A Series of Unfortunate Events was viewed by me last night (apparently in the passive voice) and I have to say that it was quite charming. I expected it to be interesting visually, and it certainly fulfilled that promise, but as a film it impressed me. Somehow, it created that same sense of (in MHG’s words) child-like adventure that very few films have managed. It had a Goonies quality, a Young Sherlock Holmes quality, and *yes* a Harry Potter quality to it.

Though the screenplay rarely varied from the schlock family movie standbys, the story remained intact in the hands of a competent and loving director and cinematographer. And while the kids in the film played straight man to Jim Carrey’s handful of remarkable characters, they did so with an earnest quality rarely seen in actors so young. Even the subtitled young girl avoided Jar-Jar or monkey territory.

Stick around for the end titles, too, as I would gladly have paid another eight dollars to have them go on for a few more hours. I theorize that they may have pitched those credits for the opening and were turned down based on tone, but could not be turned away, so talented are the animators.

I dreamed a dream about the movie last night and to me that’s a good sign. Te dream was slightly different, but I was a child with two other children. I had stolen a boxy car that resembled an open-top Honda Element. I had my reasons for stealing it, but I needed to hide it and get away with the theft. So my two best friends, a girl and a boy couple around the age of thirteen (both geniuses), were helping me to find a place to park the car and remove the fingerprints from the appropriate parts of the car.

Once we had accomplished this, we walked along the road, still slightly nervous that we would be caught. We had seen a woman looking down on us from ther strange warehouse-like window a few floors above us as we clandestinely wiped down the vehicle. Still we were somewhat confident. Then, without warning, the clamor of an auto collision exploded from behind us. We were shocked, but the boy approached the two crushed vehicles, a mini-van and a small sedan and then equally suddenly, something within the cars burst into flames and ignited the young man’s clothing. As I pulled him interpidly from the area, his girlfriend was apparetnly too frightened to help me extinguish him, and then the dream lost cohesion, as they do. Suddenly, a la Dawn from the fifth season of Buffy, there was a fourth main character and the girl was no longer interested in her boyfriend and the stolen car was no longer a problem…I lost interest and decided to bite the bullet and head to work. Fourty minutes late.