Change Your Image
peter-pakulski
Reviews
Hannibal Rising (2007)
If you're a fan of the other books and movies, stay away from this.
If you haven't read or seen any of Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal, or Red Dragon, then what can you expect to see? An overlong revenge movie with a number of scenes that don't seem to have any point at all.
The problem with the movie isn't so much that it's poorly made or internally inconsistent (although it really wasn't very good). The problem is that they tried to link it to Hannibal Lecter. Given that it won't have much appeal to a new audience, that makes it a pretty big failure.
We already know some of the story of his past from the books, so the movie should have focused on how the fantastic character of Hannibal Lecter came to be. Instead it takes the only big thing that we *already knew*, and builds a completely random story of war-crimes and revenge around it, involving a character named Hannibal Lecter, but whose behaviour and motives bear no resemblance at all to the character we know. That he is a little style-less and impulsive is annoying but could potentially be explained away, but the Hannibal in this movie is passionate and troubled, not especially cultured, and shows no calm or of that great sense of irony.
Some aspects of the character are covered in a weak attempt to tie it in - like that he can defeat a lie detector or tell things about people - but they're really blunt, poorly executed, don't lead on to anything, and have no explanation! The *only* thing that existing fans would want, is missing!
I'm still a fan of the other books and movies - I have them all - but I won't be adding this one to that collection. I was planning to read the book, but it would have to be strongly recommended to me by someone I trust before I considered it now.
The End (1995)
Fantastic
I came by a low-quality AVI file of this animation years ago as a hidden feature on a magazine-cover CD. I still pull it out occasionally for fun - it's that memorable.
It's hard to say any more about such a short film without spoiling parts of it, bar to say that it's a clever joke upon itself - when one of the characters asks the animator to explain something, the animator replies "Listen, I can't say anything more about that - I have to make these metaphors really obscure so that the audience can spend lots of time analysing them".
Truly a 10/10 concept.
Rare Exports Inc. (2003)
Hilarious short
This movie has been doing the rounds on the internet for the last couple of years in quicktime format, many people not realising that it is a serious (or otherwise) short movie. With around a minute and a half of credits, the length proper of this is only 6 minutes.
This movie is about hunting, so keep the little ones out of view and earshot while watching it. It is an absolute masterpiece, so if you have broadband, do a search now and have a watch of it. If you decide to, then read no further, because:
SPOILER -- SPOILER -- SPOILER -- SPOILER -- SPOILER -- SPOILER
There is a lead-up and reveal about halfway through. The start shows preparations for a hunt, but the prey is unknown until the first shot is fired, and we see a sedative dart in... A FATHER Christmas! They are the most precious free-roaming beast in the whole of the Northern wilderness we are told, but they are very dangerous.
Get a copy now and see how a wild Father Christmas is tamed and prepared for export.