Two Legends for the Price of One: Holmes vs. Hood

They have certain things in common: both are derived from British culture, both have captured the imagination of the world for generations and both have a moral integrity that can only be borne of fictional characters. One steals from the rich to give to the poor and the other punishes criminals as "the world's only private consulting detective." As for their most recent reincarnations, for both have been made for television, film, the Great White Way and the East End, Robin and Sherlock have been undergoing something of a makeover.
Ridley Scott's reworking of the Robin of the Hood legend starts in the pre-Sherwood Forest days. Robin (Russell Crowe in an understated, uninspired performance) remains not only a man with notoriously accurate archery skills but also a rogue who has a shell game on the side as he helps King Richard murder and pillage his way through the French countryside as they return to England from the Crusades. Even Richard comes off as a greedy egotistical somewhat irrational rock star of a monarch which is a departure from earlier incarnations of the story. Richard was good. Little John was a bad. It was always as simple as that. There is certainly more grey in Ridley Scott's rendering of the people and events of the Robin Hood adventures. The grey is the problem - there's not too much storyi n the adaptation. One of the most interesting British folklores has been reduced to a political allegory on how absolute power corrupts absolutely.
On the other hand, the detective of 221B Baker Street has been given a fresh new life in Robert Downey Jr.'s embodiment. Sherlock Holmes, as helmed by Guy Richie, is a movie which gives Sherlock Holmes fans just enough fun to keep them satisfied. The quirky, pugilistic, sharpshooting consulting detective has a weakness for a good mystery and only one woman, "Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory." Sherlock Holmes weaves the detective's skill as a fist fighter with all of his rather peculiar habits as illustrated by his long suffering flat mate and biographer, Dr. John Watson.
Both films have conveniently left their endings open for a sequel. The winner of the vote for a sequel is Sherlock Holmes. The fellow may be missing his deerstalker but he has been given new life by Robert Downey and Guy Richie. As for the duelling legends: We have a winner!!!!! It's Sherlock!!!!

not your standard flick chick

The first film I ever recorded on video was director John Huston's The Maltese Falcon. The first PG film I ever saw was Kramer vs. Kramer starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. I watched Dragonheart with the first man I ever loved in the local mall movie theater. It's these memories and the impressions the pictures themselves leave that make the film experience one of the most inexplicably personal in spite of sometimes being in a large dark room accompanied by strangers. Strangers in the same room seeing the same picture often come away with vastly different perspectives of what they saw once the lights come up. The reason I started this blog is to talk about something which has been a part of my life ever since I could turn on ABC to watch the network premier of Foul Play. Quotes, thoughts, ramblings, that's what this blog will be all about, because, as my father and my brother have said, "I love movies."