There is something deliciously dark about the trio of orphans in the “Lemony Snicket” books being named Baudelaire. Whether author Daniel Handler chose the name as an homage to the French poet Charles, who wrote “Mal de Fleur” (“Flowers of Evil”) is unclear, but the three – Violet, Klaus and Sunny – do encounter “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”
Fortunately, Brad Silberling’s film adaptation of Handler’s stories – “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” ($29.99) – doesn’t try to sweeten things up. There’s a string of deaths, and in order to gain the wealth the children inherited, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) in various guises does – in some rather nasty ways – try to dispatch the children, who manage to foil him with their particular skills: Violet (Emily Browning) with her intuition, bookworm Klaus (Liam Aiken) and baby Sunny (played by twins Kara and Shelby Hoffman) with her biting power.
But while “Lemony Snicket” skips through its Roald Dahl/Tim Burton/Charles Dickens-inspired gloom, it never quite settles down enough to make a full impact. This can be attributed in part to Carrey’s overbearing performance. Depending on your viewpoint, he’s either on too much or, when he’s not on, he leaves a void.
Nevertheless, “Lemony Snicket” does offer a trenchant look at the real horror children face – adults who never listen, adults who think they always know what’s best or right, adults who are unreliable, especially after their confident assurances – as they are betrayed or abandoned or ignored. But that only makes the Baudelaires even more resilient. Not a bad lesson for kids to learn, which is only one reason the entertaining “Snicket” is a good movie.
“Assassination of Nixon”
Sean Penn’s portrayal of Samuel Bicke, a character based on a man who in 1974 tried to kill President Nixon by commandeering a commercial airliner and crashing it into the White House, has the mark of authenticity. Penn’s lonely loser in “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” ($27.95) is a man whose grip on reality grows more tenuous every day.
His fixations include his wife (Naomi Watts) and bureaucrats who he wants to fix his life. When they don’t, anger takes over, especially in regard to the biggest bureaucrat in the land.
While “The Assassination of Richard Nixon,” directed by Niels Muller, captures Bicke’s sinking mood, thanks in large part to Penn’s skills, the story has a curious quality about it – like rubbernecking at a crash site. What drove the real Bicke (who spells his name Byck) to snap, as opposed to countless others in similar positions? We’ll never know, of course, but tragedy and misfortune always draw a crowd.
