Well, I bet that wasn't nearly as funny.

It wasn't. And I say that having never seen the Preston Sturges version.

I suspect not, but I bet his conducting was better.

I dunno. Rex really loses himself in his conducting.

And I say that having never seen the Preston Sturges version.

As I've said before, I think the Coens took all of their screwballity directly from Sturges. If you like their comedies (or even their dramas), you'd probably love Sturges's movies.

As I've said before, I think the Coens took all of their screwballity directly from Sturges.

Some of their fast talking characters - like Tony Shaloub in The Man Who Wasn't There, and Barton Fink - seem more Hawksian to me. I also think they have a big dose of Nathaniel West in their work.

I saw a big chunk of Stardust Memories this morning before work. It made me miss Jessica Harper. She's probably one of my favorite actresses of the 70s. Plus, of course, Charlotte Rampling, which is always good.

There's a lot of fast-talkin' in the Sturges, too. I don't know how much of it he got from Hawks.

Jessica, I just read fonebone's review of the new Cronenberg. I was looking forward to it before, and I'm really looking forward to it now.

In Raq's A Year Later Movie Reviews, we watched Lemony Snicket last night.

The good: Art Direction. Sunny. Liam Aiken, who played Klaus. The end credits. Sunny. Using three books to get enough story for a movie.

The bad: Jim Carrey. The music (except for the theme for "The Littlest Elf" which was perfect). Jude Law. The pacing. Jim Carrey. Using three books to get enough story for a movie.

I have to say that I didn't enjoy the books. I tried, a couple times, as I thought they were exactly something I should like. But they were too contrived, with nothing genuine in them. All artifice, no honesty. For me, they failed as books, but I thought they might make an okay movie. Not quite. The movie reminded me of the Myst computer game series: beautifully rendered environments, where you have little micro-adventures in one and move on to the next, with little or no honest human interaction.

The boy who played Klaus went a long way toward reversing that - he played his role well and with honesty and authenticity. His scenes were almost like a real movie.

Sunny was great, much better in a movie format than in a book format.

The whole thing might have been salvaged if they hadn't cast Jim Carrey, or hadn't had him be all zany, all the time. But I doubt it, as the other adult characters were also played as contrived charicatures.

The end credits were really pretty though, and almost as long as the movie themselves.

I watched half the movie on an international flight, then fell asleep. But I do have to say, as someone read the first book and wasn't captivated by it, that listening to them on tape (read by Tim Curry! with music by the Gothic Archies!) was a really fun experience. Also, the plot picks up quite a bit around book 5 or 6, and becomes more of a conspiracy/mystery story instead of an extended Edward Gorey ripoff homage.

The whole thing might have been salvaged if they hadn't cast Jim Carrey

He's the whole reason I didn't see it. I hate his manic attention-whore shtick.

Talk about an actor who has long since ceased to play anyone but himself in films -- Jim Carrey is one of the worst offenders.

He's the whole reason I didn't see it. I hate his manic attention-whore shtick.

You should rent it, and just fast forward through the parts with him in it.

They suck.

You should rent it, and just fast forward through the parts with him in it.

So she'll be seeing the five-minute version then? :)

I thought the production design was miles better than anything else about the film. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly good either -- there wasn't much there there.