Sherlock Holmes, master detective, and quite the character. As a younger man I read the stories and loved his brilliant mind. I also loved the fact he loved morphine. If nothing else Sherlock and I had that in common. Any man who doesn’t love morphine is no man I would admire or respect.
When you step back from it though, Holmes should have been a bit hard to take. Arrogant, over-bearing, patronising, prone to dissemblance and with quite the ego, but it all worked set in the surroundings of the late 1800s, early 1900s. Horses and carriages, street urchins, disguises, opium dens, Holmes’ getting one over on the police, it all just fit.
So, having heard good things about the new Sherlock on BBC I watched the one on Sunday night. At first, admittedly, over the top of my newspaper – for I only take a newspaper on Sundays – but I got into it and went right to the end. My initial thought: this new Sherlock is a cunt.
The stuff about Holmes that should have been hard to take back in the day is now almost impossible. Holmes with an iPhone is, in theory, a nice way of bringing him up to date but he just looks like a wanker. And why does the iPhone make ‘clicky clicky’ old-style keypad sounds when he types on it? The erudite charm of the older Holmes is now pompous conceit and I can’t stand his hair or his stupid head or his long coat.
Older Holmes was never going to win any personality contests but they’ve made the new one completely and utterly dislikeable. He’s too cold. He’s just a fucking cunt who needs a good slap and his iPhone shoved up his hole. The bits where Holmes makes his famous deductions seem more like outrageous plot jumps than brilliant thinking.
He nearly got killed by a giant Jew on Sunday and then along came Moriarty who sounds like he’s auditioning for a Hollywood diddly-eye Irish epic. I’d forgive him that if he put one between Sherlock’s eyes though.
have watched a few of them and don’t think they’re too bad except for the annoying cunt who plays watson. whole point of holmes is that he isn’t your usual hero – he’s pretty much a sociopath who happens to be more or less on the side of the law. always liked that there was so little difference between him and moriarty. anyway, ownership of any apple product will automatically make its owner a pretentious wanker
i thought it was great! i only saw the first one but i thoroughly enjoyed it, very well written. i always thought holmes was cold, he is, after all, a sociopath and i dont think they could have brought him into the 90s any better. the clicky click is the default setting for the iphone text.
They’ve just got the balance wrong, imo. Old Holmes was all of the things you say but you never wanted to smash his face in with a brick.
posted with my iPad emulator on my iPhone
the clicky click is the default setting for the iphone text.
No, there’s a click but this sound is like the sound of pressing buttons, if you get me.
Two words; Basil Rathbone
I didn’t like it much either, I thought Jeremy Brett was the best Holmes ever. Maybe we could ask the new guy to look into “the strange case of the appearing mobile phone invoices”
I liked it overall, but it seems to be done in such a way as to go after the American network market. Maybe a Rome-style joint venture with someone like HBO would’ve taken the shackles off and made it more compelling, but done this way I’m pretty sure it will succeed anyway.
There wouldn’t have been enough copulating with slaves for the Rome guys. That was an underrated series though.
Tomo – agree re: Jeremy Brett.
Basil Rathbone was the man alright. I thought about looking at this latest effort on BBC iPlayer and didn’t make it past the opening …
Looks like they are trying to cross Dr Who with Sherlock Holmes and they can fuck off with that.
By the way if you are into Holmes you can visit 22b Baker Street which is a restuarant and they have a bobby in the old style helmet outside … they have a set of rooms upstairs that are done out like in the Conan Doyle description.
I neraly got fucked out for asking why there was no cocaine or morphine syringes lying around. The fella was a bit annoyed I think.
Idris Elba would make a good Holmes. I’d watch it if he was in it.
This is nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes, but reminds me of the Green Desecration conversation of the other day.
http://www.sadanduseless.com/image.php?n=658
What of the Robt Downey Jnr film of the same subject?
I like it. Although Rathbone is the definitive Holmes for me…
jeremy brett all the way – got the balance of camp, distain and insanity just right!
The Robert Downey Jr film was atrocious. One of the worst films I’ve ever seen.
Guy Richie also needs his face bricked in
It’s just TV stupiding up stuff because they think people can’t concentrate anymore. Or they don’t want them to.
“jeremy brett all the way – got the balance of camp,
distain and insanity just right!”
Spot on.
This new Sherlock’s eyes are too far apart.
The actor’s name should’ve hinted at the fact that he was going to be cuntish…. Benedict Cumberbatch indeed.
Jeremy Brett WAS Holmes, but this show is fine too.
Moriarty was hilarious, camp and a big meanie,
his ‘no you won’t’ was pure pantomime.
Can’t wait for next week’s installment. Which no doubt you will also watch over the top of your paper.
Did anybody think that the fella playing Moriarty looked a bit like Cesc Fabrigas?
I rarely watch television and so can’t comment on this recent Holmes, but you ould do a lot worse than seeking out a DVD of Billy Wilder’s 1970 film, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.
Funny, droll, and doesn’t shrink from detailing his drug habits.
Some quotes from it…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066249/quotes
[Holmes is about to inject cocaine]
Watson: Where’s your self-control?
Holmes: Fair question.
Watson: Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?
Holmes: Thoroughly. This will take care of it
…………………………………………………………………………..
Holmes: Look at this: an urgent appeal to find some missing midgets.
Watson: Did you say “midgets”?
Holmes: Six of them, the Tumbling Piccolos, an acrobatic act of some circus.
Watson: [Reading the letter] Disappeared between London and Bristol. Well don’t you find that intriguing?
Holmes: Extremely so. You see, they’re not only midgets, but also anarchists.
Watson: Anarchists?
Holmes: By now, they have been smuggled to Vienna, dressed as little girls in organdy pinafores. They are to greet the czar of all the Russias when he arrives at the railway station. They will be carrying bouquets of flowers, and concealed in each bouquet will be a bomb with a lit fuse.
Watson: [Breathlessly] You really think so?
Holmes: Not at all. The circus owner offers me five pounds for my services. That’s not even a pound a midget. So obviously, he’s a stingy blighter and the little chaps simply ran off to join another circus.
Watson: [Crestfallen] It sounded so promising.
Brett was by far the best.
Does the new incarnation smoke ?
this is my favorite holmes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx4nPK-Bs6g
Maggot: Does the new incarnation smoke ?
He has an app for that. The cunt.
“Did anybody think that the fella playing Moriarty looked a bit like Cesc Fabrigas?”
YES! Crossed with Graham Norton.
“Did anybody think that the fella playing Moriarty looked a bit like Cesc Fabrigas?”
but not as much as Robert Downey Jnr looks like Xavi
Jeremy Brett IS Sherlock Holmes, and this latest offering is a boy, not a man.
It’s not serious enough, and I hate serious stories being dumbed down for the simple!
The Guy Ritchie Holmes was too American, and is obviously aimed at the American market. Jeremy Brett as Holmes is intense, demented, troubled, addicted, and a genius.
My ideal man!!!
Johnny Depp’s character in From hell is exactly what I expect a Sherlock Holmes to be (even if the character had a different name). A brilliant, suicidal opium addict.
Haven’t checked out this BBC series yet, but it sounds like they’re trying to cross Holmes with House MD. Like the new Dr Who, it’ll probably be absolutely shit.
The Americans just wipe the floor with anyone else when it comes to amazingly well made TV series.
I didn’t mind the movie too much. Robert Downey Jr. may be the best actor in Hollywood in the last 20 years. You know there’s going to be at least 2 or three more sequels…
He’s got a new movie with Zac Galafanakis soon. looking forward to that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGpJUh9j-jU
I won’t hear any complaining and misery. Not today, no sir.
Due date isn’t out til November.
Motherfuckers.
Ok, well that was fairly hilarious. But could the movie be as good as the trailer?
dunno it. must read the dude. tv is generally shit. exception is channel 4 docs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=117Ole9MO2w&feature=fvw
I’m complaining and moaning. that trailer left me not laughing. it reminded me of a series I’ve never seen, Friends.
A good script makes a good movie, he certainly ain’t the best actor coming out of hollywood in the last twenty years.
complain, moan, complain, moan (though Idid like the larry script above)
‘he certainly ain’t the best actor coming out of hollywood in the last twenty years’.
Its completely subjective and open to debate. How do you agree on a parameter measuring greatness?
But even so Itchy, i’m definitely right and you’re probably wrong.
Jo – here’s hoping.
heh
what about bette davis? eh?
Sherlock doesn’t use an iPhone twenty, he uses something like a blackberry or a nokia e71. That’s why it sounds like he’s pushing buttons; he is.
The iPhone belonged to Moriarty (or rather, was sent to Holmes by Moriarty).
And Holmes is *supposed* to be a cunt. He was in the original stories as well, it’s just that he was living in a city full of them so you thought it was just “period”. This new version is far truer to the spirit of the thing by highlighting the point that Holmes was a high-functioning sociopath, not merely a very clever man.
I see what you’re saying but he’s still a cunt. None of the other Holmes were that dislikeable.
Yes they were! It’s just that it’s dismissed as the typical behaviour of an english gentleman of the period. But even amongst that collection of unpleasant company, he stood apart. London at the time was rife with crime of all kinds, but he spends days burning cigars so he can write a monograph on comparative ash analysis? Git.
RDJ is so bloody over rated. He’s RDJ in every movie he is in.
I spend most of my days burning cigarette ash and nobody lets me wear a deerstalker hat. Cunts.
Bette Davis.
Well played sir…