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First up this year is Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

This is a film that I have been avoiding, as well as a series I have been avoiding reading, though I cannot really say why. In any event, watching it as a Netflix rental seemed a harmless enough way to find out what all the fuss has been about. In fact, I found myself very quickly engaged and settled in for a very enjoyable couple of hours. (I love flipping through the outtakes and extra stuff.)

While it's pretty hard not to know that Jim Carrey is a part of this project, I was pleasantly surprised as talent after talent kept popping up on-screen, very much as they do in the Harry Potter series. Timothy Spalding, Meryl Streep, Cedric the Entertainer, and an unbilled Dustin Hoffman all startled and delighted with their appearances. These are classy professionals who rarely misstep, and their work here is well-edited.

Emily Browning and Liam Aiken, who play the older Baudelaire children are well-edited as well, but it is the Hoffman twins playing young Sunny who steals the best bubbled quips. Like the book series, this film is creative, playful, surprisingly delightful, and has just the right mix of naivete and cynicism to please.

As is indicated on the dvd extras, Jim Carrey's genius is funneled rather than controlled, which is perhaps the best way to capture and utilize the strengths that he brings to the table as a comedic performer.
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What I really enjoyed is the whimsy that is carried over into the design of the dvd itself. Clearly someone has done a good job of conveying the delightful wordplay for which the written series is famous. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the series is handled, if at all.