Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

The movie is to the first Sherlock Holmes exactly as Iron Man II was to Iron Man. Which is not surprising since both star Robert Downey Jr. I liked this movie, in spite of itself at times. It seems that at a few spots that it added in action scenes just to out-do the first installment in the series. The movie felt too long - it did clock in at over two hours, but it didn't need to feel like it did. They could have shortened some of the action sequences and perhaps expand on the interaction between Sherlock and Simza, or between Watson and his new bride.
Stephen Fry really made the movie for me. I would have liked it with another actor, but would have probably ended up feeling disappointed at the over all film - not that it was bad, but that it wasn't as good as the first. I think Fry as Mycroft pulls it up a notch. Noomi was great too, her Simza was a bit understated, which worked for me, but she was definitely under-used.
The one thing about this movie that both bothered me and tickled my funny bone, was Holmes's Clouseau moments when he is in his "urban camouflage". This film definitely played to humor more than the first, but I'm not sure if that worked. I think they should have either gone for more "quirky" humor so that the film was better balanced with it, or cut back entirely.

The Breed (2001)

I'm a sucker (no pun intended) for movies set "In the Near Future". It's often a set up for a dystopian tale, or an urban fantasy masquerading as a science fiction film. In the case of The Breed, it's both.
The main character, Grant (Bokkem Woodbine), is an NSA agent, but I'm not sure that NSA is meant to mean the National Security Agency, which in the real world is known for it's spooks - he's more of a noir homicide detective slash U.S. marshall. The society is very "Brazil" but of a Soviet vein instead of the British-style bureaucracy.
The foul-mouthed Grant and his partner Phil (Reed Diamond) are working with the police to find a serial killer that is taking young women and draining them of their blood. Through luck they happen upon a van suspected to have been used by the killer, and indeed it had been for the killer is still in the near-by building with his latest victim. Grant watches as the man he shot dead gets up and rips out Phil's throat before climbing up a sheer wall, which Grant sees from the trash bin he has been thrown into. He reports to his superiors everything he saw, including the killers fangs; and when called into the director's office expects to be dismissed out of hand but is instead brought into the cabal of those that know that vampires walk amongst us. By this point, Grant has said 'fuck' a dozen times, including directly to the director and we're only a little over ten minutes into the movie. Now, I'm not one of those that thinks this word should be avoided - if the character needs to say 'fuck', the character needs to say 'fuck'. I get that. But, what I don't get is that only Grant says it, well at least at this point in the movie he is the only one to have been using it. If this is how they're going to show that Grant is a bad-ass or a free spirit, it doesn't bode well for the next hour or so. And to some extent this is what they did. Ho-hum.
At the NSA offices, between propaganda messages playing in the background, Grant is read into the secret and introduced to his new partner, Aaron Grey (Adrian Paul), who just happens to be a police detective for the vampire police. I know Paul for his work in the show Highlander, so of course immediately begin to draw comparisons between one immortal character and another. He's playing roughly the same character, but no complaints as he acts circles around Woodbine. Grey is a relatively young vampire only 80 or 90 years old if the near future were to happen today. He has flashbacks to his days being persecuted by the Nazis and later tells Grant his origin story and reveals that the leader of the vampire people's himself, Cross (Peter Halasz), turned him.
The outcome of the movie is predictable - the leader of the opposition, a vampire named West (Zen Gesner), is a red herring and the leader Cross, is of course the real baddie. Grant's vampire love interest Lucy Westenra (Bai Ling) follows a similarly predictable path lover-traitor-true patriot-lover. All the while I am left thinking that minus the fucking constant fucking use of the fucking f-word and the five seconds of naked boobs and naked butt (both on women of course - who would ever want to see a man's naked butt?) that I am likely watching the pilot for a television series, especially when the film ends with Grey coming to Westenra's place to collect Grant to go investigate a murder. The quality of the special effects and acting would certainly bear this out, but since I haven't seen anything like this since the film came out, which kind of surprises me. It they did make a series based on this premise, especially if it starred Paul, I would watch it.
The one thing that surprised me about this film was the way that it dealt with Grant's initial desire to kill all the vampires, which is the feeling that much of the NSA carries through to the end. It didn't treat it as heroic, but instead compared it to the racism that was exhibited by the Nazis. They did this with a heavy hand, and I can only imagine that they felt that such an explicit comparison was necessary for their desired audience, Grey at one point says to Grant, "You're a racist, just like the Nazis", an audience which I imagine to be comprised of Gen Xers and Gen Yers who may or may not know their history and who are more likely than not less than sober. Actually, profanity aside, I felt like this film should have proceeded by an ad saying, "From the writers who brought you Highlander and the producers that brought you Xena and the Adventures of Hercules".

Sherlock: The Reichenbach Fall

Um, so, yeah. This one got messy.
If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't seen it, go watch it then come back and read this. Or like, you know, whatever.

I'm a student of television and movies. I'm as well schooled in the BBC as anyone this side of the pond who doesn't own cable. I know that sometimes shows kill of major characters (Game of Thrones anyone?) and sometimes they don't when they should (Awake - I'm talking about you), but you can always see it coming if you're paying attention to the show. You can see the coming death and you can see the coming not death, if you catch my drift. If you're using your brain while watching you can make some assumptions about things.
What do I know about Sherlock? First off, I know that the rather odd seeming ending of Series 1 was explained at the beginning of Series 2. Secondly, I know that the show tends to have Sherlock make some leap of intellect to which he comes back to later and explains that while he may have appeared to be acting weird, that he was acting upon one or more bits of knowledge than everyone else, oft times including the audience. Thirdly, turning more to the content of this episode, Sherlock has an epiphany that seems like nothing, but for Sherlock there are no small epiphanies - this is when he announces that the conflict between he and Moriarty is a game. In the fourth place, Sherlock makes it abundantly clear that he doesn't give a crap about what anybody thinks about him as far as the media is concerned. Fifthly, Sherlock never loses sight of the endgame, not when he's drugged or terrified - as illustrated in the first two episodes of this series - so there are no sudden changes of heart, only calculated decisions, I mean specifically when he goes to visit Molly and says that he needs her. Sixthly, Sherlock has shown himself to be quite the actor when he thinks it will help solve a case - again as evidenced in the earlier episodes.
What inferences then, do I make about this episode? Sherlock is not dead, which should be obvious by his appearance at the end, but should not be seen as anything supernatural or psychological on the part of Watson - it was the big reveal that sets up the "here's how I did it and how I knew to do it" at the start of the next series. Moriarty is not dead, the phone conversation on the telephone with John wasn't for John's sake or some kind of suicide message as Sherlock said it was, it was for Moriarty's benefit. Shall I go further? I think I shall. Sherlock never mentions that Moriarty is on the roof, though Sherlock would likely mention that Moriarty's body is on the roof. By not doing so, he gives Moriarty a way to escape because nobody is going up to the rooftop to investigate what is so obviously a suicide. Sherlock also positions John very exactly, so that at the moment that Sherlock jumps, John is hit by a bicycle messenger and knocked roughly to the ground which dazes him so that by the time he regains his feet and some of his wits, Sherlock is 'dead' on the sidewalk amidst a growing crowd of onlookers. Why is this key? John is a doctor, and not your regular run-of-the-mill general practitioners, he's a combat trained doctor who is used to thinking on his feet and reacting appropriately even when it's his best mate there in front of him. By causing John to miss what happens, and the viewer, Sherlock can utilize whatever it is he's cooked up to fake his death, which may have involved Molly's help, but the next step - identifying the body and doing anything with it that was needed would be her job and she has already said that she would do anything for Sherlock. Why else would she not be at the funeral? Sherlock has to keep the three people closest to him in the dark because if they even suspected that he was still alive, their lives would be forfeit, which is also proof that Moriarty is alive. If the assassin has received money for the job, but now Moriarty is dead, they have nothing to gain by continuing on with the agreement, so Moriarty must be alive to continue giving the orders. Or if the assassin hasn't been paid yet, it is only the promise of pay that keeps them on the task they were hired for, and let's face it, dead men don't pay bills. And need I point out that at the end of episode one is the reveal that Sherlock helped Irene fake her own death and disappear?
On top of all of this, but equally as important is the social engineering I have used to further back up my inferences. I've mentioned previously that I only read the Hounds of the Baskerville, but I know that this story, the Reichenbach Fall is the one that Doyle killed off Sherlock in because he was tired of writing this series, but do to popular demand the character was revived and more novels were written. So, thank you librarian for having that conversation with some patron where I could eavesdrop and store that info away.

Sherlock: The Hounds of Baskerville

I mentioned earlier that I had only read one of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books, and it just so happens that I read the Hounds of the Baskerville. I think it was also one of the first adaptations I saw with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. I think that Rathbone may have been part of the reason that I didn't read anymore of the books - I enjoyed Rathbone far more as the famed detective than I did reading that book.
A couple of years later, I saw the story again, but this time adapted to be an episode of Doctor Who with Doctor number four, Tom Baker. There was lots of running around at night and maybe in the fog. It was all very dramatic, or should I say overly-dramatic, but it was a jolly good romp.
This take on the story has Baskerville as a top secret military base with Hound turning out to be an acronym and the cause of the mystery a gas used to render enemy soldiers immobile with fear. Though in the case of Holmes and Watson that doesn't mean the same thing as with other folk.
The leitmotif throughout the episode, and  actually brought up at least twice in the first episode, is that Holmes and Watson are gay and in a relationship. This seems to bother Watson a lot more than Holmes. We'll see what they do with this in the next episode when they bring back Moriarty (which I know they will based on the last scene of this episode).

Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia

I wonder what the percentage of British actors compared to American actors is appearing nude on television? I wonder if I should factor in Showtime and HBO? A lot of their shows star British actors, well, I'm thinking about the shows I know with nudity. It has always seemed odd to me that television can show people getting blown up and shot and strangled, all in graphic detail that continues from the crime through the investigation; but can't bring itself to show boobs and bums. Anyway, Mr. Cumberbatch continues with the long tradition of British actors.
I have a confession to make. Please don't tell my librarian. I have only ever read one Sherlock Holmes book and I don't recall liking it very much, though I don't recall disliking it either. I think I was very indifferent about it and was thus distracted by something shiny and forgot about reading any others. If I thought for a second they were as interesting as the episodes of this series, I would stop writing right this moment and go find a copy. Actually if I thought they were as interesting as the Robert Downy version of Sherlock Holmes I would read them and while I like those movies, I like this series a whole lot more.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman reprise their roles as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson for the second season of Sherlock, starting with A Scandal in Belgravia. As I don't believe that Belgravia is explicitly mentioned in the episode, one is left to draw inference from the cases and / or possibly the ending sequence, both of which point to a terrorist cell which is likely tied to Belgravia.
At the end of the first season we are left Holmes being outwitted by James Moriarty. He figures into this episode as well, but Holmes main adversary is The Woman, Irene Adler, who is Holmes match or very nearly so, but not in the way that Moriarty is.
Adler manipulates Holmes and uses his own ego against him and through him his older brother Mycroft. She very nearly gets away with it but Sherlock figures it out at the last moment.
The real treat is that Sherlock seems to genuinely feel something for her and saves her life, though it means not seeing her again.
This was a really top notch program and I really need to wrap this so I can watch the next installment.

Miami Vice (2006) Unrated Director's Cut

I'm not sure what I expected out of this movie. I knew it was set in modern day Miami, not the 1980s Miami of the television series. What about that show was it's signature? I mean not counting all of the 80s stuff. Take out the clothes and the music and you're left with a cop who lives on a boat with his alligator and his partner who is slightly more responsible and in a relationship. You have a bunch of hard as nails detectives and undercover cops who back up Crockett and Tubbs even if they don't always agree with them or even know the reason why.
You update Crockett and go from hipster to mustaches guy? What the hell was up with Colin Farrell's hair? He has this 70s porn star facial hair thing going on and longish hair that is usually blown back of slicked back and looks like a mullet. Tubbs as portrayed by Jamie Foxx was cool though.
Farrell's hair is really my only complaint about this film. Well, that and it wasn't Miami Vice. It was a better than average action film set in Miami about a couple of undercover cops who start out to bust a narcotics ring and end up taking down an International drug lord's lieutenant who is also a killer.
Gong Li as Isabella and Naomi Harris as Trudy Joplin were great as the two female love interests. They were as tough as their male counterparts, though they didn't get to shoot anybody.
I'm not sure why this was the Director's Cut. Typically when a director does a cut, they are putting back scenes that the censors and/or producers have taken out. The film was rated R, and I didn't see anything in this film that would have changed that, in fact it was noticeable how out of their way they went to not show any nudity. Maybe the director took out some of that? The movie did feel long, though and I'm guessing that the scenes of Sunny and Isabella in Cuba were added in. They add quite a bit to Crockett's character though, so I don't really mind.
This was not a bad film at all, but would it have killed them to put in at least a couple of seconds of the Axel F theme?

The Last Werewolf

The Last Werewolf
by
Glen Duncan
narrated by
Robin Sachs

Jake is a werewolf - the last werewolf. Or, so he finds out at the onset of the story as his familiar Harley informs him that the Berliner has been killed. I admit it, I'm intrigued even though the werewolf myth has never held much interest for me (though, I really like what White Wolf games did with it for the their World of Darkness RPG).
Jake is initially ambivalent about what he should do. He's 200 years old and tired of living. He's not the type to commit suicide, but he's also not that interested in getting away from the W.O.C.U.P. hunter who will kill him at the next full moon. Wait, the what? Oh, there just the semi-secret fraternal order of monster hunters, apparently specializing in hunting werewolves.
Duncan gives us nuggets of wisdom from books written by vampires and it's just a given that they exist. He sets up one quote from a vampire author that states that the two are pretty much polar opposites, with the exception that they are both immortals, though W.O.C.U.P. seems to think that werewolves live to be about 400 years old under optimal conditions.
Harley points out to Jake that a legendary text which purports to unmask the origin of lycanthropy is likely real and that he has a hint as to someone who knows its whereabouts. Did I mention that Harley works for W.O.C.U.P.? Jake is not interested.
The above description gets you through the first two disks - two-ninths - of the book. I've left out some stuff, namely the stuff that bored the crap out of me and caused me to decide that this book wasn't worth my time. I left out all the sex, which is easily half the story up to this point. And when I say sex, I really mean graphically explicit fucking. Jake explains to us why as a werewolf that he can only have sex with prostitutes. Okay, Duncan gives a believable reason, except that the amount of time discussing the prostitute-fucking is way out of proportion to the time spent on the reason why. The reason is really just a bit of self-righteous justification for why he can include the fuck scenes.
Am I a prude? I don't think so. I'm fine with sex in stories - I'm even better with it if it furthers the story, or does something ridiculous like emotionally advance the characters. But I am so not interested in reading porn novels, especially ones with overtones of violence towards women and misogyny. If a character has to say that he's not misogynistic, that he just seems that way, odds are he's misogynistic. Perhaps this actually had something to do what the story, but I felt like it was the author speaking to me.
Why did I give this book three hours of my life? The narrator. Mr. Sachs does an amazing job. Sure, he's a classically trained British actor which sets a pretty good base, but he was also in the story, and not just some bloke obviously reading a script. But even he couldn't make me put in the third CD.
Sorry, Duncan, I didn't like your book. If you put out a version of it that cut all the porn, let me know and I'll give that a listen.

Library essay contest

I am kind of slow in putting this up, but in my defense, I thought it was going to be in the newspaper, or at the very least on the newspaper's website.

During June, the library held an essay/writing contest. There were two categories, each with different questions, open to all ages.

Category 1: How is a library in a democracy beneficial to you? (First prize was a camcorder, second place was $50)

My entry:

When I was a child, the library was my portal to a whole universe of ideas that I had never imagined existed. The possibilities were endless, and for each new thing I learned or imagined, a dozen more were hinted at, waiting right around the corner for me to discover.

As I grew into a young adult, becoming more aware of the world around me, my attention shifted away from this magical world of endless possibilities towards the social and political issues.

As an adult, I have come to believe that access to all notions and ideas is integral to my way of life. They are necessary to a democracy - the polis should be as well informed as possible. While mass media try to push certain views in order to make a profit, the library offers access to all of the views for examination. The closest a person or community, particularly a democracy, can get to a true Marketplace of Ideas - the notion that if all ideas are presented for public inspection, the good ones will rise to the top, because there is a wisdom in the individual and the community that will know the best idea when presented with it - is the library. For these reasons the library is not only beneficial to me, but necessary to me and my community for a democracy even to exist. It is the place where the ideas are and everyone is encouraged to come and partake of them.

Category 2: Why I love my free library? (fist lace a digital camera, second place $50)

My entry:

Oh library, home of my heart, how do I love thee?

Is it the way which you hold me as a lover in your tender embrace while I dream of things that were and things that will never be?

Is it the gentle questioning and encouraging, but never judging, of a parent as I pursue intellectual interests and flights of fancy?

Perhaps it is as the teacher showing me the wide world from the comfort and safety of a soft chair and a firm table?

Maybe it is as the friend who not caring if I'm down on my luck or riding high, provide me with your all every time?

Oh library, home of my mind, it is all of these and more, the countless smiles brought my lips and those of other patrons, the vital questions answered, the important services provided, and knowing that if I really need something, that you will find a way to make it so.

The only other rule, was that a writer could only place in one category..

I was given the option of taking $50 in category 1, or the camera from category 2. :) While I like the second one better, I already have a nice camera, so I took the money and ran.