HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TINTIN!

Joyeux anniversaire, Tintin: Ninety-seven years old today... and he wears it well!

On this day in 1929, young journalist Tintin and his faithful wire fox terrier Snowy set out on their first adventure, travelling to "The Land of The Soviets" at the behest of the editor of Le Petit Vingtième to unearth the truth of what was happening to the country under Bolshevik rule.

Appearing in the weekly children's supplement of the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle (The Twentieth Century), Tintin was initially very much a right-wing, anti-communist propaganda tool.

And yet from this unlikely start a global star of children's - and adult's - literature would eventually blossom, as he shook off those initial influences and became his own fully-developed person in later stories.

Created by 21-year-old Belgium cartoonist Georges Prosper Remi aka Hergé, the eternally young protagonist and his growing family of friends and associates would go to star in 24 canonical adventures (although the final one, Tintin and Alph-Art, was unfinished at the time of Hergé's death in 1983, and remains so).

A stipulation in Hergé's will was that no-one else could create fresh Tintin adventures and so this canon of two dozen stories will remain sacrosanct for the foreseeable future, with any upcoming projects only drawing on plots that have already been set in stone by Tintin's creator.

The animation below was created for Tintin's 90th birthday celebrations back in 2019:

Happy 90th birthday, Tintin!!! Our tribute.#tintinbirthday #Tintin90 #Tintin @SCMPgraphics pic.twitter.com/mBqLxh8hge

— Adolfo Arranz (@adolfux) January 10, 2019

MUSICAL MONDAY: Alatau (OTYKEN)

A surprisingly popular feature on previous blogs of mine has been the Musical Monday slot, where I post videos - old and new - of interesting musical acts from around the globe.

We begin this new era with a recent track from Siberian folk-pop act OTYKEN.

Guardians (2017)

It may have taken me several years to track down a physical copy of this Russian superhero flick - that I first learned of it back in October 2015 - but now that I've finally gotten to see Guardians I have to say I wasn't disappointed.

It's far from perfect, but as silly fun goes it's hugely entertaining, and coming in at under an hour-and-a-half knows not to outstay its welcome

Whether due to budgetary cuts, poor editing, or something simply got lost in translation, the story's all over the place; ultimately feeling more Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than Marvel Cinematic Universe.

During the cold War, mad scientist Avgust Kuratov (Stanislav Shirin) pioneered experimental techniques to turn civilians into superpowered Soviet soldiers - aka The Guardians - but then went too far, resulting in his own transformation into superstrong villain, with the power to control technology with his mind.

Kuratov has now returned, at the head of an army of clones and stolen military technology under this psychic control, and laid siege to Moscow.

The Russian authorities track down four of Kuratov's experiments - Ler (Sebastien Sisak Grigoryan), who has the power to telekinetically move rocks and earth; speedster and blademaster Khan (Sanzhar Madiev); werebear Arsus (Anton Pampushnyy); and amnesiac Kseniya (Alina Lanina), who can turn invisible and has resistance to temperature extremes - enlisting them to fight their creator.

The backstory connection between the villain and the members of The Guardians brings a strong Fantastic Four vibe to the proceedings, and while not much time is spent on sub-plots at least some effort is made to add a modicum of depth to the main characters.

Massive kudos to whoever realised the only way you could improve on having a hulking werebear as a main character would be to equip him with a frakking big machine gun, instantly turning the otherwise amusingly-named Arsus into a cult hero for the ages.

With its very simplistic, linear, storyline, Guardians is pulptastic, weird science at its finest, with surprisingly effective special effects that only occasionally feel overextended.

While best watched in the original Russian with sub-titles (the dubbing is reminiscent of cheesy '70s Hong Kong martial arts movies), this requires an extra level of commitment that I'm not sure the film truly warrants.

But if you're in the right frame of mind, and looking for a superhero film that isn't traditional American fare (but also doesn't stray too far away the standard tropes of the genre), then Guardians is well worth 86 minutes of your time.

The ending - and then the mid-credit scene - are clearly opening the door for sequels, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

It's worth noting that while the blurb on the back of the DVD packaging references a long history of "superpowered characters" - going back to Nazi experiments in the Second World War and then spreading around the globe - none of this is ever mentioned on screen.

This was either something invented by the DVD distributors, to possibly broaden the film's appeal, or backstory lifted from the original script that never made it into the actual movie.

Arsus

Kseniya

Khan

Ler

Kuratov

PULP PICTURE OF THE MONTH: March Or Die (1977)

In the months following the end of The Great War, a detachment of French Foreign Legion guarding an archaeological dig in Morocco are massacred and two curators from the Louvre, working at the site, are kidnapped by Arab tribesmen.

Archaeologist Francois Marneau (Max von Sydow) persuades the French military to send another division of the Legion to provide security for him on his resumption of the dig.

Commanding these soldiers is the slightly-shell-shocked Major William Sherman Foster (Gene Hackman), a tough, no-nonsense officer who makes no bones about his dislike for Marneau's ambitions, dismissing it as "grave-robbing" and pointing out that not only the treasures believed to be hidden at Erfoud rightly belong to the locals, but that the lives of his men are more valuable than anything that can be dug out of the ground.

Among Foster's force are a number of new recruits, including roguish jewel thief Marco "The Gypsy" Segrain (Terence Hill) and giant White Russian Ivan (Jack O'Halloran aka Non from Superman II).

Accompanying Marneau is the daughter of one of the kidnapped curators, Simone Picard (Catherine Deneuve), who soon falls for the charming Marco, even though she tries to keep him at arm's length because of her past experience with a solider during the war.

The site at Erfoud is the final resting place of a Berber saint, The Angel of the Desert, which Bedouin warlord El Krim (Ian Holm) is using as a catalyst to unite the various tribes of the region in a holy war against the foreign invaders.

The bulk of March Or Die focuses on the hard training regime and merciless discipline of the French Foreign Legion, and these are the most compelling parts of the story as it builds towards its blood-soaked climax that is more Alamo than Zulu.

The romantic sub-plot between Mme Picard and Marco - although it adds emotional impact to the film's coda - feels slightly superfluous to modern sensibilities. There is an attempt to create a love triangle by playing on Foster's attraction to Picard, but it doesn't really go anywhere.

Also the casting of Ian Holm as El Krim, while de rigeur when this film was shot, now undermines the charisma of the Bedouin leader, making him more akin to a character in Michael Bentine's Potty Time than a fearsome warrior.

While Marco is the nominal hero of March Or Die - looking after his friends as they struggle with the training, wooing the female lead, standing up to authority and learning to respect it etc - Gene Hackman steals the show because he's Gene Hackman.