Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright. And I'm Andy Nelson. Welcome to the next reel.
Pete Wright: When the movie ends
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins. Hannibal is over.
Pete Wright: Okey dokey. Here we go.
Trailer: The person I'm looking for is quite well known. He's killed 14 people that we know of.
Trailer: You ever think he might come after you?
Trailer: At least thirty seconds of every day.
Trailer: Hello? Is this Clarice? Oh, hello, Clarice. I have been in a state of hibernation. Hibernation.
I need some action, Clarice. I need to come out of retirement and return to public life. I couldn't help noticing on the FBI's rather dull public website that I have been elevated to the more prestigious 10 most wanted list. Is this coincidence? Are you back on the case?
If so, goody goody.
Pete Wright: I mean, if there's any line I know there were massive rewrites off of the David Mammoth version. But are you like me? You'd lay money that that line is a Mammoth line that survived.
Andy Nelson: Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Because all I think of no. Seriously. All I think of when I hear that stupid line is James Cameron's original script for Spider Man that he wrote in the nineties.
Yeah. Doc Ock was the villain. And Doc Ock said, okey dokey all the time in that script. And it was so dumb, and it's just as dumb here. And I I couldn't even think of neither David Mammet nor Steve Zalian because it was just dumb dumb screenwriting.
That's basically where I landed.
Pete Wright: Okay. So this is a movie that you it was touch and go for you. You kinda like, you didn't know how to feel. Is that what I'm getting from you?
Andy Nelson: The movie or just that line? No. How do I know how to feel with this movie?
Pete Wright: Oh. Oh. We're talking about Hannibal, the sequel to silence of the blams that did not involve Demi and Foster and does ask the question, can Hannibal serve as a central character in a film, embarking up upon a feature length journey from his twenty two minute ex excursion in the last film. Yes. And I think this movie is complicated because I let me just tell you.
I've been working on my review for this for Letterbox all weekend, and my review is over a thousand words because I think it's complicated. It's complicated because the answer to that central question for me is yes. Obviously, I like Hannibal a lot, and I love Anthony Hopkins' exploration of it. And yet, does the answer to that question being yes mean this is a good movie? And the answer to that, I think, is no.
It is it is not a good movie for so many other stupid reasons.
Andy Nelson: Yet it's odd that you had to add an I think in there. Yeah. I'm not actually sure.
Pete Wright: I I think it is a not a I think it is a not a good movie, as they say in Florence. So where would you where would you like to start?
Andy Nelson: What's interesting about films like this, I don't know Thomas Harris's, writing style. I don't know had he started kind of stewing on an idea for a story as soon as he finished The Silence of the Lambs? Because this feels more like a movie that or I I should say more like a story that he crafted after seeing how popular the characters and the film version of The Silence of the Lambs were. Like, I feel like he said to himself, wow. People really love the, you know, Clarice Starling Hannibal Lecter relationship.
I need to figure out how to run with that and continue that version of this story. It's like I said, I just don't know. Did he already have this idea in his head? But to me, it doesn't seem like it. To me, it feels like this was a version that came of the birth of the explosion in popularity of that story of the actors winning Oscars for their performance of that film just doing so incredibly well.
This feels like a film that he he just wanted to figure out how can he tie these characters together in a bigger way. And because of that, it just ends up ringing more false to me throughout the entire duration.
Pete Wright: Well, I I I mean, you know, it's obviously, it's hard to armchair an author's process. But I do know that this book was in the works in Harris's process for years, like, after silence of the lamps. So I think it might be disingenuous to say that it felt like a response to the success of Hannibal. I do think that he had this story somewhere in him. Are you familiar?
I've been spending time with the book because I actually loved the book. I loved the book the same way I loved the book American Psycho. Like, it is a hard book to read, and it does things with these characters that are diabolical, that are not transitioned to the movie. And I so what is your level of familiarity with the book? Can we talk just a bit about that?
Andy Nelson: I read it when it came out. Like, this was one of those books you know, after silence of the lambs, I really enjoyed Lecter and enjoyed this world. I read silence of the lambs and really enjoyed it. And I had seen silence of lambs many times. When the book came out, I picked it up, and I read it right away and quickly.
And I enjoyed a lot of it, and then it got to the ending. And I'm like, well, I just think that he couldn't figure out what to do with this because it just went crazy and just went in the direction that I couldn't buy into.
Pete Wright: See, that's I think I'm an island. I loved the end of the book. So what what happens at the end of the book and we'll talk about the movie in a bit. But what happens at the end of the book is he's drugged Clarisse. He has nursed her to health.
And effectively, over the course of the movie, unveiled that the FBI has been using her and is gaslighting her, and it's just she they've taken advantage of her to the point where over the course of the book, she changes sides, And she is now a lector partner, and they go off together at the end of the book after eating Kremler's brains. And there is something so vicious about that and so vicious to the character that I think only an author who has written these other completely diabolical psychological thrillers like red dragon and silence of the lambs can possibly get away with. I think he didn't get away with it really to the, you know, to the point that he had to give permission to, Scott to change the ending for the film. And I don't care for it. I think that is a maybe too strong a language.
I think it's a cowardly move because I actually think they've set Clarisse up to be someone in a a weakened state, and I don't look at it as as if they are trampling on that character, as Jodie Foster has said. I I look at it as a bold move, an unexpected move that actually deals more broadly with the the fragility of human psyche. That's what the end of that book was all about. And it's it's not pretty, but it didn't get an answer.
Andy Nelson: Well, but I I think part of the issue that also falls into all of this is that I think Clarisse as a character is treated so much more poorly, in this book and in this story than in Silence of the Lambs. In both cases, and and I don't mean just just strictly as a character. I just mean the perspective of the writers and the filmmakers and everyone behind it just treat her much more poorly. I it it feels more misogynistic than, Silence of Lambs. In Silence of Lambs, it felt like there was a purpose to the misogyny and the way that Clarice was being treated.
Like, it actually feels like it's part of the story. It feels like something that she's perpetually working against and through so that she can prove her strength. And here, it just it felt like these people just really didn't like women. Like, I'm just like, is this coming from Thomas Harris? Is it coming if anyone, it's coming from David Mammoth because Yeah.
That's certainly something that like, maybe that's what they left with David Mammoth's story with this is all the actual hatred of women. But it could have been Zelie and I don't know. But it just felt like as I was watching this, I'm like, god, these people just don't feel like any of them actually like the character of Clarice, and they just feel like they're just being mean to her. Like, they were like, the way that the FBI was behaving, I'm like, this like, it I just kept going, this makes no sense. Like, why are they like, she has to clear out her desk and get out of here?
They're not just gonna, like, ask a few other people? Hey, what happened at this shootout? It's like there's so many instances throughout the film where it just is people bagging on her and and putting her down and basically pushing her aside for largely, like, no reason other than just to have it in there. And that's why I just I felt like these people don't like this character of Clarisse. And they're making this weird case where the only person in the world who actually likes Clarisse is Hannibal.
And I'm just like, I couldn't buy into just that central foundation of the story regardless of the ending of which version you go with.
Pete Wright: Well, I think you I think this is a really good point, and it gets exactly to what I'm trying to say inarticulately. I'm gonna try it again. That in the book, we actually get a journey of Clarisse that is so deeply let down by the agency and the nation she serves that it becomes believable for me that she would change sides, that she's so broken by the end that she'd change sides. The movie, we don't have any of that. And so she, unlike in silence of the lambs, has nothing to bounce off of.
Right? She's now this wizened supposedly wizened experienced agent, and nobody likes her to no end. There is there's no reason for them to just hate on her all the time. And in case of the the case against her where she has to clear out her desk, it's totally purposeless. Like, do they expect no one has seen movies before?
Like, even if you have no experience in law enforcement, you see something like that. You've seen movies where they try to address it with some some at least professional decorum. And in this case, she gets none of it, and that just sort of just cuts the thread of believability for her character arc in this movie. I just don't I don't believe it all the way to the end that she sustains that she's able to sustain her allegiance, you know, all the way through, you know, what what happens to her. It I find it very, very frustrating.
And so I think I think I'm with you. Maybe not for exactly the same reason, but I think we agree.
Andy Nelson: Well, I think we agree about the film. I just also don't think that the book worked as far as once we got once we got to that whole ending of her suddenly, you know, having finally able to get out of the drugs and realize I do really love this crazy eater of people. Yeah. Just let's run off to Argentina together.
Pete Wright: I don't think she ever said it like she was running through a valley of lilies. I really think that it was it was a little bit more subdued than you
Andy Nelson: possibly way Lecter would want it, though.
Pete Wright: Okay. So the movie. Andy, I just there's some there is a movie in here that I really wanna watch, and I kind of wish Clarisse wasn't in it. Because the Lecter stuff and the experience we get from the book where we have an extensive sequence, an extended segment of the book is is Lecter's background in Florence as doctor Fell, and I find that riveting. I love it.
I love it so much. I love that we get to explore his more Epicurean tastes. I love that we get his art his experience talking about art, all of that. And the cat and mouse sort of experience with Patsy is is wonderful in the book. And in the movie, it just it feels like it's on fast forward.
So much of this movie is so propulsive, like Ridley Scott propulsive, that we it never has an opportunity to breathe.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. We never care. And that's Yeah. Another of my biggest complaints is it. Like, I mean, could it have worked better if it was, like, two and a half, three hours?
Maybe. But I think the problem is it's it is kind of a big story, and I think you're right. Like this I think the story of Lecter living in Florence as this other doctor of art and, you know, everything. I think that's a much more interesting journey and watching like, if we had had this story, remove Clarisse from the equation. If it was a story about and just focusing on Hannibal, like it's in the title, and he's on the run, he's in living in Florence, he's made a life for himself, and this cop starts getting close and figuring out who he is, and then you also have all the stuff.
I mean, even sure. Yeah. Leave the stuff with, Mason Verger in there. And that whole pursuit to find him so that they can get back to him, I think there's an element of interest with that particular story. But, you know, I don't know.
I I just don't think that they ever do enough to actually to make that story actually interesting. Like, it it's a strange film in that as I watched them, like, I just I don't care about anybody. Like, the characters are just not interesting to me. It's just like plot, plot, plot, move us forward, and it it just, like, left me feeling completely empty and just bored, really.
Pete Wright: I think it's funny that it took us fifteen minutes for one of us to mention Mason Verger in the story, and I think that's a real testament to the missed opportunity of character in the Verger side of the story, which I actually I buy the story part. Like, I think the idea of this disfigured former victim, made of money is able to marshal the resources to initiate a manhunt for Lecter, and I am behind that story a %. I miss the fact that we have the complexities of his relationship with his sister and her lover in the book and the tie up with Barney and all of these sorts of elements that make that side of the story meaty. It was absolutely stripped to threads. And the alternate and and what was replaced was this this story with Clarisse.
And I think they they probably, in the in the act of of trimming Hannibal to palatable size, I think they missed an opportunity with these characters because you're totally right. They're that that you don't have time to care about anybody, even the horrifically disfigured and masterfully played Mason Verger, who is unrecognizable, unrecognizable Gary Old man. I I mean, I think the makeup job was fantastic. Others have disagreed with me. They think it looks like saran wrap.
I actually think it looks pretty good. And the eyeball treatment is legit, but I just, I I feel like they missed a huge opportunity.
Andy Nelson: I well, I think that just goes to my point about just the way that the film is constructed because even with Gary Old man playing this character, like, the character was a boar. Like, I don't know. I just it was an interesting like, yeah, I I liked the makeup. I didn't have any issues with the makeup, except maybe a little bit around the lips because you could sometimes when he was really opening his mouth, you could kind of see his real lips under lips. Yeah.
Yeah. Which looked a little funky. But, I think largely, I just felt like he was just written as a snooze, and there was no excitement about the character. And it was it was strange because I'm like I mean, I suppose in this version of the story, he is our tooth fairy. He is our Jane Gum.
Right? He is, the one who, the other counterpoint of the story. You've got the detective. You've got Hannibal, and then you have the, quote, villain of the story. And I suppose that that falls to him.
And it's just like there was just nothing interesting in the character. And I don't know if it was partly how how like, I I don't know. I I I can't say that it's a great Gary Old man performance because I just like, I didn't care about the character. And I'm like, is that Old man's fault? Is it the fault of the way that they ended up scripting him?
I don't I don't know. And I I I know I I remember the sister in the book and her part of it, but I don't know. Like, if they had kept that in there, would that have made the Mason story thread more interesting? I don't know. Like, I just I I I have a hard time figuring out what the specific issues I had with with Mason Virger were.
Pete Wright: I I yeah. I mean, I thought I thought he was I I thought Goldman was great. I on on that, I guess, disagree because I did like his performance, and I I liked going back to him every now and again because that because I thought he was he had the makings of a really fantastic villain. And and so maybe what I'm seeing is my hope that he could have been something more. Maybe I'm being overly generous in giving the performance credit, but I I can't blame anyone other than the or anything other than the script, like, for neutering that character.
And part of it, I have this hypothesis that they chose this character with way too much backstory, like way too much weight and detail in their relationship with Hannibal to to be able to spend enough time to actually do the same thing in the film. And and I think as a result, it ends up being sort of given short shrift. So be it just there there's nothing again to react to. It's empty.
Andy Nelson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: And and don't forget, I mean, the whole reason Margo the the Margo story, her initiative in the book was to steal Mason Virgil's yeah. Margo is his sister, to steal his sperm. Like, yet another imminently cinematic journey for us. I can see why some of this stuff was cut. But also, you know, that that was important to the story.
Like, you cut away too many of those things that are unpalatable, and what you have left is what we got.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I just it it makes me wonder, like, is is the Mason verger, the treatment period done in a way that actually ever could have worked? I don't know. I mean, could they have found the right way to deliver that story to us? It just I I wanted it to be gripping and thrilling.
And and I guess it's a little different when you have a serial killer who is stalking prey and killing people over the course of the story. And then Mason Verger is just somebody who's bent on revenge. We never see him kill anybody over the course of the story. He's just, you know, collecting Lecter paraphernalia and tracking him down. And that's kind of all we get from him as a character, which ends up being less interesting.
And and it also, it just it it's less something that that puts a that kind of the time crunch that we get in the story because they're trying to save somebody before they get killed.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we have to talk a little bit about animals. We opened our our member pre show conversation this morning about, I think, an incredibly kind list of movies about pigs.
How did you feel about the pigs in this movie?
Andy Nelson: Like, that's something I definitely remembered from the book, and it's it's an interesting treatment of them here. I I mean, I like that part of the story. I guess I don't really have much to say. It just like it it does its job well of providing another layer of kind of gruesomeness that we get. I mean, it's definitely a kind of a gruesome story throughout.
And the fact that Verger is training these pigs to basically be human eaters. Like, they they play the sounds of humans screaming when they feed the pigs so that they're all the more ready to chomp down on human victims when they're placed in their in their pens. And that's an interesting element. I mean, I guess I don't really have much more to say other than they work.
Pete Wright: In the book, there's this concept that somehow conceptually, they're specially bred too. Like, they're somehow cross bred with I think in the movie, they try to make a a mention that they're genetically modified somehow. I don't know if that's the I might be giving too much credit to the pigs. I think the problem with the pigs in the book is that they or or or the problem that I have with the pigs in the movie, in the book, I feel like the pigs exist in a way that amps up tension in a a successful way for me. Like, I by the time we get to the pigs, we know much more clearly what's going to happen.
It's been a much slower burn. And in the movie, I every time we come back to pigs, like, oh god. Right? There are the pigs that are in this thing. Like, I'm not thinking about them, waiting for them to show up again.
And, you know, the the fact that the the escape happens, I the escape of the the whole intention was to feed Lecter to the pigs. Lecter is able to get out with Clarisse's help from the pig pen pig pen. Berger gets eaten by the pigs after Cordell throws him in. And that happened so fast. It reminded me of the the finale of Manhunter.
Like, it was it happened so fast that I I it made my head spin a little bit. Like, it just there wasn't enough enough of the intensity given to to Mason's experience finally having Lecter. And, that's that was a problem.
Andy Nelson: Well and then also, they portray it strangely because it sounds like the pigs are initially just going to eat his feet. Right. And then he's gonna have to suffer for hours and hours and hours before the rest of him gets fed to the pigs. But they just bring him him out entirely, and I I couldn't quite figure out was their intention. Like, were they going to, I don't know, put him in a box with his feet sticking out?
Like like like a I don't know. Because that was kind of what Verger had initially said. And I it just once they got there, I'm like, okay. But he's just on as the little, you know, human carrying tray that they put him on. And and I I guess I don't know.
Maybe Clarisse interrupted them from finishing the setup, but it just didn't make any sense because it just seemed like for somebody who is so bent on really kind of it sounded like torturing Lecter slowly for a prolonged period of time. Honestly, I was kind of expecting something more along the lines of what you get in the girl with the dragon tattoo with the crazy basement torture chamber, where you'd have people down there that you could torture for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I assumed that Virgil would want something more with that. Yeah. Maybe feed the pigs his feet at one point, and then just kind of like maybe his hand the next week or whatever.
And it just it never goes down any of those roads. It's just like, yeah, we're just gonna bring him out entirely. So it just it seemed like they kind of gave up on that concept once they had introduced it.
Pete Wright: Yeah. No. I I think you're right. And I can't do you remember in the book how they handled feet? I thought that's what they were gonna do, is cut off a foot and feed it to the pigs to give them a taste of Hannibal or something.
I thought that was the diabolical pruning of Hannibal, but my memory is is foggy. I I think the the pigs are interesting, a shocking element. People don't think of pigs, I don't think, as, evil man eaters. And so that makes the addition of them in this book, I think, interesting. And in the movie, they are underutilized as as a threat.
They are made less threatening.
Andy Nelson: It's an interesting weirdly, I mean, considering we have pigs in the book, we also have Barney, eating pigeons. Like, it's you don't really get that, but my recollection you don't get that in the movie, but my recollection in the book is he saves that dead or he rescues the dead body of the pigeon, lets its partner mourn, and then he he, like, plucks it and cooks it. Like, that's he just kind of eats what he finds, and so he's eating the pigeons. And then you also have Lecter, not Lecter, Virgil, his sister takes their electric eel and, like, shoves it down his throat and kills him that way.
Pete Wright: After sticking the cattle prod up his butt.
Andy Nelson: Up his butt. Yeah. To to get the scene sample. Yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright: So there's So There's there's a lot that is truly cinematic, I think, is what you're saying. A lot of animals. Super cinematic.
Andy Nelson: Jeez. This book. Oh my goodness. Can we you know, we we kind of didn't even touch on this whole point, but we have an entirely new starling here. Julianne Moore stepped in to play the role after Jodie Foster.
I love how careful she's been in the way that she talked about it. You know, she it clearly didn't want to be part of it. She didn't like how Starling was treated in this book, neither did Demi. That was another part that, he didn't like of the many. And you get this sense that she turned them down with as much aplomb as an actor of of much prominence needs to and said, I actually was really on I was filming another project, and I couldn't do it.
Like, to say, like, that's her legit excuse, but she also is just like, but I really hated what they did with Starling. Like and so and, yeah, I I I've already said it. I completely agree. I don't like Starling in this. I just or I I Starling is okay, but I don't like what they've done with how everyone else treats her.
It's a real problem in this story. Like, it just it's just hate hate hate. And Julianne Moore comes in and does it, and I can't say I was wowed. What did you think of Julianne Moore?
Pete Wright: You know, I I the I think the biggest challenge that I have with the complaints with Julianne Moore is that they all center on this, or many of the cons con complaints about her performance center on somehow on her accent, that she has a problematic accent, that doesn't line up with what Foster was doing. And I find that so shortsighted. There are so many more things about the character to be frustrated about than the accent. Why Why are we why are we focusing on the accent? I didn't actually have a problem with the accent because I was I think I was too busy being frustrated with the fact that she was being marshaled out of the FBI for tenuous reasons in the film that caused me to second guess my experience with the film.
And so, no, I didn't I didn't have that much of a problem with how to and and, you know, these performances, I have no reason to blame the actor for any of these things because I think this this starts and ends with the script and the adaptation. And that's the I so I you know, her her choices are are the choices that come from a a big discussion around how to treat that character, and I don't I don't blame Julianne Moore for any of that. I think she could have been fine if the character had been better.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I mean, I I think she's I mean, she's obviously an incredible actress. She's done a lot of amazing performances, and she could have been totally fine here. It boils down to the again, my initial hatred for the story period. Like, I just don't think it was a story that needed to have Starling in it.
And again, going back to my very initial point, this feels like a story that Thomas Harris put together strictly because Silence of Lambs was so popular. Like, I I think that he would have been served so much better had he just continued a story of following Hannibal Lecter. Like, that would have been a much more interesting story. Drop her out of it or a character who pops in at certain points, but the I just yeah. I just really didn't care for it.
And Julian Moore is doing her best, but it's just not not great.
Pete Wright: The problem is is that if we don't have Julianne Moore, how do we have her getting real angry with Ray Liotta? And without Ray Liotta doing his Ray Liotta thing, how do we get mad at the law enforcement institutions of The United States?
Andy Nelson: I I mean, I will say I enjoy it's weird to say, but I enjoy the brain eating sequence. I enjoy the way that that plays. That's really a fascinating bit. Ray Liotta, his character had been in Silence of the Lambs, but, that actor who played, Paul Krendler in that particular story had sadly passed away a few years after making silence of lambs. And so, that was Ron Votter who played him.
And we only meet him, I think, in Memphis Memphis at the in the airplane hangar. I think that's where he comes into the story briefly. Ray Liotta brings Ray Liotta, and so you're just kind of getting that Ray Liotta energy in that character. Again, super hateful character. And it's just like like to a point where I really struggled buying into the character period.
And I felt like they're just making they're writing this character in a way, and Ray Liotta casting him, I suppose, and then having him play his Ray Liotta ness in it. In a way that just makes you hate him because we're gonna be getting that brain sequence later. And I think that's really it. And it just ends up playing as just like, again, just not a character or any scene that that ends up working for me.
Pete Wright: I I I don't have that much of a problem with the the Liotta performance or the Liotta character. Like, I I understand that he's a hateful character. He's Kevin Bacon in the last Axle f. Right? Like, he's just a hateful member of law enforcement, and he's trucking around all of the stereotypes.
And it's it's unpleasant, but you're right. Like, the answer to that unpleasantness that he gets to bounce off of is getting his brain eaten, and doing it while lucid being Ray Liotta is awesome. Like, that is a an awesome scene for me. And so, even if it doesn't come with the same sort of stakes that comes in in the book, in the film, I enjoy the fact that he's his brain is being eaten while he's still alive and that he's fed parts of it to himself. Like, that is grotesque and amazing.
And so I'm here for it, and I can't think of a better actor to be able to pull off that kind of smarminess than Ray Liotta after seeing it. Like, there's no chance. So I'm I'm kinda here for it.
Andy Nelson: Look. I'm here for the brain eating. I think that it that's the sort of scene that plays well in a story about Hannibal Lecter. Like, it worked so perfectly. Ugh.
It's just like, there's just Ray Liotta ended up like, that character, I should say, ends up being nothing other than just, like, the worst type of archetype or not even archetype. It's just, like, it's so stereotypical that it's just, like, it's boring. Like, there's nothing interesting about the character. And it's just like, like, I almost rather would rather have had them eating Mason Verger's brain because the Paul Crandler character was just unnecessary element in the film.
Pete Wright: Okay. Well, I at this point, I'm thinking, I really look forward to your take on the subsequent films in this series if this is where we are for Hannibal.
Andy Nelson: Well, I as I watch this, I know we've been joking about your, like, allowing only 15 total stars for all five of these films. And after I revisit this, I'm like, maybe it wouldn't be hard to get to 15 stars. The hard part might be saying, do I have to give 15 stars to these scripts?
Pete Wright: I I'm telling you. I told you last week after I had watched all of the movies that my math checks out, and I think you thought I was that was dubious, a dubious claim. But
Andy Nelson: Your math checks out, but are you hitting 15? Because I'm not gonna let you go under.
Pete Wright: No. I'm act I'm hitting 15. I'm hitting 15. I figured it out.
Andy Nelson: Alright. Okay. Good. Wow. Alright.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Wow. Wow. I mean,
Andy Nelson: I haven't it's been a long time since I've seen Red Dragon. I've never seen Hannibal rising. So it's not completely fair of me to say this just yet. But if they if they linger around this level of quality, then I I don't foresee it getting to 15 for me. Holy cow.
Okay. And this yeah. I will say this this is one that that, Dina De Laurentiis and Martha De Laurentiis came back to. And I will say because they it's really funny because they produced Manhunter. It didn't do very well.
So when Orion Pictures came around and said, hey, can we do Silence of the Lambs? They're like, please do it. We don't we don't want anything to do with it. Have fun with it. Godspeed.
And then that movie was, just it turned out to be the best of the franchise. It was so good. Did great at the Oscars. And then when Hannibal came around, they're like, we want back in. And they they optioned, Thomas Harris's, novel and started working on this.
So I will say, if anything, this definitely feels more like a Di Laurentiis type of film rather than something that you would get without them. Like, it just it it has the level of grotesqueries, the the way that the characters like, it all plays a little more like b movie, a Hannibal type of story rather than what you get from, like, the Silent of the Lambs level. I mean and I will say, Ridley Scott, and we've talked a lot about Ridley Scott on over the course of this show over the decade decades. And it just feels like with Ridley Scott paired with the, Di Laurentiis, it it feels grand guignol. Like, there is something about this that feels over the top.
I mean, especially with Hannibal having such a love for opera. I will say it feels operatic. Like, this feels like big bombastic operatic. And I think they could have they could have gotten there. I feel like with with all of these people involved, they could have gotten there if there was better pacing, and I I could latch on to the characters.
And if I felt more connection to the characters. Like, with all of that, I think they could have made a really fantastic follow-up to silence of the lambs. And I I think maybe more than anything, I'm just frustrated that it doesn't actually get to that place.
Pete Wright: Yeah. No. I feel that. I feel that. And I think this is a the the quote of De Laurentiis on the fact that Demi pulls out, I think, is is prime De Laurentiis.
When the pope dies, we create a new pope. Good luck to Jonathan Demi. Goodbye. Right? Like, that's just that sums up the vibe that this movie gives, which is like, just move out of the way.
Move out of the way. So one of the the principal sequences in the movie that I remember so much from the book, which I think is is actually handled well again in the lines of the of the brain eating is the hanging of Potsie, which is gruesome and extraordinary where he slices his gut and hangs him from the building. What was the building that was famous? I can't I can't remember the name of it.
Andy Nelson: Is it the Palazzo Vecchio?
Pete Wright: More. Yeah. Maybe it was the Palazzo Vecchio. And so he hangs him from the building, and his entrails spill out upon the plaza. And I thought that was great, and it's another example of buildup to a scene that is weaker than the ultimate expression of the scene that we and the end of the scene.
That is it it's another sign that I think Patsy is a better character than Starling. And in fact, had we been able to move on from Starling and just live in this Italy space for a while, we would have had, I think, a much more interesting and tight story because it all exists in one place. And I think that would have been tremendous. I can't remember. Were you were you on team Potsie?
Did you like the the fact that we got a little Potsie? It feels sidetracked in this movie, but in the spirit of what could have been.
Andy Nelson: It doesn't feel sidetracked to me because, I mean, it's more than half the film. Like, we spend a lot of time in Italy on this particular story. Maybe the route that they should have gone with this story is say, we're gonna just do half of the book, and we're gonna focus on Lecter and his time in Florence. Because I do think that this is an interesting story. Again, because of the way that the entire film is constructed, I just don't care about the characters.
Like, I have a hard time connecting to Patsy. Like, there are so many interesting elements that I feel like they're setting up a fantastic cat and mouse game between Potsie following doctor Fell around and figuring out what he's up to, trying to get the fingerprints, hiring this pickpocket. Like, there are so many interesting things going on, but it just comes across kind of flat and bland. And I'm like, it shouldn't. It should be a very gripping, interesting part of the story that we're getting here, and it just never quite gets there.
But I agree. Like, I enjoy this part of the story so much. I think it's such a fascinating element of the story of this cat and mouse trying to capture Hannibal Lecter and get him back into the circles. There are a lot of elements in here, like, that we as I was rewatching it, I'm like, okay. So the website just said they're they're paying, like, I can't remember, $2,500 for information leading to Lecter.
And then he's looking on the website and it's 3,000,000, and I I guess I missed that. And then I had to go back. I'm like, oh, it's because that was Mason Virger's, like, private search for it. And and so, like, a lot of this, I I felt like they could have found a better way to just construct that entire part of the story because there is something there. Like, I genuinely am interested in that part of the story, and I guess it's just frustrating that it never gets me as excited as it should.
Like, I wanna be on the edge of my seat as the pickpocket is tailing Lecter, trying to figure out how can I how can I get myself into a place where he's gonna grab my wrist and go through that whole thing? And it never quite does because, like, you're perpetually like, Lecter knows what's going on. He's always the smartest man in the room, and he's gonna figure it out. And and I I I don't know. Maybe what I needed is to have a sense that Lecter had let his guard down a little bit.
Like, maybe that would have helped. Like, he was getting comfortable and might have been slipping a little bit to the point where, you know, you're not quite sure. Like, are they gonna be able to pull all this off? And it just like I don't know. And I don't know.
Maybe it's the way that Ridley Scott shot it. There's some definitely some shooting styles throughout I wasn't as much a fan of, but, it's a it's an interesting part of the story. I wish that it had better treatment.
Pete Wright: You I need you to talk more about the shooting styles you weren't a fan of, and particularly the Ridley Scottness of the movie because I found this movie hard to like, if you gave me a a a set of Ridley Scott movies but didn't tell me which ones were Ridley Scott and which ones weren't mixed up, I don't think I would have picked this movie out as a Ridley Scott movie. And yet, I note Ridley Scott as a director of having a fingerprint that I can usually pick out. So what was it about this movie that didn't appeal to you in terms of how he handled the the film?
Andy Nelson: Well, I mean, just the the the pacing in general, I just didn't feel ever gripped me. And this is coming off of Gladiator, which was a, you know, a thrill a thrill of a film. I mean, just starting with the fish market sequence with Starling. It's just like, there was nothing exciting about that sequence. The the shootout was kind of boring and flat.
Like, nothing gripped me. And it just felt like, it's just here. We're just having a shootout. A bunch of people pulling their guns out and stuff. And, it it like, was it rushed?
I don't I don't think the production was rushed, but I think that the the actual story that they were in the editing, like, when they compressed it down to I can't remember what the running time was. It was, two hours and twenty minutes. Is that what we're at? We're just at two hours. Right?
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Andy Nelson: This is a film that felt like it needed a little more time. Two hours and eleven minutes. One thirty, one hundred thirty one minutes. Yeah. Like, I didn't care about these sequences.
Like, fish market sequence. And again, it could go to the way that the characters were set up, but I'm just like, by the time we got into this shootout in the fish market, I'm just like, okay. One, I couldn't tell who the hell was, like, shooting and, like, it would show somebody shooting, somebody getting hit, somebody shooting, somebody getting hit. But you couldn't it wasn't connected. Like, did the person who we just saw, is that the person who just hit the person that we or, like, nothing like, you weren't getting good film storytelling structure where it was pieced in a way where it was, clarity provided in the actual in the production.
So that's part of it. I also really struggled with the, and I'm forgetting if this is the name, but like the the step is it step printing? In the edit when they like, in the Mason verger flashbacks where you do that where you just kind of lose little chunks of it, and it makes it kind of jumping a lot, in the in the in the footage. And that came across very choppy, and because it felt like handheld footage, like, almost was seemed to be designed in a way where they didn't want to actually let us see that it was Anthony Hopkins and Gary Old man together. Like, it's just like, okay.
I see somebody with long hair and lecturer ish sort of person, but it just was it was it was rushed. It just it just looked like a sloppy style to decide to use for flashbacks like that. So there are a lot of those sorts of things throughout the story that I just I don't know. I I feel like Ridley Scott has done much better work, and this just felt like it wasn't one of the films that stands up for him.
Pete Wright: The problem for me was that it felt like there were sequences that tried to engage action through what felt to me like Michael Bay sort of techniques. Like, it felt like what was the one it wasn't ambulance was the one that was shot with all drones. What was the Netflix one that was wasn't Ryan Reynolds in it? I it was terrible. It was
Andy Nelson: Six Under
Pete Wright: Six Underground. Six Underground. Yeah. Where you you have these sequences that attempt to use camera and shake and, you know, tracking shot very, very fast, disjointed tracking shots to build intensity and do so in a way that I think was was, but it doesn't it doesn't work. Like, there was I couldn't I couldn't they're in broad daylight, and I couldn't make sense of how people were shooting at each other in many of the sequences.
It's very confusing and not intense. And as soon as I'm confused and not intense, you know, I'm disconnected. And I think that's just a that's just a a real problem. It doesn't it didn't feel like Ridley Scott. It just didn't feel like Ridley Scott to me.
Andy Nelson: There are elements that feel more Ridley Scott than others. And I I feel like when we get some of the stuff in Florence, it feels a little more like him and just the way that he's he's bouncing the characters off of each other. But largely, it just, I don't know. The whole thing ends up feeling rushed to me, and it just feels like Ridley Scott has done such better films than this. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a tough one.
Pete Wright: Well, crud. Score? Do you like the score?
Andy Nelson: I do like the score. I actually like what Hans Zimmer is doing here. I mean, I don't put it up there with, like, top Hans Zimmer scores or anything like that, but I I I think that it's a good one. I do think that it's enjoyable. And, you know, largely, as much as I, you know, I was talking about the look and everything as as much as I struggle with so much of the look, I still like a lot of the cinematography.
Like, there's a lot of mood and tone that he's creating throughout that actually looks pretty good. And that's, I think, a lot of the Ridley Scott ness of it. It's just some of the the pacing and and the that step processing that I just really struggled with. But otherwise, I I like the look. I like the score.
But, yeah, I I just there are so many other issues
Pete Wright: that I
Andy Nelson: have with the film that it's hard to get it's hard to get past all of that, you know.
Pete Wright: I'll tell you an issue I don't have with the film is the poster. I love the poster. The, sort of art the statuesque style of of Hannibal's face kind of leaning out of the shadow with red eyes and a kind of crack down his forehead. I think it is so moody and awesome. What a it's just a great treatment of his face.
There you go. The poster wins. That's worth some portion of a star.
Andy Nelson: Sure. Sure.
Pete Wright: What else do we have? What else do you have? Do you have anything else to say about this movie? Have we have we tapped out of our enthusiasm for this movie?
Andy Nelson: I mean, I guess the last thing I have to say is based on how he ended the book and based on how the film ends, I do think it's interesting that this is not a storyline that Thomas Harris has felt any, or maybe he's felt it, but he certainly hasn't figured out what the story would be if he were to continue this. Like, this definitely seems like, well, I can't figure anything out past here, so that's the end. I'm not gonna come back to the franchise, which, I mean, it speaks to the fact that the only other one that he wrote afterward was the prequel. Right. Right.
So
Pete Wright: Which is which is unfortunate because how do you how do you sequel a movie that is now effectively completely divorced from the source material? The fact that he wanders off feeding children the remains of brains with one hand, and the book does not end that way. Right? The the book does not go in that direction. And so now we've we've created a fork, and that's unfortunate because it does scream that Harris is probably done with the character.
And that's too bad because I'd like to explore more of Hannibal in the world post this experience.
Andy Nelson: Just speaking to that end, it's an odd end. It's an odd way to end the film. One, it was no surprise that Hannibal was gonna cut his own wrist off. Was like None. Like, just like they're they they they're trying to build attention like he's gonna cut her wrist off.
It just never played that way.
Pete Wright: God. Babe Ruth couldn't have called that any better.
Andy Nelson: Right. And then that whole bit on the plane with the kid just I mean, people complain about the end of Silence of the Lambs just feeling like a tacked on ending. I agree with you. I liked that ending. This one, I'm just like, what are we doing here?
Just like What are we doing? Okay. Lecter gets away, and now he's feeding this curious little kid brains while his parents sleep. Well, I could where are we going with this? And I watched the, the the disc also has the the alternate ending that Ridley Scott had put together.
And I was hoping that we'd get something a little more interesting, but it's virtually the same thing. The only difference is that she doesn't handcuff him, and so he just gets away. And that's kind of it.
Pete Wright: Like With both hands.
Andy Nelson: With both hands is really the only change. Yeah.
Pete Wright: Okay. That's terrible. Yeah. I'll tell you what this does more than anything else. We we teased this before last week, was this makes me more curious, not less, about the TV show Hannibal, which borrows heavily from the novel.
I have not seen the whole TV show. So I'm very interested in exploring that at this point.
Andy Nelson: I really wanna see the TV show now as well. Like, if anything, this just walking through this series has made me very curious about where they're going to go with this. And I forgot they also did a Clarisse TV show. Did you remember that? No.
What? Yeah. CBS had, it it lasted one season, thirteen episodes. In 2021, They had a show called Clarice, and, Rebecca Breeds played Clarice Starling. And, it's based on the silence of the well, no.
It's it's based on silence of lambs, but only in the sense of character setup. It's set between the events of that film and Hannibal. We're just getting a sense of her and her time in the FBI, I guess.
Pete Wright: Well, that sounds terrible.
Andy Nelson: That's crazy. Well, let's just say, I'm interested in watching The Hannibal Show. I'm not interested in watching Clarice.
Pete Wright: The Clarice Show. Yeah. Alright. Alright.
Andy Nelson: Well, I guess with all that, we'll be right back. But first, our credits.
Pete Wright: The next reel is a production of True Story FM, engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Yod Nir, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra with Yishai Steckler featuring Tali Katsef, Romy Koppelman, Eric Sati, Oriel Novella, and Eli Ketlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at d-numbers.com, box office mojo Com, I m d b Com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.
Pete Wright: A cinema, a feast for the senses, a symphony of sight and sound, and yet so many of us squander it, drowning in the noise of third party ads, lost in the labyrinth of endless impersonal lists. But you, you deserve something better, something curated. Imagine a place where there are no intrusive advertisements, only the films you cherish, the ones you seek, a place where your cinematic journey is cataloged with precision, personalized statistics drawn from your own diary of experiences, annual reflections, lifetime insights, a portrait of your tastes evolving over time. And what of the hunt? The thrill of discovery?
Ah, no more sifting through the detritus. Select your favorite streaming services, any from JustWatch's vast array, and let the films come to you the moment they arrive. No more wondering. No more waiting. Only knowing.
But solitude, while exquisite, is not always necessary. See your friends' average ratings. Track the treasures you own. Refine your activity feed to your liking. Pin what matters most.
Duplicate lists for safekeeping. Sculpt your world with tags. This is letterboxed. Not merely a tool. It is an extension of your cinematic soul.
Now tell me, wouldn't you like to take control? After all, one should never settle for the ordinary. Sign up today and save 20% on your Patreon membership. Thenextreal.com/letterboxed.
Pete Wright: Andy, a new segment. It's called references.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I just put this in there because it's interesting that there were a few different elements that, you could say kind of loosely tied to the story, like cultural references and everything first. And this is real world, which is gruesome. Twenty fourteen, there was a news story from Italy where a gangster actually did feed his rival alive to pigs. News outlets compared what happened there to this particular film, which
Pete Wright: Life imitates art.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Gruesome. Also, after this film, on South Park, there was an episode where Eric Cartman tries to train a pony to bite his rival, like, I I don't know. I'm assuming pull his face off because he was sighting in the episode that deformed guy from Hannibal for the scheme.
So
Pete Wright: Oh my god. So there
Andy Nelson: you go.
Pete Wright: That Scott Tenderman must die.
Andy Nelson: That was the episode. Right?
Pete Wright: That's the episode. Oh my god. Alright. How to do an award season?
Andy Nelson: It, did better in nominations than it did in wins. It had nine wins with 25 other nominations. The Saturn Awards, we love those, the horror, sci fi, and fantasy awards. It was nominated for best horror film, but lost to the others. Hopkins was nominated for best actor, but lost to Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky.
Julianne Moore was nominated for best actress, but lost to Nicole Kidman in the others. It did win for best makeup. And then we talked about this last week. It was nominated for in 02/2010 for the best DVD collection, but lost to Star Trek, the original motion picture collection. At the Hollywood makeup artist and hairstylist guild awards, it was nominated for best space special makeup effects in a feature film, but lost to planet of the apes.
At the Italian national syndicate of film journalists, Giancarlo Giannini won best supporting actor. At the MTV movie and TV awards, it was nominated for best movie, but lost to gladiator. Interesting that another Ridley Scott film was in there. Lecter was nominated for best villain, but lost to the Grinch in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And it was nominated for best kiss.
You gotta love the MTV Movie Awards, but lost to save the last dance between Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas. Thank goodness. At the Teen Choice Awards, this was a fun one to see in here. It was nominated for film for choice horror thriller, but lost to urban legends final cut.
Pete Wright: That checks out.
Andy Nelson: Lecter was nominated for choice sleazebag, but lost to Dwayne Johnson in The Mummy Returns. And it was nominated for the choice movie your parents didn't want you to see, but it lost to Scary Movie two. I know. I know. Last but not least, the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards.
Like, Anthony Hopkins won best actor. It was nominated for best wide release film, but lost to Jeepers Creepers. Julianne Moore was nominated for best actress, but lost to Nicole Kidman and the others. Again, Giannini was nominated for best supporting actor, but lost to Jonathan Breck in Jeepers Creepers, nominated for best screenplay, blessed to Ginger Snaps. It did win best score.
It was nominated for best makeup and creature effects, but lost to 13 ghosts. And while it was nominated for best wide release film, it was also nominated for worst film, but lost to Valentine.
Pete Wright: It lost both. Outstanding. That's just like Fantastic. Oh my goodness. Alright.
How did it do at the old box office?
Andy Nelson: Well, leave it to Ridley to land a budget three and a half times bigger than what Demi had just ten years earlier. That's right. He had a whopping budget of 87,000,000 or 155,700,000.0 in today's dollars. The movie opened 02/09/2001, again, aiming for that Valentine's counter programming opposite Saving Silverman, it opened in the number one spot where it stayed for three weeks and in the top 10 for six weeks. It would go on to become the tenth highest grossing film of the year, earning 165,100,000.0 domestically and 186,600,000.0 internationally for a total gross of 629,500,000.0 in today's dollars.
That's still less than what the Silence of the Lambs did. And when you look at its adjusted profit per finished minute, three point six million, it's clear that Scott's length also didn't help out as it's still less than silence, which was just over 5,000,000. Still, it's a success at the box office and meant we had a quick turnaround for the very next film.
Pete Wright: Oh, and were we lucky? I don't know. Yeah. Who who
Andy Nelson: wins there?
Pete Wright: Who wins? Yeah. Who wins in the race to the next Hannibal film? I feel like we we got an interesting swing that ultimately didn't didn't work out. I liked it more than you.
That hasn't necessarily swayed me in this conversation because I think we both agree this was not a great film.
Andy Nelson: I remember enjoying it more than I did this go around when I saw it in theaters in 02/2001. I didn't like it. I didn't like the book, I enjoyed up to a point, and then I just kind of went off the rails. The film never really completely clicked for me, but I liked it more the first time. This time, it just was problem after problem.
I really struggled from start to finish with it. Okay. I know. Here we go. Well, we'll be right back for our ratings.
But first, here's the trailer for next week's movie, Brett Ratner's prequel slash remake of Manhunter. It's the 02/2002 film Red Dragon.
Trailer: Dear doctor, I have admired you for years. I wanted to tell you I'm delighted that you've taken an interest in me. I don't believe you're telling who I am. Besides, the important thing is what I am, becoming. I have some things I love to show you.
Until then, I remain your most avid fan.
Trailer: Two families killed a month apart in their homes. These attacks were highly organized. The victims carefully chosen. This one is gonna go on and on.
Trailer: That's the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court.
Trailer: I need your advice, doctor Lecter.
Trailer: If you recall, well, our last collaboration ended rather messily. How is young Josh and the lovely Molly? They're always in my thoughts, you know. So it's true that Lecter is actually helping with your investigation. We may have a little over three weeks before this freak does it again.
Trailer: I might not have time. I do. I have oodles.
Trailer: You wanna know how he's choosing them, don't you? This is a very shy boy, Will.
Trailer: I know what it's like to have people always thinking that you're different.
Trailer: He is refining his methods. He is evolving.
Andy Nelson: What am I doing here?
Trailer: No one will ever be safe you, Will. A note hidden in Lecter's cell.
Trailer: The killer wants Lecter to answer him through the personal columns.
Trailer: Lecter gave me your home address.
Trailer: I am a friend of your father's. Open your eyes. No. I am the dragon.
Trailer: Give me what I need.
Trailer: Before me, you tremble.
Trailer: I'll call you if I think of anything else. Would you perhaps like to leave me your home number?
Andy Nelson: Buona, Sarah, my fellow cinephiles. Inspector Reynaldo Paazzi here, writing to you from the shadow draped streets of Florence. For years, I have been in pursuit of a figure who who haunts the edges of our world, a connoisseur of the dark
Andy Nelson: arts whose name has become synonymous with elegance, erudition, and an insatiable hunger for the finer things in life.
Andy Nelson: But as I've followed the trail of the illustrious doctor Hannibal Lecter, I've come to realize that we share more than just a fascination with the macabre. We are both, in our own ways, seekers of beauty, of exquisite experiences that elevate the soul and tantalize the senses. And now I have discovered a secret that even the good doctor himself would covet, A portal to a world of cinematic wonders, an exclusive society where the silver screen reigns supreme. I speak, of course, of the Next Reels membership program. Imagine it, my friends.
Early access to ad free episodes, each one a sumptuous feast for the mind and the imagination. Monthly bonus content, rare and precious morsels that will leave you craving more, and a community of fellow devotees, kindred spirits who understand the allure of the flickering light and the whispered tale. As I sit here sipping a glass of rich Chianti, I can almost hear doctor Lecter's velvet tones urging me to indulge in this exquisite pleasure. Ronaldo, he would say, his maroon eyes glinting with mischief. The beauty of cinema is not unlike the beauty of a perfectly prepared dish.
One must savor every nuance, every subtle flavor to truly appreciate the artistry of play. And so I extend this invitation to you, my fellow hunters of the sublime. Join me in the hallowed halls of the next reel. Immerse yourself in the grandeur of the movies, and let us raise a glass together for the eternal dance of light and shadow. $5 a month or $55 for a year, a trifling sum when weighed against the promise of endless rapture and revelation.
Visit truestory.fm/join and step into a world where the only limits are the boundaries of your own imagination. To the next reel, and to the pursuit of beauty in all its forms. Salute, and happy hunting.
Pete Wright: Letterbox, Dandy. Letterbox. How are you going to rate and review this movie? As you know, if we're keeping score, I am up to nine stars of my 15 so far. I have one five star in Silence of the Lambs and four stars in Manhunter.
I have six stars left in my star budget. How are you doing?
Andy Nelson: Same. We've rated the films the same thus far. So, again, I'm not aiming for 15 either, you know, I'm not trying to exactly hit it like you are.
Pete Wright: The question is, are you aiming for 12? That's the question that we have, really.
Andy Nelson: I am not aiming for anything. Each film has its own beautiful creature, and I will rate stars how I see fit for every film individually. Traitor. But this was terrible. Traitor.
We were never on the same side. Never. You've betrayed me. In in your nonsense star rules that you've come up with, I'm going to say, one star. No hearts is where I'm sitting with this one.
One star, no hearts. This was a hot pile of Ridley Scott garbage.
Pete Wright: Alright. So Andy, on the road to 12 stars. I am, going to give this two stars because some of the heart garbage was succulent. Gross.
Andy Nelson: Are you giving it a heart two stars and a heart or two stars
Pete Wright: and a Two stars and no heart. I don't actually this this very well may have been my last watch of this movie. I think I'm done.
Andy Nelson: I certainly hope it's the last time I have to watch.
Pete Wright: This is housecleaning. This is catharsis. I'm finished with this movie.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Me too. Well, that, you know, will average out to one and a half stars, no hearts over on our Letterboxd account, which is at the next reel.
You can find me there at Soda Creek Film. You can find Pete there at Pete Wright. So what did you think about Hannibal? We would certainly love to hear your thoughts on this one. Hop into the Show Talk channel over in our Discord community where we will be talking about the movie this week.
When the movie ends Our conversation begins. Letterbox giveth, Andrew. As letterbox always doeth.
Pete Wright: Alright. How did you how did you pick your review this week?
Andy Nelson: I went popular and really torn.
Andy Nelson: I'm gonna can I do both? I'm gonna do both.
Pete Wright: Alright. Do whatever you need to do.
Andy Nelson: I'm gonna start with scream queens three star. I hate myself for so many reasons, but being attracted to Anthony Hopkins playing a well dressed cannibal is definitely one of them. Perfect. And then I have Madison's two star, Hannibal.
Andy Nelson: Dear Clarisse, I am writing
Andy Nelson: to you because I have finally discovered which wine best pairs with ass. As you know, Clarisse, dear Hannibal, I didn't even finish reading your letter because it made me wanna rip my eyes out. Thank you, and I hope to arrest you soon.
Pete Wright: Oh, gosh. I I went with Frondly Manz, who's writing in situ. I'm watching this movie right now. It is the most incoherent rambling effing disaster of a movie. It's not even awesome.
It is so long. Nothing that is happening makes any sense. The only part that's resonated is the part where that dude has fed his own brain because that's how this movie is making me feel. I miss Jodie Foster. What the f?
My favorite line though, and the thing that should be on a trick t shirt, it's not even awesome. Right. Hannibal. It's not even awesome. Fraudley man.
Half star. Outstanding. Thanks, Letterboxd.