Without a Clue

Welp, that horrible time in an amateur film critic's life has come once again where they get a regular job, and they can't devote the kind of quality time they used to to the more fun things in life.  I've got a non-film criticism based job, and it's a tough one.  Probably just as well, because I can tell you right up front that Deduce, You Say is a wonderful satire of Sherlock Holmes...
...and yet, there's something about it.  Something very very non-Looney Tunes.  First of all, it's terribly British.  However, Daffy's kinda like Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves... know what I mean?  Not so strong with the accent.  Porky and everyone else, on the other hand... dayamn!  I've never felt so alone in the world!  Second, the plot structure's so much like a Sherlock Holmes story that the Looney Tunes-ness that this affair is supposed to have gets lost in the shuffle.  But that's Chuck Jones for ya.  Always with the inferiority complex, always trying to show people that these little cartoons for the tiddly winkies are so much more.
But I suppose that that's one of the secret joys of this affair.  It's not like Harry Potter where it's a mystery for a child to solve.  It's just a very, very, very simple "case" that needs solving.  It's more of a self-solving case, if you will.  If anything, Daffy's slowing everybody down, needlessly padding out the length of the cartoon to six or seven minutes.  And it does question the very notion of Sherlock Holmes to begin with.  Talk about the ultimate lack in social graces!  "The bread crumbs on your lapel suggest that you're a raging foodie, and you stop off at the pub before heading home after a hard day's work in the coal mines.  Your hands, however, suggest that you've never performed a day's work in your life," he might say.  Not to mention the whole arms race, where criminals try to out-clever the police, the police in turn trying to out-clever the crooks and their superior officers.  But I am reminded of a time when Uncle Miltie used the line "Elementary, my dear Watson" in a similar grade-school-ish context... damn.  They don't have it.  But they've got a nice sketch he did with Basil Rathbone!  I gotta go........

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-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan