Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

4 Stars (out of four)

So, full disclosure first.  I have been a fan of Frank Miller's Sin City comics since 1990.  It's groundbreaking art, raw subject matter and retroactive storytelling conventions always made for an entertaining yarn.  This particular story, A Dame To Kill For was the second in this series, and in my opinion, the best of all of them.  The Hard Goodbye, the first in the series that introduced us to Marv formed the basis for the first movie, always left me a bit off.  But this story was hardboiled noir in the vein of Dasheill Hammett and Raymond Chandler.  The femme fatale in the truest sense, the sap, and the revenge, all elements of great American storytelling.  So I went into this film with very high expectations, and it was not disappointed.

This is similar to the first Sin City, with multiple stories and many of the same characters returning to us.  Two were previously written for the comics and one is new for the movies.  I cannot stress enough that however much I loved the movie, it is definitely not for all tastes.  The movie is much more graphic in both the violence and sex, and can be very off-putting for those of more puritanical tastes.  So fair warning, if you can't abide fairly graphic nude and sex scenes, this movie is definitely not for you and you should quit reading right now.  After all, this movie's controversy started over the MOAA banning the original poster of the movie until it was edited to a more chaste version.  See below:

Apparently, the MPAA has no problem with the ultraviolent aspects of the film (beheadins, mutilations, torture), but show a female boob and there are protests everywhere.  I have seen no less than three articles in the last week from star Eva Green regarding her nudity in the film, and several more in the last few months regarding the poster above.  I guess people must have missed the big, fat "R" rating it got and are afraid children will be corrupted by it.  But my argument is this, if you don't want children watching it, don't let them.  This is an adult film made for adult audiences, and while many may disagree with me, the nudity is not gratuitous.  This is one example of a defining aspect of a character, a femme fatale who preys on men to do her dirty work for her.  This is not a new story.  The great noir films Double Indemnity, The Last Seduction, Basic Instinct, Body Heat and Wild Things all feature female predators who prey on saps to further their nefarious aims.

There is not a bad performance in this bunch.  They all project the mood of the filth of BaSIN City, the fictional town that looks like an amalgam of the worst aspects of New York, Las Vegas and LA.  Two major changes are Dennis Haysbert playing Manute, the role the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan played in the original.  His height, large build and deep voice help him seamlessly slip into the role.  The more obvious change was the replacement for Dwight played by Clive Owen in the original.  Now he is played by Josh Brolin, who is a thousand times better.  I always thought Owen was an almost fatal bit of flawed casting in the original.  Thankfully, that mistake was rectified here.  Much has been made of the stilted dialog and actors, particularly Jessica Alba, who are chewing the scenery with everything they got.  My response to that is that it is noir, people don't really talk like that anymore, but it sets an undeniable atmosphere.  As for the acting, this film and stories are supposed to be hyper-stylized,thus the slight unreality of the non-naturalistic acting fits in perfectly.

The film is also another triumph of design, bringing the printed page to life.  They even used it in the advertising:

In fact, the advertising is just as interesting as the movies in setting tone and expectations.  A few examples below:

I have loved both versions' very effective use of the blending of the hyper-stylization with the real, to give an otherworldly effect to the movie.  Aside from artistic choices, it throws you off by introducing an unreal world that doesn't feel right and thus makes you uncomfortable unconsciously.  This is unlike any world we are grounded in, so the events seem more bizarre, more off-kilter and more off-putting if the co-directors of Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller would have played it straight.  In fact, this whole movie is an exercise in the excess of these two men, so much so they even have their own individual posters:

While it seems a bit indulgent (even Steven Speilberg stays behind the scenes), for some reason, it just feels right.  Again, I cannot stress enough how this is not a film for kids or those of conservative tastes.  I guarantee you there is something in here that will offend most anyone.  But it is undeniably sexy, smooth, exciting, and yes, entertaining if you go in with the correct mindset.  I loved every minute of it and wished it could be an hour longer.  Unfortunately, it looks like it was a bit of a flop and we may never see another.  But that is what we thought after the first one, which was a minor hit.  Please, Mr. Rodriguez, please make another.  They are so good and I am always willing to take a trip down the dark alleys of Basin City.

The Giver

3 Stars (out of four)

I was not prepared for The Giver.  I had no idea what it was about other than it was being hyped pretty hard.  I had not read the book it was based on, so I had no preconceptions about it going in.  Boy, was I presently surprised.

The Giver is a sci-fi story about a post-apocalyptic world, apparently.  The movie isn't specific about this.  Mankind has been able to abolish all emotions and feelings from life, creating a society free of strife and crime, but also devoid of vitality and life.  Conformity is strictly practiced, and personal relationships as we know them are outlawed.  The emotions are purged through daily injections of some kind of drug, leaving everyone in some kind of waking stupor.  Everyone has a job and contibutes to society each according to his talents and receives each according to his needs.  There is total equality.  However, occasionally a child is born who doesn't fit into normal criteria, and they are given the unique job of Recever of Memories from the Giver of Memories.  This job is in high regard and the Receiver will act as an advisor to the Elders, the rulers of the society.  As the main character Jonas becomes the Receiver, he begins to get the totality of the human experience from The Giver.  He quickly realizes that the society is soulless and wants to share his experiences, which is cores sly forgiven.  He eventually runs from the society and takes down a tower that apparently runs the illusion society is in, freeing their minds.

So, this movie asks one of the fundamental questions of humanity, that is What are we?  What is our makeup?  The movie argues that a world of Serenity and tranquility robbed of the chaos of human experiences is really a hollow shell, robbing us of a vital piece that which makes us human.  The movie illustrates this through its use of color.  The sterile is black and white, but Jonas sees washed-out flashes of color.  When he meets The Giver, he experiences an explosion of color and sound that overwhelms him.  He learns of love, happiness, music, hate, violence and fear at different times which fundamentally changes his perspective, similar to Plato's Shadows in the Cave to daylight.  The movie is actually a thinly-veiled allegory of The Garden of Eden.  The sterile society is in a state of grace until the Devil introduces to Man the actual knowledge of Good and Evil, thus provoking the Fall of Man.  In this case, the Devil is our humanity and seems to be arguing that our Fallen selves are much preferable to living in ignorance of what is out there.  Indeed, this serene existence kills us inside.  With no context for morality, we be one totally amoral, with only pragmatism as our guide.  This, we can do monstrous things in the name of the pragmatism.  In the movie, this is illustrated by the babies.  If they are not perfect, they are unemotionally killed and disposed of like garbage.  Same with the elderly.  As soon as you are are a burden, you are expelled.  Many movies and books have touched on this:  Logan's Run, 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Ministry of Fear, Soylent Green, Schindler's List, but the most obvious comparison is the similarly great Pleasantville.  They all warn us that though we are flawed beings, it is central to what we are, what life is.  They go on to admonish us to never forget this aspect of ourselves.  They implore us to hold onto what is good, but understand what is bad so as to keep perspective.  The movie is wonderful, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

The Expendables 3 (and 1 and 2 sort of..)

2 Stars (out of four)

If you really need to reexperience the adventures of Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), go see The Expendables 3.  It is a big, loud, dumb, and yes, stupid movie, but really, what did you expect?  It is ridiculous, big, and a tad unnecessary.  But is it fun?  Well, sorta.  Now, you may think I'm panning the movie, but I'm really not.  What I was expecting to get is exactly what I got.

If you really need a plot synopsis, Stallone and team punch, shoot at, and blow a lot of stuff up. But there's a catch, now there's some new blood.

So, you may be looking at my 2 star review and look back on some of my other reviews of equally dumb movies (Pacific Rim, Iron Man 3 and Guardians of the Galaxy most recently) that I gave pretty high 3.5 star ratings and say "Why?".  Well, the answer is a little bit of a mystery to me, too.  It's no secret that all three Expendables are send-ups to the over-the-top, high-concept, high-octane actioneers that the 80's and 90's were famous for and that each (older) star was famous for doing.  Rather than hide from it, these movies and stars loudly proclaim their roots.  But the thing that separates a Sharknado to an Expendables to a Guardians of the Galaxy is something deeper.  Partly it's because Sharknado set out to be (insultingly) stupid.  As I said before, you can't manufacture cult, although Sharknado's second (and now recently announced third) sequels may prove me wrong, a disappointing and possible death knell for cult cinema.  The Expendables is not trying to be deliberately stupid outside of the rules already set by an admittedly stupid genre of films, the actioneer.  The problem is that it fails to cover any new ground, outside of just how many people it can shove into a film until they start to need name tags.  It sort if feels like a retirement home for old action stars, which appear to be a growth industry, as evidenced by the group shots.  The first was a lark, and they didn't know how well it would do, so it starts with most of the best (and a surprise cameo by the Governator, not shown) and sets the template below:

But lo and behold, it was actually pretty successful, so they got sequelitis and expanded.  The funny thing was, this one is actually the most entertaining entry in the series to me.  The first one played it pretty straight, but this was more of an action-comedy, with Van Damme actually carrying the movie with a pretty amusing caricature of himself.  The portrayal really does make the movie a cut above the rest.

To now today, where all subtlety is thrown to the wind and throws in the kitchen sink as well.  If you thought there was enough testosterone to choke a horse from the last two, this one will probably kill you.  Although finally, there is a little estrogen injected for balance as the first woman joins the team.  You have not lived until you have seen a champion MMA and Olympic-medal-winning judo practioner kick some major ass in a trendy New York nightclub in a red micro-miniskirt and 6-inch stiletto heels.

But in the end, what separates a movie like Die Hard, First Blood, The Terminator, or The Transporter from The Expendables is an earnestness to be more than it is, to aspire to be more than the sum of its parts.  Guardians of the Galaxy does this beautifully.  It never takes itself too seriously, and since it is not part of Marvel's A-List, it could go in exciting, new directions.  The same is the case for each of the star-making movies above.  We saw something different, something that distinguished it from the pack.  Anyone that watched movies in the 80's knows how crowded this room was.  The Expendables franchise is more like the All-Star Game in any sport.  It's bloated with egos, doesn't really matter and is just an excuse to get the big names together in one place where they can just phone it in.  I find it slightly amusing that it also seems to be a rehab clinic for the careers of disgraced former stars.   From Sylvester Stallone to Arnold Scwartzeneggar to Jean-Claude Van Damme to Kelsey Grammer to Wesley Snipes to Mel Gibson, it seems any actor who has been in some big scandal eventually ends up on The Expendables to remind viewers why they loved them in the first place.  Maybe that is the secret to the phenomenal casts: they are so desperate for a paycheck that they will star in anything (and not command A-List prices).  The only one left is Steven Seagal.  Maybe he'll make an appearance in The Expendables 4?

A quick note on Stallone.  While he is an example of Hollywood bloat, he is vastly underrated as an artist.  The funny thing about The Expendables is that it is sort of an indie film.  It was also written and produced by Stallone, so it's partly his dime and definitely his reputation on the line here.  I think he genuinely wants to be a great performer and make spectacles audiences will love, and he excels on both sides of the camera.  He also, when he needs to, tries very hard and succeeds.  Just take a look at the criminally forgotten Copland or the more recent Grudge Match where he and DeNiro essentially reprise their star-making and diametrically different boxers, and Sly shows what he can really do.  While he struggled in the business at the beginning for awhile, even doing a porno (The Stud, renamed The Italian Stallion after the phenomenal success of Rocky, in case you're interested), his relative meteoric rise to fame after Rocky ruined him.  He got the ego, the money and the pressure to remake lightning in a bottle and it crushed him for 20 years.  I think he is just as culturally significant as Clint Eastwood, yet he never really is perceived as the heavy hitter Clint is, and I think that is a disservice to Stallone.

Getting back to The Expendables, the whole movie is an exercise in excess in every way, shape, and form, from the bloated cast, to the pyrotechnics, to the macho posturing, even its advertising.  I can honestly say I have never seen so many different posters for one movie.  Some of them are below:

The last two are amalgams of several, unique character posters.  That is at least 36(!) POSTERS made for the movie.  And yet, despite the hype, or maybe because of it, it is kind of soulless.  I really wish it could at least try to take itself a little seriously and try something totally different.  But what we got was just fine, I guess.  From what started as a lark to bring in some familiar faces from the past one last time, boy, you've come a long way, baby.  It may be big, dumb and meatheaded, but God help me, it's also a lot of fun.  The ultimate thing to say about The Expendables as a whole is that it is like a burger and fries at your favorite restaurant-soulless and empty calories, but comforting and hard to screw up when you got the right ingredients.  This is The Expendables in spades.  The fan-made movie poster below encapsulates all of what I just said in one hilarious, final image:

And that is exactly what this movie is, one big, familiar burger and fries...with rocket launchers.

The Hundred Foot Journey

4 Stars (out of four)

What starts out as a simple comedy about family supporting each other when they are bombarded by unfamiliar and hostile surroundings becomes a much deeper movie on love, loss and art.  The Hundred Foot Journey is all these things and more.  I know I have been railing against the descent into a morass of stupidity our mass entertainment is and has becoming.  So when I see a film like this, one that celebrates simple joys and grieves with profound losses like this one, I become refreshed and ready for the next set of Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The movie begins with Hassan Kadam, a young Indian chef taught by his mother to celebrate the mixture of spices in food, yes, the art of gastronomy.  The Kadam family owns a small restaurant in India that is burned to the ground during a riot.  Hassan's mother also perishes in the fire, so Papa (the great Om Puri) and the family move to Europe to eventually settle in a small rural town in France.  They find a place to build a new restaurant, but it is across the street from one of the finest restaurants in France, run by the staid Madam Mallory (Helen Mirren), 100 feet away (hence the name of the movie).  At first, Papa and Madam hate each other, and try to sabotage each others' establishments, going so far as Madam's chefs trying to burn down Papa's restaurant.  At the same time, Hassan is also learning French cooking, mixing it with Indian recipes causing a fusion of tastes that Madam has never before experienced, so she reluctantly takes Hassan on as her new chef.  Due to his phenomenal talent, he makes her famous restaurant even more renowned.  Because of this, Hassan gets hired by a world-class Parisian restaurant.  But, he realizes he was always happier with his family and eventually returns to the village to cook in Madam's restaurant.

This movie was a great surprise for me as I thought it was going to be just a simple comedy.  But it is really about the celebration of the ties that bind us: love, understanding and family.  See this movie has a couple of romantic subplots and how one overcomes prejudice to really understand and eventually love each other.  This movie is really a celebration of the human spirit and friendship, and the importance of those solid things in our lives.  While the plot is familiar, it is never hackneyed or trite. MIT also helps that the performances are so sincere, and that everyone is so delightful and lovable, that this movie is an absolute joy to watch.  I highly recommend it if you are looking for some meat in your summer entertainment fare.

Red Cliff (Parts 1 & 2) aka Chi bi

3.5 Stars (out of four)

Red Cliff is truly an epic film.  A cast of thousands, which spectacular camerawork, an interesting true historical subject with first-rate actors and arguably one of the greatest action directors of all time, all on the same project.  Made by the great Chinese action-director John Woo, Red Cliff is the visualization of one of his greatest ambitions, and boy, does he ever.  Aside from a very long running length (146 minutes) and some overlong exposition on the characters (not totally out of line for a Chinese movie, especially given the subject matter), this movie will appeal to almost everyone.  Great action, intrigue, even some chaste romance and modern commentary on old ways are all present  here.

For those of you who don't know Chinese history, the film is based on a period of Chinese history that has been called The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a period from approximately 220-280 AD.  At this point, there Han Dyansty was riddled with corruption and China as we know it today was broken in three kingdoms, roughly corresponding to nothern, western and southern China today.  Although titularly under the Han emperor, this was a period of great civil war under several warlords.  This period of time birthed some of China's greatest and most revered heroes.  The movie is based around one particularly famous battle, the Battle of Red Cliff, where Chinese heroes Leu Bei, Zhou Yu, Sun Quan and Zhuge Li'ang fought with an army of 50-80,000 men against and defeated the Han's tyrannical prime minister Cao Cao, who had an army of several hundred thousand, which brought a brief moment of peace in an otherwise extremely violent period in Chinese history.

This is not an action movie with Lord of the Rings epic battles, although there are two major ones in the film.  This is a movie about war, and specifically Chinese style of war, based on precepts fron Sun Tzu's The Art Of War.  It is a movie about strategy, tactics, diplomacy, spycraft and finally combat.  Zhuge Li'ang, in particular, was very young, but a genius in wartime strategy.  The movie examines his plans and tactics in depth, from the use of deception, to understanding the enemy and the battlefield to the importance of improvisation.  It is a masterful telling of all what goes into war.  The cast is first rate, with Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro as particular standouts as Zhou Yu and Zhuge Li'ang respectively.  They inhabit their roles quite well and are especially believable, but the entire cast is a knockout.  There is not a bad performance in the bunch.  The action scenes are way over the top, but this is to be expected from John Woo, who has done films like The Killer, Hard Boiled, Full Contact, A Bullet In The Head, Mission: Impossible 2 and Face/Off.  He has raised violence to an art form, with his closest contemporary being Sam Peckinpah, who directed The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Cross of Iron, Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid and Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia.  Both men subscribe to the "ballet of death," where violent action scenes are slowed down to prolong the carnage, resulting in a macabre but strangely beautiful dance of death.  This is definitely the style over substance style that has become so popular today in such things as anything directed by Zack Snyder (300, The Man of Steel, Watchmen) and such TV shows as Spartacus, which are entertaining, but ultimately soulless.  This is usually what happens when lesser hacks try to emulate masters.  It is ultimately a shell underneath.

The only real complaints I have with the film are how over-the-top the battle sequences are, particularly when a particular hero is focused on.  They become supermen in the face of overwhelming odds and can do literally superhuman feats.  Now, this is nothing new in Chinese films (Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan all being examples) or western films for that matter, especially when dealing with revered heroes, but sometimes it really strains credulity and becomes unwittingly funny.  This took me out of the moment and reminded me I was watching a film.  I also had an issue with the endless exposition, setting up characters.  It was actually archetyping them, making them too noble and too easily pigeonholed into their historical characterizations to an almost comic level.  However, I did like the story of Sun Shangxiang, the tomboyish little sister of Xiao Qiao, Zhou Yu's beautiful wife and a Chinese Helen, as it was said it was because of Cao Cao's desire for her that he started the war in the first place.  Anyway, Sun Shangxiang refused to be the wilting flower and went undercover as a spy into Cao Cao's camp for her brother-in-law and actually participated in the battle.  It provides some interesting, albeit modern commentary on how women are treated in society.  Finally, the movie is a tad long (it was cut down for American release), but these are only minor complaints to me.  This is a great film and is rightly considered a master's masterpiece.

Thor: The Dark World

2 Stars (out of four)

Okay, so it took me awhile, but I finally did it.  I saw Thor: The Dark World.  I must admit, like I said in my review of Guardians of the Galaxy, I wasn't all that hyped to see the film.  I was not impressed by Thor, which I think is the weakest of the Marvel movies so far (if you don't count Ang Lee's The Hulk, Iron Man 2, Daredevil, or any Punisher movie up to this point).  But Thor wasn't a bad movie, just didn't surpass the incredibly high bar Marvel has set for itself so far.  It was underwhelming and I was incredibly disappointed.  Hemsworth and Hiddleston are great, it's just that their characters or stories aren't all that interesting.  I am baffled as to why so many people like it. It's pretty dull.  So, needless to say, I went into Thor: The Dark World with low expectations, hoping my faith would be rewarded like it was with Guardians of the Galaxy.  And I have to say...

It wasn't.

The plot is pretty simple.  Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), is once again in trouble.  Thor has left for two years, and she is all goodly-eyed trying to find him again.  What she does find, however, is an ancient power, the Aether, which promptly takes over her and is killing her.  See, the Aether is one of the infinity stones (except it's liquid), ancient, powerful forces of energy.  It was to be used by Malechi, the leader of a powerful race who hates the Asgardians, the Frost Gian...I mean, the Night Elves.  So, in an epic battle, Tho...I mean Odin fights the Frost Gia...I mean the Night Elves and takes the source of their power, an infinity stones called the Tasera...I mean, the Aether away from them.  The Frost Gia...I mean Night Elf King swears vengeance for a time when a space anomaly will occur so he can take the Tasera...I mean the Aether back so the Frost Gian...I mean the NIGHT ELVES can take over Asgard and begin a new age of domination.  If the plot sounds familiar, it's because it is.  It's pretty much the same movie, except not as dull.

Our second foray into Asgard is almost as dull as the first.  The producers learned one important lesson, though.  Of you're going to make the same, dull movie again, don't set it in the middle of Bumf%ck, New Mexico.  Instead, move the dullness to a not-so-dull city, London!  Why?  Doesn't really matter.  The movie is just as dull.  Everybody's back, just more so.  Natalie Portman's back as Jane, in the thankless role of being the horny damsel in distress.  She does absolutely nothing except faints a lot.  That is, until the end when the producers realized that the movie needed some grrl power and had her do some scientific stuff at the end to show she actually has a brain.  Except, no, actually, she uses all the work Peter (Skellan Skarrsgärd) already did.  Unfortunately for Skellan, he can only act, but he is not pretty, so he has to run around naked and/or pantsless for a depressingly and eye-searingly long time (why couldn't this have been Natalie's part?) during the film.  Kat Dennings, who plays the plucky comic relief (more annoyingly this time, if that is possible and not really comic at all) intern to our merry band of idiotic PhD's who frankly, are lucky they can locate their ass with both hands.  I guess we are supposed to love their kwirky eccentricities, buy really I wanted to yell at all of them throughout the movie.

In fact, as I type this, I took half a star off because I just realized my intelligence is being insulted throughout the whole movie.  It is marginally more interesting than the first Thor, but what makes me mad is what a ridiculously wasted opportunity this was.  The movie is not bad.  It could habe been great, but the producers seem to insist on rehashing old dullness and giving us new dullness.  There is so much talent here going to waste.  The effects are great, the visuals are popping, the costumes and sets are amazing.  Hemsworth and Hiddleston in particular are perfect for their roles.  In fact, everyone in the movie is great in their roles.  These movies could have been interesting. They could have been fun.  They could have been different.  But they were none of these.  They are essentially two dull, identical movies.  But don't worry...the movie promises there will be a THIRD one.  Maybe they can make this one even duller!

(Disclaimer: The subtle usage of the word dull in this review should be taken in no other way than to say the movie and everything in it are dull.  Just in case you missed it.)

Manhunter (1986) versus Red Dragon (2002)

Manhunter 3 Stars (out of four)

Red Dragon 2.5-3 Stars (out of four)

In another one of my compare the movie remake to the original series, I rewatched Michael Mann's 1986 film Manhunter and Brett Ratner's 2002 remake Red Dragon, both based on Thomas Harris' book Red Dragon, arguably his best of the Hannibal Lecter series he wrote.  For those of you who don't know, retired FBI criminal profiler Will Graham (loosely based on the real FBI profiler John Douglas, founder of the Behavioral Sciences Unit in the FBI who do profile serial killers.  Check out his book Mindhunter for a riveting and stomach-churning account of his career.) is brought back on a case where a serial killer is killing families.  He has a tendency to bite and therefore named The Tooth Fairy.  Graham left the FBI soon after he apprehended Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, whom we met in Silence of the Lambs.  The FBI is stumped and so is Graham, so he seeks out the help of Lecter to catch the tooth fairy.  Hannibal agrees, but also has a mean streak towards Graham and tries to get him killed.  It turns out The Tooth Fairy, Francis Dolarhyde, was a victim of hideous abuse as a child and is trying to transform himself into something good by killing these people.  Obviously, the good guys win and get Dolarhyde.

The reason I bring this set of films up is for two reasons.  One, to help people rediscover a creepy little gem that they probably missed in the 80s.  The other is Anthony Hopkins, who has now become synominous with the role.  First, Manhunter was made by the creator of Miami Vice, Michael Mann, at the height of the TV show's fame.  It's easy to forget now, but Miami Vice set a new tone and visual for cop shows in the 80s that became a template for later shows.  The use of unforgettable visuals, with the surreal color mixed with gritty realism of the show, combined with the use of Rock music and a zeitgeist of the moment synthesizer score by Jan Hammer, made Miami Vice impossible to ignore.  But one can see Mann's directorial palette developing as early as 1981 with the film Thief.  I know a Mann film will always be interesting to see and make it a point to see as many of his films as I can.  Manhunter uses all the elements that made Miami Vice so interesting, and yet turned it on its head to present a profoundly creepy and affecting film.

I have always felt films of the 70s and 80s had a much more, for lack of a better term, cruel and hard edge to them that movies outside of the horror genre lack today, much to their detriment.  Now, I'm not saying that I want to necessarily want a lot of hard movies to watch, it's just they have become predictable and vanilla.  And much more morally relativistic.  Manhunter makes a point in the film near the end through Graham that Dolarhyde was not born evil, but was made a monster through systematic abuse.  As a child, he needs to be pitied.  But as an adult, the enormity of his crimes merits death.  In Red Dragon, they go the opposite way.  As I said, our entertainment is much more morally relativistic, more ambiguous.  Red Dragon examines Dolarhyde's abuse in horrifying flashbacks.  It gains us empathy for him.  While we do not condone his horribly cruel murders of two families, we feel sorry for him nonetheless.  He can't help himself, and therefore deserving of pity.  Now, I'm not trying to make a political statement here on justice or comment on the mentally insane, it is an interesting mirror on the attitudes of society at the time, and they are vastly different.  In the 80s, Dolarhyde deserves death for his heinous crimes.  In the new millennia, he deserves pity and rehabilitation, with no real punishment for the consequences of his actions.  There are no sides, just 50 Shades of Gray (sorry, sorry.  Couldn't help myself).

Which brings us to the elephant in the room, Anthony Hopkins.  Few actors get the chance to play such a delicious, career-making role.  Hopkins was a good, reliable actor in most everything he did until he gleefully chewed the scenery in Silence of the Lambs which he took to entertainingly Shatner-ian heights.  This was the turning point that made him into a star, and he wisely returned to the well twice more with Hannibal and Red Dragon.  This role is not only career-defining, but genre-shaping as the retreading still goes on today with show like The Blacklist or The Rock.  He was so good, it's really hard to imagine anyone else in it.  In fact, in Red Dragon, he has a mean streak in him not really evident in the other stories as this was a younger, and angrier Hannibal, trying to kill the man that put him away.  But for an interesting, different take, Brian Cox plays Lecter in Manhunter.  Unlike Hopkins, who flies off the rails at times, Cox has a much more measured performance, filled with nuance.  This only heightens the creepiness of Manhunter.  If you were to go off the performance of Brian Cox, you never really know what Lecter is capable of, unlike when Hopkins jumps out of his skin.  The effect is that there is an undercurrent of menacing evil in Manhunter that doesn't exist in Red Dragon.  Red Dragon is also much more explicit in the gore quotient, hammering home the obvious, where Manhunter is much more judicious in its use on gore.  Hitchcock once said there is nothing more terrifying than a closed door.  Your mind will necessarily fill in what it doesn't see, and that will ultimately be more horrible than anything on screen.  This has been demonstrated time and again from Psycho to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Halloween to the chainsaw scene in Scarface to The Sixth Sense or Signs or even The Silence of the Lambs.  Ultimately, what you don't see is more horrifying that what you do because your mind will fill in the blanks.  However, sustaining this type of dread is very difficult to do and most filmmakers can't do it or the audience won't brook it, raised on a diet of cheap slasher films that replace dread with ephemeral thrills.

So, if you are in the mood for an interesting alternative take on Lecter, one of our favorite movie villains, check out Manhunter.

Guardians of the Galaxy

3.5 Stars (out of four)

So, I was among the many, when Marvel announced they were doing Guardians of the Galaxy, immediately said..."Wha...?!?"  I never read the comic, and still won't, never heard of them and wasn't interested in the least of going to watch the film.  Well, I don't know who does Marvel's marketing, but I went from a "No way in hell," to, "Tentatively, that looks pretty good."  While I heard nothing but good stuff about it in the last few months, I still had very low expectations.  I mean, come on, a talking raccoon?

The movie is basically about a bunch of criminals who are trying to sell an artifact that is actually a jewel  from the Infinity Gauntlet, an immensely powerful glove (ask your geeky frien to explain it), and the adventures they have.  They don't necessarily like each other but agree to work together each for their own reasons.

The movie is sort of like watching a Monty Python movie.  You just gotta go where it takes you, and you have to put up with a little bit of anarchy along the way.  But that is the key to this movie's success as you don't know what will happen next.  It's unpredictability is what makes it a LOT of fun.  Each of the characters are likable in their own way, thieves with hearts of gold.  The best comparison I can make is to any of you who watched/liked Firefly/Serenity.  It has the same flavor, the same unexpected, and hilarious, asides, and ultimately the same sense of family Firefly had.  It sets it's irreverent tone with the opening song on the soundtrack Come and Get Your Love by Redbone.  The soundtrack itself is worth the price of admission with semi-forgotten songs from the late 70's and early 80's that are totally incongruous to what's going on.  All the elements come together in a fine brew of entertainment for anyone.  My only complaint is I've seen a lot of the scenes before, big battles, etc that just don't add anything new.  But overall, this is an enjoyable romp that I'm putting at the fourth best Marvel movie since they started putting them together in a cohesive whole.  (For the record, the top three best, in order, are Iron Man, The Winter Soldier and X-Men: First Class.  I don't care how much you liked The Avengers, it's not that good.  Besides, it's MY list.  I don't have to justify it). Go watch it.  You'll be glad you did.