The Prestige - Christopher Nolan is scaring me. First there was "Memento", Then "Insomina"...and now he's rejuvenated the Batman Franchise with "Batman Begins", where do you go from there? 19th Century London, that's where. Nolan reunites with "Batman" & "Alfred" ("Begins" Christian Bale and Michael Caine) and throws a bit of "Wolverine" (Hugh Jackman) in the mix in a GREAT tale of obsession, rivalry, and magic.
Bale and Jackman compete in a game of "Can you top THIS?" after an accident sours their friendship while learning the secrets to illusion. Like Michael Jordan and Julius Irving in a Slam Dunk contest, each magician breaks into the biz with their own style that eventually gets sabotaged by one other till Bale comes out on top.
Frustrated, Jackman does everything he can to retaliate (From sending his lovely assistant as a spy, to kidnapping Bale's partner...) all to Caine's disgust who warns him about going to far. Jackman finally travels to America where an isolated scientist and his assistant (cameo roles played by David Bowie and Andy "My Precccccious!" Serkis) help Jackman create the Greatest Magic Trick of All Time!
The film stretches the imagination a bit, but just keep telling yourself, "It IS just a movie!" and you'll be fine. As far as endings go, it might be up there with "Sixth Sense", but anyone with a college diploma could sorta figure it out, if not, don't worry, you'll definitely get a kick outta watching the whole movie again to figure it all out.
Overall, a great film, Nolan's batting a 1.000...he keeps this up, he my replace Michael Mann as my all time favorite director...NOT!
Brick - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the kid's got some potential. He's got a new movie coming out, "The Lookout" (Thou, it almost reminds me of Ben Affleck's "Reindeer Games"). It's hard the believe in the 90's he was playing an alien on "3rd Rock from the Sun"! "Brick" is one of those movies that comes alone outta nowhere. The director/writer is usually a Taratino worshiping film student graduate, fresh out of collage, budgeting the film with less than million dollars. If that's true, it's an impressive piece of work.
We've seen Shakespeare done with teenagers ("O", "10 Things I hate about You", etc..), Charles Dickens ("Great Expectations") as well as sexy Harlequin Romance-like stories like "Dangerous Liaisons" even done over ("Cruel Intentions")..."Brick" does the same but to the typical Hard-Boiled Detective Mystery. Set in WAaaaay out Suburbia...Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan, a loner wise-ass slacker whose done some bad things at one point or another but has been playing straight arrow as of late. His ex-girlfriend Emily falls into the "Wrong" crowd and goes missing. Word gets to Brendan to visit a pay phone at a certain time in which he receives a cryptic phone call from Emily who's frightened out of her wits for some reason. Brendan throws ideas around with his trusty sidekick, Brain to figure out what kind of trouble Emily's in but is too late to save as he finds her body near a sewer drain. Hell-bent to find out what happened, Brendan infiltrates the High School cliques of Jocks, Goths, Wasteheads, and Drug Pushers and encounters a slew of shifty individuals in a mystery that would make Mickey Spillane proud.
This movie stands out with it's great imagery and unique characters. Brendan at first glance looks like a total nerd with his wire glasses and hand-me-down clothes, but suddenly he's this uber-tough guy crunching teeth with the blowhard bragging football jock, staring down a high speed oncoming muscle car without even flinching, and tripping up would-be knife attckers Bugs Bunny style by sticking out his leg from around the corner at the last minute! Other noticeable supportive roles were upcoming Eye-Candy goddess Megan Good, Lukas Hass (Wasn't he that boy from "Witness" and the guy in that video for "Welcome to the Black Parade" by My Chemical Romance?!?!?)
The thing that is MOST trippy about this movie is the dialog. I don't know WHERE these kids think they live in, but it's obviously not planet earth. I dunno, maybe slang has evolved since my hey-day, I had to look at the movie with the Captions on to understand what the HELL everybody was saying.
Example:
The following is a scene where Branden and Brain are trying to figure out Emily's call:
Brendan: Emily said four words I didn't know. Tell me if they catch. Brick?
The Brain: No.
Brendan: Or Bad Brick?
The Brain: Nope.
Brendan: Tug?
The Brain: Tug? Tug might be a drink, like milk and vodka, or something.
Brendan: Poor Frisco?
The Brain: Frisco? Frisco Farr was a sophomore last year, real trash. Maybe had a class a week, I didn't know him then, haven't seen him around.
Brendan: Pin?
The Brain: Pin. The Pin?
Brendan: The Pin, yeah?
The Brain: The Pin is kinda a local spook story, yeah know the King Pin.
Brendan: Yeah, I've heard it.
The Brain: Same thing, he's supposed to be old, like 26. Lives in town.
Brendan: Dope runner, right?
The Brain: Big time. See the Pin pipes it from the lowest scraper for Brad Bramish to sell, maybe. Ask any dope rat where their junk sprang and they'll say they scraped it from that, who scored it from this, who bought it off so, and after four or five connections the list always ends with The Pin. But I bet you, if you got every rat in town together and said "Show your hands" if any of them've actually seen The Pin, you'd get a crowd of full pockets.
Brendan: You think The Pin's just a tale to take whatever heat?
The Brain: Hmm... So what's first?
Brendan: Show of hands.
I actually laughed when he said 26 was OLD, WTF?!?!? Here's a line from Emily...
Emily: Brendan, I know you're mad at these people because you think I went away from you and went to them but, you need to start seeing it as my decision. Stop getting angry because where I want to be at, is different from where you want to be at.
Or a line by Megan Good's seductive "Kara".
Kara: You better be sure you wanna know what you wanna know.
WHO SPEAKS this crazy ass "Twin Peaks" Double Talk?!?!?
I Dunno, maybe it's before my time or after my time...the language is almost so out there it could be consider a foreign film. STILL "Brick" is a great mystery, shades of Bogart and "The Maltese Falcon". If you can actually find it at Blockbuster (Took me 2 months before I finally did, and I'm glad I burned a copy!) or if you have IFC, take an moment and check it out...you just might enjoy it.
Damn, this post is long...um, I'll comment about "Requiem for A Dream", later on...
PeacE!
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