Will have to have a look at the A.S.O.U. Events another time. The film was received well, wasn't it?
I can't remember how well it was received generally but it got a mixed reception from fans of the books. Judged on its own merits, it was pretty good. Jim Carrey made a decent Count Olaf - a restrained performance by his standards, although the character allowed him some scope for doing his usual Jim Carrey thing. The kids were very good as well. The main problem was that it had to cram the content of the first three books into a single feature-length movie, so a lot of what was great about the books was simply discarded, which definitely irked the purists. And it ended up being much more of an outright comedy than the books. I liked it though. I thought it was funny.
I've only seen a few episodes of the TV series so far but it's clear that the more expansive format allows them to follow the meandering narrative style of the books more faithfully. My only concern is that it might end up feeling
too expansive - the plot of each book is essentially the same, and the repetition and running jokes work really well in book form, but might start to wear a bit thin on screen.
It also strikes me that the magical realist style does slightly blunt some of the darker elements - Count Olaf is essentially reduced to a pantomime villain and perhaps not really menacing enough, certainly not as menacing as he comes across in the books. So when he hits Klaus across the face, it does seem slightly out of character. Which it shouldn't. But then I guess you have to be very careful when depicting violence towards children on screen. I do like the fact that they've got Doogie Howser to play the part though.
They should have got David Lynch to direct it. Although maybe then it wouldn't have been suitable for children...