When I was tweleve and reading the stories for the first time, certainly "porn" that wasn't even in the vocabulary, I just knew I liked it. I loved the stories. I loved that for once the smart people won. It didn't hurt that the smart guy was also a bad@$$. It was all the things I wanted to be. It was like I had found my own people.
I am nowhere near that smart, though if there was a class based on the Science of Deduction, or a way to train my brain to do some of those things, I might just attempt it. Minus the cocaine, morphine, tobacco, and opium.
Every Halloween, I start to yearn for certain movies. One of them is Young Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Barry Levinson, written by Chris Columbus, and produced by Spielberg (I think), it's quality from the get go. There's no one that you'll recognize. Absolutely no one. (But Nicholas Sebastien Rowe who plays Holmes has extremely curly hair, and I think that is where I can trace my attraction to guys with curly hair comes from.)
The film takes place at a boarding school. Sherlock is there as a young man, John Watson is a transfer student from a school in the country. They meet and Watson is brought into the world of Sherlock Holmes, just at the moment when a puzzling series of events has occurred. There's human sacrifice, murders, hallucinations, guilt, betrayal, blackmail, chanting Egyptian Cults, revenge, lost love, murder... And a whole score with moments that echo back to Carmina Burana by Karl Orf.
This is made in 1986, and was nominated for an Oscar in the category of best visual effects. But it was also 1986. So those amazing effects then may seem common place now. But they never seem hokey.
An excellent story, with great acting, and a wonderful imaginative beginning to the Holmes and Watson world, Young Sherlock Holmes is perfect for a cold autumn night, or any other time really.
Here's a scene. (funny how it hearkens to the new Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes....)
Then of course, the next Sherlock Holmes was the Jeremy Brett incarnation from Granada TV. This is the version you probably watched in Middle School when you read Sherlock Holmes. Jeremy Brett is awesome, and stands as the touchstone for most Sherlockians. He passed away, sadly, some years ago, while portraying Holmes... Also stragely enough, when you get into Brett's biography, he began to almost FEAR Holmes as a person, or as a part of himself. He found it very difficult to leave that role on the stage and to continue outside life. Brett referred to Holmes as You-Know-Who or HIM.
He's more of the well refined, almost extravagent, theatrical, closest to the literary depiction. While there's nothing to garner attention sensually or attractively, he's still classic.
This is a clip from The Final Problem between Holmes and Moriarty.
But my new love is the BBC Sherlock Holmes with Benedict Cummerbatch as Holmes.
A reimagination, placing Holmes and Watson in the 21st century. John Watson is a British soldier/dr veteran, wounded in the Middle East. Holmes is a scientist who works at a university and freelances with the police. Lestrade is there and calls on him, while the rest of the force views Holmes with disdain and call him Freak. The interpertation is excellent. That keen deduction is all there. The rapid fire shooting of intellect, adventure and mystery is all over the place. But unlike Jeremy Brett's portrayal which is almost at points a little too saintly, we see this Holmes with all his warts. (When Lestrade decides to harass Holmes, they call a Drug bust on his flat. Watson, newly moved in is certain it's all unfounded, while Holmes is sweating bullets..)
I absolutely LOVE this. And he has the curly hair.
Just awesome. Amazingly written, fantastically interperted, just awesome. Nothing but awesome. Go watch it. Netflix it. Amazon or pbs.org it. But go watch it. It has been picked up for a second season on the BBC, though it will probably only be about three 90 minutes episodes. Still amazing though. You will absolutely not be disappointed.
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