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grrgoylAs promised, Ryan and I went out last night. I've noticed that my friends can be classified in one of two ways: those that agree with all sincerity and eagerness that getting together would be a great idea, and those who actually follow through and make it happen. Ryan falls among the latter, and I told him how much I appreciated it, because the first type is very annoying to me.
We went to see The Prestige, only because Saw III isn't out until this coming weekend and we couldn't wait that long to see each other again. But rest assured, we plan to see Saw as well. Oh yes, there will be sequels.
Before I get into the movie itself, a word on the audience. When we first arrived the place was empty, as I expected it to be on a Tuesday night. But then it began filling up with high school kids. The first couple of rowdy groups didn't faze me, but then more started appearing. I said to Ryan, "Don't these kids have school tomorrow?" He answered, "Fall break." What the....? Didn't they just start in September? Evidently nowadays kids go back to school in August. Imagine -- 2 whole months of school without a single break. The poor dears must be exhausted. Note: That there is good New England sarcasm. Why, back in MY day we went straight through, September to June, with a week off for Christmas and we considered ourselves lucky. No wonder kids are so damn lazy these days.
Anyhoo, the movie. I'll cut even though I really don't have much deep to say, and certainly no spoilers (well, there might be a few. So just to be safe).
Hugh Jackman (Angiers) and Christian Bale (Borden) are rival magicians. Their rivalry takes a brutal twist when Angiers' lovely assistant and wife dies performing a magic trick that goes awry, through circumstances that could possibly be (though are not irrefutably proven to be) a result of Borden's actions leading up to the Turn (which we learn is Act II of every trick...the point where the magician makes an everyday object do something extraordinary). Even if the tragedy was caused by Borden, I never got the impression that it was done maliciously or with the intention of killing her, but try telling that to the vengeful Angiers. The rest of the film documents their careers of one-upmanship and attempts to destroy the other man, professionally and personally, in the name of an endless grudge that can't possibly have a happy ending for either of them.
There are some sidenote (but fine) performances thrown in by Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis (Gollum!) and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. When he came on the screen, I excitedly whispered to Ryan, "OMG, I LOVE David Bowie!" So it was kind of funny when he commented during the credits, "Hey, that was David Bowie! I love David Bowie!" Either he didn't hear me, or he just assumed I was having an unrelated Bowiegasm out of the blue from misfiring brain synapses.
Unfortunately, it's the presence of Tesla in the film that threw me for too much of a loop to really recover. MAJOR SPOILER TO FOLLOW, for those who have been flirting behind the cut just to live dangerously. Angiers commissions Tesla to build a machine for his act. I think it's supposed to transport a man from one spot to another, Star Trek style, but what it ends up doing is creating a clone or replica of who/whatever stands in the lightning. In this way Angiers can appear to disappear from the stage while his replica emerges from an upper balcony for the Prestige, or Act III of the trick (or is it the real Angiers who emerges? Ugh. It makes me cross-eyed just thinking about it). I had a problem with this only because the rest of the film seems so historically accurate, including Tesla and his machine, except obviously he never created a Star Trek transporter OR instant replicator or we'd be using them today. And it's the workings of this machine on which the rest of the plot twists and turns hinge (mostly). At the risk of being Tery-like, my mind refused to wrap itself around this very important point.
As the story unfolds, eventually the devious machinations and efforts to sabotage each other become so expected that practically nothing manages to surprise you anymore, making the ending either really anticlimactic or really cool -- like I said, I'm still working out how things actually happened.
By the end I was befuddled something awful. My confusion wasn't helped in the slightest by the way director Christopher Nolan plays with timelines, sometimes showing us the result of an action before the action itself; this device served him well in Memento, and he'll always have a soft spot in my heart because of that film, but here it just seemed to be covering up potential flaws in logic and leaves you with the feeling that if you don't get it, it's only because you couldn't piece together the actual chronology fast enough. Or perhaps this storytelling method was merely an illustration of the world of magicians, who depend so heavily on the art of misdirection. One thing I managed to take away is that those magicians are a sneaky lot and should not be trusted any further than one can throw them.
Jackman and Bale give very strong performances, and perhaps with sufficient extras on the DVD I could be convinced to buy it. 3.5 out of 5, since I suspect my problems with the story are all my fault rather than the movie's.
In addition, some thoughts on Lost (Season Two),
Tery and I are giving Season Two a go via Netflix rentals. So far I'm not terribly impressed with the glaring lack of my man, Sayid. And the episodes on disc 1 are annoyingly padded by showing and reshowing the same scene from three different perspectives, my sister thinks in an effort to catch up people who missed Season One. Which is downright insane to attempt to do, especially on this show with a huge ensemble cast and enormous gobs of backstory being covered in Season One, and why should the established fans suffer for the sake of these mooks?
So when we got to the fourth episode we put up with the first 10 minutes, despite them appearing to be an exact replay of the first 10 minutes of episode 1, before we decided that it was too shameful to be tolerated. On a hunch we shut down and restarted the player and selected episode 4 again. And instantly realized that we HAD been watching episode 1 through a glitch in the DVD menu. Something similar happened when we watched Season One on DVD, when the disc skipped an entire episode on us and we fixed it the same way. I don't understand what it is about DVD technology that eludes these people. It's hardly a fledgling science.
But in episode 4, we finally get to see the tearful reunion of the survivors of the rear and front halves of the plane, e.g. Bernard and Rose. Also the reunion of the Asian couple, Sun and Jin. But it cracked me up when Sun ignores the huge, excited gathering of people further down the beach in favor of finishing laundry. You can't tell me so much happens on that beach that this would go unnoticed and she would think, "Hmmm, there seems to be a big crowd down there. Oh well, these clothes aren't going to wash themselves!!"
Okay, I'm done.
We went to see The Prestige, only because Saw III isn't out until this coming weekend and we couldn't wait that long to see each other again. But rest assured, we plan to see Saw as well. Oh yes, there will be sequels.
Before I get into the movie itself, a word on the audience. When we first arrived the place was empty, as I expected it to be on a Tuesday night. But then it began filling up with high school kids. The first couple of rowdy groups didn't faze me, but then more started appearing. I said to Ryan, "Don't these kids have school tomorrow?" He answered, "Fall break." What the....? Didn't they just start in September? Evidently nowadays kids go back to school in August. Imagine -- 2 whole months of school without a single break. The poor dears must be exhausted. Note: That there is good New England sarcasm. Why, back in MY day we went straight through, September to June, with a week off for Christmas and we considered ourselves lucky. No wonder kids are so damn lazy these days.
Anyhoo, the movie. I'll cut even though I really don't have much deep to say, and certainly no spoilers (well, there might be a few. So just to be safe).
Hugh Jackman (Angiers) and Christian Bale (Borden) are rival magicians. Their rivalry takes a brutal twist when Angiers' lovely assistant and wife dies performing a magic trick that goes awry, through circumstances that could possibly be (though are not irrefutably proven to be) a result of Borden's actions leading up to the Turn (which we learn is Act II of every trick...the point where the magician makes an everyday object do something extraordinary). Even if the tragedy was caused by Borden, I never got the impression that it was done maliciously or with the intention of killing her, but try telling that to the vengeful Angiers. The rest of the film documents their careers of one-upmanship and attempts to destroy the other man, professionally and personally, in the name of an endless grudge that can't possibly have a happy ending for either of them.
There are some sidenote (but fine) performances thrown in by Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis (Gollum!) and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. When he came on the screen, I excitedly whispered to Ryan, "OMG, I LOVE David Bowie!" So it was kind of funny when he commented during the credits, "Hey, that was David Bowie! I love David Bowie!" Either he didn't hear me, or he just assumed I was having an unrelated Bowiegasm out of the blue from misfiring brain synapses.
Unfortunately, it's the presence of Tesla in the film that threw me for too much of a loop to really recover. MAJOR SPOILER TO FOLLOW, for those who have been flirting behind the cut just to live dangerously. Angiers commissions Tesla to build a machine for his act. I think it's supposed to transport a man from one spot to another, Star Trek style, but what it ends up doing is creating a clone or replica of who/whatever stands in the lightning. In this way Angiers can appear to disappear from the stage while his replica emerges from an upper balcony for the Prestige, or Act III of the trick (or is it the real Angiers who emerges? Ugh. It makes me cross-eyed just thinking about it). I had a problem with this only because the rest of the film seems so historically accurate, including Tesla and his machine, except obviously he never created a Star Trek transporter OR instant replicator or we'd be using them today. And it's the workings of this machine on which the rest of the plot twists and turns hinge (mostly). At the risk of being Tery-like, my mind refused to wrap itself around this very important point.
As the story unfolds, eventually the devious machinations and efforts to sabotage each other become so expected that practically nothing manages to surprise you anymore, making the ending either really anticlimactic or really cool -- like I said, I'm still working out how things actually happened.
By the end I was befuddled something awful. My confusion wasn't helped in the slightest by the way director Christopher Nolan plays with timelines, sometimes showing us the result of an action before the action itself; this device served him well in Memento, and he'll always have a soft spot in my heart because of that film, but here it just seemed to be covering up potential flaws in logic and leaves you with the feeling that if you don't get it, it's only because you couldn't piece together the actual chronology fast enough. Or perhaps this storytelling method was merely an illustration of the world of magicians, who depend so heavily on the art of misdirection. One thing I managed to take away is that those magicians are a sneaky lot and should not be trusted any further than one can throw them.
Jackman and Bale give very strong performances, and perhaps with sufficient extras on the DVD I could be convinced to buy it. 3.5 out of 5, since I suspect my problems with the story are all my fault rather than the movie's.
In addition, some thoughts on Lost (Season Two),
Tery and I are giving Season Two a go via Netflix rentals. So far I'm not terribly impressed with the glaring lack of my man, Sayid. And the episodes on disc 1 are annoyingly padded by showing and reshowing the same scene from three different perspectives, my sister thinks in an effort to catch up people who missed Season One. Which is downright insane to attempt to do, especially on this show with a huge ensemble cast and enormous gobs of backstory being covered in Season One, and why should the established fans suffer for the sake of these mooks?
So when we got to the fourth episode we put up with the first 10 minutes, despite them appearing to be an exact replay of the first 10 minutes of episode 1, before we decided that it was too shameful to be tolerated. On a hunch we shut down and restarted the player and selected episode 4 again. And instantly realized that we HAD been watching episode 1 through a glitch in the DVD menu. Something similar happened when we watched Season One on DVD, when the disc skipped an entire episode on us and we fixed it the same way. I don't understand what it is about DVD technology that eludes these people. It's hardly a fledgling science.
But in episode 4, we finally get to see the tearful reunion of the survivors of the rear and front halves of the plane, e.g. Bernard and Rose. Also the reunion of the Asian couple, Sun and Jin. But it cracked me up when Sun ignores the huge, excited gathering of people further down the beach in favor of finishing laundry. You can't tell me so much happens on that beach that this would go unnoticed and she would think, "Hmmm, there seems to be a big crowd down there. Oh well, these clothes aren't going to wash themselves!!"
Okay, I'm done.
