silence of the lambs | the m0vie blog

102. Silence of the Lambs (#23) – Halloween 2018

Posted on October 27, 2018 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with Doctor Bernice Murphy, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, a Halloween treat. Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 23rd best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: #metoo, anthony hopkins, bernice murphy, feminism, horror, jodie foster, silence of the lambs, ted tally, the silence of the lambs | 2 Comments »

Jessica Jones – AKA It’s Called Whiskey (Review)

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Darren

Although Jessica Jones is the central character of Jessica Jones, the show does a pretty great job of building its ensemble.

The characters who exist in orbit of the title character all feel surprisingly well-formed and nuanced, three-dimensional and grounded. Although Jessica Jones is not always plotted in the most organic or logical way, it goes to great efforts to add layers to its characters. Over the course of the thirteen-episode season, even minor players like Malcolm or Simpson are revealed to be much more than their initial appearances would suggest. (Although this turns out to be a mixed blessing in the case of Simpson.)

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If Jessica Jones has a weaker sense of structure than Daredevil, it has a stronger sense of its own ensemble. This is obvious from the outset. Rather than incorporating the show’s awkward mandatory comic relief into the primary cast as Daredevil did with Foggy, Jessica Jones relegates Robyn and Ruben to recurring status. As AKA Take a Bloody Number demonstrates, this doesn’t prevent every possible awkward tonal mismatch between comic relief and tragic drama; however, it does allow the rest of the cast room to breathe.

AKA It’s Called Whiskey is largely about building up the characters around Jessica, without sacrificing her role in the larger narrative.

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: aka it's called whiskey, ensemble, horror, Jessica Jones, luke cage, red dragon, silence of the lambs | 4 Comments »

The X-Files – Beyond the Sea (Review)

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Darren

Ah, Beyond the Sea. My favourite episode of the first season. Maybe my favourite episode of the first two seasons, although I’ll confess that my opinion is prone to change. I’m in good company. Darin Morgan points to it as his favourite episode. Chris Carter has (again and again) singled it out as the best episode of the show’s first season – a piece of television that works “on every level.”

It’s easy to point out all the exceptional stuff in Beyond the Sea. Gillian Anderson is phenomenal, as we’ve come to suspect from spending half a season with her. David Duchovny is quite happily relegated to a supporting role, willing to allow his co-star room to breathe. Brad Dourif is sensational. Glenn Morgan and James Wong’s script is phenomenal. David Nutter’s direction is absolutely top-notch.

However, what always struck me about Beyond the Sea was just how incredibly confident and casual it was. It was bold and clever and provocative, but it was also tight and controlled. It’s brilliant, but it never feels like this isn’t a level of craft the show can’t consistently hit.

We are the dead…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Beyond the Sea, Brad Dourif, Captain (United States), chris carter, csi, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Dana Scully, Darin Morgan, David Nutter, Federal Bureau of Investigation, final destination, Fox Mulder, gillian anderson, Glen Morgan, James Wong, scully, silence of the lambs, X-File, x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files – Pilot (Review)

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Darren

The X-Files is twenty years old this year. To celebrate, I’ll be spending Month X looking back at the first season.

There was a time, around the third season, when The X-Files became the show. It had grown from the quirky newcomer of Fox’s prime time line-up, through its status as a cult hit, into a bona fides pop culture touchstone. Looking back now, twenty years after the show first began, it is something entirely different. It’s weird to look back over a long-running television, divorced from the immediacy of broadcast, a sort of “if I knew then what I know now…” sort of thing.

However, looking back at The X-Files, it’s more than just knowing how it ends. It’s more than just knowing about the show’s slow and drawn-out two-year death. It’s more than knowing that the conspiracy plotline kinda (but not quite entirely) makes sense, if you look at it the right way and don’t over-think it. Approaching The X-Files now, twenty years later, is more like opening an old tomb, unlocking a time capsule. The musky smell of the past seems to seep out of the television screen, transporting the viewer to a time that really isn’t that far away, but feels like centuries ago.

The X-Files is, undeniably, a pop culture artefact from the nineties, a show that seems to slot almost perfectly between the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror. It’s an exploration of a version of America that simply doesn’t exist any longer, the long and silent pregnant pause where the United States was the world’s sole unchallenged superpower. The X-Files really embodied that period of time, much like 24 managed to channel the anger and the rage of the post-9/11 era into piece of the zeitgeist.

And, to be fair, you can sense that sort of nineties existential anxiety even as early as The Pilot.

Beam me up…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Carter, chris carter, Clarice Starling, Dana Scully, fbi, Fox Mulder, Lambs, mulder, New England, Oregon, silence of the lambs, steven spielberg, twitter, United States, x-files | 8 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Call

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Darren

The Call is one-half knock-off of the underseen and underrated Cellular, a delightfully pulpy high-concept thriller which perhaps felt a little bit too similar to Phone Booth. The Call is also one-half knock-off of Silence of the Lambs, with the second half of the film in particular feeling like one of those psycho killer thrillers that were oh-so-popular in the mid- to late-nineties, but which became less popular in the post-CSI era. The Call has a delightfully ropey central premise, a high-concept for the mobile age, straining all manner of credibility and suspension of disbelief.

However, the problem lies in the execution. The Call wallows in heightened melodrama, struggling to sustain its central premise by trying to make us “feel” for the central characters in the most coy and manipulative of manners. Director Brad Anderson’s intrusive style doesn’t help matters too, seemingly unsure whether he’s making an action movie, a psychological horror or a high-concept thriller, and so instead tries to mash the three genres together with limited success.

Holding the line…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brad anderson, business, Call, Dispatcher, Halle Berry, hannibal, hannibal lecter, Lambs, michael imperioli, Movies, murder, Premise, serial killer, silence of the lambs, thomas harris, thrillers, will graham | 3 Comments »

Hannibal – Savoureux (Review)

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Darren

That was one impressive first season. Hannibal has developed from something that seemed like an idle curiosity – a police procedural based around the over-used cannibalistic serial killer? – into one of the best new American dramas of the past season. I suspect a lot of that is down to the decision to structure the season across thirteen episodes, instead of a larger (more traditional) network structure of twenty-or-more. To be fair, there were a few missteps early in the first season as Hannibal tried to balance the expectations of a procedural drama with the demands of an intimate character study, but it found its feet almost half-way through the season and it has never looked back.

Hannibal has been tightly plotted and cleverly constructed from around about Coquilles, and it’s remarkably how the show has found a way to weave its “serial killers of the week” into the over-arching plot. For example, Georgia from Buffet Froid winds up being a vital piece of Hannibal’s plot to incriminate Will. The clock that the sinister psychiatrist asked Will to draw in that episode is used to generate some exquisite tension here. Everything seems to have been building towards this point, and Bryan Fuller has done a simply tremendous job constructing a thirteen-episode Rube Goldberg machine that pays off beautifully.

Portrait of the killer?

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Buffet froid, Caroline Dhavernas, hannibal, hannibal lecter, Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, murder, NBC, serial killer, silence of the lambs, will graham | 4 Comments »

Hannibal – Roti (Review)

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Darren

Roti is the point where Hannibal really starts to gear up for its finalé. The decision to thematically name each of the first season’s episodes after a part of a meal seems oddly appropriate, as the whole season can be seen as a banquet, each of the courses painstakingly prepared to ensure a rich bouquet of flavour and a pleasing array of tastes. Each course is individual, and yet it remains part of the whole. It’s all one gigantic and enjoyable experience, just broken down into sweet digestible chunks. Each serves a clear purpose, like a chapter in a book, or a course in a meal.

Roti features the return of Abel Gideon, the show’s obvious homage to Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Doctor Hannibal Lecter. It also positions Will precisely where he needs to be for the first season’s rapidly-approaching climax.

A piece of the action…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Anthony Hopkin, Bryan Fuller, Eddie Izzard, Gideon, hannibal, hannibal lecter, Hugh Dancy, Lecter, Mads Mikkelsen, NBC, Roti, serial killer, Sherlock, silence of the lambs | Leave a comment »

Hannibal – Sorbet (Review)

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Darren

Hannibal took its time building up Hannibal Lecter as a serial killer. According to creator Bryan Fuller, there would have been a joke in Aperitif about Lecter’s culinary habits, but holding off on the sight of Lecter as a serial killer until the end of Entrée feels like it was a shrewd move. Not because it could ever fool the audience into forgetting that Hannibal Lecter is a murdering cannibal or anything like that. Instead, it builds up a certain amount of tension and suspense around the character, allowing us to see how those around him could have been blinded by his persona.

With a few obvious exceptions – knocking out Doctor Bloom in Potage or phoning the Hobbs household in Aperitif – we’ve mostly seen Lecter through the eyes of others. While the very premise of the show counts on the audience knowing who or what Lecter is, keeping him at a distance allowed the show a bit of breathing room in its first year. However, now that we’ve caught a glimpse of Lecter in action, Sorbet feels like its willing to pull back the layers on our eponymous epicurean.

Best served warm…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Anthony Hopkin, Bryan Fuller, hannibal, hannibal lecter, Hugh Dancy, laurence fishburne, Lecter, Mads Mikkelsen, Minnesota, murder, NBC, serial killer, silence of the lambs, Television, thomas harris, will graham | Leave a comment »

Hannibal – Entrée (Review)

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Darren

It’s nice that we got this far into the season before Entrée was necessary. It’s the kind of episode that a show like Hannibal was always going to have to produce relatively early on, allowing it to air the laundry, so to speak, and to overtly and clearly distinguish itself from a popular predecessor. In this case, it’s The Silence of the Lambs.

Although we haven’t met Clarice Starling yet, although the credit at the start of each episode cites Red Dragon as the show’s inspiration, it’s hard to escape the shadow of one of the most popular horror films ever made. Many argue that The Silence of the Lambs was the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar. Even today, it remains a cultural touchstone, and there’s an incredibly large number of people who are only familiar with the character of Hannibal Lecter through that story and – in particular – through the film adaptation.

Hannibal hasn’t been shy about referencing The Silence of the Lambs, nor should it be. Crawford’s office from the start of Aperitif seems arranged in homage to the film, while the arrangement of two of the victims in Coquilles couldn’t help but evoke Hannibal’s dramatic escape from his cell at the film’s climax. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that Entrée exists mainly to allow the show to indulge and engage in the imagery and iconography of the film, so that Hannibal can truly distinguish itself.

“Oh, goodie…”

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: amy adams, Anthony Hopkin, anthony hopkins, Christopher Nolan, Clarice Starling, Eddie Izzard, hannibal, hannibal lecter, Henry Cavill, Hugh Dancy, Jack Crawford, laurence fishburne, Lawrence Fishburne, Mads Mikkelsen, man of steel, red dragon, Ripper, serial killer, silence of the lambs, superman, will graham | 2 Comments »

Hannibal: Coquilles (Review)

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Darren

I feel a little bad now. I spent a lot of time in Amuse-Boche and Ceuf complaining about the possibility that Hannibal might turn into a serial-killer-of-the-week procedural, at a time when the networks are over-saturated with that sort of forensic drama. However, Coquilles manages to be a pretty superlative hour of television despite feeling like a pretty conventional “catch the serial killer” story. The key is in the execution, with Coquilles serving as a rich character-driven drama that just happens to involve the hunt for a gruesome serial killer.

It also helps that the “angel maker” feels like a refugee from an early draft of a Thomas Harris novel rather than a bland psychopath of the week.