Tonight’s broadcast of The English Surgeon has received some great advance reviews in both the press and online. Blogger Michael Tully at the Hammer to Nail blog effused, “For all of you television watchers out there, do the right thing tonight and put your sitcoms, one-hour dramas, and sports on hold in order to take in the television premiere of Geoffrey Smith’s The English Surgeon.” Tully goes on to say that he found the film “inspiring, sobering, humorous, and, in the case of the film’s climactic surgery, downright thrilling.” Read his full review at the Hammer to Nail blog.
In a juxtaposition that seemed so ridiculous it made me smile, the Wall Street Journal‘s Dorothy Rabinowitz reviewed The English Surgeon alongside tonight’s other big premiere, the updated Melrose Place on the CW. Both get a thumbs up from Rabinowitz, while she noted that “[The English Patient] is a film not always easy to watch. It’s nonetheless clear soon — very soon — what a loss it would have been to have missed a moment of it.” Read the entire review »
And lastly, The New York Times‘s Magnolia Dargis called the film "[a]stonishing. . . . [An] unexpectedly effective and often affecting documentary. . . . These men perform miracles, but they are also agonizingly human." Read the entire review »
Don’t miss three great interviews with filmmaker Geoffrey Smith available online. Smith appeared last week on NPR’s The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell. We’ve included a transcript and downloadable audio file of the interview on The English Surgeon website. Earlier today, Smith appeared on CBS News (watch video below) to talk about the film and on NPR’s Talk of the Nation (audio).
After you watch the film — which, by the way, you can do online through October 9, 2009 — don’t forget to weigh in with your own review on The English Surgeon website.