Sherlock Sacha: On the case!

Spoiler alert: the following is a combined review of both Sherlock Holmes: a Game of Shadows and the last instalment of Sherlock series two. Anybody who has not seen either would be well-advised to firstly note the URL of this blog, watch either or both, and then return.

If you only wish to watch one, I can inform you that Sherlock S02E03 gets 5 stars, but Sherlock Holmes 2 only gets four.

Both films dealt with the climactic showdown between Sherlock Holmes and his arch-rival James Moriarty, the scene at the Reichenbach Falls.

Guy Richie’s blockbuster dealt with the picture with what you might call “authenticity”- keeping close to the iconic Sidney Paget image of the two men fighting over the Falls. However, the rest of the film bore little resemblance to the plot of ‘The Final Problem’. It introduced Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes; Fry’s performance overshadowed all else. I understand that Mycroft Holmes is supposedly far superior to his brother in terms of intellect, but Fry’s character was too much.

The story was packed with near-misses, well-calculated fights and the liberal and largely unrealistic use of artillery. Robert Downey Jr.’s Holmes was unremarkable, Jude Law’s Watson perfectly likeable. Irene Adler kicked the bucket rather conspicuously and pointlessly, but as she was a hideously irritating character, her passing acts in the film’s favour.

It is a perfectly good film, and very enjoyable. However, the margin of difference between a good film and a great film is so tremendous, that when I watched the conclusion to the BBC’s Sherlock, the Richie flick paled into utter insignificance.

I realised that big-screen Moriarty was all wrong- Conan Doyle meant Moriarty as Holmes’ equal, as an adversary worth sacrificing oneself to destroy. Big-screen Moriarty was dull, cruel where he should have been cunning, and most bafflingly of all, spoke with a Continental accent. I see no reason for this, and it was beyond irritating.

Fraction-of-the-budget telly Moriarty was vicious, a monster whose creativity was matched only by his deranged intent. Andrew Scott’s performance matches Cumberbatch’s without being overpowering, and Steve Thompson, who wrote by far the least exciting episode in the first series, made up for his dullness by constantly reinforcing the parallels between Holmes and Moriarty.

In fact, the story was so complete, so magnificent, I can think of only one criticism, and it is minor: there were far too many close-up shots of cups of tea. This will not help international relations.

So now I arrive at my final point of comparison, the very end for both Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis. Only, everybody knows Holmes survives the Reichenbach Falls, so there’s the puzzle- how do you inject excitement into a story everybody knows the ending to?

‘The Final Problem’ had a weakness in that it relied on the format of Watson acting as chronicler when Watson did not witness the death of Holmes. Both films dealt with it as well as could be done, as both Watsons saw both Holmeses fall, and apparently die.

The silver-screen’s answer was all right, but nothing special. Rarely is a prop introduced with no relevance, and so it was with the breathing device which Sherlock apparently steals from Mycroft and uses to survive his plunge into the Falls. As if a lack of oxygen would be one’s primary concern after falling hundreds of feet into icy Swiss waters.

I wasn’t taken by the rest of the series, but if Sherlock S02 had been as entertaining throughout as it was in that climactic scene, my heart would have exploded long ago. In ‘The Final Problem’, Dr Watson is taken away from the detective’s side by a note from a sick Englishwoman needing the attention of an English doctor; in the BBC adaptation, John is told that Mrs Hudson has been shot.

Holmes knows otherwise, and goes for his final confrontation with Moriarty. Rather than a fist-fight, what ensues is a battle of great, if damaged minds. Such is James Moriarty’s insanity and determination to destroy Holmes that he takes his own life. This Moriarty was everything that the big screen version wasn’t.

I was also impressed, and a little disturbed, to see a piece of what can only be described as “matter” floating in the pool of Moriarty’s blood.

Though Sherlock calls John from the rooftop, and insists he is a fake, John does not believe him. John cannot believe him because he knows him, and though I said everyone knows Sherlock Holmes survives the Reichenbach Falls, and though I knew a third series had been commissioned, there seemed to be no way that the great detective could have survived that fall.

We see the body, bloodied from falling face-down on the pavement, see John’s hurt as his best friend is stolen away from him, by Death and by ambulance-men. At Sherlock Holmes grave, John begs for one last miracle: for Sherlock to be alive. Hollywood would have had him appear behind the doctor, but Sherlock did not go to him, did not arrest his grieving.

Incidentally- it didn’t take the mind of Sherlock Holmes to realise that what John Watson really should have said at his best friend’s graveside was “I love you.” I think it must be the mark of well-written characters that were they human, they would have no choice but to love each other. The reason is this: they have been so well-crafted to suit each other that they could not possibly exist without the other.

One day I hope to give birth to characters like those. Wish me luck.

Name That Cat

I just thought of an idea for a new game show, because I just realised that, even if I wanted to go to bed, I couldn't, because my bed has been taken over by a skinny tomcat called... well, that's just it. My cat doesn't have a name.

It's pretty much up to whoever's in the house to give him whatever name they want. So far, in alphabetical order, he's been called Bob, Bobby, Bobs, Cat, Cath, Chat, Mao, Robbo, Robert, Roberto, Robs and Socks. We haven't even had him three months.

At the moment, my least favourite is Socks, followed closely by Bobs. Up until recently, I pretty much called him Robbo, but the latest guest in our house started calling him Mao and it's kind of got stuck for me. Seeing as I mew at him anyway, to irritate him or something. How do you irritate a cat? It's difficult.

Anyway, any new ideas, send them to me.

I handled a puppy today. Probably not the best idea for someone who sees a dog and instantly wants to kill it, but it had escaped its house, and the owner was obviously struggling to get it back inside. I don't think the owner would have been keen if I'd let it run or just strangled it while I had the chance.

It surprised me how trusting it was. It felt really weird.

It's probably not dogs I hate; it's dog people. The people who think dogs have anywhere near as much value as humans. Well, they can lower themselves to that level, but they mustn't be surprised when I refuse to join them.

Then there's the people who let their dogs defecate in public spaces, and then don't clear it up.I'm sorry! Do these scum think the world owes them something? Do they think it's okay for them to leave actual faeces lying about in the sun for flies to breed in and spread disease? Or for small children to fall over in? (Actually, that's quite funny, so long as you don't have to clean the child in question.)

Next time you see one of these worthless, inconsiderate, expendable wastes of human flesh, tell them that they've dropped something. Do it for me, before I have an aneurysm.

Now it's time for the reviews. I've been revisiting a couple of things in the past few days.

First up, it was The Young Ones. 28 years on, it's still got a certain quality to it. It's a violent-slapstick, alternative comedy look at the nuclear family. Vyvyan will always be one of my favourite comedy characters. Unnecessary violence, the ability to eat everything and short bursts of incredible lucidity and possibly even genius (well, he is a medical student) make him absolutely brilliant. Also, everyone knows a Rick, the revolutionary who thinks Che Guevara is a Mexican restaurant.

I think I'm more of a Neil myself. He's calm, passive, keeps the place neat and tidy. He's the mother figure. That's just me all over. I'm well into peace and love and lentils and the rest of it.

I hate Mike, because he's pointless. He's supposed to be cool, and respected, but he's more of a loser than the rest of them. Aside from Mike, the other bad points were the talking scenery, which I don't think works anymore, and the dwarf in the episode 'Boring'. Dwarves just aren't funny, especially not when they're painted. In fact, they're rarely not.

Though, aside from the mindless violence and cute destruction of even the fourth wall, there is one last redeeming feature: the music. We need music back in sitcoms. Hell, we need Madness back in sitcoms, and not just doing adverts on GOLD. The Young Ones gets 4 stars.

I also re-watched Sherlock Holmes, the Guy Ritchie film. That took me by surprise, because I didn't like it. Everything I loved about that film, it turns out, is just Arthur Conan Doyle, and okay, a nice bit of bromance. There's my point though: get lost, Irene Adler! Mary's not much better, but at least she knows her place. It's not her fault she's just not pretty.

I think the issue Ritchie was always going to have was making a good film without gratuitous swearing or violence. That's what made Lock, Stock so brilliant: in particular, a joke involving the c-word that I won't repeat here.

Oh, it's clever. But nowhere near enough, not after seeing the BBC adaptation, not after reading the books and knowing what can be done. I think the trouble was, I hated the bad guy. Really, you've got to love the bad guy, and hate yourself for it. Blackwood was ugly, and we never saw enough of Moriarty.

Now, Moriarty was something the BBC did oh so well. That line, "Westwood." It just gets me. The film though, 3 stars, though I await the sequel with interest.

Oh, what else? Ah yes. Come Dine With Me. The narrator's mellowing, as are the guests. Bring back the bitching! This week, someone nearly vommed listening to an anecdote about phlegm, and someone else was made to cry. It's not enough! Daggers out, please! Two stars.

Oh, arsehole of the week: bloke who bought the violin I was trying to buy at a flea market for £12 and refused to sell it to me for any less than £30. May everyone urinate haphazardly on his shallow grave.

And now, a rant

NO!

I'm not even anywhere near done on the ranting front, let me warn you.

Right now, I am sitting all sleepy-eyed in my pyjamas when I should actually have been asleep, having done what I needed to do an hour and a half ago. But I'm not. In fact, I just had more hassle than I needed.

This was my plan: today, I would wake up at 0650 in order to buy tickets to Chelsea-Blackpool the second they came out, thus ensuring two seats in Matthew Harding Upper, the best stand by far. It was a brilliant plan, but unfortunately not one that came into fruition as my mobile ran out of battery and my alarm failed to go off.

It would have been a brilliant alarm as well. Linkin Park's 'Given Up' (which is a song that will give a half-awake person a coronary if they don't turn it off in time) with the text "GET  UP. NOW."

As it was, I had a dream about holding a housewarming party with somebody who I'd never met, but I was going to be living with. We had races to open the door to the guests, and it was a bit petty, but then he bought me a scotch egg from the inexplicably noisy canteen next door and I woke up happy.

I wasn't happy about two seconds later when I realised I'd woken up naturally rather than being dragged back into the land of the living. As quick as I could, I typed my ticket request.

At that moment, I felt I was probably entitled to shout "bugger", because the tickets had gone. So had the tickets in Shed Upper and Matthew Harding Lower (East). My dream of watching a decent match in a decent stand was fading.

By the way, if you don't understand football, like a lot of people, you'll have to understand that every match is a pretty big deal. Matches are like plays, there's drama and excitement, and the best soundtrack you could have hoped for. It releases a beautiful chemical enjoyment, and I never got that from basketball or ice hockey, nor cricket.

I did however, find tickets in Matthew Harding Lower (West). This was accompanied by a countdown clock to tell me how long it was before these tickets were given to someone else. 5 minutes and counting. Well, of course, I nearly died, because though it's a reasonable length of time, there's nothing like a ticking red clock to make you nervous. Thankfully I had my debit card in hand, typed in my details and hit Enter.

No. I'd forgotten to tick the box for Terms & Conditions (which, incidentally, I didn't read, no, because I only had 4 minutes 48, 47, 46...) so I had to go back and do that.

No. I hadn't put in an expiry date the second time around. So I did that, made sure none of the other boxes had randomly emptied themselves (which, curiously, they hadn't).

No. Card not accepted. Well, that was it. I tried again, but the same result.

I knocked on my parents' bedroom door and asked for a credit card. My mother told me somewhere the card wasn't, so I ran around the house looking for where it was.

Anyway, I got the card, and started typing in the number. To my surprise, the number on my dad's card was exactly the same as the card number I had already typed into the box. How could this be?

I'll tell you how. In my half-awake stupor, I had seen that, when I started typing my card number into the box, it Autocompleted for me. I thought: how kind. Rather than check that the number was mine, which it wasn't, I simply carried on.

It's even an avoidable mistake! I know my debit card number BY HEART. The thing is though, who thought it was a good idea to Autocomplete debit card details? That's just asking for trouble.

I typed in my actual card details and completed the transaction. I don't want to look at the state of my bank account just yet. I'm going to be keeping my accounts, though, because I have a pretty tight budget for the next year. Well, it looks alright, but I'm sure it'll be tight. I'm looking forward to it, though, trying to be responsible.

Speaking of responsible, I have a driving lesson today. I don't want to go.

I just have the one review for you today, and it's a book: Arthur Conan Doyle's 'A Study In Scarlet'. Well, I thought it was brilliant, and unexpectedly funny in places. Well, I think it was funny. It made me laugh anyway. Sherlock Holmes is undoubtedly one of the most interesting characters ever written, and Watson is so frequently poorly represented in films and television serials. Adaptations often have him appearing as a kind of butler, which he really wasn't.

The deductive process is remarkable. The second part of the book takes you through what Holmes had worked out in the first. A lot of people criticise the book for the fact that Holmes is absent for about half the book, but it doesn't matter in my eyes. You just get a chance to figure out what Holmes already has from much better evidence.

And it's amazing, because it's still believable, it's still achievable. It has dated a little, though, and Holmes is altogether too bright for me. I don't expect people warmed to dark characters like they do now. Four stars.