I Miss U all my Blog

Making a great film is like capturing lightning in a bottle, and I truly think Favreau & co. captured something with Iron Man. As great as many other comic book films are Favreau and his team managed to do what so few comic book films have – he captured the essence and story of the characters without being so literal that the non-geeks were bored.

While I am a geek, I am a prime example of the demographics they managed to snag – not only am I a female, but I am a DC girl not a Marvel one. I knew nothing about the Marvel-verse until Iron Man, since then I’ve become so interested in the characters that I’ve been learning about them and at Con I bought the Civil War trade paperback as I have an inclining that this might be where the Marvel movie franchise is going, plus the idea of the Super-hero registration act is pretty dang compelling.

I still hold that getting Iron Man 4-5 films into his career is a great thing for Jon favreau, and I would love to be in his position one day – just in the DC universe…

Agent Coulson: I'm Agent Phil Coulson with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
Pepper: That's quite a mouthful.
Agent Coulson: I know. We're working on it.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is unlike any Sherlock Holmes story I’ve ever seen, but I should expect nothing less from Billy Wilder. This incarnation of Holmes is about the Holmes we do not see, the Holmes Waston and the people he works the cases of see; this is Holmes complete with bumps, bruises, faux pas, brilliant moments and confounding mysteries.

This time Sherlock takes a case that appears to be rather mundane, an amnesiac woman washes onto his doorstep and once she regains her memory it appears that she is looking for her missing husband. Watson & Sherlock take the case and track it all the way to Scotland and the Loch Ness monster only to find out that the case is nothing that it seems.

What I love about Billy Wilder is that his films are vastly unique from anything else you’ll ever watch. I was hooked on this one from the opening titles; Wilder enjoys building subtext and meaning into everything that he does and this starts right in the titles. For the titles Watson’s bag is opened presumably after his death, and he has left a letter explaining a case that he never wrote about; as the letter is read the items in Watson’s case are examined and the wonderful thing that is done is that every object has a dual purpose, it appears to be one thing but is actually something else – until a syringe is pulled out. The double meaning of this item is actually what the rest of the film is about.

Wilder paints Holmes as a complex, tortured and brilliant man. A man who would rather shun society than deign to appear in the trivial goings on of day to day life. Honestly, he’s a bit of a prick, but somehow this makes him human.

I loved this version of Sherlock Holmes, but it only excites me for what’s coming this Christmas – the return of Holmes to the big screen in with Robert Downey Jr. and Guy Ritchie.

Director: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder & IAL Diamond
Sherlock Holmes: Robert Stephens
Dr. Watson: Colin Blakely
Gabrielle: Genevieve Page
Mycroft Holmes: Christopher Lee

Holmes: Some of us are cursed with memories like flypaper. Stuck there is a staggering amount of miscellaneous data, most of it useless.

Cinderella is one of the stories I have a weakness for. I love it. Always have and always will. This is why I had to check out the version on DVD with Julie Andrews. It was the first version of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella done for television.

This version is not perfect in regards to its transfer to DVD; as most TV programs weren’t recorded and kept in the 1950’s this was definitely recorded off a playback, but it still holds all of its charm. Julie Andrews is a perfect Cinderella and watching her reminded me of how much I miss her musicals. I think I may be watching a few more of her films soon.

Cinderella: Julie Andrews
Fairy Godmother: Edie Adams