Sherlock Holmes Adaptations

 Last weekend I went to see a local theater production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and I got so annoyed by the fact that it was basically an adaptation of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. It's a perfectly good version of Sherlock Holmes, but it wasn't what I wanted going into this play. And I am a little biased because I find the Rathbone/Bruce a little annoying in how much Watson is played as a dummy following Holmes the genius around. So here's a small collection of my thoughts on three different adaptations I'm most familiar with and like!

Elementary
This might be one of my favorite versions of the detective. Especially the first season with the big reveal of making Irene Adler / Moriarty the same person. It was endlessly inventive and creative while still being respectful of the source material. This particularly stood out because it started just after "Sherlock" did and fans were endlessly accusing it of being a copy.

The big standout through are Holmes and Watson themselves. I adore Lucy Liu in general and I thought she was amazing in this role. And Jonny Lee Miller captures so perfectly the chaos gremlin that is Sherlock Holmes. He does his best when Sherlock is going off of the rails a little, while Liu pulls him back in and delightfully enjoys occasionally heading with him to do something illegal. Their dynamic is so perfect. 

Sherlock
This one always has to come up, but you really cannot deny that this show opened a lot of people to the original Sherlock Holmes stories. The attention of the producers to detail gained a huge following as well, and I will absolutely give them credit for an incredible first two seasons + Christmas special. The rest was garbage.

The show really excelled when it took the original stories and airlifted them into the present. The first episode was a wonderful adaptation of "A Study in Scarlet" where all of the aspects were there, but changing it up for the modern era still left a lot of twists and turns in the case. I so wish they stuck to that but whateverrrrrr.

Benedick Cumberbatch is a truly spectacular Sherlock, and if he leans a little too much into the science robot aspect of Holmes he is played off very well with Martin Freeman as Watson. Half the mystery of the show is Holmes himself, which they are able to capture very well in this version. My complaints are numerous, but also you can tell from early on, the creators do not like women very much. Irene Adler is naked from the get go, everyone hates the female cop, etc. That aspect has me honestly scared to rewatch a lot of it.

The Guy Ritchie Movies
These movies were so fun! I also honestly think that Watson in my mind is Jude Law now for how well he captured that character in a Victorian setting. Robert Downey Jr. is also so fun as an absolutely off the walls Holmes that hyperfixates, drugs his dog, and in general is just unpredictable. He is most similar to Jonny Lee Miller, but he goes a step or two farther in that he is usually butting heads with Watson where Miller softens from his collaboration with Liu.

The two movies could have probably been more united, I didn't love the Moriarty portrayal and how he changes in his characterization. And then killing off Irene in the second one is just unforgivable to me, bring her back now! But it's such a delight to see Downey Jr go running off with Law right behind him.

Original Stories
The original stories have such an important space in my heart. I read them all over the course of a summer on the beach, they are short and fun to get through. Doyle hated them, but there is a reason they have endured. Holmes is fun and walks a fine line of being annoying, silly, and wildly intelligent. Half of the cases you cannot solve just from Watson's point of view, so there also isn't a huge expectation that the reader is able to solve it. 

There also are really fun side characters, again there's a reason Irene, Moriarty, etc are all in these different adaptations. The female characters especially, it's hard to think that Irene Adler existed back then as a independent lady adventuress. She's bold on her own and is "the woman" to Holmes (she is only in one case though and there's not much evidence they had an actual relationship). Moriarty is also only in one case with the purpose of killing Holmes off, which is still hilarious to me in that Doyle had to immediately bring him back. There are other cases though with independent women seeking Holmes' services, and one notable case that ends with an anonymous woman killing the culprit and Holmes letting her off of the hook. Not being an official part of the police lets him do that and Doyle knew how to use it.

It really goes to show how enduring these stories are, Holmes is something like the most frequently portrayed human character in media. And somehow there's many different versions of him, with wildly different personalities and preferences. But the friendship between him and Watson is always present and strong, really making any of these versions work. And that's kinda why this play grated at me, Watson can't have been an idiot if Holmes is dragging him around this way. All that to say, I love these stories and I will gladly watch different versions, but I sure do have opinions about all of them.

This Is Beautiful: Job Offer

 This has been a rollercoaster of a week, to the point that I'm not sure this counts to write this post, but I did get a job offer earlier! I will not be unemployed! And thankfully it isn't any job, I really wanted to get a postdoc and it is a postdoc position doing education research, which was my moon shot of a goal! So I am very excited about that. I keep going back and forth for different reasons, but I think I will take it in the end. And it just feels good to have a plan and keep moving forward.

"The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov

 Another book that I am kinda surprised ended up on my to read list. It is a Penguin classic, which has me even more surprised. I am no expert, but I believe that this was published in chunks in Russia in the 60s and is a flavor of satire making fun of society at the time.

The book starts with two men talking on a bench. A third approaches them and is quite mysterious and cagey about his motives. A few fantastic things happen, including that one of the men dies, as predicted by the mysterious stranger. The other (a poet) loses it and takes off after the stranger, his companion, and a cat that joins them. 

There's a few interspersed chapters that then take place in Jerusalem and center on Pontius Pilate sentencing Jesus to death. We eventually return to our poor poet chasing the devil around, he ends up in an institution and we learn that the devil is in the man he killed's room and staying in Moscow for a bit. In the mental institution our poet meets the master, he was working on a novel about Pilate and in love with a woman married to someone else.

She loves him as well, and we swap to her for a bit. This is Margarita, she has a wild night where she gets cream from an associate of the devil and rubs it all over herself making her young, beautiful, and able to fly. She zooms off to the devil and his friends and ends up hostess of one of his balls. As a thank you she requests to be reunited with the master. They are, and in the end the two get peace together. The devil and his friends then leave Moscow and there's a brief epilogue detailing how the poet still visits the bench he was at with his friend at the beginning.

The book is surprisingly extremely amusing and engaging, there is humor throughout it. A bit part of this is that no one is really telling the truth, there's layers of deception everywhere. So the characters can get into amusing situations. The poet's downfall is honestly ridiculous, and Margarita's flight as well. I skipped this in the summary but she trashes someone's apartment on her way out and that's incredible for her.

I'm not well-versed in the history of this time, but it is absolutely a response and satire of religious discourse of Russia. Otherwise why would the devil go there? From what I gather online, Russia was forced atheist and this was a satire in terms of people rejecting the historical figure of Jesus Christ and uplifting free thought and opinions. In the book you can be locked up for writing fiction even! The master in particular is shunned by the writing establishment and is thought to be a little biographical for Bulgakov. This is contrasted with the poet who is successful initially but is convinced to give it up.

I quite liked this book, I thought it was delightfully easy to read. I am sure that I didn't understand everything going on, I probably would need more information about Russia at the time to do that. But I thought is was amusing and resonated a lot with being at a crossroads in my life now. I look forward to coming back to it later and being able to pick up on more aspects I missed in my first go.

This Is Beautiful: Traveling

 I've been hopping around all over for interviews lately. I have now done two weeks with multiple interviews, and a few weeks with only one interview as well. I am exhausted and ready to be done, but it does remind me that I like traveling. Seeing new places is exciting to me, and hotel beds are so nice (when there aren't bright clocks in the room). So it is nice that I'm getting a sneak peak of different places that I could be living next year!

"Writing Science" by Joshua Schimel

 I had this book recommended to me recently to help with scientific writing that I tend to just struggle with. It's very helpful! The author talks about how we do scientific writing and how to write in terms of crafting a story. Which scientists don't think that they do, but people remember stories and therefore if you want your work to be memorable then you should be thinking in terms of a story. He systematically goes through all of the aspects of a paper or a grant, plus writing for the public or other audiences.

To come clean, I did not do the exercises at the end of the chapters. It probably would have enhanced the process if I did, and helped to apply these ideas. My biggest complaint ended up that having such a diversity of scientific fields made me lose focus as I was sometimes more focused on understanding what they were talking about than the writing. Which is something you really cannot avoid, we are all so niche that it's impossible to completely personalize these examples. But some did probably go over my head as a result as I just didn't grasp the nuances of the writing.

Overall though, I think this is one of those books to keep on a shelf and refer to occasionally when writing. I can definitely see its use and probably it'd be enhanced with a few more read throughs on my end.

This Is Beautiful: I Graduated!

 Took the weekend off for celebrations, but I walked at graduation! I'm a doctor! It's just about no different from the week before, but it's important to celebrate things and this was a weekend full of celebration. And that feels really good.

This Is Beautiful: "Project Hail Mary"

 I honestly really and truly cannot stop thinking about this movie. To be clear, I haven't read the book, but the hype around the movie coming out and Artemis 2 launch recently forced me into a movie theater for the first time in a while. And it is so good, it is worth all of the hype.

Ryan Gosling's performance is nothing short of incredible. He is acting alongside a puppet for most of the movie and it is so good, he cries multiple times and it's gorgeous how open he is able to be with his emotions. And he's funny! The puppet also deserves its own mention, the design is incredible and the emoting from the design of the puppet is so endearing and amazing. You feel so much for this little guy.

I also just loved how hopeful it is, the story is sad and my partner cried multiple times, but at its core it's a story about hope. No one is really the "bad guy", we are all trying to figure it out, and working together we can do it. It's just what we need right now.

Also special shoutout to the fact that Gosling's character is widely agreed to be aroace, I love that representation. I hope someone tells Gosling that he did that for us.

It's such a good movie, it'll save your love for humanity. I can't stop thinking about and being fascinated by it, I'll probably pick up the book sometime soon.