Movie Review Lemony Snicket's As Series of Unfortunate Events

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) 

Directed by Brad Silberling 

Written by Robert Gordon 

Starring Jim Carrey, Jude Law, Liam Aiken, Emily Browning, Timothy Spall, Catherine O'Hara, Meryl Streep

Release Date December 17th, 2004 

I am unfamiliar with the books of the Lemony Snicket series written by Daniel Handler. I can however appreciate the wit and nerve it must take to write on the book jacket that your story is very dark and depressing and recommend that readers find something more pleasant to read. Like any one of a curious nature, when someone tells me not to do something I’m even more intrigued to try it.

It is with that same sense that I went into the film version of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which used a similar campaign as the book to entice people into theaters. Simply tell people not to come, and why, and they will come in droves. Unfortunately those appealingly off-putting ads are more prescient than expected. Lemony Snicket is, as they tell you, dark and disturbing and maybe you should take the advice and find another movie.

This is the story of the Beaudelaire children, or rather the Beaudelaire orphans after their parents perish in a fire. Violet (Emily Browning) is the oldest, an inventor with a keen sense of danger. Her younger brother is Klaus (Liam Aiken), an inquisitive child who reads voraciously and retains every piece of information. And finally, their younger sister two year old Sunny (Kara & Shelby Hoffman) who’s preternaturally smart, she has her own language, and loves to bite things. Anything at all.

After being informed of their parents death the children are taken by their court appointed lawyer Mr. Poe to their closest living relative Count Olaf. By closest living relative, Mr. Poe means that he lives only four blocks away which is a hint of the cluelessness to come. Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) is a failed actor living in a rundown mansion that is the sort of place your dared to visit on Halloween.

Violet, ever the inquisitor, immediately senses that Olaf is not taking the children in out of the kindness of his heart. Indeed he even tells them that he has his eye on the fortune they are to inherit. As soon as Olaf takes on legal custody of the children he plans to murder them and run off with the inheritance money.

The story is narrated by the shadowed visage of Lemony Snicket (Jude Law). Glimpsed only in silhouette, Lemony Snicket tells this tale with wit and misdirection. As he says, and the title well states, this is a story of a series of unfortunate events that befall these plucky kids. They must outwit the murderous count and weather a series of wacky parental stand ins that include Billy Connelly and Meryl Streep.

This is not a bad story but as it is presented by Director Brad Silberling it’s disturbing and highly off putting. This is supposed to be a family movie yet we see murders, blatant child abuse, and a Jim Carrey performance that hits more wrong notes than The Cable Guy.

Just because your narrator states in the opening scenes that your movie is unpleasant and recommends that you go see another film while still can does not give you an excuse to make a film as unpleasant and disturbing as this movie is. Maybe a familiarity with the book somehow makes the themes of murder and abuse palatable but as presented here they make me question how a major children’s entertainment company like Nickelodeon Pictures became involved with it.

As in movies like this the children are geniuses the adults are all clueless dolts. Even the great Meryl Streep can’t escape this hackneyed trope, she plays a shrill agoraphobic who inherits the children and must protect them from Olaf. Sadly, and, of course, she’s so clueless that when Olaf arrives in a terrible costume she falls for him. Other clueless adults include Cedric The Entertainer as a clueless cop and Catherine O’Hara as a clueless Judge.

What is good about the film is the set design and cinematography that evokes the best work of Tim Burton and the silent era gothic films. Emmanuel Lubezki handles the Cinematography and delivers Oscar quality visuals. Set Designer Rick Heinrichs is also award worthy especially for his work on Streep’s lake adjacent home on the side of a cliff.

Director Brad Silberling crafts the work of his cinematographer and set designer quite well but could have done a better job reigning in his clowning preening star who does not steal scenes as much as he invades them with a sickening presence. Carrey’s attempts at improv humor are a counter point to his character's malevolent nature and just do not work. I find that a murderer, especially one in a KIDS movie, had better be darn funny to make me laugh otherwise it’s just creepy and out of place.

The only funny moments in the movie go to the baby who speaks in gibberish but has cute funny subtitles. The rest of the film is like an attempt to glom on to the Harry Potter formula but without the magic and without the intelligent appealing and benevolent characters.

For fans of the books, maybe you can find something to like. For fans of technical filmmaking absolutely. But for general family audiences where this film is targeted I suggest you take the films advice and see what’s playing in theater 2.

Movie Review Monica

Monica (2023) 

Directed by Andrea Pallaoro 

Written by Andrea Pallaoro 

Starring Trace Lysette, Emily Browning, Patricia Clarkson, Adriana Barraza, Joshua Close 

Release Date May 12th, 2023 

Published May 12th, 2023 

Monica is a quiet, thoughtful, and quite brilliant film about grief and the strange pull parents have on children, no matter the distance. It doesn't matter if the distance is measured in miles or time, the inherent desire to connect with parents is a universal feeling, regardless of your background. In the case of Monica (Trace Lysette), the distance is physical, it's measured in decades of time, and it's embedded in bitter sadness and grief. Monica has been estranged from her mother, Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson) for nearly 20 years. The last thing Monica's mother said to her, at a bus station in Ohio was "I can no longer be your mother." 

Now, Eugenia is dying and having been found by her brother, Paul (Josh Close), and his wife, Laura (Emily Browning), that pull I wrote about earlier surfaces for Monica. Despite the rightful bitterness and remarkable hurt, Monica cannot resist the pull of seeing her mother again before she passes away. The question of a reconciliation looms but carries more weight in this case. Eugenia is suffering from brain cancer, her mind is slipping, especially when she refuses her medication. It's been nearly 20 years and she may not recognize Monica. 

Of course, time and Eugenia's illness aren't the only reasons why she might not recognize Monica. When the two last saw each other, Monica was at the beginning of transitioning. 20 years later, Monica is indeed a different person. The layers of this story are remarkable as now Monica may have to decide if she will tell her mother that she is her child, the child Eugenia abandoned at a crucial moment in her life. It's heavy stuff but in the brilliantly subtle hands of writer-director Andrea Pallaoro and star Trace Lysette, the fraught emotions are played only on Monica's face as she takes in the huge emotions at play inside her and around her. 

Find my full length review at Humans.Media 

Movie Review Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch (2011) 

Directed by Zack Snyder

Written by Zack Snyder

Starring Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jon Hamm, Carla Gugino

Release Date March 25th, 2011

Published March 24th, 2011

"Sucker Punch" is ostensibly a story about an abused teenage girl who is sent to an insane asylum by her evil step father who hopes she will be lobotomized before she can tell anyone about his crimes. Babydoll, as the girl comes to be called for her affinity for pigtails and short skirts, has five days before a doctor will come to deliver her lobotomy.

In those five days the hospital transforms from an asylum to a brothel where Babydoll and fellow inmates, Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung) are featured performers in a burlesque show. Babydoll quickly becomes the main attraction with her mesmerizing dances.

We, however, never actually see Babydoll dance. For Babydoll, dancing becomes a fantasy world where she retreats into a chimerical world filled with dangers that she and her friends must defeat in order to gather the materials they will need for an elaborate and fiery escape.

Babydoll's dance fantasies are fanboy dreams realized with monster robot ninjas, dragons and Nazi machines right out of a bizarre sci fi comic book. The images that Zack Snyder crafts in "Sucker Punch" are extravagant geek fantasies where gorgeous girls in fetish wear wield swords and machine guns against the kinds of villains only Frank Miller or Neil Gaiman might imagine.

If that sounds cool to you then you are likely in the target audience for "Sucker Punch." For me however, "Sucker Punch" is a confounding exercise in Zack Snyder's typical style over substance filmmaking. As with his "Dawn of the Dead" remake, his interpretation of "300" and his take on "Watchman," Snyder's "Sucker Punch" is yet another impersonal homage to what he thinks the audience wants to see.

Zack Snyder as an artist is a cipher; he has no style of his own. "300" was the vision of Frank Miller taken almost frame by frame from his graphic novel. "Watchman," though disowned by creator Alan Moore, was as faithful to the graphic novel's imagery as Snyder could be while adapting the story to cinema standards.

"Dawn of the Dead" too has little life of its own beyond the 1979 George Romero original. The film has the same beat and energy as the original and while the characters and settings have been updated to modern times, there is little that Zack Snyder brought to "Dawn of the Dead" in terms of subtext that George Romero hadn't brought to the original.

Now comes "Sucker Punch" , a seemingly original effort. Yet, despite not having a literary source, "Sucker Punch" still plays homage, like a movie made for others and not by one visionary artist. The geek fantasies at play in "Sucker Punch" are so market tested to particular fanboy tastes that one could assign "Sucker Punch" as an adaptation of Comic Con, the annual comics and entertainment gathering in San Diego, California.

Comic Con invites fans from across the globe to San Diego where costumed characters celebrate their favorite geek fetish properties from "Star Wars," to the latest comic book movie adaptation to little known Asian import comics and movies. Fans of sci fi, swords and girls in schoolgirl uniforms carrying swords cannot get enough of comic con.

Zack Snyder even announced the planned production of "Sucker Punch" at Comic Con 2009 while promoting his "Watchman" adaptation. Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with knowing your audience but "Sucker Punch" has nothing of substance beyond the demonstration of geek fetish imagery.

Zack Snyder's highly stylized CGI worlds are impressive technical creations but his characters are cardboard cutouts placed inside a computer image and dressed to please the drooling masses. Fans of a well told story will be out of luck watching "Sucker Punch" which can barely be considered coherent at times.

The switch from the insane asylum to a brothel to the fantasy fight landscapes are so bizarre that many will be too confused to bother trying to figure out why person A is shooting robot B while blowing up robot C. There is zero logic in "Sucker Punch" and that leaves only the titillating aspects which, as I mentioned before, will only satisfy the faithful.

Movie Review: Darkness Falls

Darkness Falls (2003) 

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

Written by Joe Harris, James Vanderbilt, John Fasano

Starring Cheney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Sullivan Stapleton, Emily Browning

Release Date January 24th, 2003 

Published January 23rd 2003 

Horror films are allowed to set there own rules. Oftentimes a horror film will make up those rules as they go. However once those rules are in place violating those rules becomes one of the most disappointing aspects of that film. The latest addition to the horror genre, Darkenss Falls, sets it's own rules in the first five minutes of the film. It then sets about breaking those rules over and over again making for a maddening film-going experience.

The film begins with a prologue about an old woman named Matilda Dixon who lived in the seaside town of Darkness Falls, Maine. Matilda is beloved by the town's children because when they lost their teeth they could take them to Matilda and exchange then for a gold coin. After a fire severely burned Matilda's face she was unable to leave her home during daylight hours and when she did leave she wore a frightening porcelain mask. When two of the town's children go missing one night, Matilda is blamed and hanged but not before placing a curse on the town. The two kids were found the next day having ran away on their own.

We jump forward in time to a 12-year-old boy who has just lost his last baby tooth. The boy's name is Kyle Walsh. One night Kyle makes the mistake of looking into the eyes of the legend known as the Tooth Fairy. Now, one of the rules established early in the film is that if you looked in the eyes of Matilda's ghost she would hunt you until she killed you. Kyle's only savior is the a flashlight at his bedside. The tooth fairy is sensitive to light and when exposed is badly injured. Kyle's mother, not believing the legend, goes to his room to show Kyle there is nothing to be afraid of , and the tooth fairy slits her throat. Kyle is blamed for the murder and spends the next 12 years in a mental institute.

Cut to the present, Kyle is out of the institute but still afraid of the dark. Now living in Vegas, Kyle is on every medication known to man to deal with what he witnessed. Back in Darkness Falls, a young boy is experiencing the same behavior as Kyle. The young boy is Michael Greene and he is the brother of Kaitlin, who happens to have been Kyle's girlfriend, before his supposed psychotic episode. Kaitlin tracks down Kyle and asks for his help in treating Michael which brings Kyle back to Darkness Falls to face his fear.

Darkness Falls is a slowly paced, light-and-shadow thriller that has a few very effective moments. One that stands out is the opening ten minutes with a very well shot sequence of Kyle's mother being killed. However, after that the film comes apart, setting it's rules and then setting about breaking them, creating many a logical flaw that takes away from the film and really irks any intelligent filmgoer who is paying attention.

First, does the Tooth Fairy only kill you if you live in Darkness Falls or can you just leave and she stays there? If the Tooth Fairy can't go into the light then how is she with moonlight? If the Tooth Fairy is after Kyle, why does she kill a random drunk who was fighting with Kyle instead of going after Kyle?

Not that logic has it's place in most horror films but when rules are established in a horror film, violating those rules can be a film's biggest crime.

The film's premise is a hodgepodge of horror cliches lifted from such varied sources as Nightmare On Elm Street to the recently released They. The films biggest influence, the one it truly aspires to meet but fails to, is the moody atmospherics of a Stephen King novel. But what King is able to do with words, Darkness Falls is unable to do with images.

First time actor Chaney Kley plays Kyle and makes it look like Clonaid succeeded in cloning Mark Wahlberg. Though it's kind of like Michael Keaton in Multiplicity, Kley only got some of Wahlberg's talent and not the best of it. Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Emma Caulfield is a sexy, smart choice for a lead actress but saddled with a frightened victim role. In service of Kley she isn't given much to work with.

First-time director Jonathan Liebesman gives a good account of himself technically with an occasional scary setup but unfortunately his special effects and story are subpar. The Tooth Fairy character as created by Stan Winston's effects company is a dull recreation of horror characters past and the more screentime the monster logs, the more unscary it becomes. In interviews, the director said that the monster wasn't onscreen until the closing act but that the studio was so impressed they rolled out some cash for reshoots that bumped the films release date from mid-September to January and made the monster more prominent, which exposed it's flaws.

Whether the film was the victim of studio overkill or an inexperienced director, Darkness Falls is yet another unsuccessful horror film that strives for scares but can illicit only indifference.