The Prestige

I don't often get the opportunity to sit down and watch movies anymore. It's a sad and rather ironic turn of events, I spend more time making films than I do watching those films that do and don't inspire me. But, occasionally, I find a few hours here or there and get a chance to relax in front of the boob tube.

Spurred on by the overwhelming "Brick", I made a little more time this weekend to actually watch a movie. There are quite a few on rental shelves that I want to get around to, but for right now, I had to pick one. Thus came "The Prestige". I've now seen 3 of Christopher Nolan's 4 major motion pictures (the only one I've yet to see is "Insomnia"). I don't know if I'd say I'm a "fan" of Nolan's movies. "Memento" left me cold. I hearald "Batman Begins" as the best comic book film to date. "The Prestige" fits somewhere in the middle.

"The Prestige", set in England and Colorado at the turn of the century (1899), is about two rival Magicians/Illusionists, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman in another very good performance) and Robert Borden (Christian Bale in another better than very good performance). When Angier's (Jackman) wife is accidentally killed in a failed illusion, he blames Borden (Bale) for her death. Thus sets up a story of revenge and obsession that plays out in a non-linear fasion.

It works... for the most part. It has some problems, one of which is at 130 minutes, it is too long. All of Act I and some of Act II feel as though they could have been condensed. And the main problem is that Nolan spends so much time and detail showing us the set up for the inevitable twist, that it's hard not to know what's coming. That being said, I quite liked the story and Nolan's presentation of the story. It's a metaphor of filmmaking itself. The more you learn about exactly how things are done in movies, the less they capture your imagination. The same is true here. The more Angier wants to learn exactly how Borden does his trick, the less magic and enjoyment simple "illusion" holds for him. He believes that it's REAL magic, thus sets out to prove that with disasterous consequences. There is a valid moral here and it comes through in spades.

A note on the "Magic" tricks in the film. I like simple things. I don't like allot of computer generated who-ha that looks pretty. I really have to give it to Nolan and his team for coming up with simple contraptions and camera tricks to tackle most of the magic. Sure, there's some CG here and there but it's spare. When we finally see (as Jackman's character puts it) "...the greatest magic trick I've ever seen." I was genuinely impressed by the trick, the trick's simplicity, and how the trick was depicted on film. It's things like this that hooked me into the movie despite a couple of problems with it.

So, I recommend "The Presitge", I'd even like to see it again. It's a good movie, maybe not a great one. When you watch it, remember this... "People don't care about the man in the box. Making someone disappear is easy."

Downtime and MMA

Since finishing my final (we hope) edit of "What Love Remains", finishing my job as DP on a Thesis film, and completing the first draft of my script for this semester, I've had a couple hours of downtime. WHEE!!!! First thing I did was rent a couple movies, discovering in the process that "BRICK" is a frikken AMAZING movie that I will cherish for a long long time. After that was over, I decided to pull out some UFC dvd's and just enjoy some vicarious violence.

Those of you who know me (and you are few), know that I'm a HUGE fan of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). Quite frankly it's the only sport I can stand to watch... and I'm an addict. It is the only THING on this earth that can get me into a bar (because I can't afford pay per view) and I can't wait to go back to the dingy, smelly Hammer Jack's on March 3rd to watch my boys beat the heck out of/submit each other.

For those of you who don't know, MMA is a hybrid form of martial arts that combines Greco-Roman Wrestling, Kickboxing, Ju-Jitsu, and various other forms of martial arts. It came about (popularly) in about 1993 when the first Ultimate Fighting Championship was held. Basically it was a competition to figure out that old question "Which Form of Fighting is the Best?". What quickly became apparent is what Bruce Lee had been telling us all along: ONE style of fighting won't cut it, you have to be able to move between them. There are several ways to win; Knock Out (that thing where someone hits/kicks you and the birdies sing), Submission (that thing where someone twists your arm and makes you say UNCLE... or in this case makes you tap out), Points (that thing where nobody wins so they send it to the judges), and Ref Stoppage/TKO (that thing where the ref rushes in to protect you from further punches to the face).

Since 1993 MMA has gone through allot of changes and is one of the most respected and successful sports on the map, making millions in pay per views and having a legion of fans at their heels. All that aside, the wife and I are just huge, salivating, rabid fans. :)

Anyways, back to that whole SCHOOL thing. Since last semester's project was so ambitious, I'm cutting back this semester's. I'm doing a short film that's really only one scene. I wanted to spend more time rehearsing and working specifically on performance, thus avoiding some of the headaches of producing. I just want to focus on directing a little more, allow myself to have a DP again (though that's always the most difficult thing for me), and just work with my actors. We'll see. I'll keep y'all posted.

Ah... those couple hours off were nice.

Late Night, Day Off, Naps Baaaaaad....

It's not that I hate naps... it's just that they appear to hate me. After the final day of shooting on a large Thesis film, I was tired. Strange, considering it was probably one of the easiest days of shooting we had. But still, I came home, crashed on the couch and fell asleep. In the background, Corky Romano blared yet still, sleep took me. Two hours later I awoke to that pleasant feeling of being hit by a train carrying port-a-potties. You know the feeling. The feeling that your heart is beating too fast, but yet, as though it could stop at any minute. I think the fact that the on set meals were from that health spa known as McDonalds only aided in the nap's ability to destroy my nervous system and make me want to avoid sleep for... ever really.

So, here I sit at 1:00 in the a.m. starting a blog site. Not something I thought I would do, but hey, what with being a grad student I've got just LOADS of free time to sit around and tell you all how I feel. As Anakin Skywalker would say... "YIPPIE!"

But there is a lighter side to the day. I managed to finally finish editing my epic (15 minute) film from last semester and dropped it off at a local film festival. I'm looking forward to seeing some other films from around Missoula and watching mine on a big screen. I shot it at 2.35:1 so it's tiny on my computer monitor. As soon as it's uploaded to the school website, I'll post a link so y'all can tell me how much you HATE, er how much you liked the sets... ya... there's always a nicer way to put it, but it's late and my brain is firing on only 1 of it's regular 3 cylinders.

*BANG* see... there it went.