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Silence of the Lambs (1991) - Page 2

post #51 of 59
7/22/10 at 6:12am
I know who the obvious scapegoat is on Red Dragon, but I just don't think the story is all that great to start with. It feels like a rough draft for Silence to me, as a novel and a film.

That said, the real problem with Red Dragon is a lack of ambition. All it wants to be is a cool serial killer flick, and compared with the weight of what Silence is doing, it feels garish and shoddy. It's not even really a horror film. Hannibal at least tried some shit out.
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post #52 of 59
7/22/10 at 6:30am
As you said, though, RED DRAGON is essentially just a great airport paperback. I think a better director could've made it a great time at the movies, but it was never going to compete with either of its predecessors.
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post #53 of 59
7/22/10 at 6:54am
Yup, that's it precisely. And it's really not that terrible. It just slips right away the second it ends. The only reason to hold anything against it is that it marked the exact moment where Hopkins as Lecter became purely shtick.
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post #54 of 59
7/22/10 at 7:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd View Post
I'd be curious to hear what you think. I don't like Manhunter very much, but a lot of people really seem to. My self-serving theory is it's a contrarian view. I really dislike William Peterson in it, and the 80s cop show funk sticks to it like cat hair. I think I'd rather watch Red Dragon again, because it at least had Ralph Fiennes.
This pretty much is it. Silence Of The Lambs was being universally fellated, for good reason, so people thought that saying how under-appreciated and in some respects even better than Lambs Manhunter was, would earn them cool points.
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post #55 of 59
7/22/10 at 7:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca S. View Post
They sometimes do just that for audio commentaries, actually.

Manhunt is a video game. Manhunter is a Michael Mann movie. Coincidentally, the villainous warden from Manhunt is voiced by Brian Cox.
God, you're right!

Now that's Cox going "big".
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post #56 of 59
7/22/10 at 8:23am
Think I said this in another thread, but part of the reason for the Manhunter preference may be that some Mann fanboys dislike the idea of Demme making a better movie than Mann did.

Always took Hannibal the book as Harris' fuck-you to the mass audience for effectively making Lecter, as has been said above, Uncle Hannibal.

Harris writes so seldom that I kind of wish he'd left Lecter alone after the first two books and moved on to something else. Though I liked Hannibal the book and movie for different reasons.

I remember one review of Silence at the time saying that for all we know, Clarice could be gay. (In the movie, anyway. In the book she ends up with one of the moth guys.) Her sexuality doesn't enter into the story one way or another.

Ironically, would we say she fails the Bechdel test? She seldom talks to her female roommate and when she does it's generally about a man (Lecter, Buffalo Bill). Other than that she's always talking to men.
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post #57 of 59
7/22/10 at 9:36am
Well, she talks to Catherine Martin about remaining calm. Pass!
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post #58 of 59
7/22/10 at 9:38am
Forgot about that.

Although isn't the extent of the conversation something like:

"HALP I'M IN HERE"
"I GET YOU OUTA THERE SOON"
"GEMME OUTA HERE YOU FUCKIN BITCH"
"STFU"
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post #59 of 59
7/23/10 at 2:15am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Blank View Post
Ironically, would we say she fails the Bechdel test? She seldom talks to her female roommate and when she does it's generally about a man (Lecter, Buffalo Bill). Other than that she's always talking to men.
Talking about serial killers is (hopefully) not the same as talking about "boys." So she totally passes. Also she and her roommate are so seriously gay it's not even funny.
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