Sherlock Holmes

Rating: 5/10

This movie version of the classic Sherlock Holmes tales lacks emotional engagement and has a frenetic, yet soporific, pace. The movie stars Robert Downey Jr, an actor I've thoroughly enjoyed in several movies, most recently Iron Man. Downey's performance in Sherlock Holmes is entertaining, he portrays a quirky and moody Holmes with a striking personality resemblance to TV's House. While overall the movie may have lacked the anticipated magic, it is not without several significant virtues.

The Good:
+ Engaging cinematography

+ Fast action

+ Unique pre-action descriptions

The style of the film is unique among recent big budget movies. The camera work is artistic. They chose to use  a very large aperture for much of the film, which gave the shots a small depth of field. This shallow focus is what's responsible for the extreme blurring of background and foreground objects. The effect is that the director (Guy Ritchie) can choose a small area on which to focus the audience's attention. They also play with the speed of the film, speeding up and slowing down the photography.

Note the background blurring. This shot is only an okay example of
the depth of field, but all I could find online.

The best part of the movie was the action scenes. In particular, the pre-action descriptions were awesome. In these descriptions, Holmes narrates what he will do, and how it will effect his target while the visuals show the punches, slaps, etc in slow motion. This may sound like it would make the actual occurrence of the action less engaging, but it does the opposite. These descriptions create anticipation, and if they weren't provided, we wouldn't be able to follow the action at all. Overall, these pre-action descriptions are the best part of the movie, and something I hope others have opportunity to use in future movies.

RDJ's weight loss reportedly started with food poisoning,

but that kind of muscle doesn't come without some

serious weight lifting too: Sherlock Holmes Workout

The Bad:

- Plot

- Pace

- Characterization

The mystery of the film lacks intrigue. There are a couple of novel, "how did he do that?" puzzles, but overall, I didn't really care what was going to happen. The pace of the film kept changing. This movie is the rare instance where during action scenes I was excited and engaged, while during plot movement scenes I could barely keep my eyes open. This change of pace wouldn't have been a problem if the plot of the film (storyline elements) didn't feel artificial and forced. Rather than genuinely engaging us by creating characters we cared about, then putting those characters at risk, it feels as though we were assumed to care about the characters from the get go. Aside from the relationship between Holmes and Watson, none of the characters made a convincing connection, and so putting their relationships at risk offered no suspense. In particular, the connection between Holmes and Adler (Rachel McAdams) was  tenuous at best. It was obvious that there was a history between them, and the history is alluded to, but never elaborated upon. Yet, a significant portion of the plot depends on their feelings for each other.

Conclusion:

Sherlock Holmes is great for it's cinematography and poor for it's emotional engagement. Overall, I can't recommend this film, unless you would like to sit through a weak plot to get to the interesting visual elements. Did you like the Matrix II and III? You'll love Holmes. Otherwise, skip Holmes and go see Avatar.

Kindle Reader

I got the kindle 2 reader for xmas this year. So far, I think I'm in love.

The kindle has a lot of great features:

• Comfortable form factor
• Read in full light
• Take notes while you read
• Highlight important passages

The Kindle is actually more comfortable to read than a regular book. It's easier to hold, and I find I can actually read faster. The ability to read in full light (reflection based display rather than ray based) is just a necessary prerequisite for everyday reading. It's the last two on the above list that make the Kindle a winner for me. When reading, I often want to highlight a passage or write a note, but I rarely have a pen and an extra paper with me. Plus, it takes too long to make an index so I know to what each of the notes refer. With the Kindle, you can type up notes, and they are hyperlinked into the text of the book. Also, you can export all the notes into a single file. That way, one can review the notes all in a row. I find that I remember more about books that I've read and reviewed than the ones I've only read. Thus, the ability to take notes and then review them in a summarized format is a huge gain in the efficiency of knowledge transfer.

What it is not (but could be):

• A web browsing device
• An app platform

I've read elsewhere that the reason the Kindle is not a good browsing device is because of the page refresh speed, this is patently false. Even in a 3G zone with full bars the data speed is horrendous. If the pages downloaded faster, the screen refresh would be fine.

The kindle is not currently an app platform, but could be. There are lots of great apps that could work for the kindle. For instance, it would also be good to have a timer app. But the apps I imaginatively favor would be educational - such as workbooks, crosswords, word searches, etc.

Conclusion

The Kindle, and e-ink in general are a huge step forward for the avid reader. Though I am excited about the future of apps on e-ink-reading devices, I believe these devices should be kept relatively simple for the time being. People need to get used to reading devices in a way that they can understand before embarking on more complicated applications. If the first set of smart phones were as capable as the current set, they might not have taken hold. Imagine it's 10 years ago and someone asks you, "What does an iPhone do?" Sometimes devices can be ahead of their time, the iPhone is right in it's time in the smartphone technology development, and I believe the Kindle is the same.