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"Unicorn" Movie: Press reviews [Warning: contains spoilers!]

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mondrian
Member
#11 · Posted: 29 Oct 2011 09:48
Tom McCarthy gives his opinion in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/28/adventures-tintin-secret-u nicorn-spielberg. Interesting (or scary?) read.

I'll have to wait a week before I'll see it, but already I've read quite a few pieces suggesting that I'm probably not the target audience.
Ranko
Member
#12 · Posted: 29 Oct 2011 10:41
I'm sorry, but what a load of pretentious twaddle that article is.
mct16
Member
#13 · Posted: 29 Oct 2011 13:23
It's fascinating how the public-at-large is giving this film the thumbs-up while the professional critics are either giving it the thumbs-down, or at the very least half-a-thumb.

mondrian:
Tom McCarthy gives his opinion in the Guardian... Interesting (or scary?) read.

What's scary is the way McCarthy gets an important point terribly wrong - for French-speakers anyway.

He claims that:

"The name 'Haddock' means (in its French form, aigrefin) 'phoney', 'counterfeiter'"

He confused "aigrefin" (with an "r", French for "crook") with "aiglefin" (with an "l", French for "haddock" fish).

Sounds like one of those comic stereotypes in which a foreigner's "R"s come out as "L"s; like a Japanese speaking in English is sometimes depicted as saying:

"Hele comes Lobelt", as opposed to "Here comes Robert".

Tom McCarthy:
"Only a true Haddock can understand", "Be true to yourself", "Listen to your inner truth"

Are those words really mentioned in the film? Spielberg might as well have hired a teenage budding scriptwriter who was a fan of "Hollyoaks", "Neighbours" or "Eastenders". Compared to Moffat, he would have saved a fortune.
jock123
Moderator
#14 · Posted: 29 Oct 2011 19:56
mct16:
What's scary is the way McCarthy gets an important point terribly wrong - for French-speakers anyway.

Ah - excellent catch there! Great point well made! You touch your marble once again! Isn’t true that “haddock” is actually the French for the fish when it’s been smoked? So he’s introducing another level of complexity anyway, never mind that he gets it wrong…
Didi you add a comment at the end of the article? There are many interesting a funny ripostes…

mct16:
Are those words really mentioned in the film?

Yes, but they work in context: the “only a Haddock” bit is an actual requirement of solving the riddle - he is the only one who understands (although he doesn’t realize it…). As for the others, Haddock is rallying Tintin in a particular scene with what are obvious platitudes; however one of them is given a practical application which resolves a matter late on, so they are sort of appropriate to the context, but really camouflage the one which is useful later…
mct16
Member
#15 · Posted: 7 Nov 2011 11:25
Ladybird
Member
#16 · Posted: 9 Nov 2011 05:37
I think McCarthy makes some really interesting points (some cases I just think 'couldn't have put it better myself') and I'm always glad to here someone call Tintin great art, but I wish he'd stop going on about the whole "Herge's family history" thing. I mean, its an int resting bit of trivia but its not the driving force of the entire series for crying out loud! Not that I buy his Haddock theory in the first place.
jock123
Moderator
#17 · Posted: 15 Nov 2011 19:27
A nice online review from journalist Anna M.M.Vetticad, following the recent release in India.
mct16
Member
#18 · Posted: 28 Nov 2011 12:54
In an interview, Spielberg is quoted as saying that “There’s not a lot of films I’d watch that are made over the past 20 years".

Do his own movies qualify for such a statement, including his latest offering?
jock123
Moderator
#19 · Posted: 28 Nov 2011 14:39
mct16:
Do his own movies qualify for such a statement, including his latest offering?

Well, yes; like many film-makers and actors, he is on record as saying that he doesn’t watch his own movies if he can possibly avoid it, once the project has finished. He said in a recent interview that he’d just watched E.T. with a grandchild, or niece or nephew, and that was for the first time in about twenty years.

This isn’t uncommon; Hugh Laurie was on the One Show last week, and had his hands over his face rather than watch the clips they showed.
mct16
Member
#20 · Posted: 28 Nov 2011 17:07
I was being sort of sarcastic when I was suggesting that he viewed his own films as bad.

jock123:
He said in a recent interview that he’d just watched E.T. with a grandchild, or niece or nephew, and that was for the first time in about twenty years... Hugh Laurie was on the One Show last week, and had his hands over his face rather than watch the clips they showed.

I've always assumed that this was because generally when they watch their films, actors and directors can't help but thinking that they should have "done this and done that" and now it's too late. I seem to recall Orson Wells making such a remark in an interview.

Did Laurie mention why he covered his face?

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