Film 96, 97, 98 ("The Prestige") It's About Magic
Film 96
"The Prestige"
Starring: Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, and David Bowie
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
"The Prestige" is another Christopher Nolan masterpiece (this time adapted from a novel written by Christopher Priest). He enjoys working with "supernatural" aspects while taking a deeper look into the psyche of humanity. He seems to always focus his films on a mixture of several themes and because this is a film about magic/magicians he decided to present us with another film about obsession, sacrifice, betrayal, loneliness, revenge and the whole idea of theatricality (I mean, we are seeing magicians).
Knowing it's a film about magic there's 3 acts (much like the magic trick that sets up the entire film, well, any magic trick really, as Michael Caine tells us at the beginning of the film). Those 3 acts are: 1) the Pledge, a seemingly real situation is set up for the audience 2) the Turn, initial reality is challenged and 3) the Prestige, all is set right again.
The thing with this film (and I'm convinced Nolan enjoys doing this to his audience) is that the Prestige (and 3rd act) doesn't necessarily set everything right, which could really piss you off as a viewer, but Nolan is as masterful a filmmaker as perhaps Houdini was a masterful magician. You are intrigued and left wondering how Nolan can pull off such tricks on the screen.
The film centers around two rivaling magicians who were apprentices together at the beginning of their careers. Robert Angier (played by Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (played by Christian Bale). One night the Chinese Water Torture (box) trick goes wrong and Milton the Magician's wife is lowered into the box with ropes tied too tightly (by Alfred) and she ends up drowning before she can escape the box. Houdini, in real life, apparently did this trick night after night in his act, so clearly Nolan has taken some real-life inspiration for this film. The mishap and blame sets off a lifelong/career-spanning hatred between the two up-and-coming magicians. Alfred ends up rising to the top of his game and falls in love with his new assistant (played rather ominously by Scarlett Johansson, whose acting talents seem a bit wasted as the beautiful assistant), who was actually sent by Robert in order to unveil Alfred's secrets, once Alfred has seemingly come up with an impossible/unbelievable magic trick titled "the Transported Man" (more on that in a minute). Robert is fueled by his hatred and jealousy of Alfred that he becomes obsessed with knowing everything about this trick. So much so that he enlists the help of Nikola Tesla (yes, the real inventor/physicist/engineer) played by David Bowie (who really rocked in this performance and comes leaps and bounds from his cod-piece days of "Labyrinth" in the 80s). He looks just like the real Tesla, it's a bit frightening.
"The Transported Man" becomes the focal point of the film. It is a trick that involves Tesla's invention alternating currents of electricity. It's truly a sight to see, even on film, with an almost crazy-like machine in the vein of Dr. Oct (from Spiderman). Alfred's trick involves him walking in one door on stage and one and a half seconds later walking through the second door on stage. Impossible? No truths to any tricks, especially this main act, are ever revealed in the film, and in true Christopher Nolan fashion (re: Inception) when the climax comes you are left wondering just what the hell happened. You almost have to watch it again, right after it ends to understand it better. Like a magic trick just seen. If this is the point that Nolan is trying to get across (with most, if not all his films), I say, well done. But I have so many questions I want to ask the man. I want to know his secrets, but I think like magic, it would ruin the experience of watching his films.
His track record of films has made him one of my all-time favorite directors and this film does not disappoint you at all, even though, it gets off track sometimes. I read the book and found the story on those pages confusing to follow, I think Nolan and his usual team do a great job putting an altering story to screen.
Christopher Nolan Films:
Following (a great debut about obsession)
Memento (one of my favorites)
Insomnia (we saw Robin Williams as a bad guy)
Batman Begins (the beginning of one of the best, ultimate trilogies ever)
The Prestige
The Dark Knight (easily the best performance by any actor in film, thanks to Heath Ledger as the Joker)
Inception (a mind-bending experience, to say the least)
The Dark Knight Rises (the end of the story)
I love that Nolan has also shined a light on Christian Bale's acting talents, since they have been common collaborators together. I remember Christian Bale turning in good-to-great performances in films like:
Empire of the Sun
Newsies
Swing Kids
Little Women
American Psycho
The Machinist
Batman Begins
The New World
3:10 to Yuma
I'm Not There
The Dark Knight
Public Enemies
The Fighter
The Dark Knight Rises
........................................................................
Film 97
"Powder Blue"
Starring a mess of a cast including: Jessica Biel, Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker, Eddie Redmayne, Patrick Swayze
I cannot even begin to describe what exactly went on during the entire length of this film. It's a mess right from the beginning and the director is obviously drawing on inspiration from the great film "Magnolia" in the way he presents the story, but unfortunately it never lifts off the ground and his climatic scene of snowfall (in L.A.) comes after talk about miracles and Forest Whitaker's only real point to being included in the film seems to be a connection with "Faith" all falls very very short of the climatic plague of frogs at the end of "Magnolia." I mean, see it once. Don't insult me by attempting it again. Copying is a form of flattery, but it does not work for me in the mess that is "Powder Blue."
Jessica Biel, far from her stint on the WB network television show "7th Heaven" plays a stripper leaning on her ability to be very erotic and sensual when she dances, although her entire character definitely portrays the cliche that comes with any/all strippers-- she is empty, beaten down, inside. She is so down on her luck that she's lost custody of her ailing son (which is revealed to us through phone calls and then a visit to the hospital). She's lost her dog, her only companion, which leads her into the path of Eddie Redmayne's character (and of course, they develop a liking for each other...she sees him perhaps as her way out of the seedy underworld of stripping, since he loves her and that's all that she really wants, apparently).
Enter Ray Liotta, whose relationship with Jessica Biel's character is so blatantly obvious, even though it's kept secret until the end, that it seems like an insult to intelligent viewers when it is revealed. He enters the strip club where Jessica Biel is dancing and watches her from a distance, rather creepily I might add. Then he gets a private dance from her in the "Blue Room" which seemed even creepier as a one-on-one scene. There's several wished-for moments in some films that you are dying to see, and for me Jessica Biel playing a stripper is one of those fantasies (but Ray Liotta and the creepiness factor sort of ruins it). You have to put up with a lot just for probably the most anticipated moment in recent film history: Jessica Biel's breasts (which she does bare). Why is this anticipated? Well, she's beautiful. She has that "7th Heaven" history attached to her (where she played a sort of rebellious teen daughter of a preacher). She's flirted with revealing herself thanks to Maxim magazine shoots and the remake "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (she displays herself in a wet t-shirt, teasingly). But are a few moments of bare-chested Jessica Biel worth putting yourself through this disaster...you have to ask yourself that.
...................................................
Film 98
"Possession"
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar
I love Sarah Michelle Gellar. I mean, LOVE, her, but every time I see one of her films I want to ask her "What the hell were you thinking?" Why does she make such poor choices when it comes to films? I hope she's fired her agent(s) from time to time. I mean, this is a girl who had it made playing Buffy Summers on the hailed WB television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." (Probably my all-time favorite television shows, so I may be a bit bias.) I feel bad for her because I know that she will be forever known as that seminal female-empowering character. She set the bar high. And I think she knows all that, so she has purposely stayed away from television (other than the disappointing return with "Ringer") and chosen under-the-radar films (besides "The Grudge") after her tenure as Buffy Summers. Unfortunately, she's not doing a great job of picking stellar projects, even if they are under the radar. She showed so much potential as Buffy and nothing has really come of it.
"Possession" is a sort of supernatural thriller involving the event of souls swapped through a mix of accident-scene blood between dueling brothers. I mean, come on! That's ridiculous. But it sets up the question of whether or not that's actually what really happened.
One brother (Ryan) is happily and newly married to Sarah Michelle Gellar's character. the other brother (Roman) is supremely jealous. He saw her first years ago and Ryan "stole" her, is what we are told and led to believe later on. The brothers end up in comas and Roman wakes up apparently with his brother's soul inside of him. Jessica (Gellar) doesn't believe it's her husband at first, but she eventually falls in love with him, again and ends up getting pregnant towards the end of the film, before the climax, where we are led to believe that Roman was never who he said he was (the true husband, Ryan). He was just doing all this to get what he wanted.
I got confused just trying to write the summary here and the film is a rather brief 85 minutes long, but it seems to carry on for much longer than that while you are watching it.
I didn't like it and it lost my interest, even though I love Sarah Michelle Gellar. I would rather have watched her recite some recipes and/or read some children's books for 85 minutes.
"The Prestige"
Starring: Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, and David Bowie
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
"The Prestige" is another Christopher Nolan masterpiece (this time adapted from a novel written by Christopher Priest). He enjoys working with "supernatural" aspects while taking a deeper look into the psyche of humanity. He seems to always focus his films on a mixture of several themes and because this is a film about magic/magicians he decided to present us with another film about obsession, sacrifice, betrayal, loneliness, revenge and the whole idea of theatricality (I mean, we are seeing magicians).
Knowing it's a film about magic there's 3 acts (much like the magic trick that sets up the entire film, well, any magic trick really, as Michael Caine tells us at the beginning of the film). Those 3 acts are: 1) the Pledge, a seemingly real situation is set up for the audience 2) the Turn, initial reality is challenged and 3) the Prestige, all is set right again.
The thing with this film (and I'm convinced Nolan enjoys doing this to his audience) is that the Prestige (and 3rd act) doesn't necessarily set everything right, which could really piss you off as a viewer, but Nolan is as masterful a filmmaker as perhaps Houdini was a masterful magician. You are intrigued and left wondering how Nolan can pull off such tricks on the screen.
The film centers around two rivaling magicians who were apprentices together at the beginning of their careers. Robert Angier (played by Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (played by Christian Bale). One night the Chinese Water Torture (box) trick goes wrong and Milton the Magician's wife is lowered into the box with ropes tied too tightly (by Alfred) and she ends up drowning before she can escape the box. Houdini, in real life, apparently did this trick night after night in his act, so clearly Nolan has taken some real-life inspiration for this film. The mishap and blame sets off a lifelong/career-spanning hatred between the two up-and-coming magicians. Alfred ends up rising to the top of his game and falls in love with his new assistant (played rather ominously by Scarlett Johansson, whose acting talents seem a bit wasted as the beautiful assistant), who was actually sent by Robert in order to unveil Alfred's secrets, once Alfred has seemingly come up with an impossible/unbelievable magic trick titled "the Transported Man" (more on that in a minute). Robert is fueled by his hatred and jealousy of Alfred that he becomes obsessed with knowing everything about this trick. So much so that he enlists the help of Nikola Tesla (yes, the real inventor/physicist/engineer) played by David Bowie (who really rocked in this performance and comes leaps and bounds from his cod-piece days of "Labyrinth" in the 80s). He looks just like the real Tesla, it's a bit frightening.
"The Transported Man" becomes the focal point of the film. It is a trick that involves Tesla's invention alternating currents of electricity. It's truly a sight to see, even on film, with an almost crazy-like machine in the vein of Dr. Oct (from Spiderman). Alfred's trick involves him walking in one door on stage and one and a half seconds later walking through the second door on stage. Impossible? No truths to any tricks, especially this main act, are ever revealed in the film, and in true Christopher Nolan fashion (re: Inception) when the climax comes you are left wondering just what the hell happened. You almost have to watch it again, right after it ends to understand it better. Like a magic trick just seen. If this is the point that Nolan is trying to get across (with most, if not all his films), I say, well done. But I have so many questions I want to ask the man. I want to know his secrets, but I think like magic, it would ruin the experience of watching his films.
His track record of films has made him one of my all-time favorite directors and this film does not disappoint you at all, even though, it gets off track sometimes. I read the book and found the story on those pages confusing to follow, I think Nolan and his usual team do a great job putting an altering story to screen.
Christopher Nolan Films:
Following (a great debut about obsession)
Memento (one of my favorites)
Insomnia (we saw Robin Williams as a bad guy)
Batman Begins (the beginning of one of the best, ultimate trilogies ever)
The Prestige
The Dark Knight (easily the best performance by any actor in film, thanks to Heath Ledger as the Joker)
Inception (a mind-bending experience, to say the least)
The Dark Knight Rises (the end of the story)
I love that Nolan has also shined a light on Christian Bale's acting talents, since they have been common collaborators together. I remember Christian Bale turning in good-to-great performances in films like:
Empire of the Sun
Newsies
Swing Kids
Little Women
American Psycho
The Machinist
Batman Begins
The New World
3:10 to Yuma
I'm Not There
The Dark Knight
Public Enemies
The Fighter
The Dark Knight Rises
........................................................................
Film 97
"Powder Blue"
Starring a mess of a cast including: Jessica Biel, Ray Liotta, Forest Whitaker, Eddie Redmayne, Patrick Swayze
I cannot even begin to describe what exactly went on during the entire length of this film. It's a mess right from the beginning and the director is obviously drawing on inspiration from the great film "Magnolia" in the way he presents the story, but unfortunately it never lifts off the ground and his climatic scene of snowfall (in L.A.) comes after talk about miracles and Forest Whitaker's only real point to being included in the film seems to be a connection with "Faith" all falls very very short of the climatic plague of frogs at the end of "Magnolia." I mean, see it once. Don't insult me by attempting it again. Copying is a form of flattery, but it does not work for me in the mess that is "Powder Blue."
Jessica Biel, far from her stint on the WB network television show "7th Heaven" plays a stripper leaning on her ability to be very erotic and sensual when she dances, although her entire character definitely portrays the cliche that comes with any/all strippers-- she is empty, beaten down, inside. She is so down on her luck that she's lost custody of her ailing son (which is revealed to us through phone calls and then a visit to the hospital). She's lost her dog, her only companion, which leads her into the path of Eddie Redmayne's character (and of course, they develop a liking for each other...she sees him perhaps as her way out of the seedy underworld of stripping, since he loves her and that's all that she really wants, apparently).
Enter Ray Liotta, whose relationship with Jessica Biel's character is so blatantly obvious, even though it's kept secret until the end, that it seems like an insult to intelligent viewers when it is revealed. He enters the strip club where Jessica Biel is dancing and watches her from a distance, rather creepily I might add. Then he gets a private dance from her in the "Blue Room" which seemed even creepier as a one-on-one scene. There's several wished-for moments in some films that you are dying to see, and for me Jessica Biel playing a stripper is one of those fantasies (but Ray Liotta and the creepiness factor sort of ruins it). You have to put up with a lot just for probably the most anticipated moment in recent film history: Jessica Biel's breasts (which she does bare). Why is this anticipated? Well, she's beautiful. She has that "7th Heaven" history attached to her (where she played a sort of rebellious teen daughter of a preacher). She's flirted with revealing herself thanks to Maxim magazine shoots and the remake "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (she displays herself in a wet t-shirt, teasingly). But are a few moments of bare-chested Jessica Biel worth putting yourself through this disaster...you have to ask yourself that.
...................................................
Film 98
"Possession"
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar
I love Sarah Michelle Gellar. I mean, LOVE, her, but every time I see one of her films I want to ask her "What the hell were you thinking?" Why does she make such poor choices when it comes to films? I hope she's fired her agent(s) from time to time. I mean, this is a girl who had it made playing Buffy Summers on the hailed WB television show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." (Probably my all-time favorite television shows, so I may be a bit bias.) I feel bad for her because I know that she will be forever known as that seminal female-empowering character. She set the bar high. And I think she knows all that, so she has purposely stayed away from television (other than the disappointing return with "Ringer") and chosen under-the-radar films (besides "The Grudge") after her tenure as Buffy Summers. Unfortunately, she's not doing a great job of picking stellar projects, even if they are under the radar. She showed so much potential as Buffy and nothing has really come of it.
"Possession" is a sort of supernatural thriller involving the event of souls swapped through a mix of accident-scene blood between dueling brothers. I mean, come on! That's ridiculous. But it sets up the question of whether or not that's actually what really happened.
One brother (Ryan) is happily and newly married to Sarah Michelle Gellar's character. the other brother (Roman) is supremely jealous. He saw her first years ago and Ryan "stole" her, is what we are told and led to believe later on. The brothers end up in comas and Roman wakes up apparently with his brother's soul inside of him. Jessica (Gellar) doesn't believe it's her husband at first, but she eventually falls in love with him, again and ends up getting pregnant towards the end of the film, before the climax, where we are led to believe that Roman was never who he said he was (the true husband, Ryan). He was just doing all this to get what he wanted.
I got confused just trying to write the summary here and the film is a rather brief 85 minutes long, but it seems to carry on for much longer than that while you are watching it.
I didn't like it and it lost my interest, even though I love Sarah Michelle Gellar. I would rather have watched her recite some recipes and/or read some children's books for 85 minutes.
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