GARY DOBBS AT THE TAINTED ARCHIVE

Saturday, 26 December 2009

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE OPINIONS ARE MIXED

The first shock was that Mark Kermode, Radio 5 critic and serial Guy Ritchie hater, actually liked the film.

The Guardian Newspaper were left underwhelmed:

It is, as the great sleuth might have said, a three-pipe problem. How does cackling Ritchie keep getting away with it? How on earth did he manage to perpetrate those two egregious crimes Revolver and RocknRolla without getting his collar felt?

This lordly super-villain is well known as a master of disguise, donning a pearly cap and smearing himself with odorous jellied eels to pass as a cockney rapscallion, in which garb this patrician scofflaw carries out his dastardly acts in film studios, before changing back into tweeds and vanishing away to his country estate.

Now he has managed to steal hours of precious time belonging to cinemagoers everywhere for his latest silly escapade. It's a souped-up Victorian romp with Holmes and Watson reinvented as wisecracking action heroes, a two-man league of pretty ordinary gentlemen.

As ever, Ritchie has some bareknuckle fighting in slow-motion interspersed with very-quick-speeded-up-motion and there's plenty of diddly-diddly Irish folk music in the background. I fear producer Joel Silver may feel like grabbing Ritchie and plunging with him down the Reichenbach Falls.

UNDERWIRE.COM found much to enjoy in the movie:

London is in an uproar as the ritual killings resume. Enter mystery woman Irene Adler, portrayed by saucer-eyed Rachel McAdams, who has her own agenda as she alternately teases and torments her old rival Holmes. Meanwhile, Holmes’ constant companion Dr. John Watson (played by Jude Law) becomes increasingly cranky in his role as faithful assistant, due in part to the distractions offered by fiancée Mary (Kelly Reilly).

This Sherlock Holmes turns as much on the frayed friendship between crime fiction’s most durable odd couple as it does on Lord Blackwood’s evil conspiracy. Writers Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg (who penned Mr. & Mrs. Smith) invest Holmes and Watson’s bickering exchanges with a brittle tension that hints at a vulnerable heart beating beneath Holmes’ ever-commanding persona.

Sherlock Holmes is Ritchie’s first big Hollywood movie, and he’s taken full advantage of the budget to hire first-rate collaborators. Cinematographer Philippe Rousselot (A River Runs Through It) evokes turn-of-the-century London with stunning exterior shots. Costume designer Jenny Beavan (A Room With a View) dresses Downey in sensationally cool outfits that ignore the deerstalking-cap-and-cape iconography in favor of dapper cravats and fedoras. Production designer Sarah Greenwood (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) finesses the period details.

Amid all this Masterpiece Theater finery, some action sequences feel a tad cartoony — can a woman really fall 40 feet, appear limp, then perk up, without a scratch, only to fire off a completely coherent witticism? And Sherlock Holmes fans accustomed to genteel crime scenes may wince at the sight of a young woman spread-eagled on a ritual murder table three minutes into the film.

But this umpteenth on-screen incarnation of Sherlock Holmes remakes the template in promising fashion. Armed with an impeccably crisp British accent, Downey presents Holmes as a neurotic, slightly batty, genius crime-solver well-suited for 21st century audiences. Case closed.

Me, I'll wait for the DVD

Friday, 25 December 2009

THE FILTH AND THE FURY

This is an absolutely brilliant documentary movie about those days of revolution

, when a grass roots movement known as Punk came to dominate and brushed aside the control the music industry had on the creative aspect of music. The Sex Pistols, love them or loathe them, made music credible again and gave a voice back to the youth. For too long music had stagnated and become sickly sweet and in no way reflected what was happening on the streets of 1970's Britain.

The Filth and the Fury, directed by Julian Temple, makes up for the mess that was The Great Rock and Roll Swindle Movie. Not that I don't enjoy Rock and Roll Swindle (when I'm in the mood, at least) but this documentary is far more truthful and the juxtaposition of performance video and news clips of the times gives full context to the revolutionary band the Pistols truly were.

If you listened to the press it was all about spitting and vulgarity but it was more than that - it was about individualism, about questioning authority and not accepting the status quo. Deep down, at it's very core, the punk ethos was a healthy one.

The punk movement was born out of the way the mainstream music was getting further and further away from the r

reality of life for the average teenager of the day. There was no glamour, spangled trousers and sweetness on the streets of 1970's Britain. What there was were race riots, industrial conflict and a default status of general crap.

The documentary shows that the band eventually became the victims of the big business they sought to destroy. And this rock and roll story really did end in tragedy as in the case of Sid Vicious. There is a moving moment when John Lyndon, interviewed present day, brings up his regrets over Sid's tragic and sordid death.

Now these days the Pistols are almost mainstream - they've reformed several times and given stadium concerts just like those rock bands they once called dinosaurs. But John Lyndon is still an interesting man who refuses to toe the line, even if he is now the voice of a certain brand of butter but then I suppose it was inevitable - they're the Pistols and they don't care.

The Filth and the Fury DVD (VCD 00067).

Thursday, 24 December 2009

A Christmas Story

Here's a short Christmas story from author Nik Morton, AKA Ross Morton of

Black Horse Western fame. It's not a western but a PI story with a Christmas setting.

We know you'll like it.

Just my luck, snow had started to fall the day before I left and, by the time I drove my Seat into the mountains, it was lying thick. Not the most auspicious start to the Christmas holidays, I thought, as the windscreen wipers beat a monotonous rhythm. STORY CONTINUES ON NIK'S SITE HERE

MERRY CHRISTMAS

A bunch of Christmas greetings to all Archive readers - we'll be back after the big day for business as usual, and we'll

be starting off 2010 as we mean to go on - in a Wild West Web fashion. The first of our themed weekend for 2010 will be a Black Horse Western weekend, featuring news, features, reviews and guest blogs from many of the writers that keep the hot lead flying throughout the year for the Black Horse Western imprint.

And if you're looking for some great new year reading then might I point you to both the anthology, A Fistful of Legends and the new all guns blazing paperback from BHE Books, Liberty and a Law Badge.

And don't forget 2010 is the year of Arkansas Smith - who is Arkansa Smith? Don't ask me - find out for yourself and ensure your copy by pre-ordering now. And of course my debut novel, The Tarnished Star is still available but in short supply. Amazon are currently offering this hardcover book for a mere £8.30.

Wednesday, 23 December 2009

THE LIKELY LADS DOUBLE DATE

There are seven surviving episodes from The Likely Lads. The series ran from 1964 - 1966, three seasons and 21 episodes. The episode Double Date which is on the BBCDVD The Likely Lads was the second episode of the first season. In fact the first episode is another of those that escaped being wiped and so the viewer gets a sense of the characters developing.

The series was written by Dick Clement and Ian La Franais, a celebrated writing team who were responsible for many hit shows including the sequel to this series, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads.

I enjoyed this episode - I know these early episodes by reputation rather than familiarity and I think I've only ever seen this once before. I love the way it's written, dialogue driven and flipping from scene to scene with the conversation being played out separately by two different couples. On one hand we have Bob and Terry and on the other the two girls who served as the lad's dates.

We don't actually see the night out, other than as a photographic montage which was probably a cost cutting exercise but its works brilliantly. Then we are in the aftermath of the night out with Bob and Terry stranded on a bus stop, they begin a conversation, Bob moaning that's he spent two quid and Terry snapping, 'I've spent three.' And from there the scene shifts to the girls, safe and warm back home, as they continue the thread started by the lads - we get the same events from two widely differing viewpoints.

It's all so 1960's working class comedy, so well observed that it serves as an example of the lifestyles of the British youth during the period. The episode, together with the other surviving six episodes are on the BBC DVD The Likely Lads (BBCDVD1879). There are no special features which is a pity but these episodes are superb examples of the new wave of 1960's British comedy and still as enjoyable as ever.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE GAY DETECTIVE

Last night on “The Late Show With David Letterman,” Robert Downey Jr. stopped by to promote Sherlock Holmes, in theatres on Friday, and bantered with Dave about the possibility that Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective and his long-suffering sidekick Dr. Watson were more than just mates. Or, as Downey reportedly put it on ‘Letterman:’ “They were homos.”

BESTSELLING AMAZON BLACK HORSE WESTERNS - 23 DEC 09

My second novel, Arkansas Smith is currently sitting at the top position on Amazon for Black Horse Westerns - thank you all for that. Don't forget my publisher specialises in small scale print runs and the size of the print run will be dictated by the amount of pre-orders for the book. Click on the title below to pre-order now, no money will be deducted until the book is sent out around the middle of March 2010. This will ensure your copy of a book that looks certain to follow in the success of Tarnished Star.

WHO IS ARKANSAS SMITH? FIND OUT MARCH 2010

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