This one took the bromance cake. Of course, I’m one of those shallow girlz who will gladly watch — and on some level, enjoy — anything Robert Downey, Jr. is in, so it wouldn’t matter what cake was up for the taking. I’d like it.

Still, there were holes. I know about the expectation that a viewer suspend disbelief and instead just immerse him/herself in the story. I get that. But Guy Ritchie makes the work awfully challenging. Just a few examples:

• A high-tech (even by, say, Viet Nam era standards) weapons factory exists in the Swiss wilderness, complete with a football-stadium-sized warehouse, which Holmes illuminates by flipping a single light switch, instantaneously activating enormous overhead lights (the film takes place in 1891).
• Holmes throws Watson’s wife off a speeding train, sending her plummeting at 50 MPH into a river, from which she emerges, unscathed, muttering sarcastically about how this was shaping up to be the best night of her life.
• With regards to the train: there’s only so much smart-aleck, joke-around-in-the-face-of-certain-death chicanery I can take. Again, expectations for suspension of disbelief were too high. That, and the fact that Watson took far too easily the news that his friend just chucked his wife into the river on their honeymoon night. Head-scratcher.
• There’s a completely cheesy twist put on the final (and by this time, tedious) slo-mo fight sequence. I actually did a tongue click.

The fight scenes (too many for my taste) bordered on the useless. And the evil henchman/assassin working for Moriarty? Hardly a scary individual. He looked like a cost accountant, late for a train. (My apologies to all tardy cost accountants.) It just didn’t add up; it was like Ritchie was trying to cover all bases for everyone, and missing the mark altogether in places. The way Holmes was directed to react to the death of someone close to him (and it wasn’t even confirmed in the movie, at least to my satisfaction) was pretty shallow. Big question mark there.

There were definite bright spots, however. I mean, it’s RDJ — need I say more? Jude Law was also adorable, and Jared Harris (Lane Pryce in Mad Men) did the understated arch-villain Moriarty proud. Stephen Fry, half of the old comedy team Fry and (Hugh) Laurie, was delightful as Holmes’s quirky brother Mycroft. He called Downing “Sherly” — haha.

As for the women in the film…um, were there any women in the film? Huh…can’t recall.

Still, it was a borderline fun movie for a quiet Saturday night. If you don’t mind being nibbled to death by anachronistic ducks, give it a try. “Sherly” is, after all, pretty easy on the eyes.

On the Rat-O-Meter scale of five cheeses, I give Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows:
 

Well, I know what some critics said about it. It’s not “scary” in the new tradition (astounding special effects), but in the old way, it’s spooky. In other words, you scare yourself.

Critics who said that Daniel Radcliffe’s first post-Potter film The Woman in Black plays out like an old 60s or 70s horror movie were, in fact, complimenting it, in my opinion. Today’s movie-going horror fan expects something quite different than those of the past. In 2012, we want to be amazed as well as terrified. Me? If I’m going to watch a scary movie (and I definitely do not enjoy the experience, believe me), I want it to scare me from the inside. To me, that’s where the true nightmares lie: in one’s own mind. That’s why, if I have to choose a favorite category of scary film, I’ll go for a ghost story any day. They just creep me out the most.

Woman in Black, based on the 1983 novel by Susan R. Hill, tells the tale of a vengeful, menacing spirit that terrorizes a small English village. Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), a young lawyer, is dispatched to the town to sew up the legal affairs of a reclusive widow who recently died in a craggy, creepy old mansion that no one dared to go near. He finds the townspeople extremely unfriendly and suspicious. As the story unfolds, Kipps is sucked further and further into the horrifying history of the house and its inhabitants.

He sees the spectre of a woman dressed in black, and eventually discovers that every time someone sees this apparition, a child dies.

The “scary” for me in this film, of course, was largely of the “jump-out-and-BOO!” variety. I hate that. Tortured, ghoulish faces appear out of nowhere, and inanimate objects move — all accompanied by the obligatory orchestral chord jab. Scares the livin’ carp outta me. Thank goodness for my blanket; it helps me through those difficult passages.

Thing is, the obligatory orchestral chord jab is used — and used and used and used and used — until you’re almost no longer listening to dialogue or following plot. Rather, you’re just preparing for the next jump-out-and-BOO! It was distracting to me. Add to it the beyond cheesy ending (complete with one final obligatory orchestral chord jab), and I must say the experience was somewhat lacking. Less than fulfilling. Not a waste of time, but something I’d never watch twice.

Not that scary movies are things I ever watch more than once…

On the Rat-O-Meter scale of five cheeses, I give The Woman in Black:

In a one-sentence summary, I’d say that this film is a borderline unpleasant story (true stories often are), but with great acting.

Michelle Williams was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Marilyn

The Prince and the Showgirl was one of my many lazy weekend channel-flipping experiences growing up (you know, back when you actually had to physically get up and flip the channel knob on the television). It featured Marilyn Monroe in the beginning stages of her tragic downfall of arriving hours late — if at all — to the set, drugging up, relying heavily on her acting coach to be everything for and go everywhere with her, and generally making producers and directors want to choke her to death. Yet, the fact that she was such a rare and natural presence onscreen cut her an awful lot of slack, right up until the end.

Eddie Redmayne -- *loved* him in "Pillars of the Earth"

In this film, based on the book The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me, Marilyn’s intense need to be adored at all times gets her into trouble. While filming in London with Laurence Olivier, she absorbs into her world a young production assistant and future filmmaker Colin Clark (played wonderfully by the cutest-ever boy-next-door, Eddie Redmayne), and of course he falls hard for her, abandoning his blooming romance with costume worker Lucy (Emma Watson). He is warned by another of Marilyn’s entourage to stay away — that he’d also had a brief fling with Marilyn, and she broke his heart. He ignores the advice, and the plot moves forward.

Kenneth Branagh is a brash and impatient Olivier, and Julia Ormond, whom I haven’t seen in quite awhile, plays his aging and jealous wife, actress Vivien Leigh. Their interaction was stilted and too brief for my taste. (That relationship is a movie in itself, if you ask me.)

I think the movie is saved, of course, by the character of Marilyn so beautifully channeled by Williams. She bedazzles everyone around her, including and especially young Colin, and all forgive her many transgressions that would inevitably lead to her untimely and tragic death just a few years later.

Bottom line: it’s a tell-all movie about a young man’s fling with the most popular woman in the world in 1957. I wish more would have been made of the relationship between Monroe and Olivier (he was, quite curiously, very insecure himself).

On the Rat-O-Meter scale of five cheeses, I give My Week With Marilyn:

I think we can safely say with confidence that no one does the “country manor house” genre of television better than the Brits. And boy, have they outdone themselves with the PBS series Downton Abbey, winning Emmys and outdoing Mad Men and Modern Family a year ago as the world’s most critically acclaimed TV show. And as an avid Mad Men fanatic, I can tell you that is an impressive statistic.

How fun to become addicted to a new show. It’s not often in British television that one finds oneself rooting for the underdog, and truly caring about meaningful characters in Edwardian England: a time when class distinction — and being born into either servitude or privilege — was the order of the day. Set in the early 1900s (the premiere episode takes place on 15 April, 1912, the morning after the sinking of the Titanic), the story centers around the Crawley family who live in Downton Abbey, a sprawling country estate steeped in tradition and grandeur, with a complete staff of servants.

I thought Elizabeth McGovern had slid off the world. How wonderful to see her back in the saddle, playing a gentle American heiress and socialite from Cincinnati, transplanted to England to marry Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham. They had three daughters, now all in their late teens and early 20s — but no sons. Through a complicated legal snafu, the inheritance of the eldest daughter is now in question, as the legal heirs to the estate went down with the Titanic. Their search for the next of kin forms the basis of the storyline.

Costumes, photography, script, character development — absolutely stunning. Over the last four days, I have gobbled up all seven (only seven, bummer) episodes of the first season. Now I need to get caught up on the current season, which I believe we can all watch online at pbs.org. You don’t have to be an Anglophile to adore this series. It’s more than an updated retelling of Upstairs, Downstairs. Rather, it’s a backwards glance to a pivotal time in British history, when the reality of political upheaval and world war shook everyone’s faith and highlighted both the frailty and tenacity of the human spirit. It’s truly inspiring storytelling.

On the Rat-O-Meter scale of five cheeses, I give Downton Abbey:
 

I’m about halfway through my list of 2012 Oscar nominees for Best Picture. So far, I’ve seen Hugo, Moneyball (which I didn’t have time to review, bummer), The Help, The Tree of Life, and as of last night, Midnight in Paris.

I must say I think I’ve found my favorite of them all thus far. It’s a touching story of painful yet meaningful growth, with the city of Paris as the real star.

The plot: Hollywood screenwriter Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) visits Paris with his future in-laws and his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams, in a decidedly unlikable role). Easy going and affable, Gil “goes along” with whatever activities Inez chooses for them (including outings with a pretentious American scholar, played brilliantly by the very Welsh Michael Sheen), but he appears preoccupied as he wrestles with what is to be his very first novel. On a solitary walk through the city, the clock chimes midnight and a vintage limo pulls up. Its inhabitants invite him in, and he accepts. Off he goes — to Paris in the 1920s — where he meets some real-life bohemians: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Cole Porter, and a sad, mysterious girl named Adriana. In the morning, he returns to the present day, only to repeat the journey the following night.

The comedy is sincere and affecting, as is most of Woody Allen’s work. But what hooked me was the gradual, visual change Wilson’s character experiences through his contact each night with people who accepted him readily into their circle — when the man himself was seemingly unable to find welcome into his own future family’s world.

Filmed almost entirely on location, the photography was beautiful, capturing the nostalgia and simple allure of the cafes of post-WWI Paris. The soundtrack was out of this world — if it wasn’t handpicked by Allen himself, I’ll eat my hat. A delightful story — perfect for a night on the sofa while the Thriller was at class. The Academy did well to nominate it. I doubt it has a snowball’s chance of winning, but it should.

On the Rat-O-Meter scale of five cheeses, I give Midnight in Paris: