Recommended Posts

Posted

The Prestige

 

This is my husband's absolute favorite film and my near-absolute favorite. I read the book earlier this year and now I love the film even more. 

 

I watched it once. That's enough for me. An entertaining and well-crafted fantasy, but too emotionally wrenching to put myself through more than once.

Posted (edited)

I hated the film prestige.

 

Why? I understand it's pretty heavy material, not for everyone. But the way the story is crafted, the little bits and pieces, it's simply masterful. And, David Bowie. 

 

Hopefully without spoiling anything.. my husband and I enjoy going back through the film and figuring out who exactly is playing each role in each scene. We think we're close to having it figured out, but we have watched the film together all the way through at least a dozen times now.

Edited by char713
Posted (edited)

Why? I understand it's pretty heavy material, not for everyone. But the way the story is crafted, the little bits and pieces, it's simply masterful. And, David Bowie. 

 

Hopefully without spoiling anything.. my husband and I enjoy going back through the film and figuring out who exactly is playing each role in each scene. We think we're close to having it figured out, but we have watched the film together all the way through at least a dozen times now.

in the end it's a story about a guy who's progressed beyond one-upmanship to destroying the life of another, to get to get the other guy's wife/girlfriend. it left a bad taste in the mouth. how it treated magic tricks was pretty nifty, but the "prestige" kinda broke that aspect.

where did it have dave bowie in it?... totally missed that lol.

Edited by Blackmarch
Posted

He was Tesla! Understated, wonderful performance. Sadly, the women seemed to matter little to the men, they were valued only slightly higher than their other assistants. Maybe less, actually. It was all about the prestige they attained, about the looks on the audience members' faces, as Angier said in his last line.

Posted

He was Tesla! Understated, wonderful performance. Sadly, the women seemed to matter little to the men, they were valued only slightly higher than their other assistants. Maybe less, actually. It was all about the prestige they attained, about the looks on the audience members' faces, as Angier said in his last line.

 

Did we watch the same movie? Love for the women was the motivator for the whole story until revenge took over and dehumanized one of the principals, to the point that he was willing to suffer a literal version of eternal death and utterly destroy his own humanity to achieve his revenge (as he supposed). A beautifully crafted but horrific cautionary tale.

Posted

He was Tesla! Understated, wonderful performance. Sadly, the women seemed to matter little to the men, they were valued only slightly higher than their other assistants. Maybe less, actually. It was all about the prestige they attained, about the looks on the audience members' faces, as Angier said in his last line.

Lol dang totally didn't recognize him.... (tho to be fair i generally only recognize him when he's singing)

Posted

Did we watch the same movie? Love for the women was the motivator for the whole story until revenge took over and dehumanized one of the principals, to the point that he was willing to suffer a literal version of eternal death and utterly destroy his own humanity to achieve his revenge (as he supposed). A beautifully crafted but horrific cautionary tale.

 

Angier loved his wife. But she was not his true motivation - he says this quite emphatically "I don't care about my wife I care about his secret." The other two women in play were also loved, and they were but small pieces of the puzzle. When the relationships with them started and ended, yes those events had a great impact but they were not the motivation behind why the men did what they did. I wish I could say more, avoiding spoilers makes it very hard for me to illustrate my point. I agree that it is horrific, I do not love it for that reason though, but for the intricacies in character development.

Posted

Lol dang totally didn't recognize him.... (tho to be fair i generally only recognize him when he's singing)

I might not have realized it either, but his eyes (complete heterochromia) gave him away. I don't think the real Tesla had that mutation...  off to google it now. 

Posted

Lol dang totally didn't recognize him.... (tho to be fair i generally only recognize him when he's singing)

I liked The Prestige. The brief scene of the hats in the field...(I think they were Tesla's hats) comes to mind. 

Posted (edited)

"Inn of the Sixth Happiness" with Ingred Bergman (1958).  One of the great inspirational movies from the Golden Age of Movies, based on a real-life person who became a missionary in pre-war China.  Humor, romance, suspense

 

A very remarkable ending, shows how the Lord cares for his children even in an obscure, remote village in China.  A great movie to watch on Sunday.

Edited by cdowis
Posted

Hotel Transylvania 2.

There's a lot of crude humor (which should be no surprise when you realize that it's got the triple play of Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Genndy Tartakovsky), but it's also got a lot of legitimately funny moments and raises some good questions.

Posted

The Intern. Snooze.

Scorch Trials. Scared the popcorn out of me. This was surprisingly good even as I was blah about the book.

Hotel Transylvania 2. Funny and not funny at the same time. My kids were blah about the human/monster tolerance conflict but went ape in the end (can't tell you why without spoiling the ending).

Black Mass. Not my kind of movie. I thought it was dumb. My husband digs all the gangster movies so he thought this was cool.

Posted

The Martian.

 

Very good movie from the everyday fantasy-movie-goer.  I'm waiting for Vort to see it and comment on the science of it.

Posted

The Martian.

 

Very good movie from the everyday fantasy-movie-goer.  I'm waiting for Vort to see it and comment on the science of it.

 

Since they avoided an 'R' rating, I assume they cleaned up 99.9% of the foul language. I certainly hope so, at least.

Posted

Since they avoided an 'R' rating, I assume they cleaned up 99.9% of the foul language. I certainly hope so, at least.

 

Ohhh!  No they didn't... well, they skated around it... for example... they only have one (maybe 2?) F-words which is the maximum allowable for PG-13.  But they had very creative ways of saying it without saying it... like the astronaut going on a video-only monitor and yelling it many times without sound.  Of course, we all know what he's yelling.  Or typing it on a text-only interface with substitution characters many many times... with the people reading the text having over-emphasized reactions to it so you know that they are trying to direct the audience to that specific word usage.

Posted

I've read the book and got to see the Martian this weekend and thought it was a great movie. An inspiring movie for sure. There was some language but I think they handled it well.

Posted

All Creatures Great And Small (I think it was called?)

 

It was actually surprisingly GOOD. Had a couple known actors voicing characters, including, Chris Evans but you'd never know it was him! I didn't know until credits rolled... The story is about Noah's ark and the 'approved' animal list to embark on it. It doesn't mention god at all, it's not religious based, it is about a 'creature' that doesn't know what he is or where he belongs...And in hopes to be saved from the flood, he tries to aboard the ark but a whole series of unfortunate events seem to occur. Great family movie, nothing remotely questionable, and the CGI is seriously beautiful. It's on RedBox right now, only DVD, but like I said it's still gorgeous viewing.

Posted

Looks like I'll be seeing "Pan" this Friday.

I've kinda had my fill on "the story behind the story" and "revisionist" films, and so hopefully this won't disappoint.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...