Thursday, November 07, 2002

Pesky the Rat Movie Review: The Hannibal Lechter films Sick little rat that I am, I have snuggled up with a few delicious DVDs  over the last few weeks. Settling on a theme was easy, with Red Dragon, the latest film related to the Thomas Harris novels now in theaters, and Silence of the Lambs being one of my all-time favorite movies. I have a special advantage as a rat. You see, it is physically impossible for us to vomit. We'll start at the beginning, with Manhunter starring William Peterson of recent CSI fame.  Manhunter is a well-crafted film based on the Harris novel Red Dragon, as is the more recent film by that name. Peterson is excellent as a moody, thoughtful FBI agent Will Graham, and Brian Cox gives the first big-screen Hannibal Lechter an under-your-skin sort of performance. Rodents never become serial killers, mainly because we have short attention spans, and so I find films of this sort endlessly fascinating. Manhunter gets 4 pieces of  rotting theater popcorn out of 5. I noticed that in all the films there are a lot of ceiling fans. Whenever at a loss for ideas, each director, from Michael Mann (Manhunter) to Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) to Ridley Scott (Hannibal) to Brett Ratner (Red Dragon), at some point the camera focuses heavily on a ceiling fan. Now, as a rat, I have once or twice gotten unexpectedly caught in a ceiling fan, and so I found these images disturbing.  This of course wasn't as bad as Moulin Rouge (the Baz Lurhman version), which had that giant windmill thingie. I couldn't sleep for a week after that one. SWOOSH! SWOOOSH! I could just see my little whiskers getting caught in the mechanism. SWOOSH! Oh dear, why did I bring that up. Silence of the Lambs needs no introduction for most readers, I think. An excellent film, it is the first to feature Anthony Hopkins as a more aristocratic Hannibal than Brian Cox's. Jodie Foster is the best of all the hero/heroine leads in any of the films. The main feature of this movie, however, is the stupendous performance by Fluffy the Dog. Overlooked by critics and grossly underpaid, Fluffy unfortunately turned to a life of drugs and crime and is no longer with us, yet another Hollywood tragedy. However, we can still appreciate Fluffy's subtleties--the look of confusion as the kidnap victim beckons him from the pit of doom, his naive love for his evil master--I could go on and on. It's like watching Olivier at his height. Silence gets 5 rotting pieces of popcorn out of 5. Hannibal is the last film sequentially, but the third one to be produced. Hannibal pretty much sucked. I just watched this one yesterday, and the strongest reaction I can produce for this film is simply: yuck. The entire movie seems to be built around one unnattractive idea involving pigs. No I know a few pigs, and the sorts of things they do in this film are not the sorts of things pigs would ever, in a million years, do in real life. I realize this is fiction, but the leap was too great. Now if that had been Janet the Snake and her cronies doing the buffet at the end,  I would have believed it.  Hannibal gets 1 piece of rotting popcorn out of 5. Another bad thing about Hannibal: it lacks the humor of the other two Hopkins-as-Hannibal films. Hannibal Lechter is in many ways, funny. I know this sounds sick and wrong, but I don't care. The opening scene of Red Dragon had me and the rest of the audience laughing hysterically.  I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it, but go on an empty stomach and enjoy. Red Dragon is almost as good as Silence of the Lambs, and has a nice literary theme for Wiliam Blake fans. It contains the obligatory ceiling fan scenes, of course. The ending is very different than Manhunter, and both films can be appreciated seperately.  I did like the serial killer "Tooth Fairy" better in Manhunter, but I liked Edward Norton just slightly better as the lead in Red Dragon.  Fuzzy actors, unfortunately, don't get a lot of time in this film, as they're all generally dead and buried by the time the protagonist shows up, but there's a few moments for Wimpy the Dog.  Red Dragon, unlike Hannibal, has video collection potential. 4 pieces of popcorn out of 5. That's the Pesky the Rat movie review for this week.  Remember: when you go to the theater, watch where you step. I may be there in the aisle, chewing on stale popcorn. 8:46:00 AM