Anthony Hopkins’ signature role will always be that of Hannibal Lecter in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, a performance which nabbed him his first Oscar. There was definitely some category fraud going on there, as he should have won for Best Supporting Actor (sorry, Jack Palance!), but the way Hopkins plays him cast such a mood over the entire film that we believe he has more than just 16 minutes of screen time. Now more than 30 years – and another Best Actor Oscar – later, Hopkins admits that he knew right away that Hannibal the cannibal was one of the best parts he had ever read.

Speaking with People, Hopkins recalled his agent telling him about a script called The Silence of the Lambs, which already had Jodie Foster attached. Initially Hopkins thought it was a children’s story, which must have been well before opening the pages (although there is a cute dog). “So I opened it. I sat in the dressing room in the theater, and I read through the first scene of Lecter. I said, ‘Is this an offer?’ He said, ‘I’m not sure.’ I said, ‘I’m not going to read anymore, because this is one of the best parts I’ve ever read.’”

Hopkins would go on to say that he met with The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme over dinner (fava beans and Chianti?). “So we talked, but I knew how to play the part…And I don’t know. I do have an instinct about these roles. I could understand Lecter. I could understand the mystery of the man, the loner, the isolated voice in the dark, the man at the top of the stairs who’s not really there.”

The Silence of the Lambs would dominate pop culture in 1991. It would go on to win five Academy Awards and is still one of the few horror films to be nominated for Best Picture, remaining today the only winner. This is especially surprising considering it had a February release (although its October VHS push would help). In addition to Hopkins and the movie winning, Foster took Best Actress, Demme nabbed Best Director and the screenplay scored in the adapted category; it is still the most recent film to win the Big Five.

As for Hannibal Lecter himself, he has also notably been played by Brian Cox and Mads Mikkelsen. But Hopkins’ performance in The Silence of the Lambs, so calculated and precise (but yes, he does blink), remains one of the most riveting in motion picture history.

Hopkins also revealed he is writing an autobiography.

Where does Hannibal Lecter rank in your list of greatest movie characters ever? Has Hopkins ever topped this performance? Let us know your thoughts below.

The post Anthony Hopkins remembers Hannibal Lecter as one of his best roles ever appeared first on JoBlo.

PLOT: A year in the life of a family of Sasquatch, as they forage for food, hook up, and narrowly avoid civilization.

REVIEW: Sasquatch Sunset is unique; I’ll give it that. David and Nathan Zellner’s film has two big stars in the leads – Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough – but covers them in enough prosthetics to make them completely unrecognizable. The film doesn’t contain a single line of dialogue. Indeed, the whole movie is in grunts and yells because…well… they’re Sasquatch! 

While some may find the very idea of this movie tedious, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Sasquatch Sunset. The Zellner Brothers have a unique voice, as depicted in Damsel and Kumiko the Treasure Hunter. It’s weird to say that a movie with no dialogue or humans could actually be considered their most accessible movie to date – but it’s true. This movie is surprisingly cute and ends before the premise wears out its welcome.

In it, we follow a Sasquatch family consisting of two males (Nathan Zellner and Jesse Eisenberg), a female (Riley Keough) and a child (Christoph Zajek-Denek). Zellner plays the older, more dominant male, albeit the one that’s less favoured by the female both male Sasquatch want to be with. It’s never really clear who the father of Zajek-Denek’s character is. It takes place over a year, as the family roams the Pacific Northwest and narrowly avoids civilization. As the film goes on, nature and the unpredictable hand of fate prove to be their greatest adversary, as the power dynamics constantly shift as tragedy strikes.

The entire cast is heavily buried under prosthetics, which are so good that I honestly couldn’t tell apart Zellner and Eisenberg’s characters until about twenty minutes into the film. It’s a lot funnier than the premise suggests, with the mating rituals, random aggression and near-misses with civilization being quite amusing. But the film also gets downright tragic at times, with a standout scene involving a log in a dam that’s highly reminiscent of a classic sequence from the Paul Newman movie Sometimes a Great Notion. 

The film also has a surreal, evocative score by The Octopus Project, which pays homage to one of the Zellner Bros chief inspirations, the old Leonard Nimoy “In Search of” conspiracy theory show – where Bigfoot was a favorite topic.

It’s hard to rate the movie’s performances, but I’ll say this – both Keough and Eisenberg are fearless. Keough especially has a scene where she takes a dump in the middle of the road which eschews any sense of vanity she might have as an actress. Physically, everyone involved delivers excellent performances, although for many viewers this might come off as a one-joke premise stretched too far. 

It’ll be interesting to see how Sasquatch Sunset is received when it comes out via Bleeker Street this April. It’s certainly too odd of a movie to ever connect with a mainstream audience, but if you have a tolerance for things that are “out there” you might actually find that you have a good time with this tale of the Bigfoot. 

Sundance

GOOD

7

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Numbers have finally come in for this weekend and much like we said in our Thursday predictions, this weeks top five will be a repeat of last weeks champs. That leaves Mean Girls coming in first place with what is looking like an $11 million weekend, representing a drop in the 60% range which makes sense when you consider the films so-so audience score (currently at a 66%). Luckily many studios backed off this weekend due to the NFL playoffs and Mean Girls seems to reap the benefits of a smart counter-programming move.

That brings the Jason Statham starring The Beekeeper to continue being a bridesmaid with what is looking to be around an $8.5 million weekend, which would represent a drop just shy of 50% which is actually really good when you consider the state of adult oriented action films in the past few years. It seems that 94% audience score is helping sell some tickets to this “fun time at the movies” as our own Tyler Nichols called it in his 7/10 review.

Wonka continues its stellar run with what is looking like an additional $6-$7 million added to its nearly $190 million domestic run while the R rated comedy Anyone But You continues to ride a wave of great word of mouth to land in fourth place with a projected weekend between $5-$6 million. Having seen this one just last week, I can say I am quite happy this one has found an audience. It doesn’t set out to be anything ground breaking, just a solid R rated comedy that is fairly predictable yet endlessly enjoyable. Rounding out the top five will be the animated birds of Migration with a little over $5 million as families continue to embrace the Kumail Nanjiani/ Elizabeth Banks/ Danny DeVito/ Keegan-Michael Key voiced film. 

Sadly, it was no laughing matter for Ariana DeBose this weekend as her I.S.S has crashed and burned with a weekend looking to be just around $3 million. The writing seemed to be on the wall with this one as Tyler Nichols gave it a 5/10 in his review and audiences have slapped it with a horrible C- cineimscore. I saw this one on Thursday and while I cant say I out and out hated it, I will say that the first half is far better than the second half. At a certain point it did seem the writers realized they didn’t have enough to sustain a full movie, despite their great premise, and resorted to a bunch of space movie cliche’s that, for me, just didn’t work. This one will likely be forgotten about in a few weeks time. It is a shame too, because the director’s last film, 2019’s Our Friend was a genuinely enjoyable drama starring Casey Affleck, Jason Segal and Dakota Johnson.

Do you plan on seeing a movie this weekend or will you be staying in to catch the divisional rounds of the NFL playoffs (Bang Bang Niner Gang!) Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have the full rundown on this weekends box office numbers.

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