Last night, the 'Fesser and the cinetrix patronized our favorite dollar theatre, objective: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Hey, for a couple of bucks, even the cinetrix can afford to be indiscriminate.
I gotta say, having read only the first book several years ago, the cinetrix was happily ignorant of any liberties that may have been taken. So I was able to channel that energy ordinarily given over to indignation into generating a fairly serviceable Carrey-proof forcefield. I jumped appropriately at various surprises and enjoyed the chorus of deeply satisfied belly laughs from the intended demographic in the audience, who were less afraid of Count Olaf than I was [and too young to have seen In Living Color]. Of course, the 'Fesser and I both crushed out hard on young Violet Baudelaire, who looks like the unholy offspring of Angelina Jolie and Karen O.
But the best part of the whole movie was the animated end credits. No, really. And I say this loving Billy Connelly's Uncle Monty.
As you can imagine there were a lot of people involved in bringing this bauble to life. And so, for the 10 minutes it takes to crawl each and every last name across the screen, you are treated to an excellent, clattery, propulsive little instrumental that sounds scavenged from Tom Waits's utensil drawer and these wonderful, Indonesian shadow-puppet-style animations of the three Baudelaire orphans being chased by Count Olaf. It's like the beginning of Mystery scored to a zither [which gives way to a tuba-heavy klezmer band for a stretch].
Don't believe me? You can see the end credits for yourself here. Or consider the 'Fesser's capsule review:
Carrey + Tween in Corset / Streep = Box Office Silver.
