This has nothing to do with Edge of Darkness, don't worry. I had forgotten how much I really love The Edge, written by David Mamet and directed by Lee Tamahori. My wife and I finally sat down to watch the Blu-ray that's been sitting around for a couple of weeks. The most memorable line of the whole thing also seemed to give Ashley the most delight.
The steely eyes of Hopkins and Baldwin face off in an extended game of mental chess. The movie is filled with subtle, private looks and tells. The Edge is one of my very favorite films of the 90's.
When Hopkins said "Because today [breath]...I'ma gonna kill the motherfuckah!" she laughed and added "that must have made the whole audience laugh their asses off in theatres". I didn't have the heart to tell her at the time that The Edge didn't have much of a theatrical run. Hell, I had only ever seen it on VHS and the crummy DVD.
Edge opened at the end of September 1997, up against The Peacemaker and Soul Food. Peacemaker was the inaugural Dreamworks wide release, starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. It was on around the same number of screens as The Edge (around 2300). Soul Food opened on about 1300 screens, but in the same $12 million ballpark as Peacemaker. The Edge opened in fourth place behind both of them and the second weekend of In & Out at just over $7 million. It closed out at just over $27 million over the Christmas holiday.
Bart the Bear, one of the most talented non-human performers in cinema history, by my estimation. He had such presence and expert training that he is the solid third lead of the movie.
My best friend introduced me to the movie in high school, and it lingers in the back of my mind. It jumps immediately to the front any time I think of Anthony Hopkins or Alec Baldwin. I love that, lacking any supplemental making-of featurettes or interviews, some of the behind-the-scenes stuff has come out by way of producer Art Linson's book (and movie) What Just Happened?. I should hope that one of Mamet's visits back to UT's Harry Ransom Center involves a good, thorough interview from the likes of John Pierson, who'll actually ask decent, well-prepared questions.
The Blu-ray features no extras aside from the trailer for this movie and a few others (like The Siege and Broken Arrow). The video quality is in a different universe than the DVD that's been kicking around (which wasn't anamorphic anyway). The colors are rich, the dark scenes look good with few digital compression artifacts (if any). There are a couple of super-fast-motion cuts that look really..."digital" (in the bad way). These moments are very brief, and are likely the fault of the scan telecine element they used rather than the actual transfer process itself.
If money were no object, the $21.49 that Amazon is asking for it wouldn't bother me, but that price makes me pause. It'll sell a lot better when it's either price reduced under $10 or shrinkwrap-bundled together with one or two other movies in a value pack. Notate this one your "get it when it costs less" list.