Year of an Indie Writer: Week 33 AKA What a Difference a Week Makes

What a difference a week makes.

If you tuned in last week, I wrote a "What's the point?" post in which I wondered why a creative (notice, not just writer) should keep working. I came around to my own conclusion.

We creatives all go through times like these where the urge to just throw in the towel is so dang strong. It would be so, so easy to just give up. And no one would notice.
Fight through those tough times. Persevere. Keep going.
Why? Back to Jay's first item: because you love it.
That's the point. 

This week, I remembered why I love storytelling so much. But I almost threw in the towel on one story.

New Thriller Story

A few weeks ago, I was invited to submit a crime/mystery/thriller story for a yet-to-be-named anthology. The deadline was 15 August. Sure, I thought, when I first got the invitation, I've got a story. It's already started. All I have to do is finish it. I'll have it way before the deadline.

But I didn't. The story remained elusive. I had the first half of the story already written, but it was listless. I was listless. I'd wake up at my morning writing times and chose to write a blog post. I just wasn't into the story. Even as I wrote my "What's the Point?" post last Friday, I was ready to email the editor and bow out. I hesitated, deciding to give myself Monday.

Monday came. Monday went. No good progress on the story. The deadline was Thursday. There was just no way to satisfactorily finish this story. Tuesday morning's session came and went. I got into the shower to get ready for work. I was going to email the editor later that day.

And something clicked. The thrill that passed through me as one small piece of the puzzle fell into place. It was the crucial piece, the keystone of the whole tale. I smiled in the shower. I wasn't going to email the editor at noon. I was going to move the story forward.

I moved it forward 1,450 words that lunch hour. I was on a roll. Then I had to get back to the day job. Later that evening, I read the opening to my wife. She liked it. A pretty good indicator considering she doesn't read this kind of story.

Wednesday morning and lunch came and went. More words. More progress. I needed to stick the landing, so I let my mind churn on it. I was done by Thursday morning's writing session. The lunch hour was proof hour. Came home and sent it to the editor.

It was the high point, creatively, for the week. I cannot control what any reader thinks, including the editor. Maybe this yarn won't even fit the vibe of the anthology and the story'll come back. All of that doesn't matter. All that matters was how excited I was to write the tale, how excited I was to read it aloud to my wife, and how excited I was to have completed another story.

And, perhaps, launched a series.

That is why I do this.

Then I got a reward in the form of another blog post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Expect Success

Please tell me you read Rusch's Thursday posts on here blog. For the past few weeks, she's been discussing licensing. This week, she took a break and focused on success, specifically the mental fortitude one needs to strive for success.

Boy, was it exciting. And sobering. And thrilling. And daunting.

But most of all, it was encouraging. It's not a magic potion. Being creative is work. Sometimes, like this week, the work is tremendous. Other times, like all those hours before Tuesday for me, it's frustrating. But it's still something for which to strive.

Toward the end of the piece, Kris talks about what to  do when we creatives face challenges. One is to print her blog and re-read it. Another is to purchase the book she mentions. I've bookmarked the piece and will come back to it whenever I feel like throwing in the towel.

She ends like this:

Maybe you should ask yourself what terrifies you the most about the possibility of success.
Expect success. And then work for it. Each and every day.

The Elementary Finale

Going in, I knew the tears would come. Even if the episode was just a mystery-of-the-week, saying good-bye to this version of Holmes and Watson was going to be difficult. Because I loved them. I'm not going to get into a tit for tat as to which version of Sherlock Holmes is the best. Jeremy Brett pretty much nailed the traditional version. The BBC Sherlock was a nice updating of the original canon. I also enjoyed Robert Downey, Jr.'s version quite a bit.

But Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes evolved. That's what it comes down to for me. And he was simply brilliant. He showed a broken man with immense mental gifts that were also a curse. He learned to broaden his self-centered life, even though it often proved very difficult. Miller's acting acumen was on full display every week. The seven-year arc of this version of Holmes was a joy to witness, and the finale was beautiful.

Many thought the stunt casting of Lucy Liu was just that. Hogwash. She took what was traditionally side-kick role and made Watson equal to Holmes. She learned, she excelled, and she often beat Holmes to the deduction. And she always had her partner's back. Always. From the jump, I loved the idea of the gender swap. It was something different. Creator Robert Doherty re-imagined Holmes, Watson, and the canon. The show was not slavishly trying to mimic the canon. It was inspired by it. The show lived and breathed

Many also predicted Holmes and Watson would hook up. I never figured it would happen, and glad it didn't. What emerged was a deep love between two characters that needed no romance. The finale showed that to the full extent.

Season 6's finale was all but perfect. Season 7's was just as good. All the tears. All the feels. All the love. I will so miss this show, but I'm so glad it went out on a high note before the quality started to drop.

As I wrote on Twitter:

Perfect casting from day one. Perfect ending. Incredible writing for a complex pair of characters and actors who love each other deeply. So well done. That is how you create a fulfilling finale. 

The Crushing Weight of Canon

At my book club this past Tuesday, we discussed Andy Weir’s new novel, ARTEMIS. Generally, we all liked it. The grades for all five of us averaged out to somewhere in the B range. One of our fellows—the one who gave it the lowest grade—said this about the book: without the nifty descriptions of the workings of Artemis, the only city on the moon, the book and plot are quite slight.  Another person asked what has become, perhaps, an obvious question in this modern day and age: Did we think ARTEMIS had any connection or lived in the same universe as Weir’s other novel, THE MARTIAN?
The question led us down a rabbit trail of observations. ARTEMIS is a slim book and it achieved a good blend of world building without pages and pages of backstory and exposition. The talk quickly went back to the classic SF novels of the 1950s through the 1970s when major classics like RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA were not very thick. More importantly with RAMA, not all questions were answered. Why? One possibility was that Arthur. C. Clarke wanted readers to think, to wonder, and, perhaps, to finish the book each in their own way.

Cut to modern times. For this mental exercise, I’m landing more or less at 1980. In the past four decades, we have seen the rise of thicker and thicker genre novels with tons of world building. Some readers are cool with that. I am, too, but only to a degree. In addition, there was the rise of role playing game source books, with every minute detail laid out for the players to pore over, memorize, and internalize. More and more media products—books, comics, movies, TV, games—all began to have their own internal source bibles, a canon. The original sixty Sherlock Holmes stories are called “The Canon.” Serialized TV shows began to have an overarching “mythology” and writers of all stripes were steered back into the canonized boundaries.

That’s all well and good and I frankly love it when a later-season episode of The X-Files refers back to something I remembered from season 1. I’m a fan. I dig it. Ditto for Batman comics and Marvel movies and even modern-day Doc Savage novels. Speaking of Savage, when Philip Jose Farmer went to craft his "biography" of Doc, Farmer said he had the devil of a time because he was having to codify—Canonize—the work of a dozen authors over 181 novels all to meet a deadline.

But along the way, The Canon (and here, I use it in a general sense for any given property) begins to weigh down imagination. The most recent Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, was, I think, burdened with the crushing weight of Canonized Star Wars. Force projection? That can’t be done. Force Space Flying? That can’t be done. Ships jumping to light speed against and through another ship? That can’t be done.

Why? Because canon dictated it.

Well, so what?

On the one hand, director and writer Rian Johnson probably butted up against established canon and had someone tell him ‘no.’ On the other hand, his decision was to burst the bubble of canon and tell a story outside the canon. Granted, he has now made new canon and has expanded the boundaries of what can be done with Star Wars, but that’s kind of what I’m talking about. The boundaries of certain properties get so rigid that someone needs to come along and just blow them up and reform them anew. Give writers a chance to expand a canon while still respecting it. More often than not, the breath of fresh air given a property will satisfy.

Oh, and we all agreed that ARTEMIS and THE MARTIAN are likely not in the same universe. We all agreed that it was a good thing. Two stories, well told, and each could be enjoyed on their own.

Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova

I think it’s safe to say we all admire Sherlock Holmes’s brain, reasoning ability, and sheet intellect yet shy away from his more esoteric qualities like tobacco and drug use. When we read Holmes’s adventures, we see ourselves as Dr. Watson, the common man so to speak, who can’t fathom Holmes’s techniques ahead of time but the truth becomes crystal clear after the great detective reveals his methods.

Well, Maria Konnikova, PhD in psychology, is here to say that you and me, indeed each of us has, within ourselves the capability to train our minds to think like Holmes. For even Sherlock wasn’t born Sherlock Holmes.

The key quality in all of her remarkable book is that Holmes has “a method of mindful interaction with the world.” To make Konnikova’s point more succinct, Holmes was always in the moment. He didn’t multitask, but devoted his entire brain to the problem at hand. True, he lived in an era without smartphones, the internet, television, and all the other media glaring at our minds and eyes for attention, but he lived in arguably the most advanced town of his time. As did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who created Holmes. We, too, can train our minds and our attention to interact with our modern world in a manner such as Holmes.

Like the modern version of Holmes in the BBC show “Sherlock,” Konnikova uses Holmes’s own comment about a mind attic as the basis for how we can train our brains. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock calls it his mind palace, the place where he stores all the information in its own specific place. It’s an ancient technique developed by the Greeks, but in the age of Google, perhaps the need for our own mind attics has lessened. Not so, says Konnikova, but with a caveat. You see, our mind attics are only good if we know where to find a piece of information and can retrieve it. But, as a point she makes late in the book, as long as we remember where and how to retrieve a piece of information—even if it’s on Wikipedia—we can retain the knowledge. So, is Google our collective mind attic? Maybe.

In recent months, however, I’ve begun not to reach reflexively for my phone if I can’t remember a fact I know I have learned. I give it five minutes or so, often spending a good minute trying to pull the data point out of my brain before I move on to a different task. Little did I know that technique—Konnikova calls it mindful distraction—is exactly what Holmes often did. She uses various scenes and quotes from the canon to illustrate a point, like this one from “The Red-Headed League.” Mindful distraction—where you take your mind off the immediate problem and focus your conscious mind on a different task—relegates the problematic thought to the subconscious. More often than not, the solution will manifest itself. It’s a rush when I actually remember the data point without resorting to the “source of all truth.”

Konnikova’s book is chuck full of examples of how to think differently, coupled with research and examples you can do yourself. Some are a bit more difficult when you listen to the audio, like I did, but nonetheless worthwhile. What’s especially good is when she lays out a regimen of how to retrain the brain. As 2018 is only eleven days old and I’ve already begun mindfully reading the books on my bookshelf, I think, too, I’ll work on my brain. It is, after all, the main reason I bought this book on New Year’s Day…2014.

Favorite TV Shows of 2016

The year 2016 saw the end of my favorite TV show for the past seven years, the renewal of my now current favorite TV show, the discovery of two shows nowhere near my radar but loved them, and a television event for the ages.

CASTLE

For eight seasons, this show ruled Monday nights at 9pm. Yeah, I’m still an appointment television viewer. From the initial trailer for the show, Castle had me. The show was right up my alley. Geeky writer solving crimes with beautiful woman detective and her squad. That they successfully kept the Will They/Won’t They chemistry going for four seasons, then successfully together for the next three. Yes, there was an eighth season, and I’m mostly glad for it, but the writer messed with the chemistry and the show wasn’t the same after that. There’s a part of me that still latches on to the finale of Season Seven as the true series finale. Be that as it may, Castle was cancelled and that was that. Still one of my favorite all-time TV shows.

THE FLASH

This is the show that replaced Castle as my favorite. Its second season coincided with Castle’s eighth and I realized I often smiled more, laughed more, and cried more watching The Flash than any other show. Greg Berlanti, the creator and executive producer, grew up immersed in DC Comics lore and it plays out remarkably well in The Flash. He has a saying on set that each episode needs Heart, Humor, and Spectacle. This show has it in spades. When you have a villain like King Shark—humanoid with a shark’s head—on network television, something is going great. And Flash’s guest appearance on “Supergirl” this past spring (back when Supergirl was on CBS) was probably the most charming thing on TV all year. Absolutely love this show.

ELEMENTARY

Yes, the fourth “season” of Sherlock is about to air Sunday night, but I’ve already got over 100 episodes and into the fifth season of what many consider the other Sherlock Holmes TV show. What makes this show shine is the chemistry between Sherlock’s Johnny Lee Miller and Watson’s Lucy Liu. Because they have had over five years together on screen, the subtlety and nuances of their performances have evolved into a deep and rich relationship that is based on friendship, respect, and agape love, but not romantic. (Well, I’m a few episodes behind since the show kept getting pushed later into the nights because of football, but I don’t think the writers changed anything.) Miller’s version of Sherlock is brilliant, modern, flawed, but capable of change. He still has one of my all-time favorite Sherlock Holmes scenes from any medium. It’s from 2015 and an old flame has asked Sherlock to be the father to her child. For the entire episode, he contemplates her request. Finally, he gives her his answer. That part starts at the 28:33 mark of this video.

STRANGER THINGS

Sometimes, the images you see in a trailer, the sounds, too, latch onto you in such a way that you are compelled to watch. That’s what the trailer to summer’s biggest TV hit did. Like the DC Comics, Marvel movies, and the newest Star Wars films, the folks behind Stranger Things have grown up and turned around and made a TV in which everything they loved as kids now shows up in their work. Stranger Things pays homage to Spielberg films, John Carpenter scores, and the rest of the early 80s in such a way that it’s a love letter to childhood without being hampered by nostalgia. The story, the writing, made sure of that, and I eagerly await the next season. Here's what I wrote back in the summer.

BLOODLINE

The out-of-left-field show that completely blew me away this past week. I even named it the most compelling thing I watched on TV in 2016. Read my complete review here.

DARK MATTER

Again, I watched this on Netflix so I consumed seasons 1 and 2 in short order. The story of six people who awake from stasis on a spaceship with no memory of how they got there or who they are. They assume names based on the order in which they awoke, thus One, Two, etc. The gradual peeling away of the mysteries surrounding their predicament easily propels the show forward—each character gets an episode or two to focus on their past like any good ensemble show does—but it is the seventh individual on the ship that is my favorite. It’s an android, named Android, and she’s female. Frankly, I’m not aware of another example of an android, played by an actress, in the mold of Star Trek’s Data, that is, an artificial life form who longs to be more human. Zoie Palmer plays Android (far right in the image) with so many nuances that I started to zero in on her scenes most of all. One of the great things she does is with her eyes as Android processes information or executes orders from the crew. Her voice is like that of a questioning child, trying to learn about human behavior and all of its inconsistencies. Her facial expressions show the conflicting of emotions even though, in reality, the Android is only processing information. Android may not be the lead in this show, but she is my favorite. Oh, and when she has to fight, she kicks serious ass without so much as batting an eyelash. Of the humans, Three is tops for me (second from the left in the image). His story arc is fantastic, especially considering his character type. Heck, they're all great characters, and I'm eagerly awaiting season three...which I'll be watching in real time!

SCRUBS

Rarely watching this show when on the air, but I have been watching the various seasons on DVD. I always liked the occasional daydreams of lead character, Zach Braff’s JD, especially considering it was farcical and what he was really thinking. Even when the show was airing, I knew about that. But long-term viewing of this show revealed it to be not only a laugh-out-loud show, but one that could turn on a dime and sting your eyes with tears. The family typically watched the show during dinner, and there were a few times when my wife and I would be wiping away tears with the napkins we had just used to wipe our mouths. Two runs stand out. One is with Brendon Frasier and series regular—and funniest guy on the show?—John C. McGinley. Another is with JD and Kathryn Joosten (Mrs. Landingham from “The West Wing”) when she chooses death over dialysis. That this episode was the fourth of season 1 and that the producers played Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” over the final scenes ripped my heart out and prepared me for…well, anything from this wonderful show.

SUPERGIRL

Few shows consistently put a big goofy grin on my face quite like Supergirl. Taking the Super-family mythos and bringing it to network television is a feat in and of itself, but that they do it with such a charming actress like Melissa Benoist makes it all the better. She’s got just the right amount of learning about the world through the eyes of her alter ego, Kara Danvers, as well the fierce determination it takes to kick the butts of the bad guys. That John Jones, the Martian Manhunter, is a character is such a great thing and draws deep from the well. But the coup de grace has got to be the second season’s premiere where we get to see the Berlanti-verse’s version of Superman. Gone is the grimdark visage from the modern DC movies. Here, we get Superman, frankly, like he’s supposed to be: charming, happy, but still strong enough to defeat the enemy or help land a damaged plane. This episode is my happiest hour hour of superhero television in 2016.

TELEVISION EVENT: The DC Comics TV Crossover

Like what I wrote about The Flash, Greg Berlanti and crew now have four TV shows, 7pm CST, Monday through Thursday. I don’t watch Arrow on Wednesday, but I watch Supergirl on Mondays and Legends of Tomorrow on Thursdays along with The Flash on Tuesdays. As soon as Supergirl landed on The CW, everyone was wondering if all four shows would crossover. They did. And it was so good. Heck, the Arrow episode might have been the best, and the Flash episode really brought home the damage Barry Allen’s choices made on other people. The Legends hour, however, had the burden of finishing up the story, but it also had the images of all those heroes fighting aliens. That Berlanti was confident enough to have the heroes’s training facility resemble the Hall of Justice from the old “Super Friends” TV show will give you a taste of how he and his team are honoring the legacy of DC Comics. I'm just so happy we live in an age where this kind of thing is a reality on television.

In Defense of "John Carter"

“John Carter” is a very good film, not as bad as many critics have said, provided you know one thing: How To Have Fun.

To understand this essay, you have to understand where I come from and the type of viewer and reader I am. “A Princess of Mars,” Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first Mars book—first book period (!)—and the basis for the new movie, is one of the very few things that can literally transport me back to that glorious time in my life in the late 70s halo of those immediate post-Star Wars years where I learned about science fiction. While I cannot say with certainty that the John Carter books were my first literary SF, they were among the first. I re-read “Princess” a couple of years ago and found that the tale still held sway over my imagination despite my more adult observations on the technical proficiency of ERB’s writing style. In preparation for the new movie, my SF book club agreed to read the first two novels of the series (the second being The Gods of Mars), watch the movie, and then retire to a nearby restaurant and discuss.

As to the type of reader and viewer I am, let’s just say that I thoroughly enjoy being entertained. When it comes to TV cop shows, I can enjoy “The Wire” and “CSI: Miami” for what each of them are. CSI: Miami will never win over critics the way The Wire has, but I often have more fun with Horatio Caine and company versus McNulty and his pals. I was completely engrossed by “The Dark Knight” back in 2008 but also really dug the animated “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” released the same year. For another example, I am a proud member of the Star Wars Generation, a kid when it was released. As an adult, I was jazzed to see the new movies, yet left the theater after Episode I and Episode II having to justify many aspects of those movies. Of the six Star Wars movies made, only one is great, one is very good, and the rest are all muddled together. All this is to say that, while I don’t often wear my critical hat every time a watch or read something, I am no drone for properties and characters and universes I enjoy.

Which brings me to John Carter. I read no spoilers ahead of time. The older I’ve gotten, the more I prefer to be surprised in the movie theater rather than a grainy YouTube video or geekboy script breakdown published somewhere on the web. I knew those in control of the subject matter, namely Andrew Stanton, Michael Chabon, and Disney, among others. Stanton’s work with Pixar is magnificent, Chabon’s novels and mastery of the English language are often sublime, and I love Disney stuff. That Chabon and Stanton grew up loving the Barsoom (i.e., Mars) books and were in charge of the story left me no worries that they would shepherd the film with loving detail. I trusted in them, and, frankly, they did not let me down.

But I am a different type of viewer than your average viewer. I knew the material. In fulfilling my obligation to my book club (read the first two novels), I became so engrossed in the characters and landscape of Burroughs’s imagination that I have, to date, completed the first four novels and am reading the fifth. I pulled my old issues of the 1970s-era John Carter comics published by Marvel and am re-reading them. I’ve even bought the new anthology edited by John Joseph Adams, Under the Moons of Mars, new stories inspired by Barsoom. Sure, the books are laced with wild coincidences, pulpy writing, and outlandish plot details. So? You could say the same about The Da Vinci Code and not a few of the Sherlock Holmes stories, too, and I liked them. A simple story told simply isn’t bad. What I wanted most to see was Burroughs’s imagination come alive on screen. And, in that, Stanton delivered more than I could ever have hoped for.

Burroughs populated his adventures with giant four-arms green fighting men (Tharks), giant ten-legged Martian “lions” (banths), giant flying crafts that “sail” the air (Barsoomian war ships), and giant, four-armed white apes. See a trend here? Burroughs’s world is over-sized, filled with wondrous creatures, fierce and noble races, vile villains, and amazing technology. The oft-used phrase “sensawonder,” an amalgamation of “sense of wonder,” permeates the very text of Burroughs’s books and comes alive in readers’ imaginations.

And they come truly to life in the new movie. The Tharks I had always pictured to be muscle-bound hulks, but in Stanton’s hands, they are aggressive yet elegant, beautiful almost. Gollem, in The Lord of the Rings, is my standard by which I measure how computer animated characters interact with human characters. The Tharks have joined him. I love the Tharks in this film! I always pictured the white apes to be vicious brutes, and in Stanton’s interpretation, they are larger and far worse than I’d thought possible. Woola, the calot, or Martian dog, was a ten-legged beast in the books with little personality other than loyalty. On screen, Woola is a joy to watch as he is both loyal and laugh-out-loud comic relief. The flying ships are large and graceful, but can pack enough firepower to destroy whole towns. Yes, they sound like ships from Star Wars: Episode I, but who cares. There are only so many ways you can make spaceships sound. I caught the reference, and then quickly moved it aside in my mind. I was having too much dang fun.

I’m very glad that Stanton and company kept the framing device. In both the book and the movie, a fictional version of Burroughs is entrusted with a manuscript written by Carter that tells of his exploits on Mars. From there, the epic of John Carter is revealed. One of my fellows thought the film should have begun with Carter waking up on Mars. I liked the back story (and the additions Stanton made, especially the ending) and considered it to give Carter a bit more emotional resonance. Where the literary Carter is a military man nearly incapable of *not* joining a fight, the film version of Carter is a qualified fighting man, buy one for whom violence has taken a toll. That still doesn’t mean it can’t be the butt of a joke. I was laughing out loud when I watched the scenes of Carter, on Earth, being captured by the Union cavalry.

For a century, certain images from the books have been stuck in the imaginations of readers. One of the dangers that a faces a film like “John Carter” boils down to this: will the filmmakers “see” the scene like the readers have seen it. From my point of view, they nailed it. More than once in the novels, Carter fights hoards of beasts, the carcasses piling up around him. Stanton got this pitch perfect. The flying ships are exotic yet real, steampunk-inspired, yet futuristic. Helium as a city is magnificent, regal, yet lived in, as befitting a dying planet. Sure, George Lucas made his Star Wars universe “lived in,”—a quality the newer films kind of lacked—but he was probably inspired by Barsoom.

The Acting

You don’t watch Star Wars for acting lessons. Ditto the Harry Potter films, the Twilight films, or any random superhero movie. True, great acting emerges, either in certain characters (Heath Ledger’s Joker), certain scenes (the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when Cedric dies), over the course of a movie/series (Sean Astin’s Sam in The Lord of the Rings), and, occasionally, in a computer-generated character (Gollem, Wall E, or Anton Ego from Ratatouille). But, like a Michael Crichton novel, you often only need to let an actor say the lines that needs saying and propel the plot forward.

That doesn’t mean that the actors cannot embody their lines with life and verve. Here, however, is the tale of a man lost, a stranger in a strange world. How would *you* feel if you woke up on another planet? For me, I never saw Taylor Kitsch in anything until I saw him as John Carter. That’s a benefit for me, for I didn’t have his Friday Nights Lights character to influence how I perceived his portrayal of Carter. Ditto for Lynn Collins, the actress who plays Dejah Thoris, the princess of Mars. They were tasked—burdened?—with bringing to life and personifying a century’s worth of reader imaginations, to say nothing of the scores of young men who dreamed that *they* welded Carter’s sword and rescued Dejah themselves. And they did a good job. Neither rose above the text and overpowered the film, but they were not subsumed by it either.

Of the two characters, Dejah got an update. When you read the original novels, you will note that, while Dejah did find herself in numerous instances of peril, she wasn’t some limp-wristed damsel who did nothing but scream. She helps Carter in more than one spot, paving the way for future heroines like Princess Leia and Ripley from “Alien.” In the new movie, Dejah is still a princess, but she’s also a scientist who is researching the ninth ray, the mystical ray that, could it only be harnessed, it could even the battlefield against Helium’s enemies. Oh, and she’s a great fighter, too. Oh, and she’s beautiful. The other members of my book club rolled their eyes over the fact that all three traits were rolled into one. I, frankly, had no problem with it. I like strong women. It leveled the playing field between Carter’s supernatural strength and Dejah’s brain.

The love story worked for me. As innumerable love stories on film have done, you have two opposing personalities discovering their love for each other but go to great pains to hide it. We knew, going in, that Carter would fall for Dejah. The fun in the movie, however, was how Dejah fell for Carter. Remember the movie version of The Bridges of Madison County (stay with me, here) and how Meryl Streep’s character kept stealing glances at Clint Eastwood? Same stuff here, but, for example, through the reflection of a Martian sword. Collins had her work cut out for her seeing that generations of young boys probably got quite excited when their imaginations filled in the figure of the mostly naked princess of Mars. She had to embody this famous heroine, give her brains and brawn, but also be beautiful at the same time. Pretty as she was, she won me over with her sly smiles at Carter’s fighting prowess and her growing respect, admiration, and the fact that she saw in Carter a kindred spirit. It is through her eyes that the loves manifests itself first, and it is in her heartbroken eyes we see Carter’s initial refusal to help. She did a great job. One reviewer commented that he’d like to see a movie featuring Dejah alone. While I would not go that far, I was thoroughly impressed by Collins and thought she carried more than her share of the film.

The Changes

Readers and critics could debate all day on the merits of filming all the events from A Princess of Mars. One critic who panned the film talked of Stanton’s slavish devotion to the source material. I think there is a fine line between slavishly creating something on the screen from printed material (Watchmen) or taking inspiration from a book and creating something that is, in effect, a hybrid. Readers in 1912 traveled with Carter throughout this basic travelogue of a book, having adventures along the way. In that year, the spectacle of Mars was pretty much enough to maintain interest. In 2012, we’ve sent spaceship to Mars itself, so we know the truth. We have a more sophisticated appreciation for storytelling and, frankly, expect more and different things from a movie. Stanton and Chabon, knowing this fact, reached the only logical conclusion: incorporate the best elements of the main book, throw in a few elements from the second, and make up some new stuff to satisfy the demands of the viewing public.

All in all, they succeeded. SPOILERS start here. The villains from The Gods of Mars—the Therns—are brought into this story. These immortal beings, lead by Matai Shang (Mark Strong) control the lives and events of mortal souls. They know the secret of the ninth ray on Mars—a source of great power—and give it to the human bad guy of the film (Dominic West’s Sab Than, Prince of Zodanga, the great rival of Dejah’s Helium) to help him rule. The Therns are shape-shifters, able to, in the blink of an eye, change form. Cool! This is not in the books, but it works here, and it enables Carter to do exactly what the first movie in a (potential) series needs to do: defeat the smaller bad guy but not the larger bad guy. Think about the end of the first Star Wars film: Vader lives, but the Death Star is destroyed. You know he’s going to bring back the big guns, but that’s in the next movie.

Teleportation. In the books, Carter uses astral projection to get to Mars. Here, in the movie, it’s a combination of that plus a technological component. His body remains here on Earth while a living, breathing copy of him emerges on Mars. This concept sets up the great epilogue, a point I’m not spoiling here. I really liked that it was a scientific means of getting Carter to Mars, and, by having to possess an actual artifact, gave Carter a nice MacGuffin to chase.

The Criticisms

Yes, I have some. Earlier I mentioned how Stanton and Chabon picked the best parts of the first two books and put them in this movie. It must have been a tremendously fun exercise, much like the fun Anthony Horowitz must have experienced when he penned the new Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk (2011). Think about it: you get to assemble what amounts to a mix tape of your favorite scenes. The one problem I have is that they may have picked too many.

Take, for example, a hallmark of Burroughs’s tales: the arena fight. I’ve forgotten how many exist in the novels, but it’s a lot. Likely the writers knew that they wanted to include one in the film and chose a rather awkward time for it. Sure, it set up the Braveheart-like visuals of Carter splattered with blue blood, but even I kind of shifted in my seat when I realized that Carter was captured yet again. But, I quickly reminded myself of the books, where Carter and his friends always get captured. Then, of course, in the film, you get the arena scene and the giant apes. Yes, I thought of Star Wars: Episode II at the start of the scene (and Spartacus and Ben Hur and Gladiator)…and quickly put it out of my mind. Arena battles are numerous in films and mythology. There are only a few ways to do them. And the way Carter did it was thrilling. Dude, he swung a giant bolder and smashed the head of a giant white ape! Yeah!

The Voice of Barsoom. In the books, Carter learns the one language of Mars the old fashioned way: by hearing it and, bit by bit, understanding it. In the movie, there is a magical liquid that the Tharks give their young and that one of the Tharkian women in charge of Carter gives the Earthman. Lo and behold, he now speaks their language. It’s a simple and straightforward way to get all the characters speaking the same language in the blink of a scene, but it’s a little eye rolling.

There are other minor criticisms, but I’d be throwing pebbles at a boulder. Who cares, really? I had a blast with the film.

Summary

If I had to sum up my thoughts into one word, it might be “thankfulness.” I’m thankful that Stanton, Chabon, and everyone involved were devoted to making a fun, entertaining, fun, faithful, fun, and exciting movie experience. I’m thankful that they played it straight with their film, not like the cheesy Flash Gordon movie of 1980. I’m thankful that they reminded us that jaded, post-modern takes on historical or old ideas need not be the only way to update old material. I’m thankful that Stanton hired Michael Giacchino who composed a superb soundtrack that evoked not only the thrilling soundtracks of Hollywood’s days gone by with the bombast of fight scenes, but also the ethereal, otherworldly music that shines and yet lovingly caresses the actors on screen during the quieter moments. (I’m thinking of that final episode of “Lost” and the openings of “Star Trek” and “Up” where his music nearly single-handedly brought tears to my eyes. That gravitas is present here, too.) I’m thankful for Disney who put up the money to make a giant pet project that millions of readers and viewers adore, no matter the final financial outcome. I’m thankful that movies like this are still being made, movies that entertain and thrill with no other ulterior motive than that. I’m thankful that there are moments in this movie where I wanted to stand up and cheer, where chills coursed over my arms, where my jaw dropped at the sheer size of the spectacle before me, and whose closing scene had me grinning like the eleven year old that I still am when it comes to this material.

I loved this movie for what it is: the best dang movie experienced I’ve seen in a long, long time. There are formidable movies that have planted their flags and laid claim to moments in my life, from childhood to adulthood: Star Wars, Superman, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Amadeus, Back to the Future, Die Hard, Batman (1989), Dead Poet’s Society, When Harry Met Sally, The Fellowship of the Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Return of the King, Ratatouille, The Dark Knight, Toy Story 3, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. John Carter of Mars has landed with this company.

I loved this movie and I want to return to this universe. If, however, a sequel is never made, I will still cherish this film, these books, and this universe. If a movie sequel is never made, I implore Chabon and Stanton to write the novel. I want to know the next chapter in this new yet familiar story. It’s a long shot in these immediate days after the premiere, but there exists hope, and hope, according to John Carter, is enough.

Book Review Club: The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

(This is the December 2011 edition of Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For a complete list, click the icon at the bottom of this review.)

If I had to sum up my thoughts and feelings about Anthony Horowitz’s Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk, it would be this: if you close your eyes and just listen to the audio book, you would think you were listening to a story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. That, and a little A. A. Milne thrown in for good measure.

The spirit of Doyle is alive and well in this new Holmes novel, as well it should. In the decades since Doyle died, this is the first officially commissioned and recognized by the late author’s estate. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that The House of Silk is now the 61st story in the canon.

And with whom did the descendants entrust Holmes and Watson? The man behind the Alex Rider young adult series and one of my all-time favorite TV series, “Foyle’s War,” was an excellent choice to write this book. Horowitz is a professed amateur Sherlockian himself, and his prose stylings are just as if John Watson himself wrote the novel.

When tasked with the job of writing this book, I imagine one of Horowitz’s favorite jobs was to make The List. What list is that you say? This would be the list of all the things that he would want to have in a Sherlock Holmes story. Think about: 56 short stories and four novels from which to draw all your favorite characters, scenes, and events to put into your own book with your own spin. Sherlockian’s everywhere will smile and nod as they see Horowitz’s grace notes as he writes this compelling novel. Lestrade is here, as are the Baker Street Irregulars, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, other little nuggets for you to find, and a certain unnamed character who, in fact, needs no name for the reader to know exactly who his is. In fact, it’s almost like Sherlock Holmes’s Greatest Hits.

Edmund Carstairs calls upon Holmes and Watson with a typical story: a man in a flat cap is stalking Mr. Carstairs, an art dealer. This flat cap chap is, presumably, a member of an Irish gang out to take revenge on Carstairs for a botched train robbery. For the next few chapters, Horowitz basically delivers a nice Holmes novella. It is only at the end of this little sub-section where things take a more drastic and sinister turn. A brutal murder—intended as a message to any who might tread on this case—move this case from mere dread to one of a more dire nature. It is here where the modern storyteller Horowitz turns up the heat on our Victorian heroes and leads them to place that Doyle would never have gone.

The pacing is good through the novel. An avid Sherlockian myself, I was never bored and often raced back to my iPod to listen to the next chapter. By the way, if you are an audio fan, the book is narrated by none other than Derek Jacobi, and I highly recommend this recording. The events had a modern way of piling on our heroes, so much so that, even though you knew certain things would happen, you just didn’t know how.

Horowitz just plain had fun writing this story. If you know the original canon well, you will note the nice little echoes and homages thrown in. For example, at one point, Watson is conveyed by carriage to a secret place. The windows of the carriage are draped—almost exactly like another carriage ride in “The Greek Interpreter” short story by Doyle—so as to prevent Watson from knowing where he’s going. Another point has Watson hunting down a clue and ends up asking a rather out-of-left field question to another person. When asked how the question pertains to the case, Watson, tongue firmly in cheek, gets to reply “I have my methods.”

If you know your other Holmes stories written by a myriad of other authors, you know all the places Holmes has traveled and the people he’s met. One rather famous example are the stories written by Laurie King, which has the old detective still alive and well during World War I. This story, now being officially canon, jettisons those other stories as non-canon. It’s as if George Lucas decided to make new Star Wars movies set after Return of the Jedi. As soon as that celluloid hits the screen, all the Extended Universe stories are moot. Thus, when Watson—ostensibly writing during 1911—comments that Holmes has already died, it didn’t jive with the other stories’ timelines. I kept having to adjust.

Now, you may be wondering why I namedropped A. A. Milne at the first of this review. It’s simple: Milne and Horowitz nailed the melancholic wistfulness of days past. Remember the ending of the original Winnie the Pooh movie and the part where Christopher Robin and Pooh are talking. Christopher knows that he has to go off to school and learn things. He also knows that everything is going to change and that he’ll never again be that carefree little boy. He longs for his past and promises Pooh to always be there for him. That’s how Watson is portrayed in this novel. Watson aches for his friendship with Holmes and the good doctor clearly knows his days are numbered. More than once, he comments that, by his writing of this last case, he has been in the presence of his good friend again. It’s a remarkable book that can both excite the senses and, yet, bring on the longing to such an extent that one might get that lump in your throat. That’s what this book did for me. I absolutely loved this book and hope Horowitz gets the invitation to write another. If not, the next author has some tall shoes to fill.

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Happy Birthday, Sherlock Holmes

Ring 157 candles on a huge cake, folks, because today's is Sherlock Holmes's birthday. Don't believe me? Here's the proof. And, as I did last year, James Reasoner has posted a review of the excellent graphic novel, "The Trial of Sherlock Holmes." He enjoyed it as much as I did.

Time for a sequel, Dynamite Comics...

"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" (Annotated) - A Review

Yesterday, as I have done the past few December 27ths, I re-read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's only Christmastime Sherlock Holmes story, "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." Only this time it was a little different.

For Christmas, I was given the first two volumes of the new annotated Sherlock Holmes, edited by Leslie S. Klinger. These volumes, hardbound and in a slipcase, are gorgeous. Any self-respecting Holmes fan simply must own a copy of this set.

What I expected was the typical definitions of random pieces of Victorian tidbits that modern readers wouldn't know, starting with the original publication date of January 1892. Moreover, a note describes how Dickens and the Victorians "invented"Christmas as we know it now, while another gives light as to how gems are measured, or how long The Times had been in existence. That kind of detail, along with the illustrations by Sidney Paget or contemporary photos of 1890s London, is a boon to the reader.

What surprised me was the scholarship devoted to figuring out if Holmes's deductions were correct or not. I know all about the gentle fiction that supposes Holmes and Watson were real people. I don't have a problem with that. That's kind of fun, really. It's the need to, I assume, outwit Holmes, or, at least, point out where he erred. I wonder where that need arises? I guess that's the true treasure of this new, annotated anthology: we get, all in one place, a century's worth of criticism.

Part of me wonders if all this nitpicking isn't just a veiled attempt to point out the flaws in Doyle's writing. "Blue Carbuncle" is one of the stories that has an addendum, a separate essay related to the events in the story. This story earns "A Winter's Crop," a complete discussion of whether or not a goose has a crop. Interesting scholarship, to be sure, and worthy of discourse. But, seriously, does the fact about the existence of a goose's crop add or subtract to the reading of the tale? Or whether or not Holmes inferences about the hat hold water? No.

I glanced at the dates of the stories in front and behind "Blue Carbuncle" and noticed that they are a month apart. Thus, Doyle is writing these stories, one per month, from July 1891 to June 1892. He still has a day job as well as a wife and one kid. He didn't have the internet to double-check to see if a goose has a crop. I suspect he wrote these tales in a flash and edited afterwards, if at all. Also, the reading public in the 1890s probably were not the avid geeks many of us are today.

All this is to say that while it is a fun exercise to go back and see if Holmes's reasoning is sound and to point out where it isn't, one should enjoy the story as it is. Give Doyle some slack. He's only a writer. It's not like he was as good as writer as Watson...

PBS's "Sherlock" - A Review

Earlier this year, when my friends in the UK started writing about this new incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, I'll admit I was jealous. The gist of what I read--the new creators plucked Holmes and Watson out of 1887 and plopped them into 2010--had me curious and excited if not a little worried. It's not a given that PBS brings every single BBC mystery program over here to the States. I did a weird thing: I stopped reading about the new show, partly because I didn't want to be disappointed if Masterpiece Mystery chose not to broadcast "Sherlock" and, partially, I wanted to keep from reading too many spoilers if we Yanks saw the show.

On Sunday, our patience was rewarded. "A Study in Pink", the first of three episodes in the "Sherlock" series, debuted. And I couldn't be more thrilled at the outcome. As one who has read and knows the original source material--Holmes first adventure, "A Study in Scarlet"--I enjoyed many of the in jokes and winks to knowledgeable Sherlockians. But my wife, who is only a casual Holmes fan, liked the program as well. In an interesting bit of history repeating itself, the new Watson was, like his original counterpart, a veteran of fighting in Afghanistan. How...timely. Of course, for us Americans seeing the show for the first time, we had to contend with the recent news that the actor who plays Watson, Martin Freeman, is also the new Bilbo Baggins. He, like Jude Law in last year's feature film, play Watson not only as a competent doctor but also a man of action. He's not a bumbling idiot, Watson. He's an able ally for Holmes. Freeman did a great job of keeping the good doctor's desires for action and frustration at his injury just below the surface.

Benedict Cumberbatch wears the skin of Holmes well. His frantic delivery of his lines, especially when trying to explain how he arrived at his deductions, played well as an example of our oversaturated modern life. And, pointedly, I appreciated that creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat didn't have the new Holmes use cocaine, instead getting his fix via nicotine patches.

Lastly is Lestrade. Most long-time readers and watchers of the Holmes canon knows that Inspector Lestrade is considered by Holmes not to be very bright, but he's the best Scotland Yard has to offer. Not so this Lestrade. Rupert Graves gives strength to his Lestrade, interlacing cool one-ups-manship (as when he uses his police powers to raid 221B Baker Street looking for drugs, letting Holmes know that only one man wears the badge) with clear admiration for the mind of the consulting detective.

The story is good for an introduction to the new Holmes: a series of deaths that, on the surface, appear as suicides, but is actually the work of a serial killer. Of all the neat things the producers did with this new Holmes, the one aspect they can never do is get inside Holmes' brain. In "Sherlock," they depict Holmes' mental miracles in two ways. One, a typical slo-mo replay, very similar to the Downey film. The second way, however, was brilliant: actually show text on the screen, fading in and out, keeping a list of things Holmes notices. It also worked well when he and Watson texted each other

I'm not one of those people who thinks every favorite thing is sacrosanct. What makes Holmes and Watson so timeless is that they can be reinterpreted time and again and the basic foundation of their characters and relationship remain constant. I am looking forward to future episodes and series of "Sherlock" and highly recommend the series.

Book Review Club: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

(This is the February 2010 contribution to Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For a complete list, click the icon at the end of this review.)

If you were to ask readers with only a passing knowledge of Sherlock Holmes to name some of the famous tales, chances are good that more than one would be from the first collection of stories. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1891-92) brings together the first twelve short stories Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about Holmes and Watson. These follow Holmes's introduction in the first two novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four. Indeed, in two listsfavorites of the author himself and the Baker Street Irregulars (the society of Holmes aficionados)no less than four stories from the Adventures make the list. Interestingly, the top two vote-getters are the same on both lists.

Of all the stories in the Canon, the one that strikes me as most interestingboth in its timing and its subjectis A Scandal in Bohemia. It leads off the Adventures and it's famous for being the one story in which Holmes is beaten and by a woman, no less. I suspect dissertations have been written about this story so I won't belabor the point here. Suffice it to say that this story has remained one of my personal favorites ever since I first read it over two decades ago.

Aside from Bohemia and the sole Christmas tale in the Canon, The Blue Carbuncle, (my take), I had forgotten many of the nuances of these tales. I remembered The Red-Headed League involved a guy transcribing the Encyclopedia Britannica but that was all. I remembered the Speckled Band involved a serpent. Other than that, it was like reading these stories again for the first time.

As a writer, knowing that these were Conan Doyle's first attempts at short story writing make this collection an nice testament to the man's skill with the pen. Most of the stories average out to 8,000 words and they follow a similar pattern. A person arrives at 221B Baker Street with an interesting problem. Holmes hears the facts of the case and, before he even arises from his chair, he's got half the problem solved. There are usually one or two little incidents and the case is resolved. It's a clever structure and one that loses nothing in the retelling.

What I had forgotten was how many stories didn't include a crime for which the perpetrator could be tried. A Case of Identity shows a dasterdly and selfish motivation for the problem but one that can't be prosecuted. The Man with the Twisted Lip has interesting overtones with our current economic situation but no villain.
Another trait of some of the stories is the ending. In a couple of these chronicles, we readers don't earn what we consider the villain's just desserts. Frankly, reared on books, movies, and TV where the bad guy always gets it in the end, having one set of criminals escape and another lost at sea makes the entire story rather unfulfilling. It's also bad for Holmes since the wet he set never produces a kill.

But these trifles do not detract in the slightest the pure enjoyment I experienced (again!) from reading these stories. Holmes and Watson come alive under Conan Doyle's pen and his excitement is palpable on the page. He may not have invented the detective story but he ran with it and made it his own. His descriptive powers are excellent and, barring a few Victorian colloquialisms, these stories are as fresh and modern as any you find today. Can't recommend them highly enough.

Note: if you've got the inclination, the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes provides scores of footnotes for every story, contemporary photos of places and people from the Victorian Age, and many of the original illustrations from the Strand Magazine, which first published the cases. However, if you just want to enjoy some great adventures, any edition will do.

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Book Review Club: The Trial of Sherlock Holmes by Leah Moore and John Mark Reppion

(This is the January 2010 contribution to Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For a complete list of other participating authors, click the link at the end of this review.)

If anyone disliked the new Sherlock Holmes movie for its modernization of the character (I didn't), the new comic book story “The Trial of Sherlock Holmes” will go a long way to making things right for them. In this tale from Dynamite Comics, authors Leah Moore and John Mark Reppion have scripted a gripping story that is not unlike another famous Holmes story by his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In the opening panels, a huge explosion near the river rips its way through the East End district. The next morning, Dr. Watson makes his entrance into 221B Baker Street. In a nice change from the stories, when Holmes makes his characteristic deductions about Watson’s activities, the good doctor takes it all in stride and moves forward (rather than the astonishment he usually exudes in the stories). These events take place in 1895, some eight years after the two men first met. It’s nice to see Watson is used to Holmes’ “magical” deductions.

According to a letter Holmes has received, the explosion is not some random act. Sir Samuel Henry, former assistant police commissioner, writes to Holmes that he, Henry, is to be murdered at his house precisely at 7pm the next day. If Henry makes plans not to be at his house at the appointed hour, additional explosions will tear London apart. Naturally, Holmes and Watson, together with Inspector Lestrade and a cadre of London’s finest, all guard Henry and his estate. While waiting, Lestrade informs Holmes of another, separate, typed letter. It seems some loyal Britons don’t want the Germanic Baron Lothair to set foot upon English soil, something the nobleman is about to do on a tour of London’s great monuments.

As the gentlemen are discussing these developments, Sir Henry’s many clocks chime a quarter until seven. A few minutes later, a request is delivered by one of the policemen: Sir Henry wishes Holmes to come into his bedroom, alone. This Holmes does. At precisely seven o’clock, a single shot rings out. Lestrade, Watson, Detective Inspector Davis (of special branch), and all the policemen race upstairs. Seeing the door to Sir Henry’s bedroom locked from the inside, they break it down. What they find astonishes them: Holmes, standing over the dead body of Sir Henry, a smoking revolver in his hand, his face containing a look of utter surprise.

Now, if you happened to purchase the first issue at your local comic store last year, this is where issue #1/chapter one ends. Yeah, I couldn’t wait for the next issue either. The second chapter begins in a bad way—Holmes is arrested and thrown in prison—and goes downhill from there. Literally to say any more about what happens in chapter two (and how it ends) would ruin the enjoyment of a fulfilling and complicated story, full of surprises, none more so than the one revealed on the last page.

One aspect that happily surprised me is the relationship between Watson and Lestrade. If you’ve read the stories, you know Holmes has all but disdain for the metropolitan police, Lestrade being merely one slightly more capable than the rest. Lestrade here holds his own and shows him to be as loyal to Holmes as Watson. Even Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, makes an appearance.

I’ve gone this far and not mentioned the most crucial aspect of “The Trial of Sherlock Holmes”: the artwork. Aaron Campbell’s drawings capture Victorian England in all its little nuances and detail. There’s a sepia quality to some of the panels and his use of shadow and light is superb. Campbell draws Holmes in a traditional way, much like Sidney Paget did in the original Strand illustrations. Watson gains a little weight and is a bit more jowly but it suits him. Again, Lestrade is best served here. Unlike the often spindly way he appears in older illustrations, in “The Trial,” he is a striking presence. Firm jawed, handsome, his hair short and well kept, his mustache neatly trimmed, Lestrade is a modern man here, visibly a police man but one that can win the heart of a fair maiden after hours. Truth be told, I could read an entire series featuring Lestrade as long as Campbell draws him. When I read that “The Trial” is Campbell’s first comic sale, I was glad to be present at the beginning of a great career.

“The Trial of Sherlock Holmes” is now available in hardcover. The book comes with some great extras. There is an afterward by noted Sherlockian Leslie Klinger as well as Moore and Reppion. Also included is the script the authors gave Campbell to direct his art complete with references to special effects and dialogue boxes. I loved flipping from the text description to the glorious pictures Campbell created. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the workings of a comic book. Lastly, Campbell illustrates a few pictures for the reprinted original Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot,” from His Last Bow.

Holmes pastiches are often fun and provide authors other than Conan Doyle a chance to play with Holmes and Watson. Rest assured: “The Trial of Sherlock Holmes” can stand with the best of them. I can think of no better way to spend Holmes' birthday (today) than to head on out to your local book or comic store and pick up a copy. After reading this story, I had the same thought I did when I finished watching the new movie: I’m looking forward to the sequel.

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Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes

Don’t blame Robert Downey, Jr., if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle forgot one of the ingredients from which he invented Sherlock Holmes. In Chapter 2 of “A Study in Scarlet,” the first Holmes novel and debut appearance by the great detective, Watson makes a list of Holmes’ attributes. Number eleven is this: “Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.” In the New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volume 3, resident Sherlockian Leslie Klinger notes that there is no instance of Holmes actually displaying his singlestick prowess. Since I haven’t read the entire canon (yet), I had to rely on The Source of All Truth (Wikipedia) to determine that the short story “The Solitary Cyclist” is an example of Holmes the Boxer. Neither Wikipedia nor Klinger’s footnotes indicate an adventure where Holmes uses a sword.

The point is this: The Sherlock Holmes as portrayed by Downey reconstitutes a part of the character Doyle originally intended to write about but seldom did. Since Holmes is one of the world’s first superheroes, it stands to reason that he’d get himself into some situations that require more brawn than brain. What the new film illustrates, however, is that Holmes deploys both in the solving of a crime.

I won’t lie: when I first learned that Downey was going to play Holmes, I was skeptical. I appreciate Downey for the great actor that he is but I didn’t think Holmes was the part for him. Up until Christmas Day, Jeremy Brett is, for my money, is the quintessential on-screen Holmes. Brett still is the quintessential Holmes if you take into account the stories Doyle wrote. However, what Downey captured--with the able assistance of director Guy Ritchie and Jude Law’s Watson--is nothing less that the heart and soul of the Sherlock Holmes character.

Any true iconic character withstands the test of time. Batman went from detective in the 1940s to the guy who fought aliens on alien worlds in the 1950s to the guy who delivered punch lines in the 1960s to a return to his darker roots in the 1970s. James Bond has a similar character arc and, many would argue, it wasn’t until 2006’s “Casino Royale” that the true, literary Bond emerged on the silver screen. I won’t go so far as to say Downey’s Holmes is the true Holmes but he is a reflection of what’s on the page taken to a new level.

Besides, we’ve already been here before. Over the weekend, Turner Classic Movies ran a Holmes-movie marathon, showing many (all?) of the great Basil Rathbone films. As Robert Osbourne pointed out after showing the first two films, the Victorian setting of the traditional Holmes stories was just too quaint while Nazi planes dropped bombs on London. The first film studio, 20th Century Fox, dropped the franchise and Universal picked it up. The first thing Universal did was plop Holmes and Watson in 1940s war time. They fought Nazis! At least Downey had the decency to remain in Victorian England.

With these paragraphs as prelude, on to the film. As you can gather, I consider Downey’s portrayal of Holmes to be excellent. Holmes the Man is a genius. As such, he is cursed by his genius. Downey’s take on how a man like Holmes would live his life is spot-on by modern standards. I’ll admit that seeing Holmes as a dirty person, devoid of basic hygiene, shocked me. I’m used to the meticulous detective (a la Brett’s version of Holmes or television’s Monk) who is so neat and ordered as to be obsessive. However, if you take one of Holmes most famous quotes as truth (“I abhor the dull routine of existence.”), then you can easily see how Holmes would consider bathing to be a bother. Downey’s accent does go in and out but what do you expect from an American doing a Brit. At least it was better than Kevin Costner's Robin Hood. Holmes’s arrogance is on full display as well as his deviousness. In one of the best exchanges, Watson offers a meta-question to Holmes. He asks, basically, with all that Holmes does to him (and here he lists many of the little scenes from various stories), why he, Watson, still remains by Holmes’s side. It’s an honest question for a modern audience, one Watson doesn’t answer in the film.

Watson. If the new film does anything lasting, it showcases that Watson is a capable partner of the great detective. The biggest flaw in the Basil Rathbone films is Nigel Bruce. I hate the way Bruce plays Watson as a fat, bumbler not even having the intellect enough to wash Holmes’s clothes. The man’s a doctor. He has to be smart enough to attend school. Up until Jude Law (happy birthday!) donned the tweed, Jeremy Brett’s first Watson, David Burke, was my sole choice for Watson. Jude Law is now the quintessential Watson. He plays Watson as a man of action, a trait straight from all the stories. Where Holmes thinks, Watson wants to *do something.* In many a story, the only thing for the duo to do is wait, something at which Watson always chaffed.

Not so in this film. Jude Law clearly shows that Watson is a torn man. He’s fallen in love with Mary Morstan (a character from The Sign of the Four) and wants to marry her and have a normal life. He’s also in love with the life of adventure Holmes provides. (And I’m not going into the whole homoerotic thing here. All you need to know about two men who care for each other was taken care of with William Shatner and James Spader in “Boston Legal.”) More than once, Law’s facial expressions show the torment and joy Watson experiences, often simultaneously. Law also shows the smile as Watson removes his coat and prepares for a fight. He makes his choice by the end of the film but, as you know from the stories, he keeps knocking on the door to 221b Baker Street.

The story in the film is chocked full of good old pulp and adventure storytelling devices. Lord Blackwood (played by Mark Strong, a man who resembles the original artist’s interpretation of Holmes from the Strand magazine) is revealed to be the leader of some mystical cult and is hanged. No sooner is he dead than rumors of his resurrection spread. His tomb is empty so it must be true. There's a bit of "Da Vinci Code" in here as well. Ironically, it takes half of the film before someone actually hires Holmes to stop Blackwood. Up until then, he’s been working “for” Irene Adler.

Another character to jump from one of my favorite stories (“A Scandal in Bohemia”), Adler is the only (?) person to beat Holmes at his own game. That Doyle chose to make this character appear in the first ever Holmes short story (and why) is clearly an area for further study. Adler, here, is a twice-divorced thief and former lover of Holmes. I didn’t have a problem with indicating Holmes loved a woman. In the story, he falls in love with Adler’s mind. Here, in the movie, he just included her body as well. I’d have liked to see more Adler, to be honest, but I thoroughly loved the mysterious person for whom she worked. Rachel McAdams did a fine job here and I’m looking forward to future appearances.

Now, I’ll admit that the story in the middle part of the film was quite thin. Yes, it all connects at the end but the whys and wherefores were a little lacking. Suffice it to say, Holmes and Watson do their thing and London is saved...or is it?

Two more points to make. The narrative mystery involves the construction of a Victorian, steampunkish, weapon of mass destruction. Said device uses technology that was brand-new in 1891. That Holmes and Watson could be so clearly perplexed by the new device was stellar. It was something they could not have imagined and, thus, made it an excellent harbinger of the second movie.

If you watched “The Sixth Sense,” you might’ve had the same reaction as I did. Once the twist was revealed, you immediately wanted to watch the film again and see if you could spy the clues. You’ll have the same reaction with “Sherlock Holmes.” As in all good mystery films, the detective has his moment in the spotlight. As TV’s Monk used to say, “Here’s what happened.” When Holmes does this, he reveals all the clues (with visual flashbacks) that led him to the culprit. As soon as he did this, I wanted to watch the movie again and see if the visual clues were present. Can’t wait for the DVD and my pause button.

“Sherlock Holmes” is a terrific film, full of modern action-movie splashes with heaping helpings of witty, tête-à-têtes from Holmes/Watson and Holmes/Adler. As with “Star Trek” earlier this year, I laughed out loud more than I expected. The scenery is rich and detailed and you are reminded of how dirty late Victorian London really was. And the scenes that set up the sequel are splendid. The performances by Downey and Law are nuanced and well-done. They capture the spirit of their literary forebears well and I eagerly await their next film together.