My Eyes Are Rectangles

Infinite Loops

2010-10-18T15:51:00.011-04:00

Triangle 2009

Dir: Christopher Smith

Rated: R

I had a migraine by the time the end credits of this particular movie started. Because I felt like I'd been brained with the Confuse-O-Stick® and left to deal with what everything might mean in the consequences of the actions Jess (Melissa George) perpetrates. So this one's going to be shorter than usual. It starts off in a confusing place. I'd be more detailed about it all, but I'm still trying to patch the ragged quilt of plot together. It's not out of sequence in the way that Pulp Fiction was—where everything comes full circle and makes sense at the end. Everything does come full circle, but it still makes no sense.

Long story short, Jess is taking a boat trip with her friend Greg on a Saturday morning. She's preparing to leave and presumably takes her autistic son, Tommy, to school so he can be looked after while she's gone. But when she arrives at the dock, Greg can tell something is off with her because Jess looks incredibly confused. His other friends (Sally, Downey, Heather, and deckhand Victor) can't ignore her odd behavior and the girls rudely whisper like high school gossip hounds on the stern of the boat. At this point, even though I'm confused by Jess, I already really don't like Sally. I might have liked Heather if she'd spent more time in the movie. But that's giving away a plot point.

This is kind of like how I ended up looking by the end of this movie... Tired and confused.

They sail out until the wind just up and dies on them, and like in any good "scary" movie our heroes are headed right for a huge storm while stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Sure, they try calling the coast guard, but see it's an electrical storm so the radio is all messed up. Greg does get a hold of someone for a second who sounds distressed, but the storm capsizes the boat and Heather is missing when they all climb on the wreck and try to think about what to do next.

My question is: What was the point of Heather in the first place? I felt no emotional connection to her at all. She's a stranger to me and to Jess and Sally's frantic shrieking about her just makes me feel less. Because I do not like Sally. Sally needs to shut the hell up.

So they finally see this cruise ship heading toward them and climb on board when they see someone peek over the side on the upper deck. Jess keeps mentioning that she can't shake the feeling that she's been there before and everyone else doesn't believe her. She hears things in stereo at one point, finds her car keys on the floor, and they all split up once they reach the dining hall to see if they can find anyone to help them.

Since when is splitting up ever a good idea in these kind of movies?

Jess ends up on her own after a bit of an argument with Greg and, thanks to a mirror with "GO TO THE THEATER" written on it in blood, Jess eventually makes her way there. But not before an injured Victor tries to strangle her and she accidentally kills him when she shoves him away from her. Jess then runs to the theater and finds Sally and Downey screaming over Greg's body—saying she shot him and generally shrieking a lot. Both get shot by a masked figure and Jess runs.

She eventually fights the figure off and it warns her, muffled through the Scarecrow mask, that she needs to kill everyone to leave. Jess isn't having any of this nonsense and, after wresting the shotgun away, shoots this person and then watches as he/she falls overboard.

Then Jess sees the boat. The capsized boat she'd just been trapped on a few hours earlier. This means it was her that they'd all seen lean over the railing.

And so the infinite loop begins. Jess has to dodge her duplicate and find a way off the damn cruise ship. It just so happens that Scarecrow up there was right. Jess does have to kill all of these people to get back home to her son. So she dons the boiler suit, puts on the mask, and picks up the shotgun.

There are some really disturbing visuals of the piled-up bodies of Sally copies that just make me feel even more confused than I already was. Eventually, Jess reaches the point in the time loop where her "first" encounter with herself occurred. She lands in the ocean and wakes up on the beach back home.

I am still really confused.

Jess gets back home and, disturbingly, she overhears herself screaming at Tommy. Apparently she either blocked this from her memory or it's just another plot hole. In any case, Jess sneaks into her house and kills herself. In front of her son who, naturally, freaks out.

Is it considered "suicide" if you stuff your own body in the trunk and happen to be alive to do that?

Whatever. At this point I was glaring at the screen.

So after Mommy Dearest whacks herself and stashes the dead body in the trunk of the car, she proceeds to drive Tommy to school like nothing happened. She's telling him things will "be different" when a seagull rams into her windshield. Add this to the list of traumatic things Tommy's had to deal with in his morning. Jess gets out of the car to toss the gull over an embankment and we see a huge pile of seagulls much like the multiple Sally pile-up. My head really hurts at this point.

It gets worse. I'm just going to spoil the ending because I'm still a little mad at myself for watching this.

Because Tommy is upset about the bird blood still on the windshield, Jess is distracted and ends up steering into oncoming traffic. She is thrown from the car, but Tommy and her dead body are still in the wreckage. Strangely, she ends up standing near a taxi driver (who says nothing can be done for them) and asks him to drive her to the harbor.

Then the movie pretty much starts over.

Remember how I said Jess was a little out of it when she met Greg at the dock? Now we know it's because she's dealing with the whole "I killed my son" thing.

Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it 81% on the tomato-meter (out of 37 critics, 30 gave it a "fresh" and 7 said it was "rotten"). I happen to fall in the other 45% of the audience that did not like this movie. I will admit the acting from Melissa was (as always) great. Perhaps it was just that the story idea was too much for my tiny brain to wrap around—the idea of filling up a cruise ship with dead bodies until one different fractal finally lets her get home when she can save Tommy from herself. Granted, it's a new twist on the whole "stalker killer" trope, but I didn't like these characters.

I get tired thinking about Triangle. On a scale of "NO" to "AWESOME" I give it a half-hearted "Meh."

Who Would Want To Live Forever?

2010-09-04T20:53:00.062-04:00

Immortality (or The Wisdom of Crocodiles) 1998

Dir: Po-Chih Leong

Rated: R

Okay, I give. I'm a big fan of vampire movies and I've been trying to find one as unique as Near Dark for a while now. And, while I love 30 Days of Night and its constant level of "this really sucks for these people," I do enjoy the more subtle vampire story even more.

This happens to be damn near impossible to find, by the way.

Jude Law as a vampire? This was too interesting to pass up.

That's better, Jude.

I only stumbled across The Wisdom of Crocodiles (Immortality to those of us in the US) because I've been on a Jude Law "binge." I think I sat here and watched eXistenZ about five times in a row (I'll review that one later). My brain wandered off into La La Land while he chowed down on some truly disgusting looking fish in one scene and I ended up ticking off movies I hadn't seen with Jude.

This one popped up.

It took me ages to find a copy of it—and even then it's only a digital file. But it is available through Amazon.com and (I'm assuming) Netflix.

Jude plays this guy named "Steven Grlscz." That's pronounced "Grill-sh."

No, really. He has no vowels in his last name.

In the opening of the movie, we're introduced to him and his goofy hair as he watches his girlfriend's car get pulled out of a tree. In the background, you can hear one of the mechanics wondering out loud to someone "where all the blood is."

Steven seems to take this news rather well and goes off in search of a new girl. He finds Maria on the Underground platform and stops her from jumping in front of a speeding train. Long story short, Steven gets her to fall in love with him, then kills her all vampire-like, and disposes of the body on the coast when the tide is out.

OH MY GOD, JUDE, I WOULD NOT HAVE GONE THAT DIRECTION WITH THE HAIR.

There is an interesting moment where he demonstrates just how fast he is by sitting way across the room from her at one point, telling her to close her eyes, and BAM! He's right in front of her. It's your basic "I'm showing off" scene that is strangely charming.

He's finally rid of the awful hairdo the next time we see him. He's sketching a lovely woman named Anne (played by Elina Löwensohn) who is an engineer at a building site where she's giving some kids a tour of the place. He strategically sets up a guarantee that he'll meet her later and they end up starting a relationship.

I say "relationship" because Steven doesn't try to trick Anne—he's actually himself quite a bit around Anne. Not like the act he put on for Maria.

The thing is, the police found Maria's body. And they have a link between her and Steven. It's enough of a link that the Inspector (Timothy Spall in a rare "non-creepy-dude" role) and Sergeant (Jack Davenport) question Steven about their relationship. They also follow him for at least a week or so.

Hi, Admiral Norrington!

LOOK! PETER PETTIGREW/BEADLE BAMFORD IS NORMAL FOR ONCE!

Steven keeps an entire hidden library full of scrapbooks with information on the women he's seduced and drained like Slurpees. He also keeps a wooden box with these crystals in it—each one is labeled for the woman it was essentially created from. As Steven mentions later on, he's writing a study on how the human body can actually create crystals when put under high amounts of stress. He postulates that each crystal can have its own emotion attached to it.

How does he get the "memento" crystals after feeding off his victims?

Think "kidney stones."

Yeah, they all look like this, too.

That one hurt me.

Again, like Near Dark, the "v" word is never said aloud. In fact, I'm not even sure if this counts as a vampire movie. Yes, he drinks blood (but says he feeds on the emotion in the blood). Yes, he is ageless. Yes, he's incredibly fast and gifted. But he also has a reflection, no aversion to crucifixes, and can walk around in daylight. That last one is handy considering Steven has a job at the hospital as a medical researcher ("I solve problems"). We do have a scene where he's comforting a young girl while he uses radiation on a cancerous mass in her abdomen. It's very sweet, actually. It shows how he can care for human life—he distracts her and makes her focus on his eyes as he works the machine.

See? Things don't seem so scary when your medical technician looks like this.

Despite his growing attachment to Anne (to me he was clearly in denial of his own feelings) he continues with the somewhat magpie-like act of picking up things she's doodled, writing notes on her character, and drawing portrait after portrait of her. He even tries to copy a swirling doodle she did on some engineering notes but can't quite get it right. So he staples the original in the creepy scrapbook.

He staples his finger.

The next day, on another date, Anne points to the band-aid and asks him what happened.

"This? I cut this saving a puppy from drowning." SMOOCH.

Then there's a scene involving a gang of hoodlums that Steven and the Inspector encountered earlier, but that's more fun to watch without knowing what the hell is going to happen.

Anyway, before I give even more of the plot away to all of this, I have to mention at least two more things. One is the Song Of Solomon. He and Anne recite it to each other and I cannot think of any other instance in film where the poem is used. It's romantic the way they speak it. Not a "lusty" type of romantic but a closer kind of attachment that really feels like it could be love. So it's all the more tragic when you see him later on after they've had a fight and he's folding a rubber sheet to get ready for eventual clean up and body disposal.

Then there's this... Bleeding from the ears is never a good sign. Especially when a new paper cut could make you bleed out.

No, no, no... That's not any better, Steven. That's actually the opposite of "better."

The other thing I need to mention is his depleting strength. He's gone so long without blood that his finger doesn't heal. He has to remember to breathe and keep his heart going. His body is literally eating itself and at one point he loses his eyesight.

See? NO GLITTERING. Much better.

Okay, since the movie is so hard to find, I will give away a little bit of the ending. He can't kill her. Not because he's too weak, but because he just likes her too much. He's spent more time with her than the other women. She's become a part of his life (if you can call it "life") and he forces himself to stay away from her even as he gets hungrier and his cut finger stops clotting altogether. The plot of Steven and his struggle with his survival instincts and his genuine care for this woman is not the only one. The cops are still looking for Maria's killer.

He even gets pulled into a line-up for the toll operator (WHO SAW HIM DRIVING THE "BODY-DUMPING" VAN) to identify at one point.

The secondary plot of the Inspector and Sergeant investigating Steven is actually just as interesting as the primary plot between Steven and Anne. Sometimes this kind of thing can leave one plot thread less wound than the other, but in Immortality both spools are full. It is equally as suspenseful to see Steven grow closer to Anne as it is to watch him speak one-on-one with the Inspector.

The original title comes from a conversation Steven and Anne have about how the brain works—which worms its way from the following block quote into a story Anne has about a watch she stole when she was little. She could afford it, but she just took it—and kept it to remind her of her shame.
"I once knew this doctor—a neurologist. He told me that we don't have one brain. We have three... One that is human built over another that is mammalian built over yet another that is reptilian. So when a psychiatrist asks you to lie down on a couch, you're being asked to lie down with a horse. And with a crocodile."
Steven also does this:

I dare you to try this and not fail.

Draw a portrait with one hand and write the Song Of Solomon with the other! IMPRESS THE LADIES!

I've watched it about three times in a row by now and have come to the conclusion that this story isn't just about how Steven is this odd immortal creature who kills women after he seduces them to keep looking young. It's more about his struggle to accept "letting go." And not from the female perspective at all. This is about Steven letting go. He mentions a childhood memory about falling out of a tree and snagging onto a branch and holding on until his arms were nothing but pain. He doesn't remember landing on the ground at all—he just remembers "the agony of holding on and the wonderful feeling of letting go." It's what he spends the entire time trying recreate and he can only do this by really letting go of the existence he's made for himself. Lonely, painful, and pretty darn illegal.

Proper vampires don't have only ONE facial expression. Some can cry.

And a normal woman gets freaked out when her boyfriend confesses that he wanted to kill her/tries to actually eat her.

This is another one for the "Jenn Recommends It" pile. I need to start reviewing bad movies, don't I?

AMBER Alert

2010-08-17T11:29:00.006-04:00

Hard Candy (2005)

Dir: David Slade

Rated: R

So sometimes we get these sleeper films that become cult and thus the focus of independent accolades. We also get real stories that don't fall into the category of "summer blockbuster" or "fall/winter/we're-hedging-for-an-Academy-Award drama." Hard Candy is one of those films that makes you think. Makes you wonder if there's a girl like Hayley Stark out there avenging those who can no longer speak for themselves. The abused, the murdered, the abducted...

To start, we have Hayley herself:

Ellen Page as Hayley. Playing a bright honor student who is only 14.

Hayley Stark has been Internet chatting with this guy named Jeff Kholver (Patrick Wilson). He's 32. He photographs models. At the beginning of the movie, you immediately feel uncomfortable for Hayley—automatically thinking that she's going to be taken advantage of in the worst way by this guy, and wanting her to be rescued by anyone. They chat online and then meet in person at a coffee shop where he buys her a T-shirt, has her model it for him, and then offers to email her a bootleg copy of a Goldfrapp concert. She "convinces" him to let her listen to it at his house with three reasons: One, she's been seen in public with him. Two, It's Goldfrapp. Three, four out of five doctors agree that she is insane. She gets in his car and they take a long and winding road up to his home.

He brings her a drink, but Hayley suggests she make her drink herself. She pours two screwdrivers and Jeff has no qualms in letting this 14 year-old drink vodka. He's none the wiser. By the time she suggests he take her portrait, Jeff has already given off enough skeevy vibes that when he passes out mid-photo session we feel grateful. As he falls to the floor the expression on Hayley's face reveals that she isn't as naïve as we think... Jeff wakes up tied to a computer chair and Hayley has dropped the "innocent" act.

"You remember what I said about never drinking anything you didn't mix yourself? That's good advice for everyone."

He screams for help, but she sprays chloraseptic in his mouth and tells him "next time, it'll be the bleach" and that she knows no one is around to help him. She explains that she has had multiple chat accounts to find him—that as soon as he found out she was older than 14, he'd stop chatting. He feebly denies it and claims the others "weren't interesting," but Hayley knows better. She knows he copied phrases from Amazon.com about certain obscure bands that she pretended to like ("I fucking hate Goldfrapp."). She knows something we, the audience, don't know. Something that passed us as a blip in the coffee shop in the poster for the missing Donna Mauer. When confronted with his behavior by Hayley—tied to a chair and unable to escape her relentless questioning—Jeff resorts to the blame game.

Jeff: You were coming on to me!
Hayley: Oh, come on. That's what they always say, Jeff.
Jeff: Who?
Hayley: Who? The pedophiles! 'Oh, she was so sexy. She was asking for it.' 'She was only technically a girl, she acted like a woman.' It's just so easy to blame a kid, isn't it! Just because a girl knows how to imitate a woman, does NOT mean she's ready to do what a woman does.
I mean, you're the grown up here. If a kid is experimenting and says something flirtatious, you ignore it, you don't encourage it! If a kid says 'Hey, let's make screwdrivers!' You take the alcohol away, and you don't race them to the next drink!

It's something you want blared from a loudspeaker for everyone to understand.

Hayley is methodical. While he was out, she searched Jeff's apartment for any porn—anything at all. But there's nothing. Not even a copy of Playboy. Which, to her (and me), is really "off." According to Hayley, single men don't hang up photos they've taken of barely clothed young girls throughout their home. She needs proof of Jeff's depravity and searches his computer after reading some private letters sent from Janelle, Jeff's previous obsession. His downloads indicate a pattern, but none of the files are on the computer—leading Hayley to believe he has it hidden somewhere. After an unsuccessful attempt to get her to stop, Jeff begins to finally realize he is not dealing with any normal girl (as Hayley says: "There's that word again; 'girl.'"). She grills him and, without a word, discovers he does, indeed, have things hidden away.

"Nothing's yours when you invite a teenager into your home."

As Hayley searches his place again and finds a gun under his bed. She tosses it on the mattress and continues her search. Jeff vainly tries to escape the tight knots she's used to tie him to the chair. But he stops when he hears rattling. There is a safe tucked into the coffee table and covered carefully in a bed of river rocks. She scoots him back out into the living room and asks him for the password. Underestimating her intelligence yet again, Jeff refuses to tell her. But she can read his face. After trying only five combinations, she finds out it's the date that Jeff first photographed (or had sex with) Janelle (the girl in the framed photo he keeps in his bedroom) and only has to guess on the year.

"This is what they make those Federal laws for, Jeff. This is officially sick."

She finds, amongst the photos and CDs labeled "Stuff" a photograph of Donna Mauer outside the same coffee house she met Jeff at. After asking him what was so special about that girl—why she got to "keep her clothes on," Hayley whispers that she recognizes the girl. Jeff promptly kicks her in the ribs and knocks her against a table, having freed his feet, and tries to get to the gun on the bed. Hayley recovers from the blow. By the time Jeff has the gun in hand and has wheeled back to the living room, Hayley seems to have vanished.

She ambushes him from behind, gets slammed repeatedly into the wall, narrowly escapes being shot, and successfully knocks Jeff out with the help of an entire roll of Saran Wrap. Hayley doesn't kill him. Time passes and Jeff wakes up practically hog-tied to that table he kicked Hayley into. And she's since removed his pants and dropped a Ziploc bag full of ice on his crotch. He threatens, feebly, that he'll call the cops and say he's never touched her. Hayley brings out the damning photograph of Donna. He admits to meeting Donna for coffee and claims he took the photo to make her "happy."

Jeff is still trying to maintain that "I did nothing wrong" front.

We then see that, instead of the layers of tank tops, Hayley has the top half of some medical scrubs on. She threatens to send an email to Janelle (whom Jeff is obviously still very attached to) and there is a lot of "Jeff tries to talk Hayley out of this" stuff—then begging once he realizes she's perfectly willing and capable of making good on her threat of castrating him.

"Turns out castration is one of the easiest surgical procedures around. There's thousands of farmboys across the country gelding their livestock. If they can do it, I think I can pull it off. If you know what I mean."

I won't spoil the rest of the movie (seeing as I've spoiled so much of it already), but it goes without saying that it is a tough subject to sit through. There is the implication of image, but we see nothing. By the end of it all I realized there was no "score" to be exact. The emphasis is all on the dialogue and these two characters. We find out just how messed up Jeff really is through Hayley's consistent pushing. It takes a while—long enough that we've been introduced to Jeff's truer nature.

Jeff: Who the hell are you?
Hayley: I am every little girl you ever watched, touched, hurt, screwed, killed.

It's another pertinent quote. Hayley is an enigma. But she really is every little girl out there who is seen as a potential victim or target. She embodies those kids we want to save from the pedophiles and despicable people out there. She also embodies that person we wish that we could have around to look out for those traumatized and abused children. But to my knowledge, there is no Hayley Stark.

"Honors student, remember? Nothing I can't do when I put my mind to it."

In the end she escapes easily and walks down the road—red hoodie flipped up and looking like an avenging angel for all the abused and damaged girls. We don't know who she is and if she's even finished with her mission to find the abductors of Donna Mauer. We don't even know if Donna is the only one Hayley has "investigated." She claims to not have never done some of the things she does to Jeff. She searches his home thoroughly and precisely. She handles herself with a professional air and, for a fourteen year old, is angry in a way that normal teenagers aren't. Hayley claims her "four out of five doctors agree that I am actually insane" quote is true. To be honest, she does seem like a functioning sociopath.

I wish there was a real Hayley Stark around to work as a vigilante for the "watched, touched, hurt, screwed, and killed." So, despite the delicate subject matter I honestly recommend Hard Candy as a serious film to watch. It's dramatic and heart-pounding—carefully constructed to engage us and suck us into the story to leave us with that "what brilliance did I just watch?" feeling.

And like that, poof. She's gone.

Hunting For the Real Antagonist

2010-06-01T08:16:00.013-04:00

The Hunted (2003)

Dir: William Friedkin

Rated: R

Yes, that William Friedkin. The one who directed William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. The man who created one of the scariest films of all time. Users on IMDb rate this particular movie a 5.8 out of 10 stars—considering the harsh grading curve of the site, that's actually on just this side of "It's okay." And while I'll admit I was engrossed in it because of my affection for Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro, there was something... "Lacking."

An antagonist.

Before I get too far into anything, I'd like to mention that Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" is used as a voice-over in the beginning. It's fairly fitting.

"God said to Abraham, 'Kill me a son.'
Abe says, 'Man, you must be puttin' me on.'
God says, 'No'; Abe says, 'What?'
God says, 'You can do what you want, Abe, but the next time you see me comin', you better run.'
Abe says, 'Where do you want this killin' done?'
God says, 'Out on Highway 61.'"

We're given Aaron Hallam (Del Toro) as our supposed antagonist, but I just feel too horrible for him to think of him as anything other than a victim. Remember First Blood and how John Rambo couldn't "turn off" his instinct to kill after the war? That's what Aaron is dealing with. He's Special Forces. At the beginning of the movie he's given an operation in Kosovo to carry out. He saves a lot of American soldiers, but looses part of himself during the brutal fight. The ultimate kick in the face is when he is awarded the Silver Star for his actions.

He goes AWOL after that.

He snapped.

I think this is the reason why I don't feel Aaron can be considered an outright antagonist. Not when my heart is breaking for him as he tries in vain to reconnect with humanity through a woman and her daughter that he's gotten to know since his time in Special Forces. The little girl brings out the curious, human side of him that got lost somewhere between training with Tommy Lee Jones' character, L.T., and being turned loose on groups of militants in a war zone with just a knife. He's been writing L.T. for ages talking about how he's terrified and how the nightmares are worse and he doesn't want to be this killing thing anymore. How L.T. has been like a father to him...

Symbolically, L.T. (who is living in Canada) releases a wolf from an illegal snare and dresses the animal's wound in one of the stranger moments in cinema—one of those things where you swear you know a guy like this and he's a wise man with the patience of the most strong-willed man. Despite his former job of training Special Forces (he isn't military) how to survive in the wilderness and kill with maximum efficiency, L.T. has never killed a man. Halfway through the movie, my brain inevitably linked him with Ben Kenobi.

Aaron hides in the woods in Portland and in his dementia brutally murders two elk hunters (they say "deer" in the movie but show an elk). Though the creepifying conversation they have as Aaron tracks them trough the woods is so cryptic I'm still not sure if the hunters were confused or actually sent out there to kill him. They don't succeed. This gains the FBI's attention and they bring L.T. in to see if he can find their "perps." No one thinks one man could have slaughtered the two hunters on his own.

It's when the two finally meet in the woods that the conflict loses it's credibility. Aaron is obviously conflicted and hurting—paranoid and wary of anyone. He is so damaged that we know within the first few minutes of him talking to L.T. that he will most likely die by the end of the movie.

I did warn you about spoilers...

The FBI manages to arrest Aaron. They don't get to talk to him for very long.

What follows is a chain of events that could have really made the movie much more interesting plot-wise had they not dismissed it ten minutes later with a massive wreck that has Aaron escaping military custody to visit the women he met who seem to ground him back in reality; Irene and her daughter Loretta.

Random fact: The home used in The Hunted where Irene and Loretta live is the same one used in Untraceable. It's a gorgeous home.

He wants so badly to tell her what he's been made to do, but he's terrified of scaring her. She's pretty much the only thing that is real to him in the world. In fact, he tells her he thinks it would be safer for her to leave Portland than stay anywhere near him for her and her daughter's safety. We don't hear what he tells her, but it's apparently convincing enough that she packs her bags and plans on leaving after picking Loretta up from school the next day.

I still haven't seen a flesh-and-blood antagonist. If we really have to pick, I'd say Aaron's mental disturbances. But that's a stretch. In a film like this one, it helps to have an antagonist that wants nothing more than to destroy the main character—and those guys were killed off in the wreck that allows Aaron to escape.

After another brush with L.T. and the FBI, Aaron goes on the run once more and we never hear of Irene or Loretta again. Both could be safe. Or, they could have been killed on their way out of Portland. I hate plotholes.

L.T. is finally given a chance to read one of the unmailed (or returned—it's never explicitly stated) letters addressed to him from Aaron and they all discover just how severe Aaron's lost grip on reality is. He thinks he's being hunted by robots.

Time out.

This? It felt like it was thrown in at the last second like: "Well, why is he all paranoid?" "Robots, dude. Terminators or something." "Sounds good."

No.

I understand leaving the air of ambiguousness in someone's motives leaves more to be discussed later on, but that was way out of left field. Aaron mentions those two elk hunters (still called deer hunters despite showing an elk at least three more times) were "sweepers" sent out after him. No more explanation is given. Though the creepy military guys that explain Aaron can't be held in FBI custody and belongs in military custody really did give off that X-Files vibe. And they were planning on killing him in the back of the transport van with a nasal poison in one of those tiny misting devices.

But we're taken back out into the wilderness after a really epic chase scene after Aaron runs out of Irene's house and takes off for the bridge (honestly, Tommy Lee Jones spends a lot of his career running after people) Aaron dives into the river to escape and L.T. takes it on as his "responsibility" to stop him.

He tracks Aaron down, and after a really painful looking knife fight (the fights, by the way, are amazingly real—the hits actually connect as proven by Del Toro's broken wrist during production) and I can't choose a side. Normally you pick one man to root for in a movie, but I've been hurting for both of them. L.T. never wanted to kill anyone—he just knows how and how to train people. Aaron never wanted to be stuck in that state of perpetual alert—he just wanted to serve his country.

So I guess the real antagonist could be the human conscience, but that feels lame. Even though the outcome was expected, it didn't hurt any less knowing that this man spent most of his life in a state of agony. Not physical, but mental. I think Tommy Lee Jones' action of placing his palm on Aaron's head once it's all over is gut-wrenching. The young man considered him to be like a father and L.T. could not have been that for him.

Aaron was lost.

It's a sad movie. Yeah, there are some amazing fight scenes and the like but my brain keeps cycling back to Fist Blood and that scene that actually makes me cry every time I see it:

Col. Trautman: You did everything to make this private war happen. You've done enough damage. This mission is over, Rambo. Do you understand me? This mission is over! Look at them out there! Look at them! If you won't end this now, they will kill you. Is that what you want? It's over Johnny. It's over!
John: Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war! You asked me, I didn't ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn't let us win! And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting. Calling me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me? Who are they? Unless they've been me and been there and know what the hell they're yelling about!
Col. Trautman: It was a bad time for everyone, Rambo. It's all in the past now.
John: FOR YOU! For me civilian life is nothing! In the field we had a code of honor, you watch my back, I watch yours. Back here there's nothing!
Col. Trautman: You're the last of an elite group, don't end it like this.
John: Back there I could fly a gunship, I could drive a tank, I was in charge of million dollar equipment, back here I can't even hold a job PARKING CARS!

Really, what do you do with your life if all you know how to do is kill? There is a sweet moment between Aaron and Loretta as he teaches her what the animal tracks in the backyard are, but that looming shadow of "you will never fit in" is still drearily above him

I liked The Hunted. I would have liked it more if the "super-secret-military-'Aaron-Hallam-doesn't-exist'" arc had been left open to explore.

Instead, it feels like Friedkin intended for us to despise Aaron for his brutal actions. Despite how wrong they are, I can't. Either it's because I've seen First Blood too much and my love for Benicio Del Toro's acting is getting in the way, or I'm missing something. Because I feel terrible for him.

The ending tag of the movie is of L.T. back up in his Canadian cabin burning Aaron's undelivered letters that mention his fears and desperation for L.T.'s advice or any sort of response at all. There was some small fleck of hope in those letters. Hope that Loretta and Irene could save him from himself. Hope that he could turn off that killing instinct. Hope that his father figure would hear him and offer up help.

It's bleak. We see the wolf from the beginning return in the distance and the movie ends with the Johnny Cash song again.

So what have I learned from this other than you can give me anything with Benicio Del Toro in it and I'll watch it?

Sometimes, life realistically emulated in film can be too dark. I turned it off feeling drained of happiness.

Near Dark Vs. Twilight

2010-05-22T00:44:00.018-04:00

Near Dark (1987) Dir: Kathryn Bigelow Rated: R

Twilight (2008) Dir: Catherine Hardwicke Rated: PG13

Here's a short summary of Near Dark from memory: Set in a small Oklahoma town, Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar) meets Mae (Jenny Wright) one night. They like each other and Mae pretty much falls in love with Caleb once they get to talking. He offers her a ride home. They kiss, Mae gets a little carried away, and Caleb is suddenly on his own and feeling like he's got the worst flu known to man.

Because Mae is a vampire. Which means he is turning into a vampire.

The "v" word is never mentioned in Near Dark. Not once.

Wanting to keep him, and the secret of her and her traveling companions (and her undead family), Mae brings Caleb in to the fold to meet Jesse (Lance Henriksen), Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), Severen (Bill Paxton), and Homer (Joshua Miller). We soon find out that Mae is nothing like her companions. Jesse is the father-figure, Diamondback is his mate, Homer pines for Mae but can't do anything about it because he's too "young" (even though he's really the oldest out of all of them), and Severen...

Severen is just plan batshit crazy.

I'm not even kidding. He wears sharpened spurs on his boots. And uses them. Not against a horse or anything—on a dude's neck when Jesse and the rest of the family initiate Caleb. They only even consider counting him as part of the group on Mae's insistence and Caleb's kickass moment of heroics when he saves them all from pretty much the entire Oklahoma police force in the middle of the day. And this is after he's turned completely (but he still never killed anyone—instead feeding from Mae when he got too hungry). Which makes him just as flammable in sunlight as the rest.

Put to the test, Caleb can't stand the thought of killing someone else. Mae doesn't have the taste for it either and she's really fallen in love with Caleb. She gives him the chance to run off and save himself and his family (Homer wanted to turn Caleb's sister for himself—he's old and alone in his child's body and wants a companion just like him) is kidnapped while she watches over Caleb.

In an interesting twist of mythos, Caleb could be cured by a blood transfusion (which, strangely, makes sense). I won't go into why Bill Paxton looks like someone used his face as a bullet-ridden Brillo Pad in the original poster, but let's leave it at: "Most awesome death of a vampire in a movie ever." Mae saves Caleb's sister, makes it back to him a little worse for the wear (sun burnt just a wee bit), and they use the same blood transfusion trick on her. The ending says that you don't have to change to fit in or impress a girl. Be yourself. We like you guys best when you aren't posturing or killing bartenders with spurs.

Now let's take a look at Twilight. Bella meets Edward. Bella finds out Edward is a vampire (Stephenie Meyer's version of a vampire, at least). Bella meets Edward's family. More vampires (the ebil kind) come after Bella. Edward saves Bella from the other vampires. Thus: she loves him. Despite a lack of chemistry and the fact that Bella is all up for being dying to be with him (literally), this is somehow a good role model for teen girls because of the symbolism of saving yourself before marriage. Except it's not.

Twilight tells girls that they should change to keep the love of their life. Near Dark tells us all that you can still be yourself to meet your perfect match and that person—the one willing to learn more about you rather than wait for you to change so they can commit—is the one for you.

Near Dark is rated R and has no sex—just a couple of really hot kisses between two adults (and a lot of violence). Twilight is PG13 and has an underaged teenaged girl making out with a 130 year old vampire in her bed. In her underwear. *raises her hands in confusion*

My real question is, WHY DID THEY FEEL IT NECESSARY TO CHANGE THE ARTWORK FOR Near Dark?! I apologize for yelling, but tell me which looks better and/or cooler.

This one that I wanna frame and put up on my wall:

Damn, Bill! What the hell happened to your face?!

Or this garbage that misrepresents the movie completely and looks like the Photoshop Disaster to end all Photoshop Disasters (I mean, look at how awful this is)?

Damn, Adrian! What the hell happened to your face?!

I understand that they might feel like someone would look at a copy of this thinking: "huh, this looks like Twilight" and pick it up out of curiosity. Honestly? That first cover up there had me way more interested in it when I first picked it up. I wanted to know just what the hell happened to get Bill looking like roadkill.

Bottom line? Buy Near Dark or add it to your Netflix queue. Just watch it. It's far more romantic and exciting than Twilight. And the acting is miles better. In this fight, Severen kicks Edward's ass.

Robert Downey Jr. is STILL Iron Man

2010-05-07T04:00:00.006-04:00

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Dir: Jon Favreau

Rated: PG13

This is probably going to be the only "new" review on this blog. Mostly because I started it to promote the lesser known/less watched films that snuck past our radars. And I wanted to do a few book reviews while I was at it. Come to think of it, I could actually review Matt Fraction's "Five Nightmares" storyline for the current Iron Man comics...

Okay enough. I saw the first Iron Man ten times in theaters. I have the ticket stubs as proof. It was the first movie in a long time that kept me interested the whole time and got me invested in the characters—even the bad guys. The fact that I love the character of Tony Stark because he's like a cross between the absent-minded professor and Batman (actually, Tony's richer than Bruce Wayne). He's a genius billionaire grease monkey playboy with a heart of poly alloys and an arc reactor and deep emotional stress regarding trust and the people closest to him.

So the first Iron Man was a total success in my book—and I couldn't think of anyone else to play Tony Stark than Robert Downey Jr. He is Tony Stark. 'Nuff said.

Onto the sequel... And I'm going to try and go easy on the spoilers. I know I have that warning up on the top of the page but if the movie is still in theaters when I post I feel like I'm being rude to the film makers.

I had tickets for the midnight showing of the IMAX Experience.

I bought my ticket last Thursday through MovieTickets.com

The theater was sold out—in the IMAX and the regular screenings. We were all amped up to see Iron Man 2 (one guy even came in with the mask on and got cheers) and buzzing in our seats. I couldn't sit still.

I even wore my Stark Industries shirt.

As everyone came in and filled all of the seats we had Mr. Usher Who Hates Disturbances give us that "shut off your cell phones and don't, for the love of God, text during the movie because it's annoying" speech. I turned my phone off. But not before using it to take a shot of the iPod app countdown that I had.

You can't read it, but that says "00:30:25"

Then the light's dimmed, we all got quiet and sat back for the trailers. The first ones, I honestly forgot what they were for. But TRON Legacy and Inception (a Christopher Nolan film) really got us going. The trailer for Twilight: Eclipse, however, was booed by all of us. And when I say that, think of over a hundred people hissing and making racket all at the same time. We were one organism. That was the power of this. I mean, it was even more charged than the first screening of Star Trek and that, coming from a Trekker, is powerful.

The movie started.

We all shut up and watched.

And by God, it was a good movie.

Hollywood is plagued by "bad sequel syndrome" but Iron Man 2 took what the first movie gave us and built upon it. We comic nerds got Justin Hammer (smarmy jerk extraordinaire—played by Mr. Affable Sam Rockwell) as a villain, Ivan Vanko AKA Whiplash (portrayed by Mickey Rourke in one of his best character roles) as another villain, and Tony Stark's own body as a third hurdle to surpass. Rhodes (I'm sorry, Terrence Howard, but I loved Don Cheadle more as Rhodey) felt more fleshed out as his character—Airman first, Tony's friend second, and in the end just extraordinary. He actually felt more like Tony's friend. I don't really know how to explain it...

As for Natalie (Natasha—it's Natasha Romanoff) as The Black Widow?

Holy hell. Scarlett Johansson knocked it out of the park. Literally. Okay, not literally, but she really—really—kicked some ass. Happy, our dear and beloved director Jon Favreau, FINALLY got to kick some ass on his own, too. Watch out for a Mike Tyson move from him and you'll know exactly what I mean.

I have no coherent words for how much I loved Sam Jackson as Nick Fury. He's just... WOW.

I will admit I am a big fan of the relationship (friendly and romantic) between Tony and Pepper. Not just from the movies, but in the comics as well. This film does not disappoint.

Character note: I don't agree with some of Pepper's taste in art. I can't stand Barnett Newman.

That pretty much rounds out my entire experience watching Iron Man 2. It does not disappoint. It surpassed my expectations almost entirely and even though the run time was long at two hours and four minutes it felt worth the length. Once again, I left the theater elated and feeling like every ounce of my energy spent waiting for the sequel was worth it—I never once felt bored. That is tough. I get bored fairly easily when it comes to superhero movies (don't get me started on Superman Returns). Not here.

I left the theater in high spirits, rolled down all of the windows in my CR-V, and blasted Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" and AC/DC's "Shoot to Thrill" as I drove out of the parking lot and home.

This was my stowaway during the film. The little repulsors in his hands somehow got turned on in the middle of the movie and I didn't notice until the end credits that my bag was glowing ever so much...

Now don't forget to stay during the credits. Sing along with the music, read ALL of those names that represent the people who poured their energy and hard work into making the film, and stay for that extra scene at the end. It sets up another member of the Avengers—one I've often considered the craziest. Let's just say when I was a kid I watched the "Asterix of Gaul" cartoon and read the comics... And they're kind of related. In a miniscule way. But you catch my drift.

Bottom line?

Go see Iron Man 2. It's excellent.

The Skin of a Killer...

2010-03-18T09:19:00.007-04:00

Alternative title: Just Shoot Me In The Face To Save Some Time

It's been said before somewhere (I can't be bothered to look it up)... It's the "fashionable thing" to write a review on Twilight. Or it's an elaborate internet meme. Whatever it is, I read this thing and when I was done I took out my red pen and a highlighter and started correcting it. I agree with my dear Stephen King with the fact that Meyer is not quite up to par with my own personal standards when it comes to authors. Then again, I was reading The Wizards of Earthsea series and Piers Anthony (AKA: the Joy of Puns) books when I was nine. I was a bit advanced as a kid.

That, and I generally don't much care for books written in the first person point of view. If the author's "narrating" character isn't strong enough, the book falls apart for me.

Let's just put aside grammar/spelling errors and plot holes for a moment considering Twilight was written for young adults and not normal "I still read the paper for news in the mornings" adults. Mind you, the paper isn't Tolstoy—but at least the Times doesn't go around saying it's the best thing since Bram Stoker's Dracula. A couple words to the scary "Twi-Moms" out there?

"Calm down."

Oh, and:

"Go read some Jane Austen."

It gets my Chris Hansen senses tingling when 40 year old women are screaming over a 17 year old actor. That's just wrong, folks.

Here's a quick summary: New girl comes to Nowheresville and falls hopelessly in love with the gorgeous ("Adonis") loner guy who happens to be a vegetarian vampire that lives with six other vegetarian vampires. Peripherally, there are three nomad vampires killing people in Nowheresville. Also, vampires apparently sparkle in the sunlight instead of exploding into fireballs like they did in the Hammer Horror movies or the great novel by Bram Stoker.

Okay, I have to get this out of the way. Vampires are mythologically older than the written word. Psychologists put their existence up to man's lust and desire to "consume" his object of attraction.

Dracula 2000 put up an interesting case that the original "Count Dracula" (father to all vampires) was actually Judas Iscariot—and that was the reason why he couldn't stand the sight of the cross, why silver affected him, and why sunlight could kill him (Judas was apparently found hanged just before dawn).

ANYWAY, Twilight takes a look at the regular vampire mythos and says: "Nah, I'll make up my own monster," and comes up with something that's a teeny-tiny part vampire and a larger part diamond plated chupacabra. There, I said it. Edward Cullen is a sparkly chupacabra.

Okay, so Bella is supposedly not a Mary Sue character because she's clumsy, more responsible than her own mother, calls her dad "Charlie" instead of "Dad," and sucks at sports. But she is a Mary Sue in that all the boys immediately fall inexplicably head over heels for her and she smells like an extra yummy walking Happy Meal to Edward. And that little masochist hates himself so much ("THIS IS THE SKIN OF A KILLER, BELLA!") that he falls in love with his hamburger of fate.

Then he runs away from her and makes her miserable and the entire second book could have been solved with either a text message or, egads, a phone call saying: "Hey, Edward, I know you're off pretending you don't love me or whatever, but I'm totally not going to kill myself. Don't do anything stupid, like, munch on a tourist or go tanning at noon. XOXO Bella."

I have no clue what happened in the third book. Other than Mrs. Meyer also decided to change what makes a werewolf a lycanthrope in the first place. The full moon (and ONLY the full moon) controls the change, and when it happens the afflicted has no more say in what his transformed body does. See, werewolves are supposed to be the angsty, tormented, sad, adorable guys that you want to save but can't because:

A) There's no cure.

B) The dude already went on a tear the last full moon, you think the cops are gonna let him go just because he went all hairy and grrr?

C) IT IS MYTH LAW THAT HE WALLOW IN SORROW.

This is coming from the perspective of someone who grew up watching those Wolfman movies. Whatever, Underworld. My werewolves hate themselves. And keep their shirts on (it's really the shoes that suffer).

Twilight is touted as a "timeless romance novel" when the romance in it is about as hot and spicy as a bowl of chicken broth that's been left on the counter overnight. I've read text books that kept me more engrossed. The stupid thing is, I'm still sitting here typing stuff about it because the world has apparently gone insane for it. Here's a timeless romance novel: Sense & Sensibility.

Despite the fact that I'm not a huge fan of the change in what makes a vampire a vampire (or a werewolf a werewolf) in Meyer's books, I am a bit of a fan of the characters who never really get that much of a chance to talk at all—the "extra power"less couple of Emmett and Rosalie. While not discussed in Twilight, it is mentioned that Rosalie actually saved Emmett from dying a mortal death of a bear attack in another book(yes, this means I've read the entire series). My question is: How did Rosalie Hale end up falling in love with Emmett McCarty? That is an interesting plot—take a complicated character like Rose and dive into her emotional well instead of the shallow pool of Bella "Don't Call Me Isabella" Swan.

Oh man, this is making my brain hurt. I can't call this finished because I know I'll have more to rant about later on...

The Mind of a Killer...

2010-03-15T09:16:00.012-04:00

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Dir: Jonathan Demme
Author: Thomas HarrisRated: R
At some point or another, we've all seen that clip of Anthony Hopkins in prison blues leaning up against a Plexiglas wall and informing a rather frightened-looking Jodie Foster what he did with a census taker's liver. But how many of us have sat through the entire movie? Read the book?

Quick fact: Tony's creepy little noise at the end of the liver, fava beans and chianti line was an ad-lib that he was sure Jonathan Demme would cut from the final film.

We're given an unconventional hero for us to follow on this dark and twisted journey (in the early 90s, that is). Heroine, to be more precise. Clarice Starling is still in the FBI Academy when the head of the Behavioral Sciences division pulls her out of class to go and chat with "Hannibal the Cannibal." She's the FBI's most promising student—high marks, better than anyone else on the gun range, smart as hell, and tough. Tough in a world where women aren't supposed to be tough and still very much a woman when men look at her (not a "fellow agent"). It's part of the reason why Jack Crawford sends her up to Baltimore to go and get Dr. Hannibal Lecter to fill out a profile in order to help get a better sense of the identity of another psychopathic killer.

That'd be Buffalo Bill.

For a moment, let's step away from the movie and turn to the book. Buffalo Bill, or Jame Gumb, is genuinely disturbed in the head. The character is sort of an amalgamation of Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Gary Heidnik. I say "sort of" because Buffalo Bill does skin his victims, uses a fake wrist cast to knock them out, starves them, and leaves them in a pit... He is not using them sexually. He doesn't even see women any longer, he just sees "it." He's a shell of a man who lost his mother—he never knew his father and she wasn't the best parent... At one point it's revealed that she hated her son. She never even bothered to add the missing "s" to the end of his name on his birth certificate. The point is, Jame Gumb doesn't know who he is and after studying the Death's Head moths he raised, he decided to change himself. To put it more succinctly, Buffalo Bill is one messed up dude.

So Clarice is basically sent to Baltimore as eye candy bait ("Lecter hasn't even seen a woman in years...") has to put up with the crude Dr. Chilton who runs the asylum Lecter is held in, and meets possibly the most patient and understanding man on the planet in Barney (the orderly who takes care of all the creeps on Lecter's row). Chilton is sleazy and annoying and the sudden shock of seeing Dr. Lecter in comparison is like getting slapped. Clarice is not greeted by a slithering monster but a gentleman—standing in the center of his cell with impeccable posture with an almost warm smile and a charming greeting of: "Good morning."

Considered one of films "best entrances" and he's not even moving.

We're thrown for a loop. The entire first portion of the film and book goes into great detail on how despicable and depraved Hannibal Lecter is and here stands an affable man—trim, polite, well-spoken... Who the hell is this?

There is an air of oddness about him with the way he speaks—how he mocks Clarice's West Virginian accent and never blinks. Winking doesn't count as a blink, and that's the closest Lecter comes to ever closing his eyelids when he's around Clarice (that's disregarding the moment where he sniffs through the air holes in his Plexiglas cage). He initially doesn't agree to fill out the forms for her, tries to intimidate her by doing a cold-read profile on her as she sits outside his cell and even resorts to calling her "simple."

"Oh, Agent Starling, you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?"

On her way out she passes Lecter's neighbor, Multiple Miggs. Earlier he hissed something (I won't repeat on this blog) to her, but as she walks past his bars, he flings his semen at her face—which not only had Clarice wanting to get out of the place faster, but really pisses Dr. Lecter off. Enough to get him to called her back, tell her he'd fill out her papers, and to look up an old patient of his. During the night he convinces Miggs to swallow his own tongue for what he did to Clarice. We never know what he said, but even now I still morbidly want to know what anyone could say to make a man actually try to swallow his own tongue. Dr. Hannibal Lecter cannot allow the rude to live. Miggs was rude. As Clarice all but runs for the end of the hallway, Lecter calls her back and gives her the name Mofet and the strange order to "Look deep within your self."

It's a storage facility. That saves about nine pages and several minutes of film right there.

So Clarice starts finding all these clues to lead to Buffalo Bill and eventually learns that Dr. Lecter knows the man's name. She was warned at the beginning by Jack Crawford not to let Lecter know anything personal about her, but finds herself following the former psychiatrist's rules of quid pro quo when trying to fine tune the profile on Buffalo Bill. He learns about her father's death as she finds out how Buffalo Bill goes about picking his victims.

Meanwhile, Catherine Martin (daughter of Tennessee Senator Ruth Martin) is clubbed over the head with a cast and taken by Buffalo Bill. Now Clarice's mission has a focus: Save the girl.

Which is another film and literary oddity that I find refreshing. The damsel in distress doesn't just sit there whining about her problem—she antagonizes her captor and buys herself some time by kidnapping his dog with some McGuyver-like ingenuity. And our hero is not Dirty Harry. She's 5'3", quiet, and looks like a strong wind could blow her over. She's brainy. She's worked damn hard to get to where she is in the Academy.

This is how I feel when I get on an elevator...

When a ploy to get Lecter to expound on his profile of Buffalo Bill goes south (again, he's not an idiot), the Department of Justice steps in with Chilton's help and is, in my mind, directly responsible for Lecter's escape from custody. Under DA Paul Krendler's orders, Lecter is shipped off to Memphis to speak with Senator Martin face-to-mask in hopes of getting an actual name for Buffalo Bill and they stick him in a giant cage at town hall. He gives a fake name.

"Oh, and Senator, just one more thing. Love your suit."

Losing the Plexiglass was a huge mistake.

Sorta kinda suspended (she'd been removed from the case per Krendler's suggestion to the head of the FBI), Clarice "sneaks" in to speak with Dr. Lecter one last time. She even brings him his drawings.

"People will say we're in love..."

He finally gets the full truth out of her—why she ran away after her father's death... Her ill-attempt at trying to save one of the screaming spring lambs from being slaughtered (in the book she stole a horse—another of the farm animals meant to be slaughtered for meat—and tried to scare all the lambs out of their pen). Because she finally bares her soul to him, Clarice is given the means to find the real Jame Gumb. Just before Chilton can have her dragged out of the building, Lecter passes her the case file through the bars of his cage and runs his finger across her knuckle as she takes it from him.

It's his last brush of humanity before he slips back into the comfort of being a predator... He kills the two cops guarding him and escapes by using the face of one of them to get him into an ambulance.

Deleted scene from the final cut: Hannibal Lecter drives off in the ambulance.

Thanks to Lecter's notes written on the case file and the conversations he had with her, Clarice is able to find that the real Buffalo Bill is Jame Gumb—living in the home of the first victim's boss with the basement all dug out into a labyrinth of torturous horror. Upon finding Catherine in the pit, Clarice's first priority is to at least maim Gumb so she can get a proper call out, but Catherine has been stuck down there for so long she's had it. Instead of whining, she's shouting: "Get back here you bitch!"

In the end of it all, Clarice ends up killing Jame Gumb and getting reinstated to the FBI in time to complete all tests. The book allows Jame Gumb some dying words as Clarice sits across from him and acknowledges the fact that one of her shots deflated his lung.

"What's it feel like being beautiful?"

Unlike the book, the film doesn't end with Lecter sending Chilton a threatening letter and another strangely civil one sent to Clarice. Instead, he calls Clarice during the graduation party to say he's not going to come after her ("The world's far more interesting with you in it.") ask her to tell him when "the lambs stop screaming," and watches his former tormentor climb out of a plane in Jamaica.

"I'd love to stay and chat, but I'm having an old friend for dinner."

He hangs up the phone and slinks off after Chilton like a cat. The end.

This movie actually has no sex, less blood than most western films I've seen and two of the strongest characters in movie and literary history. One is a woman who is anything but a damsel in distress and the other is an incredibly intelligent man trapped in the body of a seriously violent and dangerous predator.

So watch it. Rent it, Netflix it, program it the next time you see it listed on AMC, buy it... Whatever. If you don't like scary movies, this isn't one of them. It's a psychological thriller, mystery, and drama. The book is absolutely worth reading because the way Thomas Harris writes dialogue and thought processing is so natural it feels like you are Clarice Starling thinking these things...

Lastly there's cake. Look at that cake. Don't you want some? I do.