As Cuddly as a Cactus

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Jim Carrey, Taylor Momsen, Jeffrey Tambor, Christine Baranski, Bill Irwin, Molly Shannon, Anthony Hopkins

Released: November 17, 2000

Oscar nominations:

Best Makeup (won)

Best Costume Design (lost to Gladiator)

Best Art Direction - Set Decoration  (lost to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

For some reason, I always want to call this movie "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas", but I know that doesn't sound right. In fact, I even started writing that when I was typing the title, but caught myself after I had written "The Grinch Who"... 

So yeah, most people seem to hate this particular version of this story...and I can't blame them. This is not a very good adaptation. Look, I can understand why Ron Howard (or whoever's idea it was to make this story into a live-version adaption) thought this was a good idea: you take a beloved Christmas TV animated special from the '60s that's based on the beloved Dr. Seuss book. (See, I don't remember the book, although my family must have owned it...I do remember owning other Dr. Seuss books. I do remember watching the animated show, though). You have Jim Carrey play the Grinch which seems like the perfect match. It seems like a win/win situation. I mean, it wasn't a total disaster as I was surprised to learn that this was the highest-grossing movie of 2000. I would have guessed it to in the top ten, but not number 1! But I guess people were curious to see Jim Carrey portray the Grinch in a story that everybody is familiar with. 

This is one of the problems with the movie: the animated special is only 25 minutes long. The movie is about an hour and forty minutes. As you can obviously see, they add a lot of things to the movie. The animated movie is short and sweet and gets to the point: we know that the Grinch hates Christmas, the Grinch does his thing where he steals Christmas, the Whos are sad, the Grinch feels bad and learns the true meaning of Christmas, everyone sings. Okay, it's been awhile since I've seen the TV special from 1966, but I feel fairly confident that was the gist of it. Obviously, I understand that they need to have a feature film be longer than half an hour, so they added a lot of extra scenes such as a backstory to why the Grinch hates Christas so much and we learn more about Cindy Lou Who, who they upgrade to a more important character. The part that we're all familiar with, the part where he steals Christmas, doesn't show up until the very end of the movie. 

Cindy Lou Who is played by Taylor Momsen (probably best known as Jenny from Gossip Girl). She was only seven and this was her first role. I think for the most part, she did a good job, considering everything, but there is one scene I question, but I'll get to that later. Cindy Lou's dad, Lou Lou Who (Bill Irwin), works at the post office and her mom, Betty Lou Who (Molly Shannon), has an ongoing competition with their neighbor, Martha May Whovier (Christine Baranski) on who can decorate their house the most festive for Christmas. Martha May has her own machine that shoots lights onto her house, which I admit, seems pretty handy when you need to put lights up on your roofline. 

While the Grinch from the book and TV special seems to prefer to stay in his home up in the mountains and keep to himself, this Grinch seems to like to mess with the Whos. He prank calls them, he goes into town (wearing a mask that seems like it belong in a horror movie) and just messes with them. I suppose this is so he can have interaction with the Whos. Okay, it's totally confusing that the townspeople in Whoville are called Whos, but also that's the surname of the main family. We get our first interaction between the Grinch and Cindy Lou when he's sneaked into the sorting room at the post office and has messed up all the mail.  Cindy Lou''s dad has asked her to get something from the sorting room, so when she goes in there, the Grinch is hiding with his dog, Max (also probably the MVP of the movie...bless the real life dog for what he had to put up with and bless the character for what he had to put up with!) However, Cindy Lou encounters him and he scares her and knocks her into the sorting machine where all the Whoville gifts are sorted. He's about to leave, but Max won't let him and he fishes her out of the machine before she can get crushed. She thanks him for saving her life, but he tells her he did it because she was "improperly packaged" and wraps her up in red wrapping paper and a gold bow. When her dad comes in, the Grinch has left by then. Her dad is proud of her because he thinks Cindy has been practicing her wrapping which makes no sense because how can you wrap yourself and put a bow on top if you're already covered...oh, never mind! 

Personally, I think the best thing to come out of this movie is the song "Where Are You, Christmas?". The version sung by Faith Hill during the end credits. I love that song. Now this song is sung by Cindy Lou in her room not long after she's met the Grinch for the first time. This is the weakest scene for Taylor Momsen. For one thing, her singing voice (I mean, I assume it's actually her singing) is pretty weak. I know seven-year-olds aren't going to be great singers, but if you're going to cast a part of a young girl who is going to sing a song, then maybe cast somebody with a stronger voice. She's also by herself in this scene and doesn't seem to know what to do, while at least she's acting against Jim Carrey or some other actor in her other scenes. No shade at all to her because she was only seven. I think they should have just taken this scene out. It really didn't add anything and doesn't make sense. Why is she singing "Where are you, Christmas?" when the Grinch hasn't even stolen Christmas at this point? As far as she and I and everyone else is concerned, Christmas hasn't disappeared yet. This would make more sense if she sang it after the Grinch did his thing, but by that time the movie is almost over and you're going to hear the Faith Hill version anyway. You know something I learned that I never knew before while going through the IMDb trivia for this movie that completely floored me? I read that Mariah Carey wrote this song and I was like, What? She wrote "All I Want For Christmas Is You" AND "Where Are You, Christmas?", two songs that get so much much air time during the Christmas season on the radio? How could I not know about this? Wow, she really is the Queen of Christmas songs. Also, why doesn't she sing that song for the movie soundtrack? Look, I love Faith Hill and I think she does a great job with the song, but aren't you going to go for the bigger name? So I did some more research and found more information. So the song Cindy Lou sings is just a little bit different than the Faith Hill power ballad. (You know, kind of like Elton John's version of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" is different than the movie's version). From what I gather, the song Cindy Lou sings is "Christmas, Why Can't I Find You?" and that version was written by James Horner. It sounds like Mariah was a co-writer on the radio version, along with Will Jennings. The song is pretty similar to the one in the movie, but has more lyrics and some of them have been changed. Mariah was supposed to sing it, but couldn't because of some legal thing with her ex-husband at the time. Oh, man, now I want to hear her version! But I really do like the Faith Hill version!

To get to Whoville from his mountaintop home, the Grinch uses a chute system. This makes sense when he's going down, but when he's going UP? How is that possible? I guess they just needed a quick way to get the Grinch (and later, Cindy Lou) up and down the hill. I want to say he visits Whoville three different times. 

Cindy Lou has been doing some research to try to find out why the Grinch hates Christmas so much. She interviews these two old ladies who adopted him. We find out that Who children are brought to their parents in flying bassinets.We get two adult jokes within the span of sixty seconds when we see a father receive his new baby and tell his wife that their new kid looks a lot like her boss, then we see a bunch of Whos at the annual Christmas party and they're throwing keys in a bowl and I don't think it's because they don't want anyone driving home drunk...the two ladies tell Cindy Lou that Baby Grinch was still outside when the party was over, so they took him home. I guess he was never claimed by a parent. Baby Grinch reminded me of the baby from that '90s TGIF show, Dinosaurs. You know, "Not the mama!" or whatever it was he said. The two ladies (not sure if they were lesbians or sisters who never married and lived together or what their deal was) tell Cindy Lou they raised him like any other child, "with a deep love for Christmas." Well, there's your problem right there. His expectations on Christmas were probably way too high! 

She also interviews Martha May and the Mayor (Jeffrey Tambor) who were both in the Grinch's class in grade school. Even though Martha was the girlfriend of Augustus (the kid who would become the Mayor), she has a crush on the Grinch. Mind you, they're all eight, so that's kind of weird. I did laugh when Martha, talking to Cindy Lou, says, "Did I have a crush on the Grinch? Well, of course not" and Cindy Lou replies, "I didn't ask you that." Young Augustus tells young Grinch concerning young Martha: "You don't have a chance with her. You're eight years old and have a beard." I mean, good for him for not mentioning he stands out because he's green, I guess. The class is having a Christmas exchange where they're suppose to give a gift to someone special. The Grinch (does he even have a first name or does he just go by that "The Grinch" moniker?) makes an ornament thingofabob for Martha. He also decides to shave that day and it didn't go so well, so he's wearing a paper bag over his head. His teacher makes his remove it and everyone in the class -including the teacher - laughs at him. Everyone, but Martha. The Grinch has a few pieces of tissues to cover his scabs. It's understandable his fellow classmates are laughing at him because kids suck, but the teacher? Yeah, she sucks the most. This whole event is the catalyst for making the Grinch hate Christmas. He becomes super angry and he smashes the ornament he made and he throws the class Christmas tree out the window and basically becomes a mini Hulk (you know, since he's green and all). 

This Christmas in Whoville marks the 1,000th Whobilation where they will nominate someone to be the Holiday Cheermeister at a town Christmas party. To be honest, I wasn't clear if the Whobilation was when they nominated somebody or when they had the party where they announced the Holiday Cheermeister. On their way to hear the nominations, Cindy Lou tells her dad she might do something drastic and she does when the Mayor announces it's time to hear the nominations "for that Who among us who best typifies the qualities of Who-dom and Who-dery, the Whoville Holiday Cheermeister." Cindy Lou is the first one to speak and comes of out nowhere saying, "I nominate the Grinch." It gave me a "I volunteer as tribute" vibe from The Hunger Games. The Mayor is trying to tell Cindy Lou that the Grinch can't be nominated per The Book of Who, but Cindy isn't having any of it. She tells him, "The book says the Cheermeister is the one who deserves a backslap or a toast. And it goes to the soul at Christmas who needs it the most." She believes that would be the Grinch and everyone in attendance claps along in agreement and the Mayor has to go along with the nomination. So I guess only one nomination can be given? 

So interesting fashion tidbit I want to point out in this scene: both Cindy Lou and her mother are adorning a glass of egg nog on their head with a ( fake) candy cane. The eggnog is quite real because it's sloshing around. 

Cindy Lou pays the Grinch a visit and convinces him to come to the celebration where he'll win an award. He's late getting there, but just when they're about to give the award to someone else, he show up claiming he was promised he would get an award and a check, but Cindy denies that last part. He's reunited with his "two old biddies" and it's pretty funny, despite a little cold when he asks them, "Are you two still living?" (I guess it's a legitimate question since they were both pretty old when he was a baby!) After being dressed in a sweater with the words "I [heart] Xmas" on top of a Christmas tree, he is put in the Chair of Cheer and is the judge of a pudding contest, the Fudge Judge, judge of Fruitcake La La La (God, I would throw up having to eat all that food and I think pudding would be the worst!), he leads the Christmas conga and wins the Santa sack race. By the end, he seems to actually be having a good time and the Whos have seemed to accept him. But of course we know we're still waiting for the big scene where he's going to steal Christmas, so something's gotta happen here to ruin everything. It does when the Mayor is about to give the award he was promised. Instead of receiving a plaque or a trophy, the Mayor presents him with "the gift of a Christmas shave" and gives him a razor. This makes everyone (except Cindy Lou and her family and Martha, of course) laugh at him. To make matters worse, the Mayor decides to choose this moment to propose to Martha. He makes this like a game show, telling her if she accepts being his wife, she'll also win a brand new car and she has "twenty second on the clock" to make her decision. Before Martha can give him an answer, the Grinch scrapes the car with his fingernail and tells the Whos the only thing they care about are material possessions and that it all ends up in his garbage anyway. (All the town's garbage ends up near his home). 

He causes havoc in Whoville by shaving the Mayor's hair right in the center of his head and sets the town Christmas tree on fire. All the other Whos are going crazy trying to run away and crashing their cars into each other. The Grinch says, "Oh, the Whomanity", which, honestly, I didn't get the joke util I watched it with the subtitles on. He tries to hail a taxi that won't stop and calls after it, "It's because I'm green, isn't it?" Yeah, the movie went there. He does end up stealing a small car that is being driven by smaller Whos. They run away when they see he's about to sit on them. 

I think this would be a good time to stop and talk about the Whos and how....weird they look. We know from the book and the animated TV special the Whos have a distinct look; they have that Dr. Seuss character look. The actors in the movie are wearing prosthetic chins or noses to give them that particular look and it just looks weird. I do think they did a good job with giving them crazy hair styles. Like I mentioned before, they wear glasses of eggnog as hair ornaments and later, we will see Betty Lou wearing peppermint candies in her hair like hair rollers. The only people who don't wear prosthetics are the young kids (because, as we learn later, they "grow into their noses") or Martha May, who is supposed to be the Beautiful One. (I guess the Grinch can't have a crush on her if she doesn't look like the other Whos?) Also, in the book and animated special, we know that Whos come in all shapes and sizes. The way they did it in the movie is really creepy and unsettling. Instead of casting little people to play the smaller-size Whos (and maybe they did and I didn't notice), they take regular size people and use that trick photography to make them smaller than the other Whos. I don't know, the end product just looks really weird and creepy. It would be like walking around with people who are the size of Barbie dolls; that's what they looked like. 

So now we get to the part that's actually from the TV special and the only scene I remember from this movie (well, I do remember the flashback to when he was a kid): when he hatches his plan to dress up as Santa and sneak into Whoville and steal all their presents and stockings and food. A turkey he takes from a fridge looks so fake; it has that plastic sheen on it like that fake plastic food kids play with. When he's at Cindy Lou's house, she comes down and sees "Santa" stealing the tree and he makes up a lie that he's taking it to fix a light and he'll bring it right back. This tree is super ugly with what appears to be globs of cotton balls place sporadically around it. As Cindy Lou is going back to bed, she tells him, "Santa, don't forget the grinch. I know he's mean and hairy and smelly....but I think he's actually kind of sweet." So....surely she knows that's the Grinch right? He didn't exactly disguise his green body. She's just saying that to soften the Grinch's heart (which it does, if only for a few seconds). When she goes back to bed, the Grinch says, "Nice kid, bad sense of character."

So the next morning the Whos wake up to their Christmas being gone (now would have been a good time for Cindy Lou to sing "Where Are You, Christmas?") and they're all sad that all their presents are gone. They immediately know that the Grinch is the culprit. The Mayor is furious when he tells the crowd, "You chose to listen to a little not-to-be-taken-seriously girl", referring to Cindy Lou, then shames the young girl when he tells her, "I hope you're very proud of what you've done." Geeze, what a jerk. However, Cindy Lou's father comes to her defense and tells everyone that he's proud of his daughter and that he's glad the Grinch took their gifts, which causes everyone to gasp. He tells them, "You can't hurt Christmas because it isn't about the gifts or the contests or the fancy lights. That's what Cindy's been trying to tell everyone." He says as long as he has his family, he has everything he needs. Soon, everyone is nodding in agreement and they start singing and they're all happy and have forgotten their troubles. While all of this is going on, Cindy Lou decides to visit the Grinch who is planning to push the sleigh with a huge bag full of all the stuff he stole all the down the mountain to crash into the Whos. He hears them singing and sees them being happy without their gifts. The singing causes his heart to grow three times bigger, yada, yada, yada, you know the rest. 

When he returns to Whoville with Cindy and all the presents he stole, he does apologize for what he did. However, when Martha chooses that moment to break up with the Mayor and confess her love to the Grinch, he pretty much rubs it in the Mayor's face, though I guess he did deserve that. I did laugh when the Grinch joins hands with the rest of the Whos as they're singing and he doesn't know the words, so he's just making them up. 

A few other thing before I wrap (huh, is that a Christmas pun?) up: Anthony Hopkins narrates the story. I believe every word he says is taken straight from the book. 

While I think most movies that take place during Christmas are quite beautiful, this movie is just really asthetically ugly to look at. Yes, there's a lot of red and greens, but there's also other colors mixed in there and there's something hazy about the screen. It just doesn't look right. Skip this movie and watch the 1966 version instead. Show your kids that version instead; you know they'll like it better. The three words that best describe this movie are, and I quote, "Stink, stank, stunk!" (Yeah, that jab was too easy!) 

Bon Appetit

The Silence of the Lambs

Director: Jonathan Demme

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

Released: February 14, 1991

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (won)

Best Director - Jonathan Demme (won)

Best Actress - Jodie Foster (won)

Best Actor - Anthony Hopkins (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Ted Tally (won)

Best Sound (lost to Terminator 2)

Best Film Editing (lost to JFK)

I have a book (a tome, rather) called 85 Years of the Oscar by Robert Osborne and it details all the stats of the Oscars from the beginning to the 2012 Oscars in 2013. (A new, updated version comes out every 5 years, so there will be a new one in 2018). Since Silence of the Lambs was a big Oscar winner for the '92 Oscar ceremony, I knew I would find some interesting facts about it and that I did. It is the first psychological thriller to win Best Picture. It is the third movie ever in Oscar history to win five major Oscars which includes Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay. The previous two movies to do that were It Happened One Night in 1934 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975. I don't know if it's happened since...I'm too lazy to research that! It's also the first movie to be out on video at the time it won as it had a very early release date of February 14, nearly a year before the Oscars that would take place on March 30, 1992. By the way, I want to know who decided to release this on Valentine's Day of all days...it's not exactly a date movie! Most Oscar winners tend to get a late November or December release. I do know its happened since because I remember Crash (ugh) had a very early spring release before it won. At just about twenty minutes of screen time, Anthony Hopkins is a Best Actor winner with one of the shortest amounts of time he actually appears on screen. I am a little surprised they didn't have him in the Best Supporting Actor category because he's more of a supporting character than lead.

Supposedly this movie is a sequel (!!) to a film called Manhunter, which I've never heard of. It came out in 1986, also based on a book by Thomas Harris and stars Brian Cox as Hannibal. Needless to say, it didn't do very well at the box office and didn't have the cultural impact that Silence of the Lambs had. I think most people either don't know about Manhunter or have forgotten about it, so I feel like SotL is more of a stand alone movie and people don't think of it as a sequel or even a reboot. This was a complete shock to me because I had no idea another actor had played Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter before Anthony Hopkins, but obviously, he was the actor to make that role iconic. 

Even to people who have never seen this movie, I'm sure they are familiar with the names Clarice Starling and Dr. Hannibal Lecter; they know exactly what someone is talking about when they mention "fava beans and a nice Chianti"; and they can utter, "Hello, Clarice" just as creepily as Anthony Hopkins does. (Although the line is actually, "Good evening, Clarice." I actually kept waiting for Anthony Hopkins to say that line but he never did and I read that "Good evening, Clarice" often gets mistaken for "Hello, Clarice.")

Believe it or not, this was my first time seeing this movie. And if you know me, you would believe it because I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to scary movies. But luckily this movie is more of a psychological thriller than a horror (and I wouldn't classify this as a horror) and I can handle those. This movie didn't scare me AS MUCH as I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, it was very disturbing, unsettling, and creepy, but I kept expecting the jump scares to come and there were plenty of opportunities for them to happen, but they never did. I know this is based on a book, but I have never read it. However in the past 25 years since this movie's been out, I have known some of the things that happen in the movie!

It's not difficult to see why Jodie Foster won the Best Actress Oscar. She is really good as FBI-agent-in-training Clarice Starling. She is selected by her boss (Scott Glenn) to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter aka "Hannibal the Cannibal" (Anthony Hopkins) because they think he could be helpful in helping them catch another serial killer, Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Dr. Lecter, after all, if a former psychiatrist and a serial killer who ate his victims. Before going in to talk to him, she is told by that facility's psychologist that they have him in solidarity confinement at all times and he is never allowed to come out of his cell unless he is completely confined and tells her how one time when he was in the hospital, he managed to wake up from his drugs and bite off a nurses's nose. While the other inmates are behind bars, Hannibal is behind glass that have a few holes in them so he can smell the lotion Clarice is wearing. Compared to the other men in the prison, Dr. Lecter is actually very polite and courteous, you know for a flesh-eating serial killer! At least he wasn't masturbating and flinging, ahem, himself at her.....ewww! That really happened after she talked to him and was walking out. I audibly freaked out at the scene because I do not like bodily fluids...ewww, ughgghghg! Gag! Hopkins has a very unsettling way of never blinking.

Buffalo Bill tends to go for overweight girls in their twenties who he skins after he kills them because he wants to make himself a "woman suit". So he and Cruella DeVil have some things in common! He wants to get a sex change to become a woman but has failed the psychological tests to do so. So far he has killed at least six women and Clarice is called in to look at the latest body that was found in a lake in West Virginia. Lodged in the girl's throat is a cocoon which Clarice takes to an entomologist who tells her it's a moth that's indigenous to Asia only and that someone must have bred this particular one. I have always noticed the creepy moth on the movie poster, but never knew how they intertwined with the plot. When we see Buffalo Bill's house, or lair, rather, he has a cage with the large, creepy moths and as someone who hates just regular moths, this is enough to make your skin crawl because these moths are at least three times bigger and some are flying out in the open by the lightbulbs. Ugh!! I also learn where the movie gets its title when Dr. Lecter, wanting to know more about Clarice, asks her about a traumatic childhood memory and she recounts to him a story of how she once woke up on her relatives' farm to hear the screaming of lambs who were being slaughtered. She tried to save one and ran away with it, but it was too heavy and she was caught and the lamb was brought back to the slaughterhouse. At the end of the movie, Hannibal will ask her if the lambs have stopped screaming.

Hannibal has told Clarice he will only cooperate with her if she can move him to a facility with a window so he can look outside since he's been trapped in his cell for eight years. She manages to put something together for him (though it's a lie) and demands to know information about Buffalo Bill such as a real name, address, and physical appearance. This time he has kidnapped a young woman named Catherine who is the daughter of a U.S. Senator. I'll tell you one thing: if I ever see someone struggling to move a couch into a van, I am never, EVER going to help them! Especially if they have a broken arm! I know this may sound horrible of me, but this is how this girl got captured! She was walking to her apartment and went past Buffalo Bill who was "struggling" to move a couch into a van with a cast on his arm and she decides to be nice and help him. When she has her side of the couch, he has her step into the van and then she can't move because the couch is blocking her way out and he knocks her out and thus kidnaps her.

He has her in his creepy lair, in a well where he lowers down lotion so she can rub it on herself. He has an unsettling way of referring to his kidnap/murder victims as "it" so he doesn't have to think of them as real people. ("It will put the lotion in the basket!") He has a little white dog named Precious and Catherine kidnaps (dognaps?) the dog by luring it over to the edge. We don't actually see the dog jump/fall into the pit, so I'm not sure how that happened, but she now has Buffalo Bill's Precious (I would have laughed so hard if he cried, "My Precioussssssss!" but that does not happen). She tells him the dog needs a vet because she broke her leg as a result of the fall and that he better send down a phone or else she's not releasing the dog. A very upset Buffalo Bill goes to get his gun. 

We get the old bait and switch when we see Clarice outside the house which she thinks is the address of someone who can give her information while we see other agents outside the house which they believe to be Buffalo Bill's and have it surrounded. When they enter the house, they find it empty and nobody is there...but Clarice has walked right into it. Luckily, she's smart and immediately can tell from the sewing machine and thread, oh, and not to mention the random creepy moth, that this is Buffalo Bill's house and she pulls out her gun and tells him to freeze, but he runs away. She finds Catherine who's screaming (and Precious who's barking) in the dungeon room and tells her that the other agents are on their way. Uh...I don't think they are because she hasn't called for back up! There are a few rooms connected to the dungeon room so she checks them and they're all empty. There's only one room left she hasn't checked and it's the room where all the creepy moths are in. This was the creepiest scene in the whole movie because while Clarice is looking for Buffalo Bill, he turns the lights off so it is PITCH BLACK and he puts on night-vision goggles so we can see Clarice through his POV. Jodie Foster is fantastic in this scene. We see the fear on her face as she's feeling around to get a sense of her surroundings and to get the hell out of there! At one point, she touches a hot vent or something, then another time she trips over something and falls. But the scariest part is when Buffalo Bill is literally right in front of her face and we see his hand reach out to -almost- touch her face - ahhh!!! - and she seems to sense that something is close to her, but he never touches her. Just when she turns around and her back is to him, he lifts his gun and she hears the clicking sound it makes and turns around just in time to shoot and kill him. Very scary, intense scene!

Hannibal, meanwhile, has been moved to a different location and they have him in a mask and his arms are bound and he's being wheeled as well since his legs are also bound. However, for some reason, he manages to steal a pen that the psychologist left lying nearby. I have no idea how this happened because when he sees the pen just laying there, he's already bound. I thought maybe they would go back and show us how he managed to grab this pen with his arms constricted to a straight jacket, but we never see this amazing feat! Hannibal only uses the ink portion when two policemen bring his dinner (very rare lamb, what a jerk! Good thing Clarice wasn't there to see it) and they handcuff him to the bars as they bring the food in and sit it down. This time his cage is in the middle of a room and it's all bars, no glass. He picks the handcuffs with the pen part and kills one of the officer and smashes the other's head with a crowbar and escapes. There's a big search for the serial killer (naturally). He fools the officers by cutting off the face of one of the officers and putting it over his own face so they send who they think is the officer in an ambulance, but surprise, it's Hannibal and he makes his escape. Not really sure how they got fooled by that.

At the end of the movie, Clarice gets a phone call from Hannibal who is now in some tropical island. He tells her he won't be on the phone for long because he doesn't want to be traced, but just wanted to tell her that he doesn't have any plans to pursue her and hopes she extends the courtesy to him which she says she cannot do. He then tells her he has to run because he's "having a friend for dinner." I'm surprised he didn't add, "Literally!" As he says this, we see him eyeing the psychologist from his original holding place who he never liked very much. Oh, dear. Good thing he at least had some respect for Clarice.

As with 1999, I have now reviewed all the movies from 1991 that won Oscars in the "big 8" categories - Best Picture, Best Director, the four acting categories, and the two screenplays. Obviously, this movie knocked five of those out so that helped tremendously! I also recently reviewed The Fisher King to cover Best Supporting Actress and City Slickers to cover Best Supporting Actor. And quite a few years ago, I reviewed Thelma and Louise which won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. I wonder what year I will complete next? 

Beware of bears!

The Edge
Director: Lee Tamahori
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Elle Macpherson, Harold Perrineau, Bart the Bear
Released: September 26, 1997

I've recently realized how much I love survival stories. I don't care if they're based on a true story or fictional (though being based on a true story makes them more interesting). I recently finished reading "Lost in Shangri-La" by Mitchell Zuckoff, a true story about three people who survived a plane crash in the jungles of Papua New Guinea in 1945. One of my favorite books is "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer about an expedition to Mount Everest gone wrong. I both saw the movie and listened to the audio book of 127 Hours. The Grey was one of my favorite movies of this past year. I also am obsessed with the reality show Survivor! Okay, it's not exactly the same thing as those people are never in any real peril, but I still love it. Survival stories, I do love!

Charles Morse (Hopkins) is a billionaire bibliophile who's married to a model half his age (Macpherson). She has invited him to join her on location in Alaska for a photo shoot. Charles suspects there is something going on between her and the photographer, Bob (Baldwin) because he is always flirting with her and she doesn't seem to mind it. Bob is determined to photograph some real natives and when the owner of the lodge they're staying at tells him about a friend and where to find him, he takes the opportunity to go there. Along with his assistant and the pilot, Charles also joins them after Bob invites him. While in the tiny plane (and those things are never good - whenever you hear about a crash, it's always a tiny plane!), a flock of birds fly right into them and into the windshield causing the plane to go down and crash in a large lake in the middle of the wilderness. The pilot is dead, but the other three manage to get out. There's a shot of a rifle laying on the seat as they are escaping from the plane and I thought this was important, but no, we never see it again. I guess they were just showing us that they would not have a rifle with them.

Bob's assistant is played by Harold Perrineau who is best known for playing Michael (father of Walt, owner of Vincent) on Lost. So Lost is not the first time he played a character who crashed in the middle of nowhere and had to survive in the wilderness! Unlike Michael (he survived in Lost, right?), Perrineau's character in The Edge is not so lucky. First, he stabs himself in the leg and hits an artery when he's making a spear for them to catch fish. Then he gets mauled by a bear! (Because some idiot left his bloody pants hanging out and the bear could smell the scent of the blood.) The shot of the bear ripping him apart is a bit humorous because it's pretty obvious the bear is throwing a dummy around. They probably had fried chicken pieces on the dummy!

That wasn't the first time they had contact with the bear. While hiking in one big circle to see if they could find a way out, the three of them heard the bear and it started chasing them. In a scene similar to The Grey, they're trying to get across a gorge and lift a heavy tree that had already fallen to act as a bridge. Charles is the last to cross the shaky bridge (there's rocks and a rushing waterfall below them) and while on the middle of the "bridge" (and they were walking really slowly to get across - I would have gotten on my butt and scooted across!), the bear starts shaking the tree and Charles falls off, but the strap of his knapsack catches a branch and he's holding on to his bag. Um, I'm sorry, but there's no way that bag could have held his weight...that would have snapped in a second! But he manages to hold on for quite awhile. The other two are trying to help him, but he does fall into the water. From one angle, he looks pretty high up, but when we see him falling into the water, it only looks like he's fallen two feet!

I don't know if this was in the script or if it was something Alec Baldwin did to ad-lib, but everytime he talks to Anthony Hopkin's character, he always says his name in the sentence. Like: "What do you think we should do, Charles?" "What are you doing, Charles?" "Charles, are you okay?" "Charles! Where are you going?" It was so annoying! But at least I didn't forget his name!

After the bear shows up for the third time, Charles realizes it's a man-eater and is stalking them. He and Bob create a ring of fire around them to keep the bear out and are discussing how they can kill it. This is where I thought the gun was going to come in...I thought one of them would remember there was a gun in the plane and have to dive down to get it, but nope. They set up a trap to lure the bear and Charles has created a spear out of a long branch which he kills the bear with. The bear has a ferocious roar, but when Charles has the stick in front of him, the bear is just sorta lazily following him around, like he's supposed to do. I'm guessing a non-actor bear would charge at him and rip him to shreds.

The bear is played by Bart the Bear and I love how in the end credits and on the movie's IMDb page, he is listed fourth or fifth. I've never seen an animal credited among the actors (and given his own title card to boot). Bart the Bear must have had one heck of a manager! (He died in 2000 at the age of 23). Of course, he was a big Hollywood (animal) star. He was also in The Bear (I'm assuming he played the titular character!), Legends of the Fall, and The Great Outdoors. The Edge was one of his last starring roles. I guess even bears have to retire! On his IMDb page (yes, he even has his own IMDb page), there are some hilarious message board posts like how he was always typecast. (A bear being typecast?!?! I laughed so hard when I saw that!)

Once the bear is dead, that doesn't mean Charles and Bob are "out of the woods yet", no pun intended (okay, maybe a little!). While in the plane, right before the crash, Charles asks Bob how he plans to kill him. The conversation is brought up again while hiking in the woods and Charles confesses he thinks Bob is having an affair with his wife. Bob laughs it off, but later, after they've killed the bear, they find an abandoned house and Charles, who recently received an engraved watch from his wife, finds out that Bob also received an engraved watch with a message alluding to an affair from his wife. Bob knows that Charles is on to him and with a rifle found in the house, he is about to shoot Charles, but ends up falling in a bear trap. Charles could have easily killed him at this point, but instead helps him out and takes care of his wounds. With a canoe outside the house they row down the river for awhile until Charles sees a helicopter and successfully gets its attention. By this time Bob has died from his injuries. Back at the lodge there are many reporters wanting to know what happened while he was out there and what happened to the other two men which Charles replies with, "They died saving my life." Fade to black.

Even though I had a few minor complaints about how fake things sometimes looked, it was a good movie and I would recommend it. (But then again, I do love my survival stories!) What shocked me the most was that David Mamet wrote the script. It just seems so different from somebody who wrote State and Main and Wag the Dog. It's like when I found out that Ian McEwan, author of "Atonement" wrote the script for The Good Son. 

Bart the Bear should be proud of his final performance!