milou--seemed lonely in comparison to what he'll have later. Not that Tintin seemed lonely. It's more like he's in an invisible box (only, um, without the implied mime) and never really contacts other people except in the most glancing fashion.

Before starting the album I was nervous lest my story On a Darkling Plain might have done Alcazar an injustice. Having read The Broken Ear, I can say that ( spoilers for The Broken Ear )

A few thoughts on my recent re-reading.

( click here to read )

There are some difficult emotional things going on in my life right now. I'll still be around and talking about fandom, because fandom is a happiness and a comfort for me. But I may be a bit flaky for a while. Your patience is appreciated if I, for example, fail to answer your comment promptly (or at all). I don't plan on that, because I want to talk to you folks about enjoyable things, but it could happen. If it does, your comments are nevertheless read and appreciated.

And now, without further ado, more Tintin.

I've been re-reading the two moon comics as I work on my story (which is set then), and I've noticed that ( spoilers, I guess )

I also finished watching the 1961 French live-action TV movie Tintin et le mystère de la Toison d'Or (Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece; link goes to the first part of the complete film on YouTube). Alas, this is not subtitled, or I'd recommend that you all watch it immediately, because it's fairly adorable and has so much subtext OMG. Tintin and Haddock are pretty touchy-feely (seriously, it verges on Second Doctor-and-Jamie territory sometimes), and Tintin reads as gayer than Oscar Wilde kissing Bosie on a bed of lavender. Really. The actor's performance may have looked like boyish innocence in 1961, but to me it said "twinkiest twink who ever twinked, and who utterly adores his big bearded older boyfriend, and there might be porn any minute." At a couple of moments the show genuinely seemed on the verge of porn: once when Tintin takes his clothes off (to go scuba diving, okay, so it was TOTALLY JUSTIFIED by the plot), revealing a nicely muscled body in the process, and at the end when he helps Captain Haddock fasten his medal ribbon around his neck. (It's in part 7/7, almost at the very end, and I swear it made me think the creators were wondering how they could possibly write in a scene where Tintin would cling to Haddock with his arms round Haddock's neck, and this is what they came up with.)

Finally: I recently saw a little clip of the new Tintin movie and freaked out a bit, because Tintin looks like he's twelve in the thing. He's not that young in the comics, but it's going to ruin any chance of my seeing/enjoying Tintin/Haddock slash in the movie. Of course there are still the Dupondts Thom(p)sons, voiced by the always slashy Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.

I've skimmed through The Red Sea Sharks, Tintin in Tibet, and The Castafiore Emerald in a great hurry, wanting to see how the Tintin-Haddock relationship developed. (And now I'll re-read them properly--I'm partway through rereading Coke en Stock aka the Red Sea Sharks.)

( some thoughts )

I'm partway through Destination: Moon right now, and I'm all wibbly over ( spoilers for a 60-year-old comic )