Changes a-comin'/Hugo and Sherlock 2

It's been dead quiet round these here parts for the last few weeks. There are a number of reasons for this -- the primary one is that I'm still overseas and in between boosting my Heathrow injection with Christmas and New Year food and drink, I've also been travelling around the lovely UK country side. I'm planning to get back into reviewing and podcasting from January 13, and hopefully by the end of the month there will be some quite big news about the site. I may as well provide SOME kind of movie criticism while I'm here. In the last few weeks I've seen Hugo and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. In short, loved the former, a bit indifferent about the latter. Hugo is a wonderful heart-warmer, with Dickensian flourishes and a massive appreciation for the beauty and power of the history and medium of cinema. As for Sherlock -- it was a bit of a much of a muchness for me. I was a marginal fan of the first one, thinking that Robert Downey's performance was just about worth the price of admission. This new instalment is just an extension foe the first film, and as such many of the same observations can be made about it -- hip, whimsical execution, a fun soundtrack, and a nicely recreated London of old. Moriarty, Sherlock's arch-nemesis, is the primary villain here. I didn't find him that menacing. As for the rest of the story, it's a bit convoluted. I didn't think it was really worth caring all that much about. Alright, this is the best I can do sitting on a couch in the Cotswolds, typing on an awkward iPad keyboard. I'll go into more depth in the next few weeks.