Category: Film

Interesting analysis by SceneCraft:

(For once, the comment section actually has some good insights… people are clearly passionate about which version they like better, and the reasons behind why they think it’s better.)

And here’s a side-by-side compilation:

It has to be noted that the above isn’t an entirely fair comparison. The compilation only shows selected shots, without showing the context of each shot, or what came before or after it. It merely takes the most similar looking shot in each scene, and juxtaposes them together. While this is still a useful tool to compare some visual differences, you can only truly compare the films by watching them one after the other.

Addendum: an interesting look at the unusual five-arc structure of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

Vulture article

A while back I decided to compile some of my favorite shots from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. The design of this film is terrific, but I especially love Emmanuel Lubezki’s work.

I wanted to understand what made these shots look so visually interesting, so I compiled some of my favorites. This is not an exhaustive collection, these are just some shots that stood out to me.

The ASC also has a great profile on how Lubezki achieved some of these shots.

I know a lot of people have problems with this film as it relates to the books. I would say the books were not really meant to be films. Their repetitive structure and word-based humor works well on paper, but doesn’t adapt well to screen.

Given these factors, I would say any liberties that were taken in the 2004 adaptation were for the better, and that this was probably the best version one could create from the souce material. (And yes, I’ve seen the Netflix adaptation.)