The Prestige
I know the person who wrote the original novel of this. Personally, I thought the movie was okay. It was always going to be hard to adapt to the screen as the book is set over a few hundred years or so, with lots of characters, subplots etc. So for the movie they just dropped a lot of it. The author sold the movie rights decades ago to an indy movie company, who sold them on to Nolan and friends, so he basically got bugger all for it.
Children of Men is still my favourite movie of 2006, by a wide, wide margin.
Paul Rudd rules-- I think that was his best movie. The
cake
and
chair
scenes were straight-up brilliant. Leslie Mann was awesome. I didn't quite buy
any chemistry between Rogen and Heigl (and would lay that at Heigl's door); the consequences for Heigl were never explored;
and I thought Virgin was funnier-- but there's no director today that approaches what Apatow is doing. During the scene where
Mann and Rudd meet the baby for the first time it felt like we were in the room, it was so real and unmediated.
Just got back from P3, and I'll happily sit in the corner with those who loved it. Yes, it was long, but I always expect extended battle scenes to bore me. (The multiple Agent Smith fight in Matrix Reloaded nearly made me pull my hair out.)
I'm not sure why motivation didn't come across for so many viewers. Seemed to me that everyone's motivation was simply a carryover from P2, with the exception of Elizabeth, whose new goal was rescue Jack and thus relieve her guilt. I'll grant that the relationship between Tia/Calypso and Davey Jones was a bit muddled, but I still adored the scene where she touched him and we got to see the man beneath the monster.
All in all, it was an enjoyable romp, if a bit of a bloated one. Ben said to me, as we were leaving, that he liked having all of the storylines tied up and questions answered, finally, and I agree. The very, very end -- post-credits -- was entirely predictable, but also highly satisfying to a romantic like me (although it does chafe that Elizabeth gives up her life at sea, presumably because of the baby on the way. She proved herself -- again, to me, especially in this film, after the events of all three -- as a capable ship's captain, if not necessarily as a pirate, and definitely as a woman who still had battles to fight in her. ) Still, I loved the last shot.
Oh, I didn't know about post credit stuff AmyLiz.
They have those brief scenes post-credits in all three series -- I only missed the first one.
I only missed the first one.
O too bad. The first one was definitely the best. And it explains why Jack is an undead monkey in the next two.
spoilerfont added for anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled on the monkey's character arc.
I didn't stay through the Pirates credits. Can someone tell me what the last shot was?
Here's a repost. I've since rewatched Pirates and found I was wrong on some of the details but I got the major notes right:
The credits end and a title screen comes up, "Ten Years Later" A (presumably ten-year-old) kid is running through a field towards a seaside cliff singing, "A Pirates Life." The camera draws back and we see Elizabeth Turner (she hasn't aged a day!) she puts her arm maternally around the boy's shoulder and looks out to sea. We follow her gaze to the mast of The Flying Dutchman. Will Turner hugs the mast staring towards the shore. The camera pulls back majestically and we fade out.
Huh. It never occurred to me that Elizabeth had
given up her life at sea.
