Red Dragon vs Manhunter

Today, Steve and I will be reviewing two movies based on the same Thomas Harris book, Red Dragon. Steve will talk about the original movie, Manhunter (1986), and I will review the latest installment, Red Dragon (2002).

Red Dragon

Red Dragon, directed by Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand), was a pretty good movie. I don't think I enjoyed it quite as much as I did The Silence of the Lambs (we'll get into this later), but I still found it to be exciting and interesting as far as movies go.

The story follows FBI Special Agent Will Graham (Ed Norton), recently brought out of retirement by FBI Director Jack Crawford (Harvey Keitel), and his pursuit of a serial killer known only as the Tooth Fairy (he likes to bite his victims). Graham is very good a solving cases dealing with serial killers, which we found out at the beginning of the film when he caught (almost unsuccessfully) the cannibal psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins); the mad doctor nearly killed Graham, which sent him into early retirement.

So now Graham is back looking for a killer who murders entire families, rapes the wife, and then puts pieces of mirror in everybody's eye sockets- he does this by breaking all the mirrors in the house, which led me to believe that he's in for some seriously bad luck in the future.

Graham goes around to the houses, checks out evidence, discovers a few new clues and then goes to visit his old pal Dr. Lecter. Lecter gives him a few clues about the murderer, but not too much is resolved from the visit- that is except that a definite fear is established by Graham of Lecter. Lecter is a creepy dude and Graham is not happy that he has to go talk to him... but he's got a family and doesn't want anymore people to get their eyes ripped out and replaced with pieces of mirror.

While all of this is going on, we follow a strange IT guy named Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes) who has some serious fucking issues. He is clearly the Tooth Fairy, which we find out by watching him bench press like 250 pounds in the attic of his abandoned house. He has false teeth in a jar, which look like the molds the cops got from the dead wives that Dolarhyde killed. He's obsessed with the William Blake painting The Great Red Dragon and he even has some crazy-ass dragon tattoo's on his back. He attributes these tattoos to the "transformation" he is making from man to dragon (?) and with each person he kills, he gets closer to totality.

The movie goes on, we see that the Red Dragon is sort of human (he lets the blind chick he's dating live, although he kills quite a few other people... but still), Lecter helps Graham out and the figure out that Dolarhyde is the killer- he picked his victims because he worked at a company that made personal home movies for each family that he slaughtered. Dolarhyde eventually gets what's coming to him by way of some bullets and a steak knife, and everyone lives (happily ever after?).

Some of the positive parts of this movie (besides Keitel's awesome hair) were: Norton's acting. I thought he did a great job, certainly reminiscent of his Fight Club days. The story was very interesting and believable, and the cast did a good job bringing it all to life. I also thought the film was shot extremely well- the most memorable shot would be near the end when the camera is looking under the door and Dolarhyde is hiding in the hallway. You see Graham's wife climb the stairs and start down towards the door (all you can see is feet at this point), and then you see the heavy boots of the killer right behind her- very exciting.

I must admit, overall I didn't enjoy Red Dragon as much as The Silence of the Lambs because Dragon seemed very forced. It seemed like Graham, despite being a seasoned vet, picked up on things far too quickly. It seemed like he solved the case before the movie was at the halfway mark, where in Lambs, Starling doesn't realize who Buffalo Bill is until the last 15 minutes or so.

I also thought that Hannibal Lecter was a much more interesting, in control and overall dynamic character in Lambs, while he was pretty "tuned down" in Dragon. Even when he was locked up, he was in control when he was dealing with Agent Starling, but when Graham is in the picture he never really has anything to say- no mind games, he's just used as a means to an end.

I enjoyed this movie, but not as much as Lambs.

Manhunter

I’m gonna cut to the bacon here, I went into this movie knowing I would like it. I wanted to. The original prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, one of my favorite movies, had to be good. If I hated it then I instantly would have resentment toward Silence, and I didn’t want that. So that’s the big skinny up until watching Manhunter. And for the most part, I didn’t have to try very hard.

The story follows Will Graham, a retired FBI agent who is sparsely mentioned in Silence (though we get more detail in the novel) who gets called out of retirement to help his old boss and friend Jack Crawford catch a serial killer named the Tooth Fairy. Director and screenwriter Michael Mann (Public Enemies, Collateral) hasn’t changed much when it comes to pacing. This early film of his moves methodically much like Public Enemies, which can lose some viewers. It also omits Graham’s back story, which is his friendship and eventual capturing of Hannibal Lector, who in this film is played by Brian Cox. The remake (Red Dragon) that comes some years later, includes these flashbacks and ultimately strengthens the story, though it lands in the category of sequel films Hollywood pushes out based on the success of an original.

I can’t help but go into a comparative mood between these two films now. Lector is obviously stronger when played by Anthony Hopkins, though Bryan Cox is no slouch either. Graham is really the highlight of Manhunter, masterfully played by William Petersen, but again Edward Norton brings his own charm to the character in Dragon.

So what it comes down to how it is presented to us. Manhunter is told in the traditional linear fashion, but it doesn’t get caught up with trying to cram Hopkins down our throat like Red Dragon.

I’d have to lean toward Manhunter being stronger film because it doesn’t have that contrived Hollywood feel to it, which is probably why it flopped at the box office. Petersen’s haunted take on Graham is a memorable one and worth watching in itself, but in the grand scheme, neither can stand up to the strength of The Silence of the Lambs.

I know this review kinda lost its focus, but Mike and I wanted to compare two movies here, same narrative but almost two decades apart. And somewhere in the middle of those two decades is the perfect balance of Hollywood flare and quality storytelling.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Reviewed by Mike 

I don't like musicals, so watching this is probably a huge mistake on my part (**turns out, yes, it was), but I've never seen the entire movie- all I remember is Tim Curry looking like a freak- so I figured, what with all the popularity all of a sudden (Halloween is in a few days, so this flick is everywhere right now), why not give it a look see?

Aside from the musical aspect of the film, there was another thing that threw me off: Susan Sarandon. Susan Sarandon was Katherine Heigl before Katherine Heigl; Susan Sarandon is the original shitty actress.

Casting all judgment and any bias aside, I started The Rocky Horror Picture Show and here's what I thought:

The story, if you're not familiar with it already, follows Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Sarandon), a newly engaged couple with quite the knack for singing. They must have been theater majors in college.

So the couple, fresh from a wedding, end up getting a flat tire on an old deserted road during a rain storm in the middle of the night. The only refuge from the storm is (what appears to be) an abandoned castle. The couple arrive and -hold on a minute!- there's a party going on! They're let in by the hunchbacked servant, Riff Raff (Richard O'Brien). Inside, everyone is singing and dancing and Bard and Janet are completely in "what the fuck?" mode.

I can't say I blame them for being wary... if I walked into a creepy mansion, and there was a party going on and everyone doing a strange "dance" and singing "Let's Do the Time Warp, Again," I would want to get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible too.

So the couple is backing out of the room and they literally stumble into Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Curry), who then goes into a song about how he's a transvestite from transsexual Transylvania. **I have to say right here, I can't imagine that this movie would fly today.  Maybe by 1975 standards, but if a film like this was made today, I doubt it would gain the popularity that Rocky Horror did. Although who knows, shit like Glee and American Idol are popular...

So the good doctor invites everyone up to his lab, where he unveils his creation: a mummy that turns out to be a totally ripped blond dude. After a quick song, through a wall comes Meatloaf! He's kind of a weird Elvis-type biker, but that doesn't matter because after his song he gets hacked to death by Curry.

...then it all gets pretty damn weird. There's regular sex, gay sex, lesbian sex... I can see why a program like Glee, which is aimed at teenage girls, would want to cover songs from this movie on its show. They'll probably cover the songs from Debbie Does Dallas next...

So after watching this flick, here are my thoughts: First off, who is this old guy smoking cigarettes that the film keeps cutting to? The narrator? The story doesn't call for a narrator- we can understand everything perfectly fine without him. They could have saved money and just cut him from the movie completely, maybe bump up the special effects or make-up or cast some bigger names instead.

Hey, here's something that's annoying: when movies have the credits- all of them- at the fucking beginning of the movie. There's a reason the theater empties out after the last scene of a film, and that's because no one gives a shit about who the casting consultants or production managers are. No one, safe for maybe the casting consultants or production managers themselves, but I am none of these- cut to the chase, movie.

The camera work was not very good. I don't know who was holding that thing, but it shook more than [insert Michael J. Fox joke here].

I understand that this film is a musical and the story needs to reflect that, but hardly any of the shit in this movie made sense. And remember, this is coming from the guy who watched The Human Centipede.

A few positives that came from this movie: the music and singing- all of the songs were skillfully performed, with Sarandon (that bitch) and Curry being, well, surprisingly good. There's a line in Curry's first song, something along the lines of "Don't get strung out, by the way I look/Don't judge a book by its cover." Well said, Curry... well said.

Curry was great, with his fantastic singing voice and he really did a good job making a memorable (albeit extremely strange and creepy) character out of Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Also, this movie helped to further my theory that Tim Curry loves to be in movies that take place in a creepy mansion- Rocky Horror and Clue!

When all is said and done, this was kind of a take on the classic Dr. Frankenstein story, except this time it was a musical and very, very sexual. And gay. Honestly, can anyone please explain to me why this has such a cult following? It had two, maybe three catchy songs, Curry played an interesting character, but other than that it was shit. I can understand why films like The Big Lebowski and Reservoir Dogs have a cult following, but this?

This movie was better than I thought it was going to be, but I have to admit that if I've seen a worse movie, I honestly can't remember it.

1 out of 5

SnapIt Screen Capture 3.7

Hey guys. Steve and I were approached by Digeus, Inc. to talk about their new product, the SnapIt Screen Capture 3.7 software. Here is some brief information about the product:

SnapIt is easy to use screen capture software which allows you to easily capture anything on the screen including windows, menus, full screen, rectangular regions, web pages and take shots of moving images. Think Windows Snipping Tool, but better.

It is a very convenient tool for bloggers or anyone involved in the computer/software/web design industry. An example of how it could be used in the world of 2guysonemovie would be when we write posts on the blog, sometimes we may need to capture and crop images from different sources - this is the tool we would use.

Some quick highlights on the product:

- Supports hotkeys, auto-saving, clipboard
- Automatically copies screenshots to the clipboard
- Tracks capture history, auto-saves captured images
- Saves files in BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats
- Auto-names captured images

Some functions I wish it had:

- Makes beer for you, all you need is a USB tap
- Works as a Cloner (drops of blood required: simply open CD drive for sample intake)
- Hate doing homework assignments? This shit will write your essays FOR you
- Turns any laptop in to a handgun (**This function does not work with Mac... sorry hipsters**)
- Hate Katherine Heigl? The 3.7 model will send her rude and sexist e-mails regarding her films

So if you're interested in any of the above, or want any more information on the product, check out Digeus and the SnapIt Screen Capture 3.7

Jackass 3D

Reviewed by Mike

First off, who doesn't like this series? Everyone likes to see people fall off of cars or get hit with something in the balls, and Jackass is full of that (I believe America's Funniest Home Videos proved the "nut shot" theory). From the television show to the films, Jackass is full of plenty of awkward moments, guaranteed laughs and a few scenes that leave you saying "oh, that's fucking gross."

Jackass 3D, the latest and greatest installment in the series, hit theaters last Friday and has already grossed over $50-million in its first weekend (Sorry new Katherine Heigl film), and grossed out just as many viewers along the way. The regular cast was back, including stars Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius and Bam Margera.

I won't go into too much detail about the film, but I will say this: I found myself saying (out loud, mind you) "oh God, what the fuck..." more times than I can remember while watching this movie. Some of the antics were just too much... but I'm not saying that is a bad thing.

Jackass 3D also had some humorous cameos from random actors/athletes like Sean William Scott, Tony Hawk, Rip Taylor, Weezer and defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings Jared Allen (this was one of the best sketches in the flick, with Knoxville getting absolutely fucking destroyed by this professional NFLer).

There wasn't really a skit (that I can remember at least) that I didn't laugh at, but I did find myself pretty grossed out by a few of them- if you saw the movie, the scene with Preston on the treadmill and Steve-O drinking the "Sweat-Cocktail" was absolutely foul. This is strange because I can usually watch gross stuff with no problem, but like I said, so of the stuff they did was absolutely ridiculous.

While I thought the 3D was a nice touch, and it was needed in some parts- especially the beginning sketch with all the random stuff flying around- I would have enjoyed this movie just as much in regular 2D. The 3D factor gave it that extra bump, but overall it wasn't really needed.

I can't remember who I was discussing the movie with, but they brought up a good point. After the television series and the first two movies, what else is there to do? The same old pranks and ridiculous stunts?

Well, yes. That's really all that there is left to do, but the Jackass crew does it in such an entertaining way that you don't realize that you're (essentially) watching the same thing you've seen over and over again. This movie was over the top in so many different ways, from the 3D cameras used to the super-slow-motion "Rocky" shots, to the intense gross out factor of the different puke, fart and shit sketches to some of the stunts themselves (Ehren getting his tooth pulled out by Bam's Lamborghini... enough said). It was a step in a new direction for the series, but they embraced the same stuff that made them popular in the first place, and that's impressive in its own right.

This film also contained what is probably the funniest sketch in the entire series, movie and television alike. If you've seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't... I'll say it in three words: midget bar fight. I honestly couldn't stop laughing for maybe 10 minutes, it was that good.

The only real disappointment I had with the movie was the length, which I believe came in around 120 minutes- those two hours really flew by. I'm definitely going to buy the DVD when it comes out, as it will certainly have hours of great bonus footage and skits that never made it to the silver screen, a la Jackass 2.5.

Was I disappointed by this movie? Absolutely not. Would I go see it with my mom? Absolutely not. It's another great addition to the series and I hope to see another before the crew calls it quits.


4.5 out of 5

Pandorum

Reviewed by Mike

I had never heard of this particular film, which falls in the science-fiction/thriller/mystery category. I saw the movie poster and thought it looked pretty cool and the synopsis sounded interesting enough. Plus it has Dennis Quaid, the non-crazy Quiad brother, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

We start off with some giant scrolling screens in space, a la Star Wars. They inform us, by way of timelines, that the Earth built a satellite in order to find a new planet to inhabit due to immense overpopulation. The year is something like 2173, the planet's population is over 20 billion and everyone is fighting over food and water. Shit is getting out of hand and a solution needs to be found... fast.

**Since you probably won't watch this movie (Even though I enjoyed it and think everyone should, if not for the ridiculousness then to see Quaid go ape-shit), what follows is the complete plot to the film and my thought. This is one big spoiler alert**

Enter the giant space ship, Elysium. After a good shot of the outside, we cut to a scene of a dude, covered in tubes (reminds me of that one scene in The Matrix) inside of a strange chamber, freaking the fuck out. We go outside the chamber and see that it is labeled "Bower".

The guy, Bower (Ben Foster), busts out of the tube and tries to put together the pieces of just what the hell is going on. He starts peeling off what looks like his skin, but apparently... old skin? It's kind of like a snake shedding it's outer layer, which leads me to believe that he's be asleep in that chamber for a long time- so long that his dead skin cells just piled the fuck up and now he's got to go all snake-style on it.

He manages to find his locker and get dressed, only to discover that he has memory loss from extended hyper-sleep. Bingo! Next to wake up is Payton (Quaid), the lieutenant in this shit show- he too remembers nothing before being woken up. They get all cleaned up and head to the flight deck to try and contact the other crew members, but no one is around- a third chamber with "Cooper" on it is empty.

After, I don't know, five minutes of waiting around, Payton decides to send Bower up into the air ducts to try and find a way to the rest of the ship- the power keeps fluctuating and the doors refuse to open. So Bower's in the vent, complaining like an asshole, and he ends up making a wrong turn and falling down a shaft (that's what she said?). He ends up finding the dead body of Cooper, which is a complete corpse at this point. It's right around here where Payton thinks they've been asleep for 8 years, meaning Cooper could have been dead for a long time.

Suddenly, the two lose contact with each other. Bower ends up running into a girl, who attacks him and steals all of his shit. She bails and he's surrounded by a strange noise which is apparently generated by alien creatures... YEP! Holy SHIT! Did you fucking see that guy!? Haha he's like a deformed-midget-mutant-alien mix.

We then see, by way of flashbacks, that Bower and Payton are "pioneers" being sent to a new planet that has the capability to support life. Bower starts freaking out (what is it with this guy?) that his wife is on board (not confirmed yet) and he has to go save her and the rest of the passengers. Personally, I'm thinking the mutants got her, but we'll have to wait and see.

Next we see a pretty cool flashback of a different ship, one where a crew member experienced "pandorum". He went nuts due to a reaction from the hyper-sleep and got all paranoid, thinking that his ship was cursed. So he did the only logical thing a crazy person would do: launched all of the people that were in hyper-sleep (5,000 of them) off the ship and into space, where they floated away forever. What a prick.

Bower stumbles across another survivor, but he is quickly killed by the mutant creatures. The freaks begin to chase B-sauce, but at the last second he is saved by a spear-wielding Asian guy named Manh (Cung Le). The pair escape, only to run into that crazy bitch from earlier, who turns out to be a good guy. The girl, Nadia (Antje Traue), informs Bower that the ship was like Noah's Ark, carrying all plants and animal types and a ton of individuals who were to populate/inhabit the new planet.

Meanwhile, Dennis Quaid is FREAKING OUT. I don't want to call it this early, but I think we have another case of pandorum on our hands. He ends up finding a guy, Gallo (Cam Gigandet) up in the rafters... but I don't know, I think it's a hallucination and Quaid is just a lunatic.

We next see a few pretty cool fight scenes and soon discover that it's pretty God damn difficult to kill the freaks. The three survivors beat, stabbed and punched the shit out of this thing and still only barely killed it. The trio run into another guy who explains to them that the Earth was destroyed and the people on the ship, all current parties included, are the last humans in existence (we also see flashes over to Quaid and his friend, who is telling him the same thing).

It also turns out that one of the captains of the ship (GALLO!) went fucking nuts and just started killing everyone (there was some rape involved as well apparently), and awakened the crew, banishing most to the hold of the ship where they were forced to eat each other in order to survive. Every passenger was given some sort of shot while in hyper-sleep, making it easier for them to adapt to then new planet once they got there. Instead, the shot made the crew adapt to the ship and, well, become cannibal mutants who fed off of other sleeping passengers.

After this weird story and a few close encounters with the mutants, Bower makes his way to the reactor and re-starts it, thus saving the ship from imminent doom/total power failure. Bower starts making his way back to the bridge to see Payton, but he finally regains his memories and realizes that Payton is really Gallo. Payton too realizes this and we see that Gallo was just a hallucination brought on by the pandorum- so Quiad is the real killer here! Called it...

Bower and Quaid start fighting, with each trying to convince the other that they are suffering from pandorum (in actuality, they both are). Nadia, meanwhile, is able to open the emergency shutters on the windows in the bridge, revealing blackness. Suddenly a bunch of fish swim by and they realize that the ship has crash landed on the planet and they are in the water. A readout display on one of the computers reveals that they have been in hyper-sleep for 923 years!

Bower does the logical thing here and smashes the window, flooding the ship. He and Nadia make it to an escape pod and jettison out of the ship, along with the rest of the surviving individuals in their pods- the ship does this automatically upon the breaking of the window.

Everyone makes it to the surface and we see a gigantic ship in the water and a beach not too far away. There are a little over 1,000 survivors to start the new world. Thank God, it's over.

For the record, I polished off a decent amount of beer for the viewing of this movie, and it was truly needed.

This flick certainly reminded me of Alien, in terms of the vastness of the ship and utter lack of people on board- don't get me wrong here, this is where the comparison ends. There is a lot of shadow use and the film is pretty dark (literally, there isn't much light)- this adds to the creepy effect.

There were some more positive aspects of the film, some being: the sets were pretty cool, truly making the viewer believe that they are on a giant spaceship, devoid of life except for the main characters and the mutants. The mutants looked pretty cool and the gore was top notch- real bloody and gross. The fight scenes were alright, fast but a bit forced and scripted. The character development was cool and I liked the twist of Quaid really being Gallo.

Overall, it was pretty bad but I don't regret watching it. I feel the more interesting story here would be what happens once the survivors make it to land and start rebuilding their civilization.

3 out of 5