30 Days of Sherlock Holmes: Day 11

[goldvermilion87]

Day Eleven--Your Favorite Adaptation

 

Because the answer for me is so painfully obvious--Sherlock--and because I've explained in great detail why it is my favorite in other posts, I will tell my two other favorite adaptations.

1. Without a Clue.

This film is just amazing.  First of all, it stars Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley.  I'm not sure that anything more need be said on the subject.  But just in case you haven't seen it, I won't say what the big joke is (okay...the joke is obvious within minutes... but the first few minutes are funnier if you don't know it) I won't spoil it for you.  I'll just say WATCH IT! 

It's among my favorites because it plays with so many of the Sherlock Holmes tropes and turns them on their heads.  It also shows a great Holmes and Watson friendship that is NOT overdone.  Because really, I guess it's not overdone usually in adaptations, but I've gotten allergic to overdone Holmes and Watson friendship because of fanfiction. 

2. The Great Mouse Detective

I've read Basil of Baker Street, and it's pretty lame, actually (though I bet I would've liked it more before I was 23...  ).  But The Great Mouse Detective is my second favorite Disney Movie, and a well executed idea.  Any film that can take Sherlock Holmes, turn him into a mouse AND THEN PUT THE ACTUAL SHERLOCK HOLMES BACK IN, and do it well gets points in my book.  Plus, I have a thing for anthropomorphic mice... no idea why.

You'll notice in both my selections (well... in some ways all three) that these are not traditional canonical Holmes adaptations.  I think this is because I like Holmes and Watson, the characters, but I don't think ACD was a genius, so I'm not a purist.  Furthermore, I feel no need to be relentlessly faithful to a bunch of stories that the author clearly couldn't care less about as time went by.  I also object to the sort of fetishisation of Victorianness that I see a lot.  It was a time period like any other time period, though perhaps more hypocritical than many.  (I guess that explains Sherlock more than the other two films.) 

I feel that Sherlock Holmes made its way to a modern myth, and no one objects to the re-setting, and re-hashing, and toying with, and poking gentle fun at, etc. of myth.  I consider wild Holmes adaptations to be almost an homage--it's so very famous, that we can do what we wish with it!  The only other people who consistently get that treatment are Shakespeare and Homer, really!  Part of me almost wonders if ACD deserves the honor!  But I'm not complaining.  :-)

Also, I have a weird sense of humor, which Without a Clue and The Great Mouse Detective appeal to.  :-)

That was a bit ranty.  I don't know why I'm feeling ranty.  But I just ranted.  Haha!