Movie Review Amelia
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 Flight of the Phoenix
Movie Review Bad Behaviour
Bad Behaviour (2024)
Directed by Alice Englert
Written by Alice Englert
Starring Jennifer Connelly, Alice Englert, Ben Whishaw
Release Date June 14th, 2024
Published June 7th, 2024
Bad Behaviour stars Jennifer Connelly as Lucy, a former child star struggling with anger and abandonment issues. As we meet Lucy, she's driving and listening to a recording of a guru in an attempt to get over her anger issues. As she's driving and listening, she's also experiencing road rage and lashing out. The irony is intentional. During the drive, she calls her daughter, Dylan (Alice Englert) who is in New Zealand where she works as a stunt actor. Mother and daughter's fraught relationship can be picked up immediately but the fact that the call drops mid-conversation and neither tries to reconnect is a strong indication of the state of their relationship.
Lucy's guru is Elon (Ben Whishaw) a man who claims to have found enlightenment and is prepared to teach that enlightenment to others. Four the next three days, Lucy will navigate through a period of imposed silence, no wi-fi, and a series of workshops aimed at getting in touch with various traumas and anxieties that lead to issues of anger and prevent people from reaching an enlightened state. One of Elon's biggest catchphrases is 'Never Give in to Hope.' If that sounds like a bizarre catchphrase, you're right, it is. But, the movie does attempt to explain this angry non-sequitur. Instead of hoping to get better, Elon suggests you simply be what you hope, thus making hope unnecessary.
Writer-Director Alice Englert's approach to the touchy-feely world of self-help gurus and enlightenment experts is to take them seriously. It would be very easy to turn the guru and the people attending his retreat as a joke. Englert instead, engages with the self-help stuff and leaves it entirely up to you if you want to make fun of it. As for Lucy, she wants the retreat to work. She wants to be better but everything in her mind prevents her from giving in and giving herself over to the experience of the retreat. Lucy's fears and anxieties about aging then get a kick in the pants when a young model, Beverly (Dasha Nekrasova) arrives late to the retreat and becomes the star of the event, it's most outstanding student.
Read my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal
Movie Review Reverse the Curse
Reverse the Curse (2024)
Directed by David Duchovny
Written by David Duchovny
Starring Stephanie Beatriz, Pamela Adlon, Logan Marshall Green, David Duchovny, Jason Beghe
Release Date June 14th, 2024
Published June 13th, 2024
Reverse the Curse stars Logan Marshall Green as Ted, a failing writer. It's 1978 and Ted is working as a peanut vendor at Yankee Stadium for little pay and less respect. He wants to write the great American novel but, he's told by a publisher, played by Pamela Adlon, that his story doesn't have a plot and that he lacks life experience to draw from. She advises him to go commit a crime, get f##### in the a## prison, and come back when he has a story to tell.
That this line of thinking comes from the mouth of Pamela Adlon, a skilled wordsmith when it comes to the profane, is the only reason this dialogue works. My point will be proven in the rest of the movie where profanity appears and is poorly used. Being profane is a skill and Adlon is a skilled proprietor. The rest of the cast of Reverse the Curse lacks her talent for the irreverent and filthy. They are amateurs compared to Adlon who could give sailors and truck drivers a good talking too.
l.Read my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal.
Movie Review Fantastic Four
Classic Movie Review Renaissance Man
Renaissance Man (1994)
Directed by Penny Marshall
Written by Jim Burnstein
Starring Danny Devito, Mark Wahlberg, Gregory Hines, James Remar, Cliff Robertson
Release Date June 3rd, 1994
Published June 5th, 2024
When I described what the movie Renaissance Man was about to my co-hosts on the I Hate Critics 1994 Podcast, they refused to believe that I was telling the truth. They refused to believe that Danny Devito plays an advertising executive who becomes a teacher on a military base and saves a group of at-risk soldiers by teaching them Shakespeare via hip hop. Reading back my description, I can understand the incredulous responses of my co-hosts. Reading back my own description, I can't really believe that the movie Renaissance Man exists. I also cannot believe that a movie this hackneyed and mawkish was directed by someone as talented as Penny Marshall. In fact, I choose to believe this was directed by her hack brother Garry as this is exactly the kind of tripe he always directed.
Indeed, Renaissance Man stars Danny Devito as Bill Rago, a raging jerk of an ad-man who gets himself quite reasonably fired from his job for showing up late and generally bungling a big client meeting through his selfish, self-serving, arrogant, narcissism. Pro-Tip for screenwriters, how you introduce your main character is important, if you don't intend for us to hate your main character, come up with a way to introduce him that doesn't make us automatically loathe his presence. The fact this is Danny Devito and I cannot stand this character, says a lot. Devito is a beloved actor and seeing him in a lead role in a comedy should be welcoming. It's most assuredly not welcoming in Renaissance Man.
Out of a job, Bill goes to the unemployment office were we get our third exposition dump in the first 15 minutes of this dreadful movie. Jennifer Lewis, a wonderful character actor, lays out the plot for us, does a bit of needless business that someone making this movie thought was funny, and then sends Bill on to the actual plot of the film. The unemployment office has found Bill a job on a military base. Since he has a masters degree, Bill will be teaching Basic Comprehension to a group of soldiers on the brink of being kicked out of the Army.
The ragtag crew includes bumpkins and poor people of varying ethnicity. They bicker and bully and have no interest in saving their military careers until Bill decides to teach them Shakespeare. Apparently, learning and reciting Hamlet is somehow enough for these soldier to stay in the military after being on the brink of being kicked out? Who knows, this movie is so thoroughly idiotic that these soldiers could have watched a newsreel about venereal diseases and as long as they actually showed up, they would have been safe. So why does Bill even need to be here? Truly? The final exam for this 'Basic Comprehension' course that Bill randomly turns into a class on Shakespeare, is OPTIONAL. They don't have to take the final exam and they get to stay in the Army. What even is this movie?
Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal.
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