Holmes!

The pipe smoking fellow above is number 136 on the hero list. He is Sherlock Holmes, and today is widely agreed upon to be his birthday. My heroic Holmes is the one of the four novels, and fifty-six short stories written about him by his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He is the consulting detective that solves crimes and other sticky situations for people long before the plodders of Scotland Yard sort out anything. He is a brilliant, violin playing, sometime drug taking, genius. I believe the best on screen portrayal of him is by a fellow named Jeremy Brett who gave an outstanding performance of Holmes in a PBS series long ago. I have not, and refuse to watch the latest Holmes movie directed by that douche bag Guy Ritchie. From the previews I know all I need to know about what kind of "movie" it is. If you want to do a James Bond film, Mr. Ritchie, do a James Bond film, please do not try to make Holmes the last action hero. Sure there is some action in the stories, but it restrained and not over the top, car chases, shit blowing up, half naked women running around sort of action. If you want that kind of stuff go see a Bond flick, or some Jason Bourne shit. Not for Holmes. He is a fucking mental genius. So smart that he does not have to rely on brute force (though he could use it if he had to) to catch the villain. Read some of the short stories and you will see why I am raging so much against this new film. When you eliminate the impossible that which remains must be the truth is one of my favourite quotes of Holmes, and one which I on occasion have to use in my job. The scary part is that Holmes himself said that his older brother, Mycroft, was even smarter (see my post on him). So for making the detective story about the detective, and solving all those unsolvable crimes, Sherlock Holmes (January 6th-present), you are my hero of the day.