Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Sherlock Holmes (2009) - Guy Ritchie | Houselights #269: Wing of Sherlock

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Sherlock Holmes (2009) - Guy Ritchie | Houselights #269: Wing of Sherlock · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned party.
0:21
Speaker 2: This must not register on an emotional level. First neutralized
0:26
Speaker 2: John's tangents, then block Darren's inevitable complaint of dark cinematography.
0:32
Speaker 2: Counter with the hot take on Guy Ritchie's direction, discombobulate
0:37
Speaker 2: John will attempt a wild point about the canon, employ
0:40
Speaker 2: the redirect body of the review Downey's performance for neetic storytelling.
0:45
Speaker 2: The Holmes as action hero conundrum now fracture consensus. In summary,
0:51
Speaker 2: one contested director, two hours of kinetic chaos, three opinions,
0:55
Speaker 2: diaphragm hemorrhaging, critical recovery, one week psychological recovery from Judels mustache,
1:02
Speaker 2: six months creating a successful sequel, uncertain Welcome to house lights.
1:14
Speaker 3: There you're having, folks. Welcome.
1:16
Speaker 2: We are so excited to continue our wing of Sherlock.
1:21
Speaker 2: As we talk about Guy Ritchie's two thousand and nine
1:25
Speaker 2: Sherlock Holmes. It was a starring Robert Downey Jr. And
1:29
Speaker 2: it transformed the Victorian detective into a brawling, wise cracking
1:33
Speaker 2: action star. And I think that's going to be the
1:35
Speaker 2: kind of the brunt the chunk of our discussion tonight.
1:40
Speaker 2: As you might have guessed from the intro, I have
1:43
Speaker 2: the lovely John Mills and the intelligent Darren Moser. How
1:46
Speaker 2: are you guys tonight?
1:47
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm just managing my tangents over here, you know,
1:50
Speaker 4: That's what I'm doing. So that's you know, that's cool Darren.
1:53
Speaker 4: How's the cinematography over where you are?
1:55
Speaker 5: Can you see everything?
1:56
Speaker 3: You know? Okay, No, it's the lamplight. I would try
2:00
Speaker 3: to guess who Morey already was, but he was always
2:02
Speaker 3: in shadow. I hate it and hated.
2:04
Speaker 5: It for once. It seems like that was intentional.
2:07
Speaker 3: Okay, Surprisingly, I'll give him that one. I'll give him
2:09
Speaker 3: that one.
2:10
Speaker 4: That's the only one though, That's the only one. Yeah, yeah, no,
2:13
Speaker 4: I listen, man, I'm excited to talk about this because
2:16
Speaker 4: this is this is an injection of adrenaline, surprisely from
2:21
Speaker 4: guy Ritchie straight into this house, because like, everything up
2:24
Speaker 4: to this point has been exactly what you know. Sherlock
2:27
Speaker 4: is who you expect him to be, and this is
2:29
Speaker 4: the first one to really shake it up and be like,
2:31
Speaker 4: now you know what, We're going to do our own
2:33
Speaker 4: take on it, and like this is the first time
2:36
Speaker 4: in this director focused podcast where I'm like, Okay, I
2:39
Speaker 4: can see a director's imprint on this, this is.
2:42
Speaker 5: Him doing this story. Nobody else can do this this way.
2:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, Guy Ritchie has such a distinct style and to
2:50
Speaker 2: a lot of people, they say to his detriment because
2:53
Speaker 2: he just can't walk away from it. With when he
2:56
Speaker 2: made Lockstock in Two Smoking Barrels, people were just like,
3:00
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, wow, this is amazing. This is so different,
3:04
Speaker 2: this is so new, this is so edgy and real.
3:07
Speaker 2: And then he comes out with Snatch and we're like, okay, yeah,
3:10
Speaker 2: this is guy Richie kind of refining it. And then
3:12
Speaker 2: he and then he keeps going and we're just.
3:14
Speaker 3: Like, okay, all right, you know what you're gonna get
3:19
Speaker 3: with a guy with the Guy Ritchie film.
3:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean he is. He's definitely a director who
3:26
Speaker 5: his style is.
3:28
Speaker 4: And the thing isn't gonna be careful here hasn't evolved
3:33
Speaker 4: in the same way.
3:33
Speaker 5: That Nolan's has.
3:34
Speaker 4: For instance, like Nolan, you can see through his filmography
3:37
Speaker 4: he keeps building and adding and refined, like he's refining
3:40
Speaker 4: and building as he goes, making it more complex, more
3:43
Speaker 4: convoluted and stuff like that, whereas Richie really does seem
3:47
Speaker 4: like he's just in a very comfortable lane and he
3:50
Speaker 4: doesn't want to leave it to your point. Whether that's
3:54
Speaker 4: good or bad, that's to the taste of the viewer.
3:57
Speaker 4: Like I mean, at the very least, when I see
4:00
Speaker 4: Guy Ritchie's name on a movie, I'm like, I know
4:01
Speaker 4: exactly what I'm going to get right now, I know
4:04
Speaker 4: what I am signing up for, and I'm either going
4:07
Speaker 4: to go or I'm not because i want to see
4:08
Speaker 4: Guy Ritchie's take on something like this.
4:11
Speaker 2: Now, as we're recording this podcast, he has released Young Sherlock,
4:15
Speaker 2: a TV show that was produced by Guy Ritchie. Has
4:18
Speaker 2: either of you guys seen it? I haven't seen it yet.
4:20
Speaker 5: I have not. I've had it highly recommended to me.
4:24
Speaker 3: So it's very interesting.
4:26
Speaker 5: Zero stars.
4:28
Speaker 3: Yes, no, not so.
4:31
Speaker 2: The man who developed the the concept was Lionel Wigram,
4:35
Speaker 2: and he developed the story as well, and he after
4:42
Speaker 2: reading lots of Doyle and early Sir Arthur Quinn Doyle,
4:46
Speaker 2: he noticed that it was a bit more physical in
4:49
Speaker 2: action oriented than and less cerebral as it went later on.
4:55
Speaker 2: So to him, it was kind of like returning to
4:57
Speaker 2: the roots but then amping it up to eleven, which
5:01
Speaker 2: this movie is very much amped up to eleven. This
5:05
Speaker 2: was a Warner Brother Pictures Village Road Show Silver Pictures
5:10
Speaker 2: released in the tail end of two thousand nine. Christmas
5:12
Speaker 2: of two thousand and nine, We Got Downy Junior, judelaw
5:15
Speaker 2: Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Philippe Russello for cinematography, Hans Zimmer
5:21
Speaker 2: for music, and screenplay was by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckman,
5:26
Speaker 2: Simon Kinberg. This movie had tons of drafts and several writers,
5:33
Speaker 2: and it was very much like cool, we have this
5:36
Speaker 2: cool concept and we want to get it right. But
5:39
Speaker 2: yet you know, like a lot of people put their
5:42
Speaker 2: hands on it, put their touches on it, and they
5:45
Speaker 2: wanted this torchis is hard.
5:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a hard formula to get right.
5:52
Speaker 2: So did you guys notice anything? Actually, let me let
5:55
Speaker 2: me ask first, when was the first time that you
5:58
Speaker 2: saw this? I saw this in the theater with my
6:00
Speaker 2: sister and it was just the two of us. I
6:03
Speaker 2: think it was just the two of us, and we
6:05
Speaker 2: rewatched it together pretty often, just the two of us. Like, actually,
6:09
Speaker 2: I went to go see her a couple of weekends
6:11
Speaker 2: ago and we watched this one and the sequel in
6:14
Speaker 2: one weekend. Like we were just like, yeah.
6:16
Speaker 5: We're going to do that I saw.
6:19
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure Basic Cable was the first time I
6:21
Speaker 4: happened across this would have been, because this would have
6:25
Speaker 4: hit Basic Cable. Well, my kids were still pretty young,
6:28
Speaker 4: so it would have fallen right into that era wherein
6:32
Speaker 4: I saw American Gangster about four hundred thousand times because
6:35
Speaker 4: it was the only thing on HBO at two o'clock
6:36
Speaker 4: in the morning sort of stuff. And so, Sherlock, I
6:41
Speaker 4: have a faint memory of the house I was living
6:43
Speaker 4: in when I encountered it for the first time, and
6:45
Speaker 4: that I was sort of doing the skimming thing and
6:49
Speaker 4: it was interesting enough for me to stop and say, okay,
6:52
Speaker 4: well I'll stay with this one for a bit, and
6:54
Speaker 4: then I wound up watching the whole thing all the
6:56
Speaker 4: way to the end. So that's, so far as I'm concern.
7:00
Speaker 4: That's the highest praise you can give a movie is
7:02
Speaker 4: that it's interesting enough that when you're just poking around
7:06
Speaker 4: and you stop for two minutes, you're like, okay, well,
7:09
Speaker 4: let's see how how long we can ride this, and
7:10
Speaker 4: then you wind up riding the whole thing to the end.
7:13
Speaker 4: That's you know, it was good enough to do that
7:15
Speaker 4: for me back then.
7:16
Speaker 3: Darren Hoby Yeah. For me, Well, I saw it in theaters.
7:19
Speaker 3: I remember this coming out and the you know, very
7:23
Speaker 3: well marketed, very much hype, you know, it was I'm
7:27
Speaker 3: trying to recall. Don't quote me on it, but I
7:31
Speaker 3: feel like this is the kind of movie where they
7:35
Speaker 3: might have shown like a whole sequence, like maybe the
7:40
Speaker 3: boxing sequence or or or maybe not. I'm I'm probably
7:43
Speaker 3: misremembering it, but I don't. I don't think so. I
7:45
Speaker 3: don't remember that just standard trailer, you know, voiceover and
7:49
Speaker 3: all of that. But yeah, this movie, though, I remember,
7:53
Speaker 3: there was lots of hype for it and because it
7:55
Speaker 3: was something different and it was I mean, oh nine,
7:59
Speaker 3: so we're right after Iron Man. Sow Is brash off,
8:04
Speaker 3: iron Is like the King just obviously they were producing
8:09
Speaker 3: it in a wait and all of that, but it Yeah,
8:13
Speaker 3: so this this was perfect timing to come out.
8:16
Speaker 4: He would have been in production for Iron Man two
8:18
Speaker 4: by this point, right, because they fast tracked that, didn't
8:20
Speaker 4: They didn't Iland two come out pretty quickly after he
8:23
Speaker 4: came out.
8:24
Speaker 2: In ten I think, yeah, it was twenty ten, so.
8:26
Speaker 4: He would have been in production for that while this
8:28
Speaker 4: was going on. Wouldn't he like when the movie's being released,
8:31
Speaker 4: so it would have been like perfect timing because he
8:33
Speaker 4: would have been when it was released.
8:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was iron Man Sherlock and then iron
8:39
Speaker 2: Man two. I think, yeah, yeah, so he was. Yeah,
8:42
Speaker 2: he was consistently busy. And let's just go right into it.
8:45
Speaker 2: Let's just go into Downey Junior. You know, let's talk
8:47
Speaker 2: about it. So like he's Holmes is kind of twitchy, manic,
8:52
Speaker 2: brilliant of course, and reckless. Apparently on set, Downey really
8:57
Speaker 2: wanted to improvise, and some directors like, no, if it
9:00
Speaker 2: ain't on a page, it ain't on the stage. But
9:03
Speaker 2: Richie was just like, yeah, no, no, go for it.
9:05
Speaker 2: And so sometimes you can see and hear some anachronistic
9:10
Speaker 2: language with some of the improv So, Darren, what did
9:15
Speaker 2: you feel about Robert Downey as Holmes? Did you feel
9:18
Speaker 2: like Iron iron Man, you know, smoking a pipe or
9:21
Speaker 2: you know, was it no?
9:24
Speaker 3: I think I mean hearing that he was allowed to
9:28
Speaker 3: improv make sense. But it felt like if that was
9:33
Speaker 3: the case, there were guide rails, like within the Holmes character,
9:40
Speaker 3: you can't go full off so that but he's he's
9:44
Speaker 3: given a room and he's playing within it. But yeah,
9:48
Speaker 3: I again, this is This was really interesting watching this
9:53
Speaker 3: time because I think for me, this was probably the
9:58
Speaker 3: first Holmes story I ever seen, Like I had not
10:01
Speaker 3: watched any of the classics, like we are in this
10:05
Speaker 3: House of house lights, so it was interesting now rewatching
10:10
Speaker 3: and seeing things like making the flies fly in concentric circles.
10:15
Speaker 3: I thought that was just from this movie, but we
10:18
Speaker 3: saw that in another movie, you know, with with with
10:22
Speaker 3: Holmes doing it, so obviously it's from the same source.
10:24
Speaker 3: That makes sense. But this interpretation, you know it for
10:32
Speaker 3: good or ill with Guy Ritchie. It it worked. It
10:36
Speaker 3: worked as far as drawing me into Holmes's mind, you know,
10:42
Speaker 3: the mix of slow mo like I felt. I mean,
10:46
Speaker 3: this is literally the textbook definition of a fresh take
10:49
Speaker 3: on an old source that pulled it off.
10:53
Speaker 5: Yeah.
10:53
Speaker 4: I think that Downey's Homes is different enough from Iron
10:59
Speaker 4: Man that I don't feel like he's just phoning it in.
11:03
Speaker 4: But there is unquestionably a solidification at this stage of
11:10
Speaker 4: what the default baseline persona is going to be for
11:15
Speaker 4: a Downey junior leading man, at least in a blockbuster
11:19
Speaker 4: like I can see the consistency in how he's going
11:23
Speaker 4: to deliver certain things and the type of energy he's
11:25
Speaker 4: going to bring to certain situations where I'll give him
11:28
Speaker 4: a lot of credit and Ritchie a lot of credit
11:31
Speaker 4: is that.
11:32
Speaker 5: This is not this home.
11:35
Speaker 4: He's not in control the way that Tony Stark is,
11:38
Speaker 4: where Tony Stark is sort of like a focused madness
11:41
Speaker 4: sort of thing. Whereas what I really enjoy about what
11:45
Speaker 4: he brought to this is that I believe in homes
11:50
Speaker 4: as somebody who is manic and who is exhibiting not
11:56
Speaker 4: a singular type of addictive personality, but the type of
11:59
Speaker 4: person that's going to trend towards addiction. And it's just
12:02
Speaker 4: a question of what he's going to land on that finally,
12:06
Speaker 4: you know, hits that right self medication cycle for him.
12:10
Speaker 4: So this feels like a Holmes who hasn't discovered heroin yet,
12:14
Speaker 4: but when he does and he can suddenly sleep at night,
12:17
Speaker 4: he's gonna be like, this stuff rocks. I actually got
12:20
Speaker 4: eight hours of sleep.
12:21
Speaker 3: Man.
12:22
Speaker 4: I don't know what's been missing in my life, but
12:23
Speaker 4: that was it. Like, that's the type of homes I
12:26
Speaker 4: see here, and Yeah, for me, that works a great deal.
12:30
Speaker 2: I really like that distinction of not addicted but yet
12:33
Speaker 2: an addictive personality because that's that's an important distinction.
12:37
Speaker 3: I really like that.
12:38
Speaker 2: One thing that I really liked was Jude Law as Watson.
12:42
Speaker 2: Bar none my favorite Watson, absolutely, Like this is my
12:47
Speaker 2: favorite cinematic Watson, and I think Martin Freeman is my
12:51
Speaker 2: favorite television Watson. It's I absolutely loved how they made him.
12:58
Speaker 2: He's not bumbling, he's not comic relief. He doesn't even
13:01
Speaker 2: really feel like a sidekick. I mean he is, but
13:05
Speaker 2: it's definitely not Batman and Robin. It's more Batman and
13:09
Speaker 2: night Wing. If that makes sense.
13:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, and of course you'd go with that. Awy okay.
13:15
Speaker 2: But the thing is that, like I really one thing
13:17
Speaker 2: that I really enjoy is where they started where it's
13:21
Speaker 2: It would have been very easy if you wanted to
13:24
Speaker 2: start a franchise to start it at the beginning of
13:27
Speaker 2: their career together, you know, have an origin story or
13:30
Speaker 2: something like that. It would Yeah, And with this one,
13:35
Speaker 2: they didn't even start in the middle, like it's it's
13:38
Speaker 2: oh wait no, like you know, Watson's moving out, like
13:42
Speaker 2: he's he's breaking up the gang, he's breaking up the team,
13:44
Speaker 2: he's getting married, and Holmes is not okay with it.
13:48
Speaker 2: I think that I think that was a genius move
13:51
Speaker 2: because it's built in drama. It's built in internal and
13:55
Speaker 2: relationship drama, and Watson was just such a was played
14:00
Speaker 2: so well by Jude Law that he almost stole the
14:03
Speaker 2: show for me. I'm a huge jud Law Jude Law fan.
14:06
Speaker 2: I'm sure other people are like, you're crazy. Downey is
14:09
Speaker 2: perfect as Holmes, I'm not arguing for For me, I
14:11
Speaker 2: freaking loved Jude Law and he really felt like Holmes
14:16
Speaker 2: is equal and almost and I don't say this in
14:18
Speaker 2: a weird way, but almost like a husband kind of
14:21
Speaker 2: way where he has to take care of them, like
14:23
Speaker 2: they have such a deep relationship where like they're bickering
14:27
Speaker 2: like an old married couple, but they're equals with different strengths.
14:33
Speaker 4: I agree with you, it's equals with different strengths. It's
14:37
Speaker 4: and you can see these guys being friends and it's
14:41
Speaker 4: sort of like the Wyatt or Doc Holliday thing going
14:44
Speaker 4: on in Tombstone. But with this, I would say that
14:48
Speaker 4: it's not necessarily like like I get what you're saying,
14:50
Speaker 4: like the husband's sort of thing, but I would say
14:53
Speaker 4: that every single person on God's Earth has friends with somebody,
14:59
Speaker 4: where other people think that that person is a raging ahole,
15:03
Speaker 4: but you love that person and you will go through
15:07
Speaker 4: fire with them, you will die for them. And that's
15:10
Speaker 4: a sort of relationship I see where like nobody will
15:12
Speaker 4: ever understand why Watson is as close as he is
15:16
Speaker 4: with Holmes, but Watson understands why he's as close as
15:19
Speaker 4: he is with Holmes, and Holmes feeling threatened by the
15:24
Speaker 4: impending marriage makes perfect sense because on some subconscious level,
15:29
Speaker 4: Holmes understands he can't function without Watson in his life.
15:32
Speaker 5: He will go off the rails.
15:35
Speaker 3: Well, and I really agree with what you said, Tristan
15:37
Speaker 3: about almost dealing the show. They played it so well
15:44
Speaker 3: in this story where yes it's Sherlock Holmes, but you
15:48
Speaker 3: could almost title this Sherlock Holmes and Watson. He had
15:51
Speaker 3: such a large part, and like you said, their dynamic
15:56
Speaker 3: was central to the story, their interactions there, you know
16:01
Speaker 3: how they're going about it, And yeah, it was a
16:04
Speaker 3: great idea. Put The inciting incident of this isn't at
16:09
Speaker 3: what you know, not raven wood, blackwood, blackwood, it was
16:14
Speaker 3: a wood in there. It's not blackwood, it's not even
16:18
Speaker 3: the Moriarty. It's instead it's him moving out and that
16:25
Speaker 3: is where all of it's coming to a head, and
16:28
Speaker 3: it just it makes it interesting. You're starting the story
16:31
Speaker 3: not oh, once upon a time and then things are happening.
16:35
Speaker 3: It's like no, like when is something changing from the
16:39
Speaker 3: status quo that's shaking up your characters. That's interesting, that's
16:43
Speaker 3: you know, and and it also lets you I mean again,
16:47
Speaker 3: imagine if they had started this as the meeting, you
16:51
Speaker 3: wouldn't have any of these conversations that showed that they
16:54
Speaker 3: knew each other intimately, they knew you know, like oh,
16:57
Speaker 3: it's like oh boxing, you know Stub because he's gambling again,
17:01
Speaker 3: like oh, just it rolled off the tongue in the
17:04
Speaker 3: story and he wouldn't have had any of that, and
17:06
Speaker 3: it just would have been lesser for it. So yeah, great,
17:10
Speaker 3: I mean I was looking up with guy Ritchie this
17:12
Speaker 3: is these two Sherlock movies are one of the few
17:16
Speaker 3: that he didn't write. He also very much writes his
17:20
Speaker 3: own pieces, So for one reason or the other, I
17:23
Speaker 3: think chose the better choice of not writing this and
17:28
Speaker 3: has said just being a.
17:30
Speaker 2: Director, Well, he was definitely a hired gun because this
17:34
Speaker 2: was a concept that was developed without him before him
17:38
Speaker 2: and they brought him on and they had such problems
17:40
Speaker 2: with the script getting to that point. They're like, we
17:43
Speaker 2: want you to direct, but here's your script. I'm of course,
17:46
Speaker 2: I'm sure he had input and everything like that, but
17:48
Speaker 2: they were like, we're not starting from scratch.
17:51
Speaker 3: How do you feel about Sherlock boxing, because I feel
17:54
Speaker 3: like we need a boxing scene.
17:56
Speaker 4: But the thing is that, in and of itself, speaks
17:59
Speaker 4: to the importance of even if you're a hired gun director,
18:03
Speaker 4: of how much a director can put an imprint on
18:07
Speaker 4: a work Anyway, Richie, this is a guy Ritchie movie
18:11
Speaker 4: is that he didn't write it, he directed this, and
18:15
Speaker 4: it's like, this is him.
18:17
Speaker 2: This guy Richie does Sherlock Holms.
18:20
Speaker 4: No question whatsoever. You bring another hired gun director in
18:23
Speaker 4: and it's like, oh, look, he's a boxer and he's
18:25
Speaker 4: thinking it out. The whole slow motion dissection voiceover thing
18:30
Speaker 4: where it's like, you know, deliverable, blow here, do this here,
18:33
Speaker 4: and like you see everything in slow motion. Then you
18:35
Speaker 4: see him deliver it in real time and immediately communicating, Oh,
18:39
Speaker 4: I spent the half a second in his brain where
18:42
Speaker 4: he was thinking through everything, so that when I see
18:45
Speaker 4: him do it, I feel as smart as he is.
18:49
Speaker 4: And it's like, that's pretty brilliant. I don't see any
18:52
Speaker 4: other director bringing it to life the way Richie does.
18:55
Speaker 4: I see a lot of directors that would be very
18:58
Speaker 4: bland with how they commune catd it.
19:01
Speaker 2: And if I read the script a long time ago,
19:04
Speaker 2: the actual script, not the transcript, but the script, and
19:08
Speaker 2: the boxing scene was just described as a boxing scene.
19:12
Speaker 2: It was just like, oh, he did this and then
19:14
Speaker 2: he hit him and then he's like he was super
19:17
Speaker 2: cool and then knocked him out. Like none of those
19:19
Speaker 2: slow mo yeah, yeah, like none of the slow mo
19:22
Speaker 2: like this is how I'm going to do it was
19:23
Speaker 2: in there. So that makes me feel like that was
19:26
Speaker 2: Guy Ritchie. I have no resource on that. It's totally
19:29
Speaker 2: totally guesswork on my part, but that feels like a
19:32
Speaker 2: Guy Ritchie invention where it's just like he took a
19:35
Speaker 2: scene and then was like, I'm gonna Richie eze this.
19:39
Speaker 5: Well.
19:40
Speaker 3: And from reading about things Guy Richie has said about
19:43
Speaker 3: this movie, apparently the two things he definitely made sure
19:48
Speaker 3: he gave the acts as far as not having for
19:52
Speaker 3: Srlock is no deer skin cap. You know that's gone burned,
19:57
Speaker 3: it's dead, and no like straight up elementary, my dear Watson,
20:03
Speaker 3: you know, cliche copying. Like again, there's plenty of other things.
20:07
Speaker 3: And we know this is Sherlock. It's not that kind
20:10
Speaker 3: of movie where we're questioning, oh, is it actually Sherlock.
20:13
Speaker 3: He's not wearing a deer like. No, no, he's not
20:16
Speaker 3: data picked it up, took it to his holidack, he's
20:18
Speaker 3: all happy. We don't need it here.
20:22
Speaker 2: Speak speaking of input too, I forgot to mention this,
20:24
Speaker 2: but Jude Law was a driving force behind Watson being
20:28
Speaker 2: competent and a romantic lead.
20:31
Speaker 3: Why not?
20:31
Speaker 2: And I think it was a great idea. That's when
20:34
Speaker 2: actor Vanity wins.
20:37
Speaker 5: Why on earth were you? Jude Law is anything but
20:41
Speaker 5: a heart throb. I mean.
20:45
Speaker 3: You happen to cast bookish Jude Law, who does it no.
20:49
Speaker 2: Like I'm thinking about, like a bumbling fool who repels women.
20:52
Speaker 3: Jude Law.
20:54
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly right too, you know I And honestly, I
20:58
Speaker 4: really love the the sort of like the energy he
21:03
Speaker 4: brings to that poll between the world that his future
21:08
Speaker 4: wife offers to him, the stability, the esteem, the career,
21:14
Speaker 4: the stuff he says he wants, and then the thrill
21:18
Speaker 4: of being with Holmes. And you can and you know,
21:21
Speaker 4: Jude Law is a really fantastic actor and he plays
21:25
Speaker 4: it really well, especially when they're they're at that dinner
21:29
Speaker 4: scene where you see him super uncomfortable because Holmes is
21:32
Speaker 4: saying all the stuff that's true, but he doesn't want
21:36
Speaker 4: to admit about himself.
21:37
Speaker 3: He's also saying it as an ass like he's.
21:40
Speaker 5: Saying no question, no question.
21:43
Speaker 2: But you know, they really explore that dynamic. And the sequel,
21:46
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys have seen it, but
21:48
Speaker 2: it's that was like that was another aspect that was
21:52
Speaker 2: amped up, where it was Jude Law as Watson really
21:58
Speaker 2: dissecting what he wants and it's it's thrust upon him
22:02
Speaker 2: and he has.
22:03
Speaker 3: It's very much. I couldn't tell you a single plot point.
22:07
Speaker 3: I don't remember it at all.
22:08
Speaker 2: Unfortunately America's opinion, because I think it was extremely underrated.
22:15
Speaker 2: Like I watched it just recently again and I really
22:18
Speaker 2: enjoyed it. I was like, man, why didn't we get
22:20
Speaker 2: a third?
22:21
Speaker 3: I remember enjoying it and I remember not hating it.
22:23
Speaker 3: But it just the singular like any sequel, it is
22:27
Speaker 3: a It didn't have the singular magnetism of the first
22:30
Speaker 3: one that told its story.
22:33
Speaker 5: What year did the sequel come out?
22:35
Speaker 3: Uh, it was eleven, so nine and eleven.
22:40
Speaker 5: That it didn't stand a chance of finding an audience.
22:43
Speaker 4: I've always seen part of it, but the Marvel machine
22:47
Speaker 4: was fired up by that point. People didn't want to
22:50
Speaker 4: see Robert Downey Junior or anything iron Man at that point,
22:53
Speaker 4: like that's it, that's interesting career. And it's like, you
22:56
Speaker 4: you know, he even like it was a million dollars,
23:00
Speaker 4: like but like, you know, you put Robert Downey Junior
23:05
Speaker 4: out there.
23:06
Speaker 3: You know.
23:07
Speaker 4: There was even a movie that he did, I think
23:08
Speaker 4: with like Robert Duvall at some point, and like the
23:10
Speaker 4: whole ad campaign was like he can't. There was a
23:12
Speaker 4: TV commercial where he was like, you know, I really
23:16
Speaker 4: appreciate you going to Marvel movies, but you know, small
23:18
Speaker 4: movies like this are super important too. So if you
23:21
Speaker 4: like these iron Man, come and see this please. It
23:24
Speaker 4: was something like Robert Duvall played his dad who was
23:26
Speaker 4: a judge and he was a lawyer or.
23:28
Speaker 5: Something like that.
23:29
Speaker 4: But like that, audiences will do that. Man, they typecast you.
23:32
Speaker 4: It's like, no, I want to see iron Man. That's
23:34
Speaker 4: that's your role right now. So it's like that's why
23:37
Speaker 4: it's even more baffling. Anyway, that's one of my tangents
23:40
Speaker 4: that you hinted about, Tristay.
23:41
Speaker 5: He did a terrible job of raining me in. Distract Yeah,
23:46
Speaker 5: bring me in.
23:47
Speaker 2: So Rachel mccadams as Irene Adler was an interesting choice.
23:52
Speaker 2: I am a big McAdams fan. I think I think
23:56
Speaker 2: the woman has a lot of range, and anyone who
24:00
Speaker 2: has seen Game Night knows that she has some severe
24:03
Speaker 2: comedic chops. Good Lord. She can do drama, she can
24:07
Speaker 2: do action, she can do comedy. She's fantastic. I don't
24:11
Speaker 2: know if I would have cast her in this role
24:13
Speaker 2: if I was a casting director. What did you guys
24:16
Speaker 2: think about Irene Nandler being an American? Did do you
24:20
Speaker 2: feel like she had romantic chemistry with Holmes? She's obviously
24:24
Speaker 2: a bit more active than in the original story. You
24:27
Speaker 2: know what, what did you guys think?
24:31
Speaker 4: I think it was very obvious that it wasn't the
24:34
Speaker 4: perfect choice. As soon as she has to explain why
24:37
Speaker 4: she's not doing a British accent, Oh I'm from New Jersey.
24:41
Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, you can't do a British accent?
24:42
Speaker 5: Okay? Gotcha? Like seriously, Like that's.
24:45
Speaker 4: Just where my brain goes immediately is I was like,
24:47
Speaker 4: they cast you because your good name and you're a
24:50
Speaker 4: competent actress and you're good at your job. Oh but
24:54
Speaker 4: you can't do uh okay, uh, just well say that
24:57
Speaker 4: you're from New Jersey and you're good. Like that's eas
25:00
Speaker 4: Actually how that came across to me, I think that
25:03
Speaker 4: the script struggles with finding out who she is with
25:06
Speaker 4: like figuring out how she works in the story. It's
25:08
Speaker 4: to the detriment of the movie because they kind of
25:12
Speaker 4: have to re explain her every time she comes in
25:15
Speaker 4: as like remember poke, poke, Remember she's you know, it's
25:19
Speaker 4: like uh oh right, yeah, and then it feels like
25:23
Speaker 4: she simply exists for certain moments like getting rescued. Unfortunately,
25:29
Speaker 4: you know that she would exist for that moment in
25:31
Speaker 4: the pig slaughtering slicing thingy or whatever.
25:34
Speaker 5: It was a great scene, but like you said, yeah,
25:38
Speaker 5: she's there, she's.
25:39
Speaker 4: There for that. And then they were like, Okay, well
25:41
Speaker 4: we can't. You know, this is modern times, guys, we
25:43
Speaker 4: can't just have her in this movie for this reason.
25:45
Speaker 5: What are we going to do?
25:46
Speaker 3: I don't know.
25:47
Speaker 4: Let's make her homes this old lover and she's working
25:49
Speaker 4: with the more already. Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. That
25:51
Speaker 4: sounds good.
25:52
Speaker 2: I love how you said like it's in modern times,
25:54
Speaker 2: but yet you're like a nineteen thirties like news man.
25:57
Speaker 4: Right, that's the tell they all talk in Hollywood. Still,
26:01
Speaker 4: right now, you're.
26:03
Speaker 3: You're right though it I mean, I would define it
26:06
Speaker 3: as the character does not exist once she leaves your
26:11
Speaker 3: view in the screen, Like it's like she vanishes, and
26:15
Speaker 3: because when you actually start to think about it, like
26:18
Speaker 3: where is she going? Like what is she doing? Like
26:21
Speaker 3: they don't give you any of that. It's just she's
26:24
Speaker 3: going to pop up when she needs to pop up,
26:26
Speaker 3: and that's it. And there's many movies that do that
26:29
Speaker 3: with characters. It's not like a sin. But it also
26:34
Speaker 3: just firmly does not put her into the trio of
26:38
Speaker 3: Holmes and Watson. She is always going to be on
26:40
Speaker 3: the outside of that because uh, and that's just not
26:44
Speaker 3: the direction they went. But I enjoyed her performance. I
26:47
Speaker 3: think she balanced against you know, Robert Done Junior really well,
26:54
Speaker 3: as I immediately believe their chemistry. I immediately believed that
26:59
Speaker 3: this was kind of a you know, it didn't work out,
27:04
Speaker 3: but I still have your picture on the mantle, like
27:07
Speaker 3: there was at least enough chemistry for that, Like I
27:10
Speaker 3: bought that right away in the way they portrayed it.
27:14
Speaker 3: And but yeah, and then she disappeared when she left
27:16
Speaker 3: the frame.
27:17
Speaker 4: So I feel like there was has to have been
27:22
Speaker 4: a version of the script wherein she and Kelly Riley's
27:26
Speaker 4: characters were combined as one entity, and then somewhere along
27:30
Speaker 4: the way it got split into two for very valid reasons.
27:34
Speaker 4: I wouldn't have liked home Watson's love interest being the
27:37
Speaker 4: one that they have to rescue like it would have been.
27:40
Speaker 4: That would have been too pat But I feel like
27:42
Speaker 4: they separated out aspects of the character, like they separated
27:45
Speaker 4: out the needs of the story, but they never quite
27:50
Speaker 4: wrote either character up to the level that they needed
27:52
Speaker 4: to be. But I think that's also because Law and
27:58
Speaker 4: Downey are so good together. And I think Mark Strong
28:02
Speaker 4: is a great villain, like the guy's just you know,
28:04
Speaker 4: it's almost like the Joe Mantana curse, where it's like
28:08
Speaker 4: part of me believes he has to be some sort
28:10
Speaker 4: of evil person because every time he plays a villain,
28:13
Speaker 4: he does it really really well, and like there is
28:15
Speaker 4: something naturally about you that makes you seem dangerous.
28:19
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's like the sweetest person probably so bakes
28:23
Speaker 2: on the weekends. Yeah, Like it's just it's going to
28:25
Speaker 2: be something adorable, you.
28:27
Speaker 3: Know, like he has Stanley two she high five each
28:29
Speaker 3: other as they swap lives every six months, you know.
28:31
Speaker 5: I'm sure that's how it goes, something like that. But
28:34
Speaker 5: I think he's a very effective villain.
28:36
Speaker 2: Oh, Mark Strong is amazing, especially as Lord Blackwood, and
28:41
Speaker 2: I love that he was man Holmes loves the occult.
28:45
Speaker 2: He loves you know, getting like making exposing you know,
28:50
Speaker 2: these colts as these magical cults is not magical cults.
28:54
Speaker 2: And so I want to get into the plot a
28:57
Speaker 2: little bit. Because it fell some people have argued that
29:02
Speaker 2: it's convoluted steampunk nonsense. That's a direct quote, and I
29:07
Speaker 2: definitely don't agree with that, but I understand why people
29:11
Speaker 2: would think that. So, like we go from Homes and
29:15
Speaker 2: Watson stops Lord Blackwood's ritual murder, which I really like
29:18
Speaker 2: that that's where we started it. Like we started it
29:20
Speaker 2: right with capturing the bad guy. It's kind of like
29:23
Speaker 2: face off, you know, we're triful to capture U s
29:26
Speaker 2: Nick Cage. At the beginning and then you have Blackwood,
29:29
Speaker 2: who is executed then rises from the grave. You do
29:32
Speaker 2: have a series of murders target parliament members. Blackwood seems unkillable.
29:37
Speaker 2: Blackwood Homes discovers Blackwood as faking supernatural powers. Blackwood's plan
29:43
Speaker 2: is to use fear of a cult to seek control
29:45
Speaker 2: of British government. Irene is hired by Moriarty to manipulate
29:48
Speaker 2: Homes into stopping Blackwood and tower Bridge. Climax, we have
29:52
Speaker 2: Homes exposed as Blackwood's tricks defeats him and Moriarty reveals
29:56
Speaker 2: as true villain. Sequels set up. He hands over the
29:58
Speaker 2: Joker cards and then eyes way, was that too much?
30:03
Speaker 2: Too little? Was it too little and not done the
30:05
Speaker 2: right way? What did you think about that? Like? Does
30:08
Speaker 2: does it matter when the character dynamics and the action
30:11
Speaker 2: scenes are so good?
30:12
Speaker 5: No?
30:13
Speaker 4: I think you just answered the question right there. That's
30:15
Speaker 4: where I think Guy Ritchie as director is so vital.
30:18
Speaker 4: I think other directors would not have been able to
30:21
Speaker 4: make this work. I think that Richie makes it so
30:25
Speaker 4: electric in the way that he constructs things that everything
30:29
Speaker 4: you just walk through right there. On an intellectual level,
30:31
Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, that's kind of eh. But while you're
30:34
Speaker 4: watching it, I could have cared less. I was having
30:37
Speaker 4: such a time with it that you kind of have
30:40
Speaker 4: to like like it. And you know, again it gets
30:43
Speaker 4: that whole thing where it's like, movies are entertainment. Were
30:46
Speaker 4: you entertained if yes, movie to entertain Yeah, right exactly,
30:51
Speaker 4: But like if yes, movie did job, movie successful, that's it.
30:56
Speaker 3: I mean for me. With Blackwood and Moriarity, I think
31:01
Speaker 3: they towed the line really well because there was just
31:06
Speaker 3: enough Moriarty to kind of like set up for the
31:08
Speaker 3: next movie. But Blackwood is not Moriarty, and he's not
31:13
Speaker 3: meant to be because I think I remember the first
31:16
Speaker 3: time watching this being like, oh is Blackwood the red
31:20
Speaker 3: herring and not really like the big villain? And I
31:23
Speaker 3: would say he is the big villain. He is the
31:25
Speaker 3: main villain of this movie. For sure, someone might be
31:29
Speaker 3: pulling his strings a tiny bit, but it is his.
31:32
Speaker 3: As far as everything were presented, he is the villain.
31:35
Speaker 3: And I think that was a wise choice because once
31:39
Speaker 3: you add the name Moriarty to your villain, there is
31:42
Speaker 3: a ton of baggage that comes with this. Whereas I
31:45
Speaker 3: don't know who Blackwood is, I don't know that story
31:48
Speaker 3: or if it's even an original or amalgamation of different
31:52
Speaker 3: Holmes villains. Yeah, so I didn't know what to expect.
31:56
Speaker 3: I didn't know what he was gonna do, and that
31:58
Speaker 3: kept it interesting and fresh. But what I'm saying with
32:01
Speaker 3: the balancing act with Moriarty, like it was okay, I
32:07
Speaker 3: personally could have done without Moriarty pulling the strings or
32:11
Speaker 3: even being mentioned. He didn't need to be in this.
32:14
Speaker 3: It personally for me, I was okay with the amount
32:18
Speaker 3: they put him in, but anymore and it would have
32:21
Speaker 3: been like okay, Like I get that you want to
32:25
Speaker 3: set up your sequel, but do not do it at
32:27
Speaker 3: the sacrifice of my movie. And it was. It was
32:31
Speaker 3: a balancing act, I will say that. But yeah, I
32:34
Speaker 3: love I mean, Mark Strong was amazing. It was, you know.
32:38
Speaker 3: And again I love how this with Holmes being set
32:43
Speaker 3: in the eighteen hundreds and you have you know, was
32:48
Speaker 3: it like eighteen nineties, you know, so the fact that
32:51
Speaker 3: you can have this occultness and this mysticism and science
32:56
Speaker 3: and all these things. Like, but I love how Holmes
32:59
Speaker 3: pulled back the curtain. It's like, no, no, you did
33:01
Speaker 3: it with this, and you did it with that, and
33:03
Speaker 3: it just it worked, the whole story. I mean, for
33:07
Speaker 3: whatever burns they had to go through to pull this
33:10
Speaker 3: out of development hell and get a legitimate story. The
33:14
Speaker 3: story was the best part. It was an amazingly well
33:19
Speaker 3: constructed home story.
33:21
Speaker 4: But see, that's one of the things that's so fascinating
33:23
Speaker 4: to me is that it was in development. There are
33:25
Speaker 4: so many things that sit in development hell that never
33:28
Speaker 4: get pulled out. Why is it that certain things get
33:32
Speaker 4: pulled out? It's a rhetorical question. I know what goes
33:35
Speaker 4: into it. I know a certain you know, decision making,
33:38
Speaker 4: blah blah blah, money sunk in name attached, all those
33:40
Speaker 4: sorts of things. But it's fascinating to me because you
33:43
Speaker 4: would have thought that by the twenty first century they
33:47
Speaker 4: would have just said, you know, let's just give up
33:49
Speaker 4: on the whole Sherlock thing, like it's you know, it's
33:52
Speaker 4: time has passed and let's just move on. And I'm
33:56
Speaker 4: glad they didn't because this movie gets produced as a result.
34:00
Speaker 4: But it's so fascinating to me that it got produced
34:03
Speaker 4: at all, because it would have been so easy, after
34:05
Speaker 4: taking all of that time trying to produce it, just
34:07
Speaker 4: to be like, you know what, we just can't figure
34:09
Speaker 4: this one out. Let's just walk away, Guys, like, we
34:11
Speaker 4: can't really do anything with this. That would have been
34:15
Speaker 4: valid to me, a valid business decision to be like,
34:18
Speaker 4: you know, this just isn't work and everybody but like
34:21
Speaker 4: the fact that they stuck with it and then this something,
34:24
Speaker 4: this entertaining came out of it. I think you wind
34:27
Speaker 4: up breathing new life into everything. Like I would say,
34:30
Speaker 4: you could point to this as like, well, that's why
34:32
Speaker 4: we're still getting Sherlock's stuff today. It's because they proved
34:35
Speaker 4: that they found a guy Ritchie found a way to
34:38
Speaker 4: update it in such a way that modern audiences liked
34:41
Speaker 4: what they saw. And after the movies we've watched up
34:45
Speaker 4: to this point, I wouldn't have given it good odds.
34:49
Speaker 4: Would I would seriously have been like I would have
34:51
Speaker 4: been the exec in the room, sitting there and being like,
34:53
Speaker 4: why why are we doing another draft? Everybody like whose
34:58
Speaker 4: project is this? Can we please kill this? I'll give
35:00
Speaker 4: up one of mind to kill this, because look at
35:02
Speaker 4: our track record here, this.
35:03
Speaker 5: Is not a money maker.
35:05
Speaker 4: And instead they come in and they you know, boom.
35:07
Speaker 4: But I think part of it as well is that
35:11
Speaker 4: Richie's a hot enough name at this point and you
35:15
Speaker 4: have Robert Downey Junior attached to it. Once you get
35:17
Speaker 4: Downy Junior attached to it, makes perfect sense to make it,
35:20
Speaker 4: especially after Iron Man. It's like, oh, well, yeah, what
35:22
Speaker 4: projects do we have that he's attached to?
35:23
Speaker 3: Yeah?
35:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, that one.
35:24
Speaker 3: That one.
35:25
Speaker 2: And it's funny that you talk about like Sherlock of
35:28
Speaker 2: the twenty first century because a year after this was released,
35:32
Speaker 2: we get Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson,
35:36
Speaker 2: and I feel like that is what when you when
35:39
Speaker 2: somebody says Sherlock Sherlock Holmes and you're either our age
35:44
Speaker 2: or younger, that's probably who you're thinking about. Is ben
35:47
Speaker 2: Atic Cumberbatch, Probably not even Downey Junior.
35:50
Speaker 5: You know what's funny is I think of Downey Junior first.
35:53
Speaker 4: Really because I look, I have an action movie heart
35:57
Speaker 4: and so something that's action oriented, where like I would
36:02
Speaker 4: draw the distinction as Benedict Cumberbatch, I'm sure is very
36:05
Speaker 4: more story accurate. I love his portrayal, I love that series,
36:08
Speaker 4: all of that stuff, and he's that, you know, he's
36:13
Speaker 4: the intelligent you know d bag that's like, oh, what
36:17
Speaker 4: a what a jackass?
36:18
Speaker 5: Sort of stuff. This homes is fun.
36:21
Speaker 4: I like this guy, this guy, like I would enjoy
36:24
Speaker 4: watching him be who he is. I wouldn't want him
36:26
Speaker 4: anywhere near me, but like I enjoy watching him be
36:30
Speaker 4: a jackass. Like I like that. It's way entertaining for me.
36:34
Speaker 4: And the fact that there's action involved, I'm like, yay.
36:38
Speaker 4: It's almost like bringing that Indiana Jones's sensibility that they
36:42
Speaker 4: wanted to graft on in Young Sherlock Holmes and finding
36:46
Speaker 4: a way to bring in that. You know, I'm a professor,
36:49
Speaker 4: but I'm an archaeologist and I'm you know, going through
36:51
Speaker 4: tombs in Egypt sort of stuff. Like they find that
36:55
Speaker 4: balance here, and so yeah, my heart goes towards this
36:58
Speaker 4: as my Sherlock home.
37:00
Speaker 2: Now, Darren, what did you think about the cinematography and
37:04
Speaker 2: production design, because so often with with with Victorian era pictures,
37:11
Speaker 2: it's just gray, you know, it's just it's just gray
37:16
Speaker 2: and fog, and this really is I mean an exception.
37:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's I mean there's a lot of blue
37:22
Speaker 3: and uh gray, but it it worked like there were
37:28
Speaker 3: moments of color. They did a lot of color in
37:31
Speaker 3: a lot of the it was appropriate color, like a
37:35
Speaker 3: lot of the costumes had splashes of color or things
37:37
Speaker 3: like that. It wasn't like and then Holmes puts on
37:40
Speaker 3: a red suit like they would why he wouldn't do that,
37:43
Speaker 3: Like it doesn't make sense. So but no, I mean
37:47
Speaker 3: this movie, yeah, I think did a great job in
37:50
Speaker 3: its cinematography and its production design. I felt in the
37:53
Speaker 3: world it didn't feel like, you know, the fogs rolled
37:59
Speaker 3: in so I can't see ten feet. I mean, there's
38:01
Speaker 3: obviously scenes and shots of that, but but it worked
38:05
Speaker 3: it and it also had a I think it balanced
38:09
Speaker 3: between having a look and being an accessible look where
38:14
Speaker 3: it wasn't like, oh, everything is yellow and for some reasons,
38:19
Speaker 3: this doesn't work. But you're going for everything's color graded
38:22
Speaker 3: to the nth degree, like it wasn't. The colors weren't
38:24
Speaker 3: washed out or gone. They were just within the appropriate palette.
38:30
Speaker 3: So I enjoyed the production design and it and again
38:34
Speaker 3: you need the strongest thing honestly about the production design
38:38
Speaker 3: is it needed to be grounded because you're dealing with
38:42
Speaker 3: the occult and mysticism and stuff like the science and
38:46
Speaker 3: the like the trap doors and you know, secret things
38:51
Speaker 3: like everything had to feel real otherwise it's a stained
38:54
Speaker 3: glass window, jumping off the wall and magic, and now
38:57
Speaker 3: we don't once it's actually magic, you lose something.
39:02
Speaker 4: I could have stood a little more color, this feels,
39:06
Speaker 4: I'm sure, you know. I mean, I don't reject it,
39:08
Speaker 4: because Darren, to your point, this is what visually I
39:12
Speaker 4: accept London of this time period to look like. So
39:15
Speaker 4: it's like everything's, you know, got that sort of like
39:17
Speaker 4: steely gray cyan sort of tilt to it, and I'm like, okay,
39:21
Speaker 4: that makes sense. But in some scenes it's almost like
39:25
Speaker 4: Zack Snyder's Sherlock Holmes, where I'm like, I could have
39:29
Speaker 4: stood a little less color wash out here and maybe
39:33
Speaker 4: just a little bit more splash in.
39:35
Speaker 5: The other direction.
39:37
Speaker 4: But I think that there were specific moments where the
39:42
Speaker 4: costumes were allowed to bring that color energy into the scene,
39:48
Speaker 4: and at the very least, like in the beginning, that
39:52
Speaker 4: opening chamber wasn't you know, just flat looking like it
39:58
Speaker 4: at least had some to the image and everything. So
40:03
Speaker 4: you know, I think it benefits from the fact that
40:05
Speaker 4: an audience is going to come to it, and he
40:08
Speaker 4: could have probably even darkened it and made it even grayer,
40:12
Speaker 4: and people would have been like, well, that's just what
40:13
Speaker 4: we then look.
40:13
Speaker 5: Like back then we just accept that.
40:16
Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing. Like I feel it's like they
40:19
Speaker 3: went the other way instead of you know, when you
40:21
Speaker 3: got your contrast knob, if you make it too gray,
40:24
Speaker 3: everything is just flat and gray and it's like you're
40:26
Speaker 3: looking front. But they kind of went a little bit
40:29
Speaker 3: the other way where the blacks were black, like the
40:33
Speaker 3: contrast was turned in the other direction, not in a
40:36
Speaker 3: negative way like that was the look, but you know,
40:40
Speaker 3: I felt it felt to me like that made All
40:46
Speaker 3: I can say is contrast, like the contrast of the
40:48
Speaker 3: movie and the way it affected color. And this I
40:51
Speaker 3: think of Sherlock's office or house, like there's texture and
40:56
Speaker 3: things everywhere, and that is true the and the dials
41:00
Speaker 3: just a tiny bit twinge towards I don't want to
41:04
Speaker 3: say popping, because it's not like color is popping, but
41:07
Speaker 3: the texture and the contrast of it is the look
41:12
Speaker 3: of the movie. I'll say, to give it a name.
41:15
Speaker 4: The one point where I wind up really falling out
41:18
Speaker 4: of love with the look, and it's just a product
41:20
Speaker 4: of the time, is the digital background extensions don't always
41:25
Speaker 4: work as.
41:26
Speaker 5: Well as they should.
41:27
Speaker 4: But this, especially at the end, when they're fighting on
41:31
Speaker 4: the bridge. I'm like, eh, this when I walked out
41:35
Speaker 4: of the theater. One of my main criticisms of the
41:39
Speaker 4: movie was it felt like six different effects houses did
41:44
Speaker 4: the movie, and they all did it in six different styles. Yeah,
41:49
Speaker 4: I feel like the fire looked different from the movie.
41:52
Speaker 4: The said extension looked different from the movie. The slow
41:56
Speaker 4: motion looked different from the movie. Like everything had its
41:58
Speaker 4: own unique style a Guy Richie film, as we've talked
42:01
Speaker 4: about several times. But the effects, all the style of
42:05
Speaker 4: effects all looked different, like it was a different person
42:09
Speaker 4: doing them. And and this movie does not hold up
42:14
Speaker 4: visually in terms of effects.
42:16
Speaker 3: It doesn't.
42:17
Speaker 2: The CGI, the green screen, the digital replacement does not
42:22
Speaker 2: hold up. And it makes me wonder why you know,
42:25
Speaker 2: Like you know, clearly they put the money into the
42:28
Speaker 2: acting sequences, but you know what got cut in the
42:34
Speaker 2: in the VFX budget, and it it pulls you out
42:38
Speaker 2: of it. I really do believe that, Like that's a
42:40
Speaker 2: that's a mark against it is that it very much
42:42
Speaker 2: pulls you out of it. But one thing that I
42:44
Speaker 2: think rises above is Hanszemmer's score. I feel like this
42:49
Speaker 2: is one of those love it or hate it scores.
42:52
Speaker 2: I freaking love this score. I even used it in
42:56
Speaker 2: the intro of this show. I love how it you
43:00
Speaker 2: utilizees broken piano and out of tune guitar, even get
43:05
Speaker 2: some instruments, some string instruments that come from the roma culture,
43:09
Speaker 2: and it always kind of made me feel like it
43:11
Speaker 2: was all, you know, jittery and off kilterure just kind
43:14
Speaker 2: of like Downy's performance of Holmes. Darren, what did you
43:17
Speaker 2: think about the music?
43:18
Speaker 3: Oh? Ten, ten out of ten for the music the
43:22
Speaker 3: I mean from the intro and the slight build of
43:27
Speaker 3: the music, but really I think the best sequence for
43:31
Speaker 3: the music is where Holmes is putting on his disguise
43:36
Speaker 3: going through the back alleys, Like it is the music
43:41
Speaker 3: becomes it becomes a sense of smell. You are hit
43:45
Speaker 3: with it every time he comes around a corner and
43:47
Speaker 3: a different thing is in his path, and there's the
43:50
Speaker 3: strong man, and now he's by the bakery, and now
43:52
Speaker 3: he's here, like it is so rich and just comes
43:57
Speaker 3: across so well. Yeah, I love the score this movie.
44:00
Speaker 3: It it unabashedly is like, no, this is what the
44:05
Speaker 3: sound of this movie is going to be like, and
44:07
Speaker 3: and holds its guns the entire way through, and it's
44:12
Speaker 3: something that was different, that was unique, that was not orchestral.
44:19
Speaker 3: It's not an orchestral movie. It's not a Williams s score.
44:24
Speaker 3: It's not you know, symphonic in that regards. It's you know,
44:31
Speaker 3: Streeter Chin beat boxing in the you know, in the alleys.
44:36
Speaker 3: But it works. It it paired with this movie. It works,
44:41
Speaker 3: and it's also memorable. Like you hear that little harpsichord
44:46
Speaker 3: tinge of those couple of notes, you know immediately what
44:50
Speaker 3: movie that is immediately, And not all scores can do
44:53
Speaker 3: that where you hear a few bars obviously you know
44:55
Speaker 3: there's bars and there's bars. You know, if you do
44:59
Speaker 3: the beginning of the Raider, you're gonna know where you're
45:01
Speaker 3: listening to. But yeah, no, the score was amazing in
45:06
Speaker 3: this like it set the bar really high and you
45:09
Speaker 3: knew it was like a buckle up where where this
45:12
Speaker 3: is what we're gonna get and and it paid off.
45:15
Speaker 3: I didn't feel the score was too big for what
45:18
Speaker 3: it was trying to do. It wasn't too different. It
45:22
Speaker 3: it worked. It was a brilliant score, one of one
45:26
Speaker 3: of his best. John, you seem to have a differing opinion.
45:30
Speaker 5: No, not at all.
45:31
Speaker 4: I don't know that I would agree that it's one
45:33
Speaker 4: of Zimmer's best, because that's a I mean maybe choice.
45:38
Speaker 4: He's yeah, yeah, he's he's most unique.
45:42
Speaker 5: Yeah that I'll definitely give it that.
45:44
Speaker 2: I'll definitely agree, definitely leaning towards towards Darren the not
45:48
Speaker 2: when it comes to best because I like it so much.
45:51
Speaker 2: But I understand your argument.
45:52
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean no, I'm just simply saying.
45:54
Speaker 4: It's like, when you have a body of work like
45:56
Speaker 4: Han Zimmer's, it's like, oh, that's one of his best.
45:58
Speaker 4: I'm like, I mean, are we talking in top twenty five,
46:01
Speaker 4: top five, top five, hundred?
46:03
Speaker 3: Unique? Makes more sense the vote. What I was intending like,
46:07
Speaker 3: it's it's a standout. Yeah, it's gonna come. If you
46:12
Speaker 3: had to name five that stood out for how it
46:16
Speaker 3: kind of caught you, I think it would be on
46:18
Speaker 3: that list.
46:18
Speaker 4: It's exactly what the movie needed, which is it brought
46:23
Speaker 4: a lot of audio character to the time period, to
46:27
Speaker 4: Holmes himself, and to the adventure where I will never
46:32
Speaker 4: forget the liner notes for the four discs Star Wars
46:36
Speaker 4: Trilogy CD set that was released in the nineties with
46:40
Speaker 4: an intro from Nicholas Meyer where he talked about the
46:42
Speaker 4: horror of working on a film and you hear the
46:45
Speaker 4: score for the first time and your reaction, I'm paraphrasing here,
46:49
Speaker 4: your reaction.
46:50
Speaker 5: Is, oh, no, this is all wrong.
46:54
Speaker 4: This is a score where you sit down and I
46:56
Speaker 4: can imagine Guy Ritchie hearing it and seeing it and going, oh, heavens,
47:00
Speaker 4: this is exactly what this movie needed. Thank you, mister
47:04
Speaker 4: Zimmer for doing this for me, because it is. And
47:09
Speaker 4: you know, and I agree with you, Darren, Like you
47:11
Speaker 4: hear those first couple of notes and you're like, yep,
47:13
Speaker 4: I know what this is from.
47:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, it adds to the energy. It's like, at least
47:17
Speaker 3: twenty percent of the energy of this movie is just
47:20
Speaker 3: score easy yeah, if not.
47:22
Speaker 2: More so this one. It was successful enough to immediately
47:27
Speaker 2: green light the sequel. But yet when the sequel came out,
47:33
Speaker 2: a third film was wanted, but it stayed in development
47:37
Speaker 2: for years. It was delayed because of scheduling and creative challenges,
47:40
Speaker 2: and then it was just too much time had passed.
47:44
Speaker 2: I personally think that not enough time has passed. Maybe
47:48
Speaker 2: we need a few more years and then we get
47:50
Speaker 2: these two back together.
47:51
Speaker 3: Well it's I mean, just looking at the numbers. It's
47:55
Speaker 3: odd because this one was a budget of ninety million,
47:58
Speaker 3: made five hundred and twenty four. That's a great return.
48:02
Speaker 3: And uh was it Game of Shadows? Yeah? Game of
48:05
Speaker 3: Shadows a little bit bigger budget one hundred and twenty five,
48:09
Speaker 3: made about the same. You know, I if I had
48:12
Speaker 3: to shoot in the dark, it's the cast got too expensive.
48:18
Speaker 3: It didn't make sense on paper. You have to bring
48:21
Speaker 3: in Downey Junior, who is now on his meteoric rise,
48:26
Speaker 3: and so now your budget has to be one fifty
48:29
Speaker 3: one sixty. And the sequel proved it still made money,
48:34
Speaker 3: but it made the exact same amount of money, and
48:37
Speaker 3: so now the the tipping and you're having to promote
48:41
Speaker 3: it a whole bunch. So I mean that's not including marketing,
48:44
Speaker 3: which is a ton of money as well. So that's
48:47
Speaker 3: my guess is the formula didn't work anymore.
48:50
Speaker 2: And two thousand and nine, I should say, like when
48:53
Speaker 2: they hired him, two thousand and eight, Downy Junior's paycheck
48:57
Speaker 2: is a heck of a lot different than twenty thirteen
49:01
Speaker 2: Downy paycheck.
49:02
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say since they didn't strike between endgame and now,
49:08
Speaker 4: that the perfect time to strike will be shortly after
49:11
Speaker 4: Doom's Day, because I'm willing to bet that mister Downey's
49:15
Speaker 4: asking price might not be.
49:18
Speaker 5: Terrific after that one.
49:20
Speaker 4: Just spit bawling there, because I don't predict dooms Day
49:23
Speaker 4: to too too well. So if I were a producer
49:25
Speaker 4: who wanted the third shirt Lock Holmes movie, I'd be like,
49:29
Speaker 4: all right, hang on, guys, January twenty twenty seven might
49:32
Speaker 4: have some might have some room to talk here, So
49:35
Speaker 4: let's let's just be patient.
49:36
Speaker 2: When I keep hearing and reading about Downey Junior's paychecks, yeah,
49:41
Speaker 2: it gets to the point where I'm like, when's enough enough?
49:44
Speaker 3: You know, It's like his paycheck is the budget of
49:47
Speaker 3: an entire movie, like a small movie.
49:49
Speaker 4: But that's all the way back when like Schwarzenegger was
49:51
Speaker 4: making twenty million a movie, I was like, what what
49:55
Speaker 4: you know? Like it makes you long for the days honestly,
49:57
Speaker 4: even though the movie sucks at least past Like Connery
50:02
Speaker 4: donated his salary from Diamonds Are Forever, He's.
50:05
Speaker 5: Like, I've made enough money is change bond, I'll just
50:08
Speaker 5: give this to the kids.
50:09
Speaker 3: You know.
50:09
Speaker 4: It's like, okay, well that's thoughtful, but yeah, like I
50:13
Speaker 4: don't know, it's it is obscene how much money somebody
50:18
Speaker 4: can pull in for I mean, just take just give
50:21
Speaker 4: them points on the.
50:22
Speaker 5: Box office or something. For Pete's sake at that point,
50:25
Speaker 5: I don't know.
50:26
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure he's getting those two now. Before we
50:28
Speaker 2: wrap up, I do want to talk about a little
50:30
Speaker 2: bit about where I did see a problem because I
50:32
Speaker 2: was asking a lot of ambiguous questions where I was
50:34
Speaker 2: kind of like, could it go this way? Could it
50:35
Speaker 2: go that way? You know, talking about issues that certain
50:38
Speaker 2: people have with it. One issue that I very much
50:40
Speaker 2: had with it besides just the visual effects, and I
50:43
Speaker 2: mean it was a little dodgy in the middle too,
50:45
Speaker 2: like we like we when we were bouncing from set
50:48
Speaker 2: piece to set piece in the middle. Act two feels
50:52
Speaker 2: a little elongated because this is a long movie for
50:54
Speaker 2: an action film. But one thing that kind of bothered
50:56
Speaker 2: me from a Sherlock Holmes perspective is the deduction was
51:02
Speaker 2: not happening in real time. The deduction. We're seeing homes
51:08
Speaker 2: deduce and be a detective, but he's not talking about
51:14
Speaker 2: it in a Homesian way because until the all end,
51:18
Speaker 2: until the very end, it's all it's all relayed to
51:22
Speaker 2: the end, because like we see him, like when they
51:24
Speaker 2: go to the chemist's outfit and he sees the rhododendron,
51:30
Speaker 2: he sees the frogs, he sees this, he sees that,
51:34
Speaker 2: and everything like that. He's not talking about it to
51:36
Speaker 2: Watson that much. I mean, like there's I mean, don't
51:40
Speaker 2: don't take me verbatim here, but like I mean, like, yeah,
51:42
Speaker 2: there's a little bit here and there, but there's more
51:45
Speaker 2: that he's ingesting and saving for the end than he
51:49
Speaker 2: is talking about it and saying, hey, Watson, look at this.
51:53
Speaker 2: You know, rhododendron. I wonder what this is used for.
51:56
Speaker 2: Everything like that. Again, I'm not making a very good
51:58
Speaker 2: case for it, but if you look at if you
52:01
Speaker 2: look at the novels, you look at previous movies, previous stories,
52:04
Speaker 2: even the TV show, like Sherlock is talking about his
52:08
Speaker 2: process as he's doing it. This movie did not do that.
52:13
Speaker 2: And I hate info dumps at the end. Am I
52:16
Speaker 2: way off base here? Does that go in line with
52:18
Speaker 2: the changing of the character.
52:20
Speaker 3: I feel it needed to be done because of the
52:26
Speaker 3: nature of this is an action movie. Not that that's
52:30
Speaker 3: the only thing this say is, but like I think
52:33
Speaker 3: this movie would not have worked as well, if right
52:37
Speaker 3: before the third act we learn what the plot is
52:41
Speaker 3: and now we just get to watch it play out instead,
52:44
Speaker 3: we do not. Holmes knows that, but we do not
52:48
Speaker 3: as the audience. And yeah, and I see the difference
52:51
Speaker 3: you're talking about Tristan, where it is not the conventional
52:54
Speaker 3: homes that we've seen of revealing. It's just bottled up
52:59
Speaker 3: and held close to the vest until the very end.
53:04
Speaker 3: Now granted, Watson Watson's also taken out of commission for
53:07
Speaker 3: a while, so there is especially towards the end, so
53:10
Speaker 3: there's not a lot of time to have those conversations
53:15
Speaker 3: in when he would have had that information. But I
53:18
Speaker 3: think it just it's a kind of core story choice
53:22
Speaker 3: of you still get the playback of you know, remember
53:27
Speaker 3: when we saw this and then we saw this, and
53:30
Speaker 3: then we saw that, and like this is how it
53:31
Speaker 3: all fits together. I think it works. I enjoyed that
53:36
Speaker 3: montage is really what it was instead of in the
53:40
Speaker 3: moment it was a montage at the end. But I
53:43
Speaker 3: can see your point as well on that is a change.
53:47
Speaker 4: I think it's just a modern contrivance sort of thing.
53:50
Speaker 4: That's just how you do it now, I guess, And
53:54
Speaker 4: maybe it is. Maybe it isn't, but like I view
53:57
Speaker 4: it more as a the the type of thing where
54:02
Speaker 4: audiences now, if they relayed all of that stuff piece
54:06
Speaker 4: by piece as they go through, they would have had
54:08
Speaker 4: to do that info dump at the end anyway to
54:10
Speaker 4: remind everybody of what they had been told up to
54:13
Speaker 4: that point. Not because audiences are dumb, not because people
54:17
Speaker 4: can't keep it in their brain. I'm not being that guy.
54:21
Speaker 4: But after two hours of like these big action sequences
54:25
Speaker 4: and all of this stuff going on, and all of
54:27
Speaker 4: you know, to you know, and it's such a complex
54:30
Speaker 4: plot and everything like that, you're going to need to
54:33
Speaker 4: take a beat at the end anyway. So why not
54:37
Speaker 4: have the stuff visually laid out of him sniffing things
54:40
Speaker 4: and he doesn't say something, and it goes through, and
54:42
Speaker 4: then have the sensation of it all comes together for
54:45
Speaker 4: him as he's going there. That's detective TV show.
54:49
Speaker 5: That's murder. She wrote.
54:50
Speaker 4: That's the sort of thing that I guess I'm just
54:52
Speaker 4: sort of used to seeing, so I don't have an
54:56
Speaker 4: issue with it.
54:57
Speaker 2: All right, So we've been going for almost an hour
55:00
Speaker 2: talking about Sherlock Holmes two thousand and nine. I think
55:03
Speaker 2: it's time to pull the ripcord and figure out what
55:07
Speaker 2: our ratings are. Darren, you always go first when I host.
55:10
Speaker 2: How many rhododendron leaves are you using this movie?
55:15
Speaker 3: I want to say how many discombobulates, because man, they
55:18
Speaker 3: loved wed. You hear that word just like Ooh, that's
55:21
Speaker 3: a word I don't hear very often, but it's used appropriately. Yeah,
55:25
Speaker 3: Sherlock Holmes, two thousand and nine. I was surprised they
55:27
Speaker 3: built the Enterprise on Earth here instead of in space
55:32
Speaker 3: as they should have. Now we often joke about adding
55:36
Speaker 3: the year when you don't have any other spatial references.
55:40
Speaker 3: When a movie was this is a fun movie. I
55:46
Speaker 3: like fun movies. I like fun movies that treat audiences
55:49
Speaker 3: with smarts, that have engaging villains, amazing scores. Yeah, every
55:57
Speaker 3: time I'm inside a building, it looks amazing. When when
56:01
Speaker 3: when they're like you said, when they're doing digital replacement
56:04
Speaker 3: or or extension, or or even just put the camera
56:10
Speaker 3: where a person would be. When the camera's flying through
56:13
Speaker 3: the sky, Hm, no, it's pulling me. It's pulling me out.
56:17
Speaker 3: But all the other shots, when we're grounded in the world,
56:22
Speaker 3: this is a great movie. I have to give it five.
56:25
Speaker 3: It is it if anything reignited Sherlock Holmes for another generation.
56:32
Speaker 3: It really did, Like if this had flopped, we wouldn't
56:35
Speaker 3: we have we have Chrlock Holmes coming out of our
56:37
Speaker 3: ears now, we have Netflix shows, we have Young shows,
56:40
Speaker 3: we have British shows like and all that to say,
56:44
Speaker 3: maybe the British one would have done the same if
56:46
Speaker 3: this hadn't existed, just timing wise, but it really traces
56:50
Speaker 3: back to this. It shook up the formula, but I
56:54
Speaker 3: think stayed true. It felt like homes. It didn't feel like,
56:57
Speaker 3: oh that's just Iron Man with a five o'clock shadow,
57:01
Speaker 3: you know. No, it was an interesting character that I
57:04
Speaker 3: enjoyed watching. And you know, I'm gonna rewatch the sequel
57:07
Speaker 3: now to refresh my memory. I think that would be
57:12
Speaker 3: be fun as well. So I'm giving it five key
57:16
Speaker 3: plot points on the circle map of London.
57:19
Speaker 2: So John, how about you?
57:23
Speaker 4: You know I love it to the level of a five.
57:27
Speaker 4: I I really I didn't expect to enjoy this as
57:30
Speaker 4: much as I did on the rewatch, uh, and it
57:33
Speaker 4: is a rousingly good entertainment. I think there are issues.
57:38
Speaker 4: We've talked about them.
57:40
Speaker 5: Tristan.
57:40
Speaker 4: I agree with you, there's a certain point in the
57:42
Speaker 4: middle where I'm kind of like, okay, all right, you know,
57:44
Speaker 4: like it feels like it feels like almost like you're
57:47
Speaker 4: running a marathon. You're starting to get tired and you
57:49
Speaker 4: haven't hit your second wind. But then once that second
57:52
Speaker 4: wind kicks in, it's fantastic. I really I have to
57:57
Speaker 4: detract because the visual effects were just so dodgy at
58:01
Speaker 4: certain points, even for the time, you know, quote unquote
58:06
Speaker 4: for the time. I mean this came out against Avatar,
58:09
Speaker 4: So you want to talk about like falling short. I
58:11
Speaker 4: guess every a team in the world was working on
58:14
Speaker 4: Avatar at the time, so they had to settle for
58:16
Speaker 4: what they could get.
58:17
Speaker 5: All right, that's fair enough.
58:18
Speaker 4: But like the you know, the fact that there's so
58:23
Speaker 4: much interesting stuff and it's so entertaining.
58:26
Speaker 5: It's a solid four.
58:28
Speaker 4: And I mean, like with with the love of a five,
58:31
Speaker 4: like this is something where if I'm giving a choice,
58:33
Speaker 4: give it a choice between this and something else, this
58:36
Speaker 4: is always going to be heavily in contention for maybe
58:39
Speaker 4: I will watch this instead. So I come in at
58:42
Speaker 4: a solid four. Incredibly well crafted entertainment, well worth seeing.
58:48
Speaker 5: So there you go.
58:49
Speaker 2: That's me I'm definitely the same. I'm giving this a
58:52
Speaker 2: four with the energy of a five. I love this movie.
58:56
Speaker 2: I've rewatched it several times. I'm going to continue to
58:58
Speaker 2: rewatch it.
58:59
Speaker 3: You guys act like four point five doesn't exist.
59:02
Speaker 5: Oh I'm sorry, Darren, you already have stars weren't allowed to?
59:05
Speaker 3: Oh you're both Karen's Laren's arguing for is a five
59:10
Speaker 3: if only there was something in the middle.
59:11
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no. We did not say almost a five.
59:14
Speaker 2: We said it's a four with the energy and the
59:17
Speaker 2: enthusiasm of a five.
59:18
Speaker 3: Right.
59:19
Speaker 2: I actually came into this podcast giving it a three
59:22
Speaker 2: point five because of the because of the VFX and
59:27
Speaker 2: the dodginess in the middle and the deduction that I
59:29
Speaker 2: that I missed. But you know, after seeing it again
59:32
Speaker 2: with my sister and then you know, talking about with
59:35
Speaker 2: you guys, No, I can't. I can't in good conscience
59:39
Speaker 2: give this a three and a half. This is four
59:41
Speaker 2: with the love of a five. Absolutely, And I'm always
59:45
Speaker 2: chagrined that we didn't get a third one.
59:47
Speaker 3: But Darren, what are we doing next week? Next week
59:51
Speaker 3: we're rounding out the end of the Wing of Homes
59:54
Speaker 3: with twenty fifteen's Mister Holmes starring ser Ian McKellen, next
59:59
Speaker 3: week on house Lights.
1:00:01
Speaker 1: Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.