May auld acquaintance...

The taproom will be shutting down early for New Year's Eve (yeah, yeah, what kind of bar is this? I'm sure you're asking), so let me take a moment now to thank you all for your regular visits, and to wish everyone a Happy New Year! More reviews, tips, lists, and Kindle chat wll pick up on the dawn of the new year, so stop back in tomorrow after your headache dies down a bit.

The Lists, Part One...

Because readers tend to expect this sort of thing from a general-interest blog, here's the first of a handful of year-end lists. This one covers, in no particular order, ten of my favorite moviegoing experiences of 2009. And away we go...

Star Trek delivered a shot of adrenaline to the classic Trek crew, resulting in an action-packed story with characters we're glad to get to know all over again.

Sherlock Holmes was event-movie big, yet intimate at the same time. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are great together.

Gritty, dark superhero action was the order of the day in Watchmen. Choose one of the longer DVD cuts out there if you haven't seen the movie yet.

Whether seen in 3D or 2D, Up delivered the most immersive, colorful adventure of the year until a certain movie about blue-skinned aliens came along.

A valuable final document with great songs, Michael Jackson's This is It is both a terrific concert film and fascinating documentary about the musical legend.

Julie and Julia gave us some laughs, a little drama, and made world-class acting seem effortless and fun (yes, I'm thinking of Ms. Streep here).

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince managed to distill the huge novel down to a dark, brooding yet zippily told film that hit all the right emotional marks.

Amazing detail and great artistry dazzled viewers of Disney's A Christmas Carol, especially those who saw it in IMAX 3D.

Avatar delivered a perfectly good science-fiction story, but it'll be remembered for its truly immersive visual experience. Other films (some on this list) demonstrated that 3D isn't just a gimmick anymore, but with James Cameron's film, 3D has truly grown up.

Inglorious Basterds had long, quiet, dialogue scenes that are just as tense and riveting as the year's best action sequences, some of which are also in this film.

More lists to come.

Why say no to merlot?

Unlike Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways, I occasionally do drink an effin' merlot. After all, some reds are too sharp or too dry to capably accompany a casual, less serious meal, and that's when the warm, pleasant tasting notes of a decent merlot nicely fits the bill. A current inexpensive favorite is Ecco Domani merlot, pretty much available everywhere for about 10 or 12 bucks a bottle retail, and rarely priced at premium levels in restaurants. Give it a whirl with your next burger, steak, or bowl of pasta and see what you think.

Avatar musings

I finally caught Avatar today, after giving up (for now) trying to see the film in IMAX 3D (endless sold-out shows), and settling for a regular 3D showing, which I least saw on a fairly large screen. The verdict? It's maybe not the most sophisticated of stories; basically it comes down to us versus them. Oh, but what an us (the exotic Na'vi on their lush, equally exotic planet), and what a them (a take-no-prisoners earth military armed with all manner of deadly hardware)... and what a fight when they finally go head to head.

Plus, the subversive guts James Cameron's movie has! My movie theater showed its usual military recruitment ad before the film began (a National Guard tribute this time, instead of the usual chorus of praise to the U.S. Marines), but then barely a few minutes later, once the film begins, we see Cameron's military forces, which are clearly modeled after the current U.S. military, being set up as the invading heavies in his epic adventure. Wow. And if that isn't enough, we see the sympathetic earth scientist, played by Siguorney Weaver, regularly puffing on a cigarette... and made to look cool. Take that, p.c. police!

There's a lot more to say about Avatar, and I will, but those are two things that made me smile in my seat. Whatever your politics or worldview, isn't it gratifying that, occasionally, a movie funded to the gills by corporate America isn't afraid to annoy and offend sacred cows like the military and the healthy-lifestyle crowd? At the very least, thank you for that, Mr. Cameron.

More Holmes trivia to ponder

As a quick follow-up to my previous post, the Sherlock Holmes collection I recently acquired on Kindle is now ranked at #4 among Kindle top sellers, and is priced at the whopping cost of free (I either got it for free or for something like the 80 cents I seem to remember I paid for it). It's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and it's a great place to start your acquaintance with the original Holmes stories. The average customer rating for this offering currently stands at four-and-a-half stars, if you're curious.

Incidentally, the movie Sherlock Holmes made a whopping $65,000,000-plus this past weekend (its opening weekend), so it seems that there's no tiring of this particular character more than a hundred years after his creation. If not for the juggernaut that is Avatar, the new Holmes film would have clearly been the #1 film this weekend at the U.S. and Canadian box office, and not a close #2. But that's okay: the film did achieve the all-time Christmas day record with $29,000,000 and change in earnings.

Elementary, my dear Watson...

I found the new film Sherlock Holmes better than it had a right to be, delivering a fresh take on the character while still honoring the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories and the many respected film and television versions of those stories that have appeared over the years. Giving us both spectacle and introspection, speculation and special effects, Sherlock Holmes was a great time all around.

The movie may get you in the mood to check out a few Doyle originals, and the good news for Kindle owners is that everything Sir Arthur wrote about his intrepid detective is available on Kindle, often for free or mere pocket change (don't you just love the phrase "public domain"?). Not long ago, I bought a generous collection of Holmes short stories for something like 80 cents, and I downloaded a Holmes novel for free. Or was it the other way around? In any event, both e-books were beautifully typeset and laid out. What a bargain!

So, do a little hunting on your Kindle and get some Holmes downloaded. Even though the new movie is a lot of fun (and will most definitely generate a sequel, unless I'm wrong about how popular it will be), one should have at least a passing familiarity with the original literary Holmes.

By the way, here's an interesting fact: the famous phrase that titles this post was never actually uttered by Mr. Holmes in any of the written stories.

Ho, ho, ho...

The taproom is closed for Christmas day, but we'll be back with a longer post or two tomorrow. Merry Christmas to everyone out there who celebrates it, and to the rest of you: I'm jealous, because you're probably spending the day seeing Avatar or Sherlock Holmes while we're putting up with Uncle Phil's annoying political views at the holiday dinner table.

See you all tomorrow!