First thoughts on the Prestige

(try to write something smarter and more insightful than just that you can't decide who's hotter, Bale or Jackman. You can do this, you've been pretending to be intellectual like, forever. Ok. Let's do this)

Remember how I mentioned ambivalence in the context of Marie Antoinette? Well, it's also what redeems this movie, it's refreshing to not be told who to root for (kind of like Heat, in that way, but even more so).

I did figure it out. Most of it, anyway. But there was much nice trickery. I have some questions, but they would involve spoilers, and more thought than I can muster right now.

Liked the jumping back and forth in time, I'm not sure it was entirely necessary, but the many, many, many doubling were cool, underlining the themes, too. Nolan is a guy with style.

Has there been a casting choice as brilliant as David Bowie as Nicola Tesla? Ever?

Magic in movies is tricky. After all, movies ARE a form of magic, and we're so used to distrusting what we see. Or actually, we're so used to accepting that we're being fooled, we're no longer looking for the trick. And even if we are: they're not secret, witness "the Matrix revisited" for instance. And even then, there were still real tricks: in the later movies, it just came out of the pc. When everything's possible, what's there left to marvel about?

Luckily, there are still illusionists like Michel Gondry around.

Anyway, scatterbrain, the verdict? Cool movie. Not sure much of it will linger though. Also: I should have seen this in the theatre. Some movies need a big screen. And I have always enjoyed a good show of lightning.

Just a last aside (after a list of many): it's funny that almost two centuries after Frankenstein, electricity still speaks to the imagination.