Don Jon

Don Jon

Glad I changed my mind and had us all watch this instead of "One Day" (which I did end up watching anyways..that movie would not have resulted in any kind of good discussion).

I enjoyed Don Jon. I've liked Joseph Gordon Levitt ever since he was in 10 Things I Hate About You. He directed, wrote and starred in this movie and it was a pretty big departure from the sweet, nerdy, hipster characters he usually plays. And he does a great job at playing that Jersey Shore meathead stereotype that everyone loves to hate. Minor thing (and Shane pointed this out to me)- in the scene where he is lifting weights, he is only lifting 30 lbs. Minor. But kind of dumb for a guy who is super into working out. Scarlet Johanson is fine, as usual. She's always just kind of fine. The gum chewing and the accent got a bit tired and started to annoy me. But then again, pretty sure we were supposed to be annoyed by her character. Julianne Moore is always great. Tony Danza is perfect as Jon's dad. We get a glimpse at where Jon's superficiality may come from through his character.

This had a solid plot, good premise and a few surprise twists thrown in. All things that make for a good movie in my book. I loved the way that they repeated certain plot elements to keep a common thread through the movie. The confessionals, the gym scenes, even the sounds/sequences they used when he was watching porn (that's the first time Ive use the word porn in a review about movie featuring a porn obsessed guy. Crazy). And of course the sequences changed slightly throughout the movie to reflect the current state of Jon. Love that. As he becomes a better person he becomes less and less meathead looking and more like a normal human with better hair. And again the sounds really did it for me, specifically the repetition of certain sounds. This movie could have gone into cheesy or classless territory with the subject matter, but it didn't, at all- which I would credit to excellent writing.

The scene where they are arguing in the Wal Mart (or wherever they are in front of the curtains) about cleaning was bizarre. I get that the scene was used to give us our first inclination that Barbara isn't as perfect as she's initially made out to be, but it seemed awkward and forced. I'm sure there could have been a better way to indicate that she was a little nutso without a weird argument about Swiffers. I was sort of shocked to see that side of Barbara's character come out. I didn't see it coming that she would be crazy.

Julianne Moore's character is perfect. Initially, I thought she would just be a side character with no real major part in the film. She seemed too old to be a potential love interest for Jon and frankly, a little weird. As the movie progressed, I started to think she would become a confidant for him. And once I started to see where they were going with her character and I got over my thoughts on the age gap and I liked their story line (plot twist!). Liked that she knew everything about him and fell for him anyways. Loved that when Jon was with her, he found what he was looking for and started to fill the hole (no pun intended) that was empty. He finally got a glimpse of what meaningful sex with someone you care about can be like.

I read a few Rotten Tomatoes reviews on this (because, duh) just to see what critics were saying after I watched. A few of them pointed out that the climax (again, no pun intended) wasn't super dramatic. I agree- and on that point it was also pretty predictable. Of course he was going to get caught eventually (who doesn't know to clear their browser history every now and again?). However, I thought he would get caught, she would eventually forgive him, and then they would live happily ever after. So glad this didn't happen. A few critics called it a comedy, which sort of confused me. I can't really recall any points where I laughed out loud. Maybe a quirky drama? But not a comedy...

Overall I liked this movie. I'd give it a B. Only because I don't really want to watch it again for some reason? I really can't justify WHY I wouldn't want to watch it again, it's just one of those movies where once is enough. Good movie, good actors, good story.

Major League

I have no prior relationship to this movie.  I've known about it, but just never got around to watching it during its heyday.  I didn't watch an R-rated movie until I was a teenager, and we were into Nicolas Cage's action period by then, so a sports movie with a raunchy reputation didn't register.  I clearly missed the right period to watch Major League.  This did not work for me at all.  It's just a sports movie, marketed as some kind of breaking-all-the-rules story with F-words.  It follows the same 

patterns, same jokes, same big moments.  I have no idea why you all have rated it so highly.

Was this movie supposed to be funny?  I kept a running total of times I laughed.  It was once.  I laughed once.  Early in the movie, when there's a quick montage of Cleveland-ers talking about how bad the team is, the Japanese guys got a chuckle out of me.  That was it.  The announcer interplay was alright, but it was all in Uecker's delivery, not anything funny he was actually saying.  Compared to his blernsball announcing career, this was a footnote.  Wesley Snipes's dancing around was solid physical comedy, but that was more an admiring smirk than a laugh.  How could this be so devoid of humor?  I've got comedies in my all-time top 50.  I have a good sense of humor.  Where was any of that here?  The average episode of Breaking Bad has more laughs than this, and that's one of the most depressing shows ever made.  How is this regarded as a classic comedy?

If the comedy side is a near-failure for me, how about the sports side?  Better, but still not great.  The owner-as-villain is a fine idea, but the stakes are whether or not she's going to be able to move the team to Miami.  In the late 80's, that sounds like a great idea.  Forget Cleveland, go to Miami, by all means.  There's so many Latinos down there, they should have a baseball team.  Setting aside my disinterest in the stakes, building the team had some potential, but it's all start and finish with no middle.  Vaughn's got an arm but no control, Hayes has running speed but no bat, Cerrano has power but can only hit easy pitches.  Raw talent and no polish.  I'm with the movie here.  Talent will only get a person so far, but they have to layer the technique on top of it.  The movie walks away from this because there's too many players to service and everything just gets magically solved.  There was a real movie in bridging the gap between talent and technique, but just slap some glasses on Vaughn, Cerrano curses Jo-Bu, and everyone's an all-star.  This made it look incredibly easy to be a professional player.  The actual beats of the movie could not be more predictable.  Of course Dorn's going to encourage Vaughn on the mound.  Of course they're going to play the Yankees at the end, and each player will get their big moment.  It was so transparent that it became boring.

Back on the stakes, the goal line isn't win a pennant; it's sell greater than 800,000 tickets.  The ticket mark gets totally lost.  The journey of the movie shouldn't be about winning pennants; it should be about making the city love them.  The players have either seen better days or they're scruffy outsiders, overlooked by everyone else and hoping for another chance to play the game they love.  There's a solid metaphor in there about the decaying Rust Belt, but instead, it's just generic Let's-Win-It-All boilerplate.  Semi-Pro nails this kind of movie, though it has other problems.  That team isn't going to win anything, but what they can do is give Flint, MI a little bit of pride for one night.  That's a movie that is putting a twist on the sports genre, instead of riding every cliched thing about it into the ground.

So, I didn't like it as a sports movie either.  Any memorable characters or relationships in there?  I've praised Uecker's voice already, so there was that.  Vaughn is a non-entity, a supposed bad-boy who doesn't do anything in the movie to earn the reputation.  Hayes is probably my favorite, but apparently, all he needed to become a professional was a bunch of push-ups.  He's not developed any further, and he somehow is hitting .291 by the end.  Taylor is pretty much a hangdog douchebag.  We talked about stalking in the Fisher King.  At least Parry just tailed Honey Bunny.  Taylor walks into what he thinks is Rene Russo's twice.  No knock, no call, no buzz.  He just walks in.  That is creepy as hell, and I'm not rooting for him to finally get it together.  The manager is a standard, gruff authority figure.

This movie has a difficult relationship with what's viewed as acceptable today.  I can't decide if everything around Cerrano is racist or not.  The owner slapping his naked ass and the jungle music behind him are pushing things in one direction.  Holy shit, how did this manage to get made without Indian protests?  Uecker uses every euphemism and stereotype in existence to liven up his broadcasting, plus the imagery of fat white people dressing up in feathers, red face paint, and rain dances.  The depiction of the owner is pretty rough, especially the cut-out of her that they slowly remove pieces from.  Apparently, there's an alternate ending in which she's revealed as a die-hard fan who voluntarily placed herself as the villain to rally the team.  She personally scouted all these deep cut players, and has to make excuses for the shitty planes and buses because the team was actually bankrupted by her useless dead husband.  That is such a better movie, and it solves the problem of how these players are all so good so suddenly, but test screening revealed that audiences liked the character better as a vindictive bitch, so that's what they went with.  Wonder what's going on there.

It wasn't a total wasteland.  An epic shot of Vaughn getting off his motorcycle was fine, and I hate Charlie Sheen.  There's a prescient line about celebrity that very much applied to the Sheen of the late 2000's, full of cocaine, domestic abuse, and tiger blood.  Cerrano's big home run is stirring, but the movie doesn't get a lot of credit for that, because that moment can only be stirring.  I actually laughed twice.  In a big climactic moment, the director cuts to a yawning kid.  Probably an accident, and not really earned by the movie, but I enjoyed that fuck-up.  Vaughn's red ticket and Taylor's bunt were nice twists.  That's all the good I have to say about this.  Completely forgettable.  Not funny.  An utterly average sports movie, which is a genre I'm not a big fan of already.  Get out of the top 30, Major League.  You're a D+.

Dear Zachary

“Dear Zachary” is one of the few documentaries that could not have been a movie.  No movie this infuriating and depressing would ever be made.  Hell, the fact that it even exists in this form is some kind of twisted version of serendipity.  This is the most affecting movie I have ever watched, pulling out emotions from me that I didn’t know I could have for people I have never met.  It’s an incredible story that filmmaker Kurt Kuenne does a great job in almost every aspect of, and is especially effective with unexpected twists in the story.

Let’s start with just the raw emotions of this thing.  I hit numerous emotions I just don’t like to deal with on a regular basis.  I couldn’t help but feel pity for Andrew, the sad clown who was loved by all but himself.  I got serious chills hearing the calls from Shirley talking so non-chalantly to Zachary’s “babysitters” Dave and Kate.  I couldn’t help but feel exasperated when hearing about the legal proceedings and the lunacy that surround that whole saga.  Then, not sadness for the big reveal of Zachary’s murder, but, much like Dave, I felt sheer anger.  How could you not?  The system had failed them in spectacular fashion.  In the end, when Kuenne went to the roll of everyone talking about Dave and Kate… Oh it got QUITE DUSTY in the Crone household.  How many movies can pull out that many emotions so effectively?  I would say it’s in the single digits.  It probably helps that it’s a documentary, so everything we are seeing is very real.

It would be tough to experience these emotions if Kuenne didn’t do a good job of leading the audience through the story.  He set up each transition well, and built suspense for what would happen next like any good storyteller does.  He maybe went a little overboard with the murder reveal, but it worked well.  He needed to fill time there to give the audience adequate time to recover from the megaton he dropped at that point.  The section detailing Shirley’s clear mental instability was the most well-done portion of the movie, where he splices facts about her with repeating the one judge’s lines about Shirley’s crime being specific in nature and that she was not a threat to the general public.  I think I could feel my blood pressure skyrocketing during that particular portion.

Kuenne was able to lead the audience so effectively because this story was happening as he was making the movie.  I used the word already, but serendipity is the only word that comes to mind when thinking about how this movie was made.  Kuenne had a ton of footage of Andrew from their various movies.  He had all the stuff with Zachary.  He had interviews with Dave & Kate pre- and post-Zachary.  With that many twists happening as he’s making the movie, Kuenne had to do quite a bit of changing his focus on the fly.  We start with a purpose of one last movie with Andrew and then go into the letter to Zachary gimmick, sticking with it throughout, even after the tragedy.  I did like Kuenne openly questioning why he was continuing, and finally finding reason by dedicating the movie to Dave & Kate, who went through an unimaginable hell and came out the other end… intact if nothing else.  Good on Dave getting a minister to admit his plan to potentially murder Shirley was “logical.”

I was also glad that Kuenne chose an angle and stuck with it – namely, the incompetence of the court system in Canada to not get Shirley extradited.  I felt like he did a good job weaving together the legal battle with the personal battle between Shirley and Dave & Kate.  It helped that it was a straight chronological telling of the story, but the transitions could have been jarring if done ineffectively.
There are other issues that could certainly be explored here, namely our society’s treatment of people with clear mental health issues.  This is going to only continue to become a bigger story in our society.  We don’t learn much about Shirley, but we do know she left three kids behind, so a version from her POV highlighting mental health issues we have in this country is a story worth telling.  However, had Kuenne focused on that, we would need quite a bit of time learning more about Shirley.  Kuenne’s intention was not to humanize her, and for good reason – she did almost certainly kill his best friend.  Would you want to humanize someone like that?  This was a very personal story for all involved, and it showed and benefitted from it ultimately.

The fact that this is so personal is what keeps it from being perfect for me.  The first 30 minutes of the movie, before we know who “Zachary” even is, was Kurt making his movie with Andrew.  This was a little choppy and didn’t flow well.  My only other minor complaint was the goofy moving mouths on the judges.  Was this done for comedy relief?  If so, it felt a little out of place, especially in the last third of the movie.

Many of my favorite documentaries start down one path and wind up somewhere completely different.  Had “Dear Zachary” stayed as a letter to Andrew’s living son, it would have still been a very good documentary with some justice at the end.  However, through this heinous tragedy, we end up with something very unique that we will likely never see again.  It was one of those docs that, thanks to all the source material available to Kuenne, was going to be good and he just needed to make it great.  I think he pulled that off.

 + Very affecting

+ Kuenne leads us through the story well

+ Has a message and sticks to it

- Early third did not flow well

 Grade: A

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

This is going to be short and sweet. I liked the movie but it didn't really pack much of a punch. There were lots of iconic scenes which seem to have become tropes. I had seen bits and pieces of the movie through the years and now that I have seen it through it still feels a bit like I have scene bits and pieces. It has the chaotic non sequitur feel many movies from the 60's have. I find it jarring and don't care much for it. I feel it is a good movie but suffers too much from the time frame it was made. I found myself wondering in the middle of it about how hair styles have changed in westerns made in different decades. Robert Redford was rocking a serious quaff in this film. Some damn fine lines in the movie though. "there ain't no rules in a knife fight!" "hell the fall will probably kill you!"

Eh probably won't sit through it in toto again. B-

Way of the Dragon

“A movie with objective problems that gets the subjective benefit of the doubt, like Shane describes, can rise higher than a B+, but the subjective part has to be blinding in the face of objective weakness.”

Kissel said this on Tuesday when talking about our favorite movies compared to our best movies. I think this is a perfect starting point for judging Way of the Dragon. Can a kung fu movie ever be better than a B+?

Before we get to that, I want to throw this out there: A proper kung fu movie does not rely on computer or other special effects. Green screen background is one thing, but adjusting the way in which a person moves is boring. Computer imaging of Cameron Diaz doing flips is garbage. Give me Tony Jaa jumping off an elephant any day. Kung fu demands a certain physicality. So that’s where I am with categorizing a kung fu movie.

So, this is Bruce Lee’s debut as a director and writer and I’ll bring up some of his choices here before discussing his presence as a character.

The pacing of this movie is pretty solid in the beginning. Things are happening. This is something that Hart Man has made me more aware of. Even when we’re just getting to know the characters, is something interesting or amusing going on? Lee eating soup is interesting because it’s telling us something: Here is a stranger in a strange land. We see Lee get picked up but the hot Italian chick. We’re now told Lee is pretty desirable. I also love that scene because it crushed my normal bias going in. I just didn’t expect a woman to be hitting on an Asian dude. Now I know better. So just between two scenes that happen pretty quickly and could have been throwaways, we’ve learned something. Not to mention that Lee has enough timing to make this scenes kind of funny. Unfortunately, while the first 60 minutes balanced things happening and the growth of characters, the final 30 minutes happened too fast. This flick could have used an extra 10-15 minutes. I’m still not sure what to think of the uncle’s betrayal. The last third of the film was just too forced even though the fight scenes were damn near perfect.

The choreography for the fight scenes is done pretty well I think. Of course, that first set of thugs looks pretty goofy. But with the actors who know what they’re doing… Those are amazing.  But reading interviews about Lee, he really hit the shit out of people. They tried minimizing it, but the guy was a beast. There’s also a lot that he had to dumb down. He was too dang fast for it to be believable. I’ve watched some of these scenes in slow-mo and when I think he’s whiffing on people, he’s actually hit them twice. But then again, that first set of thugs. Ouch. That was not impressive by normal movie standards. Additionally, I love how many empty cardboard boxes are just laying around Rome.

Lee also got a bit aggressive on the camera angles. Some were great, but some were just trying to be creative for creativity’s sake. I feel like he watched a few Spaghetti Westerns and attempted to recreate those scenes. Specifically, a scene at the Coliseum brought me directly back to The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. Kudos for going big, but still the execution failed in a few scenes.

Lee does a pretty good job here. He’s got great timing with the comedy and obviously the guy is physically out of this world. It’s hard to say how good his acting is overall because of the dubbing, however. I love Lee’s arrogance because he has the charisma and the skill to back it up.

The rest of the cast is likewise hard to judge. Were they good acting on a technical level? I have no idea. This ultimately can only hurt a movie, not help it.

We do have to talk about Chuck Norris because he’s Chuck Norris. His acting here is nearly as limited as his political analytical abilities. But he does OK here. RIP his chest hair. But at least with his fight, we finally get some stakes. Norris starts of as his equal before Lee just turns on the afterburners and kills him.

But let’s talk about the bad guy’s right-hand man. The presence of the actor playing it was pretty good. Is he 70’s pimp? Is he slick Chinese business man? Is he gay? I could say yes to all these things. The guy convinces me from a physical standpoint. The voice dubbing over him is hilarious and is what people copy now when they’re being racist. I love giving bonus points to movies that have made subtle cultural (low brow or high brow) additions. That guy’s voice is the same voice we’ve used or heard used during a racist joke about Asians.

“I want to call… AMERICA.” I died on that line. I don’t know if it was a joke or serious.

Kung fu is the real star of the movie. That’s the movie’s strength and weakness. The moves, to me, are mesmerizing. Bruce Lee is incredibly fast. Chuck Norris added the element of power to the stealth. Watching those two fight was a pleasure. BUT, it’s limited. Kung fu isn’t a character. We can’t explore its depth. It has no motivation. It just is. Because it’s the focus, we end up with goofy plotlines with serious holes because we have to have the fighting. Forcing something is never healthy for a movie. The dialogue becomes bookends to prop up what the movie is about, which is badass martial artists doing their thing. The dialogue can never really –add- to the kung fu.

But visuals can be added. We see it in Way of the Dragon with some stylistic choices. The cat playing with a toy as Lee crushed Norris was a nice touch, though a bit corny by today’s standards. In Ong Bak, we see tons of colors and outfits that add to the fight. And seriously, Tony Jaa uses an elephant’s tusks the way a gymnasts uses the uneven bars. Entertaining, of course but it can never be emotional.

So, can a true kung fu movie ever be above a B+? I say probably not.

Way of the Dragon: B+

Stray observations:

-He really likes soup

-The scene of him awkwardly figuring out if the girl looking for someone was the girl he was looking for. Great observational comedy.

-He abused those toilets.

-I like that it was dubbed into English, but he couldn’t read English.

-He scared that kid into dropping his ice cream. For no reason. AWESOME.

The Fisher King

Well, I chose The Fisher King because I was browsing the Netflix Robin Williams collection and noticed I hadn't ever watched it. Considering its favorable ratings and awards/nominations, I was pretty surprised I missed it. Glad we remedied that!

Robin Williams was brilliant and it's no wonder why he was nominated for an Academy Award here. This is the kind of role I think he was best at. While there's some seriousness to the film, he really delivers the comedy. That's not to take away from Jeff Bridges, who did fine in the supporting role and was spot on with his deliver. There were a few moments where we had a glimpse what was coming from his as Lebowski. Mercedes Ruehl won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. I thought she played the character great and compliment Bridges really well in their relationship.  I thought Michael Jeter and Tom Waits were outstanding in their minor parts... I didn't even know Waits was in it (apparently, it was uncredited)

Clocking in over 130 minutes, I was prepared for a long and stretched out movie.  It was a pleasant surprise that the movie kept a decent pace and had my attention throughout. It had a good beginning with Jack in the studio, setting up his character as a shock jock radio personality that wasn't just playing the part on the air. We knew something was up with that last caller, and I think the scene was set up really well with Jack being as high on himself as anybody could be. I really liked the practicing of the sitcom line he was slated to deliver, 'forgive me!' just before everything came down with the news.

Our introduction to Parry was even better. Forget a gradual lead in to his situation... we're given a full on attack with his mental issues at the forefront... gallantly doing his duty as a knight, saving Jack from the assault and himself.  I really liked the way Parry's mind was presented to us. The Red Knight made his fear a priority... it highlighted his issues from the tragedy and made them, along with his quest, as real to us as they were to him. There was a nice lead up to his big confrontation with the incident, and it was a bit of a shock to see the shooting... but I think it really made an impact to see him go through it leading us into the sad moment when he was brutally attacked by the same two guys from earlier, and more so repressed memories.

While we were served up a very convenient and happy ending... I liked it. I liked how Jack went about getting the Holy Grail (and that it was a simple trophy). I thought it was great that they included the line, "thank god nobody looks up in this town" answering any question from the audience of how nobody notices him. We have talked about multiple movies needing lines like thrown in... they're not absolutely necessary, but the add a little bit to the film.

One of the elements I like the most about The Fisher King is the call-backs. The most notable is Pinocchio... especially when Parry calls Jack out on the little lie about his girlfriend. (This also gave us a great, and fitting, joke... Where would King Arthur be without Guinevere?... Happily married, probably) Also, the continual clumsiness of Lydia... from the books, to the dumplings, to the movies and back to the dumplings with Parry. Even little lines such as when Jack sees the red knight on the stained glass window and says, "I'm hearing horses now, Parry would be so pleased..."  I just thought it was really well done, and the timing with each was handled nicely. Even the ending an bringing them back to Central Park... It felt complete and right.

I thought there were three scenes that really stood out... two of them really outstanding. One was the office scene with Michael Jeter singing to Lydia. While it wasn't an overly important scene to the movie, it was funny and entertaining and showed Jack's personality changing (smiling in the elevator, noticing himself that he's on on a first name basis with the homeless people) and how much he was looking to get Lydia to notice Parry.  Mostly, just a fun scene with the singing.  Now, the two best scenes for me were the waltz in Grand Central Station and the first scene in Central Park. The really gave us the best view of  Parry, away from his demons. Both scenes were also played perfectly by Williams.

With all that, it wasn't a perfect movie and I have a couple minor gripes.  I liked the use of 'Hit the Road Jack' and 'I've Got the Power,' but there were times when the score just didn't do it for me. That's probably more a product of it being out dated, and it wasn't so horrific that it ruined any scene for me... but once or twice I caught myself thinking 'eh' about the music.  The other minor problem for me was with the editing/cut choices.  A couple scene breaks seemed a little too sharp, but the thing that stuck out to me the most was the dinner scene. I think this was a good scene, that could have been great... even up there with the Central Park and Grand Central station parts. The problem I had was the use of the transition effect. I understand that it was used to show the passage of time, but it felt disconnect from the rest of the film... and it wasn't really the type of montage that called for the distinction. For me, at least, it would have been better with each cut showing us a wide view of the restaurant, more empty each time until we end on the final shot of the scene with the place looking bare other than the seemingly annoyed employees.

Overall, I think it's pretty clear, I absolutely enjoyed The Fisher King. I'm sure there's more I could talk about (including the story of the Fisher King and the portrayal/message of homelessness, perhaps), but I want to wrap this up for now.  With my minor complaints, I still loved the movie and it ends up slotting into, I think, the 2nd slot for Robin Williams movies for me, behind Dead Poet's Society and just a head of What Dreams May Come... pulling in a solid A grade. It also provides us with a strong Mediocre Best Actor candidate.

Manhunter

Remember the Fox SNL knock-off MadTV?  Remember the recurring skit "Lowered Expectations?" Maybe I should have watched a bunch of those before watching Manhunter.  I only actually remembered the soft voiced intro and outro to the skits and not that they were about losers dating.  I watched a few a minute ago to link onto this post but they were terrible so I won't link them as a courtesy to you all.

I'm skipping the plot summary- if you're reading you watched it.

Let's just bullet some complaints that all admittedly arrive directly from my expectations of the film based on my experience with the characters.

Hannibal Lecter, or Lecktor as its spelled in Manhunter is about my all-time favorite character and Manhunter gave him what seemed like 7 minutes or less of screen time.

Brian Cox comes in a distant 3rd for me in Hannibal performances although I'm not sure it was his fault.  I thought his greased back hair looked like a slack-jawed southerner instead of a regal gentleman like Hopkins.

Dennis Ferina is great as a tough recovering alcoholic NYC cop, unfortunately he doesn't work as Agent in Charge of the Behavioral Science Division of the FBI.  He's an actor who is always on point reacting but totally unbelievable in a thinking mans role which this should be.

I just don't like William Peterson I don't think he's a very good actor (CSI sucks) and I hated the way he portrayed Will Graham.  Fun fact about Peterson- turned down the role of Henry Hill in Goodfellas- thank Christ!  When he's introduced to us here he's apparently retired after a mental breakdown following the capture of Lecter and living in a million dollar beach house.  His wife (hire Glenn Close- too expensive- hire Glenn Close like- done) must make huge money because I can't imagine former profiler pays that well.  He doesn't play the part like someone on the verge of a breakdown- he shows no vulnerability, no fear, no signs that he is torn about re-entering the field other than saying that he doesn't want to go through it again.  His interactions with Lecter are confrontational, he's using Hannibal who correctly points out that Will thinks he's smarter than him.  Again, my expectations hurt the roles here because the give and take between Will and Hannibal on the NBC series is what makes the show so strong.  Will is vulnerable, frail, mentally unstable but undeniably gifted and shares a mutal respect and admiration with Hannibal despite the fact they are adversaries.

Tom Noonan was fantastic.  Totally believable, scary and creepy, all the good things.  A+ performance as the Tooth Fairy.

I think of the Hannibal series as Psychological Thriller- Manhunter I'd classify as more Intense Thriller which was probably due to some super 80s cocaine.  I especially felt that when Will went charging headfirst through the picture window right into a beating from the Tooth Fairy.  Made me smile thinking of (NBC series spolier alert) the exact opposite thing occurring when the guy who tried to be an animal charged into a shotgun blast from a waiting Will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBWSocJMChA

Based on my preconceived notions for everything I'd go C-, but I supposed it was an entertaining movie and had this been my introduction to the series it'd rate higher.  I'll settle on C+.