l3v5ha
l3v5ha
its pronounced L3V5HA
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21 | levsha or lev idc | she/herlook in the tag “#my edit” 4 more of my editsposts about television, planet earth, thoughts, feelings, analysis, And Currently : house md
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l3v5ha · 17 hours ago
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i will actually be shocked if anyone reads my full thoughts on sherlock holmes and the secret weapon. utterly indulgent. but the Thoughts……their behest…….
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l3v5ha · 17 hours ago
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the recap series nobody asked for: i watch the rathbone/bruce holmes specials for the first time: episode 4: sherlock holmes and the secret weapon
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buckle up. way, way too many thoughts on the violin playing junkie cunt this time. this movie fucking rules.
okay, so, everything i’m about to say requires a plot summary, which is as follows.
doctor tobel is a hectic dude hiding out in switzerland who’s invented an even hectic-er bombsight (a device that allows pilots to drop bombs with greater accuracy). tobel has promised it to the british, so holmes (dressed as doc brown) helps smuggle him all the way back to 221b, where watson is supposed to guard him. 
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since nigel bruce’s john watson couldn’t guard his way out of a paper bag, tobel slips away to his girlfriend’s place almost instantly.
he leaves her with a secret message just in case he dies; then leaves her apartment, and almost dies. 
tobel’s happy to give the bombsight to the british, but insists on keeping its inner workings secret and known only to him, so (despite protest from scotland yard and everyone else with a working brain) he divides the invention into four parts, and gives each part to a random swiss scientist. 
he then -- get this -- goes missing. but when his girlfriend gives holmes that 'in-case-i-go-missing-under-suspicious-circumstances' letter, they realise the message has been intercepted by moriarty.
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holmes dresses up like a pirate to go find moriarty, sort of just to chat shit i guess, and almost dies for the first but not last time in this film
holmes/watson return to tobel’s girlfriend and figure out how to recover that original  ‘in case i die under suspicious circumstances’ message by immersing the notepad page that was under it in ‘fluorescent salts’ and then photographing it via ultraviolet light to reveal the earlier impressions left by the pencil.
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THEN it turns out the message ITSELF is a code (of dancing men - the only attempt to resemble the original acd story this is based on), so holmes & watson have to break the first three lines of a substitution cipher, which ends up being the names + locations of the first three scientists, but the fourth line is different, and he can’t break the code! fuck! and turns out moriarty just murdered the other three scientists anyhow! double fuck!
moriarty at moriarty HQ is also struggling to figure out the fourth differently-coded line, and torturing tobel as a back-up plan. meanwhile, back at the ranch, we get an excellent classic eureka moment courtesy of watson--
WATSON: I need a drink... I’m all in... Can’t think anymore, all these letters and figures whirling through my brain... All twisted round... HOLMES: Twisted round! That’s it! Twisted around, you said-- It’s so simple, I never thought of it.
--and holmes breaks the fourth line by reversing it. but then moriarty accidentally spills water on his desk, and just happens to figure out the same thing! triple fuck!
moriarty sends his goons over to the last guy’s house (hoffner), but by the time they wrangle him back to moriarty HQ, they discover -- get this -- the guy they kidnapped was actually holmes in disguise.
we cut back to hoffner’s house, where watson lets lestrade know he actually helped holmes put together a contraption that attaches to a car and drips luminous paint, like breadcrumbs, to make it easier to track down later. 
the game is afoot for hansel and gretel! there’s no time to lose! 
we’ll make our way back to moriarty & the ending eventually, but let me speak on my first major observation for a second-- 
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THE INSPECTOR GADGET OF IT ALL
i loved this installment because i loved that it gave holmes to be a hectic mad dog sick cunt detective outside of mere deductions. 
there still were a few - i’m thinking of when he figures out tobel has just gotten back from his girlfriend’s place (based on the lipstick on his handkerchief, the powder still on his face, the hair on his coat), and when we realise the electrician that supposedly fixed the girlfriend’s light switch must’ve been a goon (given that the screws weren’t touched at all since they’re still covered in paint), and he deduces exactly how that scheme would’ve worked - but i think these really worked for me. 
they were fairly realistic, which i always prefer, but their function was more so to add context and detail and explanation, rather than single-handedly advancing the plot in a way that can sometimes just seem... unfair. it kinda irritates me when holmes’ deductions border on “i’ve deduced the entirety of the next act”. it feels too easy and convenient. these weren’t that.
there was such a variety of fun inspector gadget shit going on here. figuring out tobel’s message in the darkroom! codebreaking against the clock as the stakes ramp up! the invisible ink breadcrumbs! 
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it just does such a good job of finding ways to utilise holmes’ intellect in a way that aren’t this godlike ability to know what’s about to happen next. maybe that’s totally sacrilegious of me to say, but i like seeing them work to connect each dot in a variety of ways, rather than simply stumbling from dot to dot and having holmes tap into the fucking matrix to force us into the final act. which leads me to my next point. 
HOLMES’ CHARACTERISATION ROCKS IN THIS (SPECIAL THANKS TO DOCTOR FRANZ TOBEL)
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i think much of what i loved about secret weapon - the inspector gadget antics, holmes’ characterisation, and the stuff i’m yet to talk about - is owed to what Tobel’s specific brand of chicanery contributes to the plot.
yes, moriarty shows up here, but the codebreaking and the elaborate political intrigue is all thanks to Tobel’s insistence on being coy and convoluted with his schemes and secrecy.
it makes holmes feel necessary, which is a problem that came up in The Voice of Terror and was pointed out in-universe -- why are they getting a private detective’s help for a matter of national wartime security? but here, it’s like, yeah, we need the fuckwit shenanigan detective to wrangle this fuckwit shenanigan scientist.
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and i love that tobel isn’t an antagonist so much as a third, complicating party. it’s especially great to have smart people that AREN’T obsessed with holmes. the actual extent of moriarty’s intellect is often undermined by the fact he’s never really trying to do much except fuck with holmes. 
i love that tobel’s just a weird guy making it harder for everyone. this isn’t yet another instalment of moriarty v holmes; it’s moriarty and holmes in a race against each other to solve the same problem, an ACTUAL battle of wits.
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it’s a valuable lesson in that it is infinitely more fun to watch holmes to head to head with other smart people. people who are on his level, at a baseline, and who actually challenge him. 
sure, whatever, kick off with him in 221b as the calm and collected guy who already knows exactly what’s happening; but what gives the plot momentum is seeing how this facade is obscured by doubts and questions he struggles to answer.
the thing about a sherlock holmes story is you always know how it’s going to end. the only way you’re ever going to FEEL something is if you DO actually put holmes’ intellect in doubt; if he IS genuinely challenged throughout the plot. it makes the bulk of the case more interesting, and it feels infinitely more satisfying at the end when he does inevitably come through. 
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rathbone here finally unlocks that dimension within holmes here, and you start to see the person he becomes when he’s faced with uncertainty. i love how miserable he is when he can’t break that fourth code -- see below:
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it really means something to see this dude scared!!
speaking of...
LIONEL ATWILL FUCKS, SEVERELY, AS MORIARTY
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i’ve said before that holmes stories, for me, often fail to genuinely affect me with their stakes. it all feels very scooby doo, very dastardly plan, very capital-C crime in a way that falls flat. (scooby doo plot mechanisms = good, scooby doo stakes = bad).
but this is where secret weapon shines, for me. it fully embraces Tobel’s scooby doo antics, and grounds them with the most actual fear and danger, the most palpable stakes, we’ve seen thus far.
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firstly -- atwill’s moriarty is a scary motherfucker!!!! him TORTURING tobel to get an answer out of him is genuinely frightening!!!!!!
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he’s technically not a nazi, says he just agreed to this job cuz it’d get him closer to holmes, but in some ways that’s worse? for every wonderful high-octane inspector gadget plot beat, you’re reminded of nazi-sympathiser moriarty waiting around the corner. and i appreciate it.
these stakes are also specifically expressed in the changes they induce in holmes, who, as we mentioned, is quietly crashing out in this one. his showmanship has never been more of a fatal flaw, and it almost gets him killed on two different occasions. 
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so, right, back to the recap--
holmes is now a sitting duck at moriarty HQ, having let himself be captured, waiting til watson/lestrade hansel & gretel their way over to him. we have our second instance of the classic ‘moriarty and holmes discuss how bad they want to kill each other in a far too casual manner’ interaction. and... fuck, i know this is already far too long of a recap, but if you’ve made it this far, i’m sure you won’t mind if i go ahead and put this whole conversation in here.
HOLMES: You disappoint me, Professor. MORIARTY: Indeed? HOLMES: Yes. Somehow I always thought that in the end you’d prove to be just an ordinary cutthroat.  MORIARTY: You know me better, Holmes.  HOLMES: Gas, poison, bullets... I assure you, Professor, were our positions reversed, I should have something more colourful, more imaginative to offer.  MORIARTY: I’m satisfied to be the winner. I shall be alive.  HOLMES: Alive, yes. The winner, no. For in the last analysis, I shall prove to be the more resourceful man. You didn’t trap me here; I came here because I wanted to, to prevent your getting Hoffner. And all you can do in return is to commit ordinary murder? To relieve your sense of frustration? MORIARTY: And what, my good Mister Holmes, could you have conceived, that would have been so much more colourful?  HOLMES: Well, even off hand... I can improve upon your suggestions considerably - but that’s only natural, of course. MORIARTY: And what is this brilliant idea of yours?  HOLMES: You know that a man dies if he loses five pints of blood? ...Yes, of course you do. I should have you placed on an operating table, inject a needle into your veins and slowly draw off your life’s blood. 
MORIARTY: The needle to the last, eh, Holmes? 
VIOLIN PLAYING JUNKIE CUNT MENTIONED!!!!!!!!
i think i love a younger holmes/older moriarty dynamic, actually. i like that moriarty feels... i don’t think i’ve ever used this word before, but crotchety? atwill reminds me a lot of the octopus boss from the first monsters inc, is all i can say. all his stillness and maturity puts the impetuous dynamism of rathbone’s holmes in much sharper relief. this allows rathbone’s cavalier nature to finally read as a flaw, rather than a sign of intelligence or power.
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this dude is lost in the sauce, even by his standards, and it HAS CONSEQUENCES!!!
i.e., moriarty is like, oh, well, funny you should mention, i actually have a hospital room behind this false bookcase.
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he weaponises holmes’ vanity and pride against him, and whips out an uno reverse card to prove it:
MORIARTY: Closer to the end, Holmes... Closer and closer. Each second, a few more drops leave your desiccated body. And you can feel them, can’t you? You’re perfectly conscious, aren’t you, Holmes?’  HOLMES: I shall be conscious long after you’re dead, Moriarty. MORIARTY: Hah... Still the same old swaggering, conceited Sherlock Holmes.
and really, overall, the whole last act devolves into this insane will-they-won’t-they but for whether either holmes or moriarty are gonna die. its dual tones, the tobel-inspired shenanigans vs the very real mortal threat to holmes and britain itself, begin collapsing into eachother at breakneck pace. 
holmes is fine, except then he gets exsanguinated by moriarty, but then watson and lestrade finally make it to moriarty HQ, but then there’s a shootout, and in all the chaos moriarty disappears behind a fucking hidden blastproof wall. but then holmes stops him from escaping completely, because he found his secret trapdoor, and we get this amazing interaction: 
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MORIARTY: I expected you, but not with my revolver. HOLMES: You realise, of course, that when I was brought into the room blindfolded, I heard the mechanism of this door? MORIARTY: Of course. HOLMES: And yet, knowing that I’d heard it, you planned this way of escape? ...Not very flattering to me.
and long story short, moriarty falls sixty feet to his death, and the allies win world war two.
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tobel brings a certain inspector gadgetian je ne sais quois, moriarty is genuinely scary, holmes is reckless and cocky cuz he’s scared and has to work hard for once, and i had a fantastic time. 
okay, just two more things.
WATSON (IS SUPER FUN IN THIS)
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nigel bruce’s watson = the most comic relief dumbass version he’s been thus far, especially compared to voice of terror, but honestly i appreciate it!!! 
people criticise the total disappearance of watson’s intelligence in bruce’s interpretation but i’d say that’s mostly to do with the writing. and, yeah, this dude is 100% more of a fuckwit than conan doyle’s watson, but it’s like i said previously: bruce’s approach, to me, is like a blueberry muffin quest bar. it might bear offensively little resemblance to the thing it purports to be inspired by, but it’s also satisfying in its own right.
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bruce really knows how to tread the line, and he still sort of captures one of my favourite watsonisms, which is how angry this dude is most of the time. like, i love a john watson that wildly vacillates between polite amicability and a simmering exasperation that’s never completely incandescent, but also never completely dulled. john watson is like trying to make spaghetti in a pot that’s too small, that’s always almost about to boil over completely but never does. condragulations my dear... you have won this week’s challenge
GREGORY LESTRADE MAKES HIS FIRST APPEARANCE!!!!!!!!
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lestrade, to me, is like a load-bearing pillar of conan-doyle worldbuilding. not only are you gonna have times when they interact with scotland yard (like, fucking obviously) (btw what is scotland yard? is that just the police? come back to this) but you’re gonna have times when watson breaks off from holmes and needs someone else to play with. 
having it be lestrade every time is what makes things feel like a whole, familiar universe rather than stories built around a single pair of characters. it’s the world of it all. anyway, it was good to see this dude get called up from the bench. 
(also in this he’s actually significantly smarter than watson which is sort of a travesty but whatever. i’ll allow it. idc)
THAT’S IT
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i will be shocked if anyone actually reads this far, but, yeah, the difference in how much i have to say when i’m truly captivated by something is pretty significant. expect another visual essay if the next instalment is mid, and a novel if it’s anything like TSW. (fwiw i think they stick with roy william neill as director for most of the remaining ones, so, fingers crossed he pulls some crazy shit). 
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l3v5ha · 2 days ago
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l3v5ha · 3 days ago
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what do you think the root cause of wilson's obsession with adhering to social norms is (not just in a comphet way, but all social norms)?why is he so terrified to break away from societal expectations, so much so that he feels the need to create personas?
does it have something to do with danny---is it intertwined with his fear of letting people down, and his need to be needed by others? is he afraid that by breaking away from societal expectations, he will let others down and not meet their needs?
i'm not sure. it seems easy to reduce the cause of his personas to danny's running away and that one missed phone call, because it's the biggest piece the show gives us about wilson's past. but at the same time, the connection between adhering to social norms and his codependent tendencies feels extremely tenuous. so idk. what do you think?
oh user iscariio you always put the most thought-provoking things in my inbox. now i get to sing house md's praises about they characterized wilson by Not characterizing him. this is probably gonna be really long so i apologize in advance.
the deeper i go into my rewatch project, the clearer it is to me that wilson, by comparison to the other major characters, is very enigmatic, and that they've built in some narrative fluidity/mystery into his character to always keep us wondering about why he got like this. everyone else has some sort of inciting event (mostly off-screen) that, over time, we can unpack and understand. just sticking with the og cast, there's house's infarction; cuddy's infertility; cameron's husband; chase's parents/childhood; and foreman's brother and his mother's alzheimers. obviously these characters are not and should not be reduced to these events alone, but they're each very distinctive starting points for how they unfold across the seasons.
but what about wilson? we get the tease about his brother in 1x10 (one of my favorite moments in all of season 1), the admission that he's a shitty cheating husband in 1x05 (which is then reiterated A Lot), fleeting info from bonnie about their marriage and how house had a hand in ruining it, and that's...kind of it until season 5. yet it feels like we know so much about him! we've seen him undergo relationships, mistakes (often in tandem), the entire tritter arc, amber's death, but we don't really know why he acts like that in each of those situations, and i think that's because house md fashions wilson into a mosaic of Traits and Moments and Problems that never quite amount to anything solid. in that narrative choice comes that foregone solidity. that's a more metanarrative reading; in the reality of the text, this is why wilson is the walking gaping hole of neediness. he's incomplete by design!
(even in terms of the surrounding cast, too - we meet cuddy's mom, house's parents multiple times, chase's dad, foreman's family, taub's wife [a lot], kutner's parents (in absentia), etc., etc. danny, meanwhile, is just a room away! and we don't meet him!)
all of this is to say that you're right - the phone call with danny, while an excellent chronicle in wilson's backstory - isn't narratively satisfying enough to clarify his entire character for us, and i don't think that it's meant to be. that's why house is pretty incredulous about the whole thing, and that's why, after he admits to wilson that he thinks wilson and danny won't go anywhere, the door just closes on the entire affair. oh 5x17 "social contract" how i love you...
the mosaic called James Wilson instead carries so many broken pieces that almost paint the answer about his fears of failing social conformity, but only almost: his "failure" of danny, his profession that threatens burn out, his vague, sort of self-conscious agnosticism, his lacking sense of self (very chicken & the egg because which came first, the poor sense of self or the personas? which tried to solve which problem?), and, of course, his struggle with sexuality (while i am fully married to Gay Wilson, no matter the reading, he clearly experiences some deep issues in his psyche regarding intimacy that lead to a whole lot of Bad Choices and Not Enough Guilt).
the surrounding needy characters (primarily house, ofc) fill in the empty mosaic spots because that's what the incomplete spots are for. by adopting everyone's neediness, he can find that sense of self. just about everyone goes to him for advice at some point. whatever wilson is missing in our eyes (the Reason for all of this), he's also missing.
and then for him to get CANCER? the all-encompassing, amoral villain of the show that collapses wilson's entire person, right as he's trying to bring all those pieces together for the first time and live life for himself? just before we could get a wholistic view of him? bro...
TLDR the non-answer to your question is the best answer we could ever get imo. he's designed to not make entire sense, and this plagues him as much as it plagues the audience. he's an innately uncomfortable and shifty character, never pinned down, but so integral to the structure of house md and its titular character that we have to make do with his instability if we're to get through this. i mean, the show ends when he ends, after all!
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l3v5ha · 4 days ago
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Hm i wonder why i feel so disconnected? *watches from afar* *watches from afar* *watches from afar* *watches from afar* *watches from afa
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l3v5ha · 4 days ago
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the mitski patti harrison interview is good
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l3v5ha · 5 days ago
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Summer rolls. 
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l3v5ha · 5 days ago
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can anyone recommend any books like raphael bob waksberg’s book of short stories. like short stories that are funny but also a little sad and not overly prosaic but not entirely unlyrical. thankyou
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l3v5ha · 5 days ago
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strawberry magic is very difficult
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l3v5ha · 6 days ago
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We have this interesting situation where we basically no longer have privacy nor the expectation of privacy, but we also don't have community or meaningful connection with others, so we're all simultaneously both completely exposed and absolutely alone, and please understand that when I say this situation is "interesting", what I in fact mean is that it's "nightmarish and I wish I could wake up"
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l3v5ha · 6 days ago
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sabrina the teenage carpenter
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l3v5ha · 6 days ago
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*sees two women interacting for five seconds in a show*: c’mooooon lesbians *shaking dice in fist* mama needs a new pair of lesbians
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l3v5ha · 6 days ago
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this is the real found family to me btw. maybe found friendship is when all yall love and respect and care for each other. but found family is more like.... hm yeah guess i have this inextricable link to you despite how wildly the tenor of our relationship may fluctuate. yeah no i guess we can never fully escape each other. whether we're allies or enemies. uh huh yeah you're just kind of mine and i'm just kind of yours. yeah our lives converged and now will never fully diverge.
wait cuz why'd i just get SO excited on this random sunday arvo in august thinking about the cobel/milchick arc poised for s3... like do you get it. antagonist that is superseded by a much larger threat both to themselves and the protagonist. so now the original antagonist becomes a begrudging ally. i mean we already got a preview of this with cobel in 2x10 but oh my god... begruding allyship... a narrative delicacy
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l3v5ha · 6 days ago
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wait cuz why'd i just get SO excited on this random sunday arvo in august thinking about the cobel/milchick arc poised for s3... like do you get it. antagonist that is superseded by a much larger threat both to themselves and the protagonist. so now the original antagonist becomes a begrudging ally. i mean we already got a preview of this with cobel in 2x10 but oh my god... begruding allyship... a narrative delicacy
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l3v5ha · 8 days ago
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the recap series nobody asked for: i watch the rathbone/bruce holmes specials for the first time: episode 3: sherlock holmes and the voice of terror
my apologies to anyone who has up til now enjoyed reading my first thoughts on the interpretation & adaptation of this violin playing junkie cunt + his boy bsf. because i have almost no thoughts this time.
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the following is something more like a visual essay made up of what notes i did take that essentially proves as much.
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final thoughts:
very few deductions in this movie. or clues. holmes is about as exhaustingly patriotic as you’d expect and that eats up most of the runtime. to be honest i think i was lost from the jump because i wasn't even sure what we were trying to work out. who the voice of terror is? what his next moves are? how to stop them? is the voice of terror planning these things or just announcing them? what radio station are they even on? how similar is the plot to radio rebel? what's the goal here? where am i?
not to mention i am terrible at remembering faces so combine that with incredibly shadowy noir lighting and 5 caucasian men in their 40s-60s and i'm just. gone.
wasn't really truly a holmes adaptation, at least not to me, and i think it's my first genuine encounter with noir (hence my freaking out because it really is so visually striking) so i'm gonna say i actually did good with finding legibility where i could. love you
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l3v5ha · 10 days ago
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hope nobody has been enjoying my thoughts on the rathbone holmes adaptations cuz i just finished sherlock holmes & the voice of terror (1942) and i fear the next instalment may be… perhaps more of a visual essay
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l3v5ha · 10 days ago
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the recap series nobody asked for: i watch the rathbone/bruce holmes specials for the first time: episode 2: the adventures of sherlock holmes
[but, disclaimer, i’m mostly only curious about the characterisation, interpretation, & adaptation of the world itself + the violin playing junkie cunt + his boy bsf]
okay, so, james moriarty. 
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we meet him at the start of this film right when he’s being exonerated by a jury; holmes rushes in at the last second but this isn’t legally blonde so moriarty walks free anyhow. for some reason they uber pool back to baker street together and in the hansom, moriarty declares he’s gonna concoct the Greatest Crime Ever Conceived Of to defeat holmes once and for all, or whatever, cuz holmes keeps fucking with his business. 
and-- like-- can we just-- i’m so tired. i’m so confused by the characterisation of james moriarty. he’s such a quintessential villain and yet it’s just that-- he IS a villain, always, so we never really give him any actual motivation.
i’ll concede that there exist some villains who their whole shtick is just being a hater, and it DOES work - but i don’t think of moriarty as a born hater. he doesn’t have the true and pure heart of a hater because a hater is still a lover -- of hating. and he’s not that passionate about crime, either: he says it himself! he wants to focus on abstract science after this! 
he tells that one guy in his office, 'ooh, okay, i’ll let you in on my plans, for the Big Crime... a Crime children will read about in history books...' and it’s like. why is so much crime in holmes stories this capital-c Crime? so often there’s this scooby doo element to it despite the fact it’s ostensibly adult entertainment. i dunno. i think holmes adaptations can honestly struggle to create real stakes for crimes and this is one of those times.
in saying that. i did really like moriarty getting gently and quietly pissed off at dawes about murdering a flower. loved all the greenhouse stuff actually. moriarty as a soft-spoken weird guy who’s really intense about his botanical exploits? weird as fuck. that’s compelling to me.
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unfortunately it never gets more interesting than that. and honestly this whole film is lessened for its insistence on putting the cart before the horse, letting us know from the start that holmes is wasting his time on the relatively less important case only there to distract him. like, since when have we needed dramatic irony for a holmes story? doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose? aren't we supposed to be the ones in the dark, waiting to put it together? not to mention there’s barely any stakes for moriarty, besides wanting to fuck with holmes? 
sorry it just felt kind of scooby doo to me. see how i could be a born hater because i’m a hardcore lover of the things i love? 
speaking of. holmes and watson are really soft in this and i’m not being wilfully ignorant in my woobification.
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there’s a bunch of great banter between them but neither of them are unkind to eachother or anyone else! and this thing i love from hound is back - the way rathbone + bruce throw in this thing of always looking back to see the other’s reaction, like, u caught that right? 
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bruce’s watson is as bumbling as i’ve come to expect by now, but it’s mostly balanced by him being kind of a dick, too. sweet naive old man would be too much; at least most of the time it’s leveraged against a propensity to sour or judge people too quickly lol. 
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neither disposition is really fundamentally watson but it’s not, like, offensively incorrect characterisation, just disappointingly far from the source material. like a blueberry muffin quest bar. tastes fine, i guess, for the use case, but in no way resembles the real thing.
this holmes could not be further from the 21st century sociopath we somehow broken-telephoned our way to. it’s weird; he even vaguely mentions this reputation for impoliteness, but then is nothing less than courteous and charming the rest of the film? 
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even with watson. like, watson sees their target do one (1) suspect thing and races back to tell holmes instead of continuing to follow him. and holmes is like 'no, no, it's fine. it's totally the opposite of what i wanted you to do but it's fine.' and pats him on the shoulder.
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it’s painfully affectionate actually. i honestly prefer my holmes/watson dynamics to have significantly more tallahassee (2003) energy. whatever.
BUT i WILL flag this again - holmes once more manipulating someone into being bait so as to escape the ‘shadow of death’.
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me when i’m definitely not addicted to the high of observation+prediction+confirmation lol 😂 but im still hoping you risk your life for me just to know i was right
also, i’m not going to spoil it this time but there was another example of holmes in a disguise that in no way helped him fly under the radar, but i did NOT clock this one (actually made a separate note ragging on this guy, like, ‘this is actually who they adapted robert chase from’) and 100% felt like lucille bluth when he revealed himself. GENE??????? GENE PARMESAN????????????
final thing - goddamn the cinematography goes so insanely hard. leon shamroy, aka the DOP tied for the most oscar nominations for cinematography in history, lets it fucking rip. i was watching this on dailymotion so my caps aren’t great but with a narrative this mid i was mostly enthralled by the use of light & composition which was a signiiiiificant improvement on hound. this shit is so beautiful. 
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