Why not?

Why doesn't Hollywood trust the audience? Do they think their pockets will be lightened if they don't give us exactly what we're after? I've had a magical weekend; as all things cinematic, genres come on in waves. No sooner is there one film about an end of the world by meteor disaster than an entire crop of disasterous pictures about the end of the world show up like so many heads of the same ill imagined hydra.

Well the recent spate of films focused on turn of the century prestidigitators is not without charm, or problems. I'm too tired to write a lengthy review to be quite honest. I'm sure I've a ramble or two about how both films, The Illusionist and The Prestige go awry, miss the mark, etc. etc. The latter is simple, it's too bloody predictable. As for the first, it too is as predictable, unfortunatley it dissapoints to a greater degree because of that. Although Biel is captivating on the screen, and the occasional use of vignetting makes the entire presentation of Norton and his faux Austrian accent from God knows where, go over wonderfully, like a fine cup of Vienniese coffee, it's the fact that Giamati is fantastic as the detective and this is more his story than the Romeo and Juliet inspired romance. How brave would it have been to let the story truly be about a man coming to terms with his aspirations and the level of corruption to which he will have to sink in order to achieve them? How difficult is it for a director or a screen writer to end a film more like the English Patient or War of the Roses than a mamet script so full of twists and turns that even the best and most inspired sleuth just can't quite connect all the dots.

Well cross your T's and dot your I's if you must Hollywood, I don't even know how faithful the film was to the short story on which it was based, so in that I'm completely wrong in everything I say, as I haven't done my homework, but it just seems like there was another story really worth telling, and the actor chosen to play the role could've delivered if he was only given the chance. That above all makes me upset about this one. And if I haven't mentioned it, it's a rather lovely little film, and i say lovely because it is small in both ambition and scope, and wonderfully predictive in both if not for the fantastic performances. As for The Prestige... well... it's just a twisting little journey... it seems that the mode of presentation is a matter of the subject being presented: illusory. We are meant to be folled into believe that the story has a measure of importance? No, that's too grandiose, maybe we're just supposed to be entertained, in that, well it mostly succeeds, but it becomes so bloody preposterous that you cease to care about the characters, the drama, the conflict or the story. Ach vell, nobel efforts I suppose.

In some random searches about characters and history I stumbled upon this photo of Mark Twain in Tesla's laboratory... I found it intruiging. David Bowie makes a good Tesla...