A Series of Unfortunate Casting Decisions

Laurence here with some more casting news from the television world. When news broke in 2014 that Netflix would be adapting Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events books into a series, it was exciting. The 2004 film adaptation never really struck a chord, nor was it successful enough to turn into the Harry Potter-esque franchise Nickelodeon wanted it to be. It was received relatively well, but it has become something of a pop culture footnote.

Television is a pretty natural place for an adaptation of a 13-book series, however, and Netflix's love of hurling absurd amounts of money at every algorithmically pleasing premise bade well for a new adaptation.

After a long time spent in 'talks', yesterday it was finally confirmed that the actor cast to play Count Olaf in the series is...Neil Patrick Harris? Now, NPH has been doing solid work in proving his range post-HIMYM. He was enjoyably creepy in Gone Girl, and his stint in Hedwig on Broadway showed he could be, well, Hedwig. But whatever you think about Jim Carrey's performance as Olaf, he was nothing if not indelible.

But NPH as Count Olaf seems, well, a stretch. There's no denying that he has comic chops. But Olaf is an evil, strange, reptilian character, such that casting NPH makes the whole thing feel sanitised and kid-friendly. Add in the fact that their casting of Violet (Malina Weissman) and Klaus (Louis Hynes) seems to be both skewing younger than the film and strangely insistent on replicating the look of the film's stars, Emily Browning and Liam Aiken.

One bright spot, at least, is the casting of Patrick Warburton as Lemony Snicket, who was played by Jude Law in the film. But despite NPH's Halloween costume bona fides, Netflix could have been more creative. Imagine Kathy Najimy as a genderbent Countess Olaf. Imagine.

Perhaps the most curious aspect is that the series is set to be directed, at least at first, by Barry Sonnenfeld of Addams Family Values fame, who was originally set to direct the film. At the time, he hired Daniel Handler (the writer behind the Snicket pen name) to adapt the books as a musical. Given that they have also cast two-time Tony nominee K. Todd Freeman, it will be interesting to find out if that's what we're going to get. But is that what the books deserve?

Eva Green's Peculiar Children and Geena Davis Returning to TV

Laurence here with a couple of juicy actress news tidbits. After a string of well-cast disappointments, we're all hoping for a return to Tim Burton magic this year with his new film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. We finally have some images from the film, which has what might be Burton's most formidable (live-action) cast since Big Fish, including Judi Dench, Samuel L. Jackson, Allison Janney, Terence Stamp, Kim Dickens and Rupert Everett. Whoa.

Most importantly, though, here's Eva Green in the title role. [More...]

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Oscar Telecast Ratings Hit Eight-Year Low

We’re currently awash in Oscar numbers and statistics, but there’s another Oscars number to be taken into account. After much discussion of the Academy as an entity leading up to Sunday night, it seemed like public interest would be high going into the ceremony, particularly given the Leo narrative and some high-grossing nominees like The Revenant, The Martian and Mad Max: Fury Road. But numbers for the Oscars telecast for this year have come in, and the Chris Rock-hosted show fell 6 percent to 34.3 million viewers in preliminary numbers and an eight-year ratings low...

If you haven’t already read Kieran’s analysis of Rock’s hosting stint you definitely should, because he gets at a lot of reasons why the ceremony was so uneven and might have put people off watching. But the most telling aspect of the ceremony’s ratings is that the 18-49 demographic only dropped 5 percent, which means that much of the lost audience was older viewers...

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50 Years Ago Right Now ~ An Evening With Carol Channing !

Imagine your parents or maybe your grandparents gathered 'round a 21 inch television on February 18th, 1966 on ABC to watch this.  If you were born in October 1966 I apologize that the weirdest things got your parents frisky.

Wowee Wow. Here's Our Dolly now! 🎵 

There were only three channels in 1966 and, I mean, why would ANYONE have been watching anything else? She was on Broadway at the time with Hello Dolly. Broadway had such a cache back then. Can you imagine a Broadway star getting a whole hour of television to promote their celebrity today?

Some highlights...
04:10 Wanna hear where Lady Bunny got her voice. It's right here. 
12:22 David McCallum (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) reads T.E. Lawrence and speaks multiple languages with Carol, cracking each other up
24:20 Mona Lisa musical comedy sketch. The takeaway: the 1960s were a very strange and alien time from an alternate Earth. Possibly another Galaxy altogether
33:00 Los Angeles, skewered. Must see if you've ever hated on L.A.
50:30 George Burns & David McCallum join Carol for the finale. "The Monkey Rag"
 
 

Cynthia Nixon's Emily Dickinson Dwells In Possibility of Miranda Hobbes

Daniel Crooke here, new contributor. As daily updates make their way stateside from the Berlinale, certain titles that can’t help but infiltrate and overtake your curiosity. One such film is Terence Davies’ A Quiet Passion. What a time to be alive when the promise of a film starring the soulfully efflorescent Cynthia Nixon as the spiritually untethered Emily Dickinson exists on this planet. While reactions to the poet’s biopic have been highly mixed, the overlapping of these two mustang personas is an undeniable attraction.

Obviously much of Dickinson’s public face continues to be debated – that’ll happen when you like what you like and forget the rest – but there’s still a respected wealth of fascinating, cogent theories about the manner in which Emily lived. And no study needs a peer review about how perfectly Nixon’s signature role encapsulates this iconoclast who ditched polite society for a personal universe of her own reckoning.

The ultimate role research for Emily Dickinson lies in playing the sage and self-determined Miranda Hobbes for six seasons of Sex and the City. Six reasons why after the jump...

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