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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Jul 26, 2020 21:16:02 GMT -5
I really liked Aasif Mandvi's performance and the longer screen time made him an uncle Monty much more remarkable than Billy Connolly. Billy Connolly looks much closer to what is drawn in the books, but he had little time to exercise the character. (I have to admit that I will need to watch the movie again in order to be more fair to them.) But I can see Uncle Monty's love for the reptiles in Aasif Mandvi. Although I can't see the passion he felt for cinema. I think it needed to be left aside because of a plot about VFD, so this is justified. Also, I liked the Italian touches in his acting ... The director and the actor were well aware that Uncle Monty had something of Italian but at the same time they were concerned about not reinforcing stereotypes in his acting, something like doing the uncle Monty overdoing the gesticulation all the time. Uncle Monty was not lampooning Italians, he was being an Italian raised outside Italy but who still loved his origins. It was perfect for me.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Aug 1, 2020 23:56:53 GMT -5
I'm watching the final half of episode 6. I can say that I'm literally laughing with Lemony Snicket's narration mixed with the scenes. This is very good. The acting and timming is great and it made me laugh again. I'm happy with the result for now.
I didn't really like Josephine's death. In the book and in the film, her death was more dramatic ... And Olaf apparently wouldn't kill her if she kept quiet and didn't correct him. But on the show, it looks like Olaf would kill her anyway. And if I'm not mistaken, Olaf implied that Josephine's false death was an agreement. And he went on to say that she didn't need to die, it was enough that most people believed that she died. I remember this because I already used it in a theory involving Beatrice's survival, which I currently disagree with (but it was still a good theory).
I liked the ending of the episode, even though it was different from the books. I really liked the performance of the three kids, and seeing them in close up, it was amazing, especially Violet and Klaus. And the scene of Klaus wiping his glasses with his index fingers and then going to speak to Josephine in the corner of her ear, was very good.
The scene of the plane reflecting the light from the headlight was an unnecessary deus ex machina. The leeches invading the boats were really scary ... They looked like dangerous and murderous lampreys.
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Post by catastrophist on Aug 10, 2020 13:32:18 GMT -5
I have less to add to the discussion of Wide Window (it was the only block of filming I wasn't on set for, as I was doing a play at the time) but one interesting fact is that these were the last episodes filmed for Season One, swapping production order with Miserable Mill so that our crews had extra time to build the Lake Lachrymose sets while we shot the mill scenes on location. I remember some folks (maybe on this site?) seeing set photos of the mill and wondering if we'd scrambled the order of the books; nope, it was just a production thing.
Alfre Woodard was one of a few guest stars who was a fan of the books before getting the role (she read them to her kids). Going a different direction from Meryl Streep was a priority for everyone, and Alfre really latched on to the script's suggestion that Josephine was once "fierce and formidable". She was disappointed she had to die, and even reached out afterwards to mention that she'd love to come back in some way in a future season; the writers room mulling on a way to bring her back is what led to the idea of the VFD cameos at the Masked Ball in Season Two.
Someone mentioned that it's surprising Larry ended up becoming such a large character when his role in these episodes is fairly minor. Patrick Breen is something of a good luck charm for Barry Sonnenfeld, appearing in nearly everything he directs. (If you rewatch Barry's films, keep an eye out for Patrick's cameos.) We'd originally eyed him for Charles, but at our table read, he filled in for all the yet-to-be-cast male roles and stole all his scenes as Larry. So as early as the first read, we knew we'd want more of him down the line. The other factor was seeing the first cut of the scene at the Anxious Clown. Both Daniel and Barry are huge lovers of screwball comedy (think Preston Sturges) and that scene was written and shot to capture a very specific screwball rhythm, with multiple overlapping conversations ping-ponging off each other at rapid speed. After seeing how successful it turned out, S2 was given the specific goal of keeping that tone in mind -- which I think you can see reflected in the early episodes of S2 especially (Cafe Salmonella being its most obvious successor). And of course, we loved the idea that Larry could pop up anytime we had a location related to food; I think that, even back then, we had him in mind for the restaurant at the Hotel Denouement.
Finally, this is very minor trivia, but in the S1 writers room, the fried egg restaurant where Sham takes Aunt Josephine was originally slated to be a location-appropriate clam chowder shack (hence the chowder scene with Mr. Poe at the top of Miserable Mill Pt 1). When Daniel turned in his script, he'd changed it to a fried egg restaurant, which is so much better for the very reason that it's NOT the obvious choice. It was a fun glimpse at the way he writes and, for me as a writer, a reminder that the less obvious choice is always the more fun one -- especially in the world of ASOUE. And Bo brilliantly changed the clam-shaped roof of his concept art into a fried egg-shaped roof.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Aug 10, 2020 14:34:22 GMT -5
The fried egg restaurant was a great idea ... In fact, after I watched this episode again, I really wanted to eat a fried egg saduiche.
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edressa
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 7
Likes: 11
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Post by edressa on Aug 22, 2020 22:31:20 GMT -5
Someone mentioned that it's surprising Larry ended up becoming such a large character when his role in these episodes is fairly minor. Patrick Breen is something of a good luck charm for Barry Sonnenfeld, appearing in nearly everything he directs. (If you rewatch Barry's films, keep an eye out for Patrick's cameos.) We'd originally eyed him for Charles, but at our table read, he filled in for all the yet-to-be-cast male roles and stole all his scenes as Larry. So as early as the first read, we knew we'd want more of him down the line. The other factor was seeing the first cut of the scene at the Anxious Clown. Both Daniel and Barry are huge lovers of screwball comedy (think Preston Sturges) and that scene was written and shot to capture a very specific screwball rhythm, with multiple overlapping conversations ping-ponging off each other at rapid speed. After seeing how successful it turned out, S2 was given the specific goal of keeping that tone in mind -- which I think you can see reflected in the early episodes of S2 especially (Cafe Salmonella being its most obvious successor). And of course, we loved the idea that Larry could pop up anytime we had a location related to food; I think that, even back then, we had him in mind for the restaurant at the Hotel Denouement. I thought Patrick Breen as Larry Your-Waiter had a vibe I can only describe as "Buster Keaton but he's this close to a panic attack if he has to do any of his stunts today" that just really worked for the show - he steals pretty much any scene he's in but it never comes off as too much. I didn't like Alfre Woodard as Josephine at all on my first viewing, but weirdly enough, it's only when I started analyzing the differences between her performance and Meryl Streep's that I started to appreciate it? Meryl's performance sums up to Broken Porcelain Bird in the form of a Victorian lady. Alfre definitely shows glimpses of who she used to be before being traumatized by Ike's death, and her frights being not so believable started making a lot of sense to me when you realize it's essentially a coping mechanism and that most of the time, she's trying to convince herself that she's scared. "Don't be daring or you'll end up like Ike", except, ironically, when she does stand up for herself against Olaf, she suffers the same fate Ike did... I'll agree with Jean Lúcio that her death was kind of lacking, but I also think it's one of those things that's hard to do well - so kudos to the film for doing an excellent job on that aspect.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Aug 22, 2020 22:48:33 GMT -5
From this point of view, it is possible to understand the choice of direction. But still, her scene describing the leeches in awe doesn't seem to make sense. On the contrary, the scene of MJ saying exactly the same things was beautiful and in fact made sense to me. But what about your love of grammar? edressa, Did you feel authentic about that on the show?
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edressa
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 7
Likes: 11
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Post by edressa on Aug 22, 2020 22:56:33 GMT -5
From this point of view, it is possible to understand the choice of direction. But still, her scene describing the leeches in awe doesn't seem to make sense. On the contrary, the scene of MJ saying exactly the same things was beautiful and in fact made sense to me. But what about your love of grammar? edressa , Did you feel authentic about that on the show? I don't know how to feel about the grammar thing. I've known a person who suffered from depression and bipolar disorder and who would focus on something inane almost obsessively as a weird way of staying sane. I guess that for Josephine, it's grammar (although it is interesting to note that in the flashback for the masked ball scene, she does mention her love of grammar while dancing with Ike). I agree that it could have been better done - like, I dunno, she starts enunciating English irregular verbs to calm herself down instead of merely correcting people's speech - but I can't really say it's what bothered me the most. I think the idea for this Josephine was to balance her paranoid self with her old self, just to give the audience glimpses of what she used to be (moreso than Streep), but it's very hit and miss, ultimately. I admit I don't remember the scene with Netflix Josephine talking about the leeches, while Streep's rendition stuck with me, so sadly enough, I guess that tells you all you need to know.
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