Interesting Day, Boring Entry

Today I moved upstairs. That's the short way of saying I used to work in the basement of the building the studio is in, but since they have to make way for banks of computers, I got moved to the 2D ghetto/treasury on the ground floor, behind the reception desk. It's much quieter, at least when people aren't coming in the door. I may be getting a computer of my very own.

In about an hour I shall be heading out to see the Snicket movie with Tony and Colin. I have read the books ... they have not. It'll be interesting to see what they have to say... I know the art direction is both beautiful and interesting, so no doubt that will get thumbs up all around. Plot? Dunno. But then, is the plot at all related to the plot of the books? Judging by the track listing on the soundtrack, their approach to writing the screenplay was to write plot points on slips of paper, put them all in a box, shake them up, then work them into a story in the order in which they were pulled out.

We shall see.

The Snicket Review (Quicktime teaser - 5 kB)

I will now relate my train of thought through the opening three minutes of the movie.

!!!WARNING!!!

Those who have not yet seen the movie, and who do not want the opening spoiled for them, read no further!

I had just reached the movie after what felt like half an hour of commercials and trailers. (When will the audience revolt? Oops, digressing.) When the Paramount studio tag came up, the first thing to clue me into something being "up" was the weird little opera singer trill at the end of it. Maybe it's just the new Paramount... thingy. Dreamworks tag ... well, they always have some sort of chipper music on it but this seems a little different. Nickelodeon ... hmm, never seen the planets before. Interesting. Hey, the movie's starting! Finally, sheesh. Wait, what the... woodpeckers and hearts? Is this some short?* Hmm... a short. [sarcasm] Ooh, look, everyone's copying Pixar. [end sarcasm] Huh... introducing the studios again. They all collaborated on this short? That seems unlike them. Wait a minute.... this is WAY too corny to be real. What are they .. oh, no way. No WAY. This .. oh, this had better be The Littlest Elf ... come on, come on, Littlest Elf, Littlest Elf, Littlest - LITTLEST ELF!! YAAAAAAH!!! I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!!!**

*I hadn't known "Boundin'" was going to be on The Incredibles and when it started I was thinking "but ... this doesn't look like a superhero movie!" I thought the same thing was happening here.

**Note the Five Exclamation Points of Insanity. (See Terry Pratchett's Maskerade. Or, rather, read it, and do so after seeing Phantom of the Opera so you get the parodical elements.)

I dutifully jotted down notes in my rust-brown notebook all the way home, taking care not to be seen, and shall transform them into some sort of long-winded review over the weekend, when I am not working, or sampling cheeses.

Scream and Run Away

This is the song that should have been on the credits of the movie ...

SCREAM AND RUN AWAY

The Count has an eye on his ankle
And lives in a terrible place.
He wants all your money, he's never at all funny,
He wants to remove your face.
And you might be thinking what a romp this is...
But wait till you meet his accomplices!
When you see Count Olaf,
You're suddenly full of
Disgust and despair and dismay;
In the whole of the soul of
Count Olaf there's no love
When you see Count Olaf, count to zero -
Then scream and run away!
Scream, scream, scream, and run away -
Run run run, run run run run
Or die, die die die, die die die die, die die die!

Two women with powdered white faces,
And one long-nosed bald man with warts.
Things worsen and worsen, there's a hook-handed person,
And others with nastier parts.
This evil and unpleasant crew
Complete Count Olaf's acting troupe
The goal of Count Olaf
Is getting control of
The fortunes of urchins and orphans, hooray* --
I mean horrors, Count Olaf
Is no laughing matter:
When you see Count Olaf, count to zero -
Then scream and run away!
Scream, scream, scream, and run away -
Run run run, run run run run
Or die, die die die, die die die die!
Run, run run run, run run run run,
Or die, die die die, die die die die, die die die!

I wish I could provide you with a link to a place where you can actually hear this song, but despite their infinite coolness, HarperCollins removed the "Count Olaf" section of the Snicket site and replaced it with a page devoted to the movie. Boooo. I mean, the movie already HAS its own page, courtesy of Dreamworks/Universal/Nickelodeon/Whatevercompanytheyhiredtomaketheirpage, surely all they needed to do was add a link! Sigh...

I can only hope that, at the conclusion of the series, the Gothic Archies will release a CD of all the songs used on the audio books. They rock.

In my searches, though, I discovered two interesting pages:

This site has guitar chords for the song. (it's in 3/4 time!)

And ... this one has a quiz thingy... Apparently, for me, Olaf will come disguised as a popcorn vendor. His plan will be to kill Sunny & Klaus and kidnap Violet, which is thwarted when Violet invents a ... (that's literally what it said, "when Violet invents a...") The applicable assistant(s) will be a white powdered face woman, no one will die (!), and ...(my favourite)... Escape: I don't. I hide! (It's like the quiz knows me or something.)

*hooray - This is my interpretation... Stephen Merritt, who sings this in the recording, does not have the world's best diction. The only concrete facts about this word are that it has two syllables and that the first vowel is more closed than the second. The best I could come up with, after listening to it obsessively, was "hooray," even though it doesn't make much sense, besides sounding kind of like "horrors." The only place to double-check it would be Daniel Handler's interview on Fresh Air, but alas, he only sings the first verse. Curses!

I promise I'll stop using footnotes. Someday.