Thursday, 23 August 2012
I watched Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows today.
Actually, I only watched the last half of it. As previously noted, Jennifer and I tried getting through this movie twice before. About a week ago, we first popped it into the DVD player and, after about fifteen minutes, Jennifer announced she was falling asleep. So, on our first evening at the cabin, we gave it another shot. We got to the film’s midpoint, then Jennifer paused it and basically said, “I give up.”
I didn’t give up. I finished it on my lunch break today at work. Here’s why I didn’t give up: because the first Sherlock Holmes movie, which I saw at the theater, was just alright until the end. Then I thought, “okay, that was pretty good.” So I was hoping for the same thing today.
Unfortunately, this one stunk so bad nearly all the way through, that there was hardly any way it could redeem itself. And, it did redeem itself somewhat. But only in the same way that a student, getting an F all semester, can somewhat redeem himself by scoring a B on the final exam.
The climax was great, but up until that point, it was just a bloody, rambling mess, relying too much on special effects and action. If I want action, I can watch James Bond. But Holmes is the cerebral James Bond, fi you will. Or, maybe better, he is to crime what Star Trek is to Science Fiction. Of course, action does have its place – and it often does in the original Doyle canon – but it’s never the key; it’s never the gimmick to keep us attached. Not if it’s done well at least.
The poor denouement sets up clearly for another episode in this series. That’s okay, guys, I’ll stop here.
Friday, 24 August 2012
Today is Jennifer’s and my wedding anniversary.
Our initial idea for our anniversary was to spend the anniversary up at the cabin, but, as happens so often, the timing just didn’t work out. There have been a few times – at least three that I can think of – that we went out of town for our anniversary, but not exactly on the day of our anniversary. One year, the start of a college semester got in the way. Another year, jury duty got in the way. Another year, our anniversary was right in the middle of the week and we knew our friends (who would be joining us out of town) would have an easier time getting away if we waited for the weekend. This time, other family members had already booked the cabin for this weekend. No big whoop. We went last week.
This evening, Jennifer’s mom came over and watched our kids so we could go out for dinner. Jennifer selected P.F. Chang’s – a restaruant we’d only been to once before. Our one other time going there together was back in 2007, on my wife’s birthday, in fact. I surprised her by having some of our friends show up to join us – including her parents and her sister and my sister and her husband and our pals Ryan and Esther. We haven’t been back since and, in fact, today we went to a different location (the one closer to our house).
After dinner, we stopped at a Redbox. Jennifer suggested renting The Hunger Games, cause, you know, it’s popular and everything. But, in typical Redbox fashion, they were out of it. So we rented Wanderlust. Pretty decent flick. Go rent it. We laughed a lot.
Happy anniversary to us!