Monday, January 10, 2005

A filmic weekend: Review 2

Now to our second movie of the weekend, and I have to say a real treat. Of course I knew of the Lemony Snicket books, but I had never properly gotten around to reading them (though we certainly will do now).

Bizarrely, the film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events is posted as a PG certificate (well it is in the UK). This puzzles me: the books are very dark and the film is pretty rivetingly scary stuff - call me a wuss, in fact call Cloud one as well, but this had a fair number of edge-of-seat moments and jump up like a scaredy-cat. It doesn't seem to quite match what kids would understand, and many younger ones were paraded out by their guardians before it reached the halfway point.

Having said that, adults and older children there REALLY seemed to get into it. The acting was superb (I know the subtitles did much of the work but the twins playing Sunny were simply cracking) and it was worth the price of admission just to see the closing credit sequence (some wonderful Svankmajeresque animation and drawings that call to mind all those wonderful Polish/Czech animations that would litter the UK television screens over summer holidays in past times). Sadly, many had left by then - what is it with the 'leave immediately the credits role' thang? - and only Cloud, me and three other 30-something adults were left gawping and giggling at the fantastic closing titles.

Can anyone tell me if the Hoffman sprogs are any relation to Dustin (who pops up in an uncredited cameo) 'cos it strikes me and Cloud as a good way to get on set with your grand-kids!

2 comments:

Neil said...

Like the post but your Svankmejer link does not work!

Lisa Rullsenberg said...

Fixed link now to your suggestion.