My Own Experience: “Sherlock Holmes”

Welcome to Tea ‘n History, with your hostess, Felicia Angel.

I might not mention this a lot, or I might mention it a great deal, that I was in the Navy. I joined when I was 18 for a variety of reasons, one of which being that I’d had an experience similar to college life and knew I needed to grow up, as well as a wish to see the world. While I will admit (and I’m sure some of my superiors will agree) that I was not the best sailor and sometimes did cut corners, I also knew I wasn’t going to re-enlist when I joined, but I did enjoy my time in the military, for all the good or ill there was.

When I left the Navy, I took up reading again, and one of the first books I got was The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Vol. I. I knew of Sherlock Holmes – when I was young the local PBS channel had “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” with Jeremy Brett as Holmes, and loved “The Great Mouse Detective” (not really Holmes but close).

So I read through the introduction, which spoke about Holmes’ often-overlooked companion, Doctor Watson.

Who was a wounded Afghanistan veteran.

When I learned of this, I started to research and became a bit of a fan of the 19th century, as well as of history. The main point of it came from the descriptions of Watson’s time away from the military before he met Holmes. He mentions that his “nerves were shot” and he was spending money a bit too freely, which I’ve seen a great deal of not just in my fellow veterans but also in myself. Having a steady paycheck, home, food, and free medical (for what the medical is worth) does tend to make things harder when attempting to find a job or making a new budget to take all of these things into account.

The first part, his “nerves shot”, meant that he was suffering from what could be PTSD. So a wounded Afghanistan veteran who had PTSD and dealt with it by helping someone solve crimes, as well as by writing his experience.

I have a hard time writing about myself. I understand many of the heroes who come home to get Purple Hearts and the like, and hearing their stories, as well as hearing them point out that it’s what they train for, is understandable to me. We train a great deal to be ready to put out fires, shoot attackers, and help our shipmates because often we’re not somewhere that we can call for help. So it’s hard for me, especially on Veteran’s Day, when I’m thanked for my service. How do you reply to someone thanking  you for doing your job?

So when I was reading the stories, I enjoyed them a great deal. Some of them weren’t that good, but some were wonderful and I could see why characters like Sherlock Holmes and John Watson would be brought up for a long while, from the basic Holmes and Watson stories to shows like “House”, “Monk”, and others.

So recently I offered up the new show, “Sherlock”, which moved Holmes and Watson to the 21st century, to someone who also was a veteran. Watson as a veteran, especially one of Afghanistan both then and now, is a character that I love a great deal and who does get a bit of the short end of the stick, as he’s the narrator so all of the action is seen through his eyes, leaving him with little to do or say. Because of that, he’s sometimes played as an idiot, but recently he’s taken to being cast, especially as portrayed by Jude Law and Martin Freeman, as a more competent character.

So for Veteran’s day, I offer up John Watson, a wounded Afghanistan veteran who has a lot of the same problems we all do, and who also can’t write about himself. Happy belated Veteran’s/Armistice/Remembrance Day.

Random Thoughts: The Power of the Unspoilable

Hello and welcome to Tea ‘n History, with your hostess, Felicia Angel.

A talk earlier this week got me to realize that there are some things that you just can’t spoil, and not from lack of trying. See, in order to explain some concept, my mind decided to use Portal to do it. Granted, there was science involved, but then a fact came up during more of it: the fact, actually, that I’ve never played Portal.

Some of you may wonder how that happens. It happens when I’ve not been big on games and thought my computer couldn’t handle it is how, but right now I do have it but the fact that I’m in college and don’t like to have three games going on at once. However, the point is moot – I know the twist ending to Portal. I know what’s it’s about. I’ve heard Cave Johnson’s rant on ways to make exploding lemons, even if that’s in Portal 2. Sad to say, there are some things that are just spoiled because so many know about them.

Portal is just one. How many don’t know the twist to Darth Vader’s relationship with Luke Skywalker? Or can’t guess at some endings if they know it’s Shakespearean and tragic, especially some of his over-done ones like Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet?

What, then, is Rosebud?

As many items seem to gain prominence in our culture, it also becomes very hard to put up a Spoiler warning when you realize so much of it is just so ingrained that really, all you can do is watch, read, or play the media to get the full effect. That doesn’t mean you’ll not know the ending to it, or the big twist, but sometimes it’s worth it. Knowing something doesn’t stop you from being amazed at a good movie or story. Misquoting anything doesn’t stop the book from being interesting, or from a soliloquy from being more powerful to some people. Knowing there’s no cake or ten castles before the Princess doesn’t stop it from being satisfying when you’re able to finish the game or even beat a boss you haven’t been able to before.

So yes, that’s my random thought for today. Knowing the ending doesn’t stop something from being interesting often, and it doesn’t stop the pleasure that often comes from viewing, reading, or playing. So don’t let that bother you if you decide to start something.
For now, I’m off to watch another movie I know the ending to…because I can.

Ending an Era: Harry Potter

Because everyone else is doing it…mostly because it is the end of a very long era…

Welcome to Tea n’ History with your blogging hostess, Felicia Angel. About ten years ago, I decided to see what all the talk was about a newish series that had recently come out and was making huge headway with parents and children alike. The books, written by a single welfare mom in England, centered around a young boy who learned he was a wizard and who followed the whole Hero with a Thousand Faces motif – which is to say that most stories in the history of storytelling have the same general way of doing things, so anyone saying it was *insert fantasy/adventure hero here* with *insert quest here* was right because all of them were like that.

I went into the first Harry Potter not thinking I would like it. I was a junior in high school, and really, all I had to do is read ONE, just one, to disprove all the hype. By this time, the books were only up to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (or Book 3), so I decided to get number 1 from the library…which meant going into the children’s section (horrors) and I took it out.

About two days later, I went back in, returned the book, and got book 2 and 3 to find out what was going on and see what else was going to happened. Then I bought the three, and had to hold out for the fourth to be in paperback, and caved to preordering 5, 6, and 7.

I had the money for them in hardback, so I got them then to find out what was going on.

As the series progressed and the fame reached levels even Rowling herself didn’t imagine, the next logical choice was to make movies out of it.

Let’s back up and take a few notes here. Rowling herself said it would be 7 books, she knew how it would end, and that was it. if you were going to make a movie, it would have to somehow encompass seven books that hadn’t been written yet. By the time the first movie came out, we were barely getting Voldemort into the actual story without him being attached to a book or someone’s head or any of the other things that just made him more EVIL. So saying you’re going to have a movie of a young boy means you’ll have a young kid who will probably have no life until he’s nearly twenty. Well, not just one kid, but a BUNCH of kids. This is about a school, even if it’s just focused on the one kid, but he has his friends and enemies and the others who’s story you have to go into. So deciding to make movies means you’re in it for seven movies. The only thing with that many movies under their belt are horror movies, and usually they get horrible by the third one.

So after being tossed around and finally dropped in the lap of someone who was willing to hire just about every British actor they could, as well as getting a few child-actors who had appeared in maybe one movie each (the actor who plays Draco Malfoy was in two movies, The Borrowers and Anna and the King, as well as three TV movies/shows before he joined the cast), and the first movie was released in 2001.

Yes, it’s been ten years. Over which, on a generally regular basis, at least one Harry Potter movie has come out.

Wow.

This Friday came out the final part of the whole story, the second part of the last movie which some might think as just attempting to finish cashing in, while I honestly can’t go along with (if you’ve read the book, you’ll know that’s a TON of backstory that they would have to cram into one movie, and even Lord of the Rings didn’t try that) but which, I think, helped to ease people into the final chapter of the series. Rowling isn’t going to do more stories, and apart from fanfiction and whatever else Rowling puts out that’s official. Though considering how much money she makes on the books, the merchandise, the movies, the movie merchandise…she’s pretty much set for life.

What Harry Potter, as as book series, did was really open up that kids were ready to read and invest in something that would take seven years, were extremely willing to read about someone their age (or younger) who was found out to be special, and who grew up and experienced loss, love, and being a teenager (book 3-6 was his teenage ANGST years, as well as being some of the toughest for what he was supposed to symbolize). The movies showed that families were willing to sit through showed with this movie and Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings both being huge hits, and helping to open the way for movies like the three current Chronicles of Narnia movies (there are also seven Narnia books) and, sadly, the whole Twilight saga of books. In it’s own way, Harry Potter revived the idea of having a series of movies based on whatever book series you had, and that it could easily work for whatever you choose so long as it’s done right and doesn’t alienate fans or newcomers alike.

 

Harry has gone on and is living his own life, with only our imaginations and a ton of fanfiction to help him through. Ten years of watching the young boy grow up and change, along with his friends and enemies, is over. It was a good run, and the story itself is still there for us to read or watch when we want to believe in the magical world it gave us.

 

Kung-Fu Fighting: Enter the Dragon

Due to the fact that I just met Jim Kelly, one of the stars of the movie, I felt it was important to explain a few things about how it came to be that kung fu movies and television shows, along with faster camera rates, came to be.

If you don’t already know, then you’re a bit out of touch with pop culture.

 

In 1966, a television series based off a radio drama called “The Green Hornet” was launched. While it only lasted a year, one of the main characters stood out: that of the butler Kato, played by Bruce Lee. While the character would live on through the music (used in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and with the Crazy 88’s mostly wearing the same type of masks Kato did), what also made the one-season series memorable was Lee’s unique fighting ability. Considering that some of his students were big Hollywood actors (including James Corburn), and that he soon was getting guest starring roles in television series, he also began to have more roles in films, even helping to choreograph fight scenes that involved Chuck Norris.

Which means that whole list of things Chuck Norris can do? You have to add “Because Bruce Lee taught him how to do it”.

However, Lee’s luck panned out as far as getting another show (his own idea was handed over to David Carradine and titled Kung Fu), so instead he headed over to Hong Kong. It turned out, he had a fanbase there, and two of the movies he made, along with one where he was fighting Chuck Norris in a colosseum-style that is still famous today, lead to Warner Brothers and the movie production he was then with, Golden Harvest, joining to create Enter the Dragon.

Enter the Dragon was one of the first martial-arts movies I saw after Jackie Chan began doing movies in America and showing off the bloopers at the end of his movies, which was mostly the “Why I am not allowed near insurance” parts. The story is basic and fairly cliched as far as action-movies go, and even as far as Asian action movies go: the hero is a kind-hearted person who can kill you with his pinkie and doesn’t want to, but learns that said evil baddies are responsible for his sister’s suicide due to them thinking with certain parts of their anatomy and not understanding the word “NO”. He gets into a TOURNAMENT OF DEATH held by the main baddie who had nothing to do with her death but is a bad person and probably would’ve used her anyway, and fighting begins.

Along with helping to kick-start the fad of kung-fu movies and the import of (sometimes horribly) dubbed Chinese and other movies, Enter the Dragon had a huge impact, as did the unfinished and very poor Game of Death that Lee had been working on before his untimely death in 1973. Due to his speed and knowledge, Lee had to either slow down his movements or get a faster camera speed. Also, if you watch and you’re up on the famous fighters, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung are both in it as henchmen or throw-away beat-ups, and both were later brought up by Golden Harvest films. As well, at least one or more iconic fights are in the movie, including the infamous “mirror” fight. The yellow track suit, as shown in Kill Bill Vol. 1, was in Game of Death.

Enter the Dragon was one of Lee’s highest grossing movies, though sadly he died shortly before the release. It’s range of influence is huge, from helping to spark interest in the Kung Fu show to the song “Kung Fu Fighting” that was so popular. It also helped launch the careers of others in the movie, including Jim Kelly as well as the aforementioned Jackie and Sammo, and really helped add the mainstream nieche for fighting films in the US. In Hong Kong, it created the rise of “Brucesploitation”, where actors named “Bruce Li”  or “Bruce Le”, or even the horrible “The Clones of Bruce Lee” films were created. Most fighting games, especially the Tekken series, has one character similar to Bruce Lee and often with an unlockable outfit that’s similar to his from The Game of Death. In Anime, shows like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo (ok, both are by the same creator so it’s probably that…but there has to be more, I just can’t think of them) are similar to Lee or have some similar style (Spike from Bebop fights using Jeet Kun Do, Lee’s fighting style, and in one episode of Champloo, one character had a similar scratch and sound to Lee from Enter the Dragon).

Enter the Dragon is part of the culture that helped cement the fighting genre of movies, as well as showed Lee as a capable actor and fighter. The story is low on thought but high in action and great to watch or rewatch, as well as being a wonderful place to start for anyone getting into fighting movies or similar. Lee’s impact on movies, music, and culture is far-reaching, and not one to cover in just one article. Still, more to come for him, and I shall see you on another Tea n’ History!