Series of Unfortunate Events?

[ProfessorPlum]

Has anyone seen it yet?

[villager]

1. yeah -- not bad

a little dark and plot-driven for the wee ones (based on the reaction of my littlest), the older kids I was with liked it a lot, though *they* pronounced it not-quite-as-good-as-the-books (and, of course, they shoehorn three books worth of "plot" into one film)

There's stuff to say about the film's ending, but, y'know, don't want to give anything away...

[jobycom]

2. Me, my kids, and my spouse really loved it

I haven't read the books. My spouse has, and she says they were too simple. Not sure what that means.

I liked the movie more than I liked the Harry Potter films (though not the books). And I do like the HP films.

My eleven year old liked it but missed parts of the plot. My five year old (almost six) liked it and understood what was happening more than I expected. My older daughter is an underachiever, and my younger is an overachiever.

It's dark, but not too scary. It is not a very American feeling film, aside from the recognizeable actors. If felt a little more British or Japanese, where everything doesn't end cute and happy. I don't know how the books end, though.

Jude Law's narration was one of the highlights of the film. Carey was good, though a few times he was Jim Carey. His second character was downright brilliant. The kids were good actors, and both are incredibly endearing.

[Lisa]

3. yes -- I can see why some fans are upset ...

The script condensed a lot of stuff and jumped around a bit. I've been gradually working my way through the series, and don't consider myself an ultra-devoted fan, so I'm not too perturbed by the changes (doing 3 books at once meant they pretty much had to drop some parts, or the film would have been too long and too repetitive).

I can also see why they started dropping hints about the historical background this early, even if it doesn't show up in the actual books until much later (maintain audience interest, I guess).

Hollywood tends to assume that kids need happy endings all the time, which kind of undercuts the more satirical message of the books. The change in tone was likely aimed at the parents who are looking at the list of holiday movie choices, and might be put off if they think the movie's going to be a downer. (And, admittedly, very young kids who don't understand irony yet might be scared if the books are presented exactly as they are ... as was pointed out earlier, they'd likely be present along with older siblings in the audience.)

I read an interview with Snicket's alter ego, who dropped his name from the script after numerous rewrites ... he felt the whole point of the series was to NOT sugar-coat the bad things that can happen to people. But he piles on misfortunes in such a dry, satirical way that it's not really depressing. (The kids I know howl with laughter at the fictional plight of the orphans.) When they deliberately try to make people feel better, this early on -- there's nothing to save for later!

I liked the set design -- I'd always imagined a surreal Edward Gorey look to the backgrounds. And Jim Carrey -- I know the casting's been criticized, but he did have some entertaining scenes. If they were going to be fiddling around with makeup and special effects that much, it would have been fun to see him playing another role as well (not just Count Olaf's disguises) just to see if the audience could spot it. I can think of a couple of characters from the later books -- "Phil", for example, who's one of the good guys.

I'd always pictured the story as taking place in New York, but later on they specified a different city -- I wonder if they made that distinction on purpose, so as to avoid 9/11 associations?


(edited to remove some spoilers)

[AngryLizard]

4. SPOILER HERE! I think that was one of the problems with the movie for me

The book is dry and clearly satirical,and that was lost somewhat in the movie.
Which became readily apparent in the wedding scene. In the book, the kids don't quite know what is going on until the end, which makes it funny, and the absurdity of the situation is clear. In the movie, that whole scene was creepy and pervy, and I sat there wondering why they bothered putting it in there at all.

I loved the kids, especially Sunny (but Sunny was always my favorite). Jim Carrey did his thing, but I'm not sure he really added to it.

A friend of mine went to high school with the author, and he told me that he took his name off the script, and I could see why. The author by the way, is a really cool, unbelievably funny guy. I went to dinner with him and my friend about 10 years ago, with a bunch of other people, and I swear to God, I have never laughed more in my life. My stomach totally hurt the next morning.

[Lisa]

5. Lucky you! I so want to go to one of his readings

Anybody who would say something like this is way good, in my opinion.

"At a reading the next evening on the Upper West Side packed with hundreds of screaming kids and their parents, Handler's politics will flare obliquely again when he straps on an accordion and says instructively, "The accordion has been around for hundreds of years, and hated by thousands of people. Why do we hate things? Sometimes because of a cruel and inhuman foreign policy.""

http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/10/13/159581.html


Totally agree about the irony in the books. That's the main attraction for me (and I suspect, for a lot of the readers).

Knowing that the author's family narrowly escaped the Holocaust (the ultimate unfortunate event?) may explain why he's skeptical of neatly-presented happy endings.

[AngryLizard]

6. He's very, very cool

I'm hoping to catch him the next time he gets down here (I think he lives in San Francisco, still), but I doubt if he'd remember me. He also wrote another book called "The Basic Eight" that's also good, but didn't do nearly as well.

[Blue Gardener]

7. No, not a Jim Carrey fan

So I'm sure I won't see this movie. That guy just gets on my nerves whenever I see him.

[Forkboy]

8. I thought this thread was going to be about the last month of my life

:)