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mariephillipswriter · 4 years

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Square Eyes

Do they still say that if you watch too much television you'll get square eyes? Or is that an expression that went out of fashion when kids started spending all their time in front of the internet? Putting aside the obvious riposte (televisions aren't square, they're rectangular) I can report that I have been doing extensive research in this area and have come to the scientific conclusion: no, you won't. I have been watching so much television. SO MUCH TELEVISION. I never believed that I could watch such an immense quantity of television. On the whole I don't watch it during the day except for sometimes when I am having my breakfast and also when having my lunch, but in the evenings, when I have finished pretending to work, I might start watching television at about 6pm, or 5pm, or 4pm on a bad day, and keep going until, say, 11pm or midnight. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE. HOW CAN A PERSON LIVE THIS WAY. Well it's easy enough, it turns out, if you're under lockdown in London in December and it's dark from 4pm and raining most of the time and you have the emotional resources of a gnat and reading is too demanding and talking on the phone is too exhausting and the light in the living room is not good enough for doing a puzzle in evening hours and you quit social media a month or so ago because it was driving you out of your mind with anxiety. I don't watch six or seven or eight hours of television every night. Don't be ridiculous. Some nights I only watch about three hours of television because I have a Zoom call or I'm cooking dinner or I've got stuck into a good cryptic crossword, maybe the Saturday Times Jumbo one because the Guardian ones are too gimmicky, or at last I've found a book gripping yet easy enough that I can't put it down (thank you Robert Galbraith, thank you Marian Keyes), but I would say that three hours is the minimum and my god that is a LOT. EVERY DAY. THREE HOURS. MINIMUM. But you don't need to me to explain that to you because you are all watching three four five six seven hours of television every day and when you are not watching television you are phoning your friends and first of all talking about the specific way that your own personal lockdown is terrible but then eventually saying 'what are you watching on television' because what else is there even to talk about? At the start of lockdown there was quite a small pool of television that everyone was watching (that thing about the Tiger King, which I didn't watch because by the time I got back from my early lockdown in Costa Rica you'd all seen it, and Normal People which I didn't watch because I was too embarassed to sit through all the sex scenes with my flatmates, and I May Destroy You, which I didn't watch because about five minutes of it was enough to send me into a massive panic spiral, but I hear was very good), but once we had all (other than me) got through that and Covid dragged on for months, our conversations began taking on the tenor of Vikings crowding around one another as a boat returns from a foray, WHAT IS OUT THERE, WHAT DID YOU FIND OUT THERE, IS THERE SOMETHING OUT THERE THAT I MIGHT DESIRE? And the Viking says yes, there is this thing called Schitts Creek but you really have to push on through the first season because I promise you it gets better and better and you will start to love that obnoxious family. And then we all watched Schitts Creek. (Including me, it's wonderful, you have to push on through the first series you will start to love that obnoxious family, Dan Levy is a divinity in human form and if you want more of him you could do worse than checking out the lesbian Christmas-themed romcom Happiest Season, which you can rent from Amazon Prime.) And now we are beyond even that and all our lives resonate with the screeching sound of a televisual barrel being scraped and now this is when things get really interesting (or put another way, VERY VERY BORING) because everyone has fractured and we are all watching different kinds of random stuff found in the dusty corners and unloved algorithms of our streaming services. There's the friend who has got into watching obscure French crime series on Netflix (The Chalet! La Mante!) and the friend who is watching every episode of Poirot on Britbox (thirteen series, 70 episodes) (though that pales in comparison with the friend who did a total rewatch of Friends from beginning to end (236 episodes) and finished it ages ago and is starving for more) and the friend who calls me up seemingly every week with a new old show nobody else has ever heard of (such as the early 1990s Nigel Havers and Warren Clarke comedy spy drama Sleepers, which he is watching old-school-style on DVD, and which apparently is like The Americans only with Nigel Havers and funny, and also, you should watch The Americans.) When I look back on the amount of television I have watched this year it defies comprehension. There were the things I would have watched anyway like the whole of Strictly Come Dancing and His Dark Materials, and the things that took me by surprise, like the stealthily hilarious Danny Dyer gameshow The Wall that was on straight after Strictly and drove me into a total obsession with the way that Danny Dyer says "Drop 'Em" (he's talking about the balls that are dropped down the wall, it's hard to explain, you can find it on iPlayer, but meanwhile if you only click on one link in this whole newsletter PLEASE click on that one), there were the things that were created especially to get me through lockdown (the wonderful David Tennant and Michael Sheen Zoom comedy Staged, which is not only extremely funny but allows you to see inside David Tennant's house which I'm not sure I am technically allowed to watch because of the restraining order? Anyway, new series coming on Monday, fellow DT fans) and the familiar things I watched to soothe me when it all got too much (Doctor Who, starting before Tennant even gets in on the action, right at the begining of the New Who seasons with Christopher Eccleston, because armchair space travel is the only kind of travel we are going to be getting for a while) and the exciting things I watched when I could no longer bear the tedious repetition of every identical day (Line of Duty, in which the famous-for-the-far-inferior Bodyguard writer Jed Mercurio delivers ludicrously compelling twisty-turny stories about police corruption that cannot be predicted for even a nanosecond) and the things that I watched just because I loved them (Fosse/Verdon, the Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon bio-series starring the breathtakingly charismatic Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams, which is one of the best-made pieces of television I've ever seen, Love Life, the Anna Kendrick romantic comedy series which was surprisingly touching and truthful about the relationships that make up a life and which didn't make me want to open a vein as a single person the way that many looking-for-love shows do, and Better Things, a sort-of-comedy sort-of-drama written, directed by and starring Pamela Adlon, which began as a collaboration with Louis CK and initially reflected the sensibility of his show Louie, but became far more experimental and interesting once, after CK's disgrace, Adlon took over completely - the fourth series is maybe the closest thing I've seen on TV to a representation of the rhythms of real life, with long scenes of Adlon just cooking a meal on her own, or contemplating the rain, of having arguments with her children that explode from nowhere and end just as suddenly with tears or laughter or nothing at all.) And this entire paragraph is just things that I have watched on the BBC. Not even everything that I have watched on the BBC. The BBC is INCREDIBLE and my license fee has been serious value for money, before you even count all that time spent watching the news [Munch Scream emoji]. But overall, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of television that I have watched this year. Though while we're here, have you noticed that sometimes it's more relaxing to watch something bad than something good? Have you noticed that a vapid, cliched show like Virgin River (heartbroken city nurse with a secret moves to small town and falls in love with battle-wounded bartender with a secret), a show that makes This Is Us look like Succession, has the same effect on your brain that taking off your work shoes and putting on your slippers has for your feet? You can rest now, it says, there is nothing more for you to do. Have you noticed how easy it is to chug down, say, four episodes in a row of Designated Survivor - a show designed by a committee charged with taking elements of The West Wing, Homeland and 24, and making something similar but, crucially, much more ridiculous - without your mind even noticing that anything has happened at all? And if you're really ready for something utterly idiotic, might I suggest The Bold Type, in which three twentysomething girls in bonkers designer outfits "work" at an aspirationally "feminist" glossy magazine, and by "work" I mean constantly leave the office in the middle of the day to take care of personal business, and by "feminist" I mean "empowering women by for example having them post selfies of themselves looking perfect but without makeup on social media", a feminism so very feminist that they called the magazine's parent company Steinem in the first series and then had to change it to Safford, I can only presume because Gloria Steinem threatened to sue them. A couple of episodes of that is the televisual equivalent of having a nice relaxing full frontal lobotomy. Don't get me wrong: I love these shows. I owe them more gratitude than I can say. I would be unable to survive without them. I've managed to watch five hours of television just since starting this post24 hours ago (three episodes of Doctor Who, half a really cheap and very bad Sky Arts documentary about the musical Hamilton, and a travelogue in which Torvill and Dean go in search of a frozen lake in Alaska on which to dance Bolero but can't find one for almost the entire show because of global warming, which made me simultaneously and conflictingly want to give up air travel, fly to Alaska immediately, become obsessed with Torvill and Dean AND wonder how they managed to skate together all these decades without killing each other especially Torvill but also especially Dean). Five hours of TV, sounds like a lot, but with eight hours of sleep, that still left me eleven hours to fill in this boring boring boring boring BORING BORING BORING boring boring BORING boring BORING BORING lockdown. I think I am being incredibly restrained, all things considered. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some time to kill, having finished writing this post, and with at least five hours to fill before bed. I wonder what's on TV?

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nerdygaymormon · 5 years

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Who's your favorite apostle? Mine is Uchtdorf. He sometimes teases us about our culture & I like that he's very open about doubts are fine, imperfection is expected, just get in here and do something. He discusses his own questioning of things over the years even, & the understandings that overcame them. It's a good message that even the newest member can understand, & even the oldest member should be able to relate to. He's far from the only good one.

Elder Uchtdorf is a good choice and I like your reasons. For me, he just misses the top spot.

My ranking of The 15

1) Jeffrey R Holland, the Lord’s bulldog

He speaks of depression, of a choir that needs all voices including the LGBT. At the end of every General Conference, I ask myself if Christ were here, which of the talks could I imagine Him delivering, and usually the answer is Elder Holland’s (although this most recent conference in April 2019 would be Sister Eubank’s). I’ve heard a story about him being upset with the Policy of Exclusion (PoX). I know a gay man who met with him twice and had some other communications. From what I hear, he was a good listener, uses the word gay (not same sex attraction), gave my friend some hope and a beautiful blessing.

2) Dieter F Uchtdorf, The Silver Fox, aka Elder Hunkdorf

Seems to really like people. Tells great stories. That accent!!! Easy on the eyes. I know people who’ve met him and say he is just as charming in real life as he seems in Conference.

3) Gerrit W Gong

He has a gay son who has left the church. Also he rented (maybe still does) his house in Provo to a bunch of apostate gays. He understands LGBT people in a way the others don’t.

4) M Russell Ballard

Seems to not want to make waves and therefore is very conservative. I give him lots of credit for saying gays & lesbians have a place in the church (I want more info on what this means, how do we fit? and how does the church fit us?), and that members need to “listen to and understand what our LGBT brothers and sisters are feeling and experiencing.”

5) Quentin L Cook

Tells people not to use anonymous accounts to bully or speak badly of others. A+ for that!!! However, he can come across as a lightweight, not having any better or deeper answers to practical questions than my ward’s Primary President. That’s not a knock against my local Primary President, she’s great, but he’s an apostle so I expect more from him.

6) Neil L Anderson

Seem pretty nice. He was stake president in Tampa (I live in the neighboring stake) so I know lots of people who knew him in that role. I can imagine sitting down with him for a meal of Cuban sandwich, black beans & rice and plantains, yum. When he spoke of the Family Proclamation, even though he was testifying of a one-size-fits-all document, he mentioned lots of people who don’t fit in it. Said he’s open to learning and being taught, so I hope he’s prepared for the onslaught of messages he receives about his comments on gay marriage in April 2019 General Conference.

7) Russel M Nelson, the energizer bunny

He isn’t afraid to shake things up, which is quite refreshing. It worried me how he led the charge to elevate both the Family Proclamation and the PoX to “revelations,” which is different from how they were originally introduced to the church, and that made me wonder if he was trying to quiet the criticisms. That he reversed the PoX stunned me and leaves me hopeful this is a turning point for LGBT people in the church.

8) Dale G Renlund

I met him, sat next to him for dinner. After telling him I’m gay, his very first words were “Same sex attraction isn’t a sin but bullying people over it is.” Great sentiment (although it annoyed me he used the phrase “same sex attraction” when I didn’t). Actually it’s his wife who really impressed me, make her an apostle!

9) Henry B Eyring, Sir Cries-a-Lot

He cries a lot, that’s my main impression of him, which shows he’s in touch with his feelings. I just can’t imagine I’d want him to be in the car for a road trip because he’d cry at every sad song.

10) Gary E Stevenson

Seems nice enough, other than that, I don’t have much of an impression

11) Ulisses Soares

I have high hopes that he’ll help broaden the perspective of top leadership to be more international and less concerned about Utah culture and politics

12) D Todd Christofferson

Being part of a family that loved and embraced his gay brother & his brother’s husband should be a big plus. But it seems he gets used as the example of someone who loves a gay brother but doesn’t excuse his sins and therefore he can call out the “sins” of all gay people.

13) Ronald A Rasband

I don’t know what it is, but something about him just makes me think of a Fox News Republican

14) David A Bednar

Seems really strict. Was president of BYU-I, but seems more like he should’ve been in charge of the Honor Code Office, showing no mercy to those suspected (but not proven) of committing an honor code infraction. Notoriously declared there are no homosexuals in the church because they should never label themselves as gay or bi or homo.

15) Dallin H Oaks, the Pharisee

I guess that nickname is a little too on the point because he’s a lawyer who likes to discuss the rules of the gospel

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Hannibal: Did Author Thomas Harris Try to Destroy Dr. Lecter?

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It’s appeared for a while now that Dr. Hannibal Lecter–the forensic psychiatrist, cannibalistic serial killer, and pop culture icon featured in four novels, five movies, and a TV show–has been unstoppable. Several of those projects were highly acclaimed by critics and tremendous hits with audiences. And Anthony Hopkins even earned an Oscar for playing the doctor The Silence of the Lambs, which itself went on to sweep the Academy Awards.

So why did it seem like Thomas Harris, the reclusive author who created Dr. Lecter and wrote the novels, tried his best to kill off the public interest in Hannibal–if not Hannibal himself–at the height of the character’s fame? Because that appears to be almost exactly what Harris attempted to do with Hannibal, the third book featuring the erudite monster, which was published in 1999. Less than two years later, the film version arrived in theaters (20 years ago this week, in fact) and received just as polarizing a response as Harris’ book.

Two decades later, Hannibal, a top shelf, A-list Hollywood production directed by Ridley Scott and featuring Hopkins in his second portrayal of Lecter, remains a bizarre, flawed artifact. Mostly faithful to the equally weird and at times repugnant book, it’s a borderline insane movie that turns the murderous Lecter into ostensibly a hero and, while not going quite off the deep end as the novel, features one of the most gruesomely bonkers climactic scenes ever filmed for a mainstream motion picture. Why?!

Well…

The Road to Hannibal

Harris, now 80 years old and a former journalist for the Associated Press, published his second novel, Red Dragon, in 1981. That story introduced Hannibal Lecter fto the world for the first time. When the book begins, Lecter is already imprisoned for his ghastly crimes, having been caught by the haunted FBI profiler Will Graham. When Graham is called out of retirement to catch another killer, he consults with Dr. Lecter on the case despite the serial killer’s ability to manipulate Graham psychologically. Lecter is very much a supporting character in Red Dragon, which was also reflected in the first film made from the book, Michael Mann’s Manhunter.

Released in 1986, the movie starred William Petersen (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) as Graham and Scottish actor Brian Cox (Succession) as Lecter (spelled “Lektor” in the movie). Cox is only in a handful of scenes, but makes a strong impression in his few minutes of screen time; both his performance and the film–which was not a success with either critics or audiences in its initial release- have grown in popular stature over the years.

Two years later, in 1988, Harris published his third novel, The Silence of the Lambs. Dr. Lecter is a much larger figure here, as he’s called upon to advise on a new serial killer case by Clarice Starling, an FBI agent in training whose innate decency and compassion stirs respect and even admiration in the otherwise psychopathic doctor. The parallel storylines, the introduction of a superb character in Clarice, and the further development of Lecter, plus the macabre aspects of the narrative made the book an instant classic and one of the great psychological horror novels of its time.

The Silence of the Lambs was a runaway bestseller, but this time the book’s success was equaled by that of its screen adaptation. Jonathan Demme directed the 1991 film based on Harris’ novel, in which Anthony Hopkins played Lecter for the first time, earning for himself both full-fledged movie stardom and an Oscar for Best Actor. Jodie Foster played Clarice, also landing an Oscar for her work; and the movie was just the third in history to sweep all five major awards by also picking up Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

With the film version of The Silence of the Lambs a box office success, and Lecter entering the pop culture zeitgeist (along with catchphrases like “A nice Chianti…”) as a monster with intelligence, wit and taste, the movie’s producers and the public began to clamor for a sequel.

Hannibal Emerges from His Slumber

It was 11 years before we heard from Thomas Harris and Hannibal Lecter again on the page, with Harris in no rush to deliver a new adventure for the doctor. In his book Making Murder: The Fiction of Thomas Harris, author Philip L. Simpson quotes Harris as saying, “I can’t write it until I believe it.” But in 1999, he finally delivered Hannibal, his longest book to date (484 pages in first edition hardback), and the first in which Lecter is clearly, and perhaps ill-advisedly, the central character.

Taking place seven years after The Silence of the Lambs, the story finds Clarice facing a career crisis when she is blamed for a botched drug raid. But when a letter from Dr. Lecter to Clarice shows up, the FBI puts Clarice back on the doctor’s trail. Meanwhile Lecter is living in Florence under a different identity but is pursued by an Italian detective named Pazzi. The latter aims to collect a huge bounty placed on Lecter’s head by Mason Verger, an incredibly wealthy pedophile who wants revenge on Lecter for disfiguring him during a drug-fueled therapy session years earlier.

To Harris’ credit, Hannibal does not simply retread the same ground as the classic novel that preceded it. According to a new introduction he wrote for Red Dragon, Harris reportedly “dreaded doing Hannibal… dreaded the choices I would have to watch, feared for Starling.” The book is nothing if not filled with dread, and its main theme is that every single human being is capable of corruption, evil, and depravity–a bleak assessment of the species, even for this book series.

Harris expounded upon his theme by making Hannibal his grisliest novel. Lecter murders Pazzi by disemboweling him and hanging him from Florence’s famed Palazzo Vecchio while the hideous-looking Verger, his face and body all but destroyed, plans to enact his vengeance on Lecter by feeding him alive to wild boars. Verger himself meets his end at the hands of his sister, who chokes Verger to death with his pet moray eel–and after violently extracting some of his sperm so she can have a baby with her lesbian partner.

The book ends on its most controversial and polarizing note: Lecter rescues himself and an injured Starling from Verger’s plan, then captures Starling’s nemesis at the Justice Department, Paul Krendler, and prepares a dinner in which he and Starling eat a portion of Krendler’s brain before Lecter kills him. Lecter then digs up the bones of Starling’s father and uses hypnosis to allow her to “see” her father and say goodbye to him, after which Lecter and Starling become lovers and vanish to Buenos Aires.

In the book’s logic, Starling finally accepts the love of the one man in her adult life who has treated her with respect.

What Was Thomas Harris Thinking?

Hannibal, the book, was the second biggest pop culture phenomenon of the summer of 1999 after the release of Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Some 1.5 million copies of the novel were shipped to bookstores. Other publishers, like movie studios getting out of the way of an Avengers flick, shifted their big titles away from June of that year. An advance review from no less an authority than Stephen King called it “one of the two most frightening popular novels of our time,” placing it alongside The Exorcist, in his New York Times review.

Then more critics got to read and review it. So did the public.

The novel, and especially its shockingly subversive ending, scrambled the brains of everyone who read it. An analysis of the book by the influential Kirkus Reviews had positive things to say about Harris’ “baroque new approach” to the serial killer genre and his “audacious epilogue,” but directly compared the Dr. Lecter saga to Star Wars in the sense that both had become a brand.

It was true: in the years since the release of The Silence of the Lambs, Lecter had transformed into a tangible intellectual property, becoming the subject of jokes and parodies, and a meme before we even knew what those were. The terrifying monster of Red Dragon and Silence had become the murderer everyone loved and laughed over–a transition which even Anthony Hopkins reportedly found unfortunate and disturbing.

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Yet it’s worth wondering then if that is the point in Hannibal. Harris is an intensely private person who did not care for the public spotlight. He told the New York Times in 2019, in his only interview in decades, that he found fame to be “more of a nuisance than anything else.” It is easy to imagine he might’ve viewed Hannibal as a way to short-circuit both the overhyped expectations of the public and the evolution of Lecter into some kind of weird fictional celebrity. And perhaps he saw his book as a way of moving past Lecter himself and freeing himself to write new stories?

“I like to think Harris at least partly ups-the-grotesque-ante in Hannibal to rub our collective noses in our collective love for a serial killer,” wrote Patrick J. Sauer in 2019–the book’s 20th anniversary–at Crimereads. “Maybe Harris knew another straight-forward thriller wouldn’t cut it, so he had no choice but to go Grand Guignol on his readers.”

Professor Mark Jancovich of the University of East Anglia (UK), mused in the same article that Harris had other ambitions. “I think Harris might just have wanted to finish Lecter off like Arthur Conan Doyle tried with Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “But there’s also the sense he might have been under huge pressure by the publishers. It’s not really clear what the impetus for the book is, other than the obvious commercial one.”

Whatever Harris tried to do with Hannibal, it doesn’t really work. While the book is gripping and the prose precise, making Dr. Lecter the ostensible protagonist is a mistake. We learn more about his background for one thing, including the unspeakable death of his younger sister during World War II, but that robs him of being the unknowable, terrifying force of nature that he is in the first two novels.

Meanwhile the once-formidable Starling is reduced to an almost passive supporting role, buffeted around without agency until she just essentially gives up and is saved by Lecter. Maybe Harris really did want to turn off his public so that he would never have to write about Hannibal Lecter again.

Hannibal Now Playing at a Theater Near You

The film rights to Hannibal were snapped up in record time for $10 million by Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis, who had produced Manhunter yet passed on Silence. But there was a problem: Director Jonathan Demme, star Jodie Foster, and screenwriter Ted Tally–all major components of the success of Silence, along with Hopkins–had no interest in coming back after reading the book.

Demme was reportedly disappointed by the novel’s copious gore and skewing of Starling’s character, with Foster also dismayed by the latter. Although she said at the time that she was committed to another project, she later came clean and told Total Film, “Clarice meant so much to Jonathan and I, she really did, and I know it sounds kind of strange to say but there was no way that either of us could really trample on her.”

Hopkins did return, however, and the role of Clarice was recast with Julianne Moore taking the part. According to the “making-of” feature on the DVD, Angelina Jolie, Hilary Swank, and Cate Blanchett were all considered as well. However, Hopkins personally lobbied for Moore after working with her in Surviving Picasso.

“In instances like this, the comparisons are inevitable and of course there’s some apprehension about it, because Jodie was really, really fantastic… I mean, she’s a great actress,” said Moore on the DVD. “But it’s a different movie, so that’s the way I have to approach it.”

An unbilled, unrecognizable Gary Oldman played the disfigured, malevolent Verger, while Ray Liotta took the role of Krendler. Inheriting the director’s chair was Ridley Scott, of Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and Gladiator fame, while the script was handled initially by David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross) and then again by a major Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List) rewrite. With all that talent, the budget was said to exceed $100 million.

But there was a problem: that ending. While Scott found a certain baroque tone that echoed Harris’ book in some ways, and was perfectly happy to retain the gutting of Detective Pazzi (played by Giancarlo Giannini), the wild boars, and even the cooking of Krendler’s brains by Lecter–a scene which ranks high on the all-time insane list–there was no way the filmmakers were going to alienate audiences by having Clarice Starling eat those brains and then make love to the doctor. Not a chance.

“I couldn’t take that quantum leap emotionally on behalf of Starling,” Ridley Scott told the Guardian at the time. “Certainly, on behalf of Hannibal–I’m sure that’s been in the back of his mind for a number of years. But for Starling, no. I think one of the attractions about Starling to Hannibal is what a straight arrow she is.”

In the film, Clarice does not dine with Lecter and does not fall into the drug-induced hypnosis of the book. With the law closing in on them, Lecter finally professes his love for Starling, and when she manages to handcuff the two of them together so that he cannot escape, he sacrifices either his own hand or at least a finger (it’s never made clear) to slip out of the cuffs and escape into the night.

When we last see him, he’s on a plane to a destination unknown and he’s feeding a slice of leftover Krendler to a young boy seated next to him. Starling remains behind, her future also unknown.

Hannibal, the movie, was released nearly 10 years to the day that The Silence of the Lambs arrived in theaters. The R-rated movie scored $58 million in its opening weekend, the highest opening for a film with that rating until The Passion of the Christ came out in 2004. The movie ended up earning $165 million in the U.S. and a total of $351 million worldwide, good enough for 10th highest gross of that year.

Critics were less kind than audiences, with the film scoring just 39 percent at Rotten Tomatoes. The reviews were split along the same lines as those for the book. While some critics praised the film’s style and audacity, others bemoaned the lack of great character interaction and thematic resonance that made The Silence of the Lambs a masterpiece.

And it was true: Hannibal, as both a movie and a book, exhibits the same strengths and suffers from the same problems. The projects are stylish, exquisitely written/produced, and possessed of a fair amount of black humor and boldness. But putting Lecter front and center, while robbing Starling of her agency and motivation, creates a box from which the story cannot escape. Both characters are offscreen (so to speak) for long stretches while the Verger and Pazzi stories play out, and the story is so damning of essentially all of humanity that it’s hard to get a handle on anybody.

Yet both the book and the movie were monster hits, so if Harris really did intend to stop Lecter in his tracks with that bizarre ending, he failed.

The Aftermath of Hannibal

Producer Dino de Laurentiis insisted on making more Lecter movies. First he ramped up a faithful remake of Red Dragon, this time under its original title and with Hopkins once again in the role of Lecter, joined by Edward Norton as Will Graham and Ralph Fiennes as killer Francis Dolarhyde. Directed by Brett Ratner, the film grossed $93 million in the U.S. and $209 million worldwide, with critics again giving it mixed reviews but actually rating it higher (68 percent) than Hannibal.

De Laurentiis demanded more, and told Harris he’d move forward without him if the author did not wish to be involved. So Harris wrote a novel and a screenplay at the same time: Hannibal Rising, which explored–in excruciating detail–Hannibal’s entire early life, robbing him once and for all of any mystery he might have clung to. The film also didn’t really work, with French actor Gaspard Ulliel playing the young cannibal. He ultimately became the George Lazenby of the franchise. The movie was a dud all around, grossing just a paltry $82 million worldwide.

That seemed to be the end of the meal for Lecter, until he was resurrected again in the form of Mads Mikkelsen in the NBC-TV series Hannibal. The series, which ran for three years and featured elements of Red Dragon and the book Hannibal in addition to original material, was acclaimed for its macabre tone and painterly production values. Yet it never became more than a cult favorite, with ratings unable to sustain it past three seasons (although talk persists of a revival). Yet another TV series, Clarice, entered on special agent Starling in the years between Silence and Hannibal, also just premiered on CBS All Access to mixed reviews.

Even if Thomas Harris wanted to strip Hannibal Lecter of his popular veneer and make him a monster again with Hannibal, it didn’t really work. He left us instead with his most bizarre book to date and a movie that has its own depraved charms, yet ultimately pales next to its predecessors. And in the end, Harris may not quite be done with his most famous creation yet. While discussing Cari Mora, his latest novel, and the first in 38 years not involving Lecter, Harris teased the Times that “the Hannibal character still occurs to me, and I wonder sometimes what it’s up to.”

Perhaps creator and creation will once again sit down to dinner. Someday.

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acoolchristianchick · 6 years

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What Will The Last Days Be Like?

What Will The Last Days Be Like? (We are already HERE)

By David J. Stewart | March 2009 | Updated April 2012

2nd Timothy 3:1, “This know also, that in the LAST DAYS perilous times shall come...”

Increasingly, we are hearing people talk about “The Last Days” or “The End of the World,” and for good reason, because the wickedness is so horrible nowadays. The newsmedia is filled with so much horrible stories and hatred, and the media has no hesitation about destroying someone's life with their manure spreading. Society has become ruthless, craving the bloodiest and most horrid stories in the news... give us more, more, more!

The word “perilous” in 2nd Timothy 3:1 means “hard to endure, dangerous, difficult to bear.” Hence, God is warning us that mankind will spiritually deteriorate in the Last Days, to the point where it will be difficult to bear. Certainly, it is difficult to live in a time when same-sex marriages have become a nightmarish reality, and now President Barack Obama wants to expand their adoption rights as well.

The Bible calls these “perilous” times . . .

2nd Timothy 3:2-4, “...lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”

This accurately describes today's society. American society has become so rotten.

Increasing Wickedness

America has turned her back against God, praising vile homosexuals and teaching innocent children that it's ok to be homosexual. No it's not! It's a dirty, rotten, vile sin which brings the judgment of God upon sinners (Romans 1:24-32). We've even nicknamed one of our most popular cities, “SIN CITY,” mocking the holy God of the Bible. I assure you whoever you may be, no sin will go unaccounted for by God.

The Bible tells us that the LAST DAYS will be a time of woeful wickedness, when people will become selfish, self-centered and self-righteous. The majority of people these days have become sinfully proud, disobedient, unholy, unthankful, highminded, especially today's youth who are void of genuine Biblical faith and knowledge of Christ. Satan has been working relentlessly through demonic Rock 'N' Roll and other heathen types of music to influence the past few generations. Today, the Rock 'N' Roll superstars of the 1970's and 1980's have a cult-like following of middle-aged and older Americans. It is wickedness in the eyes of God.

America has become so wicked that little children are now being sexually exploited by television producers to make money. Consider the rotten show, DANCE MOMS. According to a study released in December of 2010 by the Parents Television Council (PTC): “Hollywood is shockingly obsessed with sexualizing teen girls, to the point where underage female characters are shown participating in an even higher percentage of sexual situations than their adult counterparts: 47 percent to 29 percent respectively.”

Philippians 3:18,19, “For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.”

Increased Apostasy In The Churches

1st Timothy 4:1-2, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” ...

2nd Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

There is much heresy in the churches today. Bible-preaching has been subtly replaced with secular psychology. The mourner's bench has been replaced with video-projection entertainment system. Singing the old hymns of the faith have been replaced with religious Rock music. Repentance and regeneration have been replaced with reformation and rehabilitation. The gospel has been replaced with amending one's ways and making a commitment to Christ. Our churches are dead. Our preachers are puppets to a pulpit committee (over my dead body).

The Bible has been replaced with a corrupt counterfeit. Think about what has happened. Satan has taken everything decent, true and good and has replaced it with the world, entertainment and religion. God deliver us from New World Order false ministers like Pat Robertson, James Robison, Max Lucado, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, John Hagee and Joel Osteen. Satan has tens-of-millions of people getting spiritual food-poisoning, feeding out of the hands of a dozen false ministers.

Instead, we ought to be feeding from the Word of God (John 5:39) and those who skillfully handle the Word of God. I wouldn't give you a dime for any televangelist nor New York Times Bestseller List minister. People are so gullible. It is a shame that hundreds-of-millions of people worldwide don't know anything more about God than what floats in front of them. Instead of seeking out THE TRUTH, the average person today only goes by what they see on TV. Literally, Satan came to you instead of you coming to God.

Here's a great Bible study on the entire Bible by J. Vernon McGee. You'll never see him on TV (because he's in glory). And you won't find his books on a New York Best Seller List (owned and controlled by globalists). I don't agree with everything pastor McGee says, but he's 100% correct on salvation and the fundamentals of the Christian faith. I love his knowledge of secular history, his extensive knowledge of geography from having visited the Holy Land himself, his candor and down-to-earth style of preaching. You will be blessed! Turn off the TV and listen to pastor McGee or Dr. Jack Hyles if you really want to hear some Old-fashioned, Biblical, Christ-honoring, red-hot preaching. Most preachers can't preach their way out of a paperbag.

With all the apostasy in today's churches, I wouldn't trust anything theological from ministers today who stand to gain a profit. I recommend the older preachers who are now in Heaven. All women preachers are false prophets.

Increased Hatred of Christians

John 16:2, “They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”

There is much anti-Christian, anti-patriotic and anti-masculine authority in the home propaganda being used nowadays to brainwash today's youth. Anti-hate speech laws are being introduced by liberal lawmakers and are being approved little-by-little by godless judges until their accomplishments are mounting significantly against what's left of decent people in America today. Just as Islamic Muslims who follow closely to the core teachings of the unholy Qur'an, so are staunch Bible-believing Christians today being wrongfully labeled as "extremists."

Yet, in some sick, twisted, insane sense, the abortionists don't consider the murdering of children as extreme. The brutal torture of the precious and innocent Terri Schiavo wasn't considered extreme, but it was Nazi-fascism in the extreme! As more and more lesbians, feminists and homosexuals rise to power as judges, lawmakers, politicians, and law enforcement in the United States, Christians WILL increasingly be violated Constitutionally, abused physically, harassed, arrested without probable cause and prosecuted, as terrorists.

The Word of God teaches that in the Last Days, hatred toward Christians will increase. 1st John 2:18, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.” The word “antichrists” here comes from the Greek word antichristos and means “opponent of the Messiah.” The Bible teaches that in the Last Days there will be many opponents of Jesus Christ, showing indeed that it is the Last Days.

It is now 2012 and Christianity is hated worldwide. The uprising homosexual movement in America is synonymous with hatred of Christians. In a short time, Christians will be completely silenced concerning the evils of homosexuality. Already, Christians have been silenced on the matter of abortion. Homeland Security Unites with the Abortion Industry(pro-life Christians charged with stalking for protesting outside abortion clinic).

As evidence of the increasing hatred against Christians, consider that on March 4, 2012 ABC debuted a new sitcom TV series called “GCB” (Good Christian Bitches). Neither the newsmedia nor the ACLU cared. If that had been a show called “Good Jewish Bitches,” the Jewish-controlled newsmedia would have had a frenzy. The world hates Christians, just as they hate Jesus Christ (John 15:19).

People Will Become Cold, Insensitive and Calloused

Jesus said:

Matthew 24:11,12, “And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”

Although Matthew chapter 24 deals primarily with the 7-yeat Tribulation Period, we are already witnessing these events in society today. The Greek word for “iniquity” doesn't mean sin; it means, “injustice, i.e., unpunished sin.” Jesus said that the love of many would wax cold because of injustices like Enron, the 911 attacks and the theft of trillions of dollars of taxpayer money in Washington D.C. There's a mother in Kansas, sitting in prison for life, for possession 1/16 ounce of cocaine. Yet, the criminals from Enron who stole hundreds-of-millions of dollars all walked away free.

There is much injustice in our legal system these days, and people are getting tired and frustrated. Anyone with a brain, who's done even a little bit of study, knows that the 911 attacks were an inside job, that the Bush Administration orchestrated the entire plot, and the primary reason America invaded Iraq was to steal their oil. This is what the Bible says the LAST DAYS will be like—cut throat, fierce, out of control, greedy, boastful, sinfully proud, arrogant, liars, false accusers, ungrateful, trucebreakers, traitors, unholy, without genuine affection, phony, despisers of those who are good, disobedient to parents, blasphemers, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, et cetera. And this is to be expected from an immoral heathen public school generation which kicked God, prayer and Bible out the door in 1962.

It Will Be as it Was in the Days of Noah

Jesus warned that the LAST DAYS will be as it was in the time of Noah, when the flood suddenly came and destroyed the wicked from off the earth.

Matthew 24:36-39, “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”

The Word of God teaches us that in the Last Days, people will become “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2nd Timothy 3:4). We are living in these “perilous times” of pleasure-seekers. One need look no further than the television to find greed, covetous, fornication, murder, lust, false accusers, lies, adulterers, lasciviousness, high-mindedness, arrogant sinful pride, immodestly dressed lewd women, homosexuality, lying propaganda, heathen feminism, abortion, witchcraft, et cetera, et cetera.

The LAST DAYS will be a time of utter wickedness, such as the world has never seen before. As man's technological skills advance, so does his capacity to commit sin and evil, to hurt others. Nearly everything in life is a double-edged sword. Unfortunately, the evil caused by man's inventions these days far outweighs the good. Life was much simpler in the good old days of America past.

American society today has become a large insane asylum, where a man urinated in a jar, placed an upside-down crucifix with Jesus into the jar, and did so with taxpayer money under the pretense of "art." Meanwhile, millions of Americans are without employment. It's just crazy.

We've got elderly people driving to Mexico and Canada by the busloads because our lawmakers and politicians allow the pharmaceutical companies to charge us outrageous amounts of money for necessary medications. It's a big scam to make trillions of dollars for the drug companies and the government officials they lobby to. We do not respect our elderly as we ought to in the United States. They shouldn't have to cross the border to buy inexpensive medications.

Shame on America! It is WORSE today than it was in the time of Noah, because we have been blessed with so much more in the areas of medicine, technology, education and convenience. And yet we spit in God's face by legalizing abortion, homosexuality, booze, dirty dancing, gambling and teaching children the fairy tale of Evolution. Only a blinded fool would claim to believe Evolution.

America is a pleasure-seeking society—eating, dining out, music, romance, pornography, dancing, sports, movies, booze, gambling, cigarette smoking, video games, recreational drugs, videos, television, radio, traveling, hobbies, et cetera. Most people today have no time for God. Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6:12, “Then beware lest thou forget the LORD...” America forgot God a long time ago. Our love for sin as a nation is unparallel in the world. And yet in some sick, twisted and demented way we still think God is going to bless America??? No way! Why should God bless us? So Americans can abort more children? So Americans can fornicate more in Las Vegas? So Americans can spend billions more on Harry Potter's witchcraft?

Today's youth have no respect nor gratitude for their parents. All they want to do is have fun, party, cruise the streets, hang out at the shopping mall, and expect mom and dad to pay for it. Jesus said that in the LAST DAYS, family members would turn against each other . . .

Matthew 10:36, “And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.”

There is new U.N. legislation in the works that will allow children to prosecute their own parents if they aren't happy with their parent's rules or manner of discipline. Husbands and fathers, in particular, are under attack by the New World Order, because God has designated the man as the head of his home and family. The fastest way to destroy the God-ordained authority in a marriage and home is to pass new laws, as were passed in Daniel's time to prevent the doing of right, or in the case of modern times, to prevent husbands and fathers from exercising their proper authority in the home. Daniel was forbidden to pray, but he did so anyway, and was punished wrongfully.

It is wickedness. Likewise, husbands and fathers today must be extremely careful how they speak to their wives and children, because even yelling at them can land you in jail for verbal threatening and assault. Our grandfathers would have laughed at the notion of such a thing, back when children were properly taught to respect authority, were disciplined for having AN ATTITUDE, and wives reverenced their husbands as the head of the home.

Not so anymore. In sharp contrast to 60-years ago, children today are taught to have a bad attitude, to question everything, to do their own thing, and to accept the homosexual lifestyle as good and wholesome. May God have pity on Christian families who have to live through these trying times of woeful wickedness. Today's society is saturated with demonic influences.

It is a matter of authority. Divorce agreements even specify that the “husband no longer has any authority” over his wife. Divorce is a wife refusal to submit anymore to her husband's AUTHORITY over her. 1st Samuel 15:23 warns, “For rebellion is as the SIN of witchcraft.” The government wants total authority, which means that husbands and fathers must be vilified by the State.

It's interesting and hypocritical that the same government that believes in punishing criminals, inflicting harsh and cruel treatment upon them, even denying many of them needed medications while incarcerated, will turn around and demonize Christian parents for spanking their own children. The government doesn't want parents to be allowed to indoctrinate their children with the Bible, nor to exercise proper physical punishment upon their children when they misbehave; yet the government is eager to punish your children when they break the law.

It's insane! A properly disciplined child is going to become a productive, respective and character member of society. Today's teenagers are without disciple because parents are afraid to discipline them, and the kids are growing up to be punks, pleasure-seekers, criminals and it's the government's fault for hindering.

2nd Peter 3:3-4, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

2nd Timothy 3:1,2,4, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves... lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”

2nd Timothy 4:3, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”

#https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/End%20of%20the%20World/last_days.htm

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