Random stuff:
If you think about it, *pickles* are just *zombie cucumbers.* That is fucked up.
Last night, the wife and I headed out for French food. And it was tasty. I heart rack of lamb. We ate at a fairly fancy place, breaking the "three digit barrier" on the bill (Re: Spending at least $100 on the meal). This isnt something we do often, but it's fun once in a while. And I really don't mind paying that much for quality food and great service. But for some reason a $10 appetizer that is meant for only one person really bugs me. To me, that just *feels* like highway robbery.
This last bit is about The Prestige and contains spoilers ... so beware.
Still here?
OK then.
So, we checked out The Prestige on Saturday afternoon. And I liked that well enough too. But what really bugged me about was that I feel like the various *twist* endings got in the way of a really good movie. Presumably, the movie is *really* supposed to be about questions of identity, revenge, and obsession. And how the intersection of all three is a set-up for tragedy. But the movie never really moves from a sort of perfunctual, intellectual moral of "obsession will fuck you up" to a really *cathartic* tragic one. And I think the reason is that Nolan spent SO MUCH TIME hiding the truth from you and showing you magic tricks .... that he couldn't actually delve into these characters. It would have been much more powerful to see the how nasty Bale and Jackman were to each other, if we had a sense of just them being friends before, or if we saw how happy Jackman was with his wife. Similarly, Jackman sending ScarJo away to work for Bale would have felt more underhanded if we could have seen them in love. Or, the tragedy of twin brother sharing a life (and ruining) would have been magnified be a greater focus on what Bale's day to day existence was like. There was just too much secrecy and not enough solid character work. The movie is fun, and it works as a clever genre piece. But I think it wants to be more - it seems to strive to be a compelling character piece and a movie driven by an interesting theme. But all the stuff we'd need to see for it to really work on that "artistic" level (at the danger of sounding pretentious) occurs off-screen, in the name of maintaining an illusion.
Also, the fact that Tesla invented a cloning machine really fucked with my head, given the realsim of the rest of the movie.
But David Bowie rocked my socks.
If you think about it, *pickles* are just *zombie cucumbers.* That is fucked up.
Last night, the wife and I headed out for French food. And it was tasty. I heart rack of lamb. We ate at a fairly fancy place, breaking the "three digit barrier" on the bill (Re: Spending at least $100 on the meal). This isnt something we do often, but it's fun once in a while. And I really don't mind paying that much for quality food and great service. But for some reason a $10 appetizer that is meant for only one person really bugs me. To me, that just *feels* like highway robbery.
This last bit is about The Prestige and contains spoilers ... so beware.
Still here?
OK then.
So, we checked out The Prestige on Saturday afternoon. And I liked that well enough too. But what really bugged me about was that I feel like the various *twist* endings got in the way of a really good movie. Presumably, the movie is *really* supposed to be about questions of identity, revenge, and obsession. And how the intersection of all three is a set-up for tragedy. But the movie never really moves from a sort of perfunctual, intellectual moral of "obsession will fuck you up" to a really *cathartic* tragic one. And I think the reason is that Nolan spent SO MUCH TIME hiding the truth from you and showing you magic tricks .... that he couldn't actually delve into these characters. It would have been much more powerful to see the how nasty Bale and Jackman were to each other, if we had a sense of just them being friends before, or if we saw how happy Jackman was with his wife. Similarly, Jackman sending ScarJo away to work for Bale would have felt more underhanded if we could have seen them in love. Or, the tragedy of twin brother sharing a life (and ruining) would have been magnified be a greater focus on what Bale's day to day existence was like. There was just too much secrecy and not enough solid character work. The movie is fun, and it works as a clever genre piece. But I think it wants to be more - it seems to strive to be a compelling character piece and a movie driven by an interesting theme. But all the stuff we'd need to see for it to really work on that "artistic" level (at the danger of sounding pretentious) occurs off-screen, in the name of maintaining an illusion.
Also, the fact that Tesla invented a cloning machine really fucked with my head, given the realsim of the rest of the movie.
But David Bowie rocked my socks.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
It was a multi-layered film. On one level it was about the way revenge and obsession can ruin you, but it was also an examination of the structure of the trick (Pledge, Turn, Prestige). It's definately a film that benifits from repeated viewing. Also, was it a cloning machine or a quantum rift? I got into a discussion about this after the film.