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Reviews
Pushing Daisies (2007)
Warm, sugary, melts in the mouth
Pushing Daisies is a very specific romantic comedy. If you appreciate beguiling voice-overs, odd (even slightly creepy) but affectionate characters, witty (but never nasty) humour, whimsy, fairy-tales, then you've hit the jackpot. With the camera flair of a Sonnenfeld movie, the colours, tone and music of Burton's 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and 'Big Fish', there is an instant identity here which is either manna from heaven if you're trying to recover from an overdose of the earnestness and cynicism of other US TV fare, or meaningless sugary tripe if you can't get enough of Heroes or Dexter. You'll either love and treasure this series or bury it alive, but either way, it's well crafted, perfectly aimed, and the cast is full of little cameo surprises. An antidote to Six Feet Under, right down to its homeopathic drug-taking.
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004)
The chilling Mr Holmes
Rupert Everett's replacement of Richard Roxburgh for a second post-Jeremy Brett installment of big budget Holmes adaptation is quite a wise one, adding as it does a touch of youthful energy to the detective's armoury. Indeed, the whole film runs at a cracking pace, dropping clues like confetti. But what really makes this adaptation shine is a growing sense of purpose in terms of atmosphere. Arthur Conan Doyle's creation is plunged further into its roots as a purveyor of the grotesque and shocking. Corpses, evil smiles (and that's just Ian Hart's Watson!), drug use, great music score, and plenty of dense smog enhance the proceedings further than the decent acting or script. Well worth a look on a dark night...