Spotlight On: Anthony Hopkins

This week's spotlight is on one of my all-time favorite actors, Anthony Hopkins. I just think that he is absolutely brilliant in everything that he is in, whether is is being scary or crazy, or sad or happy, he is just amazing. He has such a long a great career and I look forward to seeing even more movies with Mr. Hopkins. Here are my favorite movies of his.

Magic

I really loved this movie. Hopkins plays a ventriliquist named Corky, who can't stop talking to his dummy Fats. The main reason I love this movie is for Anthony Hopkin's performance. It is basically two hours him talking to himself and it is just creepy and unsettling and fantastic. One of the best scenes in the movie is when his agent asks if he can make Fats stop talking for five minutes. You'd think it would be easy, but you end up seeing how hard it is for Corky not to talk to Fats.



The Elephant Man

I just watched this movie again about a week or two ago and it still makes me bawl my eyes out. Hopkins plays a man who takes the "Elephant Man" aka John Merrick out of the circus freak show and takes care of him in his hospital. While I think that John Hurt as Merrick has the stand out performance in this film, Hopkins is great as always as a man who grows to care for him.



The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Anthony Hopkins plays the famous dead hunchback Quasimodo in a TV movie version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The best parts of the movie were definitely when he was talking to Esmeralda.


The Silence of the Lambs

Anthony Hopkins is best known for his role in this film, and with good reason. Hannibal Lecter is one of the best movie villains of all time. Hopkins is one of the very few people to win an Oscar for a horror film role. He is a murdering cannibal, but is also a brilliant forensic psychologist. I liked both Hannibal and Red Dragon, but neither of them come close to being as amazing as The Silence of the Lambs. It is just a classic performance in a classic movie!



Dracula

People say that he goes a little over the top in this movie, but I love Anthony Hopkins as Abraham Van Helsing. My favorite scene in the whole movie is the scene where he kills Lucy. (It would be the shadow scene, but that gets bumped down to second place because Keanu Reeves is terrible...)



The Mask of Zorro

I loved this movie when I was a kid and used to watch it all the time. I haven't seen it in forever (I believe that the last time I watched it was on VHS), but I remember loving the sword fights, the love story, and the scene where he is training the new Zorro how to fight. Hopkins just has that great voice where you just want to listen to everything he is saying.



The Wolfman

"Terrible things Lawrence...you've don't terrible things." In the original Wolf Man, Lawrence Talbot's father kills him, but in this version, he is the one who past the werewolf curse onto him. I don't care what anybody says, I loved the remake of the Wolfman! I thought it was entertaining, it has a cast of actors that I love, the Wolfman make-up looked really cool, and it was just awesome!



Thor

Seriously, who else would they have gotten to play Odin? Hopkins was just great casting.



Upcoming: He has a lot of really interesting looking movies coming out, but the one I'm really excited for is Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho where he plays, guess who...Alfred Hitchcock! One of my favorite actor's playing one of my favorite directors!

Best Horror Villains

My second YouTube video! Enjoy!!!

Spotlight On: Alfred Hitchcock

This week's spotlight is on the master of suspense himself, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock. He is one of my favorite directors, and I have liked all of the movies of his that I have seen. He has directed some of my favorite actors including Laurence Olivier, James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, and Cary Grant, and directed one of my all time favorite horror films, Psycho. What is really odd is that he has directed tons of brilliant films, and yet he has never won an Oscar for best director. How messed up is that? Anyways, here are my favorite Hitchcock films in chronological order.

Rebecca

This is the only one of Hitchcock's films to win best picture at the Oscars, and it is also in my top five favorites of his. It is about a woman who works as a companion to an old rich lady who falls in love and marries a rich man. While it seems like a fairy tale, she soon discovers that his mansion is haunted by the memory his ex-wife. One of the most chilling scenes is when Ms. Danvers is trying to convince the new wife to kill herself.



Spellbound

I am a huge Ingrid Bergman fan, so I really liked this one. It is about a therapist played by Bergman who is trying to help Gregory Peck get back his memory so that he can figure out if he killed someone or not. The most interesting parts of this film are the dream sequences, which were designed by Salvador Dali.



Notorious

I adore this film! It features three actors that I really love: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains. It is also probably Hitchcock's most romantic film. I love that it shows how sneaky he was when it came to the Production Code. It was a rule that kisses couldn't be longer than three seconds, so instead of having Grant and Bergman do one long kiss, they did a bunch of little kisses instead.



Rope

What makes this movie really interesting is that the whole movie seems like one long take because it is only one set, and there is very little editing. It is about these two guys who kill their friend, put him in a chest, then throw a party for their friends with the dead body still in the room. One of them is calm and collected, but Farley Granger is very nervous the whole time. James Stewart plays their former teacher who ends up getting very suspicious of them.



Strangers on a Train

Another film dealing with murder, this one is about two complete strangers who meet on a train and decide that their lives would be easier if they each killed someone for each other. While Farley Granger is nervous about the whole thing, and doesn't really want to kill anyone, the other man goes through with his end of the bargain, and makes Granger's character's life hell.



Rear Window

Another film with the great James Stewart, this is a suspense film that I would definitely call "heart-pounding." I mean the scene towards the end where he looks through his binoculars and sees the murderer looking back at him literally made me gasp, and I was going "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit" from that moment until the end of the movie.



The Man Who Knew Too Much

This is actually a remake of one of Hitchcock's own films that starred Peter Lorre. I've never seen that one, but I did like this version with James Stewart and Doris Day. It is about a family who travels to Morocco, and the husband ends up finding out about an assassination plot. Then their son gets kidnapped and they have to find him and stop the assassination. The best scene in the movie is when the mother attempts to find her son by having him overhear her sing.



The Wrong Man

I was actually getting really frustrated while watching this movie. Its about a man who gets mistaken for a different man who robbed a bank and a few stores. What's worse is that he is a super nice guy who doesn't want any trouble and is just worrying about calling his wife the whole time. I was really pissed off at those stupid bank tellers during this whole movie because they just destroyed this guys life and made his wife go crazy,  and then when they find the real guy at the end it doesn't even look like Henry Fonda!!!



Vertigo

Hitchcock + James Stewart = Brilliance! This was actually the first Hitchcock movie that I had seen. While it is filled with tons of great scenes, my favorite was always the bell tower scene.



North By Northwest

Here Hitchcock does another film about mistaken identity. Except instead of being mistaken for a criminal, criminals mistake him for a government agent. This film is probably best known for the crop duster scene which you can find HERE. Some of my favorite scenes are the drunk driving scene, and pretty much all scenes with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint together.

Psycho

Now onto my favorite Hitchcock film, Psycho. I love Anthony Perkins' performance as nice guy/ momma's boy/ serial killer Norman Bates. I just love how even though he is a serial killer, a part of you still doesn't want him to get caught. The best known scene is definitely the shower scene, and the ending is also brilliant.




The Birds

"They're coming!" Before I saw this movie, I thought that the concept was somewhat rediculous, but I ended up really liking this movie. There are actually parts that are pretty scary, like when Jessica Tandy finds the guy with his eyes pecked out. Yeesh!



Marnie

Another film he did with Tippi Hendren, Marnie is about a psychologically disturbed girl (who is also a thief) who marries a guy who wants to help her. What is interesting about Sean Connery's character is that even though he seems like a good guy, he also has his bad side. I love the ending of this movie, but I couldn't find it anywhere on Youtube. This is the only scene that I could find, but it's a good one because it shows Connery's flawed character.



Here is a really neat video that I found of Hitchcock speaking.

Character of the Week: Norman Bates

This week's character of the week is from Psycho, which is one of my favorite films. It is Norman Bates, momma's boy and owner of the Bates Motel. He is an interesting villain because you start out the film liking him. He seems a bit odd, must mostly like a nice guy. Anthony Perkins was magnifiscent in this film and really makes you side with him at parts. He is a murderer so you really should hate him and want him to get caught, but in the scene where he is trying to sink Marion Crane's car, you get nervous for him and want the car to sink. You also side with him in the scene where he is being questioned by the detective and it is somewhat of a relief when the detective dies. Here is the ending scene of Psycho, where he Anthony Perkins says nothing, but delivers such a great performance.

Iconic Horror Scene: Psycho (1960)

This scene comes from my favorite Alfred Hitchcock film, and one of my favorite films in general. It is quite an unnerving scene because, for starters, it is killing off the woman who has been the main focus throughout the film. Usually in horror films, the main character is fine throughout the whole film and ends up being the only survivor. With this film, however, it is throwing you for a loop by letting you get to know this character and then suddenly taking her away.
The scene starts out perfectly normal with Marion Crane taking a show. After a while, though, you see a dark figure on the otherside of the shower curtain. This adds a bit of dramatic irony, because you know something is about to happen even though the main character does not.

Then, of course, comes one of the most famous moments in horror film history, with the figure pulling back the curtain while Psycho's famous score shrieks along with him. Then, there is the infamous close-up shot of Janet Leigh's scream.

The stabbing sequence is far from graphic, but the combination of the editing, the score, and the camera angles make it seem like we are seeing much more than we actually are.

One thing that makes this scene frightening is that it plays on how vulnerable we are in the shower. In the shower we are completely naked, standing on a slippery surface, and basically backed into a corner with nowhere to run. You see a lot of movies that use this including  Cabin Fever and The Grudge.



Cabin Fever



The Grudge

Even though this is the scene that is most commonly associated with this film, there are tons of great scenes. In my opinion, Psycho is one of the greatest films ever made and is one that everyone should see.

*Little factoid: I just realized that the two scenes I picked so far for my Iconic Horror Scene column are from films inspired by Ed Gein, a serial killer from Wisconsin, which is the state where I grew up. So.....go Wisconsin?