Just saw it today.
I didn’t plan on seeing it in the theatre, but after seeing Billy Connolly on The Daily Show, I had to. He was great. Meryl Streep was great, too. Jude Law’s narration was perfect.
Loved the Happy Little Elf. (Any happy little elves in the books, or is that pure Simpsons?)
And the closing credits were fantastic… from the spectacular curtain-raising effect on in. Wow.
For the most part, I enjoyed it. But the whole thing was almost ruined for me when Aunt Josephine, for whom grammar is the greatest joy in life, makes a serious grammar error, using ‘me’ instead of ‘I.’ My stunned horror really kept me from fully enjoying the rest of this movie.
I was terrified that Jim Carrey would stink up the movie, but I was wrong. Harborwolf and I took our daughter and her friend to see it. Look!ninjas accompanied us, and we all enjoyed it thoroughly. The previews terrified me when I saw Jim Carrey doing the dinosaur impression, and I couldn’t think of any reason to include that in the story, but I was proved wrong. The scene where he’s performing for his troup while they wait for dinner was hilarious.
Also, Fisherqueen, Aunt Josephine did not make a grammatical error. She corrected Violet’s mistake of using “Klaus and I” when it should have been “Klaus and me.” I don’t remember the exact line, but Aunt Josephine was right, because I remember thinking about it at the time.
I watched that interview last night. It may have been the most hysterical interview in the history of The Daily Show. It will probably be re-run this week, if anyone missed it. What an extremely funny man. Stewart was just speechless.
We saw the movie this weekend. The kids loved it. I thought it was quite good, although to be fair I’ve not read the early books; my association begins around the time of The Austere Academy, so I have no idea how faithful this was to the books, but I’m sure they must have left a good bit out. Also, I really dislike Meryl Streep, and thought she overacted a bit. Some of the Jim Carrey stuff was a little over the top as well, but stayed within bounds for the most part. One must remember that the adult characters are a bit cartoonish, in a way. I liked Connolly and the guy who played Mr. Poe the best of the characters involved.
I thought the girl who played Violet was very cute, not odd looking at all. If I were 25+ years younger I would be smitten. Klaus was good once he got rolling, and the Sunny character was very cute. I had wondered how they would pull that off. They do stray from the books a bit there, I believe, as the words she uses at least in the later books are all real and quite clear, just not what one might expect.
Anyone know what kind of box office it did over the weekend?
Happy little elves under the name Happy Little Elves are pure Simpsons, but the Snicket book The Vile Village features in passing a book called The Littlest Elf which is apparently the dullest book in existance.
I thought it was fantastic. I was ambivalent about Jim Carrey at first, and there were a few moments that were over the top, but by and large, I liked him in the part. There were a couple of moments where he really was genuinely threatening. Apart from that, the kids were fantastic, the other actors were fantastic, and the sets, props, and costumes just blew my mind, they were so good. And the script, I thought, was wonderful. It conveyed the spirit and the tone and the basic story of the book without clinging desperately to every single event in the story in order to keep from alienating all the fans. Granted, now the nitpickers are whining, but they’d probably do that anyway. I thought this was a great movie, and a much better adaptation than any of the Harry Potter films so far (though Cuaron came close with his).
It did about 30 million and came in at number one.
Now I’m going to have to pay to see the movie again just to double-check this. I could have sworn that Violet’s line used “Klaus and I” as the subject- something like “Klaus and I have to blah blah blah,” which would be correct as is.
Can someone save me the seven bucks by taking note of this when you go see the movie? I’d love to be wrong about this.
This is slightly off topic, but I have just gained a tremendous amount of respect for Daniel Handler after visiting a bookstore yesterday.
At first, I was mildly disgusted to see the new “movie edition” of the books sitting on store shelves with Jim Carrey’s mug all over the glossy covers. I normally find it annoying when publishers replace the previous cover artwork for a book with images from a movie, but in the case of these books, the cover art, the endpaper art, the letters from Mr. Snicket on the back cover, even the binding of the books all contribute so much to their enjoyment that changing them seemed almost unthinkable. And the thought of all of Mr. Helquist’s illustrations being replaced with glossy stills from the movie–well, it was more than I could contemplate, really. If I had been able to think of such a thing for more than an instant before dismissing it as altogether too–well, too unthinkable, I’m sure it would have made me sick.
Being a fan of the series, I’m obviously drawn to calamity, so I had to see what they’d done to the book. Imagine how happy I was to find beneath the glossy movie-edition dust-jackets, the exact same book as before! No glossy stills, the same binding, the same art, the same letter from Mr. Snicket! And on the back of the dust-jacket, covering Mr. Snicket’s letter, was a letter from Count Olaf (the villain, remember!) telling the reader that although the books have the same story as the movie, they have far fewer pictures and are not nearly as entertaining, and so wouldn’t you rather go see a fun new movie than read some boring book?
I’m convinced that HarperCollins would never have developed this on their own. I think surely Mr. Handler must have insisted that the books not be changed and that the tie-in marketing not make the books secondary to the movie. Whoever was responsible for this, whether DH or an anonymous editor, has completely earned my respect.
I can’t wait to see the movie.
I just saw the movie last night and…
[spoiler]I thought it was interesting how they sandwiched books two and three with the finale of book one at the end of the movie.
Also, the spyglasses. Were those in the books before? I don’t remember them. I also don’t remember the picture with the Beaudelaire Parents, Ike, Monty Montgomery et al in a picture together with all of their spyglasses. (I’m only through Book 10 so far. [/spoiler]
All in all it was good. I can’t remember, but I didn’t think that there were credits at the beginning, so I was wondering if the end credits were originally meant for the beginning…
Some modern films don’t even have opening credits. Just “Studio Studios presents an Alfred B. Director film, Title of Movie” and then just straight into the film. Then the major credits you usually see at the beginning start the end credits, starting with the director and then working their way backwards from the normal way they would go, ending with the film’s title and then going into the rest of the credits. (A recent example is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), which also had a memorable end credits sequence.
I’m going to see Snicket today, so I haven’t seen its credit sequence. I’m sad to say that the day of all the credits at the beginning is over. But if they keep making clever end sequences like Harry and Snicket, the days of the Pink Panther could be here once again.
(Interestingly, I wrote on credits in my blog, which I’m only linking to here as it currently circulates to a population of mosquitos, Shakespeare-typing monkeys, and tire.)
I wouldn’t put it past him. I read an article that said Handler is working with advertisers very closely, even going so far as to write original short stories for Oscar Mayer Lunchables.
I’m not sure you are right. After all, this solution, a new dust jacket, is the cheepest one.
I’m pretty sure Alias is correct. Violet’s sentence didn’t use “Klaus and I” as the subject. I can’t remember the exact quote, but like Alias I stopped for a moment and thought about it, and realized that Aunt Josephine’s correction was correct, it should have been “Klaus and me.” I’d love to have an exact report of the line now, though, because now it’s bugging me that I don’t remember exactly what it was.
Some thoughts after having returned from seeing the film which is being discussed in the film:
-The line in question brought up by FisherQueen is said when Captain Sham introduces himself to Aunt Josephine. Realizing (as usual) who Captain Sham really is, she says “Allow Klaus and I to introduce him,” which causes Aunt Josephine to object.
-stpauler commented
which caused myself to remark
The brief style of opening credits I mentioned are used as part of the opening ruse which makes one think they have come to the wrong movie. They read in full, “Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures present The Littlest Elf™” (complete with trademark symbol, the Littlest Elf giggles upon spying it). This Rankin-Basseque sequence continues for a few more seconds until everything turns black and Mr. Snicket comments that if that is the type of movie you were looking for, there are probably a still seats left in Theater 2.
-Based on the address on an envelope the Baudelaires recieve, their mansion was in Boston. As for the time period the film takes place, it is cleverly, in my opinion, made a mix of past and present (Count Olaf is heard to quote The Karate Kid depite picking up a magazine in a drugstore with Lon Cheney, Sr.'s picture on it earlier in the film).
-Some of the best scenes for me (who has read the books on which the film is based) are those that didn’t originally appear in the books, such as the car-on-train-tracks scene, the scene in which all of Aunt Josephine’s fears come true as her house is being torn apart by a hurricane (in which the esteemed spokesperson of Aflac Insurance makes a cameo), and the new take on the wedding scene. (The original solution to the problem from the first book is cleverly referenced to.)
-My thoughts on the closing credits were mixed. Based on earlier comments, I was expecting some unique animation through the whole thing. I was disappointed to see that the majority of the credits had no real uniqueness as the first part of them did, and that they apparently ran out of ideas by the time they got to “Soundtrack Available On.” I realize that it would be extremely difficult for one to come up with something unique for every single credit (which would lengthen the credits as well), but even the original Pink Panther had the majority of its credits in boxes with a few gags mixed in (the panther tries to add a box reading “and the Pink Panther,” and appears as a gondolier when the credit for the song It Had Better Be Tonight appears). Why not take the whole Olaf-chasing-after-kids thing and incorporate the credits more cleverly, like having them written on hot-air balloons Olaf and the Baudelaires are riding in, for example? (Can you tell I’m a fan of animated credit sequences?)
-While we’re on the subject of credits, some of the chosen audio was good, including a short song by Captain Sham, a final-credits reprise of Loverly Spring ending with the Littlest Elf giggling over the Paramount logo, and best of all, a performance of one of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances by Count Olaf’s troupe’s band (would I be correct in calling it a mazurka band?)
Oops, forgot a thought:
I was surprised by Ca3799’s commenting about “wondering when Klaus would have a chance to speak,” as he seems to be misremembering: of the Baudelaires, the first one to have a line is Klaus.
Personal nitpick: spelling errors are not bad grammar, they are only spelling errors. Ah, I feel better.
I really enjoyed the movie. The costumes and Violet’s contraptions were the best parts, but the rest of the movie supported them well.
I’m surprised that the children never entered the tower, since they were so emphatically forbidden to do so. I suppose that either they were very good children, or they were watched too well.
Haven’t seen the movie yet, but do you mean before the crisis with Sunny or during? 
I don’t think they got a chance.
Quite enjoyed it.
I have only read the first three books so I felt safe going to see the movie, but I was a little annoyed that the movie seemed like it might have spoilers for the later books.
For instance:
[SPOILER]By the end of the 3rd book I did believe that Count Olaf killed the Baudelaire’s parents (this opinion was, for me, at the end of book 3 cemented by Olaf adding “arson” to the list of crimes he was accused of- no one else mentioned arson.) but this was just a subtle allusion and I felt that by the end of book 3 we weren’t supposed to know for absolute certain that he started the fatal fire. The movie made it absolute certain- Spoiler!!!
And the various guardians being connected to the parents in a “fire investigators” secret society? The spyglasses? Having only read the first three books I don’t know if these things were created for the movie or if they are spoilers for the other books. If they are spoilers it kinda annoys me.[/SPOILER]
BTW in any replies to this post please don’t say “Yes those things are in the later books” or “No, those things are not in the later books” 'cause that would just finalized the spoiling process. (Yes, other people may want those questions answered but please answer them in a Spoiler box so I can skip them.) I’ll soon read the other books and I’ll just try to pretend the movie didn’t give me any of that info- since it might not come from the books after all.
Also, if there are to be other movies I think it would be cool to get Robert Smith involved in the music. The movie has a real Goth kinda feel to it and Robert Smith is, of course, a big Charles Baudelaire fan- having adapted a Baudelaire piece into song lyrics.