Here's my Golden Schmoe ballot

The official 2011 nominees are:
Favorite Movie of the Year: Drive

Worst Movie of the Year: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Best Director of the Year: Nicolas Winding Refn - Drive

Best Screenplay of the Year: 50/50

Most Overrated Movie of the Year: Bridesmaids

Most Underrated Movie of the Year: Warrior

Trippiest Movie of the Year: Rango

Best Comedy of the Year: The Muppets

Best Horror Movie of the Year: Attack the Block

Best Animated Movie of the Year: Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn

Best Sci-Fi Movie of the Year: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Best Special Effects of the Year: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Green Lantern

Biggest Surprise of the Year: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Best Actor of the Year: George Clooney - The Descendants

Best Actress of the Year: Rooney Mara - Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Supporting Actor of the Year: Christopher Plummer - Beginners

Best Supporting Actress of the Year: Shailene Woodley - The Descendants

Breakthrough Performance of the Year: Michael Fassbender - X-Men: First Class

Favorite Celebrity of the Year: Ryan Gosling

Coolest Character of the Year: Magneto - X-Men: First Class

Best Music in a Movie: The Muppets

Favorite Movie Poster of the Year: Captain America: The First Avenger

Best Trailer of the Year (2011 releases): Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Best DVD of the Year: X-Men: First Class

Best Action Sequence of the Year: Mi4 - Climbing the Dubai building

Most Memorable Scene in a Movie: MI4 - Climbing the Dubai building

Best T&A of the Year: Paula Patton - MI4

Best Line of the Year: X-Men: First Class - "Go f*ck yourself."

Mood: Chillin'

What Tintin means to me

So I thought I’d take the fact that Tintin is coming in 5 days here in Quebec to shine a light on what Tintin means to me. As you may have noticed these past few weeks, I’ve focused a lot of my posts on the movie The Adventures of Tintin. Much like wallcrawler and The Muppets, this is something I hold extremely close to my heart and the anticipation for the movie is beyond words for reasons I’ll explain in this blog/post.

Now, my connection with the Tintin world starts when I was around 7 years-old. I got the second book of the series (Tintin en Amérique) as a gift from my parents and I was instantly hooked. I now know that this was my dad’s way of introducing me to this fantastic series of comics. Just a bit of background on my parents to make you understand how big this is. My parents are nowhere near being nerds/geeks. Oh they nerd out on a few things but nothing pop culture (movies, books, music, comics, etc.) My mom nerds out on homemaking stuff (gardening, decorating, cooking, baking and Rod Stewart !) and my dad is a total wine, cigar and the history of organized crime in Montreal since he was an undercover cop mafia division in the 70’s (think Serpico/Popeye Jones with an awesome cop stache and a Starsky perm. Yeah he’s pretty bad ass). Although, my dad is a full on Habs and Tintin nerd. It’s a bit hard to talk habs with him because he grew up with the 50-60-70-80’s era habs and doesn’t follow the new ones that much so it’sa bit harder for us to truly relate on this. But when it comes to Tintin, look out. He grew up with the books and was heart-broken when he learned his mom threw them out when he moved out (she like my mom don’t understand collections for some reasons haha). So when he saw that I was at the appropriate age to start reading them this was his chance to get back into them. Over the years, we bought all 25 books in the collection and that is where the father-son nerd connection began. We would read them al the time, every where we went. Being an only child, I had to find things to occupy myself with when we went on vacation or to the restaurant or had to be in a car for a long time. My way of doing this was to bring along some tintin books. Obviously my dad would read them as soon as i was done with them. It didn’t take long for my room to be covered with Tintin sflooor to ceiling. We would also spent days in the Tintin store in downtown Montreal and we’d go to every convention, museum expos, etc Tintin related. We’d watch all the tv shows and movies every holiday. It was great.

At a certain age, I kind of stopped reading them but every once in a while i’d go back and check out a few. But when I heard that the man responsible for shaping a part of my childhood, Steven Spielberg, was going to direct an adaptation of the books that shaped the other part of my childhood, to say my mind was blown was an understatement. This was the stuff dreams are made of. 8 year-old me would’ve gone insane if I told him that one day this would happen. It wasn’t rare that you could find me reading a Tintin book while watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or Hook or Jurassic Park in those days. And now both worlds are colliding (along with peter Jackson, pegg, frost, wright, the people who shaped my cinematic life this past decade!). I still can’t believe it.

When I asked my dad last week if he wanted to go see the movie the day it came out, he immediately said yes. And I can tell you right now that we will both be wearing our Tintin shirts and even if the movie sucks (which from what i’ve read from hardcore and non hardcore fans, it doesn’t) it will still be a fantastic experience and just another chapter in our father-son Tintin obsession/nerding out history. I can’t wait to be able to pass this down to my son one day when he turns 8 and hopefully it will have the same effect it had on me and my dad and there will be three generations of Tintin nerds in the Charbonneau gene pool. Yes, he’s introduced me to a lot of music, movies and sports but it wasn’t quite like this. This was him letting me into this great world that he knew since he was a kid, like those family secrets passed on from generation to generation. It was just so much more than just another seires of books that you show your kids once and move on!

Fun Tintin nerd moment: Recently my dad went to a flea market with my mom and fond these Tintin shirts. He obviously bought one for me and one for him. When he brought them home for us to look at them we were trying to figure out from which books the drawings cam e from. This led to a long conversation containing many ‘, oh no this happened in this book remember when he did this and that and then he showed up’’ ‘’oh right but didn’t he do this there and...’’ and so on while my mom and my girlfriend both gave us these ‘’What the fuck are they talking about right now?’’ looks. Yup, father-son Tintin nerds and proud of it!

Can’t wait for Friday to get here!

Mood: Happy

Derek237 at 10:16 AM Dec 04

Thanks for sharing this, for one thing I have to say your dad sounds pretty awesome and for another thing, it must be some crazy universal rule that moms just don't understand what comics mean to kids and will throw them out cause the same has happened for me. Not just comics, but toys, too. But anyway, hope you guys enjoy the movie and geek out to your hearts' content.

ericodarko at 10:25 AM Dec 04

thanks, dude. still can't believe my mom gave away my tMNT action figures. I had literally all of them

Do The Evolution

1. Put your iPod on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer
3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it sounds!
IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
This Dream of You – Bob Dylan
WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Snakes – Papa Roach
WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Wildflower – Cee Lo Green
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Highway Patrolman- Johnny Cash
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Lo! How A Rose E’er Blooming
WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Master of Puppets - Metallica
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
The Underdogs - Weezer
WHAT IS 2+2?
Not Over You – Jason Collett
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer – Stephen Pearcy and Others
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
The Watcher – Dr. Dre
WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Flash of the Blade - IronMaiden
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Black Cadillacs – Modest Mouse
WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Bellow the Bottom - Hatebreed
WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
The Static Age – Green Day
WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Should’ve Been in Love - Wilco
WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Rhyme and Reasons – Dave Mathews Band
WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Children of The Damned – Iron Maiden
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Redneck – Lamb of God
WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
Whereabouts Unknown – Rise Against
HOW WILL YOU DIE?
Jane Doe – Alicia Keys
WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
Fu-Gee-La – The Fugees
WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
The Last Song – Foo Fighters
WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
Blues From Down Here – TV on the Radio
WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
Together – The Raconteurs
WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?
Right Brigade – Bad Brains
DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
#1 Zero - Audioslave
IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
I’ll Fight - Wilco
WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
After the Gold Rush – Neil Young
WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Do the Evolution – Pearl Jam

Mood: Angry

VitamanMan8 at 08:50 PM Mar 20

Whereabouts Unknown would be pretty bad. lol love Rise Against

ericodarko at 09:58 AM Mar 21

Yeah theyre freakin awesome. I can' twai to listen to the new album!