Holmes Away From Home

On the journey back to London after spending Christmas in the Westcountry I decided to try and work out what my ten best films of the year had been. Because I wasn’t having too much luck with the crossword it seemed like a reasonably good enough way of whiling away the time, at least until I actually put some thought to it.

Twenty–odd years back I had been toddling off to see something like 75 films a year on average. Over the past twelve months the number had been considerably less. In fact I could only remember seeing Star Trek, The Hurt Locker and Up, although I was sure there had been a couple of movies back in early January I had made a point of going to see. For the life of me couldn’t conjure up the titles – which turned out to be Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – for a long time.

It wasn’t that the pair were instantly forgettable, but simply that over the last few years I’ve preferred to wait and watch films at home on DVD rather than sit in a large room full of strangers, especially now that the wait isn’t that long compared to back in the days of the antiquated sell–thru VHS tapes. While I removed myself from yet one more social activity, because of the constant stream of films appearing on disc from last year and the years before it, the original cinema release dates became meaningless. Or maybe I simply wasn’t paying enough attention.


Late December I picked up The Lives of Others in the Christmas sales, figuring there was still just enough time to watch the film with the possibility of it making the list. So I was certainly bemused to read the back of the case on the tube journey home to discover that it was actually three years old. Has it been that long? Either way, in those few days leading up to Old Year’s Night I didn’t get to watch it. So Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s award–winning drama patiently sits on the shelves alongside District 9 and Public Enemies, which I do know came out last year, waiting to be slipped into the DVD player at some point.

The fact that I haven’t made time for either of those films but did rent Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen early last month is something I find quite disconcerting, and a time will come when I’ll have to think long and hard about that particular decision. That stinking pile of rhubarb wouldn’t find a place in a top ten list if it had been the only film I saw all year. The same goes for the fetid Watchmen. For a long time I was wracking my brain trying to think of the big summer movies from last year and finally I remembered Watchmen, and then wished I hadn’t.

To take away the sour taste of all the hopeless CGI-spattered nonsense, when I wasn’t watching early Hitchcock or simply going back to Powell & Pressburger, there was Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity and The International, which harked back to the great caper movies and conspiracy thrillers of the 1960s and 70s even if they weren’t a complete success, Gran Torino and State of Play, and, because it’s always good to have a good laugh, In The Loop. No doubt there were more, but this was enough to remember last year by and in the end my favourites were The Hurt Locker and Up, with Star Trek and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button bringing up the rear.

Though Frost/Nixon was a decent enough little film, being reminded of it left me puzzled as to why, twelve months back, I had made the effort to go out and see it, especially given that it wasn’t a particularly cinematic scene. Not bothering to see many films in the previous year, especially having been put off by the endurance required to sit through The Dark Knight, I suspect come January of last year I was trying to make an effort and see movies at the cinema, although ultimately that didn’t pan out so well.

This past weekend I figured I’d try and give it another go because, well, what the hell! Given the choices when I got to the cinema, I plumped for Sherlock Holmes. Obviously it wasn’t one of the new New Year releases, and having been on release for quite a few weeks now, it was relegated to the size of auditorium where there was the possibility of hitting my head on the screen if I tripped on the way in. But it looked like a far better option than the computer–constructed nonsense like Alvin and The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel or, worse, Avatar.


I not particularly a fan of Guy Ritchie’s work insofar that I didn’t like the two earlier films of his that I’ve seen, and the opening scene in which Lastrade and Watson tool up in the back of the Black Maria made me wary that it was going to be two hours of east end geezers transported to the 19th century. I suppose there was some of that but there was a lot more besides. As a piece of Victorian blood-and-thunder not only was the film good rollicking fun but, rather remarkably, it actually stuck far closer to elements of Conan Doyle’s literary work than many of the other adaptations.

If there was a downside, occasionally there was a bit too much fiddle-de-dee fiddle and penny whistle on the soundtrack, and some of the quick patter between the leads had me wishing I could reach for a remote and bring up the subtitles. But Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law (who I’ve previously considered a long streak of weak piss) made an engaging, bickering couple and of course there was the great Eddie Marsan as Inspector Lestrade. Though pixels had to be employed to recreate parts of old London town they didn’t overpower a story that also found a fine way to illustrate Holmes’ powers of deduction.

That alone should have made my day but since I was out I decided to stay about. After half an hour polishing off The Times’ Samurai Su Doku I watched Up in the Air. With the next Bond film delayed because MGM is crippled by $4m debt and up for sale, in the interim we’ve got a hitman who takes away your job rather than putting a bullet in your head, which is probably right on target for the current economic climate. At its most bittersweet it reminded me of something Billy Wilder and Izzy Diamond would have conjured up by having a character counsel people to soften the blow of a dramatic change in their circumstances but fail to their own advice.

The fact that I’m now only a couple of months from what is officially middle age but now prefer films like Up in the Air, Sideways and Lost in Translation, where characters are dealing with various mid–life crises, instead of trying to cling to the lingering flush of youth by staring, boggle–eyed at ass–clown empty spectacle is rather disturbing. Sometimes it pays not to get ahead of yourself.