Wild Target (2009)

It's kind of surprising how many movies there are about hitmen. There are a couple of John Cusack films, the Jean Renot/Natalie Portman film, at leat half a dozen Jason Statham films, a pair of Tom Berenger films and these are just the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. A subset of these are comedies and ones that I find quite funny. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of the absurdity with the fatality. There are certain spy films that utilize a comedic aspect - the super spy who is living the secret life and goes to extremes to keep those around him or her thinking that they are just an average person, usually going about it in a comedic manner. The comedic hitman films mirror this style of spy film. This film follows along similar lines, though Victor (Bill Nighy) is trying terribly hard to hide what he does, yet he doesn't just tell Rose (Emily Blunt) or Tony (Rupert Grint) what it is that he really does, letting them think he's a private detective which he tells Rose in one of the worst lies ever made funnier than you would think when she just buys it lock, stock and barrel.
I really like Bill Nighy's work, so would have tracked this film down just for that, but was intrigued by Rupert Grint. I recently saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower with Emma Watson and was delighted to see that she could be someone else other than Hermione Grainger. I am happy to report that Rupert Grint did a marvelous job and was quite funny. I am glad he has been able to find something other than Ron Weasely. Though I didn't know how old this was until I watched it, so I guess this was filmed when Grint was on break from the Harry Potter films. I guess I'll have to find something with Daniel Radcliffe now and complete the trifecta.
Not that I need another reason to recommend this film to anyone, past the good acting and madcap antics (that's right, I said antics), but the music is great. If I had watched this film even a year ago, I would have been unfamiliar with about half the songs, but somehow I stumbled upon an Irish Rock-a-billy performer named Imelda May that has three songs featured in the film including one over the closing credits. The lyrics and the feel of the songs are oddly suited for the scenes they're used with, which is I guess the sign of a good musical director, since I know the songs were not written for the film but for an earlier album she had released.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Martin Freeman in his brilliant (there's a joke there in the film) portrayal of Dixon the bad guy who is pursuing our little mismatched gang. It reminds me that he is capable of far more than serious adventure or sleuthing and takes me back to his days on the Office and in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I do believe also had Bill Nighy. His character is reminiscent of Dan Akroyd's in Grosse Point Blanke. He was very funny to watch.

Wild Target on IMDb

The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Now, it's been a might long time since I read The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkein, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 years, but I don't remember it being quite so, um, yeah, what's the word I'm looking for? Prequelly. You read The Hobbit and it's all cool because it's this small adventure where spiders and trolls are the nastiest things you meet before coming to Smaug. And they were plenty nasty. In my mind's eye, I can see the dwarves and poor Bilbo spending the first half of the book being held prisoner by one baddie or another. They were just a bunch of blokes with more misplaced bravery than common sense. The movie has a bunch of freakin' action heroes banded together against insurmountable odds which they somehow manage to, er, surmount.
Look, I decided to love Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies from the moment I first laid eyes on them. I drank the kool aid and I ain't afraid to admit it. There are the books, which are great, really the standard still by which all fantasy novels are measured. But the movies aren't the books. They leave things out, they add things in. Was I unhappy that some things were left out? You bet I was. But, I also understand that to put in everything from the books would have made the already incredibly long movies incrediblier longer. And they still would have missed some things and changed others. Look at the Game of Thrones adaptation - 10 hours long and still missed what I think are some important things from the book. As an aside, when I started reading Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin kept making references to the "small folk". I thought since he was using 'maester' instead of 'master' and 'ser' instead of 'sir' that he must just be calling his hobbits, 'small folk'. I was terribly disappointed when I found out that it was a term the gentry used for commoners and peasants. Where was I? Oh that's right, the movies are not the same as the books, yet they are brilliant in their own way. I love them as equals to the books, just the story told by a different master storyteller. And in case you're wondering, dear reader, I feel the same about the Harry Potter books and movies. There is no way that any movie could do complete justice to Jo Rowling's books, which in my opinion are some of the best books I have ever read, so they spun the tale their own way. A way which made sense to be told as a movie.
The Hobbit part 1, is almost the opposite of most adaptations. Jackson et al have all of these dropped or neglected things from the Lord of the Rings movies that they want to stick in somewhere. With the addition of the extra stuff, I think they might have forgotten how humble The Hobbit actually was. On the other hand, there are these cool (to me) back stories and foreshadowing that they're filling in for me, some of which may be based on the other books by Tolkien, but some which Jackson has added to make a movie more on par with the Lord of the Rings films, which is my nice way of saying that Jackson is trying to get a big scope movie from a small scope book.
Oh and where are the spiders? I know that they trolls come before the spiders in the book, but I don't know exactly where we are in the book so I can't tell if the spiders are yet to come or if Jackson left them out, deciding to only mention them instead of showing them. I guess I'll have to wait and see. Oh internets...I have a job for you...
The actors are just spectacular. I will watch Sir Ian, anywhere, anytime in any roll. Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett, reprising their roles as Elrond and Galladriel, respectively, are two of my favorite actors in two of my favorite roles for them. And Martin Freeman! I've been a fan of his since the Office, and loved him in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Sherlock. Everyone is just fantastic. The only comment I have is that Christopher Lee is giving off the same vibe as Saruman in this film as he did as Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones, that being that he is a frail old man. This doesn't mean that I don't like him or his job here, quite the opposite. It makes me a little melancholy to think about him getting older is all.
Do I need to even mention the special effects and the scenery? I would watch a three hour film of just the scenery for this movie or the Lord of the Rings movies. It's that good.
Bottom line on this film is that I get to have it both ways as a fanboy. I get my Peter Jackson directed Hobbit movie (part 1), but I also get the only good Dungeons and Dragons movie ever made with the Lord of the Rings movies not far behind on representing AD&D. During the battle scenes, I wondered a couple of times if Gary Gygax was going to get mentioned in the credits. I also thought about AD&D when the elves keep referring to Bilbo as a halfling, which is the AD&D term (as opposed ot hobbits which is the Tolkien term.

The Hobbit on IMDb

The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012)

Everyone loves Aardman films. Everyone loves pirates. Therefore, it follows that everyone will love an Aardman film about pirates. It's logic, bitches. Deal with it.
This film is reminiscent of Aardman's Chicken Run more than any of the Wallace and Grommet films, so it doesn't quite have the same look as W & G. You can still tell it's an Aardman film, but the humans look more like humans, though there was not a single mention of Wensleydale. Like Chicken Run it's a bit of an adventure where the main character must prove he's worthy of his mates. It was a little formulaic, I guess, but that did not stop me from enjoying myself.
Watching this movie, I kept thinking what I always think during Aardman movies, and that is you have to really love what you're doing to do a stop motion feature length film. And with clay or putty or whatever they sculpt in? You have to be downright obsessive. I think that love of the craft really shows through. Could this be done with computer animation? Probably. Certainly parts of the film were, like the water and skies. To be honest, computer animation is advanced enough that they could have done the whole thing digitally and if they did it is so good that I can't tell. But, to me the characters, props and most of the sets look like Aardman had a hand in them. Literally.
The voice actors do a wonderful job. Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Martin Freeman and Imelda Stauntos are the four mains and are superb. I'm not the least surprised since I like them in live action roles. That's not always the case, the crossing over I mean. Not all actors can pull off the voice acting. *cough* Adam Sandler *cough*. The only voice that stuck out to me was Jeremy Piven and not because he did a bad job or anything. He did stick out though, as the American, but I was really trying to decide if it was him or Jason Lee. And if that's the only thing I'm concerned about watching a film, well damn, it's a pretty good film.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits at IMDb

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.