HANDS DOWN: FILMS OF THE DECADE

Following is the Master List (in alphabetical order) for my favorite films of the decade. There are 132 by my count - including the first installment of a trilogy made in 1996.

I've spent a few days now reviewing my notes, the listings of films that were released in the Naughts - along with the compulsory choices made by every website or magazine from Scientific Journal to Bite My Ass.com - in order to generate my own list. One amusing trend I've noticed is the rush of critics to admit that it's an almost impossible task to compare 10 or 25 or 50 films that adequately represent the decade we've just experienced - immediately before they do just that, without qualification.

One cause for that excuse is to try to head off the massive Fan Boy Community - keyboard at the ready - should a dithering scribe dare create a list where at least one film involving a Hobbit doesn't appear. Roger Ebert takes the prize, though, by admitting that he didn't feel there were really 10 animated features to laud as the Best of 2009 - but the list required him to pick 10, so "here they are."

The happy difficulty they all face is the sheer number of film releases coming in from both the majors and the independents - as well as individuals armed with digital cameras. Several films listed were made with a thousand or more technicians, costing hundreds of millions of dollars. One was created on a personal home computer by a single individual.

Genre-wise, we're all over the map, as well. Removing the big mutiplex franchise pictures and, say, horror films (that naturally feed off one another) from the equation, the field of play encompassed an extraordinarily eclectic grab-bag of types - hard to pigeonhole, true enough.

But it's sad to see so many critics not even make an attempt at explaining why these most prominent reflections of our culture and others manifested themselves in ways numerous, loud, individual, and often garbled.

Is it really that difficult to understand?

Here in America, the Naughts were a decade where a horrifying attack by terrorists unsettled our very fabric - and continues to do so. And, led by men and women of fear rather than imagination, for, perhaps, the third time in our history we went to war with another nation without true cause.

In the interest of National Security, the US openly sanctioned private armies, assassinations, and the political destruction of its perceived detractors - with no long-term penalty in sight. Practices steered by a comprehensively yellow media, and long relegated to the dustbin of National Disgrace, were suddenly the order of the day: war profiteering, McCarthyism, loss of basic rights and personal expression. For the first time since the Civil War, the US Constitution faced it's most serious legal challenges - from the very government swore to uphold and protect it. Rafts of government employees - regardless of their background or competence - were appointed to positions of great responsibility based solely on their religious affiliation. Business moguls, speculators and "financiers," taking full advantage of government disassembling of New Deal safeguards, continued the 1990's eradication of US-based jobs, ran Wall Street like a Vegas casino, eventually decimated the economy, and wiped out the savings of millions of our citizens - again, with no long-term penalty or accountability in sight. Government and private funding for the arts and sciences dried up almost 60% - and the Great God Advertising finally managed to muscle its way in as the one true cultural reflection of America.

And us? Statistically, most of us watched it happen without significant shock or counteraction, on television or online like a sporting event. We watched AMERICAN IDOL, PROJECT: RUNWAY, and THE OC a lot, too - and made an enormous amount of charismatic, talent-free exhibitionists staggeringly wealthy, be they in entertainment, sports, or politics. We also immersed ourselves in personal technologies, and obsessed over our physical appearance. Plastic surgery, drastic dieting, and shopping all made bids to become the National Pastime.

We did stir things up a bit during 2007-8 for the election, voting in the right guy, more than likely - but have done little since to help or constructively challenge him in a way that won't give the steering wheel back to the right wing. We still have some time, I suppose.

But even if you only agree with half of that State of the Union rundown, it's not too hard to locate catalysts to explain the eclecticism on display in the Naughts' film releases. In periods of great national stress, we tend to create more intense, diverse popular culture with which to entertain ourselves. We did during the Great Depression of the 1930s - again in the 1950s, with the Bomb hanging over our heads - and in the 1970s, as we stood in gas lines and watched helplessly as Iran took us out for a ride.

But it's been a long, long time since the nation has endured this many self-inflicted wounds at one go-round. It's telling that if you happen to be looking for common themes on display here, they can probably be found under Identity.

Please feel free to weigh in with your own ideas on the subject.

Looking at what trends there were in cinema, though - if, during the Naughts, you were: a costumed super hero, a zombie, a vampire, an Asian ghost, an international spy/assassin, a large creature from outer space/underneath the sea, living in Middle Earth, or using industrial equipment to torture the homeless - you had a very good decade. Even better, the more you leaned toward the supernatural.

In other news, Geekdom became a noble subculture in films, officially - perhaps in keeping with multiplex audience demographics. Documentaries of all shapes and sizes also had their best decade ever, certainly, and there seemed no shortage of fictionalized Biographies, either. Neo-noir had pretty much played itself out from the 90s, but the Heist picture had a bit of a comeback, as did the Sword-and-Sandal epic, of all things. Remakes of old TV series actually did much better on TV than at the theatres - though there were quite a few attempts. And in past few years Comedy did very well - as it always does during times of economic crisis.

Due to extraordinary advances in technology (and TV sci-fi to test it on), Tolkein fans finally got what they'd always wanted - with remarkable results. Marvel Comics fans finally got about 60% of what they'd always wanted - still, not too shabby. Unfortunately, George Lucas fans just thought they were finally getting what they'd always wanted, but got two more software demonstration films and one of the worst movies of any decade for their trouble.

Sadly, the independents took many hits - certainly not in terms of quality, as a strong percentage of modestly budgeted films were quite, quite good, as always - but in many cases simply too many releases (from the majors, and from themselves) ran afoul of business plans and priceless production/distribution outfits like THINKFilm are no longer with us. But what is to be done? People's voices need to be heard.

As I said, I'll take up these issues and more as I go along, but first, let me outline how the list is broken down in subsequent posts: I've chosen 11 individuals who did my favorite work in cinema during the decade. Each post will list 2 or 3 in a countdown format. I've also picked an arbitrary number of my favorite pictures of a particular genre, and listed those - with at least some reasons for all.

If you happen to be looking for personal taste comparisons, I can tell you that Carl Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, Carol Reed's THE THIRD MAN, and Michael Powell/Emeric Pressberger's THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP are my favorite films of the studio period - Tom Tykwer's RUN LOLA RUN (1998) and Mike Leigh's TOPSY-TURVY (1999) were my favorite films of the last decade, and Kathryn Bigelow's THE HURT LOCKER (2009) was, hands down, the best film I saw last year - though it is not my personal choice for Best of the Decade. That would be telling.

As far as performers go, I will always make a special effort to see Nick Nolte, Cate Blanchett, Ed Harris, Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Franke Potente, Robert Downey, Jr., Emma Thompson, Helen Mirren, Gary Oldman and Robin Wright Penn in whatever films they may happen to appear - although none of these would be my choice for Best of the Decade. That would also be telling.

The final two caveats I would throw out with this list are: 1.) the majority of them were not experienced in a cinema proper, but either on DVD or through cable and online services. Not optimal - but there you have it. Like many of you, I'm sure, going out to a movie theatre regularly has become a prohibitively expensive proposition - so we generally reserve that for a special event or an FX extravaganza. And 2.) I always feel as if I'm lacking in representations of foreign pictures whenever I do something like this - primarily from Eastern bloc countries - though my average was better these years than most. But I shall endeavor to do better in future.

Here they are, then:

13 TZAMETI (Gela Babluani, 2005)

310 to YUMA (James Mangold, 2005)
28 DAYS/WEEKS LATER (Danny Boyle, 2002/Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2007)
25th HOUR (Spike Lee, 2002)

A SERIOUS MAN (Coen Brothers, 2009)
ADAPTATION (Spike Jonze, 2002)
AMELIE (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
AUTO FOCUS (Paul Schrader, 2002)

BABEL (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2006)
BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD (Sidney Lumet, 2007)
BEAUTIFUL LOSERS (Aaron Rose, 2007)
BLACK HAWK DOWN (Ridley Scott, 2001)
BORN INTO BROTHELS (Zani Briski, 2004)
THE BOURNE TRILOGY (Doug Liman, 2002/Paul Greengrass, 2004, 2007)
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (Michael Moore, 2002)
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (Ang Lee, 2005)
BRONSON (Nicholas Winding Refn, 2009)

CAPOTE (Bennett Miller, 2005)

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (Andrew Jarecki, 2003)
CASINO ROYALE (Martin Campbell, 2006)
CHILDREN OF MEN (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)
CINDERELLA MAN (Ron Howard, 2005)
CITY OF GOD (Fernando Meirelles, 2002)
CLOVERFIELD (Matt Reeves, 2008)
CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND (George Clooney, 2002)
THE CONSTANT GARDENER (Fernando Meirelles, 2005)
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (Ang Lee, 2000)

THE DESCENT (Neil Marshall, 2005)

THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE (Guillermo del Toro, 2001)

DISTRICT 9 (Nell Blomcamp, 2009)

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (Julian Schnabel, 2007)

DONNIE DARKO (Richard Kelly, 2001)

DOWNFALL (Oliver Herschbiegel, 2004)

EASTERN PROMISES (David Cronenberg, 2007)

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (Werner Herzog, 2007)

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Michael Gondry, 2004)

FARENHEIT 9/11 (Michael Moore, 2004)

FEAR X (Nicholas Winding Refn, 2003)

FINDING NEMO (Andrew Stanton/Lee Unkrich, 2003)

GHOST WORLD (Terry Zwigoff, 2001)

GLADIATOR (Ridley Scott, 2000)

GONE BABY GONE (Ben Affleck, 2007)

GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK (George Clooney, 2005)

THE GOOD THIEF (Neil Jordan, 2002)

GOSFORD PARK (Robert Altman, 2001)

GRAN TORINO (Clint Eastwood, 2008)

GRIZZLY MAN (Werner Herzog, 2005)

HALF NELSON (Ryan Fleck, 2006)

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY (Guillermo del Toro, 2008)

HIGH FIDELITY (Stephen Frears, 2000)

THE HOST (Bong Joon-ho, 2006)

HOTEL RWANDA (Terry George, 2004)

THE HURT LOCKER (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)

THE INCREDIBLES (Brad Bird, 2004)
INTOLERABLE CRUELTY (Coen Brothers, 2003)

INVINCIBLE (Werner Herzog, 2001)

IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS (James Longley, 2006)

THE KING OF KONG (Seth Gordon, 2007)

LASSIE (Charles Sturridge, 2005)

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND (Kevin Macdonald, 2006)

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (Clint Eastwood, 2006)
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (Jonathan Dayton/Valerie Faris, 2006)

THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)

THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY (Peter Jackson, 2001, 2002, 2003)

LOST IN TRANSLATION (Sophia Coppola, 2003)

MARCH OF THE PENGUINS (Luc Jacquet, 2005)

MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (Peter Weir, 2003)

MATCHSTICK MEN (Ridley Scott, 2003)

MAN ON WIRE (James Marsh, 2008)

THE MATADOR (Richard Shepard, 2006)

MEMENTO (Christopher Nolan, 2000)

MICHAEL CLAYTON (Tony Gilroy, 2007)

MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Clint Eastwood, 2004)

MILLIONS (Danny Boyle, 2004)

THE MIST (Frank Darabont, 2007)

MONSTER (Patty Jenkins, 2003)
MONSTERS INC (Pete Docter, 2001)

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (Walter Salles, 2004)

MOULIN ROUGE! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

MULHOLLAND DRIVE (David Lynch, 2001)

MURDERBALL (Henry Alex Rubin/Dana Adam Shapiro, 2005)

MYSTIC RIVER (Clint Eastwood, 2003)

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (Jared Hess/Jerusha Hess, 2004)

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Coen Brothers, 2007)

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (Coen Brothers, 2000)

OLDBOY (Park Chan-wook, 2003)

PAN'S LABYRINTH (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)

PITCH BLACK (David Twohy, 2000)

PERSEPOLIS (Satrapi Paronnaud/Vincent Paronnaud, 2007)

PLANET EARTH (BBC Natural History Unit, 2006)

THE PLEDGE (Sean Penn, 2001)

PRIMER (Shane Carruth, 2004)

THE PUSHER TRILOGY (Nicholas Winding Refn, 1996, 2004, 2005)

THE QUEEN (Stephen Frears, 2006)

THE QUIET AMERICAN (Phillip Noyce, 2002)

RATATOUILLE (Brad Bird, 2007)

THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (Wes Anderson, 2001)

SHAUN OF THE DEAD (Edgar Wright, 2004)

SIDEWAYS (Alexander Payne, 2004)

SITA SINGS THE BLUES (Nina Paley, 2008)

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (Danny Boyle, 2008)

SOLARIS (Steven Soderbergh, 2002)

SPELLBOUND (Jeffrey Blitz, 2002)

SPIDER-MAN 2 (Sam Raimi, 2004)

SPIRITED AWAY (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL (Byambasuren Davaa/Luigi Falorni, 2003)

SYRIANA (Stephen Gaghan, 2005)

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (Alex Gibney, 2007)

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (Trey Parker, 2004)

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)

THIS IS ENGLAND (Shane Meadows, 2006)

THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005)

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (Sylvian Chomet, 2003)

TROPIC THUNDER (Ben Stiller, 2008)

TSOTSI (Gavin Hood, 2005)

UP (Pete Docter, 2009)

VERA DRAKE (Mike Leigh, 2004)

WAKING LIFE (Richard Linklater, 2001)

WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)

WATCHMEN (Zack Snyder, 2009)

WHALE RIDER (Niki Caro, 2002)

WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE (Spike Lee, 2006)

THE WHITE DIAMOND (Werner Herzog, 2004)

ZODIAC (David Fincher, 2007)

WHUP ASS, MY DEAR WATSON

Surprisingly, there are a host of things to like about Guy Ritchie's new high-octane SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009) picture: some intelligent choices made in the "enhancement" of the source material being chief among them.

Sherlockians will certainly be alarmed in many cases - but, more likely, knocked off their beam a bit by how much time and consideration has been given to a study of the original stories for this production.

That does not mean to say that the movie is Canon-faithful to the last jot - it is most certainly not. But it is a rare thing, indeed, when a Hollywood production team - especially one out to start a potential franchise with a bang - embraces the original concepts of a source author with such enthusiastic attention - even as it firmly steers away from them.

Translated into virtually every worldwide language (including Klingon), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Victorian era Consulting Detective slash part-time sociopath - along with his erstwhile roommate - are the most-filmed characters in history, with over 200 versions under their belts, and counting (Bram Stoker's Count Dracula runs them a close second): little wonder, since Holmes and Watson's worldwide name recognition rates somewhere between God and Santa Claus on any given day.

And fanatics of the original stories - the aforementioned "Sherlockians," by name - are the most cheerfully picky breed this side of Boba Fett. They always have been. In 1893, when his creator decided to "off" the Great Detective in THE ADVENTURE OF THE FINAL PROBLEM, thousands of Strand readers wore black armbands to mark the event. And it was only after a series of near-blackmail offers that Doyle was convinced to revive the detective, 8 years later: first for the one-off serialized novel, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES - taking place, supposedly, before his demise - then, after another 2 years, contractually "resurrected" for good in a new series of stories and beyond, until Doyle's own death in 1930. Not that that stopped anyone writing stories featuring the characters - Wikipedia lists over 170 authors who have penned pastiches - many irreverent or comedic - through the years, with, apparently, no end in sight.

However, any time a film company is presumptive enough to spit out a new version of the pair's adventures intended to be taken seriously, a great hue and cry is heard throughout the Sherlockian community, and whispers of sacrilege abound. It seems in the case of this new film, that traditionalist cry is being heard from many film critics as well - including Roger Ebert and A.O. Scott.

Just as the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce versions were for their generation and William Gillette before them - the gold standard for comparison these days is the much-beloved Granada Television series from the 80s and 90s featuring the astonishing Jeremy Brett as Holmes and, originally David Burke, then Edward Hardwicke as Watson - and well it should be. The first two seasons of that show, produced by John Hawksworth, are fresh, funny, intriguing, and a fine reminder of what riches may be mined by returning to the source material as if seeing it for the first time, knocking away the dust of traditional baggage, and investing in those forgotten or thwarted elements that made the stories appealing in the first place. In a sense, reinvesting in what has always been there.

The Granada series has, of course, over the years, been characterized as a "traditional" approach - when, at the time, it was anything but. The plots of the stories were adhered to, to be sure - as was the Victorian milieu. But Brett had very much a revisionist approach to Holmes - creating a persnickety genius unable to adhere to the polite social conventions of his time, and often trapped by his own relentless brain power. And, for the first time to a great many of us, there was a performance where one actually believed the character was as brilliant as he was supposed to be. But with that brilliance came personal cost, and Holmes' self-injury in the form of recurring drug abuse, sleep deprivation, et. al., again, for once, made perfect sense.

Peter Cushing had tried a similar, though charmless - and to many minds, now, very successful - approach for Hammer's 1959 version of HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, directed by Terence Fisher, but was much-criticized for it at the time because - well, we were too comfortable in our Rathbone to be quite ready for that version yet, I think.

Match Brett's and Cushing's performances up to the original writing, though, and not only do both fit, but the central concepts hold. I hasten to add that a great many variants can hold when dovetailed with the very solid early writing.

The series also went a long way in "correcting" the image of Watson - in the stories a half-pensioned Army surgeon, wounded in Afghanistan, who has human flaws similar to his creator (by intention) - but is much more an active, useful partner in the business of detection: if not intellectually, then by way his always-ready service revolver. It also attributed to Watson an element of Manners Guardian - not in the stories - that worked very well. When Brett's Holmes forgot or disregarded Victorian protocol, his Watson was there to take up the slack - with amusing results. The best news, though, was that the fuddering old Nigel Bruce version - a by-product of William Gillette's famous play and Hollywood - was put to bed, hopefully, for good.

Gillette has a great deal to answer for, actually: beginning in 1899, the American actor would perform the character on stage -in a script collaboration with Doyle - for the next 30 years. It was he who wore the deerstalker hat as Holmes in every environment - not only when he traveled to the country, as in the original Paget illustrations. It was also he who adopted the enormous Meerschaum pipes - supposedly to allow himself to speak more clearly - although, more likely, given the size of the theatres he played, presenting, along with the hat, a very clear silhouette for the audience to immediately identify and follow.

The folks at Granada - in many interviews over the years - prided themselves by correcting these supposedly blasphemous inaccuracies, having Brett smoke long clay pipes to match the original drawings - and only sporting the deerstalker hat when a case took him to a place where one might actually - you know - stalk deer. However, it was Brett's outside work inspired, not dictated, by the stories that make his Holmes so quirky and memorable. And, early on, he was fortunate enough to look exactly like the brainy reed of Paget's drawings.

If we take Sidney Paget's fine interpretations out of the equation, and simply glean Holmes' habits and characteristics from Doyle's printed word, itself, the man seems to smoke everything short of hemp rope or rolled newspaper - in massive quantities. That is to say, the most important point seems to be that the detective smokes a pipe of any type of the period - the author doesn't really specify which - as it is the constant act of smoking itself that helps the character's byzantine process of thought and deduction.

Graham Greene once noted that he felt Charles Dicken's novels were ill-served by the beloved original Cruickshank illustrations, as they robbed the first-time reader of forming his or her own individual vision of the characters: a debatable point - but an interesting one for that small breed of conscientious film adapters with something unique to bring to the Dickens table.

What are we to make of the new Ritchie film then? Well, we can't knock them for not doing their homework, at least - nor throwing the Doyle out with the bathwater.

Here Holmes is bohemian in nature - and his hat choice seems to be whatever is available from his sitting room floor (the messiest on record) - or, in a very funny touch if you're aware of the issue, whatever can be stolen from the head of a henchman. His pipe is a simple black one, and in the key moment when he lights it in the middle of considering a three-pipe problem, it's as if he's done it that way for a decade or more.

Watson, appropriately, still struggles with being a middle-class doctor given his attraction to the exciting lifestyle of crimebusting - and, in this version, has a bit of a gambling problem (although the character being fond of wagering, and having his roommate guard his checkbook are Doyle touches).

Opening at the end of several years of cases - and the resultant chaotic roommate life with the detective - Watson is moving out of 221b in preparation for his marriage to Mary Morstan - on loan here (without her own case) from SIGN OF THE FOUR. Holmes and the good doctors’ seemingly last case together, then, involves the capture and death of the diabolical occultist Lord Blackwood. Yet events soon transpire leading them to believe Blackwood may not, in fact, have breathed his last.

Enter New Jersey singer/adventuress Irene Adler from A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA - a favorite character of adapters, since she provides sexual tension, and is really the only person in the stories - certainly, woman - ever to have gotten the better of the famously misogynistic Holmes. Their relationship hints at a bit more intense past involvement than is usually the case, but her presence here serves to discomfort the detective in the main, and that should be acceptable to fans. It could have been much worse, let's say (It is also interesting to note that there are somewhat steamier scenes in the misleading trailer for the picture - Adler in a teddy and so forth - which didn't seem to make it into the final cut).

Nonetheless, off we go down the mean streets of grimy Steampunk-inspired Victorian London. The style of the movie follows the insanely-paced buddy action picture boilerplate - which should be no surprise to anyone given that Joel Silver is one of the producers. It's a strange format when applied to these characters, but effectively done, nonetheless. All the usual camera/editing/CGI tricks are on display - just in case you had the silly notion of breathing during the picture - but the art direction and design are quite thoughtful, I must say - especially in its unique portrayal of the rooms at Baker Street, and that nautical traffic jam that was the Thames River, circa 1891.

Yet interspersed throughout are many Doylian scenes and touches obviously included to satisfy the faithful: Holmes and Watson reciting HENRY V together, the first scene in Baker Street with Watson attempting to calm a patient while Holmes fires a pistol into the wall in the next room, the contentious relationships with Mrs. Hudson and Inspector Lestrade, and, most importantly, the detective's methods of deduction. These attentions seem to have been part of the thrust of initiating producer Lionel Wigram's agenda, and they're pulled off with care, aplomb, and sense of humor by the cast and director.

The general element that will cause most longtime enthusiasts to balk at the picture, of course, is giving Holmes ninja-esque fighting abilities - another of Wigram's notions - and a concession to the 13-year-old boys that make up the Hollywood target audience these days. And there is no scrimping in this arena - the fights are wall-to-wall. Now, one may dislike that, but, as I've stated, there is Doylian precedent for it: in THE ADVENTURE OF THE EMPTY HOUSE, Holmes reveals his proficiency in the martial art Bartitsu, and several times in the stories he refers to his prowess with the "short stick."

The film also lightens the shock by having Holmes perform an animated cause-and-effect deduction of the separate harms he is about to inflict on his opponents. And his participation in back alley bare knuckle brawls - bouts that Watson can bet on - seems to have replaced the cocaine needle as his tonic for ennui in this version - a sensitive choice, probably, given the film's star - although there seems to be no end to drinkable narcotics about. Fair enough - and fun, says I.

And if one happens to have difficulty with the fast-paced action nature of the thing, that person need only return to the stories to find any number of plot elements probably just as dizzying to their original readers as these are to those of us used to a more stately interpretation: master criminals, poisonous snakes, gold heists, ghost dogs, secret war plans, jewel thefts, sulphur fires, shootings, hangings, stranglings, blowgun-wielding natives, damsels in distress, boat chases, fisticuffs, the KKK, the Mafia, even a very famous literal cliffhanger. They are called "Adventures," after all.

Robert Downey, Jr. is a fine Holmes - his screen persona of the quirky, yet charming outsider makes him a great choice, and his usual attention to detail and improvisational skills serve him well, as we've come to expect. His is not as complex a creature as Brett's, yet - but he has hardly had the time to fully develop his own ideas. His defining moment at this point arrives in a misplaced dinner table deduction that he can neither censor nor stop himself from making, and it shows where he might be in two pictures if the series is allowed to continue. He also makes a large investment in Holmes' patriotism - an all-important motivation for the sleuth - and a feature at times given short shrift by others.

Jude Law is a shockingly spot-on Watson - and perhaps the closest interpretation of the character as described by Doyle, ever. Say what you will.

Their relationship has the feeling of long history to it - you believe they've lived together for years. Both actors understand that neither character can really exist without the other - and that the cases are only solvable when both are engaged in the sleuthing. One can have it that Holmes is the only presence needed – but why, then, have a partnership at all? The script helps them in this respect by keeping them apart, then making it an event when they redouble forces. But it's just an outstanding beginning by both - again, obviously based on close study of the originals.

Mark Strong is a sensational villain of bottle, for once, as Lord Blackwood - based on the Victorian occultist Aleister Crowley - and the ubiquitous Eddie Marsan is a plausible Inspector Lestrade - no small feat.

The women – all capable actors - get short shrift, as per usual: Rachel McAdams is stunning to look at, and given the most to do, but one hungers for a Victorian Nick and Nora Charles since all the elements are there anyway - and they seem to have had the writers to pull it off. Kelly Reilly is wasted as the half-written Mary Morstan, and Geraldine James is allowed to make no solid impression as Mrs. Hudson - a fan favorite. There's no excuse or reason for it - it's just the usual Silver Pictures' Boy's Own Club at work, easily fixed if they were so inclined. Doubtful they ever will be.

And in production, Hans Zimmer's unique Morricone-inspired score for banjo, violin, and broken piano deserves uncommon praise - as does Sarah Greenwood's production design, along with Jenny Beavan and Melissa Meister's costumes.

You don't need me to cite examples illustrating how badly this could have gone - but I think Sherlockians should feel free to breathe a sigh of relief and let themselves enjoy the picture. It was time for the lads to have their cages cleaned out again - the film made me want to reread the stories, Jeremy Brett is on DVD in case of emergency - and the center still holds.

WELCOME BACK

Dissipated by decades of series television misuse, the Private Eye picture has sadly fallen into disrepair these days - if not entirely off the map altogether. So, it is with great enthusiasm that I point out a left-field winner of the genre that completely slipped by a great many people - including myself.

Frankly, being a great fan of Dennis Lehane's Boston crime stories, I avoided seeing the picture in theatres, and only decided to give it a spin when it popped up on Netflix' online Watch Instantly service. Why? Well, let's be honest: certainly, it's my own damn fault for being late to the table, but for me - like a great many others, I suspect - the name "Affleck" doesn't exactly inspire confidence of cinematic quality by this point, does it?

That said, I'm overjoyed to report that with the soulful GONE BABY GONE (2007), we have finally discovered what the Affleck Brothers do - and do very well. Affleck the Elder directs with style and confidence, and Affleck the Younger - given the right part, and formidable support - is capable of extraordinary honesty and impact on screen.

There's so many things right going on here: the story is a great match for the brothers' Cambridge background - the script by Ben and Aaron Stockard is tight, and - what a shock - humanly complex. Casey and Amy Ryan, though not at all who I pictured in my mind's eye, make perfect sense as unlikely investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro - and certainly no one skimps on the Catholicism. Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, and Morgan Freeman show up to play hardball - as per usual - and a special tip of the hat has to go out to Harry Gregson-Williams's heartbreaking score.

Most importantly, there's a welcome melding of essential tones here that makes this genre distinctly American - and the need for a Knight Errant like Patrick achingly poignant. Noir in the post-war period carried with it the double impact of a crime story, plus, collectively, the dissembling portrait of an America underclass, lost - confused by uncontrollable Outside Forces, be they Government, Organized Crime, or the Soviet Union.

Here, Lehane's Boston underworld - that shitty economic cocktail of brutalized children, consumerism, tabloid media, and heartless self-consumption - elevates Catholic Patrick and Angie's moral choices to the height of Greek Tragedy.

It's Samuel Spade and Effie in BushWorld, spot on.

Good adaptation, a welcome, complicated picture - not easy to pull off. More like this, please, you Affleck Boys. It'll help wash away all that Kevin Smith childishness from my memory, thanx.

CELEBRATION GEEK

Is it good? Yes, very much so. Dare I say - the best of the lot? Could be. But I'm biased.

As we stood in line for the Navy Pier IMAX afternoon showing of the new STAR TREK movie, maggie spent an inordinate amount of time, I thought, needling my supposed inner Trek Geek.

Perhaps it was the plethora of middle-aged men sans female companionship in line with us that stimulated this gleeful assault. Or the rotund young woman sporting a chartreuse mu-mu and pointy ears. It could have been the tall, handsome, long-haired fellow in full Starfleet uniform and communicator - I don't know. Regardless, I thought it a rather stinky attitude, frankly, from someone who has never even seen episode one of the original television series - but who does seem to hold in high regard - as most of her misguided generation does - those wretched, overrated, badly-written Buster Crabbe knock-offs that involve Debbie Reynolds' daughter, what must have been at the time an extraordinarily cash-poor Alec Guiness, and a Muppet spouting Coloring-Book Nietzsche.

I think you know which ones I mean. She certainly does.

So, two hours and a Certificate of Deposit later, having seen the new picture, we had dinner and came home - free to surf the net with abandon to read all about the making of the movie, without fear of spoilers. And, much to my horror - and her delight - it seems everyone associated with the damn thing is falling all over themselves to thank and acknowledge the past contributions of William Shatner (well they should) along with - wait for it - George Lucas.

Simon "Scotty" Pegg: huge Lucas fan, so says several interviews. Director J.J. Abrams: hoping it will have the same impact as a Lucas "film" (and there's an oxymoron - accent on the "moron") And lead Chris Pine: admitting openly for all to read that he based his Captain James T. Kirk on what Shatner did - combined with a generous dollop of - wait for it, again - Han Solo.

And just how f**king depressing is that, I ask you? I doubt seriously if I will ever live it down, frankly, as it seems this new bunch will be around for quite some time. And now, of course, it can be claimed that their new success was inspired by STAR WARS, a film series whose value I generally equate with SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN - minus the intellectual content or style.

Anyway, whatever the catalyst, Abrams and company did a fine job here: it's a very exciting picture of its kind, wide-open to be enjoyed by people give a damn about the series or just want to be carried away for a while. He continually tips his hat to the best elements of the tired franchise while shoving in his own Lucasian epic agenda - but with a very light, entertaining touch, I have to say - and solid introductory story elements. Lucas should be so talented.

Best is the cast, top to bottom - even that most boring of actors, Eric Bana, as a baddie, Bruce Greenwood, Tyler Perry (!), Ben Cross, and Wynona Ryder, of all people, as Spock's mother.

Everyone in the new crew, of course - Pegg, Karl Urban, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, and personal fave, Anton Yelchin as Chekov - is given their own scenes to shine, and the actors, obviously driven by the needs of the massive - and massively Geeky - fan base, acquit themselves cleverly as both echoes of the originals, and solid young performers in their own right. Not an easy thing to do.

Pine as Kirk and Zach Quinto as the young Spock play their parts as character roles, as opposed to laid-back leading men, and we care about what happens to them. I'll even confess a certain thrill when they transport in tandem to the heart of the baddies' spaceship late in the game. Not thrilling enough to wear my own set of rubber ears to the movies - but you get the basic idea - and, really, when was the last time you felt anything like that in one of these movies? Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu deserve special mention, I think, as their roles have always been so astonishingly bland in the past. Here, though, I'm sure every writer with ties to the franchise can see the possibilities in having them around as real players - both in new conception and performance.

The effects are flawless - and here I will give the Big Nod to Mr. Lucas - he and his company, Industrial Light and Magic - along with Digital Domain, and several smaller houses, exceed the promise of what they, over the past three decades, actually have contributed to the history of film. If you've had any design experience whatsoever, you can't help but appreciate the new developments in scope, lighting, and design technique on display. You can find a full rundown of the craftspeople involved in all that, here in the Wiki entry. Quite brilliant, all round.

And then there's Mr. Nimoy. Well, what can you say? There were many spontaneous bursts of applause at the screening we saw - a testament to the picture, and seeing it in a big house - but none so large or heartfelt as his first appearance. Forty-three years in the role - he's as welcome a presence here as Father Christmas - and, unless I'm mistaken, has just been involved in launching 10 more years of new adventures aboard the Enterprise. Fine by me.

Live long and prosper, indeed, old friend. And thank God you weren't played by a Muppet.

Pick-Up Wednesday 1119

Let it be said publicly: Gary Hustwit's HELVETICA (2007) is the greatest documentary about a ubiquitous Swiss typeface ever made. Period. Perhaps any type style ever, could be - I don't know. I'll have to do a bit more research.

Briefly: in 1957, in an effort to create "a neutral typeface that had great clarity, but no intrinsic meaning in its form," graphic designers for the Haas firm in Switzerland invented a type that has become so entirely omnipresent throughout the world - that if you stood right now in the middle of the room you are in, and scanned 360 degrees, you would see three examples of it. Guaranteed.

I'm sitting at a desk in a hotel room in Milwaukee, and I count six without getting up from this chair.

It's used for signs (the entire New York City subway system), theatres and museums (Goodman), all of your IRS documents, and, most especially, corporate logos (3M, Jeep, Arco, Lufthansa, Panasonic, Crate and Barrel, Edward Jones - uh, Microsoft). It's even the typeface printed on the side of NASA's space shuttles. The Museum of Modern Art just closed a 50-year retrospective of Helvetica.

Having worked in the print industry many times off-and-on over the years, I found the subject fascinating from the get-go - but I don't believe that type of experience is a prerequisite. The film isolates something distinctive - in this case, universal - in our lives, and tells us simply and effectively, in human terms, how and why it got there. It introduces you to the people involved, and the theoretical conflicts raised by its existence. No muss, or fuss.

One would think these easy goals to accomplish, but considering the number of documentaries produced over the past decade that have tried to capture a story like this, and failed - Patrick Creadon's muddled ode to crossword puzzles, WORDPLAY (2006), for one - I would throw out to you that it's a helluva lot harder to pull off than it seems. But Hustwit does so with aplomb, clarity, and care.

I'm not really sure what else to say about it. See it. Enjoy it. Look at the world a little differently.

More like this, please.

The Spy Who Pummeled Me

After the near-universal praise for CASINO ROYALE (2006), critics and online fans, alike, are in a raucous dither over its relentlessly speedy sequel, QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008), just released in the US this week. Some love it - some take exception. Not to fret, if your concern is the future of the franchise, as the picture debuted at number one here - and, in a fortnight, has already pulled in over 200 million dollars in Europe and Asia. And you just don't see those kinds of fast numbers without good word-of-mouth.

SOLACE is the 22nd entry in the Bond adventure series, and, heavens, what a bone-crunching little free-for-all it is. Multiplex viewers might even be advised to carry along seat belts and a lobster bib.

The lean story picks up minutes from the end of the first film, follows 007's global vendetta against the "real" killer of his expired squeeze, Vesper Lynd, and finds him tripping over an organization called QUANTUM - which, apparently, for the near future will be standing in for the long-defunct (and litigation-tied) SPECTRE as the 21st century's go-to Baddies Club - should you be looking to perpetrate some international evil of your own and need a grant, or someone to talk to about it.

And, like their nuclear bomb-stealing predecessors, these QUANTUM folks are not fooling around. They're cutting-edge evil. Back in '64, when the villains wanted to send James Bond a warning message, they'd spray paint his one-night stand with gold. In '08, they fill 'er up with several quarts of black crude oil. Poetic, nez pas?

Well, the man for the job of eradicating them is, again, Daniel Craig, who, since James Brown passed, can safely be dubbed the Hardest Working Man In Show Business. Checking online, I found that before this picture EON productions had upped his insurance coverage from 3 million pounds to 5 million - and there's very good reason for that. Out of the six or so action set pieces here, I counted three fast green screen/CGI moments, at best - and never once made a stunt man for him. I know stunt men worked on the picture, of course, since set reports detail how many of them were injured, nearly killed, or, in one case, put in a coma. But perhaps these fellows were covering the receiving-end supporting cast. Craig, himself, received 20 stitches, blew out his shoulder - requiring surgery - and sliced off the tip of a finger shooting the picture, so its not like anyone is lying down on the job over at Pinewood. The man's doing his press junkets with his arm in a sling, for god's sake.

Craig is also a fine actor - the best in the part since Sean Connery - and is joined again in that respect by Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini, and the terrific French actor Mathieu Amalric. The Bond "girls," Olga Kurylenko, and the slippery Gemma Arterton, are not provided roles of sufficient depth to know if they have acting chops or not. The producers were on better track in this respect in CASINO, and need to remind themselves of the value of that. Marc Forster (FINDING NEVERLAND, THE KITE RUNNER) is the surprising director, and he acquits himself well - despite his action rookie status - but he, and what must be a squad of second units, rely too much on the BOURNE films' methodology, especially in the editing.

Is the picture good? It is - I thought so, as a place keeper. The shortest in the entire canon, it is not the film its predecessor was, as most agree. It plays out like the gripping final episode of a television mini-series. Which is not altogether bad - this is still miles beyond what EON was serving up in the 80s and 90s. You could plead the case that it's a bright move to tie up loose ends - and the two pictures, seen together, stack up as one full, very satisfying, adventure. But as a stand-alone feature, they'd have needed more time taken with plot clarification and scripted material. It seems, in EON's very successful efforts to put some distance between themselves and their superficial past, they made one or two cuts here of familiar ingredients that did not need to be made, nor would have damaged the picture in the slightest. Let the man say, "Bond. James Bond," and do something clever with the gun barrel logo at the top of the picture, for example. A dash more humor wouldn't hurt, either, as long as you don't lose the real sense of high stakes and actual danger on display now.

Let's face it, the problems lay in the original script by Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade - based on an idea by producer Michael Wilson. And its the same recurring flaw that has bedeviled the series since 1977's THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. When they divert away from the Ian Fleming novels, rarely have they been able come up with hard plot and character lines of human interest on which to hang the stock franchise elements. In this case, SOLACE borrows the solid script work on CASINO, so it's not too much of a problem. After this point, though, it will be.

The good news, though, is that they have their own bountiful resource of tested material in the books. My easiest advice would be, with all the elements they've reimagined in the new series, go straight through the novels again in a series of remakes. That way, they're true to their source, they have good plots locked in, and they can either spin off what they did previously in the films, or add action as they go. Many of the books have grand plot elements - like the shocking torture scene in CASINO - that have never been utilized. And they really can be with Craig in the driver's seat.

In the meantime, SOLACE will do, thank you. Just don't make a habit of it.

P.S. Outstanding dogfight. One of the best ever filmed, methinks.

Pick-Up Tuesday 1111

I dearly love stories about Howard Hughes during his Imhotep period. He's just one-stop shopping for American sociological metaphors. A howling, bedsore-ridden Faulkner novel, with shifty Mormon tenders, and several hundred gallons of bottled urine to keep him company. And in Las Vegas, to boot.

You couldn't make him up, this guy. Not that some outside people didn't try to embellish yarns for profit. Well - who was going to complain? Hughes certainly wasn't talkin'. By the early 70s, he hadn't spoken publicly to anyone in 13 years.

I'm not sure people understand these days that, back then, the general public believed - or wanted to believe - that he was living a kind of suped-up Hugh Hefner existence in the tops of those hotels: money, booze, and broads - not the black womb of madness and Kleenex that was revealed later. He was always eccentric, sure - but we had no notion he had ended up the way he did until drawings of him began to appear on magazine covers after he died.

Anyway, if that time period interests you, I discovered a small, very well-made picture last night on Netflix's online service, called THE HOAX (2007). It's a based-on-fact chronicle of how author Clifford Irving came to sell a bogus autobiography of Hughes in 1970-72, and the media firestorm that the announcement unleashed.

And I have to say, the film is thoroughly entertaining and resonant, top to bottom. It features the most accomplished, loose performance by Richard Gere - well, ever - and a script, based on Irving's own retelling of the events, by William Wheeler, that really should be taught in classes. Alfred Molina, Marcia Gay Hardin, and Hope Davis are also in the cast. No surprise with them - they're tops here, as they so often are. And it's directed with tempered style by the fine Lasse Hallstrom.

The downside? None worth talking about, really. It's good story, well-told. A Goldilock's Third Bowl. Just right - for me, anyway.

Irving, himself, apparently had quibbles with the picture. Something about "inaccuracies." An irony that would not have been lost on his subject.

Click on the art for video.