The Secret of Sherlock Holmes

by Jeremy Paul directed by Robert Walsh at Shakespeare & Co in Lenox Ma.

Seems pointless to review something that just closed, but what the hell I spent good money on a hotel room to see the show so...

Generally I liked the script, the "secret" of the title is a bit contrived for my tastes, but the dialogue largely lifted from the original Conan-Doyle stories has an unexpected vibrancy. Doyle didn't write for the stage so it's a treat to hear his conversations recreated verbatim - who knew he could be read as actor's dialogue?
Moreover the play is a strong revisionist look at Watson and his contribution to Holmes' crimefighting crusade. That much I enjoyed, the Watson-as-Dimwit meme is very much a played out thing.
No if I have a problem with the show it lies with the casting, Michael Hammond is just too old to play Sherlock Holmes, oh he is vigorous enough, but he is balding and what remains of his hair is turning white. This contrasts poorly with David Demke's Dr. Watson who looks acts and sounds like a man in his thirties, together they are less popular literatures greatest detectives and more akin to father and son. Maybe the make-up design should have been reconsidered, bring Demke up a few years and bring Hammond down, because their acting is uniformly excellent, but they made an incongruous duo.

Despite the Regatta and a town swarming with Touristas

I want you all to know, I found legit on street parking in the Back Bay today and managed to do a leisurely leaflet drop on behalf of Channel Zero and the Bad Poets Society.
Yay me!
The big revelation this time around is the slow agonizing death of the local second hand record story, CD Spins has closed, as well Satellite Records - there used to be fours of five of these places on Newbury street now they are down to exactly none.
As a drop zone the Back Bay is becoming a backwater, which is an unhappy sign of the times I think.

Did Lindsay Lohan really call...

rehab "a sobering experience"?

Mother of Ghod!
I mean, maybe she has kicked booze-n-drugs, but clearly da girl still has a bad jones for stupid pills and imbecile capsules.

Sputnik Fool's Day...

All those movies in the below post are fabrications by the way, you just can't expect to get away with spoofs like that on April Fool's Day anymore.
Moreoever, today is "Sputnik Day"...the wrong date was a dead tip off...right?
:)
And besides that the IMDb has pretty much ruined the old "phoney flicks" routine for the enterprising fantasist.
Anyway, here is some newsreel footage, until Channel Zero can get the scratch up to produce an acutal film called "Sputnik a Go Go" this will have to do.

Anyway The Bad Poets Society convenes next month, if you have any good representative examples of awful poesy, feel free to paste them into the comments field or sent us a note at JohnIAT@aol.com
:)

Happy Sputnik Day...

today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian earth satellite's launch.
Someday, Channel Zero will mark the occasion with a revival screening of one of the great late 1950s early 1960's "Sputnik Movies".
Our favorites are listed below:
"I Hijacked Sputnik" (1958) starring Beverly Garland, John Ireland, Jay Robinson and Jonathan Haze

"Hercules against Sputnik" (1960) starring Ed Fury and Claudia Mori

"Sputnik a-Go-Go" (1965)Starring "Batavian singing sensation Rochester Hammerlink Jr."

"Sputnik Flies, Django Kills" (1966) starring Franco Nero and Montgomery Wood.

:)