I could become a fan of the new BBC Sherlock Holmes serial. And mind you, I am a lifelong Holmes fan who has demanding tastes in adaptations (I hate Jeremy Brett, for instance).
Haven't actually seen him yet, but a lot of people who were disposed to hate the movie seem to have been pleased. And really, Holmes IS an action hero - untwisting twisted pokers, fighting prizefighters, pursuing speedboats in the London night, etc etc etc. And Dr.Watson has been in Afghanistan and carries his service revolver around - and uses it, too, when necessary. So I think that some of the shock about having Iron Man as Holmes may be misplaced. Not that I don't think Rathbone remains supreme...
When I first saw the reviews for the movie, I kind of went, "Wut?" But when I actually rented it and watched it, I really enjoyed it. Yes, it's kind of a steampunk version of Holmes, but it was essentially pretty true to the Holmes and Watson universe.
I found the movie shockingly enjoying, and I must say Jude Law made a much better Watson than *cough* certain other attempts, and RDJ even impressed me with his failure to be a chilly, self-collected, totally cerebral character...
...but I can't see his face without thinking of Iron Man. I suspect I have been brain-poisoned.
Incidentally, to the both of you: if you watch the story, there is a big clue as to the murderer - and the way the murder was done - in the first couple of minutes. And I shall be generous and give it to you: the second victim had drunk too much to be able to drive herself, yet she vanished from the place where she was supposed to be and was found in an empty lot. When you have seen the whole episode, you will go: 'YES!! THAT'S IT!!"
I was afraid that might be the case. I hope you get it soon, because it really is not bad (except for a poor and gimmicky motivation for the killer, certainly not comparable to the original Jefferson Hope) and if it goes on on this level it will certainly end up being a superior bit of fun.
I saw complaints about several features that were straight out of Doyle, from which I surmise that the recent movie is rather more shocking by comparison to other adaptations (with which I am not widely familiar) than to canon.
Doesn't that always happen? Check out the recent right-wing complaints about the forthcoming Captain America movie, from which you conclude that nobody of those who complain had ever read the comic at all!
Well, now, I've seen part of that more fundamental argument and think I shall leave it to others, as I haven't read the early issues.
More frivolously, "it was in canon" by itself works better as an argument for movie-suitability with Holmes than Captain America. I was reading it rather haphazardly in the early nineties, and I recall an issue where he narrowly escaped being turned into a woman and one where he did get turned into a werewolf. :)
This may surprise you, but I have been a Cap fan even longer than I have been into Sherlock Holmes - my interest started in Italy, as a child, when I could not even read English properly. So I can identify all the stories you mention - indeed, they are in my library in the other room in my flat. They come from the declining period of Mark Gruenwald's long run; alas, you seem to have got in just as he lost direction badly. I have written an essay on the Gruenwald Cap years for a fanzine I used to publish, which I don't think I ever reprinted in this blog - if you are interested, I will.
My point is that the fuss made about the movie adaptation's director's description of Cap as "not a super-patriot, but an ordinary Joe who tries to do his best and live up to the image cast on him" proves beyond a doubt that the people who made the fuss had never read the comic. The "ordinary Joe" is at the heart of everything that all the best Cap writers have tried to do with the character, and Jack Kirby, the author most closely associated with Cap, explicitly and repeatedly stated it as the core of what his Captain was just that. In his Captain America's Bicentennial Battles (which, in spite of the dreadful title, is one of the greatest Cap stories ever and one of the peaks of Kirby's stellar career), he closed the package with a single-page drawing of Cap out of his mask, and a parade of his arrogant and stupid enemies - from Nazi officers to Batroc the Leaper - who repeat in chorus that none of them would bother with someone so commonplace. And all the leading Cap creators - Joe Simon who created him, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Englehart, Roger Stern, Marc de Matteis, Mark Gruenwald - were one way or another part of the left-of-centre area, and Cap was consistently the defender of a moderately but distinctly left-of-centre notion of decency.
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...but I can't see his face without thinking of Iron Man. I suspect I have been brain-poisoned.
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More frivolously, "it was in canon" by itself works better as an argument for movie-suitability with Holmes than Captain America. I was reading it rather haphazardly in the early nineties, and I recall an issue where he narrowly escaped being turned into a woman and one where he did get turned into a werewolf. :)
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My point is that the fuss made about the movie adaptation's director's description of Cap as "not a super-patriot, but an ordinary Joe who tries to do his best and live up to the image cast on him" proves beyond a doubt that the people who made the fuss had never read the comic. The "ordinary Joe" is at the heart of everything that all the best Cap writers have tried to do with the character, and Jack Kirby, the author most closely associated with Cap, explicitly and repeatedly stated it as the core of what his Captain was just that. In his Captain America's Bicentennial Battles (which, in spite of the dreadful title, is one of the greatest Cap stories ever and one of the peaks of Kirby's stellar career), he closed the package with a single-page drawing of Cap out of his mask, and a parade of his arrogant and stupid enemies - from Nazi officers to Batroc the Leaper - who repeat in chorus that none of them would bother with someone so commonplace. And all the leading Cap creators - Joe Simon who created him, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Steve Englehart, Roger Stern, Marc de Matteis, Mark Gruenwald - were one way or another part of the left-of-centre area, and Cap was consistently the defender of a moderately but distinctly left-of-centre notion of decency.