End of the year stuff

Dec 31. Another year comes to end. Time for every two-bit hack to publish his/her "best of " lists. his formality is weary, but whatever. No reason for me to get left out.

Every now and then someone will ask me to give a few book recommendations. I enjoy talking about books as much as I enjoy reading them, so I don't need much excuse to write this list. Here is Universal Gravitation's very own "Best books in 2012", winnowed down from a number of books read across various genres.  Notice the little "in" in the title. These were books that I read in 2012, not ones that were necessarily published this year. I did a similar list last year too, so if you want more perspectives/recommendations, feel free to head over to that post .

Onward.

Review - Sherlock Holmes: A game of shadows

I went to watch Sherlock Holmes 2 with some degree of enthusiasm. The inevitable "sequel letdown" phenomenon notwithstanding (Godfather 2 and the Star Wars sequels are some rare exceptions to this phenomenon), I was expecting a good performance by RDJ, whose portrayal of Holmes in the first film I thoroughly enjoyed.

However, I was disappointed by the movie, not because it is bad (in fact, it is an entertaining flick on the whole) but because it bills itself as something it is not. It purports to be a Sherlock Holmes movie, but apart from character names and very loose plot points, it does not resemble or faithfully represent any element of the original stories. The Holmes I grew up to enjoy and worship is a Holmes who solves cases by thinking. He listens to his clients and shuts himself up in his room, emerging only to use Watson as a sounding board. He does not like to leave his apartment and detests most forms of human contact, and engages in both of these activities only when absolutely necessary. Although an accomplished fighter, he never fights and I vaguely recall only two (maybe three) stories where he chases someone. To be fair, the first movie did away with a lot of these character traits mostly because of pragmatic and commercial concerns (a movie showing RDJ brooding on a divan playing shitty violin wouldn't be as fun, nor would it rake in half a billion dollars), and I understand that. When you make a movie, your primary goal is to broaden the audience for the story you are basing the movie on and make money.