Movies If you have an opinion or would like to contribute, email and contact us. Exit Wounds Steven Seagal rules. As a true and loyal fan is expected to do, I went and saw an early showing of Exit Wounds Friday...and its easily my early choice for movie of the year. As far as I'm concerned, the man can do no wrong, and I like even his "bad" movies to a certain extent. As usual, Seagal kicks ass throughout the entire movie. Every move breaks bones and snaps necks. The action was great, the sound was awesome, and you could tell there was a great cast and high production values with a decent story. Some other bad-assed people in this movie were Bill Duke (Predator) and Michael Jai White (Spawn). Tom Arnold like in True Lies is hilarious, as is Anthony Anderson (the fat black dude from Romeo Must Die & Big Momma's House). Even if he does a movie that isn't great, Seagal always provides the best, brutal, and most memorable fight scenes. However, Exit Wounds tops the list of his great films like Above the Law, Under Siege, Under Siege 2, and his 30 minutes of Executive Decision (I'll always remember being surprised that he was in it and even more surprised when he got sucked out of the plane to his death). This is definitely a movie that deserves the full theater experience. It will provide constant, intense, and well shot action, brutal violence, and a lot of humor...and Steve never breaks out a guitar to pick a country tune. This movie delivers on every level and Seagal more than lives beyond anyone's expectations. Also make sure to visit Seagal's official website... Hannibal Hannibal was a miserable experience. I am convinced that the book had to have been one-thousand times better. On the strength of Silence of the lambs, it had a 58 million dollar opening weekend. If you want to go see it, don't read this. But I really don't care if I ruin it for anyone because as I said the other day, this sucked the big hairy dirty-old wrinkled beanbag. I had high expectations going into this movie knowing that Anthony Hopkins was playing Hannibal, and that Ridley Scott (Alien & Gladiator) had directed this. I saw flashes of brilliance in the beginning when there is a cool fire fight and car wreck where Julianne Moore ends up shooting a woman who is using a baby as a shield while taking shots from a mac-10 in the stomach of her bulletproof vest. The action of this initial FBI sting is filmed in the same distinct technique that the battles in Gladiator were filmed...I won't get into the technicals of it but it is similar to the way the Normandy battle footage is filmed in the beginning of Saving Private Ryan (another load of crap). This visual style pops up only one other time in the movie, when she's jogging but for only one cut, a shot of her legs??? It was confusing and I can only assume it was a mistake. Anyways, the operation went poorly and she is under intense scrutiny by both the FBI and the media...The thing is, she tried to call off the bust that was a joint operation of the FBI, DEA, and local agencies. One of the local yokels didn't want to stand down and forced them to go ahead (even though she...the ranking officer...said "no go") and paid for it with his life. What's really stupid is that everyone there heard what I did that she wanted to hold off and that this ass forced their hand by engaging in a firefight. Why then was it her fault? Why was she getting heat from the FBI and the national press??? Didn't anyone corroborate her story? It doesn't make sense. But this was where they needed to go with the movie because only Clarise in trouble could bring Hannibal out of hiding. We see Hannibal living life in Italy. He's careful enough to not even leave fingerprints on glasses he drinks from at outdoor cafes while at the same time flagrantly risks discovery by killing a person in order to obtain their position at the library/museum. Stupid. Gary Oldman wastes a performance under a mask of latex as the hideously deformed Mason Verger who under the influence of drugs, was mindfucked by Hannibal in the early days into butchering up his own face...pieces of which Hannibal fed to Verger's dog. Verger obviously has an axe to grind and has been planning revenge for over a decade. Verger manipulates a corrupt Ray Liotta into planting evidence to get Clarice suspended from the FBI...hoping this public distress will lure Hannibal. It does. However its another flimsy and unbelievable way of getting it done. Hannibal returns to the states where he engages in a cat and mouse game with Clarice. Verger's people are hunting Hannibal by simply following Clarice. Several scenes follow which I guess are meant to put some suspense in the story. Once, Hannibal comes to Clarice's hose while she's sleeping and gets close enough to touch her. He leaves a photo of her to let her know he was there and then makes her drive to some mall where he again gets close enough to touch her (the carousel shot from the trailer). There was no suspense in the entire movie...Especially when Hannibal was close enough to touch Clarice without her knowing, I never felt like she was in any real danger. Subsequently, Verger abducts Hannibal at that mall and plans to feed him to large hogs that he has had raised to be carnivorous and seemingly rabid. Obviously, Hannibal escapes but not without the help of Agent Starling (the movie has totally lost me at this point with nonsense like this). Hannibal, one of the most dangerous men on the planet, is being guarded by 3 Italian monkeys who get shot by Clarice but not before Starling herself is shot. As the tide turns, and with Clarice unconscious, Hannibal convinces Verger's assistant to dump his wheelchair-ridden body to the meat eating pigs. Now, wouldn't it have been more interesting, or effective, or just plain ironic if instead of having Verger's assistant dump him into the corral, the assistant ran off leaving Verger at Lecter's mercy. Where, to mirror the earlier nonsense of him feeding pieces of Oldman's face to the dog, he carves him up bit by bit and feeds him to the hogs slowly enjoying every moment of it. Maybe even making a deja-vu/seems like old times joke. Well, he takes Clarice to Ray Liotta's summer house in the middle of nowhere (so it takes at least 10 minutes for the police to get there in response to her 911 call) where he keeps her drugged. She wakes up in a black gown that shows off her little knockers...way too feminine for that original lezzbo, Jodi Foster. She manages in a drugged haze to make a call to 911. I couldn't figure out Hannibal's game here. He had pulled the phone wire from the wall and Clarice somehow got it rewired. He sees on the phone in the kitchen that she made a call. Why work under time constraints? Obviously, he wanted her to make the call, but what I don't understand is why. He now only has 10 minutes to cook and eat Ray Liotta's brain...OOPS, gave that away too early. Still hazy from the drugs, She sits at the table where Liotta also sits. He is awake and talking, but definitely not all together "with it". However, even partially lobotomized, he does insult Moore fairly well. Anyway, Lecter pulls off Liotta's knit cap to reveal that his head has been sliced in two horizontally across his forehead. This confused me, Hannibal picks up a blade and begins to cut along the apparent incision and proceeds to lift the skull off revealing his brain. Obviously, the skull was already cut with the bonesaw in the kitchen, but then why did they show us Hannibal cutting him again? Stupid. Liotta is still awake while Lecter cuts slices of brain off, fries them, and then feeds them to Liotta. Its a ridiculous sight, and tihs movie is more like a Freddy slasher movie at this point than the psychological thriller the first one was. We never once see Hannibal mindfuck anyone in this movie except for Oldman's character in a fashback that happened before Silence of the lambs. Showing that much gore for the sake of some kind of visual shock is less effective than doing this more subtly. We don't need to see his exposed brain. Hannibal is cooking something mysterious, we see the cap STAY ON Ray Liotta's head...with maybe one drop of blood beginning to run down his face. Hannibal feeds him a bite of the mystery food, and then we cut to what is obviously cooked brain on Liotta's plate...It would get a much bigger surprise and reaction from the viewer at that revelation shot, and trust me, be just as disgusting without the blatant gory visual that is a little out of place...for its sheer silliness. At least my version hold some suspense. Is this meant to shock Clarice who has seen every forensic photo of Hannibal's equally repugnant past deeds? Ray Liotta is such a prick to her throughout the movie that its almost hard to imagine her feeling any real compassion or pity toward him (I don't). Maybe have him a close friend of hers so we don't feel like he deserves it. Let's get this over with, Clarice handcuffs herself to Lecter and we see Lecter with a cleaver ready to cut her hand off. The police arrive and we realize Hannibal cut his own hand off and got away... ...The most wanted man in america, #1 on the FBI top 10, a news story on and off for the last 15-20 years actually gets on a plane with his arm (missing a hand) in a sling and doesn't get recognized by anyone...THE END Julianne Moore is a fine replacement for Jodi Foster and gives a convincing performance where you forget that it wasn't her in Silence of the Lambs. However, Foster saw beyond the dollar signs and refused to act in a sequel that had a very substandard script. If "Sir" Anthony Hopkins had that same integrity, this movie would not have been made without some badly needed changes. Memento I saw one of the best movies last Friday. Its called Memento, and it stars Guy Pearce, Joe Pantoliano (he's gold in my book), and Carrie-Anne Moss. Imagine having an accident where you can no longer create short-term memories. You can remember everything up to the point of the incident, but you can't create a single new memory. After 5 or 10 minutes, you may forget why you're somewhere, what you were doing, who you're talking to, what your conversation is about, etc.. Now, with that condition, try and catch the man who raped and murdered your wife. I really can't begin to tell you about it without ruining the story or rambling forever... Read the review at IMDB. Or visit the kick-ass flash WEBSITE and see if that sparks your interest.