This Week in Tickets: 10 September 2018 - 16 September 2018

Man, this weekend did not go as planned.



The good news - Tuesday's baseball game was a lot of fun, a nice night, the score tight until it wasn't, the first game with Sale back from injury, enough 9/11 commemoration to be respectful but far from going overboard. Didn't even stick "God Bless America" into the seventh-inning stretch, and I'm wondering if maybe we're starting to see that sort of thing start to fade away as the ramifications of its excess start to sink in

I also finished Miss Sherlock during the week, and I find myself mostly fond of it but with reservations. The cast is great, especially Yuko Takeuchi as Sherlock - she's more manic than cold, taking a genuine delight in solving weird crimes and growing attached to Wato-san in prickly, believable fashion that leaves me hopeful this won't become the Cumberbatch/Freeman Sherlock redux - but I have to admit that I'm so used to a more active Watson readily accepted as Sherlock's peer that Wato-san seemed like something of a throwback. The show's take on Moriarty seemed like a bit too much as well, but what can you do? Doyle's "Napoleon of Crime" at the center of a web is just a gangster or a garden-variety conspiracy theory these days, and while I think this show was on the right track for how to update the archetype for the Twenty-First Century with radicalization, it seemed a bit on a Rube Goldberg set-up and played into the weak-Watson issue.

Am I still hoping like heck that HBO/Hulu Asia make another series? Oh, yes.

I had big plans for the weekend, but right around 4pm on Friday, something hit me like a wall, and the next day and a half was basically my body telling me that I was going to lie down and half pay attention to the ballgame and maybe, if it was feeling generous, it would give me enough mental energy to read a comic book. Not the greatest state to be in when you've brought some work home, have errands to run, and there were something like four or five movies that looked worth seeing over the weekend. Nope, you're not going to be up for that until Sunday night, when things had progressed to "mostly feeling okay but everything tastes terrible".

That served as a good enough excuse to check out the room AMC had upgraded to "Dolby Cinema" at Assembly Row. Unlike the one at South Bay, it's not really a big room, just a bit larger than average for that multiplex, with a screen to match - but it feels tony, with no pre-movie ad package, dim LED lighting, lots of black. I'm mildly amazed that black levels are the big selling point for Dolby Cinema, even more than the Atmos sound; it just seems so esoteric, not as easy a sell as brighter colors or the rumble you feel in the seat. I suppose it goes without saying that those blacks aren't quite as black as you might find with actual film, but pretty darn decent as far as digital goes.

Fair enough spot to see something like The Predator, which doesn't quite demand overwhelming power but is still a bit of an upgrade on standard projection, especially if you're paying the same because of Stubs A-List or the like.

Much busier week planned now that I'm feeling up to writing this from the RMV lobby. Follow along on my Letterboxd, or just wait for the blog to be updated.

The Predator

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 16 September 2018 in AMC Assembly Row #2 (first-run, Dolby Cinema DCP)

Predator had no business spawning a franchise at all, and yet Twentieth Century Fox keeps trying because, while there's nowhere to take it without losing the sheer 1980s muscle-headed appeal of the original film, it's just too damn merchandisable. So roughly every ten years the try again, and it's not like they don't give it their best shot, but digging deeper into the mythology behind a dumb action movie is something of a fool's errand. This attempt to do so is pretty capable, in a disposable-paperback way, but even by those standards could have been more.

It opens with one alien spaceship chasing another, the first taking damage as it escapes to Earth through hyperspace, crashing to Earth in the middle of an op where sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) is in the middle of an operation south of the border. McKenna fares much better than most do when faced by one of these "Predators", but he's canny enough to know that seeing this has likely made him a target, and tries to get himself some insurance. Back home, his pre-teen son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) is being bullied for being on the spectrum, and Project Stargazer operative Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) is recruiting biologist Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) to investigate what McKenna has found. Oh, and speaking of McKenna, he was right to be worried about what the government would do with the only living witness to a UFO crash, as they've put him on a bus to a VA psychiatric hospital with a bunch of traumatized soldiers.

Though director Shane Black and his occasional partner-in-crime Fred Dekker are the only credited writers on this film, it's got the feel of one of those projects where a studio solicits a bunch of different pitches and then tries to Frankenstein the best parts of them into one movie. Any single one of these stories - the secret government agency, the team of traumatized veterans, the chance for some Black & Dekker holiday mayhem with a monster running around the suburbs on Halloween - could play as a new take on the Predator story, and given that the series has by circumstance never had much in the way of film-to-film continuity, there's nothing stopping the studio from just lining them up one after another, especially if they can be done on reasonable budgets. Throwing them all together like this, the plots wind up in competition to the point where the characters from the various threads are trying to kill each other for no good reason. It's not just frustrating in that none of the threads feel like they play out properly, but it takes some exceptionally dumb plot devices and Macguffins to hold them together.

Full review at EFilmCritc

Mr. Holmes

A non-zero number of folks are probably looking at this title, looking at the date, and wondering what the heck took me so long. Well, it did come out while I was in Montreal, watching a whole bunch of other movies, which meant that by the time I came home, it was kind of in an odd place - hanging around, but not necessarily at great times or great screens, but still enough that I could see it next week, until finally I was looking down the barrel of having to go to Lexington or West Newton at weird hours, so, okay, to Lexington at manageable hours on the last Thursday where that's an option it is.

Glad I finally caught it. It's amazing to me that this is probably just the third-biggest Sherlock Holmes film/TV thing this year, behind the restoration/release of the 1916 Sherlock Holmes and (perhaps) the Sherlock Christmas special, which will take place in the 19th Century and seems to borrow heavily from the Granada series. Interestingly, I felt like Carter Burwell's score for this was taking a fair amount of information from that show, which should never be surprising; it wasn't just Jeremy Brett more or less defining the role that made it great, but almost everything else.

I must admit, though, that I had the first line of this review in my head for the past couple of weeks, well before actually seeing the movie, and maybe that mindset was a part of why I put it off for a while. It took me a long time to look at the screen and see/hear Sherlock Holmes instead of Ian McKellen. Kind of unfair, I suppose, but I couldn't help it.

Another thing I couldn't help: Pulling out my copy of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes - a monster volume at 150 oversized hardcover pages, large enough to not actually be packed in boxes for the move - and checking to see whether the characters of this "last case" that Watson supposedly chronicled were part of "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" or "His Last Bow". They were not, which is a bummer, since there was clearly having a fair amount of fun in other places.

Anyway, sorry it took so long. This is still kicking around the second-run/suburban boutique house places, and comes out on video in November, and I don't think you have to be a particular Sherlock Holmes fan to enjoy this one.

Mr. Holmes

* * * (out of four)
Seen 3 September 2015 in Lexington Venue #2 (second-run, DCP)

One of the interesting things about Sherlock Holmes is that, for as much as he is one of the most iconic and well-defined characters ever created, he rarely subsumes an actor playing the role - for as fine as their performances are, the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, Johnny Lee Miller, Robert Downey Junior, Jeremy Brett, Peter Cushing, Basil Rathbone, and so on back, are all distinctly themselves as well as Holmes. Now, add Ian McKellen to the list of actors who don't disappear into the role, but are nevertheless part of an intriguing Holmes story.

The main action of the story starts in 1947, decades after Holmes has retired to the south of England to raise bees. He has just returned from a trip to Japan where he and correspondent Tamiki Umezaki (Hiroyuki Sanada) have been seeking the root of the "prickly ash", which Holmes believes will help to preserve his health and faculties better than the royal jelly he currently partakes of. He is re-investigating the case that made him quit detective work, when Thomas Kelmot (Patrick Kennedy) hired him to get to the bottom of the odd behavior of his wife Ann (Hattie Morahan). He hasn't spoken to the late Doctor Watson in nearly that time, so his assistance comes from the housekeeper's bright son Roger Munro (Milo Parker), though his mother (Laura Linney) disapproves of how much time the two are spending together.

This particular mystery is not one that appears in "the canon", although it is treated as though it were published in Holmes's world, and even the Baker Street portion is in fact rather atypical of the stories Arthur Conan Doyle wrote. The case involves understanding the human psyche from the start, and some may feel that it sells the character short; for all that Holmes has always been an eccentric who solved crimes with forensics rather than by finding motive, he seldom displayed the sort of poor understanding of human behavior that is at the center of this story. Put that alongside how the screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher (and, presumably, Mitch Cullin's source novel, A Slight Trick of the Mind) seems to go out of its way to mention that certain cherished details of the stories are inaccurate, and there are moments when this starts to feel like the sort of "fan theory" that, in order to fill in a perceived gap, must invalidate some of the actual material.

Full review on EFC.

San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2015 Day #04: Charlie Bowers, "Emak-Bakia", "Ménilmontant", Why Be Good?, Norrtullsligan, Sherlock Holmes (1916), and The Swallow and the Titmouse

Sherlock Holmes Day!!!!

That's roughly what my social media output looked like Sunday morning, as the interest that had been there since the discovery was announced and built up slowly as I convinced myself to go to the festival, regressing a bit when moving expenses and stuff came up, and then saw a steady increase as I actually got there, finally exploded into "holy crap, I'm going to see a performance I've read about ever since I first discovered Sherlock Holmes in elementary school, this is a huge deal!!!!"

SFSFF allows you to camp out, so even if I wasn't going to be getting the most I could from my pass, I would have shown up at 10am for the Charlie Bowers program anyway. You almost had to if you wanted a good seat - with the front row blocked off so the tech crew and musicians could have the front of the auditorium to themselves (often giving a tantalizing view of the organ underneath the stage that strangely never got used during the weekend), and an extra four or five rows marked as being reserved after 6pm on top of the six rows in the center of the orchestra section that had been reserved all weekend, you had to claim space early. I grabbed a second/third row center seat and declared it mine just as soon as I was done with the delicious stuffed french toast at Orphan Andy's around the corner.

First up was the Charlie Bowers program, which is some pretty astonishing live-action cartoon stuff, both in terms of how accomplished and how incredibly broad it is; we always talk about how the silent masters were doing their thing without CGI and the like, but Bowers was blending live action, animation, and visual effects in the same way much later filmmakers would, creating some of the weirdest and funniest silent shorts you'll see. Many were lost and only some have been rediscovered, and though made in Hollywood, Serge Bromberg felt it appropriate to present them in French with subtitles, as that is where "Bricolo" re-emerged and found some appreciation later on.

We stayed in France, more or less, for an "Avant-Garde Paris" program after that, and, man, if I were the break-taking type, that would have been the time, because the sound checks between programs hinted at just how painful the first short ("Emak-Bakia") and its accompanying music by Earplay was. Mainline a whole festival, and the odds are that something will disagree with you, but that was a rough one. Liked "Ménilmontant" a fair bit, though.

I went for lunch after that, but I had the sort of paralysis that comes with too many options, walking around Castro street until the Sliders burger shop became the best choice time-wise. Not a bad one - I respect any restaurant that has a great big charcoal grill right out where you can watch your burger get cooked - but I tend ty Yo over-think this sort of thing a lot when you're in an area with a lot of places to eat with only so many meal slots to visit them. It's a real peril when trying to vacation spontaneously.

I did make sure that something was left in my seat, so it was still waiting for me when I got back for Why Be Good?, which wound up forming something of a prototype female-empowerment double feature with the one that followed, Norrtullsligan (it's from Sweden). Both are darn entertaining movies, although there were times when the cheering in the middle came less from a well-executed joke than by women in the 1920s calling men on their exist double-standard crap. Of course, it being the 1920s, there was a bit of a limit to how progressive these movies were going to be - where the former seems to get to the right ending for the wrong reasons, the latter is just puzzling. I guess you just have to cheer baby steps in the past while working for big strides in the present and future.

That brings us to the main event, when stuff like this started showing up on screen:



Was I getting excited? You bet. I'm not the most serious Sherlock Holmes fan you'll find by a long shot, I've read about Gillette's tremendous popularity and influence on the public image of this character, along with the popular exchange of Gillette asking Arthur Conan Doyle if he could have Homes get married, to which Doyle replied he could kill Holmes for all he cared, from early on, and to be to actually see it... It's a big deal.

Because its such a big deal, I'm not sure I can assess the quality of the film with any degree of accuracy. It's pretty good, maybe great, certainly seldom disappointing, enough so that is starts to blend in with the buzzy feeling of seeing something precious thought lost. Maybe I'll be better able to render judgment with a few more viewings (I've got the Blu-ray on pre-order and hold out hope for screenings in Boston and maybe at Fantasia), but that can wait.

Knowing that it's hitting home video in October, though, does mean people are going to be able to take it for granted that it exists very quickly, especially if they're among the large folks who come to fandom via the recent explosion of new Sherlock Holmes material and adaptations. That's especially relevant given that the producers of the BBC'S Sherlock are prominently acknowledged in the credits for the restoration. It's also a good thing, I wager; as intriguing as lost art is, it's much better to have the thing than to not have it and be able to look down at those one deems ungrateful.

As expected, the film got a lot of applause from the audience, probably nearly as much from those who are silent fans as the Sherlock Holmes people. All of us, after all, enjoy the discovery of something previously hidden.

And, finally, The Swallow and the Titmouse, serving as something of an encore. That one has an interesting story as well; it was made in 1920 but put on the shelf by its studio, who apparently found its hyper-realistic style too unusual; when it was rediscovered sixty-two years later, the edit had to be recreated from six hours of raw footage. The result is impressive, even if, like the feature the occupied the 10pm slot the night before, it's material for an audience that enjoys both silent and art-house films.

Sometime during the evening, I got an email from United saying that my flight had been canceled to switch airplanes, which put a hitch into Monday which would have been more frustrating if the Red Sox game I was now not going to be able to make hadn't been postponed (that I didn't make it anyway, because getting Wednesday afternoon off just wasn't happening, is kind of neutral itself. If I were smart, I'd have taken advantage of the situation and done some touristy stuff Monday morning and caught The Deadlier Sex and Bert Williams's Lime Kiln Club Field Day (arguably a far more important rediscovery and presentation than Sherlock Holmes as one of the few silents made with a black cast) and then did what I could to sleep on the flight home, but I was wisely or sadly thinking in terms of being able to get into Boston before the T shut down. A missed opportunity, for sure.

I've got to say, though, if you like silent film, you owe yourself a trip to San Francisco some year. It probably won't become a part of my regular routine, unless something else grabs m my attention like Sherlock Holmes, but it's a great event in a cool location, relaxed in knowing it's a niche without becoming snobbish. It's jumping right up to the same "favorite, even if I can seldom go" level as New York Asian.


"A Wild Roomer"

* * * (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival: The Amazing Charley Bowers, 35mm (?))

The first of the four Charley Bowers shorts to play Sunday morning can't exactly be called conventional, but you can sort of fit it into a type (the highly-mechanized house) if you're of a mind to. At first, it doesn't necessarily seem like a particularly brilliant example; it goes from a few disappearance effects of escalating complexity to something of a dragged-out plot where "Bricolo" (as writer/director/star/animator Bowers's character was known in France, the source of the print) must demonstrate a home-automation invention successfully in the forty-eight hours to inherit a great deal of money.

The jokes are of a type, but the execution isn't; Bowers creates a mechanism that can do anything with its dozens of buttons and then has it do so with stop-motion good enough to occasionally pass as puppetry. It's after that when things truly get anarchic, as Bricolo climbs on this thing and starts tooling around like it's a locomotive, smashing through anything in his way after teasing the audience with hints of Buster Keaton-like precision.

In many ways, this resembles a Keaton short (specifically "The Electric House"), but Bowers isn't Buster - he's not quite a natural performer, and his particular skill is not as immediately visible as the great silent comedians. It doesn't stop him from making a pretty funny movie, though.

"Now You Tell One"

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival: The Amazing Charley Bowers, 35mm (?))

Charley Bowers spent most of his career doing cartoons, both on paper and film, and I wouldn't be surprised if "Now You Tell One" is his best job of merging that medium with that of silent comedy . It's an extremely funny short, even as it's thoroughly crazy.

It starts with a local liars' club and tales that involve, among other things, elephants in the capitol, but those lies are too pedestrian. One finds Charley "Bricolo" Bowers with his head in a cannon, and while that doesn't get explained, we learn about his miracle grafting formula, which he proposes to use to help a pretty girl rid her farm of a very aggressive mouse infestation.

How aggressive? Sorry, that's one of the short's funniest visual gags and there's no way I'm ruining that for anybody. I laughed hard, though, at the sheer cartoony goofiness of the joke and how impressively Bowers and company animated it. Throughout the movie, Bowers (and co-conspirators Harold L. Muller & Ted Sears) set up and knock down a lot of jokes like that, creating an obvious punchline and then a spiffy visual denouement. It's a constant stream of good gags, at just the right spot between animated cartoons and deadpan silent comedy to excel at both.

"Many a Slip"

* * * (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival: The Amazing Charley Bowers, 35mm (?))

Banana peels, we're told with all seriousness near the start of "Many a Slip", are responsible for over seventeen thousand broken legs every year. This may well be true for people living in a world of slapstick comedy, as is the idea that "inventor" of Rube Goldberg contraptions can be an entirely reasonable job description for one like Charley Bowers's "Bricolo" character. Put them together, and you see him hired to create a high-friction banana.

It's goofy as heck, but Bowers and his usual cohorts squeeze a fair number of gags out of it, both with large-scale gadget humor and animations of the "slipperiness germs" (Bowers's science may have been a bit fanciful). Bowers plays off Corinne Powers as his understanding wife quite well, and while the ultimate revelation is a bit of a cliché, there is something pretty clever about winking at the audience about how this slapstick bit has become a standard and then making the opposite of the usual gag even funnier.

"There It Is"

* * * (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival: The Amazing Charley Bowers, 35mm (?))

It's a bit odd to see Charley Bowers, after three other shorts where he is basically playing "Charley" (or "Bricolo" in France) playing such a speciic character, in this case "Charley MacNeesha", a kilted detective from Scotland Yard who has come to America to figure out what is going on in an old house, specifically as regards "The Fuzz-Faced Phantom" (Buster Brodie).

That Phantom is right out of a 1920s comic strip - I've seen dozens of characters with his short stature, bald head, and busy facial hair flipping through collections of old comic strips - and, wow, does he look weird transplanted that directly to live action. He's in the middle of a bunch of absurd slapstick that makes almost no sense (think the characters who pop out of every door or window in a cartoon), but which gives things a frantic absurdity. That's matched by Bowers playing MacNeesha as a fairly exaggerated Scot, blunt and cheap as well as tending toward traditional dress. Oh, and he's got an animated insect sidekick named MacGregor.

Even more than Bowers's "Bircolo" films, this movie is a constant stream of gags with little to no set-up - presenter Serge Bromberg compared it to a live-action Tex Avery cartoon, and while Avery isn't necessarily my favorite of the classic cartoon directors - deadpan Droopy is my favorite creation of his, and I kind of liked the more straight-faced Bowers films a bit more than this. That's a relative statement, though - there are a lot of funny moments in "There It Is", and Bowers can still make a twenty-minute film zip like one that only runs ten. That's a great skill to have, and it's a shame that Bowers is one of the more forgotten silent comedy geniuses.

"Emak-Bakia"

* * (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival, 35mm (?))

I'm afraid I don't have much to say about this "cinepoème" by artist Man Ray; it's got a lot of nicely photographed images, but, boy, do they seem random on first blush. Many of them are spinning or fairly extreme close-ups, which makes discerning any sort of meaning or idea from them much harder.

It might have been more bearable if not for the discordant music provided by Earplay. Sitting in the theater between shows, I was hoping that they were all just warming up individually so that it sounded weird together, but, no, that's how it was meant to hit your ears. It's probably somewhat in the spirit of what Man Ray was trying to do but in the middle of everything else, I found it extremely grating.

"Ménilmontant"

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival, 35mm (?))

I was dealing with some serious film-festival fatigue by the time "Ménilmontant" played, but even if that had me a little reluctant to love the film whole-heartedly, or fully connect all the dots of the story (I initially thought it was a flash-forward/catch-up thing, and it's hard to get out of that mindset), but there's no denying that Dmitri Kirsanoff made an exceptional short film, really mastering the tools of cinema (silent and otherwise) in telling his story.

Take the opening sequence, a picture of desperate, shocking violence that immediately grips the viewer and then lets him or her imagine the worst. It's a horrifying bit of crime that shocks all the more because Kirsanoff doesn't add much in the way of context; it's just assumed that this is common. Then it moves to the country, and two small girls whose life seems like an idyllic contrast until we see them visit their parents' graves. Then they are older, back in the city, but soon pulled down to the same sort of sad circumstances as their murdered parents.

Kirsanoff produces, writes, shoots, directs, and edits, and in some ways it is the last that is the most impressive as he fits two decades into a 38-minute short, ruthlessly picking out the defining moments and sharply jumping between them. Despite that, he also finds time to explore those moments fully, building human drama around the two young women rather than simply showing them as part of the urban underbelly that grinds through people with no care for them as individuals.

That leaves Nadia Sibirskaia and Yolande Beaulieu doing the only things Kirsanoff can't directly handle himself in bringing these characters to life, and while they aren't doing the most complex acting job, the deliver the heightened emotion needed without overdoing it, both in their individual stories and as they re-encounter each other toward the end. They become the final pieces needed to make the film heartbreaking rather than clinical, even if it may not necessarily be completely tragic.

"Ménilmontant" is an impressive small film, and I half-suspect that the places where it seems to fall short may be more on me than the material. I hope to see it again under different circumstances to see if it just clicks then.

Why Be Good?

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival, 35mm)

A modem viewer might, at times, find himself or herself winging hands while watching Why Be Good?, feeling like the filmmakers were so close to being on the right track with its message. I'd remind those folks that it was probably fairly progressive for 1929, and that focusing on the moment or two when it isn't means missing out on all the things that make it a charming and funny romantic comedy.

It wastes little time introducing us to its two halves. First up is Winthrop Peabody Jr. (Neil Hamilton), the dashing scion of a millionaire department store owner (Edward Martindel), having one last blast as a free man before being employed the next day. Then there's Pert Kelly (Colleen Moore), an aptly-named flapper who can out-Charleston anybody on the dance floor and isn't exactly shy off it. They met at a nightclub called "The Boiler" and hit it off, making a date for the next night, but that's before a tardy Pert gets called in to see the new personnel manager at work the next morning, creating a sticky situation that Winthrop Sr. only makes worse.

We may see Neil Hamilton first, but there is never much doubt that this is Colleen Moore's movie. She spent a fair chunk of her career playing characters like Pert Kelly, and if it was generally with the same sort of energy she brings to this one, it must have been an enjoyable run. Pert has a winning confidence and enthusiasm when she's out on the town, sure, but it transforms rather than disappears when she's at work or arguing with her father. Moore makes silent dialogue "sound" snappy by how she moves when delivering it, and she makes the most of an expressive face, especially when Pert's impulsiveness has her s seeming to switch directions quickly. She's naturally very funny, and doesn't have to change things up much when the writers give her material that they want the audience to take seriously.

Full review on EFC.

Norrtullsligan

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival, 35mm)

I wonder, half in jest, if today's independent and foreign film fans had great-grandparents who hoped for movies like Norrtullsligan to play their city, grumbling that every terrible Poverty Row slapstick one-reeler showed up at their neighborhood theater but not an intelligent, true-to-life drama about working women from Sweden. If it did - without being cut to pieces with new intertitles that changed the whole story - those early cineastes were lucky; there is a lot going on in this feature that one doesn't see that often in the best-remembered American films from the silent era.

The title refers to a group of four secretaries living in an apartment, mostly working for the same large company, although Eva (Renée Björling) works for an undertaker, figuring she'll be dealing with a better class of people than, say, Pegg (Tora Teje), whose boss (Egil Eide) is described as understanding but shown as touchy. The other two flatmates are Emmy (Linnéa Hillberg), who has been at it the longest and has an aching back to show for it, and Baby (Inga Tidblad), young and optimistic to be an easy target for both men and union organizers.

Pegg is not just the film's protagonist - the other girls are her friends and we also meet the boy she's working to put through school (Lauritz Falk) but her cousin and rich aunt (Stina Berg) - but also its narrator. That may seem like an odd thing for a silent movie to have (and I wonder if it's a Scandinavian thing; Norway's Pan was also told though not shot first-person), but it's not, really. Many silent films will often precede a scene with an ironic title card; having it clearly come from Pegg rather than some arch omniscient writer gives these words a bit of teeth. Pegg confronts bitter ironies rather than winnking ones, and when she notes a social ill, it's a source of genuine frustration rather than something to be shrugged off as just the way it is. It also gives director Per Lindberg and star Tora Teje the chance to play her character as keeping her head down and trying to get by without feeling like she's passive or unengaged compared to the rest of the cast.

Full review on EFC.

Sherlock Holmes (1916)

* * * * (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival, 35mm)

Last October's announcement that a complete nitrate negative of a Sherlock Holmes film starring William Gillette made in 1916 had been found in the Cinemathèque Française may not have had quite the same impact on the film world as, say, a similar announcement about Fritz Lang's Metropolis a few years prior, but it's still a big deal to film-lovers in general. For fans of the character, it's mind-blowing; as many pieces of imagery associated with Holmes comes as much from Gillette's much-revived 1899 play as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories, but for many decades, we've had to take the scholars' word for it. Now it can be up on the screen in tinted black-and-white for the first time in nearly a century, and generations of fans should be pleased.

It follows the stage production closely, introducing Alice Faulkner (Marjorie Kay), whose sister has recently died leaving her in possession of correspondence that could undermine the Grand Duke of a small European country, and when she refuses to hand it over, a pair of nearby grifters (Mario Majeroni & Grace Reals) see an opportunity. Once they hear that the government has hired Sherlock Holmes (Gillette) to retrieve the letters, they join forces with James Moriarty (Ernest Maupain), a master criminal intent on both blackmailing the Duke and having his revenge on Holmes.

Though one of America's most celebrated actors at the turn of the Twentieth Century, Gillette only made this one film (he was also meant to adapt his other hit play, Secret Service, but that did not happen); he was sixty-two in 1916, wasn't likely to be a leading man in productions other than this one, and by many accounts ignored director Arthur Berthelet in favor of longtime compatriots from his touring company. It's not surprising, then, that the film's Holmes looks a bit weary, but in certain ways that makes the story work even better than it might have: Moriarty needs no introduction to those who don't know the name, as it is clear just by looking at the pair that Holmes and Moriarty have been battling for some time, and though Gillette was initially nervous about giving Holmes a love interest, he does have the air of someone ready to have more to his life than crime-solving.

That trait is not the dominant one, though, and one can immediately see why Gillette was said to embody Sherlock Holmes from the moment he took the stage in 1899. His Holmes is stern, sometimes bordering on cold, but unlike Benedict Cumberbatch's high-functioning psychopath, possesses the sort of empathy that would see him dismiss crimes the police couldn't ignore. While it's a bit jarring to see his heart skip a beat upon meeting Alice, it is something Gillette quickly integrates into his character. The overall impression is of a man who is capable enough to be in control of most situations without and can assert his intellect while only seeming a little boastful. His active mind, probing senses, and general curiosity are on display from the start, making his methods clear enough that this silent version of the play need not stop for long, multiple-title-card explanations.

Full review on EFC.

L'hirondelle et la mésange (The Swallow and the Titmouse)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 31 May 2015 in the Castro Theatre (San Francisco Silent Film Festival, 35mm)

It's kind of surprising to see that The Swallow and the Titmouse was considered so non-commercial as to go unreleased when it was made, and kind of not; the audience that would go for its style of storytelling today is a niche one, although the appeal of its inside look at the rivers of France and Belgium must have been even greater. That's what happened, though; the film vanished into obscurity even before leaving it until an assembly cut was found sixty years later and restored, demonstrating that the film business has been making great art difficult to see since the 1920s.

L'Hirondelle and La Mésange of the title are not birds but barges working the rivers. Pierre Van Groot (Louis Ravet) is their captain, and the crew is mostly family: his wife Griet (Jane Maylianes) and her sister Marthe (Maguy Deliac), along with their dogs, chickens, and other small animals. They lack a pilot, but hire Michel (Pierre Alcover) in Antwerp, where Pierre also obtains diamonds to smuggle into France, as one does. Affection soon blossoms between Marthe and Michel, encouraged by Pierre, but he may be more interested in that secret cargo.

This may be an art movie, but it's one with a pretty straightforward plot when you get right down to it, and while the suspense is a bit muted compared to some of the more melodramatic movies with similar plots, it develops into something enjoyably noirish as the film goes on. It never completely becomes a thriller, but it's a great deal of fun to watch as director André Antoine and writer Gustave Grillet tease the story out and Antoine even applies some flourishes that have characters emerging from the shadows in a way that presages film noir, while the methodical way things are laid out will later be echoed in policiers. It's got an ending to match, too.

Full review on EFC.

Because it's expected of me: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (USA)

These two movies have probably been reviewed to death, and there's other stuff to get to if I ever want this blog to be close to caught up, but having reviewed all three Swedish Millennium movies, as well as a metric ton of Sherlock Holmes flicks, well, it would be silly not to give these more than just TWIT capsule treatment.

(Note: Seeing that Scott Weinberg is going to be writing Asylum's next Megashark movie, maybe I should have pushed the "let me write your next Sherlock Holmes knockoff flick" angle much harder. I can't say I'm as good at it as Weinberg or even that I like Sherlock as much as he loves killer sharks, but I'm pretty damn sure I'd put more effort into it than the guy who wrote their first Sherlock Holmes movie!)

It's a bit of a weird circumstance that the Hollywood takes on both these franchises are coming out nearly simultaneously with other versions from across the Atlantic: In Sweden, all three of the books Stieg Larsson finished before his death were made into movies in rapid succession, all coming out during 2009 and making their way to the United States a year later with unusually high-profile bookings for subtitled R-rated movies. Meanwhile, the BBC has Sherlock on the air right now, making it a minor form of torture to read the Twitter feeds of people in the UK, as PBS won't be airing it as part of Masterpiece Mystery until May.

Thus far, both are better than the Hollywood versions, and it's interesting that both take liberties: Sherlock places Holmes in the present day, while the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (or Men Who Hate Women) supposedly doesn't hew as close to its source material as the new version does. Funny thing, that, in that taking those sorts of liberties is usually something that Hollywood gets raked over the coals for.

It's also sort of funny to note that the American Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is opening against movies that feature the stars of the Swedish version: Noomi Rapace is featured in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, while Michael Nyqvist is the villain in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. I remember being amused that Rapace was treating the US publicity work for her Lisbeth Salander as a sort of extended audition for Hollywood work, with the media cheering her on - nearly every interview seemed to contain some variation on not only was her English flawless and barely accented at all, but she was so cheerful and friendly as well! I hadn't realized Nyqvist was doing the same thing.

Speaking of accents, Rooney Mara's Swedish accent is weird. Not so much because she uses one or because it's inauthentic, but because practically the entire rest of the cast opts to go with a more neutral way of speaking, including (and maybe especially) native Swedes like Stellan Skarsgard. I actually prefer it that way - I figure that the characters are speaking their native language in a manner that suits that language, and if you're going to translate that into English, it should be presented in a way that suits that language. Consider another BBC mystery series, Wallander - it's also set in Sweden, but I don't think anybody from Kenneth Branagh as the title character on down affects an accent. That doesn't make it feel inauthentic, at least not nearly so much as making articulate people sound less so does.

One more point, but it's sort of a spoiler, so it goes after the EFC review links.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 17 December 2011 in AMC Boston Common #17 (first-run, digital)

Part of the reason that Sherlock Holmes has persisted as a character for over a century is that he is much more flexible than he may first appear - get the basics right and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character is a good fit for just about any time period, style, and genre. The trouble with A Game of Shadows isn't so much that it's a buddy action/adventure with director Guy Ritchie's fingerprints all over it, or that liberties are taken with the canonical stories, but that the characters are a bit off, more clearly than in the same crew's 2009 film.

As was discovered at the end of that movie, there's an intelligence behind the crime in England, one Professor James Moriarty (James Harris). Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is trying to find evidence via con artist Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), eventually hijacking the bachelor party of best friend John Watson (Jude Law) to follow up a lead with gypsy fortune-teller Simza Heron (Noomi Rapace). This sets them off on a chase through Europe as it becomes clear that Moriarty's plans are much greater than simply controlling crime in the London underworld.

Fans of Sherlock Holmes will recognize some of the things married writing team Michele & Kieran Mulroney throw into the script, picking up characters and elements from various Holmes stories and combining them to good effect. It's a fun story, growing from street crime to international conspiracies without the scale getting away from the film. There's a few fun action scenes, and the film actually outdoes the source material in one or two places, particularly in the scene many will know is coming when a certain Swiss village's name gets dropped early on.

Full review at EFC.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo '11

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 27 December 2012 in Somerville Theater #1 (first-run, 35mm)

Let's read significance into something tiny; after all, what else are you supposed to do when trying to review the second adaptation of the same novel to hit theaters in a two-year period? So, let's ponder that, while the Swedish film used the source novel's original title, "Men Who Hate Women", this one was going to use the name of the English translation, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" from the start, and that does (for better or worse) indicate a shift in the focus.

As before, we start not with the title character, but with Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), a Stockholm investigative reporter who has just been convicted of libel. The fine he will pay empties his life savings and he steps down as publisher of the magazine Millennium, but he's offered another opportunity: Octogenarian billionaire Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) would like him to find out who killed his niece Harriet in 1966; the evidence suggests that it must have been some member of his family, a greedy and disreputable bunch even if you ignored the Nazi past of brother Frode (Steven Berkoff). Eventually, he gets a lead, and hires some help: Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a "researcher" for the security company that vetted Mikael for Henrik, an expert hacker for all that she's a troubled young woman.

Let's get back to that title thing again. It's a silly thing, but Men Who Hate Women puts the focus on the crime while The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about the people solving the crime. To a great extent, this is a distinction without a difference; the very best murder mysteries and crime thrillers, director David Fincher's Seven and Zodiac among them, are about both at once. Still, it's a shift in focus - both from the Swedish movie directed by Niels Arden Oplev and within this one - that hurts the film a bit. The middle section, where Blomkvist and Salander are investigating the disappearance of Harriet Salander and what turn out to be a slew of related crimes, is a snappy mystery story where we learn about our sleuths by how they attack their job and interact with each other. That kind of storytelling is, in a way, great slight of hand - the audience thinks it's getting obligatory plot mechanics but the cast and crew is doing their best work, getting characterization and mood across without being showy about it.

Full review at EFC.

SPOILERS! I should probably read the copy of the book I've got sitting on my shelf to see if it's just the American version of the movie being more faithful, but even if it is - the ending of the new movie seems really off to me, with Lisbeth envious and angry over Michael reuniting with his girlfriend. It's not so much that Lisbeth is getting upset over a man (though her bisexuality is basically "mostly gay, but can't resist Stieg Larsson Mikael Blomqvist") as it is that her story is not about romance or even attraction so much as trust: Blomqvist is the first person to treat her with respect and not hide her away. Romance, it seems, is decidedly beside the point.

Is it this way in the book? I suppose it explains why they're not closer in The Girl Who Played with Fire, but it seems to miss the point - what makes Lisbeth Salander such a great character is her competence and independence, and having our last image be of her getting all heartbroken over a guy is just wrong. !SRELIOPS

This Week In Tickets: 1 November 2010 to 7 November 2010

The end of Daylight Savings Time: Why a person can stay up late cleaning out the DVR/writing a review of Action Replayy on Saturday and still make it to downtown Boston for two "A.M. Cinema" screenings on Sunday.

... albeit being pretty much ready to crash after Fair Game:



No "stubless" movies per se, although when cleaning out the DVR, a lot of what I watched was feature-length episodes of Masterpiece Mystery! - specifically, the latest entries in the Wallander series and most of Sherlock. And while this was a pretty decent weekend at the movies, those GBH/BBC co-productions certainly help raise the average.

Wallander is based upon a popular series of Swedish detective novels and stars Kenneth Branagh as a detective with depressive tendencies, the sort who cares too much and obsesses about each case to an unhealthy degree. This cycle has him confronting death not just in the messy aftermath, but first-hand, as he's forced to fire his weapon when confronted with a killer and sees his already-ailing father (David Warner) further deteriorate.

I'm not certain how much of a prestige project Wallander is for the BBC, but it's one of the most impressively-produced series on the air. Three or four times an episode, there will be a shot of the gray sky and bleak landscape that just stuns, and WGBH and Comcast had the good sense to not ever hurt it with much compression. Though set in Gstad, neither Branagh nor anyone else in the fine cast affects an accent, but it doesn't take away from the Scandinavian chill (and charm) at all.

As for Sherlock... Well, anyone reading this blog last December recognizes that I am something of a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and when I saw that Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis would be doing a new series called Sherlock for the BBC, I was understandably excited; Moffat has tended to be responsible for the best episode of Doctor Who ineach of the revival's first four seasons (as well as the fun "Timecrash" special), and though I hadn't heard of Benedict Cumberbatch before, Martin Freeman seemed like a fine Watson. I hadn't heard that the new show would be contemporary until the press release that WGBH had picked up the U.S. rights, but that certainly gave me pause.

Not that Holmes hadn't been updated before - throughout the silent era and thirties, when Doyle was either still writing new Holmes stories or had passed relatively recently, the movies tended to be set in the present day, although that wasn't too much of a stretch. The first two Rathbone/Bruce movies (done for Fox) were set in Victorian England, but when Universal picked the series up in the early 1940s, it was moved to the then-wartime setting to save production costs. Still, the idea of putting Sherlock in the present day seemed a little more nutty, if only because one of the things that set Holmes apart in the nineteenth century was Arthur Conan Doyle's emphasis on what we now call forensics, and it might make Holmes seem less exceptionally brilliant.

And it does, to a certain extent (as does Rupert Graves's Lestrade not coming off as a buffoon or goon); the producers and cast compensate by pushing Holmes's antisocial tendencies more than usual. But not so much that we ever lose track of how Holmes and Watson are among the best characters ever created. I wouldn't be shocked if Moffat and Gattis came to the BBC with a nameless pitch ("an army doctor back home after being wounded in Afghanistan teams with an antisocial genius to solve crimes too sensitive or strange for Scotland Yard") before telling them it was Sherlock Holmes. It's a great hook, and the producers do a fine job of building it into a contemporary series while still remaining true to the characters.

Oh, and the last fifteen minutes of the finale (which has enough going on for six episodes of most television series), where Holmes confronts Moriarty, is likely the best use of Moriarty ever. He's an overused character, especially compared to how seldom he appears in the canon, and I'm not sure his plan here makes senes, but the phrase he uses to describe himself makes it worthwhile.

This past summer/fall of Masterpiece Mystery! was outstanding all around, actually - though I didn't pay much mind to Miss Marple or Inspector Lewis, it still gave me new installments of Foyle's War, David Suchet in Poirot, Branagh as Wallander (again, honestly, one of the best-looking shows ever produced), and this new Sherlock. So if you missed any of it, use the Amazon links as something other than decoration.

Due Date

* ½ (out of four)
Seen 6 November 2010 at AMC Harvard Square #1 (first-run)

Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, Robert Downey Junior is usually worth checking out. Sadly, that's not the case here. While I can't literally say that I didn't laugh once during Due Date, the moments were, shall we say, well-spaced. What's worse is that the bit that generally had me laughing during the previews (Jamie Foxx speeding through a drainage ditch to toss Zach Galifianakis around in the back of his truck) turned out to be far less enjoyable during the actual film. Instead, they became examples of just how mean-spirited and dumb the movie is.

And it really is unpleasant. I don't require a movie to give me someone to root for, but I get the sense that director Todd Phillips and his co-writers really did want us to like Galifianakis's and Downey's characters, but it never happens for me: Galifianakis's idiot never grows on me, and Downey's high-strung guy still has me worried - this is a guy who gut-punches an annoying kid toward the start and alludes to a severe rage problem several times (as in, he apparently doesn't even remember the times he snaps) - and we're supposed to be rooting for him to get home to his wife and new child? Sure, the idea is that spending time with this goofball makes him a better man, but I never believe it.

For what it's worth, I didn't much like Phillips's previous film, The Hangover, very much either. Both movies share a crude, mean-spirited, black little heart, and seem to be built on people doing things that just make no sense other than the filmmakers needing other characters to accidentally be screwed over. Everybody's got their own line between amusing absurdity and lazy idiocy, of course, and Due Date consistently lands on the wrong side for me.

Megamind

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 7 November 2010 at AMC Boston Common #2 (first-run, 3-D, digital IMAX)

As expected, Megamind is akin to Monsters Versus Aliens - an affectionate pop-culture spoof with a decent combination of comedy and action, along with DreamWorks's trademark star-studded cast. Of course, big stars aren't always great voices, as evinced by how, when Megamind disguises himself as another character and I have no idea whether it's Will Ferrell or Ben Stiller speaking. And as much fun as some of the script's riffing on Superman is, it does mean it's a very specific parody. The details are kind of fun, though; it doesn't require knowing comic book minutiae.

It's nice enough, and along with superstar voices, DreamWorks is rapidly establishing good use of 3-D as one of their calling cards. It's not flashy, but it's well-done. It's an entertaining movie, not quite so good as some of the company's other animated films (such as How to Train Your Dragon), but it works well enough.

That other Sherlock Holmes movie

Memo to The Asylum: If you are event thinking of doing a sequel to your Sherlock Holmes movie to come out around the same time that Warner Brothers releases their next one with Robert Downey Junior, give me a call. I'm pretty sure I can write a better screenplay than Paul Bales did here, if only because it will not involve me stating that Sherlock's full name is "Robert Sherlock Holmes", and having a character address him as "Robert" throughout the entire second half of the film.

And I'm cheap. This blog post? I'm writing it for nothing! I probably won't even try to to get you to reimburse me for the various Arthur Conan Doyle books I'd buy for research, which was clearly a hold-up for Mr. Bales and company. You'd get not just a steampunkish Sherlock Holmes story with dinosaurs and robots, but one which fans would praise for how it connects Holmes to Professor Challenger and other Doyle works.

That said, despite joking about expecting this movie to drive me mad, I rather enjoyed it. Between it and the previews for other films by The Asylum that preceded it, I get the impression that the folks at Asylum are the modern equivalent to Roger Corman: Making genre entertainment on a budget, taking their work seriously but still having a sense of fun. I laughed a lot at those previews, but felt oddly affectionate, too. "It can't be stopped... Unless she can stop it!" (MegaFault).... A John Carter of Mars movie with Anthony Sabato Jr. and Traci Lords... Using the same footage of L.A. getting destroyed in at least two of the previews.

These things are B-movie silliness, but they're honest, hard-working B-movie silliness, rather than weak parody. Well, okay, "honest" may not be the best way to describe a marketing campaign based around giving movies a similar title to something in theaters so that confused people pick them up, but you know what I mean.

Sherlock Holmes (2010)

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 10 February 2010 in Jay's Living Room (upconverted DVD)

I don't entirely blame The Asylum for how disappointing their "mockbuster" Sherlock Holmes movie was. My slightly elevated expectations are the responsibility of the guy who entered the information that Dominic Keating was playing Spring-Heeled Jack on IMDB. A person sees that and thinks, okay, this is going to be a cheap B-movie, but if they're using a nineteenth-century English urban legend as the villain, then there's a chance that the result may at least be clever. Sadly, that information isn't accurate, and while what's left is kind of fun, it is decidedly not clever.

As an aged Dr. Watson relates to his nurse in 1940, the greatest and most painful adventure in Sherlock Holmes's career happened in 1882, and started with the sinking of a treasury ship filled with tax money from the West Indies - apparently by a kraken. Inspector Lestrade (William Huw) engages Holmes (Ben Syder) and Watson (Gareth David-Lloyd) to assist with solving the mystery. He also asks about Sherlock's brother, whom he hadn't heard from in years. While Watson and Lestrade dismiss the idea of a monster out of hand, Holmes thinks there's some connection to mysterious dinosaur attacks in Whitechapel. Meanwhile, a paralyzed veteran (Dominic Keating) comes to Watson to refill his pain medication, though Watson's attention is drawn to his lovely niece Anesidora (Elizabeth Arends).

Many will read that description, see "dinosaur attacks", and figure that fans of Sherlock Holmes will immediately hate the very concept. That doesn't necessarily have to be so, though - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous non-Holmes work is The Lost World, and there have been numerous pastiches which posited that Holmes and Professor Challenger were friends or even relations. Drop the right line, and everybody is eating your steampunk Sherlock Holmes adventure up. Unfortunately, writer Paul Bales often gives the impression that he's not terribly familiar with the character's history. When Lestrade mentions Holmes's brother, for instance, he's not referring to Mycroft, and the film doesn't see the need to clear it up. There are a few other choices made that suggest a lack of familiarity of with the character's world.

That's a shame, because the film has its good points as a steampunk adventure. The Asylum makes B movies, the sort of thing that Roger Corman used to do, but one seldom gets the sense (at least in Sherlock Holmes) that they are holding anything back. Some of the CGI is dodgy; intercoms visible on the doorways of Baker Street; and scenes that would logically take place in the middle of smoky, Dickensian London seem to take place in the country. But there's a sense of fun with the various crazy bits - the kraken and dinosaur lead to clockwork robots and hot air balloons outfitted for combat, and the filmmakers never use a low budget as an excuse; they try their best and don't wink at the audience. They even resist a joke about how the film's climax boils down to Sherlock Holmes fighting Iron Man.

Director Rachel Goldenberg is a big part of that. She could have gone for something self-parodying but doesn't, and she turns out to be pretty good with the action and pacing. There's not a lot of quick-cutting to cover for the effects work, for instance, although it could occasionally use covering. The movie is fast-paced without seeming frantic, or grinding to a halt for excessive exposition. She even manages the occasional moment when the audience might feel a little bit of awe.

The cast she's working with isn't bad, either. First billing, unusually, goes to Gareth David-Lloyd as Watson. He's a good fit for that part, catching Watson's eagerness for adventure and frequent impatience with Holmes, along with his weakness for the ladies. Dominic Keating is a fine, bombastic villain, chewing the requisite scenery and convincing us of both his genius and insanity. Unfortunately, that means they both overshadow apparent newcomer Ben Syder as Holmes. It's not just that he's physically too short for the role, especially when standing next to David-Lloyd, but he seems far too nice. There's none of the eccentricity, irritability, or arrogance that often makes Sherlock Holmes so memorable. Even when condescending to Lestrade, he sounds polite and apologetic, rather than prickly.

Maybe a better Holmes would have allowed this movie to more squarely hit the mark, as it otherwise does surprisingly well by playing its outlandish premise fairly straight. Just change the script a little and you'd actually have an Asylum Sherlock Holmes movie that could rise above the guilty pleasure that this one is.

Also at HBS

This Week In Tickets: 21 December 2009 to 27 December 2009

How can you tell that I've been going to the cinema less than usual of late? I actually had this week's page in my calendar scanned in before I realized that I had this week's tickets taped to last week's page. I guess that much white space just looked unnatural to me, and having no overlap between the days of the week is odd, too.

The blank period was good, though. I finished up the Sherlock Holmes reviews (I think I've seen my fill for a while) and went up to Maine to see my family for Christmas. It is always nice to verify that my niece remains the most adorable little girl in the world, and so smart. Shame everybody had such a nasty cold, though; by the time Christmas was over, my brother Dan sounded like a gangster who'd been smoking two packs a day for twenty years. Or something. It wasn't a healthy sound, that's for sure.



Stubless: Test Screening for the Boston Sci-fi Film Festival (Tuesday, 22 December 2009, Somerville Theater Video Room, 7:30pm)

The theme for test screenings for the BSFFF this week was "feature smackdown", and unlike previous weeks, I didn't take much in the way of notes. The idea was that we'd watch the first "reel" or so and then comment, maybe a little more if we weren't sure what sort of impression it made on us. We wound up watching the second, Lunopolis, straight through. That kind of faux documentary is tough to get a handle on as just a sample; sci-fi ones, especially, have a tendency to be pretty backloaded. This one was at least interesting enough to keep us engaged and curious for its runtime, so I think it's got a pretty good chance of making it onto the schedule.

Le combat dans l'île (Fire and Ice)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 27 December 2009 at the Brattle Theatre (Special Engagement)

Le combat dans l'île starts off with a heck of a hook, showing us the strained marriage of Anne (Romy Schneider) and Clément Lesser (Jean-Louis Trintignant), which looks like relatively normal discontent until Anne finds the bazooka in the closet. From there, it's not long until an assassination attempt leads to and escape to the country, and whatever thrill was re-injected into their love life wanes as Clément goes on a mission (and on the run) to South America, but there is Paul (Henri Serre)...

Oddly, perhaps, the opening act turned out to be quite dull for me, though that may be a reaction to a travel-filled few days and needing a second wind. Being far from the politics of that time and place probably doesn't help; it's tough to connect with someone like Clément, who is all about a cause, when his ideology isn't particularly clear. He worked much better for me when he reappeared later in the movie; a fugitive staking his claim to his wife doesn't need a specific cause.

The romance between Paul and Anne works much better; it plays out believably, without too much of the sort of introspection that often sabotages this sort of film. There's a joy to it, both of them seeming to be appreciated for the first time in longer than they'd like to admit. I was surprised how quickly the second half of the movie flew by, as this is the sort of thing that I often find a bit of a mire.

It leads up to an action sequence with Paul and Clément dueling, and I don't know how well that works. It seems a bit strange for Anne to be relatively uninvolved in the climax, as she had been the film's center up until then. For all this film's rediscovered classic status, it struck me as a little scattered, though excellent when it hits its stride.

"A Hundred Years of Sherlock Holmes On-Screen", part four: The Twenty-first Century

The crazy project is finished!!!

I may have mentioned this at the start, but the month of Sherlock Holmes reviews was not intended to be a crazy, film-festival style marathon, but a collaborative project that would see many people giving their views on Sherlock on film. That didn't happen, but I don't regret it. There's value to having one voice to something like this, even if some of the various versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles do tend to blend together.

So, on to the twenty-first century. The key factor tying these projects together seems to be franchising. That's hardly new; there have been numerous Holmes series through the years (over a century, from IMDB's character page). The vast majority of the 2000s batch has been dreary, though: Matt Frewer, James D'Arcy, Richard Roxburgh (replaced by Rupert Everett, who was worse). None of them seemed to have the character down - it's a little damning that, until Robert Downey Jr. came around, I'd take Frewer, because he was at least making an effort to be entertaining.

Downey's movie is, I'm happy to report, a bunch of fun. It plays fast and loose with the canon, but it looks great and never stops being entertaining. I want to see these guys again, even though I'm perfectly satisfied with the story that's being told.

I can't help but be curious about the next couple on the list, though: A BBC series coming from Steven Moffat, who has done great work on Doctor Who and (I'm told) Jekyll, and an Asylum "mockbuster" whose cover promises dinosaurs, Spring-Heeled Jack, and a kraken. I can't be expected to keep away from that.

In the meantime, though, here's the finale of the December Sherlock series. Slim pickings except for the new movie, but I hope that those who enjoy Robert Downey Jr. in the role will go back and check out some of the many other fine actors who have played the part, just to see how so many can find something different in a character and yet have him essentially remain true to himself.

(Final random thought, as I do the Amazon links - how come the Frewer Sign of Four isn't available? The other three are as individual discs or in a collection, but that one is missing!)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000)

* * (out of four)
Seen 20 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

I have to admit, I've been alternately looking forward to and dreading this one since we came up with the month of Sherlock Holmes idea. You can't really ignore it, since CTV and Hallmark Entertainment made four Sherlock Holmes movies in the early 2000s, the most ambitious project between the Brett series and the Downey movie. But it doesn't take a very close look to suspect that they won't be great.

I've summarized two other version of The Hound of the Baskervilles in the past couple weeks, so lets stick to basics: Elder Baskerville dies. Family physician (Gordon Masten), worried about heir Sir Henry (Jason London), engages Sherlock Holmes (Matt Frewer). Holmes sends Dr. Watson (Kenneth Welsh) to Baskerville Hall with Sir Henry. Sir Henry meets neighbor (Robin Wilcock), falls for neighbor's sister (Emma Campbell). Something fishy about butler Barrymore (Arthur Holden) and his wife (Leni Parker). Escaped killer.

The cast is a fairly anonymous collection of Canadian character actors, with the notable exception of the man playing Sherlock, Matt Frewer. I go back and forth on Frewer; when I first saw him in Max Headroom and Doctor, Doctor, I thought he was brilliant. Then, after seeing him in a great many lesser productions, I figured that he wasn't very good at all, and those excellent performances were the result of fortuitous casting - an impression only strengthened by the occasional noteworthy performance more recently. Now, I tend to think that he plays up or down to the material: Put him in a quality program, and he rises to the occasion. Stick him in something uninspired, and he'll ham it up in the hopes of giving the audience at least a little bit of entertainment during an otherwise dull hour or two. Sometimes that works; sometimes it drags a borderline production down.

Full review at EFC.

Sherlock: A Case of Evil

* ¼ (out of four)
Seen 21 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

The new Sherlock Holmes movie opening this weekend is being characterized as a return to prominence for the character, but the fact of the matter is, he never went away. Characters that combine worldwide name recognition with a public domain status that means royalties need not be paid are endlessly appealing as the potential start of a franchise, and there were no less than four attempts during the 2000s to develop Holmes for television. The most intriguing, sadly, never got off the ground (it would have featured Stephen Fry as Holmes and Hugh Laurie as Watson). Of the ones that did end up before a camera, this pilot from 2002 was probably the most radical reinvention, and one that did not go so well.

It starts off in 1886, with a youthful Sherlock (James D'Arcy) chasing Professor Moriarty (Vincent D'Onofrio) through the streets of London on behalf of a beautiful young woman that the professor has been blackmailing (Gabrielle Anwar). Holmes triumphs, thus making his reputation - a reputation that has one of the city's leading opium merchants (Struan Rodger) seeking to engage him to discover who is killing others in his line of trade. Holmes succeeds, with the help of a young coroner by the name of John Watson (Roger Morlidge), but it all seems rather too pat.

Making a good Sherlock Holmes film (or television series) does not necessarily mean making a close adaptation of the original stories, nor even attempting to follow their chronology. And while a part of the appeal of Holmes and Watson is that as archetypal characters, they can be modified and portrayed in different manners and still be recognizably themselves, you can push them too far. Such as, for example, making Sherlock a fame-seeking ladies' man whose addiction problems involve alcohol rather than cocaine. Or making Watson into Holmes's man inside Scotland Yard who also happens to build useful devices and occasionally makes predictions about the future that are logical but humorously inaccurate. That's getting fairly far off the beam.

Full review at EFC.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 22 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

In 2002, the BBC and WGBH-Boston co-produced a new version of The Hound of the Baskervilles featuring Richard Roxburgh as Holmes and Ian Hart as Watson. It wasn't particularly memorable, but was apparently successful enough to merit a sequel but not so much so that the producers felt the need to work around Roxburgh's schedule or stick to adapting Doyle's stories (curious, as it was being done under the umbrella of WGBH's Masterpiece Theater). So, two years later, we get Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking.

The year is 1902. On one side of London, Sherlock Holmes (Rupert Everett) is in an opium den, lying in a stupor. On the other, Dr. John Watson (Ian Hart) assists Inspector Lestrade (Neil Dudgeon) in the autopsy of a very young girl washed up on the side of the Thames. Watson brings the case to Holmes, who quickly deduces that the girl was not a prostitute, as had been believed, but a young lady of high society. Her father engages Holmes to find the girl's killer, but it's not soon before another debutante has gone missing, and Holmes believes that the missing girl's sister, Roberta Massingham (Perdita Weeks), may be the killer's next target.

Writer Allan Cubitt has some really solid ideas, many of which are played out quite well. He sets the film on the eve of Watson's second wedding (to an American psychologist played by Helen McCrory), setting up a nifty little triangle - Holmes outwardly uncaring but obviously bitter about the reduced attention of his best and only friend; Watson very much in love but drawn to the bohemian, adventure-filled life that Holmes represents; McCrory's Mrs. Vandeleur sharing common ground with Holmes that makes the detective uncomfortable. There's the stark contrast between turn of the century London on the outside - a foggy, polluted city where it's difficult to see much more than a few feet in any direction - and the gilded, colorful houses where the upper-class debutantes live. There's the potentially interesting juxtaposition of the cynical, crime-obsessed Holmes and the innocent likes of Roberta.

Full review at EFC.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 27 December 2009 in Somerville Theater #1 (first-run)

This Christmas goose doesn't have a blue carbuncle, but is still quite tasty.

Unlike a lot of fans, I'm not pessimistic by nature, and at no point from the announcement of this new Sherlock Holmes movie to plunking down seven bucks for it was I ever not looking forward to it. Sure, it would be different, but the best and most memorable Sherlock productions have been different from what came before, all the way back to William Gillette ending his stage adaptation with Holmes getting hitched. The new version follows this tradition, and if I have complaints, I suspect they're more a result of my not being quite so open-minded as I think myself to be as anything Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr., and company have done.

The film opens on a chase through Victorian London, as consulting detective Sherlock Holmes (Downey), his friend and partner Dr. John Watson (Jude Law), and Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) hunt down a missing girl who has fallen under the spell of a supposed sorcerer. That villain is revealed to be Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), who refuses to stay in his grave after being hanged, even though Watson pronounced the man dead himself. This supposed resurrection occurs at roughly the same time Holmes is visited by Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), an American con artist with a commission from a mysterious figure to find a missing person, and as Watson plans his marriage to the lovely Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly), despite Holmes's attempts at sabotage.

When pitching the return of Sherlock Holmes to the big screen, the producers famously used a comic book style mockup to demonstrate their vision of Holmes as a man of action, and it's not a bad way to frame the character. Though he predates them, Holmes has always been a superhero - or at least pulp hero - in the mold of Batman or Doc Savage, with remarkable powers of observation and the ability to pull disparate facts together. The original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories at various times referred to his skills at bareknuckle boxing and the (invented) Japanese martial art baritsu; he's also described as a master of disguise, can bend a steel rod back into shape, and has a small army of street urchins who scour London for clues. The four credited writers actually scale this back a little by just showing Holmes as having a quick-working mind and thus able to anticipate his opponents in a brawl. The stories themselves have always been combinations of mystery, horror, and pulp adventure, with the mystery actually the weakest parts; what the four credited writers create here is certainly in the spirit of the original stories, if a bit grander in scale.

Full review at EFC.

"A Hundred Years of Sherlock Holmes On-Screen", part three: The Jeremy Brett era

Jeremy Brett's first appearance as Sherlock Holmes came roughly twenty-five years ago, in an adaptation of Doyle's first short story featuring the character, "A Scandal in Bohemia" (the novel that introduced Holmes and Watson to us and each other, A Study in Scarlet, is not the greatest place to start). I don't know if the people at Granada initially realized that they were creating the definitive version of the character, or at least, the one all others would be measured against for the next generation.

They did, though, and not just because they caught me right around junior high when it's relatively easy to find something definitive. I didn't notice it at the time, because I was young and although I was a fast and retentive reader, I wasn't as great at absorbing meaning as I was detail. Like a lot of fanboys (especially now), I was most pleased by the way they held close to the original stories, but I didn't quite recognize how and why that was a good thing.

Re-watching the feature-length episodes as an adult (as well as one or two of the short stories; "The Blue Carbuncle" makes a fine present-wrapping on Christmas Eve!), especially after watching a whole metric ton of other Holmes movies, I saw the true genius of what Jeremy Brett, David Burke, Edward Hardwicke, and John Hawkesworth and his band of writers had done: They portrayed Holmes and Watson as complex, multifaceted characters without resorting to inventing things outside the canon. Brett said he would always argue to put more Doyle in (although, upon seeing how many young fans the program had, he begged the Doyle heirs' indulgence in allowing Holmes to beat his cocaine habit), and that served the series well: As mysteries, the stories were often unfair and based upon details that Doyle just made up, but Holmes became a world-wide sensation because of Doyle's words. Brett dug into those words to give us a man who only truly came alive when there was crime to solve, and even then had difficulty interacting with the world. That was what made Watson so indispensible; he was our measuring sick for Holmes's genius and a friend who was more like family; it probably goes without saying that Burke and later Hardwicke revitalized that character as well.

It also doesn't hurt that the productions were handsome, done up as well as a TV budget would allow. Doing it as a television show allowed them to spread things out a little, too - the dearstalker didn't have to show up unless it was appropriate, for instance; there was no need to cram the entirety of the Holmes mythos into a single story, which often makes other productions look goofy and cliche-ridden.

Also worth mentioning: The DVD set of the complete series from MPI is gorgeous. I picked it up when it came out a couple years ago, and it sat on my shelf as something that I was more interested being able to watch at any time than that I wanted to watch right then. This project led me to dig it out, and my eyes popped a little at The Sign of Four; I had seen the sticker that mentioned that these discs were remastered from the original negatives, but one just doesn't expect twenty-year-old television to look that nice. Seeing that the show was shot on film, I'm now kind of giddy at the (wholly unsubstantiated) thought of an HD transfer.

(The pretty image was especially nice considering that Without a Clue was actually a pan & scan transfer - and not from a movie released in the early days of DVD, but from a 2004 DVD release!)

I'm a little bummed that I didn't get a chance to revisit some of the other attempts to do Sherlock Holmes for American TV during this period. Somewhere in my basement, I have VHS copies of Charlton Heston in The Crucifer of Blood (fun fact: Jeremy Brett played Watson in the original stage play) and Edward Woodward in Hands of a Murderer. I never did see Kenneth Johnson's Sherlock Holmes Returns, which had him in the present, or the two Christopher Lee movies done around the same time.

The Great Mouse Detective

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 13 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

A new Sherlock Holmes movie just came out; a new animated film directed by John Musker & Ron Clements opened two weeks earlier. You'd think this would get The Great Mouse Detective a new home video release, as it's at the intersection of those two pop-culture phenomena, but it remains stubbornly out of print; Disney keeps their own schedule on these things. If you can find it at a local video store, though, it's well worth checking out.

It posits mice living in a miniature world beneath our own. In 1897, on the eve of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, a mouse toymaker by the name of Flaversham (voice of Alan Young) is kidnapped by Fidget (voice of Candy Candido), a bat with a peg leg. He had daughter Olivia (voice of Susanne Pollatschek) hide; she goes searching for for private consulting detective Basil of Baker Street (voice of Barrie Ingham), but she instead finds Doctor David Q. Dawson (voice of Val Bettin), who brings her to Basil. Basil soon deduces that her father has been taken by Professor Rattigan (voice of Vincent Price), his arch-nemesis - but what sort of evil plan requires the assistance of a toymaker?

Why, a mad one, of course, but one of devilish ingenuity. It's the sort that even a reasonably smart kid could probably find the flaw in, but neither this child nor his or her parents will be too worried about it because Rattigan has the voice of Vincent Price, with the animators taking cues from his gestures as her recorded the part. Price is the only thing close to a big star in the cast, and he brings exactly what is needed here: A veneer of charm and respectability over viciousness; he's a rat pretending to be a mouse - indeed, deluding himself that that's the case - and while the ultimate revelation of that is given to the animators, Price's unique ability to meld creepiness and sophistication gives them a solid base to work from.

Full review at EFC

The Sign of Four (1987)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 14 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

Early in the Granada Television version of The Sign of Four, Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) makes a familiar comment about how Watson (Edward Hardwicke) injects too much sensationalism and romance into his accounts of their cases. He may be pleased, then, with this rendering of one of his more famous adventures; it actually reduces the love-story sub-plot of Arthur Conan Doyle's original. The result indicates that Holmes and Watson both have a point about what makes for good literature.

The client who approaches 221B Baker Street in this case is one Miss Mary Morstan (Jenny Seagrove), who comes to Holmes and Watson with a peculiar tale. Ten years ago, her father disappeared just after his arrival in London to visit her while on a year's leave from service in India. Four years after that, she begins receiving exceptionally valuable pearls in the mail, once a year. Now, she has received a message, inviting her to a meeting where she will be repaid for a great wrong that was done her. The invitation allows her to bring two friends, and though she knows nobody in London, her employer has referred her to Holmes. The invitation leads her to Thaddeus Sholto (Ronald Lacey), a nervous little man who confirms her father's death, but no sooner is that mystery solved than another presents itself: Thaddeus's twin brother Bartholomew is found dead, the treasure for which their late father (Robin Hunter) killed Mary's (Terence Skelton) missing.

The Sign of Four is a difficult story to adapt, though it is justly one of the most popular stories in the Holmesian canon. It's a thrilling dime-novel adventure, with strange and grotesque murders, eccentric characters, and dashes of comedy that undercut neither our respect for the characters nor the gravity of the crimes. Still, the lengthy flashbacks that were relatively common in the novels of Doyle's day can seem unwieldy to a modern audience. When reviewing the 1932 version with Arthur Wontner (http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=19997&reviewer=371), I complained that telling the story in chronological order reduced the impact of Holmes untangling it; watching this one, which like most of the adaptations Granada Television did in the 1980s and 1990s is quite faithful to the original text, I can't help but feel that it climaxes too early, with the last act too much given over to flashback. Today's viewers may also flinch at the broad and unflattering way foreigners are portrayed; developer John Hawkesworth preserves some of the time's xenophobia.

Full review at EFC

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 15 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

When I first proposed this "100 Years of Sherlock Holmes On Screen" project, one of the components I figured on including was a feature titled "A Pack of Hounds", where we would directly compare as many of the various iterations of The Hound of the Baskervilles and see which stood out (indeed, the idea of multiple versions of the same story was the original inspiration). This wound up falling by the wayside - watching three versions of Hound in relatively short order is quite enough; no need to add at least two more and also write about them! Besides, given how well-regarded the Granada series of the late 1980s/early 1990s is, was there really any doubt that their version of the story would be the top dog?

Sir Charles Baskerville recently died of a hart attack brought on by sheer terror; his friend and physician Dr. Mortimer (Alastair Duncan), aware of the legend of a giant hound that has haunted the Baskervilles for over a century, worries that there is something more sinister afoot, and consults Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett). It turns out that there is cause for concern; heir Sir Henry Baskerville (Kristoffer Tabori), newly arrived from America, has received a cryptic letter and had items stolen. Occupied in town, Holmes sends Watson (Edward Hardwicke) to guard the young Baskerville as he takes up residence in the family manor, and send daily reports. Henry soon takes a shine to Beryl Stapleton (Fiona Gillies), the sister of a local entomologist (James Faulkner). Not all is so benign, though - the Barrymores (Ronald Pickup and Rosemary McHale) seem terribly anxious to leave the family's employ, despite generations of service; an escaped murderer prowls the moor; and someone is intercepting Watson's letters to Baker Street.

Adapting The Hound of the Baskervilles means striking the right balance between horror and mystery, as well as working around the fact that Holmes is absent for a fair amount of time in the middle of the story. Screenwriter T.R. Bowen and director Brian Mills handle that adroitly, finding ways to cut away to Holmes during Watson's time at Baskerville Hall without undercutting the pleasure of his reappearance or giving away all of what he's been up to. And while it may initially seem that the filmmakers' hearts are not really into the horror elements of the story - there is no flashback to the origins of the myth, Watson's admonishment when a supernatural explanation is suggested ("We are men of science, Holmes") - they have some great scares up their sleeves, both with the Hound and escaped convict Selden (William Ilkley).

Full review at EFC

Without a Clue

* * * (out of four)
Seen 16 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

The end credits of Without a Clue offer Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, the filmmakers' apologies. It's a nice gesture, but unnecessary for three reasons: First, the man is long dead and past caring. Second, he was notoriously dismissive of Holmes and what others did with the character (when actor/playwright William Gillette worried that Doyle might have an issue with his having Holmes married, he responded that Gillette could kill him for all he cared). Most importantly, they've made a fairly entertaining comedy.

The common lore on Sherlock Holmes is that Doyle based him upon one of his teachers, a Dr. Joseph Bell, and then made Watson in his own image. Of course, in order to write Holmes, Doyle would have to have some skill with his methods (which he would, it is said, demonstrate from time to time). It's also well-documented that he resented his most famous creation, going so far as to kill him off in "The Finale Problem". Die-hard fans of Holmes play "The Grand Game" of treating Doyle's stories as if they had actually happened already, and the premise of Without a Clue is an extension of that, mapping Doyle's contentious relationship with his creation onto Watson.

So, as the film starts, Holmes and Watson are foiling a burglary, but Holmes is actually actor Reggie Kincaid (Michael Caine); Dr. Watson (Ben Kingsley) is the brains of the operation. Watson created Holmes when he was applying for a position at a conservative medical school who might not approve of his exploits as "the crime doctor", but after years he has grown weary of Holmes receiving all the credit - and that's before considering his impatience with Kincaid, a drunkard and buffoon. He resolves to dispose of Holmes, but finds that even Inspector Lestrade (Jeffrey Jones) will not take Watson alone seriously. So he brings Kincaid back for one last case - a man has disappeared with the plates used to print the five-pound note. Soon "Holmes" and Watson are protecting his beautiful daughter Leslie (Lysette Anthony), unaware that the true villain is Professor Moriarty (Paul Freeman).

Full review at EFC

The Master Blackmailer

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 17 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

It has occasionally been said that it is better to build a movie up from a short story rather than to cut down a novel (at least, I've originally said this). You will, at least, get the complete story rather than potentially missing someone's favorite part. Of course, the issue then becomes whether what is added feels like an organic outgrowth of the story, or whether it is interesting enough to bother with. The Master Blackmailer does well enough on the first count, but has times when it struggles on the latter.

Charles Augustus Milverton (Robert Hardy) is the king of the blackmailers, though he maintains appearances as an art dealer. He's been at it for at least a dozen years, as a prologue shows. Now, in 1894, a dowager has hired Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) to track him down, with only the letters "CAM - Devil" scrawled in a book of poetry as a clue. At the same time, this shadowy figure is trying to extort over a thousand pounds from Col. John Dorking (David Mallinson) on the eve of his wedding to Lady Charlotte Miles (Sarah McVicar). Holmes and Watson (Edward Hardwicke) are too late to do anything about that case, but perhaps they can be of assistance to his next prospective victim, Lady Eva Blackwell (Serena Gordon).

Before writing this, I took the time to re-read the story upon which it was based, Sir Arthur Conan Doyles "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton". It didn't take long; the story runs about a dozen pages in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes (that I am the sort of person who owns a copy of that tome should surprise no-one reading this series of reviews as it is posted). The original story covers basically the last act of The Master Blackmailer, although it's not immediately obvious. One of the reasons Doyle's stories were so memorable was that he would have Watson throw out offhand references to things that could be stories in their own right, and that's what screenwriter Jeremy Paul does here. The Dorking/Miles storyline, for instance, was just mentioned in passing, although Paul does a good job of weaving it into the rest of the story, along with the scenes of Holmes wooing Milverton's housemaid, Agatha (Sophie Thompson), for information.

Full review at EFC

The Last Vampyre

* * (out of four)
Seen 18 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

Creating a long series of well-regarded, faithful adaptations must be a very mixed blessing. All artists enjoy good reviews, but writers, directors, and actors are all creative people, and it must be a somewhat strange thing to be praised on the basis of apparently not bringing anything new to a work, but merely transcribing it. That certainly seems to have been the case for the producers of Granada's series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, as by the end they were experimenting with more freely adapting the stories - not always to good effect.

A country vicar (Maurice Denham) is referred to Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) by his solicitors, who are not sure how to handle his inquiries about vampirism in his parish. The parish is up in arms about one John St. Claire Stockton (Roy Marsden), believed to be a relation of noblemen burned out of their house under suspicion of being a vampire, and now that same suspicion has fallen on him. After all, he seems never to sleep, and two people have died shortly after coming into contact with him: A blacksmith, and the infant son of trader Rob Ferguson (Keith Barron) and his Peruvian wife Carlotta (Yolanda Vazquez). There's more going on in the Ferguson house, though, and a general state of unease is spreading through the town.

Doyle's "Adventure of the Sussex Vampire" is a straightforward case where Holmes quickly confirms that there is nothing supernatural going on, but rather an unfortunate case of familial jealousy. That story is all but lost here, as screenwriter Jeremy Paul plucks a few characters and lines of dialogue from the source material and mixes them with situations of his own invention, including a character in Stockton that did not exist in the original but is central to the goings-on here. The strictly rational outlook of the original is diminished, as well, with Holmes at one point seeing ghosts and at another seemingly mesmerized by Stockton across half of England, before they ever meet.

Full review at EFC

The Eligible Bachelor

* * * (out of four)
Seen 19 December 2009 in Jay's Living Room (upcoverted DVD)

'I made a science of instability, and I succeeded.'

That line comes near the end of The Eligible Bachelor, but it could sum up Jeremy Brett's run nicely: A portrayal of the detective as a man whose genius pushes him to the brink of insanity, though one which doesn't extend to caricature, even when the writers go a bit overboard.

The eligible bachelor of the title is Lord Robert St. Simon (Simon Williams), who is romancing a beautiful American heiress, Henrietta Doran (Paris Jefferson). Of course, a man such as Lord Robert is likely to have a few skeletons in his closet, one of them being actress Flora Miller (Joanna McCallum). Things are going well right up until the wedding, where "Hetty" starts acting agitated, and after which she disappears. Robert takes the case to Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett), who is going to need even more assistance than usual from his friend Doctor Watson (Edward Hardwicke) on this one - a combination of between-case doldrums and disturbing dreams has him even more high-strung than even his normal standards.

The plot device of Holmes's strange dreams is an odd and controversial choice to make; as in The Last Vampyre, it pulls Holmes away from one of the things that makes him appealing: That although Holmes's abilities may appear supernatural, everything he does is comprehensible (even, dare we say, elementary) after they have been explained. Screenwriter T.R. Bowen does not completely break that rule here - Holmes never treats his dreams like visions, nor does he apply them to the case at hand; in fact, during Watson's summation at the end of the film, the implication is that the lack of an explanation annoys Holmes just as much as it may bother the audience. On a certain level, it seems as though these nightmares were created for the sole purpose of keeping Holmes visible in the first act, where the events that lead to Holmes being brought in play out, and to give Brett a bit of a meatier role.

Full review at EFC