Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

"Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" (Brad Silberling, 2004) Oh, sure. For Hallowe'en on this site we featured flesh-eating zombies and vengeful demons and dead souls that wouldn't stay dead. But in the warm comfort of the domicile, many flights of stairs from the garret in which this is written, the Hallowe'en movie of choice was this (to be heretofore crunched to "Unfortunate Events" to avoid a cramp). It might be the best movie Barry Sonnenfeld never made. It has his insensibility, his florid camera moves,* snappy editing, austere framing and live-action cartoonish gambits (lots of shots of peoples' faces gaping into the camera).

But, it didn't have enough budget and so Brad Silberling took over the project.

Silberling is a chameleonic director; he tends to take on the characteristics of whatever project falls into his lap—handy for his long tenure as a television director of such idiosyncratic shows as "NYPD Blue," but making him hard to pin down as a feature director. How do you explain the disparity between "Unfortunate Events" and his unfortunate "City of Angels?" Before you attempt that, let me trump it by adding the even more unfortunate Will Ferrell vehicle, "Land of the Lost ."

So, it's perhaps fortunate for Silberling that so much of "Unfortunate Events" depends on others. The Lemony Snicket-styled writing—a bit like "Miss Manners" without her morning pick-me-up—of dark, despairing fore-shadowing** inspires a switch-back Rankin-Bass-styled opening that comes crashing to a halt. ("This would be an excellent time to walk out of the theater, living room, or airplane where this film is being shown." says the Lemony Narrator, as read by Jude Law)

"Fade to Black" is the more appropriate phrase. Fade to monochromatic gothic steam-punk macabre, (which permeates the film, like a lighter version of "The Addams Family") as the film takes up the sad misfortunes of the Baudelaire orphans: Violet, a voracious inventor (Emily Browning); Klaus, a voracious reader (Liam Aiken); and Sunny, a voracious biter (Kara Hoffman and Shelby Hoffman). When their parents are killed in a mysterious fire, the Estate (executed by a piggish Timothy Spall), the kids are shipped off to the cunning clutches of Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), a dispicable actor who only cares for the Beaudelaire fortune. Treated as servants by the fiend, he decides to kill them off when it's determined that he'll only get the money when they're adults. And so he leaves them, locked in a car on a rail-road track with the 11:15 barrelling down on them.

What to do, what to do?

Based on the first three "Unfortunate Events" books ("The Bad Beginning," "The Reptile Room," and "The Wide Window,"), the film is as episodic as could be with the child-endangering machinations of the Count the single unsavory thread running through it. Upon Carrey's every entrance, Silberling takes the wise course of just hanging back, giving Carrey a wide shot (with distorting anamorphic lens) and keeping any other actor out of giggling range. So much of his performance is ad-libbed, you could make the case that it's Carrey who's driving the bus; things calm down considerably when Billy Connolly and Meryl Streep take possession of the children (and the movie), but gears up again when Carrey dervishes his way into the scene (Connolly stays out of his way, but Streep engages him, going eye-to-eye).

It's a good thing, too. "Unfortunate Events" could have turned excessively mordant to the point of leeching all the fun out of it, production-designed into stasis if Carrey wasn't there to break windows (and characters) in the proceedings. In that spirit, the cast is rounded out by such anarchic spirits as Catherine O'Hara, Jennifer Coolidge, Cedric the Entertainer, Dustin Hoffman, Jane Lynch, and Craig Ferguson that flit around the corners to keep things from getting too predictable, and deservedly more than a little off-kilter.


* He started out as the Coen Brothers' cinematographer.

** It's fun when doled out in tea-spoons of dread and low dudgeon, but if you want to hear it overdone, listen to the director and author Daniel Handler's commentary track on the DVD. Handler (as "Lemony Snicket") acts like your staid Aunt Petunia, who goes all-fluttery and horrified at the movie, which is funny for ten minutes, then overstays its welcome...by two hours.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Adamson, 2005) Just enough inspiration to be enjoyable. If there wasn't, this would be a stiff "Lord of the Rings" wannabe with children, rather than Orcs. It's a breezy summation of C.S. Lewis' first classic for kids, and though it was sold as a Christian film to gather the flocks who flocked to "The Passion of the Christ," it comes across as less than inspirational. Some fine special effects, it ultimately comes down to a battle movie, which seems odd. Tilda Swinton makes a great evil Queen, and Liam Neeson voices the Lion of the title with the same gravitas he used with Qui-Gon Jinn In "Episode I." That's not necessarily a good thing.

Ultimately, "Narnia" is a good bench-mark for determining how advanced CGI effects are. At this point, it would seem that we're good on polar bears, centaurs, wolves and lions. Not so much with beavers. But as there are seven books in all in Lewis' series, I suppose there's time to get it right.

Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web (Gary Winick, 2006) E.B. White's children's classic comes out in a live action version (there was an animated musical in 1973 with Debbie Reynolds as Charlotte the spider, Paul Lynde as Templeton the rat, and Henry Gibson as Wilbur the pig--Rex Allen narrated), which could just as well be called "Babe II," if there's wasn't already one. Not to worry, though. As movies of children's classics go, this one's really good--a bit awash in celebrity voices, but the kids won't care, and it does give the parents something to do ("Who's doing the cows do you think?") Since I've given you the '73 version, I'll tell you who does the same for 2006--a very sober Julia Roberts as Charlotte, Steve Buscemi as Templeton, and kid-actor Dominic Scott Kay as Wilbur--Sam Shepard narrates. Dakota Fanning ably shoulders the role of Fern, and while she's not as scarily real in this one, she's not annoyingly sugar-coated , either. Director Winick keeps the special effects unflashy, although there are some intricate CGI spider-web moves (left over from Sam Raimi story-boards, no doubt) that are over quickly. It feels properly home-spun, and Danny Elfman's score, though it brings on the "Edward Scissorhands" Choir, still manages to evoke the joys of simple gifts without beating you over the head with them. I remember one of my grade-school teachers reading "Charlotte" in class, and at one pivotal point, the entire class weeping. That point in the movie brought tears to K., so it did its job. The bonus is you get to hear Robert Redford doing an out and out comedy turn. How rare is that?