Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Guy Ritchie, 2011)

When I was in college, back in the eighties, a friend of mine had a cartoon on his door that showed two men outside a movie theater.  One guy is telling the other that he didn't know if the movie he was good or not, but "it was worth the price of admission just to experience the illusion of motion created by a rapidly projected series of still images on a screen."

That pretty much describes my reaction to Guy Ritchie's latest film, the sequel to 2009's Sherlock Holmes.  Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are re-united as Holmes and Watson, Aurther Conan Doyle's Victorian crime stopping odd-couple.

Neat Neat Neat

The Damned, Dave Vanian, Captain
Sensible, bass player, Rat Scabies

Growing up in Stultified, Ohio, I lived for the unusual.  Living in a town with a library that removed offense articles from magazines and record store that featured only family friendly music, stimulation was hard to come by.

More from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

The Rock and Roll stylings of The Carrie Nations from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.  

Thirsty for Love-Sex and Murder Online!

I wrote about Thirsty for Love-Sex and Murder ( in its native tongue, Aska Susayanlar) before (read about it here). It is available at Google Video. Loads of fun and only an hour long, I highly recommend it. Subtitled.

The Commune (Elisabeth Fies, 2009)

Despite a shocking opening that turns Sophocles on his head, 2009's The Commune quickly turns itself into a family melodrama that seems too familiar, but is also too alluring to dismiss.   Spotlighting pretty, blonde Jenny (Chauntal Lewis), an adolescent in full "You just don't understand" mode who doesn't want to spend her 16th birthday away from her best buds.  Mom (played by writer-director Elisabeth Fies) has had enough of her daughter's hormonally charged, emotional hemorrhaging and needs some time to herself.  So off Jenny goes, to visit her visit her estranged father at his commune in the mountains.