The story of the early, murderous roots of the cannibalistic killer, Hannibal Lecter – from his hard-scrabble Lithuanian childhood, where he witnesses the repulsive lengths to which hungry soldiers will go to satiate themselves, through his sojourn in France, where as a med student he hones his appetite for the kill.

Straub-Huillet’s first color film, adapts a lesser-known Corneille tragedy from 1664, which in turn was based on an episode of imperial court intrigue chronicled in Tacitus’s Histories. The costuming is classical, and the toga-clad, nonprofessional cast performs the drama’s original French text amid the ruins of Rome’s Palatine Hill while the noise of contemporary urban life hums in the background. Their lines are executed with a terrific flatness and frequently through heavy accents; the language in Othon becomes not merely an expression but a thing itself, an element whose plainness here alerts us to qualities of the work that might otherwise be subordinated.

Children ages 6 and up can teach themselves to read with a self-paced, kid-friendly program that has twelve entertaining stories that employ fun characters and build in sequence from the simple to the more complex. Kids have time to read each screen before hearing a voice read the highlighted words. In addition to community library children's multi-media collections, these titles (Alphabet Circus Video, Nursery Rhymes Video, Getting Ready for Kindergarten Video, and Phonics Easy Readers on DVD) are very highly recommended supplements for preschool, daycare, home schooling, and traditional curriculums. --Children's Bookwatch, September 2005