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Warbler said:

Red Dragon.   I have seen both Red Dragon and Manhunter.   Everyone seems to think Manhunter is the version.   I think I prefer Red Dragon.    It might be because I am so used to seeing Hopkins playing Lekter.

See, for me it's Ralph Fiennes as the "Tooth Fairy" that makes me prefer Red Dragon.  That, and the ending.  And Ed Norton.  And Philip Seymour Hoffman...

Basically, I never really liked Manhunter.  However, it did do one thing better than Red Dragon did: It made Graham into less of a Sherlock Holmes and more of a holy-shit-this-guy-might-be-as-crazy-as-the-guys-he-puts-away kind of guy.  That psychological aspect was drastically reduced in Red Dragon, to its detriment.

Also, Red Dragon focuses FAR too much on Lecter.  The "What's her name?" ending makes me cringe something fierce, the whole opening sequence where Graham catches Lecter is unnecessary (and not at all accurate to the book) ... hell, Lecter only needs to be in three scenes: the first time Graham meets him at the asylum, the scene where Graham meets him and Lecter is "excercising" on the leash thing, and the scene where they search his room.  Even the finale he should only narrate - we shouldn't see him.

Sorry, I'm just of the opinion that Red Dragon as a novel is superior to The Silence of the Lambs as a novel, and it really pains me that it hasn't been done right as a movie.  Not that I dislike The Silence of the Lambs as a movie - it's fantastic.  I just wish Red Dragon and/or Manhunter had lived up to its potential.

I'm the complete opposite.

While Red Dragon may have more of the plot of the book, I personally found Manhunter a more creepy and intense experience.

The scenes with Hopkins are rather bland and the bolt on bookends to give him more screen-time are as lousy a bit of fan service as anything you'd find in the PT.

Ed seems to be doing his blank faced reedy voice staple and doesn't at anytime feel like Graham to me.

Fiennes is also giving a typical Fiennes, I didn't feel him to be anything else.

Everything that is passable in the film is surpassed by Manhunter even the Hoffman scenes.

Oh and Brian Cox, if you are running a race between Hopkins in Silence Of The Lambs and Cox here it's kind of a draw (but with very different approaches).

Cox is probably more realistic and Hopkins is more Gothic but both give a performance of great panache and value.

In Red Dragon Hopkins is really going through the motions, it's a contractual obligation performance like Harrison's in ROTJ.

But I think Hopkins does what he does best in Hannibal where he cranks up the Gothic to the furthest he can get without treading onto Vincent Price's sacred turf (where very few if any can step).

True Stories.

What a weird movie.  Kind of an early Cohen Bros/Christopher Guest mash-up.  I'm still not sure if I liked it or not.

John Goodman was aces as usual, however.

The Haunting, the original black and white version.  Extremely effective and creepifying film, precisely because absolutely nothing is actually shown except shadows and awful noises.  The unknown is usually the scariest thing, something far too many modern films have completely forgotten.

Also watched Song of the Thin Man, which is the sixth and last of the great series of detective films with William Powell and Myrna Loy.  Offhand, I can't think of a more interesting onscreen couple than those two--fantastic banter and wit throughout them all, and clever mysteries along with it.

When people talk about how getting characters together 'ruins the tension' or some such nonsense, I point to the Thin Man films as evidence that a solid relationship need not be boring.  It's really a failure of imagination to think that the process of becoming attracted to someone has to be dramatically superior to anything that could ever happen after that.  A lot of tv shows could stand to learn that lesson, I think.

The bit with the textured wallpaper in The Haunting is top notch stuff.

The remake is hilarious though, they should have just made an out and out spoof, it's almost like that as it is.

Needful Things.

So, so as Stephen King adaptations go but Max Von Sydow would have made one amazing Count Dracula back then.

TV's Frink said:

True Stories.

What a weird movie.  Kind of an early Cohen Bros/Christopher Guest mash-up.  I'm still not sure if I liked it or not.

John Goodman was aces as usual, however.

It grows on you.  It has (IMO) the only good fart joke in a movie.

Sluggo said:

It has (IMO) the only good fart joke in a movie.

I didn't laugh.

Therefore you are WRONG!!!!*

CITIZEN KANE.

Watched it with the wife. At the end she goes, "So, after all that he just wanted his mom." Not a bad analysis.

^Are you sure you weren't watching the PT?

I've seen Steamboat Bill Jr. at Film Forum in New York with live piano accompaniment and it was awesome, one of the best movie-going times I've had.  That was several years ago, but I remember it vividly.

Film Forum plays a lot of weird movies nobody's ever heard of, but they often have screenings of classics as well.  I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail there a few years ago, as well as On Her Majesty's Secret Service when they were doing a James Bond marathon, and numerous other Buster Keaton films, both shorts and features, when I was young.  Good times . . .

Finally saw True Grit. 

"If it aint cocked and loaded, it don't shoot!"

had a blast watching it - and exclaiming "hey, it's that guy!" every few minutes. Barry Pepper certainly has come a long way.

Leonardo said:

 but it's one thing to see it online and another thing to see it and hear the laughter of people around you.

yeah, I know you mean.    I always felt that hearing people cheer when the Death Star exploded in Star Wars made a difference.

Monkey Shines.

Silly, disposable, semi-enjoyable.  But the monkey is too cute.

That is all.

Wild At Heart, by far David Lynch's best movie to date.

84 Charlie Mopic. A documentry style movie following a platoon of soldiers out on patrol in Vietnam. Excellent movie. 

I just finished watching the Directors Cut of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.