With the widely-dreaded December 17th release date of
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events less than twelve weeks away, orphans around the globe were taken aback this week by a sudden flurry of disheartening activity.
* A new preview for the film began appearing in theaters everywhere. Thousands of young viewers reported that the trailer - seen here - was "even more unfortunate" than the one shown in theaters early last summer. A spokesperson for Paramount Pictures declined to comment between sobs.
* The Grim Grotto, the eleventh book in Lemony Snicket's chronicles of the Baudelaire children, appeared in bookstores. In a matter of days, the controversial book has wreaked havoc with the sunny demeanor of young people and bestseller lists across the United States. Suspiciously, the book's publisher was least seen boarding a submarine off the coast of Long Island.
* The website at UnfortunateEventsMovie.com has been radically altered to be much worse. The completely redesigned site, which continues to evolve, now features an appalling amount of information about the upcoming motion picture and the unfortunate characters that will appear in it, including what appear to be files from the Desk of Lemony Snicket. Even more disturbing, the site contains almost as many hidden eyes as there are pictures of terrible villains.
* The website at CountOlaf.com has been named "Really, Really Upsetting" by BUSTED (Baudelaires' Underage Supporters Timidly Exploring Discourse), an orphan advocacy group. The website, run by Count Olaf, continues to set new standards for villainous content; Count Olaf's latest Blog entries alone have led thousands of users to resign from the Internet.
The Snicket Report will continue to monitor the situation, but experts agree that the outlook is partly cloudy with rain in the evening. However, there is certainly nothing stopping you from subscribing to a more cheerful news outlet, like "Yarn Games for Giggly People," if you prefer that sort of thing.
