Today America saw its first presidential candidate with his own hair as his running mate.
Whatever. It’s probably smarter than Sarah Palin.
Did NBC’s “Hannibal” reference Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” series?!
[WARNING — THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR SEASONS 2 AND 3 OF “HANNIBAL,” AS WELL AS STEPHEN KING’S “THE DARK TOWER” SERIES. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.]
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This could be overeager nerd eisigesis, but something jumped out at me immediately in the second episode of this summer’s “Hannibal.”
When Will Graham greets Abigail Hobbes at the beginning, he wonders about “some other world.”
The doomed young Abigail responds: “I’m having a hard enough time dealing with this world. I hope some of the other worlds are easier.”
That’s “worlds,” plural — not “another world” or “the next world.” It sounds a hell of a lot like the doomed Jake Chambers’ famous line towards the end of “The Gunslinger,” before he falls to his fate: “Go then. There are other worlds than these.”
Graham goes on the discuss string theory: “Everything that can happen, happens.” This dovetails perfectly with the idea of the nearly infinite parallel universes that comprise different levels of “The Tower.”
Then other story parallels occurred to me:
1) Both Abigail and Jake are children of surrogate fathers who are on a crusade (Graham’s pursuit of Hannibal Lecter, the Gunslinger’s quest for The Tower).
2) Both are specialized, cold-blooded killers by training (Abigail’s bizarre tutelage by her serial killer biological father, Jake’s training by the Gunslinger).
3) Both are willingly sacrificed by their surrogate fathers. (NBC’s show makes it clear that Hannibal is also a father figure to Abigail.)
4) Both characters were sacrificed by the show’s/book’s title character.
5) The memories of both haunt the stories’ protagonists as a recurring motif. Both appear to drive the heroes insane.
6) Both characters are ostensibly dead at some point, and then are quasi-resurrected by a surprise plot device. (Abigail has been secreted away by Hannibal; Jake is returned from a parallel universe to which he was consigned.)
7) The loss of both characters are tied to themes of forgiveness. (Jake forgives the Gunslinger for letting him fall; Graham explicitly forgives Hannibal for Abigail’s loss as part of the show’s overarching theme.)
It would be fun and perfectly viable to imagine that the show’s events transpire on a “level” of The Tower. The differing continuities of the original books and feature films could even comprise other levels. King makes it clear that “twinners” are character analogs living in different universes.
But I am probably just imagining things. I also thought that Hannibal’s reference to his “person suit” in this season’s first episode was a reference to “Donnie Darko” (2001): “Why do you wear that silly man suit?” And, in retrospect, that seems like a coincidence.
“It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles.”
“It is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles. And yet when King Laugh come, he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall, all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come, and like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again, and we bear to go on with our labor, what it may be.”
— from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” 1897
“Be more funny.”
— the most concise criticism of my comedy ever?? C’mon, people!! I’m throwin’ you GOLD!
The joke was as follows. A good friend of mine referred to the Bush family as a “class act;” I suggested that the class was “Remedial English.” Hence his candid imperative.
I keep explaining this to everybody, but nobody seems to get it: “I’M F!%$#ING HILARIOUS.”
I’ll be here every night this week, folks. Tip your waitresses, and don’t forget to try the tuna!!!
“The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.”
“Early One Morning,” by Edward Thomas
Early one morning in May I set out,
And nobody I knew was about.
I’m bound away for ever,
Away somewhere, away for ever.
There was no wind to trouble the weathercocks.
I had burnt my letters and darned my socks.
No one knew I was going away,
I thought myself I should come back some day.
I heard the brook through the town gardens run.
O sweet was the mud turned to dust by the sun.
A gate banged in a fence and banged in my head.
‘A fine morning, sir’, a shepherd said.
I could not return from my liberty,
To my youth and my love and my misery.
The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet,
The only sweet thing that is not also fleet.
I’m bound away for ever,
Away somewhere, away for ever.
My review of “Jurassic World” (2015), with Bryce Dallas HowAreYaDarling
“Jurassic World” (2015) was raptortastic and T-Rexific. It was also fun in another way, but I can’t think of a pun for “Indominus Rex.” I’d give it an 8 out of 10.
Seriously — this was a fun monster movie. (I, for one, maintain that these are horror-sci-fi movies at heart, and not the family adventure films that others seem to take them for. Even the theme music for this entire franchise seems to insist that a zippity good time was had by all, after dinosaurs devour adults and traumatize lost children.)
The kid in me thrilled to this movie’s great special effects and abundance of monsters. Those raptors are the coolest movie monsters since Aliens and Predators.
The action sequences were good. Did anyone else think the initial attack/ambush was an homage to the initial attack/ambush in “Aliens” (1986)? They have the heart rate monitors and helmet-cams and everything. I kept waiting for Corporal Hicks to yell, “DRAKE, WE ARE LEAVING!!!”
The aerial attack by the winged dinosaurs was outstanding. (I don’t know the difference between pterodactyls and pteranodons. Besides, one of them looked like it had a T-Rex head, and I’m not sure that was even was a thing.) The plight of one plucked victim was pretty damn creative and horrifying — I think that entire sequence was an example of some pretty inspired horror filmmaking.
And all of those things are good, because I honestly don’t think this film has much going for it without them. This really is … pretty much the same story as “Jurassic Park” (1993).
Smart people do stupid things. I got a “C” in biology freshman year, but even a guy like me immediately doubts the wisdom of the Raptor Recruiting Plan. I also have no military experience, but I know what “cover” is, and I know what a “kill zone” is, and I wouldn’t rush from the former to stand stationary in the latter.
Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas HowAboutADrinkLater are both very good actors; this movie’s script has them rattling off humorous lines that are typical of a mediocre sitcom. The character concept for Pratt’s hunky-extreme-sportsman-naturalist raptor-whisperer is kind of silly. Bryce Dallas HowDoYouJustKeepGettingPrettier plays another stock character — the uptight corporate princess who needs to be taken down a notch. Their banter is like the dialogue of a lackluster episode of “Friends,” and it insults the viewers’ intelligence.
The movie’s two most interesting characters are the two young brothers. Their dialogue was actually touching — this movie would be far better it had focused almost entirely on them. (And, yes, that is young Ty Simpkins from “Insidious.”)
I keep seeing articles on the Internet alleging that the technology depicted by these movies will soon be possible, but I pretty much don’t believe anything I read on the net anymore. Because I totally bought into that Mars One fiasco, and now I feel like an idjit.
“There can be no originality without loss, without tragedy.”
“The suffering of the hour translates to the art of tomorrow.”
— Dennis Villelmi
“A word of sorts on my craft,” by Dennis Villelmi
1 AM distant storms.
Anyone ever see lightning outside and think of the Dean Koontz novel of the same name?
Damn, that was a fun book.
Phil?
And some see Phil Spector. Even if they don’t want to.
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day …”
Thank you, Jaine Sirieys, for sharing this! 🙂 (Nobody crack that “Why so Sirieys?” joke, because I sprang that one on her already, and she’s heard it before anyway.)
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”
Photo: “Elisabeth Ney – Lady Macbeth – Detail,” by Ingrid Fisch at the German language Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 