Day Sixty-Four: Hannibal

HANNIBAL

Starring:
-Anthony Hopkins
-Julianne Moore
-Ray Liotta
-Gary Oldham (Sirius Black, although he’s totally unrecognizable)

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Screenplay Credits: David Mamet & Steve Zaillian

MPAA Rating: R


I had bad dreams last night about Ray Liotta and brains. Any guesses as to what movie I watched before tucking myself in?

Yup, HANNIBAL.

I had seen a teenie it of the baseball cap/brain part on television many, many years ago. I stared in horror with my mouth hanging open, then immediately shut the television off, left my bedroom, and tried to decide whether or not I wanted to puke.

Watching the movie in its entirety, even all these years later, had precisely the same effect on me.

Ray Liotta eating his own brain. SERIOUSLY?!?! Who comes up with this crap?

I guess the writers have to throw in stuff like that to keep you from liking Hannibal so much. Because really, he’s a likeable guy.

I never really liked Jodie Foster all that well (in any movie); but if anything can make me miss Jodie, it’s Julianne Moore. Something about her just annoys the ever-loving stew out of me. Rarely have I seen a Julianne Moore movie that didn’t make me want to slap her around a little.

I can’t explain it, I simply have taken a wild dislike to her. It’s funny too, she tried to make her voice sound huskier in this film.

Gosh, I hate it when movies switch actors on you. I know they asked Jodie to reprise her role and, like a simpleton, she refused. But the film would have been so much better had she returned. It’s like Samantha Stevens on BEWITCHED. She goes to sleep with a York and wakes up with a Sergeant and the world’s not supposed to notice?

Believe me… we notice. And we hate it! That is, everybody but Julianne Moore’s (and, coincidentally, Dick Sergeant’s) mom hates it.

Nevertheless, Sir Anthony carried the film, no matter what the fiendishly sadistic writers threw his way (dogs eating faces? Wild pigs attacking people? WTF, writers?)

I think I enjoyed the first film a bit more, but I also liked that this film focused more on Hannibal than another serial killer dude - except for the shoutout to Osama bin Laden.


FINAL GRADE: B-

Off in search of Dr. Lector,

M.