Rapaciously Reaping Red Riotous Rage
I'm back like I forgot somethin', I'm somethin', rick rollin' rage runnin' miles like I got a... never mind.
Hey there, livejournal. I'm not dead. I'm not retired. I was just... elsewhere. Miss me? Of course you did. I can dodge bullets and cancer like Neo in a wind tunnel.
So what's bothering me today?
Dear Guy Ritchie:
You stupid son of a bitch. You know this is wrong, and yet you are doing it anyway. You are familiar with the source material, and yet you are producing this horseshit. You must be stopped.
Signed,
joiless
What I am on about? Why, Guy Ritchie's newest film, "Sherlock Holmes."
SIT THE FUCK BACK DOWN.
Now, I know what you're thinking - "But joiless, we don't read 122 year old literature! We need this film!" - but bear with me here. I look at the trailers for this movie and do you know what I see? Good intentions... GOING HORRIFICALLY FUCKING AWRY. Okay, I get it, Ritchie. You wanted to show some of the parts of Sherlock Holmes that modern media cuts out: the violence, manic-depression, misanthropy, drug addiction, obsessive-compulsion and cynicism. I may not give two shits about the show (and no I will not be changing my mind) about House, M.D. but it's closer to an accurate depiction of Sherlock Holmes than most of the shows that are actually about him. Holmes is an asshole - he doesn't have very many friends, and the only person he's really close to is his former roommate, biographer and sidekick, Dr. John H. Watson.
Sherlock Holmes is a complicated character. He is brilliant on numerous levels: a musician, chemist, actor, master of disguise, fencer, and yes, martial artist (more on that in a sec), to speak nothing of course of his raison d'être, the scientific study of crime. He is also prone to sudden mood swings, and is addicted to heroin which he uses to make the boredom-caused depression between cases bearable. He doesn't care about money, and shoots holes in the walls of his apartments with a target pistol to pass the time. He disdains people, and prefers to live in seclusion after Watson meets the love of his life, marries her, and moves out to start his own medical practice. He's vain, but perhaps justifiably so: he's the foremost expert in his field, and the world's only "consulting detective." He consistently outsmarts his colleagues at Scotland Yard, but admits to having been beaten three times, twice by men and once by a woman.
This woman was named Irene Adler; she appears in A Scandal In Bohemia and is occasionally referenced after that (her picture remains on the mantle at 221B Baker Street and Holmes mentions that a woman has outsmarted him in The Red-Headed League, as examples), though never by name. Watson says of her that Sherlock Holmes calls her "the woman," and he doesn't show her the disdain he reserves for most women. He also notes that Sherlock Holmes never loved Irene; in fact, Holmes finds the entire idea of love "abhorrent" and rarely displays even slight affection for others; he does admit that Watson is his friend, though extremely rarely. The most notable of these is in The Adventure of the Three Garridebs when Watson is wounded and Holmes expresses concern over his condition. Holmes is asexual and coldly intellectual. Although Holmes dislikes most people, he often waives the fee for a case if he feels the client couldn't afford to hire him or if the case of is particular interest to him; he actually expresses concern for some of his clients, such as for Violet Hunter. He has room for only one real passion in his life, the art of solving mysteries. "Holmes is as inhuman as a Babbage's calculating machine and just about as likely to fall in love."
So why, then, is there a fucking romance of any kind in this movie?
Apparently, the actors playing the principle characters (Irene, Holmes and Watson) have decided that the actual love story in this movie is between Holmes and his sidekick. This makes me want to try and saw Guy Ritchie in half with a [glorified] cheese slicer, that misbegotten maggot-chewed offspring of a syphilitic water retaining sea cow!
Now, some of you might be wondering - what about the kung fu scenes in the trailer? Yes, it's way the fuck over the top. This isn't the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; an ideal Sherlock Holmes movie would likely be very quiet for most of it as Holmes works through the clues at a scene, with occasional bursts of action as criminals are pursued on London streets (there's a great boat chase/gun battle on the Thames in one story). That wouldn't make a very "good" summer blockbuster, so we have a lot of superfluous running around and making kung fu to bad guys. Actually, Holmes notes to Watson that he is trained in a "Japanese wrestling" he calls baritsu which is probably a reference to bartitsu, a defensive martial art developed in England from a variety of martial arts including la canne and jujitsu. He is also described as an expert swordsman (he never actually uses one in the stories) and being skilled at singlestick, a sort of stick fencing similar to la canne. He always carries a heavy walking stick with him and can use it as a weapon quite ably. In the art of la canne (or canne de combat) one not only uses a heavy walking stick as a defensive weapon but can use "double canne," that is, two sticks, one used to parry attacks and the other to strike the opponent with. He's also noted as a skilled boxer in several stories, and an excellent marksman. So yes, Holmes could in fact fuck a bitch up hand-to-hand, so I don't specifically object to that.
However, aside from the love story, I also object to Holmes' appearance. Sherlock Holmes was, as I said, a complicated character; he was by turns slovenly and extremely neat. His apartments are a wreck, with various chemistry experiments underway, clippings and mementos strewn everywhere, but he is described as "cat-like" in his tendency for personal neatness. He is well-groomed, smooth-shaven and actually quite dapper. He sometimes forgets to eat when he is involved in something that interests him (typically a case). Yes, he does in fact use cocaine; he injects himself regularly with a seven-percent solution of cocaine to fight the boredom that afflicts him between cases. He does not, however, look like a goddamn hobo at the train yard. He looks like Downey Jr has face-planted off the back of the wagon in the middle of a rainstorm in Elbonia.
In the trailers, we have a slovenly, sarcastic Holmes getting punched in the mouth by his mild-mannered (very mild-mannered) sidekick, lip-locking with Irene Adler, people levitating, raging kung fu battles, and a variety of other shit going on.
It looks fucking awful. I'm so pissed at this movie right now that I can't see straight. The only thing keeping this rant from going on another 200 paragraphs is that, much like Holmes, I occasionally just lose interest in things.
Bah.
My bed sits a good four feet from the floor now. It's a bit of an adventure getting into it now. It's comfortable though. And my girlfriend now lives across the landing from me, so that's fucking sweet. Oh, and I have a proper desk in my room (which I am currently not using, since I am using my laptop. fail.) and I still have that ugly ass Cupid table/lamp thing. It almost looks like a real room and not a disused broom closet in here!
My sister is pregnant again. Yes. Again.
Whatever.
I got D&D to plan.
Forget You Ever Saw Me,
Imma kill that Ritchie bitch in his own motherfucking kitchen.
Hey there, livejournal. I'm not dead. I'm not retired. I was just... elsewhere. Miss me? Of course you did. I can dodge bullets and cancer like Neo in a wind tunnel.
So what's bothering me today?
Dear Guy Ritchie:
You stupid son of a bitch. You know this is wrong, and yet you are doing it anyway. You are familiar with the source material, and yet you are producing this horseshit. You must be stopped.
Signed,
joiless
What I am on about? Why, Guy Ritchie's newest film, "Sherlock Holmes."
SIT THE FUCK BACK DOWN.
Now, I know what you're thinking - "But joiless, we don't read 122 year old literature! We need this film!" - but bear with me here. I look at the trailers for this movie and do you know what I see? Good intentions... GOING HORRIFICALLY FUCKING AWRY. Okay, I get it, Ritchie. You wanted to show some of the parts of Sherlock Holmes that modern media cuts out: the violence, manic-depression, misanthropy, drug addiction, obsessive-compulsion and cynicism. I may not give two shits about the show (and no I will not be changing my mind) about House, M.D. but it's closer to an accurate depiction of Sherlock Holmes than most of the shows that are actually about him. Holmes is an asshole - he doesn't have very many friends, and the only person he's really close to is his former roommate, biographer and sidekick, Dr. John H. Watson.
Sherlock Holmes is a complicated character. He is brilliant on numerous levels: a musician, chemist, actor, master of disguise, fencer, and yes, martial artist (more on that in a sec), to speak nothing of course of his raison d'être, the scientific study of crime. He is also prone to sudden mood swings, and is addicted to heroin which he uses to make the boredom-caused depression between cases bearable. He doesn't care about money, and shoots holes in the walls of his apartments with a target pistol to pass the time. He disdains people, and prefers to live in seclusion after Watson meets the love of his life, marries her, and moves out to start his own medical practice. He's vain, but perhaps justifiably so: he's the foremost expert in his field, and the world's only "consulting detective." He consistently outsmarts his colleagues at Scotland Yard, but admits to having been beaten three times, twice by men and once by a woman.
This woman was named Irene Adler; she appears in A Scandal In Bohemia and is occasionally referenced after that (her picture remains on the mantle at 221B Baker Street and Holmes mentions that a woman has outsmarted him in The Red-Headed League, as examples), though never by name. Watson says of her that Sherlock Holmes calls her "the woman," and he doesn't show her the disdain he reserves for most women. He also notes that Sherlock Holmes never loved Irene; in fact, Holmes finds the entire idea of love "abhorrent" and rarely displays even slight affection for others; he does admit that Watson is his friend, though extremely rarely. The most notable of these is in The Adventure of the Three Garridebs when Watson is wounded and Holmes expresses concern over his condition. Holmes is asexual and coldly intellectual. Although Holmes dislikes most people, he often waives the fee for a case if he feels the client couldn't afford to hire him or if the case of is particular interest to him; he actually expresses concern for some of his clients, such as for Violet Hunter. He has room for only one real passion in his life, the art of solving mysteries. "Holmes is as inhuman as a Babbage's calculating machine and just about as likely to fall in love."
So why, then, is there a fucking romance of any kind in this movie?
Apparently, the actors playing the principle characters (Irene, Holmes and Watson) have decided that the actual love story in this movie is between Holmes and his sidekick. This makes me want to try and saw Guy Ritchie in half with a [glorified] cheese slicer, that misbegotten maggot-chewed offspring of a syphilitic water retaining sea cow!
Now, some of you might be wondering - what about the kung fu scenes in the trailer? Yes, it's way the fuck over the top. This isn't the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; an ideal Sherlock Holmes movie would likely be very quiet for most of it as Holmes works through the clues at a scene, with occasional bursts of action as criminals are pursued on London streets (there's a great boat chase/gun battle on the Thames in one story). That wouldn't make a very "good" summer blockbuster, so we have a lot of superfluous running around and making kung fu to bad guys. Actually, Holmes notes to Watson that he is trained in a "Japanese wrestling" he calls baritsu which is probably a reference to bartitsu, a defensive martial art developed in England from a variety of martial arts including la canne and jujitsu. He is also described as an expert swordsman (he never actually uses one in the stories) and being skilled at singlestick, a sort of stick fencing similar to la canne. He always carries a heavy walking stick with him and can use it as a weapon quite ably. In the art of la canne (or canne de combat) one not only uses a heavy walking stick as a defensive weapon but can use "double canne," that is, two sticks, one used to parry attacks and the other to strike the opponent with. He's also noted as a skilled boxer in several stories, and an excellent marksman. So yes, Holmes could in fact fuck a bitch up hand-to-hand, so I don't specifically object to that.
However, aside from the love story, I also object to Holmes' appearance. Sherlock Holmes was, as I said, a complicated character; he was by turns slovenly and extremely neat. His apartments are a wreck, with various chemistry experiments underway, clippings and mementos strewn everywhere, but he is described as "cat-like" in his tendency for personal neatness. He is well-groomed, smooth-shaven and actually quite dapper. He sometimes forgets to eat when he is involved in something that interests him (typically a case). Yes, he does in fact use cocaine; he injects himself regularly with a seven-percent solution of cocaine to fight the boredom that afflicts him between cases. He does not, however, look like a goddamn hobo at the train yard. He looks like Downey Jr has face-planted off the back of the wagon in the middle of a rainstorm in Elbonia.
In the trailers, we have a slovenly, sarcastic Holmes getting punched in the mouth by his mild-mannered (very mild-mannered) sidekick, lip-locking with Irene Adler, people levitating, raging kung fu battles, and a variety of other shit going on.
It looks fucking awful. I'm so pissed at this movie right now that I can't see straight. The only thing keeping this rant from going on another 200 paragraphs is that, much like Holmes, I occasionally just lose interest in things.
Bah.
My bed sits a good four feet from the floor now. It's a bit of an adventure getting into it now. It's comfortable though. And my girlfriend now lives across the landing from me, so that's fucking sweet. Oh, and I have a proper desk in my room (which I am currently not using, since I am using my laptop. fail.) and I still have that ugly ass Cupid table/lamp thing. It almost looks like a real room and not a disused broom closet in here!
My sister is pregnant again. Yes. Again.
Whatever.
I got D&D to plan.
Forget You Ever Saw Me,
Imma kill that Ritchie bitch in his own motherfucking kitchen.