I am passionate about movies -- have been for at least five decades. I also have exquisite taste, which is why I get so exercised when I see inane reviews of great movies by people obviously ill equipped to review them: Movies are not books, and books are not movies. They are two separate art forms. Got that, readers of Red Dragon?
So the 1960s film of "Tom Jones" starring Albert Finney is not a completely faithful depiction of Thomas Hardy's wonderful novel, which I have read twice. So what? They are both wonderful in their own way. Anyone who denigrates "Manhunter" because they think the book was just SO much greater shouldn't go to movies, because they don't get any better than "Manhunter," regardless of the source material. And anyone who would argue that "Silence of the Lambs" is a better movie than "Manhunter" is a moron. A moron with bad taste.
"Manhunter" is so gripping, so utterly chilling, so absolutely scary it practically gives me chills to type this. In fact, I do get chills whenever I think about it. (A friend of mine who lives in the country in Missouri called me to berate me after I sent her a copy and has steadfastly refused to watch the entire film.)
Manhunter's meticulous, cold-blooded, and unrelenting depiction of the mad-but-brilliant methodology of some psychotic killers is unequaled in my experience, and I've see 'em all. This is nothing short of a masterpiece. A flippin' miracle of a movie. It at least deserved an Oscar and a much wider audience. You will never leave a door unlocked or a window uncovered after seeing this movie. I know I haven't.
(As a sidebar, John Hinckley, another mad (would-be) killer, corresponded with one of his idols, the late Ted Bundy, while locked up in a mental institution for shooting President Reagan. And his family wants his keepers to let him out, unescorted, for family visits! It truly is a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World...)
So the 1960s film of "Tom Jones" starring Albert Finney is not a completely faithful depiction of Thomas Hardy's wonderful novel, which I have read twice. So what? They are both wonderful in their own way. Anyone who denigrates "Manhunter" because they think the book was just SO much greater shouldn't go to movies, because they don't get any better than "Manhunter," regardless of the source material. And anyone who would argue that "Silence of the Lambs" is a better movie than "Manhunter" is a moron. A moron with bad taste.
"Manhunter" is so gripping, so utterly chilling, so absolutely scary it practically gives me chills to type this. In fact, I do get chills whenever I think about it. (A friend of mine who lives in the country in Missouri called me to berate me after I sent her a copy and has steadfastly refused to watch the entire film.)
Manhunter's meticulous, cold-blooded, and unrelenting depiction of the mad-but-brilliant methodology of some psychotic killers is unequaled in my experience, and I've see 'em all. This is nothing short of a masterpiece. A flippin' miracle of a movie. It at least deserved an Oscar and a much wider audience. You will never leave a door unlocked or a window uncovered after seeing this movie. I know I haven't.
(As a sidebar, John Hinckley, another mad (would-be) killer, corresponded with one of his idols, the late Ted Bundy, while locked up in a mental institution for shooting President Reagan. And his family wants his keepers to let him out, unescorted, for family visits! It truly is a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World...)