![]() ![]() ![]() This might be a flop, and make the version laughable, but by now there is a sense of irony and self awareness in Ritchie's films (sincer Lock Stock) that allows him to support a xxi century action figure in Holmes clothing that actually is watchable. One is the most obvious, making Holmes an action character (which actually is in its original dna, even though TV productions usually ignore that). Several tricks are used here, most of them successful, even if straightforward. So the challenge for any modern filmmaker, and actor, who wants to update Holmes, is to make the character more cinematic, more appealing. ![]() I suppose Doyle formed his mind before cinema had any significant impact on how our minds work. Notice that Christie's crimes are many times a matter of understanding how things happened, spatially (murder on the orient express is the zenith of that). But, unlike for example anything by Agatha Christie, Doyle's cleverness is rooted in pure deductive logic, not on the mechanics of the world. That part is visual, and a good ground to invest a cinematic world. More than that, the character is a perfect piece invested in a clever, irresistible and fascinating world. Even when the deductions are over the top (which happens often!) one can't stop smiling at the cleverness. His deductions, the way he surrounds the worlds he investigates are a feast for thinking minds. I find the character fascinating, but i always felt it was more invested in literature, not cinema. She saved my life and then lost hers.Somehow, i've always avoided the cinematic (or TV) presentations of Sherlock Holmes. I wrote the script with my wife Laura who died of ALS at age 36. I wonder if they'll freak out.'" -Robert Downey Jr in Us, October 1996.ĭowney describes "Hugo Pool" as "the right kind of strange. He had to be ballsy to go out and say, 'No one's ever seen anything like this before. "My father was and still is my role model. babbling jerk, but if I knew then what I know now. I can't believe how we thought it was OK. I wouldn't do anything differently, except I wouldn't allow anyone to smoke marijuana. If Robert wanted to be wild, it was OK with me. Like his son, Robert Downey Sr battled drug addiction, describing it as "a horrible f-ing nightmare. His son Robert Downey Jr appeared in "Hugo Pool," the seventh of his father's films in which he has acted. He returned with "Hugo Pool" (1997), co-written with his late wife Laura, about a dedicated, beautiful and lonely Beverly Hills pool cleaner (Alyssa Milano) who becomes involved in the lives of her clients, particularly Floyd, an attractive man afflicted with ALS (the same disease that had felled Laura Downey). Downey wrote and directed "Too Much Sun" (1991), a weak farce about a competition between a brother and sister (both gay) to have a child first, so as to inherit a fortune from their father. Though his acting appearances have been few, he did play an ad agency head in "You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat" (1971), an NCAA investigator in "Johnny Be Good" (1988) and a recording studio manager in "Boogie Nights" (1997). With Chuck Barris, Downey co-wrote "The Gong Show Movie" (1980) and also directed "Rented Lips" (1988), scripted and produced by Martin Mull. A super-offbeat Jesus Christ parody with a Western setting, it offers some wonderful performances by Allan Arbus as a zoot-suited Jesus, Albert Henderson as head Greaser and Stan Gottlieb as the "wife" of a deformed Mexican with a lecherous yen for the Saviour, but despite the inspired hilarity, its 91 minute running time seems longer than that. Though his greatest success, "Putney Swope" appears dated today, and the richer-looking (Downey finally had some money to spend) "Greaser's Palace" (1972) may have withstood the test of time. Downey had worked in advertising and lampooned that business in the movie everyone associates with him, "Putney Swope" (1969), about the hilarious changes made by a token black member of an ad agency after he is accidentally elected Chairman of the Board. Described by an associate as "a big jovial bear," Robert Downey Sr translated his irreverent, mordant humor to the screen as the writer-director of several experimental cult classics of the late 1960s and early 70s. ![]()
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