Hannibal Lecter Two Pack: DVD The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS DVD

* Actors: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Brooke Smith
* Directors: Jonathan Demme
* Writers: Ted Tally, Thomas Harris
* Producers: Edward Saxon, Gary Goetzman, Grace Blake, Kenneth Utt, Ronald M. Bozman
* Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
* Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
* Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
* Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
* Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
* Rated: R (Restricted)
* Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
* Run Time: 118 minutes

Condition: New, Sealed

Synopsis:
Based on Thomas Harris's novel, this terrifying film by Jonathan Demme really only contains a couple of genuinely shocking moments (one involving an autopsy, the other a prison break). The rest of the film is a splatter-free visual and psychological descent into the hell of madness, redeemed astonishingly by an unlikely connection between a monster and a haunted young woman. Anthony Hopkins is extraordinary as the cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter, virtually entombed in a subterranean prison for the criminally insane. At the behest of the FBI, agent-in-training Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) approaches Lecter, requesting his insights into the identity and methods of a serial killer named Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). In exchange, Lecter demands the right to penetrate Starling's most painful memories, creating a bizarre but palpable intimacy that liberates them both under separate but equally horrific circumstances. Demme, a filmmaker with a uniquely populist vision (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild), also spent his early years making pulp for Roger Corman (Caged Heat), and he hasn't forgotten the significance of tone, atmosphere, and the unsettling nature of a crudely effective close-up. Much of the film, in fact, consists of actors staring straight into the camera (usually from Clarice's point of view), making every bridge between one set of eyes to another seem terribly dangerous. --Tom Keogh

Product Description
A psychopath nicknamed Buffalo Bill is murdering women across the Midwest. Believing it takes one to know one, the FBI sends Agent Clarice Starling (Foster) to interview a demented prisoner who may provide clues to the killer's actions. That prisoner is psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins), a brilliant, diabolical cannibal who agrees to help Starling only if she'll feed his morbid curiosity with details of her own complicated life. As their relationship develops, Starling is forced to confront not only her own hidden demons, but also an evil so powerful that she may not have the courage or strength to stop it!

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HANNIBAL DVD
* Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Ray Liotta, Frankie Faison
* Directors: Ridley Scott
* Writers: David Mamet, Steven Zaillian, Thomas Harris
* Producers: Branko Lustig, Dino De Laurentiis, Lucio Trentini, Martha De Laurentiis
* Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, Special Edition, Subtitled, FullScreen, NTSC
* Language: English
* Subtitles: French, Spanish
* Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only.)
* Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
* Rated: R (Restricted)
* Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
* Run Time: 131 minutes

Conidtion: New, Sealed

Synopsis:
Yes, he's back, and he's still hungry. Ten years after The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, reprising his Oscar-winning role) is living the good life in Italy, studying art and sipping espresso. FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Jodie Foster), on the other hand, hasn't had it so good--an outsider from the start, she's now a quiet, moody loner who doesn't play bureaucratic games and suffers for it. A botched drug raid results in her demotion--and a request from Lecter's only living victim, Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited), for a little Q and A. Little does Clarice realize that the hideously deformed Verger--who, upon suggestion from Dr. Lecter, peeled off his own face--is using her as bait to lure Dr. Lecter out of hiding, quite certain he'll capture the good doctor.

Taking the basic plot contraptions from Thomas Harris's baroque novel, Hannibal is so stylistically different from its predecessor that it forces you to take it on its own terms. Director Ridley Scott gives the film a sleek, almost European look that lets you know that, unlike the first film (which was about the quintessentially American Clarice), this movie is all Hannibal. Does it work? Yes--but only up to a point. Scott adeptly sets up an atmosphere of foreboding, but it's all buildup for anticlimax, as Verger's plot for abducting Hannibal (and feeding him to man-eating wild boars) doesn't really deliver the requisite visceral thrills, and the much-ballyhooed climatic dinner sequence between Clarice, Dr. Lecter, and a third unlucky guest wobbles between parody and horror. Hopkins and Moore are both first-rate, but the film contrives to keep them as far apart as possible, when what made Silence so amazing was their interaction. When they do connect it's quite thrilling, but it's unfortunately too little too late. --Mark Englehart