Charles, first you start out saying this...




Then you went to saying this...



And now you're saying this...



Which leaves me without a single frickin' clue what your original objection was to my comments or why you've persisted in taking issue with me over this.

Mike

I also liked the tri-axle stair-climbing handcart in Hannibal. Reminds me I need to get one'a them things.

I'm not sure what bind you're pointing to. Hannibal is quite explicitly about an evil guy's seductive power over a woman. It's fantasy, fluff, and a lot of fun. It's my view that I Spit is an objectively richer and more significant film. To put the same time and energy into both would not deliver the same semantic returns, at least based on the actual structures of the respective films (people can give as complex a reading of anything they want, and they might even say something worthwhile, but it's not always warranted by the subject being analyzed). Perhaps someone will come along and argue for a complex reading of Hannibal that I've missed and it'll change my evaluation, but you're not doing that, so what are you objecting to here? I'm saying I Spit warrants a closer reading than what you're willing to give, but Hannibal doesn't (well, "probably doesn't" is probably closer to my opinion). There's no contradiction.

I'm actually open to having my dismissal of Hannibal as pure entertainment being wrong, but I don't see you approaching film interpretation in that way. Your initial impression is always right, everything else is overinterpretation.

I haven't, but I will now.

Make sure you get an unedited version.

K

I'd agree to overrated, but I found that Lambs worked as a better-than-averagely crafted police-procedural style thriller. Red Dragon (the book) was also good in that way, and elicited the dread I'd expect from a good straight out horror. (Caveat: I was young when I read it, and only had a couple of Stephen King and James Herbert books to compare it to.)

I felt that by Hannibal author Thomas Harris was getting a little too infatuated with his own pop hit psychopathic character. A bit reminiscent of Lucas' focus on Darth Vader in the newer Star Wars films. I understand that by the forth book/film, the prequel 'Hannibal Rising', Lecter was pretty much the hero (although I haven't read/seen it).

The point is that you first described HANNIBAL as being about nothing more than the violence, as opposed to SPIT, which you claim is about more than that.

Then you admitted that HANNIBAL is also about more than violence, invalidating your initial objection.

Now you're claiming that SPIT is "objectively richer and more significant". Bullshit. Are there some ideas rattling around inside SPIT? Sure. Are there some moments of decent-to-good filmmaking? Yes. But as a whole, it is neither a good story nor a well-made movie. The only notable thing about it is a 25 minute long rape scene, which you still have yet to justify.

The fact that you and others have spent waaaaaaay too much time and energy investing a somewhat interesting but fairly crappy exploitation flick with significance, does not actually mean it's genuinely significant. There's no reason why you couldn't invest just as much significance into a movie like HANNIBAL. You and others simply choose not to do so. And by the way, I don't think either SPIT or HANNIBAL have a whole lot of meaning or depth to them.

And the fact that I don't find your arguments pursuasive, could mean that I'm close-minded. It could also mean you're offering up nothing but wankery.

Mike

For some reason I couldn't find it in myself to take the movie or its main characters as seriously as it/they seemed to want to be taken. The whole thing felt strangely bland to me, when not outright hokey; something my mother would find titillating. Hannibal was stupid but I thought it had a little more "pop" to it. But I think a movie like SILENCE makes a much stronger impression if you see it young. By the time I saw it I was in my 20s.

K

There are a number of (usually low budget) films that were created perhaps not with the intent to be cultural milestones, but ended up being that anyway because they came completely out of left field and captured the zeitgeist of their contemporary periods. Easy Rider, Night of the Living Dead, Valley of the Dolls, Legend of Boggy Creek, Jaws, Last House on the Left, etc. ISoYG is among these.

If you choose to not recognize the era into which a film was released, and instead only appreciate glossy mass-marketed product like Hannibal, that's fine. That's exactly what movie studios want to hear. That makes it much easier for them to calculate what products they'll market next year.

Yeah, I doubt they'll still be talking about Hannibal 30 years after its release.