Showing posts with label Anthony Hopkins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthony Hopkins. Show all posts

Monday, October 23, 2017

THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980)

"Can you cure me?"

"No."

Joseph Merrick has always been a fascinating individual to me.  And David Lynch has always been an artistic hero of mine, so it should come as no surprise that I really like THE ELEPHANT MAN.  Yeah, it's about as historically accurate as SURF II, but who cares?  It's still a great film that transports the viewer into a thought-provoking world of freaks, dark corners, peaks and lows of human behavior, and explores the definition of what it is to be a human being.

After the surrealist opening, we see London Hospital surgeon Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) walking through a carnival.  There have been rumors about a certain freak show attraction known as "The Elephant Man" (played by John Hurt).  He has a grossly enlarged head, thick lumpy skin on his back, an enlarged right arm, a twisted skeleton, and numerous other things physically wrong with him.  The two eventually meet (Hopkins' face in that scene is so sublime that it brought a tear to my eye) and soon "The Elephant Man", whose real name is Joseph Merrick, moves into the London Hospital as a permanent guest.  It is there that the good doctor discovers that inside this monstrous body there is intelligence.  He's emotionally scarred from the abuse and ridicule he's endured, but once he begins to open up Merrick turns out to be a very kind and wonderful man.  Not an animal, a man.  

Writer/director/sound designer David Lynch might be known for his more surrealist works, but THE ELEPHANT MAN is, for the most part, a very straight-forward and skillfully told story.  And the B&W photography is absolutely perfect!  Outside of the actors ages, it's almost impossible to tell when this film was even made!  And speaking of actors...John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins are tremendous in this film!

Overall, THE ELEPHANT MAN is kind of a downer of a movie, but it's still a remarkable achievement and worthy of your time.  Recommended.

Interesting side note: It's rumored that Producer Mel Brooks deliberately went uncredited because he feared that his name in the credits would be a distraction from the serious nature of the film.

Monday, September 16, 2013

THE EDGE (1997)

Anthony Hopkins is a billionaire who surrounds himself with a bunch of cackling, selfish douchebags.  While on a vacation, with these fools, at a fancy lodge deep in the frozen depths of Alaska, he and Alec Baldwin end up in a plane crash.  Stranded a million miles from nowhere with no food and nothing but the clothes on their backs, things look pretty bad.  But they get even worse when they discover that a huge man-eating bear is stalking them!  Yikes!  And it gets even worse that that when Anthony Hopkins discovers...well, I'm not going to tell you.  You're gonna have to watch it for yourself.
 
THE EDGE isn't any kind of life changing film, but as far as rainy afternoon time-wasters or late night channel flippers go, it's a blast!  Nice pace, dated effects, awesome bear, good story, violence, beautiful scenery, good acting, solid direction.  I've seen it a few times now and always enjoy it.  Recommended for sure.