Netflix Adapts “A Series of Unfortunate Events” for the Small Screen
By Leah Liceaga
Photo by Leah Liceaga.
Are you familiar with the Baudelaire orphans? The three are the protagonists in Daniel Handler’s book series, “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” written under the pen name Lemony Snicket. The books have been turned into a Netflix series, with the first season already up and a second one promised. Neil Patrick Harris stars as Count Olaf, Patrick Warburton as narrator Lemony Snicket, Malina Weissman as Violet, and Louis Hynes as Klaus. Baby Sunny is played by Presley Smith, and voiced by Tara Strong.
Before I begin my review of the series, I will introduce the Baudelaires for those who may be unfamiliar with Handler’s work.
The orphans consist of the eldest child, Violet, an inventor; middle child, Klaus, the only boy, with a brilliant mind, who never forgets what he reads; and baby Sunny, the biter, whose teeth can cut through almost anything. Their sad tale of misery and woe filled a total of 13 books, published from 1999 to 2006. Since the final book was published, someone who seems to have taken depraved pleasure in their pain concocted the dreadful idea of bringing the Baudelaires’ woes from ink and paper to television.
With actor Patrick Warburton in the role of narrator Lemony Snicket, the first season depicts the first four books of the series over eight episodes; “The Bad Beginning,” “The Reptile Room,” “The Wide Window,” and “The Miserable Mill.” The show follows all of the books quite faithfully, which many fans, like myself, will no doubt find satisfying. It includes all of the Baudelaires’ tragic luck after the death of their parents.
In the first episode, the audience is shown the heartbreaking reaction of the Baudelaire children as they learn they are now the Baudelaire orphans from the family banker Mr. Poe, played by K. Todd Freeman. The loneliness and uncertainty of what will become of them as they spend a few uneasy days with Mr. Poe’s family, and the disappointment in discovering the squalor they will live in with their selfish guardian Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris) is admittedly depressing to watch. Olaf quickly reveals that he only wants the Baudelaires’ fortune and treats them like servants. It is a depressing, but fitting, start to the show.
As in the books, the Baudelaire orphans rise to the challenges thrown at them, and they discover that they did not know everything about their parents. With the possibility that one of those secrets may have resulted in the Baudelaire parents’ deaths, the children try to find out more. With sardonic humor to lighten the woefully depressing, and the depressingly woeful, hardships of the children as they fight to uncover the past, their journey comes to life flawlessly on the screen.
There are divergences from the book, however, that make the show’s storyline differ from the original story, particularly if one has read the books beforehand like myself. There is subplot with Mr. Poe’s assistant, Jacquelyn Scieszka (Sara Canning) working incognito. She likely has the answers the Baudelaires are seeking about their parents’ pasts, but must chase after Count Olaf to stop his nefarious schemes against the orphans. There was no such subplot mentioned in the books, but it is interesting to watch- --along with the character Jacquelyn- --as she does everything she can to aid the Baudelaires and stop Olaf.
Each episode is also nearly an hour long, which may tempt some viewers to fast-forward to get to the excitement; the inevitable confrontation between Olaf and the Baudelaires. When his schemes are on the edge of succeeding, the orphans must act to save themselves.
The entire first season awaits those brave enough to watch, though I implore you once more, if this review has not done its job, to find a more cheerful source of entertainment. I believe Lemony Snicket recommended a book called “The Littlest Elf.”
ReelAbilities Returns to Lehman
By Leonel Henriquez
Kitty Lunn, star of “Dancing on Wheels,” shares her experience with the audience. Photo by Leonel Henriquez.
On March 6 and 7, the ninth annual ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York returned to Lehman for the fifth year running. The festival showcased ten films from all over the world---features, narrative shorts, and documentaries---on the lives of individuals with a wide range of disabilities and their families as they cope with their day- to-day lives. Some were born with disabilities such as Autism or Down syndrome, while others acquired them later in life through traumatic experience, illness or disease. “By bringing these films to the campus we’re really trying to raise awareness,” said Merrill Parra, the Director of Student Disabilities Services at Lehman. “The bottom line is that disability is only one characteristic of what a person is all about.” The festival aims not only to educate people about the lives of the disabled, but also to show the commonality of the human condition shared by everyone, and that each person has a struggle to overcome in life.
For James Roll, a 2009 Lehman grad with an M.A. in recreation attending for the fourth time, the best part of the festival is, “trying to get some of the other students who don’t have disabilities or people in their lives with disabilities to come in to watch and see how much like everybody else they really are. They’re really just like anybody else.”
This year was the first time Doreen Mendez, a 50-year-old who survived a stroke five years ago, attended the festival. Now suffering from aphasia, a form of language impairment, Mendez came because, “I am interested in advocacy for disabled people after this happened to me. That’s why I wanted to see other people that are going through the same thing and what else they need that I have not seen yet.”
One festival highlight was an appearance by Kitty Lunn, the subject of the film directed by Qingzi Fan, “Dancing on Wheels.” Lunn, 66, is a dancer who was paralyzed from the waist down after falling on ice in front of her building in Manhattan in 1990. She spent three years in the hospital and underwent five spinal surgeries.
“Being a dancer was my identity,” she told the audience.“It’s one thing when a dancer decides they want to stop dancing and do something else but that’s their choice. I felt like my identity had been stripped away from me and I didn’t really know who I was.” The film chronicles her life as a wheelchair dancer, teacher and choreographer and is an inspirational testimony to her struggle to identify as a disabled dancer.“ I was terrified,” she recalled.“ I had been dancing since I was eight years old, but I had to find a way.”
New Animal Planet Series Explores the Bronx Zoo’s Inner Workings
By Abrian De Luna
Our very own Bronx Zoo is the focus of Animal Planet’s “The Zoo.” Source: NYC-arts.org.
“The Zoo,” a new documentary series in the opening sequence of every episode, from Animal Planet that debuted in “If you ask a child to draw picture of a February, uncovers what goes on behind zoo, chances are they’re going to draw the scenes at the Bronx Zoo. It attempts an animal behind bars. We gotta take to enlarge audiences’ views of both the that image and change it.”
“The Zoo” does this partly by detailing from Times Square, has 6000 animals what the general public does not see and 530 employees---and its borough. As happening behind closed doors. For Bronx Zoo Director Jim Breheny puts it, example, in the first episode, a silverback gorilla named Ntondo is responding to target training more slowly than usual, indicating something is wrong. It turns out that Ntondo had glaucoma, which increases pressure in the eyes, damaging them and causing vision loss. Ntondo needed laser eye surgery, which Breheny said was something that the staff had never done before. This was the first documented case of a gorilla suffering from glaucoma. Viewers get to see Ntondo being prepped, the operation itself, and how it succeeded in preventing his vision from deteriorating further.
The series also does an endearing job of showcasing the staff’s passion for the animals. In the second episode, Melanie Lumba, zookeeper of the children’s zoo, introduces her favorite animal, Mert, as “the best goose in the whole world.” We see the two walk around the zoo together, with Lumba opening doors and clearing paths for him. She even has full-on conversations with him, and when Mert has to be sent to an animal hospital for a check-up, we see Melanie is genuinely concerned for him as if he was her own child.
The staff often looks heroic as they help animals in need. In the third episode, when a western diamondback rattlesnake needs oral medication to treat an infection, Bill Orrico, senior reptile and amphibian keeper, moves the snake into a bucket and then puts its head into a tube. He mentions this is the most dangerous part because it puts his hand in danger of being bitten by the rattlesnake, which then has to open its mouth so that a catheter is inserted deep enough into its throat to administer the medication. Naturally, the rattlesnake is agitated, so the danger of being bitten is very real. Orrico admits this is stressful for him and the staff, but he has to make sure the rattlesnake gets its medication.
“The Zoo” also provides viewers a chance to learn about obscure animals such as maleos, an endangered bird species from Indonesia. They can make vocalizations which Alana O’Sullivan, senior keeper of the ornithology department which studies birds, said “don’t even sound like they’re from this planet.” Viewers are then treated to see the courtship rituals maleos undertake, consisting of the birds sharing peanuts, which O’Sullivan describes as “maleo crack.” However, the series could do better at giving viewers more context and basic information about the animals, such as noting how many maleos remain in Indonesia and how many the Bronx Zoo has, in order to really sell the conservation mission as well as explaining how its work applies to the study of birds.
Overall, “The Zoo” is a great documentary series that is easy to get into. It shows that the Bronx Zoo is not only a place to display animals that the public would normally never see, but also a haven for endangered and unique animals. This focus on rare animals make each episode stand out from a typical zoo visit, and does a fine job of shining a spotlight on what makes the Bronx Zoo special.
New episodes of “The Zoo” air on Saturdays on Animal Planet.