Doctor Who Season 7 Finale and Fall 2012 TV Premiers! – Special Guest host: Sarah Park

Literary adaptations in Film and Television

Sherlock Holmes Episode – Holmes Then and Now

This weeks Fangirl Radio could be called “A Study in Sherlock” and to celebrate here’s a wallpaper featuring the faces of those who’ve called 221 B Baker St. home over the years.  Be sure to join us on Thursday at 7pm Central.  We’ll make sure Mrs. Hudson let’s you in.  www.jackaloperadio.com

The Hollywood Reporter:

CBS has kicked off what is expected to be a busy week by ordering two drama projects to pilot. The first, Elementary, is a modern take on the cases of Sherlock Holmes, with the detective now living in New York City. Robert Doherty will write and executive produce the CBS TV Studios project, with CBS vet Sarah Timberman (A Gifted Man, Unforgettable) and Carl Beverly on board as executive producers

Uh, I hate to break it to them, but they need to meet this guy:

Homo erotic tension?  Check

Holmes has a new girl toy?  Check

Slow motion running through explosions?  Check

Yup, we’ve got it all.  Even Holmes in drag.

Click this glare filled picture below for the Quicktime Apple Trailer exclusive

Ready for a massive close up of Robert Downey Jr?  Okay

So there’s that out of the way.  Now…on to the new shots from the new film and the synopsis that basically tells EVERYTHING.

Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, and Jude Law returns as his formidable colleague, Dr. Watson, in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Sherlock Holmes has always been the smartest man in the room…until now. There is a new criminal mastermind at large—Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris)—and not only is he Holmes’ intellectual equal, but his capacity for evil, coupled with a complete lack of conscience, may actually give him an advantage over the renowned detective.

When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, the evidence, as construed by Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan), points to suicide. But Sherlock Holmes deduces that the prince has been the victim of murder—a murder that is only one piece of a larger and much more portentous puzzle, designed by one Professor Moriarty.

Mixing business with pleasure, Holmes tracks the clues to an underground gentlemen’s club, where he and his brother, Mycroft Holmes (Stephen Fry) are toasting Dr. Watson on his last night of bachelorhood. It is there that Holmes encounters Sim (Noomi Rapace), a Gypsy fortune teller, who sees more than she is telling and whose unwitting involvement in the prince’s murder makes her the killer’s next target. Holmes barely manages to save her life and, in return, she reluctantly agrees to help him.

The investigation becomes ever more dangerous as it leads Holmes, Watson and Sim across the continent, from England to France to Germany and finally to Switzerland. But the cunning Moriarty is always one step ahead as he spins a web of death and destruction—all part of a greater plan that, if he succeeds, will change the course of history.

Filmmaker Guy Ritchie returns to direct “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” the follow-up to the smash hit “Sherlock Holmes.” The sequel also reunites producers Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin. Bruce Berman serves as executive producer, with Steve Clark-Hall co-producing.

Jared Harris (TV’s “Mad Men,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) joins the cast as the notorious Professor Moriarty. Also joining the cast, in her first English-speaking role, is Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, who gained international attention in the Swedish film “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Stephen Fry (“Alice in Wonderland,” “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”) plays Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older brother.

Additional cast members returning from the first film include Eddie Marsan as Inspector Lestrade; Kelly Reilly as Watson’s bride, Mary Morstan; and Geraldine James as Holmes’s long-suffering landlady, Mrs. Hudson. “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” is written by Michele Mulroney & Kieran Mulroney. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were created by the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and appear in stories and novels by him.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, a Silver Pictures Production, in association with Wigram Productions, a Guy Ritchie Film, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.”

The film will be distributed worldwide beginning December 16, 2011, by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by Village Roadshow Pictures.

(thanks to Geek Tyrant for the heads up)

Yes, you read that right. Some sweet, angelic person has uploaded the entire stage play that was broadcast on HBO(yes, the cable network) years ago starring Frank Langella (fresh from Dracula) as Sherlock Holmes.

Langella isn’t the only face you’ll recognize. Dwight Schultz (he of the A-Team and STTNG) as well as Stephen Collins (also of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Tales of the Gold Monkey…and yes 7th Heaven) also star.

This is one of those treasures you’ll never find on a conventional DVD release. Enjoy it. The entire play seems to be up. Here’s Act 1 Part 1

Badassery personified.

Thanks to Filmdrunk  we get the news that Stephen Fry will be playing Sherlock Holmes (possibly) smarter brother Mycroft in the next Robert Downey Jr. starring sequel.

Stephen Fry:  “I’m playing Mycroft in the sequel to the Sherlock Holmes film Guy Ritchie directed with Robert Downey Jr., and that sort of part is fun, but just once in a while to play a genuine all round sort of lead figure with complexity and tragedy and wit and all the sort of things that Oscar [Wilde] had was a once-in-a-lifeftime thrill.”

This is perfect casting in my opinion.  Snarky smartass, meet more even tempered snarky smartass.  Also, Sherlock your brother already knocked boots with your boyfriend:

Now who will be Prof. M?    Thoughts?

Mega Mini Movie Reviews!!! February Edition!
By Jessica Dwyer

It’s that time again. Time to catch up on the movies I’ve seen and to bore you with my thoughts on them. With the swell of new flicks just around the bend its time to catch you up on the movies that you’ll have to go to when the new ones are sold out. So without further ado, here’s my Mini Mega Reviews:

Sherlock Holmes:

I loved this flick. Robert Downey Jr. conveys the snarky, action oriented Holmes perfectly. He and Jude Law have a great chemistry which Guy Ritchie made sure to get right before the cameras rolled.

The film is a throwback, at least to me, to the old school period action flicks (Time After Time and Young Sherlock Holmes are two fine examples as is the ORIGINAL Wild Wild West TV series). It was very prettily filmed, had a nice plot (that could have used 100 percent more Moriarty) and an amazing score.

We already know that a sequel is in the works which I hope will fix that lack of Moriarty problem. But the rumors of Brad Pitt being the arch-enemy of the detective were just that, rumors. I personally put my vote in for Peter Serafenowicz or Anthony Head.

If you can’t get into Avatar or Alice due to the 3D theater being full, go to this instead. You’ll be glad you did.

Daybreakers:

Another good one. The movie hides the message of mankind’s devouring of resources and its impact on itself and the planet and transforms it into a tale of vampiric plague. It works well, and the filmmakers don’t try to hide it. It’s plain to see for everyone. But the movie makes no pretense about what it is either. Its fangs and blood and splatter mixed in with some black humor and that’s what makes it a fun ride.

Sam Neil steals most of the show alongside Willem Dafoe as the two best characters, both on opposite sides of the battle for humanity. The special EFX are good and the visuals are slick. The film is made by the same brother directing team behind the zombie flick Undead. And that same style comes through in this flick.

Worth a look if you are in the mood for a fun vampire film sans sparkles.

Avatar:

Really, do I need to say see it? Just go already.

Book of Eli:

I was sadly disappointed by this one. While it’s a solid film, there are just too many instances of nothing happening. It drags and there are only so many instances of walking along a post-apocalyptic landscape you can take.

Denzel Washington is stolid as the man with the book. But he’s not really stretched to do much more character wise than we’ve seen before. He could do this part on autopilot. Gary Oldman does a good job with a character that with a lesser actor would have been just window dressing. But he brings nuances and depth to the part, once again showing why even though he would look like a plucked chicken naked (his own words and I disagree) he plays some of the best villains out there.

The story is a worthy one, but in the end it becomes a bit of a rip off. It does have a nice twist, but…it just sort of ends. I feel there could have been more there, and I would have liked to learn more of the world it took place in. But sadly that didn’t happen.

Legion:

Oh…wow. Well I went into this film really wanting to like it. But what I had expected to be a Prophecy redo turned into…I don’t know what it was.

Doug Jones minute and a half cameo was the best part of the film. I’m not sure what happened with the script and I don’t think the filmmakers really knew either. It became a cobbled together mish mash of things that didn’t make much sense, and dialog that made me ache for a Lifetime movie of the week or even better, a SyFy special presentation. Other than the brilliant idea of casting Paul Bettany as an angel, I’m not sure what motivated the people behind the film into actually making it.

It’s sad because the movie I saw in the trailer looked FAR better than what wound up on screen. These Legions of angels never really show up to attack the girl and her unborn child. It’s really just the one angel with the roto-mace. And the amount of just insane, crazy randomness of deaths and the actions that the characters take defies belief.

I really don’t know what they wanted to do with this film. Actually, I sort of do. I think it was supposed to have a positive message behind it. But characters who are flatter than a pancake in terms of development and a plot that veers away from its own logic (and its own genre) every five seconds does not make a good film or a happy viewer. If I sound confused, just think what the movie itself is like.