We watched The Illusionist last night. Neat film. Paul Giamatti was excellent—I saw one review where his performance was described as having the gravitas of Orson Welles. I never saw the ending coming, except in a way I did. A character utters a line early in the film and thought, well, that would be one way to solve a problem. But then I dismissed it and never thought of it again. Very clever.
Last night’s episode of The Unit was pretty intense, too. We hear about these skirmishes and gunfights in the Middle East, and this show dropped us into the middle of one to show what it might be like to be there on the ground. I wonder how many people as clearheaded as Jonas are involved over there, though.
The Illusionist makes for a great double feature with The Prestige, I think….
I dug that movie. Watched it the other week.
I thought is was superbly filmed and well written. Ed Norton always does a great job and I was mildly surprised with Jessica Biel’s performance.
I sort of figured it out when he buys the theater. But not like a “AhA!” moment just a feeling.
Thanks for the review of the film, Bev. I’m forwarding it to my husband. He read the book recently and loved it.
Apparently Biel was a last-minute replacement for another actress who dropped out. I wasn’t enamored of her performance and I didn’t really feel the chemistry between Norton and Biel, but we still enjoyed the movie. Norton is superb. So intense.
I was wondering about that. Haven’t seen The Prestige yet.
It’s more of a murder mystery by way of The Twilight Zone than the romance story of Illusionist. Seeing David Bowie play Tesla is worth the price of admission….
I like murder mysteries. I’ll add it to our queue. Thanks!
I had never watched an episode of The Unit before last night. It was as gritty and believable and wholly uncomfortable an hour of television as one could ever wish to see, and I’ll probably not watch it again. I could feel my blood pressure going up everytime Sgt. Wallace spoke or did anything, and I was caring entirely too much about these characters to see their potential demise.
The show isn’t always that intense, and most episodes also feature the travails of the team’s spouses, but the show has been uniformly decent and occasionally brilliant. To know what those guys have been through to get this far really enhances one’s appreciation of their interplay last night. These guys are comrades, but when push comes to shove, they fall into place. One guy gives orders and another takes them.
We really enjoyed The Illusionist. Haven’t seen The Prestige yet, but it’s up soon on the Netflix queue. Looking forward to it very much, though!
– C.