A Conversation with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Robert Downey Jr. is the man of the moment right now with The Avengers hulk smashing box office records everywhere (don't you love it when we cinema-goers are brought together by one particularly awesome movie?). So what would be better than to look back at his box office hit from last year (earlier this year, if we're going by NZ time), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows? I mean, it ain't no Avengers, but RDJ is still cool no matter what, right guys?

CHRISTOPHER: It has been a while since I've talked to a manly movie. I don't know why I always get saddled with the girly movies. 
SHERLOCK HOLMES 2: Is it because you give off a girly impression?

C: Eh?
SH2: Well, I've been observing your other conversations, and let's just say, you didn't fit the bill as a Greek God, you lost a duel with a ginger cat who wears shoes, and you somehow convinced New Year's Eve that it's sequel should be based around Queen's Birthday. Does that not strike you as a little girly?

C: I guess your observations make you a super detective then, huh?
SH2: I'm knee-deep in the single most important case of my career.

C: What, investigating my suspected girly-ness?
SH2: Yes. The second is stopping the collapse of the Western civilisation. The third is being a movie worthy of Robert Downey Jr's awesomeness.

C: Ah, I imagine that is quite hard. 
SH2: I don't know how The Avengers did it. Something I should observe next, I suspect.

C: You mentioned preventing the collapse of the Western civilisation. What's that all about?
SH2: You see, Professor Moriarty is under the impression that he can just take down the Western civilisation and get away with it. But not without the help of a certain Sherlock Holmes, his long-suffering associate Dr. Watson, his brother Mycroft and a gypsy named Sim. 

C: From my observations (see, I have some of my own), Sim is played by Noomi Rapace. Wasn't she the original girl with the dragon tattoo? Couldn't she just have figured everything out herself?
SH2: No, you idiot. First of all, Noomi Rapace isn't going to be the girl with the dragon tattoo forever. Second of all, she doesn't have a dragon tattoo. I...checked. Finally, the girl with the dragon tattoo was good with computer hacking. The only hacking I know of is taking an axe to something. And I have a gun for that, so there you go.

C: Alright, then...
SH2: Plus, the girl with the dragon tattoo has nothing on a certain Sherlock Holmes!

C: Okay, I get it. So you are the sequel of a semi popular 2009 movie. How do you feel that you stack up compared to that one?
SH2: I appear to have a lot more slow motion.

C: What if people don't particularly take to slow motion?
SH2: Then they might not really appreciate me. But they'll probably appreciate Robert Downey Jr's awesomeness. Even in drag.


C: I'm sure not having Mark Strong as your villain is a great disservice.
SH2: We tried to get him back and just wear a prosthetic mask, but we realised that was just too Mission Impossible.

C: But Mission Impossible is actually okay.
SH2: There's no impossible missions for a certain Sherlock Holmes!

C: Apart from maybe being a movie worthy of Robert Downey Jr's awesomeness?
SH2: That is going to be the subject of the sequel. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Not Being Robert Downey Jr's Shadow. 

What I got:

Come and Dream with Me.

Film: Hugo
Year: 2011
Director: Martin Scorsese
Written by: John Logan
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Helen McCrory, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jude Law.
Running time: 126 min.

Here it is. Martin Scorsese's first foray into the dreaded world of 3D, which also happens to be a kids movie. But is Hugo really a kids movie? No. Here is a movie that kids could probably watch, but by the several high-pitched murmurs I heard from the few kids at the viewing, I don't think that they were all that enthralled. Yet, between all of the recycled chases through the train station and a villain who is perhaps just there for the sake of  having a villain, we have Martin Scorsese's extremely personal love letter to cinema and all of its magic. It is a movie that could prove enjoyable to the adults, who choose to see through its many flaws and see a passionate look at film shine through. There is nostalgia everywhere, both in the way of going to the cinemas for the first time, or having a nice, family friendly adventure just like they used to make them - without talking animals. But for kids, if they're not enthralled, get them at the right age and they might take something very special away from it: going to the movies is a magical experience, and it always has been. However, that is a message that doesn't even get recognised until the second half of the movie.

"Don't talk to anyone. Don't touch anyone."

Film: Contagion
Year: 2011
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Written by: Scott Z. Burns
Starring: Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle, John Hawkes, Bryan Cranston, Elliott Gould, Sanaa Lathan, Anna Jacoby-Heron.
Running time: 106 min.

Contagion is exactly what I like to see as a film. When I go to the cinemas, there's a huge part of me that just wants to be entertained. Because, after all, that's the main purpose of films: to entertain the audience. But one thing that I like more than entertainment in films is to feel like I'm part of an experience. Like the world outside that cinema doesn't matter anymore. I am taken in by this film, drawn into the atmosphere it has created, only to be snapped out of it when the credits start rolling, and even then I take a bit of my experience away from me. Probably the only time that I've felt part of an experience with a 2011 film was when I saw Midnight in Paris. While it was not realistic in anyway, just the nostalgia and enchantment made me happy to be right with Owen Wilson meeting famous people from a bygone era. Even though Midnight in Paris is still my favourite film of the year, Contagion blew that cinematic experience out of the water. With this film, I was instantly drawn into the world of fear, paranoia and total destruction, and felt like I too could be running for my life. Now I'm constantly aware of when my hands are touching my face, or touching anything. I'm literally going to buy a box of hand sanitizer. Film-makers may be throwing lots and lots of money into making their movies into 3D so people can feel part of an 'experience', but that's only an artificial experience. Contagion, however, uses old-fashioned story-telling to show something that is perfectly realistic. And it is a great experience, indeed.

Cold Mountain

I had borrowed Cold Mountain from a friend way back in April, and now, close to the end of August, I have finally gotten around to watching it. Yes, I know I may just be the slackest person ever. Oh, and I should probably tell you that I didn't watch it just because Cillian Murphy is in it for two minutes. I watched it because it basically looked like an R16 version of Gone with the Wind. And no, I don't mean that in a bad way.
We follow the story of a wounded Confederate soldier named Inman (Jude Law) who struggles on a perilous journey to get back home to Cold Mountain in North Carolina, as well as to Ada (Nicole Kidman), the woman he left behind before going off to fight in the American Civil War. Along the way, he meets a long line of interesting and colorful characters, while back at home, Ada is learning the ropes of managing her dead father's farm with Ruby (Renee Zellweger), a scrappy drifter who assists and teaches Ada along the way.

People always go on about how Cold Mountain was made just as an Oscar movie. That could be true, as it reeks of Oscar, but who says that is a bad thing? The film deserved Oscars. The performances from all of the ensemble cast, but especially Zellweger, were all pitch perfect and somewhat true to the time period as opposed to the modern take many stars try to bring to stories like this. It's one of the most classically done period pieces that would still appeal to the modern audience. A lot of period films that have come out in the past ten years have either succeeded in capturing the period but not the audience, or capturing the audience but not the time period. Cold Mountain so wonderfully does this, with it's brutality and also an interesting love story.

Amazingly, this is the first love story which I have enjoyed in a while. Forget that new comedy Going the Distance, Ada and Inman show you how the long distance relationship is done. Their relationship was so interesting that I was shocked to tears in the end...not something that a romance does easily for me. This movie is just so beautiful through and through, and does well to capture the hardships and horror cause by the Civil War. I do like to think of this as the film Gone with the Wind would have been if it had been made in more recent times.

A beautifully made and acted film, a classic romance that will sweep you away yet shock you to the core.

10/10