The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Ah, the joys of unfortunate compositing!

Seriously now, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of eleven short stories featuring the famous consulting detective, and is a sequel to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

The stories, for the most part, follow a set format; the quality of the writing is of a high order; however, the quality of the stories is uneven.  The collection starts with 'Silver Blaze', which is perhaps the strongest and most enjoyable story.  'The Musgrave Ritual' has a Gothic quality to its tale, while 'The Crooked Man' is a tale of revenge and redemption.  Some of the others don't really work.

I enjoyed the previous collection more, but I still had a good time with this one (despite the duds).  As usual, I stood no chance of solving the mysteries. There was one where Sherlock Holmes put forth a solution identical to my own, only to dismiss it as sloppy first thoughts.  And that was about as close as I got - sloppy first thoughts.  Luckily for me, the enjoyment I get from trying to solve a sleuthing problem far outweighs the disappointment of my feeble deductive abilities.

The Penguin eBook which combines the two collections is sometimes marred by poor transcription: for example, '... by no means the opinion one forms of a Russian nobleman' becomes '... by no means the opinion one form sofa Russian nobleman'.  (I think that is a wee bit LOLworthy.)  The well-written and informative footnotes made up for the boo-boos in the text.  All in all, this edition by Penguin was worth the price of admission.

Life of Pi (2012) Directed by Ang Lee

What I thought was an unfilmable book has been brought to life - brilliant, beautiful life - by director Ang Lee and his team.

Yann Martel's 2001 novel tells the story of Pi, a teenage boy from India.  For one reason or another, Pi is the only human survivor of a  mid-Pacific shipwreck.  Fortunately, he has a lifeboat.  Unfortunately, for one reason or another, there is also a Bengal tiger on board.  The two survive each other, the weather, thirst and hunger for an incredible seven and a half months.  Film that!

That is just what Ang Lee did.  Well, that is what he partly did.  What couldn't be filmed was created by visionary digital artists using powerful computers and ultra-sophisticated software.  Marry the visuals to an intelligent screenplay (written by David Magee), mix it with some adroit directing and editing, and the film Life of Pi has to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing films ever made.

Yes, there are ocean-loads of beauty in this film, and I won't even begin to describe any of it.  But how much of it was real and how much was CGI?  This question parallels the one asked in the book - which of Pi's two accounts of his voyage is true?  Unreliable narration.  It's not always a bad thing.  Life of Pi - the book and the film - bears this out. 

10 out of 10 for the film.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

Have you ever wondered what you would do if your doctor said you had three weeks left to live?  Imagine what it would be like if every single person on earth was given similar news on the same day: y'all have three weeks before a giant asteroid strikes the earth.  That is the scenario facing the characters in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.

When the last space shuttle sent to the asteroid explodes en route, humanity knows its days are numbered.  People react in different ways.  Dodge (Steve Carell), abruptly abandoned by his wife, wanders through his daily routine in a benumbed daze; those around him are drinking, bonking, looting and/or committing suicide.  He then meets Penny, who inspires Dodge to look for his childhood sweetheart.  In return, Dodge tries to help Penny get back to her folks in England.  So starts their road-trip and the exploration of their characters.

Carell gives us a nice, quiet and understated portrait of a nice, quiet and understated Dodge.  Knightley's Penny is a more complex, deep and energetic character than Dodge.  Despite their differences, the two forge an amicable and functional alliance.  Luckily for them, Dodge and Penny confront no real trials (apart from their 21 day deadline).  

It may have been better for us if they had, just to spice things up a bit; however, there were enough quirks of various kinds in this movie to make it both enjoyable and confronting.  It's just a pity that the story was not of the same calibre as the question it poses.  You can't win them all.  

What did Shakespeare say? "Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play."  I did enjoy this movie and I am glad that I saw it; it deserves more than a passing grade.  6.5 out of 10