The Silence of the Lambs

Year of Release: 1991

Director:  Jonathan Demme

Screenplay:  Ted Tally, based on the novel The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

Starring:  Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine

Running Time:  118 minutes

Genre:  Crime, horror, psychological thriller

FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Foster) is investigated a brutal serial killer known as "Buffalo Bill", and finds unexpected advice from notorious incarcerated serial killer Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (Hopkins). 

Based on the 1989 novel by Thomas Harris, this film became an unexpected box office smash and swept the Academy Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.  To this day it remains hugely influential and has become a pop culture touchstone.  It is a perfectly constructed thriller.  there is the race against time to stop Buffalo Bill before he kills his latest victim, and the psychological gamesplaying and weird kind of romance between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling.  Jodie Foster is perfect as the rookie FBI agent, coming across as a mix of toughness and vulnerability, which is a woman in a very male-dominated world.  Frequently she is seen surrounded by men towering over her.  Anthony Hopkins creates one of the great movie monsters as the reptilian, laser-eyed Lecter, leering at us from the screen, seldom blinking.  The Silence of the Lambs was the second novel to feature, Lecter.  The first, Red Dragon, was filmed as Manhunter (1986) with Brian Cox as Lecter (or "Lecktor" as he is called in that).  While Manhunter is a great film, and well worth checking out if you haven't already, Hopkins remains definitive.  The film has come in for criticism in recent years due to it's depiction of trans issues.  Be that as it may, this is one of the greatest thrillers ever made.

Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs

Meek's Cutoff

Year of Release: 2010

Director:  Kelly Reichardt

Screenplay:  Jonathan Raymond

Starring:  Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Will Patton, Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson

Running Time:  104 minutes

Genre:    Western, drama

This film is set in 1845 during the Oregon Trail, a small group of settlers throw in with disreputable guide Stephen Meek (Greenwood), who claims that he knows a short cut through the Oregon High Desert.  As a journey of two weeks becomes five, tensions among the group increase, as food, water and other supplies start to run low.  Things come to a head when the group kidnap a lone Native American (Rod Rondeaux), and try to force him to show them where they can find water.

This meditative, slow burning Western may not be to everyone's tastes, but if you stick with it, it casts a surprising spell.  The film is beautifully photographed, with long still shots, often depicting the characters in the middle distance, dwarfing them among the grandeur of the landscape.  The cast is note perfect, and it rings the changes with the traditional Western by staying mainly with the women, left out of the main decisions and debates which are held at a remove with the sound muted.  Very little really happens in the film, with it being mostly characters trudging through a beautiful but bleak landscape with occasional muttered discussing and arguments.  It tried my patience at first, but after I had got used to the film's rhythms and pace I really got into it, and, if you go along with it, it is really absorbing.  

  

Michelle Williams in Meek's Cutoff 

Matinee

Year of Release:  1993
Director:  Joe Dante
Screenplay:  Charles S. Haas, from a story by Charles S. Haas and Jericho Stone 
Starring:  John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton. Omri Katz, Kellie Martin, Lisa Jakub
Running Time:  99 minutes
Genre:  Comedy

Key West, Florida, October 1962:  Flamboyant B-movie producer Lawrence Woolsey (Goodman) comes to town to preview his latest epic, a science-fiction/horror film called Mant!.  However the Cuban Missile Crisis has started and the town is in a state of red alert.  Young horror fan, Gene Loomis (Fenton) is one of the Naval kids whose father is on a blockade ship around Cuba.  On Saturday night at the movies, teenage romance, on-screen horror, and real-life fear collide.

This is a fun period comedy film.  It works as a celebration of cinema itself and horror in particular, the film-within-the-film, Mant!, is a very funny recreation of those terrible atomic age B-movies from the 1950s and '60s.  John Goodman is pitch perfect as the twinkly, enthusiastic Lawrence Woolsey who, with his gimmick-laden shows, seems to be based on real-life producer/director William Castle.  The film also features Cathy Moriarty, as Woolsey's long-suffering wife and lead actress.  The main focus of the film are the kids, Gene (Simon Fenton), his little brother (Jesse Lee), his best friend Stan (Omri Katz), rebellious Sandra (Lisa Jakub) and Stan's love interest Sherry (Kellie Martin), whose ex-boyfriend is a violent thug and aspiring poet.  The usual teen movie hijinks are present here, but it's all set against the backdrop of this looming threat of imminent nuclear annihilation, which during the Cuban Missile Crisis was seen as not so much if as when.  The appeal of horror films is partly because the onscreen horrors can act as a release and a respite from the real horrors of life, which can seem lessened, and this film deals with that.  The film has  a great soundtrack of period songs, and also pokes fun at various other aspects of 1962 such as beatniks, and weird fantasy family films with another film-within-a-film, The Shook-Up Shopping Cart, which features an early appearance form Naomi Watts.  There are also appearances form B-movie stalwart and Dante regular Dick Miller and actor/writer and director John Sayles.
This is a hugely enjoyable film, which manages to balance laughs, nostalgia, and drama.

it's showtime in Matinee       

"Agent Running in the Field" by John le Carre

Year of Publication:  2019
Length:  366 pages
Genre:  Spy, thriller

This is the 26th book by British author John le Carré and he still has his finger on the political pulse of our troubled times.  The story revolves around Nat, a 47 year old veteran of the British Secret Service, who forms a friendship with a young man named Ed with whom he plays badminton once a week.  At first these games offer a respite from Nat's professional problems, as he is put in charge of an all but washed-up subsection of the Service, with a motley collection of spies.  However soon his personal and professional lives collide and Nat finds himself in an even murkier world of betrayal and intrigue.

This book deals with some of the most pressing political issues of our time and John le Carré is scathing against Brexit, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Boris Johnson.  However, this is not a political tract.  It mixes important messages with an exciting thriller plot full of interesting and engaging characters, and the story moves forward at a fast pace.  Despite being almost 80, le Carré has lost none of his ability to tell a story or remain engaged in the times that he is living in.  If you have never read le Carré before, this is a very good place to start.

 

Wittgenstein

Year of Release:  1993
Director:  Derek Jarman
Screenplay:  Terry Eagleton, Ken Butler, Derek Jarman
Starring:  Clancy Chassay, Karl Johnson, Nabil Shaban, Michael Gough, Tilda Swinton
Running Time:  75 minutes
Genre:  Drama, biography

This film is based on the life and work of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (played as a child by Clancy Chassay, and as an adult by Karl Johnson).  It plays out as a series of surreal sketches, against a black backdrop with only the actors and key props. Wittgenstein narrates the story of his own life, frequently breaking the fourth wall to address the viewer directly.  The film tires to get not the head of the philosopher and show his ideas and inner world, some of it is genuine fantasy, such as the frequent appearance of Nabil Shaban (probably best known for his occasional appearances on Doctor Who (1963-1989, 2005- )) as a furry green alien who turns up to chat with the young Wittgenstein.  Jarman regulars Michael Gough and Tilda Swinton appear as Wittgenstein's mentor Bertrand Russell and Lady Ottoline Morrell.  Clancy Chassay is good as the young Wittgenstein, and Karl Johnson gives a very strong performance as the tormented adult philosopher.  While it does at times feel like an offbeat fringe theatre production, the brightly coloured, exaggerated props and costumes make an effective contrast with the darkness that surrounds the action.  This was Derek Jarman's last but one film, and was made while he was dying of an AIDS-related illness, however this is one of his most playful and humorous films.

"If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done."
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (Clancy Chassay) in Wittgenstein

Karl Johnson in Wittgenstein 

Tenet

Year of Release:  2020
Director:  Christopher Nolan
Screenplay:  Christopher Nolan
Starring:  John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, Kenneth Branagh
Running Time:  150 minutes
Genre:  Thriller, science-fiction, spy

The Protagonist (Washington) is a secret agent who finds himself embroiled in a bizarre adventure involving weapons that are "chronologically inverted" meaning that they move backwards in time, and the effect comes before the cause.  These weapons have the potential to destroy the world due to entropy.

This film has had a difficult road to the screen, despite being one of 2020's most anticipated films, having been delayed three times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Is it worth the wait?  Yes and no.  Tenet is almost textbook Nolan, for better and worse.  It features some incredible action set pieces, and much of it is really exciting, it also has some great performances, with John David Washington, in particular, impressive as the suave super-spy.  However the plot is extremely confusing and it is often hard to follow.  You really need to keep your wits about you the entire time, there is not much humour, and the dialogue is full of complex exposition.  It also has an air of coldness and detachment about the whole thing, which makes it hard to engage with the characters.  It is still worth seeing, though,  because when it is good, it is very very good, and there are times when it is an extremely exciting, complex thriller.

Robert Pattinson and John David Washington in Tenet 

"Exhalation" by Ted Chiang

Year of Publication:  2019
Length:  350 pages
Genre:  Science-fiction, short stories

In this collection of nine short stories by author Ted Chiang, a merchant in ancient Baghdad uses a time portal to try to fix past mistakes; an investigation into a seemingly small oddity causes an alien doctor to stumble upon a secret which could threaten the entire universe; a novelty device puts the entire question of free will into question; a new type of virtual pet develops intelligence and self-awareness; a Victorian robot nanny produces unexpected and disturbing side effects; a company develops software that could give an individual perfect recall of any event in their lives; the first contact with a non-human intelligence could come from much closer to home than anyone could guess; a scientist on a highly religious alternate Earth makes a discovery that could put all their beliefs into question; and a device that allows people to see into the lives of their counterpart in parallel universes leads to positive and negative outcomes.

This is the second volume of short stories by American author Ted Chiang, who is probably best known for his story "Story of Your Life", which was adapted as the film Arrival (2016).  The stories in this volume deal with some well-known science-fiction concepts, but they are dealt with in a refreshingly unique way.  The fantastical elements are well-rendered and intelligently realised, and the stories are more concerned with their impact on  human nature.  Chiang is a very good writer, who doesn't just craft intriguing and intelligent stories, but also deeply moving ones as well.  There is a real humanity and compassion here.  This is well recommended for anyone looking for great science-fiction, and also great contemporary fiction in general.