The Adventures of Tintin makes good on its promise

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Larry Cornies

I don’t generally write movie reviews, but, given my previous posts on the theme, I can’t resist the temptation to weigh in on The Adventures of Tintin, the motion-capture feature film that premiered in North America last week. It was on my must-do list for the Christmas holidays and it certainly didn’t disappoint.

One of the movie posters for Spielberg's take on Tintin

My personal interest in Hergé (Georges Remi) and his beloved graphic-novel character began when I was a child, with a series of books I checked out repeatedly from the Leamington (Ont.) Public Library. There, on the bottom shelf in a metal stack in the library’s post-Carnegie addition, was a small collection to which I returned often. My first encounter with Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock and the rest of Hergé’s characters was in Explorers on the Moon. Only later did I discover its prequel, Destination Moon, and the rest of the Tintin volumes.

Much has already been written and said about the famous Belgian author and his career. The most authoritative is French author Pierre Assouline’s biography, Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin. Attendant to the film’s release in English Canada (it opened in Quebec earlier — a bow to Tintin’s popularity in French culture), Assouline appeared on the CBC Radio 1 program The Current, with Anna Maria Tremonti, on Dec. 21. The podcast of that radio interview can be heard here.

Similarly, much has already been written about director Steven Spielberg‘s use of motion-capture technology to cast stars such as Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis and Daniel Craig in this film’s starring roles.

It suffices to say that The Adventures of Tintin was a thrill, and cancelled my doubts about whether the books could really be successfully adapted to the big screen in a way more pleasing and true to the spirit of both Hergé and his creations than was the animated TV series from the early ’90s. Tintin aficionados, however, will recognize the fact that script of the current feature film is really a composite creation of three different Tintin books: The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham’s Treasure and The Crab With the Golden Claws.

That fact notwithstanding, The Adventures of Tintin is the truest rendition to date of the spirit of Hergé’s boy reporter and his accompanying cast of characters. It was a joy to watch, offering a warm, two-hour soak in a reverie of distant childhood. The film’s end portends a sequel, likely based on Red Rackham’s Treasure as a starting point. But my personal hope is that Spielberg, Peter Jackson and their other collaborators would someday get around the Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon — partly for old times’ sake and partly for the creative possibilities those plots would open to the filmmakers.

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Farewell to a great journalism educator

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Larry Cornies

I was saddened by the news this morning that Les Anderson, 62, a journalism professor at the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University, died yesterday evening of a heart attack.

To most of my Canadian journalism colleagues, Anderson will be an unknown. But to anyone who has had anything to do with journalism in central Kansas, he was an icon.

Les Anderson (WSU photo)

Anderson was my first journalism professor; I first encountered him in a news writing course at Wichita State in 1982. I’ll always remember the joy and humour that suffused his teaching. To him, journalism was the most interesting, exciting and noble of pursuits. And while he was a stickler for detail (as all good j-profs are), he never failed to bring his trademark warmth and enthusiasm to the classroom. He cared on a personal level about every one of his students and cemented in me a belief that journalism should be my career.

Ironically, Anderson and I got reacquainted only in the past six months. The connection was assisted by Jesse Huxman, who, with his spouse, Susan Schultz Huxman, moved from Wichita to Waterloo, Ont., this spring. Susan is the former director of the Elliott School and is now the seventh president of Conrad Grebel College; Jesse is a well-travelled communications executive and news producer who is now the communication strategist with Mennonite Foundation of Canada.

The video below tells the story of Anderson’s career much better than I can. And it’s laced with precisely the kind of humour that Anderson would have appreciated.

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Brown, Cimolino call for democratization of culture

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Larry Cornies

2011To some extent, what happened in London, Ont., at last week’s Creative City Summit was routine and unremarkable. Organizers of the biennial gathering of the Creative City Network of Canada booked some convention space and hotel rooms, invited a few guest speakers, drew up an agenda that left plenty of room for workshops, excursions and networking, and sent out invitations to members. And it all seemed to go off without a hitch.

The messages relayed by the summit’s two keynote speakers, however, challenged the assumptions that lay at the heart of centralized culture planning (and the summit’s participants were, after all, culture planners from municipal bureaucracies across the country). They were also messages worth hearing by a much broader audience.

As I mentioned in a column in The London Free Press last week, San Francisco-based arts consultant Alan Brown was refreshingly plain-spoken in his description of “six domains” of creative culture (due to a lapsed passport, Brown addressed the gathering via Skype). He urged delegates to take a wider “ecological” view of culture: “While some of your communities might not have much of a formal arts infrastructure, and while your budgets may be small and getting smaller, you must realize that creativity is a currency in a different economy – an economy of meaning.  In this economy, wealth is attainable for everyone, because every human being is intrinsically creative, they just might not know it yet,” Brown said.

“Everyone has a stake in the creative capital of their community, especially businesses, elected officials, parents, and the education system.  The arts, of course, are a major stakeholder in the creative capital of their communities, but sometimes I wonder why we don’t act like it.  Too many arts groups have grown complacent and comfortable producing professionally curated arts experiences by professional artists for professional audiences — and lost touch with the vast sea of creativity all around them.  And they wonder why resources are dwindling and community support isn’t as high as they’d wish.”

Brown offered a copy of his speech to the summit, along with an apology for not being able to attend in person. Conference organizers promised to post it on their website, but I’ve not seen it there yet, so I’ll post it here.

Alan Brown on Creative Capital, May 11, 2011

Culture Days logoThe following day, Antoni Cimolino, general director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, tilted similarly toward a bottom-up arts culture. Cimolino retold the stories surrounding the creation of the festival in the 1950s and how, at various points in the history of his community, strategic decisions were made by citizens and their politicians to allow an arts-rich culture to take root. Cimolino’s stories about Stratford’s history were really a prelude to his plea for support of Culture Days, a national event slated for this fall and for which he is chair of the steering committee.

Cimolino’s address, his short video on Culture Days and a question-and-answer session lasted about 45 minutes. I edited out the video portion (but see the link below) and the Q&A to produce an audio recording of about 22 minutes in length. You can listen to that here:

Antoni Cimolino on Culture Days

The video Cimolino presented about two-thirds of the way through his address is below.

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Thanks to the board, staff and organizers of the Creative City Summit for allowing me to attend — and to Conestoga College, my employer, for providing the professional development time to do so.

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When your member of Parliament goes AWOL

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Larry Cornies
Our Votes Count debate

Ed Holder's seat sits empty at a London West candidates debate on April 26, sponsored by Our Votes Count.

When London insurance broker Ed Holder decided to run under the Conservative banner my riding, London West, in 2008, I was thrilled. I happen to be a big believer in the importance of integrity in local candidates, no matter their political stripe. Elect 308 scrupulous, principled and sincere candidates to the House of Commons and the rest, I figure, will take care of itself. It’s why, three years ago, I saw Glen Pearson, a Liberal in London-North-Centre, and Irene Mathyssen, a New Democrat in London-Fanshawe, as worthy contenders in their respective ridings.

I was especially delighted about Holder’s decision to run because I’d come to know him through my role as editor at The London Free Press. As chair of the newspaper’s editorial board, I kept a slot open for a community member, who would serve for one year. At one point, Holder was one of these.

I invited him to the post largely on the strength of his community involvement and leadership. He was regularly in the news, for all the right reasons — supporting important social causes, raising money to preserve a community tradition that was about to go extinct, and giving of his time in the service of local charities. I was pleased when he accepted and grateful for his sage advice.

What I remember most about his contributions to our meetings was his incisive mind and ability to probe, with business-like detachment, whatever happened to be the issue of the day. He was a stickler for precision, fairness and transparency. He insisted that politicians, chief executives and charities face scrutiny and be held accountable. He believed strongly in the importance of benchmarks and good, defensible standards by which to measure performance.

When voting day arrived in 2008, I was more sure of my vote than I’d ever been. His victory over longtime Liberal MP Sue Barnes, for whom I’d also voted more than once, seemed timely and deserved.

During the last Parliament, I called on Holder’s office for assistance on one occasion. I was serving as chairperson of charitable organization and was perplexed by some new rules being imposed by Ottawa. Within hours, Holder called personally to set me straight on a simple misunderstanding, brought about by a vacancy in our CEO’s office. Holder’s businesslike approach to the problem was exactly what I had expected of him.

Because he’d been such an proponent of accountability and openness, I looked forward to seeing him at candidates debates in my riding in the current campaign. I have been profoundly disappointed by his absences at many of them, including the one debate held specifically in London West riding for London West voters this week. Yes, he has participated in some meetings, such as the Rogers-sponsored debate that would be televised repeatedly through the campaign (best not to avoid that one). And he has appeared at debates in local high schools, where exposure to voting constituents with hard questions is minimal. He has not responded to my question about whether his absences are the result of a personal decision or party war room diktat.

I suspect it’s the latter. If so, London West’s MP must be chafing under the order. This is entirely unlike the Ed Holder I have come to know — the one who held up accountability in public life as an imperative. Absent other explanations, I resent the fact that the long arm of a control-obsessed prime minister appears to have absconded with my member of Parliament. He is absent without leave at precisely the moment — and I think he, in his heart of hearts, would personally agree — that he ought to be living out the notions he once so strongly advocated.

UWO debate posterUpdate: According to CBC.ca, Holder has also declined to attend the all-candidates meeting this evening at the University of Western Ontario, moderated by Huron University College political science professor Paul Nesbitt-Larking and sponsored by UWO’s Faculty Association, the Graduate Teaching Assistants Union and the University Students’ Council.

Update II: Indeed, Holder was a no-show at the UWO debate.

Update III (May 2): Holder was re-elected handily on election night, by a margin of nearly 9,000 votes over his nearest challenger, the NDP’s Peter Ferguson. Congratulations to Mr. Holder. Here’s hoping he finds effective and personal ways to stay in touch with his constituents.

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London City Press Club needs reinvention

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Larry Cornies
Berton at London City Press Club

Former London Free Press editor-in-chief Paul Berton bids farewell to city journalists at the London City Press Club on June 5, 2010. Berton is now editor-in-chief at the Hamilton Spectator and thespec.com.

I can’t say I was surprised by this morning’s story in The London Free Press about the imminent closure of the London City Press Club. Saddened and a bit nostaligic, maybe, but not surprised. Come to think of it, saddened and nostalgic are a bit of a stretch, too, since I was never a member.

I should have been (a member, that is). As one who worked as a journalist in London, Ont., for more than 20 years (two of them at London Magazine and 18+ at the newspaper, the last seven as its editor), I should have been a regular at the club. Maybe even served on its board. So when I read this morning’s story, the inescapable conclusion was that I — and dozens of people like me — was at least partly to blame. More than a few times, I held a membership application in my hand; each time, I set it down.

It was always an entirely hospitable place and I enjoyed each of my visits there over the years, whether it was a special function or just a swing-by visit at the invitation of one of the club’s members. And I might have joined had my commitment to a spouse and responsibilities as a dad to four kids not made a more substantial claim on my time — especially the all-too-precious time away from the office.

The London City Press Club, with its venerable history and a committed core of ardent supporters, also laboured somewhat under the stereotypes of what press clubs were a half-century ago: the early-hour, post-deadline refuge of hard-bitten reporters and editors, who, having let the presses roll or signed off the air, wandered into the club for their nightcaps. They told each other the stories behind the stories of the next day’s front pages (tales that often grew slightly larger with each telling), complained about their bosses or the rookies under their tutelage, and waxed nostalgic about the good old days when journalism was still real journalism.

The arrival of a new generation of journalists in Canadian newsrooms in the early 1990s, many of them women and many among both genders attuned to a different set of personal priorities, began to change the internal landscape of newsroom culture. Life-career balance became an imperative for many. The shrinking size of the city’s newsrooms — newspaper, magazines, radio and television — had an impact too. And those developments were mere precursors to the much more profound effects of more distributed types of community journalism through a much wider variety of delivery platforms, most of them Internet-based.

It would be a thrill to see the London City Press Club reinvented — not as a tenant or lessee that operates an establishment, dominated by a bar, around which rattle the ghosts of journalism past, but as an organization that promotes dialogue and collaboration around important political and journalistic issues within the city and its environs. An entity that looks forward as much as it looks back. Open the doors to journalists, both full- and part-time, who contribute in some manner to the growing diversity of media voices within the city, across all platforms. Sponsor the appearance of important speakers or workshops, seminars or panel discussions on emerging journalistic themes. Hold them in meeting spaces, banquet halls or private rooms in local sponsoring hotels or restaurants. Think meetup in terms of format; think Canadian Club of London in terms of organization.

The closure of the press club’s doors at Dundas and Colborne streets doesn’t need to signal the end of its life as an organization to promote collegiality, professionalism and (dare we think it?) transparency and accountability. The club simply needs a reinvention that will give it new life as London City Press Club 2.0.

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