whiskey tango foxtrot

[thehefner]

I've come to feel that my enjoyment of something cannot be killed by it being over-hyped. Or sure, that's the common feeling, "it was so hyped up, it was a letdown," I know that. And yet, I believe that if something is really, truly of quality, even if I don't want to like it, the excellence of the work will shine through and I will admit, however grudgingly if I were resistant, that "god damn it, it's good."

Then there are times that there's something I want to see, but others see it before me and hype it up like mad. Then I want to see it more than ever, even if I am cautious as, like, virtually everybody is praising the hell out of it. That's a good deal of pressure and hype to live up to.

But then, there are times when the movie isn't just a letdown. No, it's worse than mere disappointment. It's... how to describe this... it's... bafflement. Bafflement at a movie that astounded and thrilled pretty much everyone I know who has seen it, and yet has left me totally, completely cold.

Such a film is THE PRESTIGE.

And I wanted to like it, God I did. But I just... didn't... care. At no point in this movie did I care about ANY of these cold, selfish people. I swear, the only character for whom I had any sympathy and emotional investment was Andy Serkis' cat. That's it. And I kept hoping, "See where it's going, get to the end, to the big reveal," because I had just a few days ago finished ENDER'S GAME, a book I really, really didn't care for until the very end, an end which salvaged the whole thing for me and made it excellent, so I was still in that mindset. Nope. Not so.



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SPOILERS
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Ok, we're a jaded modern audience, everyone knew SOMETHING was up with the beared silent guy in the glasses, right? I couldn't have been the only one. Did anyone NOT know it was someone in disguise? Did anyone NOT figure out who it was? Halfway through, by process of elimination, I'd already figured out that is was Christian Bale too. I figured he got a double too, that would have been acceptable.

But folks, did I miss a mention of a brother somewhere? Did anyone bring that up? Because a surprise brother completely out of left fucking field is one thing, but a god damn TWIN brother?! Oh, come on! Once you start throwing twins in the plot, it becomes DAVID BLANE'S GENERAL HOSPITAL.

And y'know, I was prepared for the leap into "real" magic. But... a cloning/teleportation device? What? Bizarrely enough for me, I could have accepted real magic, but pseudo-science felt... really weird and out-of-place. Unless we're to believe that Tesla actually was a Wizard, an actual mage, but no, he was meant to be in the realm of science, yes? Well, at that point the movie slipped into the realm of fantasy, a fantasy that just didn't fit in the realism of everything else. It just felt random.

But that's just one element. My problem is the whole movie, which felt like a cycle of "Magician A does a trick, Magician B sabotages it, Magician B does even better version of the same trick, Magician A sabotages it, Magician A does the best version yet, Magician B sabotages it, etc." I don't CARE about you selfish, unlikable, unsympathetic men. The movie would have satisfied me more if they had ended up killing one another. Seriously, it would have.


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END SPOILERS
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The worst part is how damn frustrated I am right now. I don't get it! I'm baffled. How could this movie so deeply connect with so many people when it left me totally, completely cold? Cold, cold is the word! There was nothing warm, nothing for me to hold on to or care about in this whole damn movie. And I hate this feeling, I really do.

This is worse than mere disappointment. Because I feel like the only person in the world who just... doesn't... get it.

Comments

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

You know what would fix that?

Guitar Hero. :D

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Now, what in particular about it? The game itself or the fact that, as a friend of mine phoned me up to inform me last week, that the game has Dethklok songs on it?

Because really, there was a time when I'd have DDR for things like this. And I still do need to get the most recent version for my rusty PS2.

Is Guitar Hero truly so mighty?

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

It has a friggin' Spinal Tap song on it.

If you win at that song your drummer asplodes.

DO I NEED TO DRAW YOU A PICTURE?

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I... I had no idea. What a fool I'd been. What a foolish fool!

This is even better than discovering Luke Cage's ultimate move in "Marvel Ultimate Alliance" is to shout out "SWEET CHRISTMAS!" and destroy everything on the screen. And that's bloody saying a lot.

Gah, noooo! No more video games! Bane of my creative soul! I know, I'll drink more! Booze is writer's fuel! Just watch in six months time as my life is a waste of naught but guitar hero and manhattans.

Hm. Looking over this post, I am clearly rather exhausted from frustration.

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

If you hit the encores right, you can get Kansas' "Carry On My Wayward Son." Then you get to pretend to be Stephen Colbert for the duration. I'm telling you, man, GH3 is thisclose to including "Charlene (I'm Right Behind You)".

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Awwwwwwww man. You dare to invoke Kansas. *cries*

Stupid bloody... welp, my mother didn't need a Christmas present anyway.

I got it for my combined Christmas/birthday present.

[heykidzcomix.livejournal.com]

It also has Free Bird.

Oh yes, they went there.

Re: I got it for my combined Christmas/birthday present.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, with that game, how could they bloody not?

I'm reminded of what irish_caffeine found scrawled in a men's room sink:

LIFE IS TOO FUCKING SHORT TO PLAY OR HEAR FREEBIRD.

[adaptor.livejournal.com]

I think the things you disliked about it were the reasons I liked it. For me it was about obsession. I liked and warmed to the characters quickly early on, when after working on a show they couldn't wait to get backstage and talk about the show, and talk about the next show, and everbody else's shows. I liked watching them become corrupted by how much they were willing to kill and push away to get closer to something neither of them would ever have.

Like you, I saw the twist a mile away. But I enjoyed watching it all unravel. It was scary for me because I know I could get that obsessive if I'm not careful.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Not gonna contest any of that, but it's good to know where at least you came from.

Have you seen THE DUELLISTS? It reminded me (perhaps incorrectly) of that film, but it was the ending of that particular movie which made that one work and this one not for me. I get the impression you'd dig it as well. Well worth checking out.

[adaptor.livejournal.com]

The Duellist? Cool! I'll have to check it out!

You'd have loved my night of theatre tonight. I saw a stage production of Night of the Living Dead! Okay, it wasn't that great. But for the rest of my life I can say I saw a stage production of Night of the Living Dead! Weeeeee!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Duellists, plural! Ridley Scott directing, starring Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine. Based on a Hugo story, I believe?

Aw, sweet! We actually just had a production that sounds very similar down here in DC, but I couldn't make it. Still, wait till I eventually do *my* version of it. Six actors, no zombies. The way we have it planned, it'll be awwwwwesome. One of these days.

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

If the final pages of Ender's Game worked for you, you should look into Speaker for the Dead. It's much more like those last few pages of Ender's Game than it is like the rest of the book.

[mirthical.livejournal.com]

aha, I did remember correctly!

Yeah, you can probably skip Xenocide and Children of the Mind entirely, because the series arc takes a disappointing nosedive.

[kmousie.livejournal.com]

I read your post to my mom because we felt exactly the same way when we saw it. I didn't post about it (because I was exhausted from my birthday weekend and the car break-in, etc.), but I said in one of my comments:

They were both so nasty that I had a hard time caring about either of them. But Borden wasn't straight-up Bateman-evil, either, so I couldn't hate him.

And I almost wish I could have hated him. Because then I would have cared. Bale and Jackman were awesome, but...meh.

Have you read the m15m for The Prestige? cleolinda is such a talented woman!

My mom wanted me to ask you if you know a play called The Sugar Bean Sisters. That's the one she wants to direct next season.

*hugs*

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but apparently she loved the movie too! Gahh, you're the only one besides me! (although I did laugh heartily at Brother McNotme).

I also recommend teh_no's similar "fivers" such as his take on Superman Returns:

http://teh-no.livejournal.com/120523.html

And I have never heard of that play! Is good?

[kmousie.livejournal.com]

Synopsis from the website:

A strange bird-like woman approaches an old house at the edge of an ancient swamp in Sugar Bean, Florida. Inside the woman's feather-covered overnight case is a recent edition of the lurid supermarket tabloid, "The Weekly World News". The bold headline reads:

ALIENS LAND IN FLORIDA SWAMP!

SUGAR BEAN WOMAN SAYS "THEY WILL RETURN"!

Mormon sisters Faye and Willie Mae Nettles return home to their ramshackle swamp dwelling after a disastrous daytrip to Disney World. Willie is deeply distressed at having lost her prized Eva Gabor wig on Space Mountain and places the blame squarely on sister Faye's shoulders.

As Faye hurries to finalize preparations for the return of the "space people", Willie laments the fact that today's calamity is only the latest in a long string of Nettles family tragedies.

A disturbance in the sugarcane field lures the sisters outside to investigate. On the porch, Faye recalls how "Papa Fate" claimed to have witnessed the dead walk through Sugar Bean on a similar night many years before. A frightened Willie Mae clutches her "Book of Mormon" as Faye bravely descends the steps of the porch.

The ornithic stranger suddenly appears out of the darkness of Buster Swamp, setting in motion a chain of extraordinary events. Lies begin to unravel and the truth is revealed as "The Sugar Bean Sisters" hatch a diabolical plot to ensure the aliens' return.

This is the night they will make contact.

Sounds like zany fun, and my mom would have a ball directing it!

[metalcrowe.livejournal.com]

Think about it this way: The reveal at the end was actually about revealing how the "Transported Man" trick was done. But do you really want to know how it is done? Cutter has a line to this effect somewhere within the movie; I don't remember the quote exactly, but it's something along the lines of Now you're looking for the trick, but you won't find it, that's because you don't want to find it.

What Cutter is saying is that in a magic trick, the audience doesn't really want to find out the real (non-supernatural) way in which the trick was performed. However, since this is a movie set backstage of a magic show, we the audience get to see the mundane reality and dead birds that lie behind the tricks. So that is what we are expecting Angier's "Transported Man" to be; some clever trick with lights and ropes and secret passages or something. Not something that is actually supernatural or fantastic.

To that end, I think the emphasis on Tesla being in the world of science was important. In that respect, he's just another Cutter, except with bigger machines that produce more sparks. So again, we are expecting some sort of ingenious scientific and mechanical device, just on a grander scale. Again, like the audience of a magic show wants to believe in magic, we want to believe in reality. But if we look too closely, we see something we don't really want to see.

This is one of the reasons that the movie really worked for me.