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The Spell of Greed
In my last post, The Dynamics of Greed, I talked about the outward dynamics of greed, focusing on the way greed is oblivious to its own consequences, on the way it renders the humanity of others invisible. But in concentrating on this negation of others, it might seem that I'm simply pointing a moral finger of blame at greed or the greedy. My aim, however, was more to be descriptive than judgemental.
To really deconstruct greed, I think it's at least equally necessary to look at the inner nature of greed. In an earlier post, Life As Purpose, I explored the idea that purpose is central to life, that it is embedded in the structure of living things, down to the simplest single celled-organism.
Desire is, in essence, the propulsive force of life. At its core, it's the drive to stay alive, to continue to exist, the body's rebellion against entropy. This impulse is rooted in the core of our being, of all being. Desire is a stirring towards what is needed for our well-being.
Most non-human animals live within an ecosystem where needs and resources are in a balanced state. If a surplus of resources exist for a particular species then its population will increase until an equilibrium is reached. For example, if a species that is a prey is bountiful, the numbers of the predators will expand because more will survive to reproduce. Eventually, this can result in too many predators. Then the predators experience a population decline, as their isn't enough food to sustain all the predators who are born.
Pre-humanity, nature was constrained by this cybernetic feedback circuit. Reality was the boundary condition of desire. Since existence was precarious, resources unpredictable, necessity impelled an upside bias to craving. Optimizing survival generally required maximizing desire, survival of the driven. The essence of life is the will to live.
Craving is this inner impulse, the existential sensation of wanting arising from the firing of neurons in our brains and the current of neurochemicals flowing through our bodies. It's the natural propulsion of life; the urgent expression of being pushing into tomorrow.
For humans, desire swells into greed because of our ability to exceed our needs. The creation of surplus, producing beyond our immediate requirements, enabled the possibility of accumulation. By liberating it from the immediate requirements of the body, accumulation freed desire to expand into the dimension of time.
Life and death were no longer matters strictly of the here and now. Since existence could be protruded into the future, survival became a long term project, not just an engagement with the present. Desire was now loosed to extrapolate itself into the infinite contingencies of the future. Want became the sum of all possible needs ever. The concept of enough was reduced to an absurdity, a failure of either reason or imagination.
We humans don't just create the possibility of desiring more, we also create more to desire. By elaborating the possibilities of living, our ingenuity continuously expands the universe of things to desire. For simple organisms desire might be limited to food, sex, heat and protection. But humans have refined desire to encompass a vast range of possibilities from wanting to know about subatomic particles to the wish to climb mountains
And within each category of wanting, we constantly expand the number of items available. In the most basic category, food, we find subcategories like meats, breads, fruits, vegetables, beverages, dairy products, vegetarian items, frozen foods, breakfast foods, snacks, condiments, candy, baked goods, etc. And within each of these a seemingly endless range of possibilities, like the hundreds of varieties of cereal. In the snack section of the grocery store, you'll find potato chips, pretzels, pop corn, rice cakes, tortilla chips, sesame sticks and a plethora of others. And looking just at potato chips, there is a vast array of brands and flavors, original, low-salt, ranch, barbecue, french onion, sweet and sour, cheddar cheese. Walking through a supermarket is like navigating a minefield of temptation.
The multiplication of desirables covers everything from soaps and househould furnishings to cars and airplanes. It might be most extreme in the realm of media products, transmitters of information and entertainment. There is a seemingly infinite production of books, movies, television shows, music and video games.
Every area of modern life includes vastly more legitimate objects of desire than one could ever hope to consume more than a tiny fragment of in a lifetime. Life has become a constant exposure to enticement, a ceaseless stimulation of inner craving.
The unfolding of humanity, in magnifying our capabilities and expanding our possibilities, makes the world fertile for desire. This kindled greed expresses itself in two forms, the greed of accumulation and the greed of consumption. Accumulating is hedging against the future, shielding against outrageous fortune. Consuming is about intensifying experience, vivifying the present. They are the complimentary responses of craving to the escalation of opportunity, the inflating dreamfield.
Arising from the impetus to maintain energy flows, to dispute entropy, desire, at its core, is the urge to perpetuate oneself, to avoid oblivion. In humans desire escalates to greed, animated by the growth of our powers, the successes of the human project. This natural predisposition of an organism to nurture itself took on a life of its own, ultimately evolving to where it's now an elemental force in today's global civilization.
This unleashed greed breeds harm because of its two primary attributes, its insatiability and its compulsiveness. That greed is insatiable, knows no limits, has been commonly observed throughout history (perhaps first and most probingly by the Buddha). This ravenousness is currently on display all over the world, from billionaire Russian oligarchs moving their money to tax havens, to the skyrocketing earnings of corporate CEOs, which grew 15 times faster than workers last year, and hedge fund managers, the top 25 of whom took in a total of $21 billion in compensation in 2013 (including number 2, the scandal plagued Steven Cohen, now barred from further hedge fund activity and who ranged up $2.4 billion in earnings in his final year in the "business").
When you consider these examples or any of the innumerable examples of excessive greed one finds today or throughout human history, the most obvious thing is that greed transcends any connection to need. A billionaire can extravagantly meet all current and future survival needs for themselves, their families, and many future generations of their families. Yet, they may continue to actively and aggresively work to increase their income and worth, minimize their taxes, lobby for favorable government treatment, and in some cases, even engage in unethical or morally questionable business practices including things like insider trading.
But for what purpose? One of the unique aspects of being human is that we've expanded the possibility of desire beyond basic material needs. We've cultivated a vast array of comforts, pleasures and interests.
But there is a law of diminishing returns to most of these. One example that comes to mind is razor's. I saw an ad recently for a new men's razor citing several improvements that were claimed to enhance the shaving experience. And while admittedly these products have improved greatly over the first razors I used back in the 1970's, in this process of razor refinement, how much better can they become? As the technology improves, the differences become less and less meaningful, or even detectable.
The same idea applies to almost anything related to comfort or pleasure. Maybe one is interested in a comfortable chair; maybe one's current chair feels uncomfortable.. It might be possible to create infinite refinements of design, materials, construction and ergonomics to fabricate an ever more comfortable chair. But once finds a chair that reaches a certain level of comfort, there is decreasingly less pleasure gained from succesive enhancements.
This same dynamic of diminishing returns can be found in everything from food to the search for beauty, all of the material or experiential pursuits. The only exceptions to this principle that come to mind as I'm writing this are the search for knowledge and the desires to acheive one's possibilities, make others happy, and to contribute to the world.
It's really an extrapolation of the thought that for someone starving just a little food can mean a lot, can equal the difference between life and death. The purest need might be if someone was to place a plastic bag over your head. The only desire at that moment is the next breath.
The more one has then, the less value that results from any amount of increase. For someone worth $10 billion dollars, what's another $10 million, what actual difference can it make in their life? What possibity of increased satisfaction or fulfillment could it provide? Will a 250 foot yacht really make one happier than a 200 foot yacht? The same question was raised by Allen Frances in his Huffington Post article, Why Are Some Billionaires Still Greedy for More?.
Maybe I'm just revealing a failure of imagination. Maybe there are truly wonderous reasons for continuing to accumulate billions of dollars. But it seems to me a deeper lack of imagination that someone with that much couldn't find more profound things to do than aggressively accumulate more; greed is an impoverished approach to self-realization. Except maybe someone who was doing it with the purpose of having more to give away, of being more able to contribute to the well-being of others.
In its most virulent expressions, greed can go beyond not only any relationship to need, but of any reasonable calculation of value to the accumulator. If one thinks of reason as connecting action to purpose, then it would seem that greed is capable of blossoming beyond even excessive self-interest to irrational self-interest, accumulation for its own sake, for no better reason.
In it's extreme, greed doesn't involve a calculation of utility, it doesn't undertake a cost-benefit analysis. Greed doesn't seem to have any self-regulating mechanism at all. More is always better; there is no such thing as enough. Greed doesn't have an end-game, there is no possibility of satisfying it. Greed isn't about purpose; greed is its own purpose.
That greed can be truly limitless might be most completely shown by the essay, Under Construction: Redesigning the Solar System, by Robert Bradbury, from the book Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge. Bradbury discusses the possibilities of encircling the sun to capture all of its energy and disassembling the other planets in the solar system as sources of material and energy. Then he further extrapolates this (over a quite long term) to encompass the dissassembling of other stellar systems, and eventually whole galaxies. So ultimately, greed wants to feast on the entire universe.
Because it is ultimately insatiable, greed takes on a life of own. This inextinguishability makes greed compulsive. Since greed has no fixed objective, it has no plan of action to follow, no process for measuring progress. Uninhibited by analysis, not subject to the arbitration of reason, greed acts as an elemental force.
Not diluted by pragmatic considerations, this pure essence of greed takes possession of its host. This trance of greed is obsessive, a relentless impulse of craving. Greed is an unconscious state. Unaware and unreflective, greed is a less than fully human modality, a depreciation of our humanity.
The realm of greed is a chimerical fantasyland, a spectral unreality. Greed agitates its victims towards a restless pursuit of phantasms, a grasping after a satisfaction that can never be reached. The objects of desire are just quanta of attraction, apparitions that vaporize upon contact. Greed lures us into a maze of self-delusion.
All of us are susceptible to greed to some degree (though the Dalai Lamas of the world may have developed some immunity). It can rise up like a solar flare, perturbed by some object, some memory, some mood. Then it feels like a compulsion, a felt impulse towards something.
For some, greed goes beyond being a transient phenomenon that comes and goes. For the Kim Jong-un's, Shah Jahan's, and Steve Cohen's of the world, greed gets deeply embedded in their psyche. It becomes a central operating principle, a default parameter, a way of being in the world. It goes from being a immediate compulsion to an ongoing addiction.
As Leon Seltzer discusses in the Psychology Today article "Greed: The Ultimate Addiction", greed, like all addictions, requires greater and greater doses to satisfy the craving. His analysis agrees with my thinking that greed isn't really about the targets of desire, but becomes and end in itself. He believes that ultimately what drives this are underlying feelings of inadequacy with greed substituting for unfilled emotional needs & unsatisfactory relationships.
Biologically, addiction involves the dynamics of brain chemistry related to the reward system of the brain. The reward system is the neurology behind desire, connecting our survival needs to sensations of pleasure and reward. The way they are theorized to cause addiction is that "repeated exposure to an addictive substance or behavior causes nerve cell…to communicate in a way that couples liking something with wanting it, in turn driving us to go after it."
The neurotransmitter dopamine is central to this process. Dopamine has been characterized as the pleasure chemical in media articles. The pleasure caused by "hits" of dopamine has been connected to things like gambling, internet addiction, and even the ills of capitalism. Dopamine has even been referred to as "the most evil chemical in the world." But it seems that science has realized that the functioning of dopamine and the brain chemistry involving the reward circuit is a lot more complicated than a simple cause and effect relationship.
I'd like to go into the topic of desire and brain chemistry in more depth at some later date and share some thoughts on what it implies for being human. One good popular book on the subject is The Compass of Pleasure by neuroscientist David Linden, which explores the relationship between pleasure and addiction, and discusses some of the complexities of the neurochemistry.
I think that looking at greed as an addiction is the most useful way to consider it. We tend to regard greed as being a moral failure. This leads to playing the blame game, seeing the world as a conflict between the greedy and the rest of us. The blame game, in all its forms, envisions the wworld as a struggle between good and evil. Blaming only serves to produce more conflict.
The truths of greed are that it is an outgrowth of a natural process, that we are all susceptible to it, and that it operates like an addiction. As with other addictions (and also as with violence), greed harms everyone involved, not just those victimized by greed but also the greedy themselves.
The greedy are often portrayed as the winners in the game of life. Having secured excess portions of the scarce goods of the world, they are thought to be "living the good life" at the expense of others. But I think that to accept that image of the world means believing that the lives of the greedy are desirable lives, lives that would be satisfying and fulfilling to experience. It means believing that getting and having are the path to bliss, that the stuff of the world is the ticket to nirvana.
But if you see greed as an addiction, you see that it is just a corrupted way of being. The enterprises of the greedy aren't the pursuit of true self-interest; they are a stalking of a poor simulation of it, a one-dimensional mirage. Greed doesn't represent true self-cherishing but a constricted self-fixation.
The satisfactions promised by greed prove to be unsatisfactory. Because greed is unconscious, it isn't based on any understanding of true need. Not alive to inner self or outer world, greed can't provide the sustenance for real human flourishing.
Under the magnifying glass, greed is shown to be a flawed way of being in the world. Harmful to everyone involved, it offers no good for anyone. The spell of greed is powerful, insidious, and corrosive; a neurochemical trance that possesses the mind. Enchanting us with visions of sugarplums, greed blinds us to self and other, world and cosmos. Equating grasping with being, greed makes us oblivious to our true humanity. It prevents us from fully exploring the possibility space of being human.
The answer to greed isn't to battle it, but to shine light on it, to reveal it for the conjurer's trick that it is. Breaking the spell of greed requires awakening from its trance, awakening to our inner experience, awakening to the existences of others, awakeing to the world, the cosmos, and our being and unfolding within them.
- The Dynamics of Greed
- The Pursuit of Happiness


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Rustenburg, South Africa:
Caren was born and raised in Rustenberg, South Africa with her three older siblings. Her family immigrated to New Zealand when she was 12 where she began acting in high school theatre productions. She went on to study Art and Design at University, majoring in animation and illustration. After graduating she returned to theatre briefly and then began working in television and film. In 2014, Caren was nominated for the Graham Kennedy Award and a Logie Award for her work in Australia. Her role in Slow West directed by John Mclean, in which she stars opposite Michael Fassbender and Kodi Smith-McPhee, was her international feature film debut. She will also be appearing in Derek Cianfrance's upcoming Light Between Oceans.
|Gloria Bell (2019)
as Anne
|Mortal Engines (2018)
as Pandora Shaw
|Cargo (2017)
as Lorraine
|Denial (2016)
as Laura Tyler
|The Light Between Oceans (2016)
as Adult Lucy-Grace
|Slow West (2015)
as Rose Ross
|The Most Fun You Can Have Dying (2012)
as Chloe
|High Ground ()
as Claire

subset: commoncrawl


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Hello I'm new and have extreme fear of centipedes
08-26-2014, 09:07 AM (This post was last modified: 08-26-2014 09:21 AM by xoxrubyxoxo.)
Post: #1
Hello I'm new and have extreme fear of centipedes
Hello everybody, I'm new to the forum. I'm here looking for help for extreme arachnophobia and chilopodophobia (fear of centipedes) I have always had these phobias, but lately it's gotten a lot worse. I just recently moved into an apartment that has a centipede problem, and it is severely impacting my life. I can't sleep properly, some nights I don't sleep at all. I'm 34 years old, and also have health issues. I had a stroke this year, and I'm afraid this problem is going to affect my recovery, since I can't sleep. It's also affecting my friendship with my roommate, as she doesn't at all understand that I have a phobia, and it causes extreme anxiety. I don't know what to do. I've spoken with my land lord, who is going to try to get the problem under control. But until then I'm terrified in my home. Any help will be appreciated, thank you.
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The IMF is the world's committee of poor-law custodians. It orders those who depend on it to live as it decrees. ... It is, as poor-law custodians always were, more concerned with the behaviour of the poor than with freeing them from poverty. ... We want to relieve poverty but have not grasped the imperative of eradicating it.
And how is the IMF supposed to go about the task that Ringen accepts for them, of freeing someone from poverty without specifying their behaviour? Are they supposed to give money unconditionally to recipients who have not been able to achieve that? And if instead they impose conditions - why then presumably they're concerning themselves wih the behaviour of the poor.
The sound of a demonstration draws people to the windows of the reading area. Moslems are marching. There are a few identical printed placards to the effect that only the khilafah (I think - perhaps khalifa?) can defend Islam. There is a reference to the desecration of the Koran. Marchers read their responses to the cheerleaders from printed sheets. The march is orderly, escorted by stewards in visibility vests and a few police, with the rear brought up by a police van. The demo is very traditional in one respect: the front of the march is taken by the men, the rear by the women and children.
From 'The week on the Web' in the Times the other day:
If you plan a business trip to Chicago soon, be careful about to whom you speak.
How many hands were involved in creating that syntactic dog's breakfast? It has all the hallmarks of the crass subeditor – or the author who's been intimidated by a crass subeditor in the past.
I can imagine the stages of this utterance's descent:
... be careful who you speak to.
(the natural spoken phrase – but I wouldn't write it, in my own persona)
... be careful whom you speak to.
(I would probably write that and have to admit I might even say it.)
... be careful to whom you speak.
(If I caught myself, as editor, torturing someone's words into that shape, it would be time to Tipp-ex out the red pen and start again.)
... be careful about to whom you speak.
Whaat? Who ordered the 'about'?
Somebody tried altogether too hard on that one.


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Champ of the Camp: Dubai Review
Award-winning Lebanese documaker Mahmoud Kaabour finds an entertainment angle in the first feature-length study of life in the UAE labor camps.
The paradise of the Emirates has never seemed to extend to the Asian labor force that is hired to "build the dream cities of the Arab world" at paltry wages, even if the pay is advantageous compared to what is available on their home turf. The living conditions in workers' camps continue to be an officially sensitive subject, making Champ of the Camp all the more interesting as the first feature-length doc to approach the subject. One of the first films to get permission to shoot in the camps, it is however very careful what it says and shows. Director Mahmoud Kaabour and producer Eva Sayre's winning strategy is to center the film around an annual songfest competition open to workers living in 70 camps around the Emirates. This adds a note of humor to their touching stories, leaving viewers both entertained and somewhat wiser about what it means to leave family and home behind to earn a living in a searing desert land. This, and the credentials of Lebanese-born Kaabour (Being Osama, Grandma A Thousand Times), should give the film a good chance to circulate internationally.
Though there are undoubtedly far more painful stories to tell from the camps, the mass excitement generated by the Western Union Champ of the Camp songfest (now in its seventh year) offers viewers a first, offbeat window on an unknown world. Thousands of workers from 70 different labor camps scattered across the Emirate principalities are shown auditioning at talent searches, which speed through quarter finals and semi-finals until six finalists remain. Under the able refereeing of local singer Shabana, they not only sing but have to instantly recognize the opening notes of Bollywood songs.
Amusingly, most of the men hail from the Indian subcontinent and know these popular films and songs by heart. Shahrukh Khan is a fave of the younger generation, while a contestant named Dattu favors Amitabh Bachchan and Raj Kapoor. Auditions are filmed in a gaudy pop style of Indian cable TV, punctuated by snatches of Hindi movies excerpts, and culminates in Shabana's performance of the farcically sizzling number "My Name Is Sheila" from the Hindi blockbuster Tees Mahr Khan, which sends the men into ecstasy.
Edited into all this fun are the contestants' everyday lives. Mechanics, plumbers, sweepers and construction workers live in plain concrete buildings eight to a room, furnished with bunk beds and one small cabinet houses for their private possessions. No one is shown complaining, though "It does feel a little like jail," laughs one man, and it isn't hard to see why. Talking about their hardships and the touching sacrifices they make for their families back home is Ms. Rupa Vinod, the right-on managing director of competition organizer Right Track Advertising.
Kaabour portrays the men as individuals who are eager, laughing competitors, but their haunting eyes more than once glisten with tears of homesickness. Many have been away from their loved ones in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh for more than two years. Dattu has been in Dubai for six years; he receives $272 a month in wages and he gave the agency $2,340 to bring him over. A boy who longs for his mother cries on camera saying "I am helpless, I have to be here." But it feels great to send home $140, making a month's sweat-drenched work worth it. Chandrama, a plumber, talks about how good it felt to build Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, in a record three years. Adnan, another finalist, saves up to build a house in Pakistan while others just send money home via Western Union (the main sponsor of the singing contest) to pay for their kids' tuition.
Song is a dream world for all of them, and the film makes good use of the contrast to round out their lives. Though lensing has some rough on-site edges, the scenes are full of expressive visuals and quirky camera angles.
Venue: Dubai Film Festival (Arabian Nights)
Production companies: Veritas Films in association with Creative Kettle, Doha Film Institute, Screen Institute Beirut
Director/Screenwriter: Mahmoud Kaabour
Producer: Eva Sayre
Director of photography: Benjamin Pritchard
Editors: Alan Mackay, Arwa Merchant
Music: Ahmed Ghannoum
No rating, 75 minutes


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IRClass Gets USCG's Nod to Conduct Ship Surveys
Classification society Indian Register of Shipping (IRClass) has received approval to undertake statutory surveys and certification for US and the EU.
IRClass gained recognitions from US Coast Guard as well as European Union close on the heels of its accreditation for EU MRV services from RvA, an EU notified body.
Having received recognition from European Union in August 2016, this recognition from US Coast Guard "is a major step forward signifying its growing global recognition," the classification society informed.
"This USCG recognition represents a major step forward for IRClass as we strive to join the ranks of truly global classification societies. With its stringent monitoring processes and focus on high performance and quality, USCG sets high standards of safety and quality in the global shipping industry," Arun Sharma, Executive Chairman, said.
Additionally, the IRClass received the authorisation from European Union Marine Equipment Directive (MarED). The MarED wheelmark has become a quality label for marine equipment on seagoing vessels worldwide as it indicates compliance with the conformity assessment procedures.


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PREORDER IN 7-14 business days. Excluding Public Holiday.
LOVE MEI® inspired by the curve line of female torso. Allure is a designer case for GALAXY NOTE 3 inward curve line design, which is ergonomic and fits in the palm comfortably.
A touchscreen you can touch, a slim profile, superior sound, 20/20 optics and complete access to every function and control. LOVE MEI® POWERFUL fo GALAXY NOTE 3 is tough, smart and ready for launch.


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Q: Why can I not access library online resources off-campus?
Students must be currently enrolled in classes in order to access resources from off-campus. For access during break between semesters, you must also be enrolled for the upcoming semester. If you are not, then your access will end at the close of the current semester. For example, if you are enrolled in the Fall semester but not Spring, then your access will end at the close of Fall exams. Please click the link below to see how to access library resources off-campus: http://libanswers.kennesaw.edu/a.php?qid=65610
Friends of the Library cannot access databases from off-campus. You may visit our libraries and use the guest computers to access the databases. You may also visit your public library since public libraries in Georgia often have access to many of the same databases as KSU.
If you are working on your graduate capstone, thesis, or dissertation and are unable to access library resources during the semester break, please send an email to email@example.com
For any technical issues or support, please contact UITS:
Faculty / Staff: 470–578-6999
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For more information
If you have questions about campus computers or software, please contact UITS.
If you experience any problems with any of the library databases or the library website, please fill out our complaint form.
If you have problems printing in the library, please visit the help desk.
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Last UpdatedJul 21, 2017
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Any frustration you experience is the result of
your own choice to react with frustration.
There is nothing that makes you annoyed.
Any annoyance you experience comes about because
you have decided to be annoyed.
You can choose to be annoyed,
frustrated, angry, and spiteful.
You can also choose not to be.
Imagine how effective you could be if there was nothing that annoyed you.
That level of effectiveness is yours to choose, right here, right now.
All sorts of things will happen in your world today.
You can let them get to you, and annoy and frustrate you,
or you can choose to follow your own path.
You have the power to be free of frustration, free of annoyance,
free to accomplish and enjoy life. Choose that freedom today.
~Ralph Marston~


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CONFidence is the biggest meeting of hackers and IT security experts in Poland. Created by a group of enthusiasts, each year it gathers almost 600 attendees: the best IT security specialists, software developers, scientists and students.
The 2017 edition is different than all the previous conferences. With new branding we're starting a new chapter - we're going back to the roots and bringing to you highly practical, relevant content.
For the first time in history of CONFidence our Advisory Board - your favourite speakers and experts - make sure that the schedule is top of the league. Cybercrime, malware, threat intelligence, read teams & blue teams, cryptography, physical security… We know what interests you, and we're going to cover all the latest, most controversial and important topics.
Community Corner is something you haven't seen before, too. This year we're teaming up with top Polish IT security communities for discussions, presentations, and chilling in a relaxed atmosphere. Lots of inspiration and brilliant solutions coming up!
If you're up to some challenge, the CONFidence DS CTF is for you. Capture the Flag is organized by Dragon Sector, a Polish team led by Gynvael Coldwind and Mateusz "j00ru" Jurczyk, leading in the world CTF games. The results of CONFidence DS CTF are included in the global classification.
Join us now and stay tuned for more amazing stuff!
10% discount code = use "imawesome" code during the registration. or keep looking for more :)
CTF teams
All companies interested in partnering CONFidence, are kindly asked to contact Karolina Pondo.


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A Renewed Model for Classical Education
Education shapes the architecture of the mind. Will that architecture serve the true, good, and beautiful? Will it be oriented toward God? These are the ends of a classical, Christian education. At Dominion Academy, we call K through 8th grade program the "Cathedral School" because cathedral architecture was developed in pursuit of the True, Good, and Beautiful– and ultimately, in praise of God.
Portals are the doors to the cathedral. In our program, the portals are the entrance, the starting place for the rest of the program.
Buttresses hold up the walls of cathedrals so that they can be built to soaring heights. Buttresses reinforce and enrich a student's education.
Cathedral vaults are the intricate ceilings soaring far above the foundation. Our students discover new heights in the STEM and Humanities Vaults.
The pinnacle of a cathedral – a spire is visible to a community for miles. The Spire Day is the pinnacle of our program because it culminates in service to the community.
Classic Fiction readers teach characterization, plot and point of view and acquaint students with the classics. Spelling lists reinforce grammar through grade appropriate vocabulary and phonetic essentials. Grammar is the building block of later language curricula.
Math fundamentals are taught using Saxon Math.
History, geography, and social studies are integrated together, focusing on the themes of history: social, political, and economic as students learn to think like historians and use their imaginations to travel back in time.
Elementary Science lessons throughout the prep school will give students exposure to all science disciplines each year through hands-on activities and lab experiments.
Buttress days both reinforce portals and the added components make the program soar to the heights of classical education. Reading Circles are times to hear aloud classical stories and poems. More in-depth spelling connected to Latin Roots provide a deeper classical foundation.
Preparation for history studies starts with early foundations in memorization of dates, timelines, and mapping/geography skills.
Added science afternoons (two days/week) will allow students to more actively explore the computer, robotics and computer-interactive science. Nature studies, where students get outside, look and observe nature will be planned for Friday Spire days to supplement STEM vaults.
Theatre studies, will expose students to a whole new way of interacting with language arts stories. Kid's Shakespeare scripts, acted out in class, will reinforce vocabulary, reading and comprehension skills. Later in the year students will write their own scripts and have a chance to direct each other, bringing their own creative stories to life as they direct their classmates from their imagination. Art & Music class on alternate days will teach the fundamentals of each subject and then create music and art for the students own plays.
Spire Days start with an important connection of education to the Christian faith – enlivening the student's sense of their duty to God and their community. Spire Days are also designed to practically apply the classroom knowledge gained in the other 4 components (Portals, Buttresses, Humanities Vault & STEM vaults). Here the students participate in multiple field trips into the community for the purpose of seeing the outworking of culture, language, math and science in the real world. For example, students will attend live performances in the arts, music and theatre. Not only will they visit art exhibitions, but they will also tour several buildings of architectural significance in the community, where they will observe applied technology in the building of beautiful edifices. Opportunities will be given to experience governmental meetings and trials in live-action, making history come alive. Likewise, they will be regular visitors to a local nursing home, where their art projects will become meaningful gifts to the residents.


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Why I Am A Scientific Progressive–And An Optimist
How I derive my political principles from evolutionary theory.
Posted Sep 06, 2012
UPDATE Nov. 7, 2012: Read my blog posting on the 2012 election results, A Status-Quo Election, But Much Cause For Hope.
In this election season I'd like to say why I think of myself as a "scientific progressive" -- and moreover, an optimistic one. My political identity's deeply shaped by a lifetime of reading about, and writing about, science. Let me explain how.
Though I'm a liberal Democrat, I have plenty of respect for Adam Smith's classical theory of economics. Free markets are in fact a tremendous generator of goods, jobs, and wealth. I read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in graduate school and appreciated his thesis that free markets allocate goods and services more efficiently than communist-style central planning ever could.
In fact, you can analogize free-market theory to evolution with very little trouble. Innovation is analogous to mutation; competition is analogous to selection; free markets are analogous to self-organization. There's a reason why the analogy works so well: Humanity is not separate from the forces of evolution that shaped life on Earth. The same dynamics that operated in the primordial sea and the African savannah also operate in Whole Foods and Wall Street.
But how do I get from that to being a "scientific progressive"? You'll notice that evolution appears to have created greater complexity and power in both organic life and in the economy. Not without periods of stagnation and outright reverses, of course. There are extinctions in biology, and Dark Ages and depressions in economies. But life, and economies, have always gone on to even higher levels of sophistication.
This is a very hard question to answer, and it hasn't been answered yet in any comprehensive and widely-accepted way. However, there are many interesting pieces of the solution floating about. (Earlier this year I wrote an article, One-way evolution: The ladder of life makes a comeback, for New Scientist to help myself understand some of them.)
My thinking is based on a raft of recent books arguing that progress is built into the mechanics of life and society. As Stuart Kauffman argues in Origins of Order, there may be a "fourth law of thermodynamics" that drives complexity upward. This is a contested position, but I think the evidence and the books in its favor are accumulating. They include Robert Wright's Nonzero, Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature, Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants, Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines, Simon Conway Morris's Life's Solution, and Carter Phipps's Evolutionaries. To distinguish this group from orthodox evolutionists like Stephen Jay Gould, I'll call them progress-oriented evolutionists.
They all point to interlocking phenomena that, once started, reinforce each other. For example, in her book Symbiotic Evolution the biologist Lynn Marguilis points to the emergence of progressively more powerful forms of cooperation. Billions of years ago primitive bacteria merged, giving rise to the modern eukaryotic cell with its mitochondria. Later, eukaryotic cells themselves merged into multicellular creatures, which themselves joined into increasingly sophisticated collectives (like ants and bees, and later mammals and humans.) And recently, we have seen the symbiosis of humans and computers giving us powers that we couldn't have imagined a few years ago. Things merge, again and again. With each symbiosis, the new collective gains an evolutionary advantage because it can accumulate more energy and better propagate its kind.
There are interlocking phenomena in economies too (or more broadly, in culture). In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker identifies five intertwined forces that have made human society both more sophisticated and more peaceful: (1) the rise of the state and its monopoly on violence, (2) interdependence based on trade, (3) the feminization of culture and a consequent de-emphasis on violence, (4) the expansion of empathy, and (5) the "escalator of reason" – the self-reinforcing use of rational thought (Kindle location 235.) Each of these reinforces the others in a "virtuous cycle" of ascent to higher levels of power and complexity. And they confer powerful competitive advantages on the societies that hold them.
These virtuous cycles anchor my perspective as a scientific progressive. I see a smart politics as one that recognizes these interlocking, self-reinforcing forces and consciously acts to accelerate them through governance. One could say, in fact, that governments are analogous to the rise of consciousness in organisms. Governments came into being when societies became complex enough to need centralized, rationalized administration. The more complex an organism gets, whether it's biological or economic, the more intelligence it needs. Robin Dunbar has argued, for example, that one reason human brains grew bigger was to handle the complexity of social relationships. You need more smarts to maintain an internal model of who's on the ins and outs with whom. Similarly, the more complex an economy gets, the more sophisticated its government has to be.
Relying on blind forces worked, albeit slowly and erratically, for a long time, but that just won't cut it anymore. We now have problems that can only be solved by large-scale rational thinking and global cooperation. For example, the free market isn't going to solve the problem of global warming on its own: every actor has the incentive to focus on short-term profits while dumping externalities like pollution onto third parties. To solve global warming, you need transnational governance. It won't help to switch to cleaner energy in the U.S. if China is still mostly burning coal. It doesn't have to come from an institution such as the United Nations; it could emerge out of a system of international agreements that slowly becomes more powerful.
From that perspective, the Republican obsession with smaller government is like a body wanting a smaller brain. (Brains have in fact de-evolved in several species, but that's always because the body or the environment became simpler. Once a barnacle attaches to a surface, it digests its brain because it doesn't need to manage motion anymore.) It would make sense if Republicans said they wanted a more efficient government. Who wouldn't want that? But that is very different from wanting smaller government. Wanting a smaller government is precisely equivalent to wanting a simpler society.
Barring catastrophe, that's not going to happen. For one thing, the U.S. has 100 million more people than it had in 1970. You can't just scale up governance linearly as population grows and the economy produces proportionately more goods and services. More complex societies need larger entities to manage them, because they do more relative to their size. The Republican yearning for smaller government is pure nostalgia for an idealized past.
From the evolutionary perspective I've outlined, many progressive values emerge organically. For example, the importance of diversity. Diversity is an essential resource for the evolutionary process. Every individual, every race, every ethnicity, every religion, every sexuality, every system of thought, is a kind of evolutionary experiment. The more diversity there is, the more resources the species/society has to cope with change. It's well known that monocultures – that is, sets of organisms that don't differ genetically from each other – are extremely vulnerable to extinction because they can all get wiped out by the same thing. On the other hand, when there's genetic diversity, some members are more likely to survive a catastrophe and repopulate the group afterward.
The rule holds for cultural diversity, too. That's why our society can't merely tolerate people of different races and religions and opinions out of some spirit of benign acceptance. It needs to actively cultivate them as a reservoir of variation to cope with change. That's why, as a Democrat, I'm glad my party is actively embracing people of different races and sexualities. That value emerges naturally out of a progress-oriented evolutionary perspective – one that's based on a rational study of how life actually works.
And it offers a beautifully principled basis for opposing the Republican Party. You will notice that today, the Republican Party resists every single element of the interlocking phenomena I named above. Let's go through them. Start with the cooperation Lynn Marguilis talked about. If you look at the Republican platform, you will find that rhetorically, cooperation is a distant second to individualism. Take this passage, for example:
"Prosperity is the product of self-discipline, work, savings, and investment by individual Americans, but it is not an end in itself. Prosperity provides the means by which individuals and families can maintain their independence from government, raise their children by their own values, practice their faith, and build communities of self-reliant neighbors."
Not that Republicans totally deny the value of cooperation. And of course it's a good thing to be disciplined and self-reliant. But the vision here is of a drastically atomized society. Note the heavy usage of words like self, individual, families (as opposed to larger units), independence, own values, and self-reliant. The one usage of the word "community" is remarkably vague: what exactly does a "community of self-reliant neighbors" actually look like? You can practically see the flannel-shirted farmers living in isolated log cabins on the Nebraska plains, calling each other up on antique phone lines at harvest time.
Now let's look at the Republican perspective on Pinker's five interlocking forces that lead to higher levels of civilized behavior. Republicans want none of it. They are blindly anti-government. They want to undermine its peacemaking monopoly on violence by arming the citizenry to the teeth. They explicitly aim to limit the autonomy and power of women. They resist interdependence on both national and individual levels. They mock the word "empathy." They have no use for science, dismissing out of hand the science behind evolution and global warming. Moreover, they oppose the exercise of reason itself. The Texas GOP's platform says this:
"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
No "escalator of reason" to be found there. From all this I can only conclude that today's Republican Party is aggressively, willfully, and irrationally doing everything it possibly can to de-evolve.
There used to be moderate Republicans in the party who could talk thoughtfully about the proper balance between the individual and the state, as Hayek did, and who supported science and rational thought, like Jon Huntsman. Huntsman, of course, was swiftly rejected in the primaries. The party has become so syncophantic, so anti-intellectual, and so head-bangingly stupid, that it is simply no longer credible as a governing force. That's not just because of its particular ideas. It's because the party actively works against the mechanisms that make life and economies more sophisticated. Case in point: George W. Bush, whose adminstration was catastrophic in virtually every single respect.
It is profoundly unfortunate that the Republican Party has taken this turn. There is a serious intellectual basis for principled conservatism. In college I read Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, and was impressed, if not persuaded, by his thoughtful and eloquent defense of tradition. Burke and Hayek were the kind of conservatives that progressives could have a dialogue with, reaching workable compromises on governance. But today's Republican Party has thrown away that intellectual heritage.
Unfortunately, a lot of Americans call themselves Republicans. Enough to keep the gears of American government solidly locked, and I'm not optimistic that the situation will change much after the election. I think Obama will win, the Democrats will keep the Senate, and the Republicans will lose a few seats in the House but maintain a majority. The government will be as deadlocked as ever.
But in the long run, I'm an optimist. The demographics are against the Republicans. The country is becoming more diverse and more tolerant, while the Republican Party is becoming whiter and more bigoted. That's going to have a major effect at the ballot box in future elections. More importantly, though, the evolutionary process itself will have its way. Ideas that don't work lead to the extinction of the groups that hold them. That doesn't happen quickly; people cling to bad ideas out of fear, complacency, or laziness. Or, of course, if they have gamed the system to benefit from them.
But history shows that in the long run, stupidity never wins. Humanity will get its act together, as it always has. The only question is when, and how much unnecessary suffering will have to happen beforehand. My take on evolutionary theory tells me that there will come a day when the U.S. decisively rejects the Republican mindset and sets about building a fairer, smarter, and richer society. And that's why I'm not only a scientific progressive, I'm an optimistic scientific progressive.
I usually blog about science -- my current interest is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence -- but if you want to see my other political essays, start with this one: The Turning Point: The Moral Example of UC Davis Students. To learn more about me and my books Rebuilt and World Wide Mind, please see my website. You can also follow me on Twitter @MikeChorost.


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Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Okay... so this is it. This is the last batch of RED DRAGON reviews I'm personally going to bother to publish. I was set to see the film on Tuesday night, but I was wicked sick after my trip to New York, and I stayed home last night for some homemade chicken soup and some TLC. I'll leave this one to our very able pack of reviewers today, and I'm glad Alexandra DuPont is back on the scene with her take on things. Let's get started, shall we?
Lovely to be back. Having finally kicked the laudanum once and for all, I'm more or less in writing trim and feeling strong enough to digest the latest adaptation of Red Dragon, helmed by of all people Mr. Brett Ratner.
Brett "Rush Hour" Ratner? The man who will soon defile the Superman franchise? That fellow's a right ponce!
I must respectfully disagree. Am I the only person who is actually mildly intrigued by Mr. Ratner's potential? While he hasn't exactly carved out a niche as a visual stylist (Ratner seems destined to garner all the auteurist cred of, oh, I don't know, John Badham), he did direct one film I actually enjoyed quite a bit, Family Man... a personal guilty pleasure that was far better-acted and more involving that any shameless Capra rip-off has a right to be, and which managed the rare feat of combining the personas of Hollywood Nicholas Cage and Batshit Nicholas Cage in a single, complex performance.
(BTW, for some recent Batshit Nicholas Cage you may not be aware of, be sure to peruse the recent Japanese television commercials where he's selling Pachinko machines.)
Anyway. Ratner's work with actors on Family Man made me think he might be able to get out of his own way and wrestle some good performances out of a talented cast... and his lack of visual affectation led me to hope he wouldn't muck up his fantastic source material with the sort of pretentious "atmospheric" twaddle that Ridley Scott troweled over the less-fantastic Hannibal.
What did you think of the first adaptation of Red Dragon, Michael Mann's classic Manhunter?
I'm not as high on that film as a lot of my movie-geek pals (my favorite William Petersen-as-a-screwed-up-cop movie is To Live and Die in L.A.), but I certainly admire Manhunter. Enjoy Brian Cox as the more deadpan Hannibal. Enjoy Petersen. Enjoy all the stark, alienated, beautifully composed "Miami Vice" visual shtick (lensed by Dante Spinotti, who also lensed Red Dragon, perhaps as a perverse guarantee that there would be no accidental cribbing). Love the rock score. Love Tom Noonan's big, weird head and his performance as Dolarhyde. However, have always lamented Mann's omission of the book's extensive Dolarhyde backstory/side-plot and all the trimmed Lecter scenes.
Does Ratner's Red Dragon put all that stuff back in?
It does, and that makes me glad: I consider Red Dragon (along with Mark Frost's List of 7) to be one of the best... if not the best... greasy pulp entertainments of the past 20 years. (BTW, if you haven't read List, you should; it can be had in used bookstores for like 95 cents these days.)
So what's the upshot here? Your Socratic-dialogue structure drives me batty and I am aching with a desire to quit reading!
The upshot is that Red Dragon is really, really good. It's not great, and it's not perfect ... but its flaws are relatively small and it's extraordinarily faithful to the book until its final scenes (which I'll sort of get into in a minute). Ralph Fiennes is simply marvelous as Dolarhyde. Anthony Hopkins is funny and twitchy but self-aware to the degree that he's doing Lecter rather than playing him, if that makes any sense. And while the movie lacks the craftsmanship (or, depending on how you look at it, the pretentious visual twaddle) that would put a fine glaze of Art on the film and make it great, or even classic, it's a plenty damned competent and entertaining crime thriller. I predict that Joe and Jane Sixpack will gobble it up; it'll rake in cash like a New York borough president.
What's the story?
FBI profiler Will Graham (Edward Norton) quits the profiling biz after his capture of Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins, as if I needed to tell you) nearly kills him. Against the wishes of his family (thankless role of wife played by "West Wing" feminist activist Mary-Louise Parker), Graham gets called out of retirement by Jack Crawford (Harvey Keitel) to help catch the "Tooth Fairy" ... a fledgling serial killer who executes entire families and puts shattered-mirror fragments in their eyes.
Meanwhile ... and I was really happy to see this ... the movie finally puts onscreen the book's extensive exploration of the life and mind of killer Francis Dolarhyde (Fiennes) ... who retreats into his "Tooth Fairy" depredations to escape a lifetime of abuse and cleft-palate scarring (which, if we're to believe this film and Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, drives people to murderous rages. For God's sake, just grow a mustache!)
Graham moodily explores crime scenes. Graham reluctantly seeks advice from a hilarious, resentful, ham-acting, chained-up Lecter. In a bit of a cop-movie cliche, Graham's wife is unsupportive. Dolarhyde feels conflicted about his murder spree when he meets a spunky blind woman (Emily Watson). Seedy tabloid journalist Freddy Lounds (Philip Seymour Hoffman, utterly wasted) mucks things up while reporting the case. Mayhem ensues.
What's good?
(1) The inclusion and execution of the tragic Dolarhyde story arc, which is marvelously creepy and well-acted by Fiennes and Watson. (And yes, ladies, Fiennes once again goes full-frontal, as if The English Patient and that triple dose in Sunshine weren't enough.) Big creep-factor props to the scene in which an unknowing Watson goes down on Fiennes, unaware that he's partially aroused by a videotape he's watching while plotting his next home invasion.
(2) Frank Whaley (!) as the seedy little letch who's also attempting to court our blind heroine.
(3) The Graham/Lecter scenes, which are exceedingly well-written (by Lambs scribe Ted Tally) and full of hammy, play-to-the-groundlings gusto and which clearly tickled the test-screening audience. While there will be a few who deride Hopkins for playing up the more cartoony affectations of his Hannibal performance this time around, he's undeniably fun to watch. (Full disclosure: I have a profound weakness for over-the-top performances ... particularly those in the Shatner/Heston/Dunaway vein ... so take my praises with an over-the-top grain of salt.) Particularly enjoyed the tics that fluttered across Hopkins' face when Graham told Hannibal he was insane; it was as if that were the first time it had occurred to the Cannibal.
(4) The light stylistic and casting nods to both Silence and Manhunter that you'll find peppered throughout the film. Say ... there's Anthony Heald and Frankie Faison reprising their roles as Chilton and Barney! Say ... that tracking shot of Dolarhyde walking through the film-processing plant looks just like the one in Manhunter! Say ... Hopkins is looking right into the camera again!
(5) Silence of the Lambs fans will probably agree that there are two kinds of horror ... the shocking kind and the unsettling kind ... and the reason Lambs works so well is because it's that rare horror film that manages to combine both types in one movie. That's also true, though admittedly to a lesser and less-urgent degree, in Red Dragon; the crime scenes here are actually pretty unnerving ... I'm thinking particularly of one shot when Norton turns on the lights to reveal a stale crime scene spattered with Pollack-like arcs of blood and the flash-cuts of soulless, mirrored eye sockets.
What's not so good?
(1) To riff a little further on point (4) above, the fact that Ratner freely snatches cinematic quotes from the other Lecter films makes you wonder if the director will ever develop a visual style of his own. Make no mistake, there's an extreme competence to the storytelling here, but the film never soars to any stunning visual or thematic heights of its own. As mentioned above, this is sort of a blessing and a curse ... a blessing because the story gets seamlessly told, a curse because there's a certain lack of showmanship that hard-core cineastes will miss.
(2) There are several things, let's face it, that Manhunter did better. I'm thinking specifically of three things: (a) depicting the toll the case takes on Will Graham's marriage; (b) depicting the sense of urgency as the FBI agents race against time (there was a lot more running, if memory serves, in Manhunter, and it's missed in the new film, which feels about as "urgent" as a good episode of "CSI"); and (c) Stephen Lang's performance as Freddie Lounds, which (and I'm shocked to be writing this) had a lot more meat to it than Hoffman's performance. (I'll be very interested to see if there are any additional Hoffman-as-Lounds scenes on the Red Dragon DVD.)
(3) Norton actually plays it a little too straight as Graham. There were some screwed-up depths (hinted at in the film's opening scenes) that could have been plumbed.
(4) Sadly, like Manhunter, Red Dragon takes a few (but not as many) liberties with the book's fabulous, merciless, painful-to-read ending. At the risk of courting some serious SPOILERS, Thomas Harris' novel ends with the case having more or less destroyed its investigator; he's barely spoken of, dismissed as a disfigured drunk, in the next book ... a hollow husk referred to in the hushed and horrified tones one reserves for discussing the demolition of the truly talented. (On a side note, I will never forgive Harris for failing to re-visit the Graham character in Hannibal, which I appreciate as a beautifully written gothic-horror romance but despise as a police procedural. Also, while Hannibal is admittedly kind of weak, Red Dragon never hits the goony, there's no-going-back heights of that brain-eating climax.)
(5) The music's kind of overblown. The opening credits feel way too much like Dead Again as a result.
Summary of findings?
It's queasy fun, but it ain't Art. So what? I break from the critical pack in that I can actually still be entertained.
Any "fun links" and/or shameless pimps of your friends or other whorelike backscratching this time around?
(1) It's my pleasure to inform you that the latest print issue of BadAzzMofo ... written and produced by my trenchant and talented colleague Dave Walker ... is finally available for purchase.
If you're not a BadAzzMofo reader, you should be: Walker is arguably one of the most knowledgeable blaxploitation experts on the planet, but he's not afraid to point out (in withering, hilarious prose) their copious flaws. He actually wrote an introductory clause in one of his reviews that made me spit gin harder than just about anything I've ever read, and I will now repeat that clause here: "Mario Van Peebles, who once took a shit and called it Panther...." The latest issue also features a stylish and nasty full-length blaxploitation comic authored by Walker. Order it from your local comics retailer or 'zine shop.
(2) Also: Have you seen The Sexy Chef? It's directed by the fellows who published my comic last year.
That's it.
... Alexandra DuPont
As always, thanks to the lovely and elusive Ms. DuPont. Herc's going to be red with jealousy that I got hold of the review first.
Next up, we've got The Will Of Crom, and as anyone who's seen CONAN knows, you do NOT oppose The Will Of Crom!!
It is midnight on the east coast and after about 3 hours of processing I figured it was worth firing off a Red Dragon piece after seeing an preview screening my university ran (Go Hokies!).
Interesting exercise to say the least. Better than Hannibal (which I enjoyed for the twisted love story it was- a man in love with a woman that will never love him back), but not quite approaching Silence of the Lambs. I figure a systematic approach will work best (and prevent spoilers).
Bret Ratner: Amazingly, I think he is more important a topic here than Mr. Hopkins as his presence is the least likely (or least desired) presence in the movie. Sufficed to say, it's obvious he has some better chops than we believed. He has avoided judicious editing and cheap camera tricks. He composes his frames smartly and doesn't try to make a very somber and creepy film flashy. He sometimes relies too much on close-ups to convey messages but that is more indicative of current Hollywood than himself. Dante Spinotti's cinematography is marvelous and I think he may have had either a calming or maturing affect of Ratner's work. Either way, Ratner should work with him again as he has a profoundly good affect on his work.
Anthony Hopkins: They figured out the one thing that most of us got that the terror and horror of Hannibal Lecter is that fear of knowing what he is capable of and getting some- but not much- peace of mind that he is locked up. Hannibal was fun to see him running around free, but it lost the luster of seeing a deadly animal caged and wondering what would happen if he was free. I cannot still say whether that was lost because of Hannibal- that showing him free robbed us of the thrill of seeing him in polite society and hiding stealthily among people in Red Dragon's prologue. He handles himself well and demonstrates the upper-class elitism that is the anchor of his character. He thinks himself better, carries himself as better, and thus projects the air of superiority which allows him to suspend morality and do what he does. That said, after the prologue, I have beef- whether it is with Ted Tally's script, or Hopkins himself, I am unsure. I kept feeling as I watched that someone was trying to shoehorn Lecter into the movie. That his presence instead of a thrust for the story was more for the fact that "Hey look! We have Hannibal Lecter in the movie!". Only two things provided me genuine interest when Lecter was present and that was his banter with Will Graham (Ed Norton) about the case, and subtle winks at what was to come in regards to his behavior and what their end results would be (things played on in Silence and Hannibal). That said...I think Anthony phoned in half of this performance. If there is one weak link in the film, it's him, sadly. I think we got spoiled on too much of a good thing. Putting Lecter back in the cell and caging him restores vitality, but I just get the sensation that Hannibal- while fun in some respects- ruined a fundamental mystique of the character that cannot be regained and causes some chafing during Red Dragon
Ed Norton - someone on the AICN said it, and I agree at some points, that Ed just looks too young. I can concede that, but I provide the counter argument of - LOOK AT HIS EYES. Ed carries a degree of weight and sorrow in his eyes throughout much of the movie that conveyed his world-weariness more than lines on his face. He has three "Holy Shit" moments in the movie where he totally sells you and hard and you just sit there flabbergasted or just with a smile knowing you've seen something great. Especially in the final scene which I shall save till the end for comment due to spoilers.
Ralph Fiennes - Great as Francis. I will admit hear that contrary to most people, I disliked Manhunter. I felt it was a Miami Vice episode but darker and with a serial killer. To me the lure of the novel was always the conflict between the almost supernatural talent Will Graham has in seeing crimes and the mystical nature surrounding Francis Dolarhyde and the painting. When that was jettisoned in favor of a more linear story, it gained some parts but lost others- specifically the battle in Francis. Without the painting, the conflict, and the tattoo's he becomes far more ordinary and he is anything but. He is a brutally scarred and hurt boy who really never grew out of the pain and abuse he felt and is grasping at something- anything- to make him feel like a man. Fiennes does a phenomenal job combining the quivering child, and the brutal monster that child's fear created in Francis. He carries a mournful look and that is a stronger choice- to me- than just making Francis the Terminator. That said, I find that physically, Fiennes somewhat fails. Not that he does not look the part facially, but that body-wise, he falls short. In Manhunter, Tom Noonan gave a unique look to Francis Dolarhyde because of his tall, lanky frame and very unique face. Fiennes does the same to the face, but he is not nearly as tall. And not nearly as built as characters descriptions of him imply. Francis is supposed to be strong and very built muscularly, but Fiennes simply looks fit. Trim, nothing more. His arms nor physique imply nothing more than someone who jogs and does some pec flyes on occasion. Something that was apparent every time the marvelous tattoo job was shown off. Great tattoo, on a rather ho-hum physique diminished it. Simply put, it failed the character to be physically mediocre. Small gripe, the acting was there however in spades. Thanks to some help by
Emily Watson: My God, if anyone steals this movie for me, it is her. She does a magnificent job showing a woman who wants to be more than the "cripple" people see her as. She is a sexual woman, not trashy, but a woman with sexual desires and it kills her that the men around her only see her as a pity fuck at best. When Francis says "I have no pity", the audience laughs, but she hears it as the call of someone who has known pity and despises it as well. She can tell Francis had a speech impediment and believes him to be a physical oddity or a freak like herself. She just horribly miscalculates the degree his freakishness goes. Her presence and actions provide a physical tether for the last vestiges of Dolarhyde's human and fragile side to adhere to. She elevates the tragic nature of Fiennes' performance and deserves SERIOUS kudos for the work
The End Game: So, with all that said, how do the parts add up? To a surprisingly good and fun piece of work. As I watched the movie and I digested it afterwards, I realized that it is a good piece of above pulp-film level suspense. In that, it is better than a trashy mystery but not quite great art. And upon further inspection, I am starting to look at Silence of the Lambs in this manner- it was not the great film we thought it to be, but a well crafted piece of above average pulp-mystery that caught us off guard. I think to properly enjoy Hannibal and Red Dragon, we might need to step back from the pedestal Silence is on so we can enjoy it for what it is- a journey with a madman and the people he meets. The notion that Silence is so incredibly detracts from it at a point. It's greatest creation was in giving us a fully functioning, witty, clever, sophisticated and urbane serial killer/sociopath. That was it's unique creation, and it caught us off guard. Most likely, Hannibal Lecter was never meant to be more than a MacGuffin - something to propel the story forward without compromising too much internal logic. Just something to chew on.
Now for the spoilers. I disagree with the claim that the ending of Red Dragon is too much like a slasher film where the killer comes back from the dead one too many times. It was in the book, but I suppose it's no excuse for what could be seen as sloppy or convenient writing. But it serves a very specific purpose. That is the connection that Will Graham makes in those final moments with Francis Dolarhyde. He has spent his life understanding what killers were thinking and feeling in the heat of the moment during a crime. Their motivation. He was never given a doorway into those actions- the things that DROVE them to want what they did as they committed a crime. When he gets to read the diary of Francis, he is given a perspective he never possessed. When he dealt with Hannibal,he could always assume that Hannibal was simply insane. That only an insane man could perform such acts. But with Dolarhyde, he is confronted with the fact that this was a monster created, not born. And this is in conflict to everything he has felt about Dolarhyde and most likely every killer he has tracked. When he has to use that knowledge to save his son, it requires an act, and a way of thinking that compromises him and puts him in a place that only the killer has. He is no longer an observer but a participant and THAT to me is the crux of the scene and the importance of what takes place.
Plus, and this is a personal thing- It amuses me that the one to give the death blow to Francis is Will's wife. Ultimately, the mother protects the house, not the father. Have fun with that one Moriarity, heh heh heh.
Go, enjoy the film and don't try to make it Silence of the Lambs, it's not.
The Will Of Crom
Adam from Zboneman.com is next up this morning with what he describes as an "informative" review. Let's see if we agree...
Hi Harry,
This is Adam from Zboneman.com. I hope all is well. I loved your reports from the set of Kill Bill. I just got out of a screening of Red Dragon, and while I'm sure you've already been flooded with reviews, I thought I send you one anyway. Here it is.
Hannibal Lecter is back for the third time, or fourth if you've seen the previous adaptation of this same book, Michael Mann's under appreciated Manhunter. The truth is, I haven't read the Thomas Harris novel, but I have seen both movies, and I'm going to attempt to analyze some of the differences.
Lecter is more of a supporting character in this prequel to Silence of the Lambs. Red Dragon's focal point is Will Graham (Edward Norton), an FBI agent whose big claim to fame was catching the infamous Lecter. Graham is now involved in a horrific case that involves a twisted murderer (Ralph Fiennes) who corresponds with a locked-up Hannibal. Graham's talents prove to be unmatched as he has an uncanny ability to piece together homicides and determine motivation by simply observing the sight of the murder.
Perhaps the most peculiar aspect of Red Dragon is director Brett Ratner. I never would have guessed that the maker of Family Man and the Rush Hour movies would be capable of this. But then, that's probably the whole point. Ratner isn't interested in being pigeon holed to a specific genre. His take on Red Dragon is reportedly more faithful to the novel, but Ratner doesn't seem quite as confident as Michael Mann. Manhunter has a distinct feel from beginning to end. It's more of a gritty crime thriller while Ratner tries to go for a darker tone, putting Red Dragon in the same sort of league as it's two film sequels. This isn't to say that Ratner isn't talented. This movie has some striking images and a sick and twisted sense of humor, but there are moments that aren't quite up to snuff. For instance, the first scene in which Graham is investigating a murder sight, doesn't quite come across as intense as it should be, whereas Mann has a mightier grip on the audience. In Manhunter, there's more of an emphasis on Graham's talent, making the character all the more intriguing. Still Red Dragon is an accomplished work for Ratner.
I think much of what does work here should also be credited to screenwriter Ted Tally (who also adapted Silence of the Lambs). He seems to be keen on deepening many of this picture's characterizations, most notably madman Francis Dolarhyde and blind beauty Reba McClane. Red Dragon also feels moodier then Manhunter. Tally's biggest contribution, however, is the extension of Lecter's character. He's fully aware that this is a big part of the draw, but he also has the good sense to know that Red Dragon isn't about Lecter. Thankfully, Hannibal is perfectly utilized in this film. I also like some of the liberties that Tally has taken from the original source. He actually improves upon some elements of the story. The opening moments of Red Dragon (including Lecter's capture) are very effective and his touch of humor is very welcome. Also, his added final scene serves as an amusing link to Silence of the Lambs. Michael Mann's screenplay for Manhunter was certainly interesting, but let's face it. That movie was more about visual style, and Mann the director definitely supplied that.
I'd also like to mention Danny Eflman's score which will certainly be discussed amongst music fans everywhere. While I enjoyed this obvious homage to the works of Bernard Herrman, I found it to be intrusive at times. There is one moment in particular in which the score didn't add to the scene, it pretty much dictated it. For the most part, however, this is one of Elfman's better scores in quite some time.
The performances in Red Dragon range from decent to impressive. Norton never quite finds his footing as Graham. Don't get me wrong, I think this guy is a fabulous actor, but I never really bought him in this role. William Petersen fared much better, bringing a more fierce take on Graham. Norton by contrast, seems a little too wide eyed, and squeamish. While it could be argued that this makes the character more human, I prefer Petersen's darker, less vulnerable spin on the role.
Feinnes is fantastic as Francis, lending creepiness and genuine sympathy to this disturbed individual. Tom Noonan was equally effective in Manhunter, but he had a creepy look to begin with, making is seem like an easier transformation. Fiennes is extremely talented but quite often he's labeled a pretty boy. Here, he's dug deep to bring this severely scarred man to life. It also helps that Tally and Ratner have added more background so that the audience has more information into how this guy has become who he is.
Emily Watson is superb as Reba, a blind woman who finds herself drawn to Francis. Her blank stare is extremely effective, but it is her sense of vulnerability that makes the character really believable. Joan Allen was also fantastic in Manhunter, making both actresses near perfect in the role. I'd be hard pressed to pick one over the other, although Watson is allowed to develop more thanks to lengthier screen time.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is a riot as sleazy tabloid journalist Freddy Lounds. His eccentricities make him stand out. Stephen Lang plays the role in Manhunter and as crazy as he usually is, he seemed to be holding back a bit. Hoffman is so interesting as a performer, that his rather tiny role becomes memorable.
And of course we have the dependable Anthony Hopkins, once again slipping into the role of one of the screen's most beloved maniacs, the suave and intellectual Hannibal Lecter. While Lecter is a mere supporting player in Red Dragon, Hopkins' bigger than life portrayal of this sometimes hilarious and always chilling character makes it appear that he has more screen time than he actually does. Brian Cox played Hannibal in Manhunter but he was a lot more low key. Of course, he really wasn't in the film as much so there was very little opportunity for him to shine. He has since gone on the give terrific performances in many other films. The fact that Hopkins has made this character his own, is a big reason that this movie was made at all.
The previous mentioned are the most noteworthy of the performances although there are other big names in Red Dragon that don't really stand out. Harvey Keitel shows up as Jack Crawford (a role played by Dennis Farina in Manhunter and Scott Glenn in Silence of the Lambs). While there's nothing particularly wrong with him, he just seems to be coasting through this. It isn't really a relevant character. The worst turn comes from Mary-Louise Parker as Graham's wife Molly (played by Kim Greist in Manhunter). I didn't find her convincing at all which is disappointing because she is a talented actress.
Red Dragon is a solid movie. It's very well put together and works in a satisfying way. Certainly, Ratner proves that he is capable of much more then obvious, buddy comedies (even if it does look like Rush Hour 3 will probably be his next film). As for this apparent Superman movie, I can only hope that it won¹t be as bad as the screenplay that Moriarty got his hands on, suggests. The idea of anyone re-imagining Superman makes me want to cringe. Still, I look forward to Ratner taking more chances like this.
As for which I like better, Manhunter or Red Dragon, I choose both. I mean it's like comparing apples and oranges. Which version of The Thing is best? Hawkes' or Carpenter's? Which version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is best? Siegel's or Kaufman's. In the case of Manhunter and Red Dragon, I think their both terrific films for different reasons. Go check them both out.
Adam Out!
P.S. Butt-Numb-A-Thon 4 is going to kick ass!
He's right about Butt-Numb-A-Thon 4. The plans for this year continue apace, and I think it's going to be a wild ride for all those fortunate enough to attend. Someone was crying about Harry's "Willy Wonka" tactics the other day, and this year, more than ever, that comparison seems apt.
As far as Ratner and SUPERMAN are concerned, I had my say. Anyone who wants to know what I thought of the draft I read can still find my review right here. Pleast take note, though, that I have always said it was a reaction to a draft. That specific draft. The end of the review is me urging all involved to do better, to make something worth seeing. There's a long way to go until the film shoots, so anyone drawing lines in the sand right now is jumping the gun a bit. We wanted to send a message to Warner Bros., right? Well, message sent. Everything that's happened since proves one thing: Warner Bros. heard the overwhelming roar of disapproval from fandom, and they are reacting. How they react is still to be seen. I know this much... Ratner's got a job ahead of him that I don't envy anyone, and he's going to have to rise to the occasion and be a better filmmaker than he's ever been before if he wants to make something truly epic and inspiring.
I think that, more than anything, people are curious to see what Ratner's done here to see if there's any sign of what it's going to take to get that job done. Here's Ohtar with his take on things:
Hi Harry
Just got back from a screening of Red Dragon and I thought I'd send you my review. I'll try not to hit on anything that has been covered extensively in previous reviews. The theatre I saw it in ran the new TTT preview (did you know it had the Requiem for a Dream theme in it? I kid.) I've never seen an audience respond to a trailer like that before. The second Legolas and Aragorn appeared the place went nuts – and then real quiet so everything could be heard. At the end there was a 5 sec silence and then the applause and cheering lasted far into the next preview. We're living in some incredible times boys and girls. Anyway… I went into Red Dragon with a lot of dread and a little hope. Dread of self-parody and franchise cashing in. Dread that the lines of the book would be stumbled over and that the elements of the plot would be trimmed so far as to lose their finesse. Hope that the best of these would be preserved, and the remainder would be handled professionally. I got both. I'm going to be writing as a fan of the book who's comparing film to novel but I'm making an effort to be impartial and rate the film on film terms.
Non Spoiler Review
Red Dragon is a taut and well acted thriller, full of good acting and well executed suspense. If you want to see it only for Hannibal you may be disappointed – he only has five or six scenes and is not a central character. Hopkins still has that sly Hannibal charm that you have to love but he tends to play his scenes a little more angry and physical (I read that this is to communicate that he's upset at being caught). He also tends to roll his words out of his mouth with more languid ferocity than you may be used to. Is this self parody or an interpretation of character? He is still very much Hannibal though and hard to really dislike. As Will Grahm Edward Norton does an adequate job. It's nothing that will be praised highly but he's in there, he's professional and he looks haggard. I believed his character all the way through but it's not flashy. I wish I could say more. Norton is one of my favorite actors but there is not a whole lot to do with what he's been given; the fear that he is also a monster like those he's trying to hunt down is touched on in one early scene, but is never given a place at center stage. He's the good guy who is getting burned out dealing with all these insane people and trying to get into their heads. The real jewel in this movie is Ralph Fienes. He nails the duality of Dolarhyde and makes you feel real pity and real fear. There's not a moment in the movie when I didn't totally believe him. The expression on his face in his moments of reluctance and domination are enough to convince you completely. His performance makes Red Dragon into a very good movie when it could have been a better than average one. As for the rest, the supporting cast punches in and punches out, even Keitel is just there as part of the background and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Lounds doesn't quite play it slimy enough to make you think he's really trying hard. The action set pieces are visceral and tense, and the set design is exactly what it needs to be. As a scary movie it succeeds. Often movies aren't scary anymore; because there's only so many ways to have a guy in the house with a knife, but Red Dragon has a few tricks that will remind you that sometimes movies can be original (even if they are based on a book). You will get chills, you will gasp and you will see a few things you've never seen before. Bottom line: see the movie, it's worth your time but it won't fulfill all your fantasies.
A Few Thoughts
To Fans of Manhunter: if you're boycotting this flick I can see why. Red Dragon would doubtless never have been made if it weren't for the success of Silence of the Lambs and to a lesser degree Hannibal (by the way why do people hate it so much? I've seen much worse movies in my day.) There are many similarities between Manhunter and Red Dragon - during a few parts I had to shake my head to remind myself that it wasn't a William Petersen as Grahm saying in the same intonation : "didn't you you son of a bitch" And of course there's no way anybody could top Mann's incredible visuals. Still although I enjoy Brian Cox, Hopkins is Lecter and there's just too much association to break. Anyway can't we all get along? The two were made from the same source material, just different interpretations; Manhunter focused on the cop, Red Dragon focuses on the bad guy.
To Thomas Harris Fans: Well this is a more faithfull interpretation than Manhunter certainly, but the thing that still gets to me is the end. In the book Harris completely fooled me. i was sinking nicely into the denoument, really thinking that everything was going to be allright. And all of a sudden there was Dollarhyde not dead at all and trying to kill a family again. Wouldn't it have been great if the movie could accomplish the same thing? That's why I wanted to see it in the first place. Imagine it: two minutes before the end if the movie, the audience is relaxing, yeah we've seen this before, this is how all these movies end, and then bang Dollarhyde is right there with a knife. Oh well they got a lot more right. In one early scene Grahm walks into the victim's house, closes the door, closes his eyes and then when he opens them, he's put on his serial killer persona. Right there I knew this would be good. Just with a look Norton communicates a shift of mind into that of a maniac. he looks around. cool as hell abd knowing that all the little lives in the house belong to him. Other than the ending and the gradual phasing out of Grahm's dark side worries, I can't think of a single glaring ommision in the storyline. The story works well, and it;s a long movie so you feel time passing. Harris fans should be excited to see this I think, but you probably don't need me to tell you.
Call Me Ohtar
This next guy's got the single filthiest nickname goin', so I'll let him introduce himself:
Been a fan of your site for a long time. Tonight, I had the pleasure of attending the free screening of RED DRAGON at UW-Madison. Since I have been a big fan of both Silence and Hannibal, I was excited, yet somewhat nervous. I had no confidence in Brett Ratner since I have never really seen direct anything as serious a subject matter as this. I'm glad to see I was pleasantly surprised. Of course the film opens up with Hannibal, as we all expected it to. By now, Hannibal has become almost a Pepsi-like advertisement, like those horrible quotes from Jerry Maguire that you've become all too used to. Anthony Hopkins does put up a strong performance and he should be commended for having been able to be a proper Hannibal for all three movies. The greatest performance goes to Ralph Fiennes by far hoever. His Dollarhyde made me shiver just thinking about him. Even his sidestory with Emily Watson was well-orchestrated where it didn't make you sympathize with Dollarhyde too much, yet at the same time almost made you wish things could have been different with him. All in all.............this is a movie to go see, right NOW.
Just call me Dirty Sanchez
This next reviewer calls himself Dude On The Lamb. He's got his own opinion, though, and ain't no sheep...
You've probably gotten a shit load of reviews for 'Red Dragon' that it's probably making you sick to your stomach. Well I'm here to add to the indigestion so to speak....
I saw 'Red Dragon' tonight with roughly 750+ individuals and they were a rowdy bunch of people whom I've guessed haven't seen anything by Hitchcock or any of the greats. I should also start out by saying I don't recall ever watching 'Silence of the Lambs' and I haven't seen 'Hannibal' (because I think Scott is a better Art Director than Movie Director) so I'm a newbie to this whole entire Hannibal series. And boy was I a bit disappointed, don't get me wrong, there were some powerful moments between Ed Norton's character and Hannibal. But more often than not, those moments were ruined by moments of laughter from the audience that, from what I could tell was intended. I thought this movie was a thriller not a comedy. And Ralph Fiennes' character Red Dragon was played very well, very, very well. I loved the whole struggle between being this killer and wanting to be good a disease caused by Emily Watson's blind character who's a bit odd (fondling *spoiler* tiger nuts is a no no in my book *end spoiler*).
The opening scene of the film was superb and so was the ending, spectacular moments in film, simply the best. But what gets to me is that it wasn't scary, I didn't jump not once throughout the film. My female friends refused to watch the movie with me because they thought they'd be too afraid afterwards (granted 'The Sixth Sense' scared them). I never found Hannibal to be a threat at all, and Red Dragon (although a decent enemy) never really seemed like much of a threat until the very last few scenes in the movie. Let me reiterate this one point again, this movie (I stupidly thought) was supposed to be a thriller and not a comedy. I think Brett Ratner could possibly pull this material off if he would have realized that there were too many "witty" moments in the film which offsets the "thriller" portion a bit. I mean there is a moment in the film where you know this character is going to die, but by what means, at what point, why are all the questions that come into mind. And as the character is tortured the audience laughs at his facial expression instead of being terrorized about the events to come....that bothers me to no end.
Other than those minor grievances that I have, the film was good. It makes me interested in taking a look at the other films to see the evolution of Hannibal Lecter. On a side note, they did a fantastic job at making Anthony Hopkins look much, much younger than he actually really looks.
Dude on the Lamb
They're showing this to a lot of college students, seems like. Here's one who's written in before:
Hey Harry,
This is spectrumefp. I wrote to you a while ago about John Singleton's possible future projects, which of course turned out to be wrong ("Fast and the Furious 2" seemed to come out of nowhere, didn't it?) Anyway, I and 490 other UGA students had the pleasure of seeing a sneak preview of "Red Dragon." Considering it opens nationwide in four days, I'm presuming this was a final print. Before I get into my review I feel I should give you my opinions on the previous Harris adaptations and Brett Ratner.
I am not a big fan of "Silence of the Lambs." It is a very effective thriller and I like it, but I feel it is way overrated. But, hey, any movie that puts Ted Levine to good use is all right by me. As for Hannibal, well… Ridley Scott is one of my favorite directors ("Black Hawk Down" is a technical masterpiece), but "Hannibal" totally blew. It was all style and no substance. Ridley disappointed me big time. I haven't seen "Manhunter," and I'm sure my review of "Red Dragon" would be different if I had.
As for Ratner, I - like the rest of the world - said, "What the fuck?!?!?!" when it was announced he would direct "Red Dragon." I laughed for a minute, thought it was a joke, then realized it was real and screamed again. How does someone go from "Money Talks" to "Red Dragon"? "Rush Hour" was funny, "The Family Man" was (to quote Jack Black) "sentimental, tacky crap," and "Rush Hour 2" was horrible. Chris Tucker never shut the fuck up, and they used blue screen on Jackie!!! Ratner deserved to burn in hell for that. With that in mind I walked into "Red Dragon" with low expectations.
There were two groups of people concerning "Red Dragon": those who wanted to see Ratner succeed, proving he can do better, and those who wanted to see him fail and return to the crap he does best. As you can probably tell I was part of the latter. After tonight, well, my opinion has changed. Ratner has succeeded.
"Red Dragon" is by no means a perfect film. It adheres to many of the standard suspense movie clichés, most notably giving one of the characters a physical impairment, which of course will be used prominently (see also "Diabolique," "Signs," etc.) and my personal candidate for most annoying cliché: having a long take filled with silence then all of a sudden the screen flashes with horrible imagery and a musical note blares from the speakers. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll know it when it happens. I could name some other ones, but that would spoil things. Otherwise, the film is pretty solid.
Acting wise this is the Norton/Fiennes show. They are on the screen the most and sadly, everyone else has just a glorified cameo. The film is basically about the lives of Graham and Dolarhyde, and everyone else in the movie just happens to be a part of theirs. Anthony Hopkins is great (as usual) as Hannibal, and Emily Watson is adorable as the blind girl who comes into Dolarhyde's life. Norton is good in his role, yet he seems to be a bit wussy for the role. Like I said, I haven't seen "Manhunter," but I'm sure William Peterson was much more commanding. On the other hand, Ralph Fiennes was, to put it bluntly, fucking amazing. He owns the movie. If he does not get an Oscar nomination for this I will continue my ongoing ritual of asking the Academy where they get their crack. Fiennes is truly terrifying. This may be his best role to date.
The film is nicely paced, if a little slow in the beginning. Overall, this is a solid movie. Then again, with people like Ted Tally, Dante Spinotti, and the amazing cast all working at their best it was kind of hard for Ratner to fuck up (I'm using that as an excuse, this movie may turn out to be a fluke). Now all we have to do is wait and see what he does with the Superman franchise.
***1/2 out of ****
El Tamburo is another college student, and he seems to be a big damn fan of what he saw:
Hey Harry,
I have worshiped your site since the dawn of time and now i feel priviliged to actually send you something of substance. Tonight, 300 students of Vanderbilt University were treated to an advance screening of "Red Dragon." I was one of those lucky souls, and let me tell you:
This movie is gonna be big.
I mean real big. The rumors that you have heard about this movie being the real deal are true. I think we are going to realize the first ever October release to reach the 200 million dollar plateau. But, maybe instead of predicting the monitary future of this film (which I am sure Universal has done), allow me to actually comment on the film.
Everybody knows the story and everybody is familiar with the characters. Let me just say that the cast on the screen is even more impressive than it looks on paper. Everytime Sir Anthony is on the screen, I get chills down my spine; they are mulitplied ten fold when he is interacting with Will Graham(Ed Norton). Ted Tally does just as great a job with this movie as he did with Silence of the Lambs. Now, granted, he probably won't receive quite the same accolades that he did 11 years ago, but he keeps the tension high. The dialogue is great, and all of the actors are just pitch perfect. (Special Honorable Mention to the lovely Emily Watson, I can't wait for Punch-Drunk Love!)
Of course, the big quesiton going into this movie was the ability of Brett Ratner. He's famous for the Rush Hour's and in my opinion flopped with The Family Man. But, Superman fans fear not, Brett has matured. He creates a stunning visual pallet, uses the camera in a marvelous way and gets nothing but the best out of all of his actors. He keeps the tension level high, but is also able to make the audience chuckle just a bit. (Although a few of the chuckles are very...dare I say...Hannibal-esque) I just can't say enough about the job that Ratner does. Rattner's work in Red Dragon makes the Hannibal Lector series much, much stronger. In my mind, this movie kicks the ass of both Ridley Scott's "Hannibal" and Michael Mann's "Manhunter." Nothing will ever be as good as SOTL, but Rattner does come close. Seeing Red Dragon actually makes me excited to see Superman, even with all of the crap that is in the script.
Man, oh man, Harry this is one hell of a fun movie. I can't wait to see it again.
For the sake of anonimity, call me El Tamburo
Fabfunk sent us what he (probably accurately) called the "MILLIONTH" review of RED DRAGON, and here it is:
Hey fellas,
I know you've received about a million RED DRAGON reviews, and I am chiming in with one more.
What I've noticed is that most early reviews have praised the flick. The truth is, it's been designed to be a real crowd pleaser, to put butts in seats, and aside from a few creepy scenes, its less cerebral than SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and less perverse than HANNIBAL. It's perfect for the slow-witted, gore loving American public.
RED DRAGON is garbage. Pure genre garbage. Its got several bloody jolts, a few limp gags, a goofy villain and a problem with tone. Its got several visceral, aesthetic pleasures, but is instantly forgettable. Not nearly as intelligent or frightening as SILENCE or as funny as HANNIBAL, DRAGON is a goofball flick with nowhere to go.
I hate to take another shot at aintitcool's thrird fave punching bag the past few weeks (1. JJ Abrams, 2. Jon Peters), but Brett Ratner's direction is uninspired. He possesses neither a deft touch with actors that Johnathan Demme does, nor does he possess the ornate skill of enhancing detail like Ridley Scott. In this flick, his shortcomings are magnified to the nth degree. he is poor with transition shots, he has shit skill in showing time passing. Not to compare again, but its a noted observation in how he shoots the many killings. While Demme made sure to hide some of the murders, displaying victims in artistic fashion, Scott enjoyed embellishing the deaths, shoving them in our face, acknowledging our perverse thrill in seeing gore. Ratner displays no such talent. His killings are lackadasically thrown about, messy squibs and all. It is a perfect example of his artless, messy direction.
RED DRAGON does, in some parts, come alive. The scenes with Ralph Finnes and Emily Watson are fantastic, and ever so uncomfortably romantic. And Anthony Hopkins is at his campy best. But otherwise, RED DRAGON is certainly worth skipping.
I am fabfunk, and I have spoken.
Thanks, everybody.


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I was requested to give the whole of this poem of mine
This is absolutely excellent!
so touching
Amazing. .
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text: The bribery trial of Circuit Court Judge Richard LeFevour was postponed Tuesday by a federal judge for at least two weeks and possibly longer after LeFevour testified that medication he is taking for a liver and spleen ailment leaves him too drowsy to spend extensive time with his lawyers preparing his defense. U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle, who had previously refused to delay the March 25 trial, relented after LeFevour`s testimony. LeFevour is accused of accepting $25,000 in bribes to fix drunken driving cases and parking tickets.