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Post by Reba on Jul 10, 2018 16:59:47 GMT -5
my point was that any performance of olaf is personalized by the actor's previous experience. however old the idea for a musical was, the fact that NPH was playing olaf is part of the reason why they went ahead with the musical numbers.
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Post by gothicarchiesfan on Jul 10, 2018 17:08:04 GMT -5
They didn't have the musical numbers on standby in case NPH was cast, they cast NPH because of the musical numbers.
If they hadn't been able to get him, they wouldn't have picked an actor of equal fame but who sadly had no singing ability and just cut out the musical numbers, they simply would have chosen another well-known actor who could at the very least, move energetically and had a decent singing voice.
:edit: I agree that any performance is informed by the actor's previous work, just not that aspect of it. Jim Carrey's Olaf is clearly a Jim Carrey performance much as NPH's Olaf is NPH's, they have entirely different performing styles and physical/verbal tics.
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Post by Reba on Jul 10, 2018 17:24:56 GMT -5
If they hadn't been able to get him, they wouldn't have picked an actor of equal fame but who sadly had no singing ability and just cut out the musical numbers you don't know that.
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Post by gothicarchiesfan on Jul 10, 2018 18:09:23 GMT -5
Handler and Sonnenfeld have literally wanted ASOUE to have musical numbers for over a decade and a half, they have also both said that they had the final choice over the casting. Given that, why would they throw all their years' hard work away just because they couldn't get NPH? You don't know that either, you also don't know exactly what's going on in the heads of anybody involved in either production or indeed anybody else you have ever met or heard about in your life, neither do I. You just have to guess based on the surrounding context and evidence like the rest of us. I really didn't want to get drawn into an argument here, you made a point which was factually incorrect and I decided to point that out, less out of humanistic desire to correct than simply because there's an awful part of me that like to feel smug and for that, I genuinely apologize. There's no reason for us to continue arguing over this because: A: It's not worth arguing over, B: I don't like being particularly argumentative in general because it tends to make me become very unpleasant and nitpicky. C: You don't argue in good faith, you simply do it to get a rise out of people, even when people who do know objectively more about the subject correct you, the time when you told repeatedly told Teleram (a person of Asian descent) that Ch*nk was not a racial slur against Asian people springs most readily to mind. :TLDR: This argument is pointless in pretty much every way, we're both trying to pettily annoy each other over a subject that neither of us cares about very much. I would much rather we remain, if not exactly bosom buddies, then certainly people who aren't actively trying to make the other feel worse.
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Post by Reba on Jul 10, 2018 18:39:48 GMT -5
you may not care about the olaf casting but i definitely do, not least because carrey's olaf is one of my all-time favorite film performances, but also because NPH's olaf is one of the main sources of my dislike for the show, and i could never wrap my head around why both those judgments seem to differ so harshly with the rest of 667.
as for "throwing years of hard work away" i know the shared interest in musicals factored into their casting NPH but i'm not convinced that was the main aspect that they were fighting for in their version. after all, the show isn't a musical, it just has a couple musical numbers. i don't think it's unfair to attribute them at least as much to NPH's influence as to DH's. it certainly can't be FACTUALLY incorrect
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2018 20:00:41 GMT -5
I’m excited for his portrayal of Dr Robotnik.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Jul 10, 2018 20:40:23 GMT -5
I just think Carrey made the ASoUE film adaptation into a "Jim Carrey vehicle", which some big-name actors tend to do whether they want to or not. It's similar to whenever Jack Nicholson is (was) in a film, it becomes a "Jack Nicholson movie". That's the main reason the ASoUE movie suffered under Carrey, I think. Admittedly, NPH does that to some extent with the Netflix series, too, but way less than Carrey with the movie, because NPH is still ways from being the household name Carrey is.
Personally, I like both of their performances, but think both could've used a bit more menace in the portrayal. Also NPH's performance is inevitably informed by Carrey's.
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Post by Charlie on Jul 10, 2018 21:01:38 GMT -5
wow, reading GAF try to reason their way through a debate with bear and getting more and more frustrated at his slimy reasoning rly made me nostalgic for the old days of 667!
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Post by Isadora Is a Door on Jul 11, 2018 17:11:54 GMT -5
I agree with bear
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Post by Grace on Jul 13, 2018 22:39:55 GMT -5
Jim Carrey was the best thing about the movie hands down
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Post by Uncle Algernon on Jul 14, 2018 17:10:09 GMT -5
I'm actually lukewarm. Jim Carrey… is a good comedian who has become too successful for his own good, and now no director is brave enough to tell him no when he goes too far.
Questionable book-accuracy notwithstanding, in the movie, there are moments of his Count Olaf performance I really like (the train scene, some of the Stefano stuff, The Marvelous Marriage and subsequent gloating). But there are also moments where he takes it one or ten steps too far (a velociraptor? really?) and it takes you right out of the movie.
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Post by the panopticountolaf on Jul 15, 2018 13:55:32 GMT -5
I'm actually lukewarm. Jim Carrey… is a good comedian who has become too successful for his own good, and now no director is brave enough to tell him no when he goes too far. Questionable book-accuracy notwithstanding, in the movie, there are moments of his Count Olaf performance I really like (the train scene, some of the Stefano stuff, The Marvelous Marriage and subsequent gloating). But there are also moments where he takes it one or ten steps too far (a velociraptor? really?) and it takes you right out of the movie. I do really love Carrey's Stephano, to the extent that I like it more than NPH's performance. There is something so ridiculous about him saying "I am an Italian man" in his fake country twang that gets me in stitches, and I think it will always make me want to read Stephano's part in TRR in the same way.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2020 21:18:33 GMT -5
he was the best part of sonic, the last movie i saw in theaters before the world changed forever
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Post by gothicarchiesfan on Apr 24, 2020 3:35:59 GMT -5
Looking back on it, I honestly have trouble choosing a better Olaf because both seem compromised to me. I think Carrey is a better actor than NPH but NPH got overall better writing and direction; in that, he was actually directed.
Carrey extended the movie's production by nearly 5 months with his constant dicking-around on set and it shows in the final product. He's great whenever he sticks to the script and takes it seriously, but whenever he does some "whacky" imropv, funny as it can sometimes be, it just doesn't fit.
One minute I'm seeing Count Olaf, the next I'm seeing Jim Carrey goofing off on set because he's bored and the director isn't powerful enough to tell him to stop and actually try.
NPH on the other hand, while his best moments were never as good as Carrey's best moments, always came across like a consistent character. The real problem for me is that the ideal live action Olaf simply could never be played by an A-list celebrity actor.
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Post by Mr. Dent on May 2, 2020 12:08:13 GMT -5
Yes, I agree with you completely. Ultimately, I think I prefer NPH’s Olaf, but not because of his performance if that makes sense? In terms of physicality, cadence and energy I prefer Carrey’s Olaf. He looks more like how I’d imagine Olaf, sounds more like how I’d imagine Olaf, moves more like how I’d imagined Olaf... and yet. There’s some sort of disconnect from the rest of the characters in the film. Like he’s some otherworldly creature from an (even more) whimsical reality. Yes, Olaf has always had delusions of grandeur and yet...
Ultimately, NPH’s Olaf is a lot smaller and less intense, but he feels more consistent and perhaps grounded (musical numbers aside), more desperate and more malicious. It definitely helps that the show dwells on the violence Olaf is capable of more than the film did, and that there’s less of Olaf being funny without some sort of venom behind his actions.
Not that the film’s Olaf is incapable of violence, obviously, but there’s this maintained disconnect between the man and the actions he commits. As though Olaf himself has no sense of mortality or the value of life, which, of course, is a fair enough take on his character I suppose. But the disconnect is too big for me.
I think I’d prefer Carrey’s Olaf if he had NPH’s writing.
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