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The Silence of the Lambs - Criterion Collection

The Silence of the Lambs - Criterion Collection

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Chilling
Review: "Silence of the Lambs" is the only movie that truly scares the living daylights out of me. Anthony Hopkins' performance as Hannibal Lector is simply spine-tingling and compelling. I can't fathom anyone else playing the role of our favorite cannibal. I get goosebumps when mentions about eating fava beans with a glass of chianti. I still get creeped out when Hannibal escapes from that makeshift jail. That scene outgrosses any scene in any given modern day horror movie. In fact I can't really watch the moment Hannibal escapes without covering my eyes. Jodie Foster is awesome in her portray of Clarice Sterling. I like how her character handles herself while amidst a group of male cops at a funeral. You rarely see a female role in movies where she doesn't take any kind of (nonsense)from male authority. Clarice Sterling is one of those rare characters. In conclusion, there isn't a movie like "Silence of the Lambs" that can stand the test of time and remain one of the scariest and intense films.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: After 'Man Hunter' but before 'Hannibal'
Review: One of the five movies that captured the five major academy awards (Best Movie, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay), the other two were 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' and 'It Happened One Night'. When u watch this movie you know that it deserved them all. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins were amazing, their preformances are not going to be beat. Just watched this movie recently getting ready for Hannibal which i hope is just as good. A Must Get.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Excellent Movie, Ok DVD
Review: "Silence of the Lambs" was an excelent movie. Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster were a great duo. Everything was great, except it seemed that I was watching a video instead of a DVD.

Anthony Hopkins' performance was extraordinary. I was really scared throughout the movie! Jodie Foster's performance was excellent too, especially (not giving a lot away) the part in the basement with the Night-Vision goggles. When they were together in the movie, they suck you right out of your seat and your witnessing their conversation. I'm glad it won the five big Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay). Movie Rating: 5/5

Although all of the above, I was really disappointed by the DVD's menu. The DVD was quite simple; it contained the Chapter Selection and the box-art for "Silence of the Lambs" as a background. For a Five-Academy Award Winning Movie, the DVD was very, very simple. It contained no subtitles, no language selections, no sound selections, nor any bonus materials. DVD Rating: 1/5

That is why I give this DVD a 3/5, because movie-wise it's great, but DVD-wise it's not as developed as I'd expect. If you are considering to buy "Silence of the Lambs", I would recommend you to buy "The Silence of the Lambs - Criterion Collection". Although it is a bit more expensive than this version, it is worth it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: bad
Review: This is a lousy film. Why it was a success is beyond me. Why it won an Oscar for best picture is totally beyond me. The pursuit of the killer is almost a back story to the Anthony Hopkins story. How did Hopkins get out of the binds with just a pen? How could Foster have won a fight in the dark, when the opponent has see-in-the-dark goggles? Ridiculous implausibilites throughout.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Where's the Trailer
Review: Great DVD for a great film, best DVD that I have... Only one complaint, where's the... trailer all those bonus stuff and not even a single theatrical trailer. Hope they do a good job with Hannibal.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An excellent movie combined with a Jam-Packed DVD, a classic
Review: A good movie and a good dvd. I recommend buying this dvd, its worth the price you pay for it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hopkins Shines!
Review: I just saw this movie today and I was amazed. Most people who see this movie are either confused or horrified. The way the book was written and the movie was directed surprisingly makes you cheer for the evil Dr. Hannibal Lecter. With a serial killer name Buffalo Bill on the loose, Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee is assigned to interview a cannibalistic killer name Hannibal Lecter. She ends up earning trust in Hannibal and he does to her what he does best: gets into her mind.

Hannibal helped Clarice in finding Hannibal while still driving her to the brink of insanity with his eagerness to know about her troubled past. Clarice Starling is played by Jodie Foster and Dr. Hannibal Lecter is played by Anthony Hopkins. Both stars won Best Actress and Best Actor respectively, while the film's director and the film itself also won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture respectively. This movie will stay in my fourteen year old mind for a while and most who see it face the same dilemna.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Silence Of The Lambs
Review: A mesterfully done suspense thriller. One of the scariest films ever made. "Silence" terrifys you, while at times you feel like you're going to throw up. This film has the infamous Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lector, the serial killer who eats his victims. With outstanding performances by Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, "Silence" is a must see horror film if you really want to tremble.

FBI rookie Clarice Starling (Foster) is sent to a serial killer imprisonment jail to interview Hannibal Lector (Hopkins). The FBI is hoping to get information on a serial killer nemed Buffalo Bob, who collects women, starves his victims to kill them, skins them, and makes himself a women skin suit. With Lectors help, Starling gets closer to cathing Bob. Lector also gets deep in Starling's psyche, seeing that her father died when she was a child. We also learn that Starling ran away because the lambs wouldn't stop screaming. Hannibal eventually escapes from prison, and people are worried that he will come after Starling. Clarice knows he won't come after her because he would consider that "rude".

Featuring some of the best lines ever used in a movie including "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. Pppphhhhfffttttttttt!", "Good morning Clarice," "Have the lambs stopped screaming?" and "By the way, love your suit." "Silence" has excellent performances by Foster and Hopkins who both won Oscars. This film is worth a view just to see Hopkins become Hannibal Lector.

Overall Grade: A

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Killer Flick
Review: The same declaration I made in my review of David Fincher's "Seven" applies here: I am a sucker for serial killer movies. And what we've got here is the alpha and omega of serial killer movies, for it features not one but two distinctly drawn killers. Each is terrifying in his own way, and the film's fascinating narrative device calls for one to help the FBI track down the other. Also, like "Seven", most of the violence occurs off camera, allowing the audience to conceive of a far greater image of terror than any camera can capture.

We all know Hannibal Lecter, don't we? Anthony Hopkins does a masterful job of creating one of my all-time favourite movie characters. He is a curious mixture of charisma, grace, style, fierce intelligence, and wickedness, brought together with a series of fascinating and terrifying mannerisms. Given all the hoopla surrounding Hopkins' performance, you'd think Hannibal was in every scene. He is actually in relatively few. Still, he easily manages to dominate the film.

Jodie Foster, on the other hand, is in almost every scene. At one time I thought her performance as FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling was much less successful. Sure, she managed to hold her own in the scenes with Hopkins, but I always thought her stilted and inconsistent. With each viewing, though, I realize that that is precisely the point. Throw yourself into a similar situation and see how controlled and composed you are. Foster suggests the right amount of macho bravura and timidness (a tough chore for sure). And her wandering accent, I now realize, subtly conveys much information about the character's personal history.

These two actors shine most in their scenes together. Lecter, training his laser-like psychiatrist's eye on Starling's every weakness from behind the glass in his maximum-security prison cell. She does her best to defend against his probing, while trying to extract some information for herself. When one interview ended, I couldn't wait for the next one to begin. The supporting actors, who would normally blend into the background when confronted by two titanic leads, all acquit themselves well. The standouts are Scott Glenn as Clarice's FBI superior, and Ted Levine as the aforementioned "other" serial killer.

The rest of the movie has a lot to live up to in those Lecter-Starling scenes. Thankfully, it does. Thomas Harris' novel and Ted Tally's script deliver a story full of suspense and interest. 'Buffalo Bill' has kidnapped the Governor's daughter, and the authorities realize they only have a few days to rescue her. What should amount to a cliched premise is heightened by Bill's unique obsessive fetish. It is revealed slowly, and thus manages the rare feat of rewarding subsequent viewings. Jonathan Demme's controlled and stylish directing never lets things get out of hand or too over the top, as is the danger in movies of this genre. And he allows himself to set up several spectacular set pieces; visual delights that at once thrill and frighten you (I'm thinking specifically of one aftermath tableaux that utilizes melodramatic lighting, music, and Christ-like imagery to great effect). All these elements combine to create a magnum opus that all the participants will be hard-pressed to equal.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A masterful suspense hit!
Review: "The Silence of the Lambs" is really a mesh of stories that all end up working together to achieve a goal of greatness. One is the story of a serial killer who is kidnapping women and eluding authorities. One is the story of an FBI trainee who only wants to make it to FBI status. One, and perhaps the most chilling and complex of the three, is the story of a highly intellectual man with a taste for human flesh, kept hidden from the world until it becomes evident that he may have a way of helping the trainee discover the whereabouts of the killer.

Adapted from the novel by Thomas Harris, the film is a cauldron of mixed emotions that the audience will feel in every chilling moment. Jonathan Demme has created a masterpiece of the mind as well as a chilling thriller to jangle the nerves until the final, climactic ending.

When FBI trainee Clarice Starling is called upon to question Hannibal Lector, she readily accepts the mission in hopes of impressing her superiors. When she arrives at the asylum where he is held, the head of the facility heavily warns her about Lector's crimes: killing people and eating the flesh of his victims. When she comes face-to-face with Hannibal, she learns that he is more than a monster: he is an intellectual machine with a flair for large words and turning colorful phrases. He ultimately lends clues to Clarice in exchange for information about the case, and soon for information about her personal life, hoping to dive into the depths of her mind. Clarice hesitates, but gives him what he wants in order to get closer to solving the crime before the next victim is killed.

This film is such a masterpiece in terms of horror and suspense. This is not one of the average run-of-the-mill scare machines that comes along almost every year. This movie is so much more complex, so complex that it can be frightening. Among some of the factors that will have you feeling chills are the way in Clarice regails the experiences of her childhood to Hannibal, which is so depressing and emotional that you feel for her. She appears so broken that it looks as if she is reliving the entire experience, while at the same time keeping the one goal in mind to find the serial killer at large.

The most frightening of all is the way in which Hannibal is portrayed. Perhaps one of the most unique villians in all of Hollywood, the best part of his character is that the movie and novel do not play him out as a lunatic, but instead as a highly intelligent psychologist whose only crime is that of cannibalism. In the end, it's not so much the actions of his past that are frightening as much as the ability he has to get into Clarice's mind and dredge up horrifying memories from her past, all the while focusing his eyes only on her eyes, seemingly peering inside her very soul.

The outside story is filled with mounting suspense as the FBI closes in on the killer named Buffalo Bill, who skins his victims of their flesh in order to achieve something more chilling. Hannibal is able to offer information to the authorities as to the background of the man who they suspect is the killer, and the way in which he offers his information is quite suspenseful. It becomes evident that Clarice is going to be the one who finds the killer because of her relationship and communication with Lector. We find that he has a deep emotional attachment to her because of what she tells him about her past, and you'll find that to be one of the most intense realizations of the movie.

The two leads both won Academy Awards for their performances in this picture, and it's quite easy to see why. Jodie Foster is remarkable and stunning as Clarice Starling, who is innocent in the beginning and becomes swept up in emotional trauma and stress as she allows Lector to question her about her past. Her performance here is intense and true. Anthony Hopkins is masterful as Hannibal Lector, and his performance here is the entire centerpiece for the suspense of the film. Hopkins plays every aspect of Lector's persona to perfection, a great achievement in his acting career.

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, "The Silence of the Lambs" is a complex and stunning tale that dives deep into the minds of its characters and goes straight to the mind of its audiences. Expectations are sure to be met, for the movie has everything you could want: intelligence, thrills, chills, scares, action, emotion, and complexity. You'll find yourself waking up in the middle of the night, seeing the eyes of Hannibal Lector looking straight at you.


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