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Not so long after the release of Christopher Nolan's film The Prestige with Bale, Bowie, Caine and Johansson, comes two more films on a magical theme, no not 'Paul Daniels - the Movie' thank god, but The Illusionist with Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, and Paul Giamatti, plus Magicians (starring Robert Webb and David Mitchell) from the Peep Show writers and director Andrew O'Connor, who seems to be another British director from that breeding ground of great British directors, old tv show Number 73* (!!!!???) .

BUT WHICH ONE ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

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*Red Road out on DVD soon - 26th Feb!!!

watched The Illusionist and it was alright even tho Ed Norton's performance was a bit strange and it would have been better all done in posh English accents. in a nutsell its the usual suspects re-imagined as the prestige

 

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Jessica Biel is a fox!!! much more sexy than Scarlett J (who is everywhere and strikes me as a complete nebbish!! however think Geek mag were right putting her down as 3rd hottest gimp in pop culture)

 

by the way heres the original mac and pc ads from the good old u, s of a

 

 

 

 

I thought "The Illusionist" was pretty damned good myself... Fantastic acting from Ed Norton, Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell... Jessica Biel might as well have not even turned up to be honest, her contribution was very peacemeal to say the least... And her quite scary 'morph' into Scarlett Johansson was rather distracting as well... Dont think much of her to be honest.. I'm not really a great advocate of Ms Johansson's but in terms of acting talent, she is streets ahead of Biel...

 

The film itself - fantastic attention to period detail, the whole Austro-Hungarian court intrigue element was rather cool as well (obviously this was set before WW1, but you can already feel the tensions building up...), and while it did bear a resemblance to "The Usual Suspects" in terms of narrative and structure, I saw nothing wrong with that... Better than "The Prestige"..? I would say the denoument was more satisfying than "The Prestige", but I do love the barking mad quality that "The Prestige" has going on...

 

8/10 from me...

I ended up seeing half of this again, and actually think i liked it better the second time around when the accents didnt seem as odd.

 

Jessica Biel might as well have not even turned up to be honest, her contribution was very peacemeal to say the least... And her quite scary 'morph' into Scarlett Johansson was rather distracting as well... Dont think much of her to be honest.. I'm not really a great advocate of Ms Johansson's but in terms of acting talent, she is streets ahead of Biel...

 

i think Johansson is just totally over-exposed, actually bored of seeing her everywhere, could be better to be like Jessica Alba and disapear from film for a year (even tho she's will be in a few this year), thats why i prefer Biel at the moment. There's not much difference really between them (however if you had to take one out i think you would probably have to take out Scarlett, seeing that she's doing the Tom Waits album :lol: , might be more beneficial to your record/tracks collection :lol: )

 

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The film itself - fantastic attention to period detail, the whole Austro-Hungarian court intrigue element was rather cool as well (obviously this was set before WW1, but you can already feel the tensions building up...),

 

yes the production design was excellent, from the flickering film to the sets (esp the 'walk down the corridor' with Paul Giamatti)

 

and while it did bear a resemblance to "The Usual Suspects" in terms of narrative and structure, I saw nothing wrong with that... Better than "The Prestige"..? I would say the denoument was more satisfying than "The Prestige", but I do love the barking mad quality that "The Prestige" has going on...

 

8/10 from me...

 

I was slightly disappointed by The Prestige, just because of the previous films. it was a good film but not life changing, you expected so much more (Bowie was fun :lol: ) and i would also agree that the denoument was more satisfying in the Illusionist.