The Illusionist

Watching magic tricks’ secrets revealed is a grating experience. Watching a neatly plotted mystery based on inexplicable magic tricks revealed merely as well-crafted human doings is even more grating; to me it ruins the merit of magic itself. See, this is why I dislike The Illusionist: I may ignore its talky dialogues, but I can not accept the ending presented so efficiently and abruptly as if the past 100 minutes of wonders didn’t mean anything at all. Sure, it’s an investigative mystery, and usually a case like this requires logical thinking. But Eisenheim the Illusionist has been purely magical from the beginning, which left me no chance to wonder if his acts were really tricks or something supernatural; it had always been the latter, until the last scene robbed me of the assumption. How irritating.

Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton) is a masterful magic performer in 19th century Vienna. In his youth, he fell in love with Sophie (Jessica Biel), a girl of higher social ranking. The relationship was prevented by the Duchess’ family. Before long, the boy travels the world to learn magic and returns to Vienna to perform in front of Sophie and the Crown Prince (Rufus Sewell) who seems to take every magic trick as a challenge he can prove. Naturally, the prince doesn’t like Eisenheim, especially when he knows Eisenheim’s popularity is gaining audience and his would-be princess is running away with him. So he orders a half-corrupt Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) to do whatever it needs to shut Eisenheim down. Story goes continues from there, I wish it was more interesting.

To compare Neil Burger’s The Illusionist with Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, unquestionably my choice falls on The Prestige. The difference between the two is that while Nolan kept me at the edge of my seat wondering to no end how the tricks were made up, Burger kept me from nodding off by offering a murder case that must be solved. This is why I didn’t stop to think how the magic were done—there hasn’t been anything like it to relate it to magic anyway. Besides, Illusionist is less thrilling but more intense in its drama orientation because the underlying story is love.

2/5.

Casino Royale

Ladies and gentlemen and skeptics out there, may I simply say this about the new Bond: he’s totally, abso-fucking-lutely hot. Not only that, this is the best Bond movie ever (and I’ve only watched some of Pierce Brosnan’s versions), which I truly enjoyed. Never before has such a poker game been so intense to watch.. and I actually like the Bond girl very much.

Enough said. Now if I can try to get Daniel Craig out of my mind…

4.5/5.

The Departed

“Vintage Scorcese”, everybody says about this movie. Whatever “vintage Scorcese” means, to me a Martin Scorcese movie is identical to a guy movie. A guy movie is everything opposite of, say, The Devil Wears Prada. I watched two of Scorcese’s famous movies, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas* not a long time ago, and if anyone insists that I re-watch them, I would ask for a treat first. I just don’t get them. So, no, I don’t know what vintage Scorcese means.

It’s obvious to me that from beginning to end, The Departed is created for male audience. There’s hardly any female in this movie alone (yes, this factors in demographic), save for the department’s shrink so banally inserted between the two guys, who, despite her essential (but unnecessary) role as their love interest, would eventually play an important role in the end (does anyone for a second think this is so Hong Kong-style?). Also, it’s so infused with manliness, from the dialogues, the violence, the realm of police itself — why isn’t there any woman in the academy, by the way? Granted, a mobster kind of story does not exactly correlate with femaleness, but that’s not the point. This movie is for male audience, just because it’s made by Martin Scorcese.

Despite my feminist cry, the good thing is it’s really good. Great story (if not too Hong Kong-ish), great direction, great characters, great acting and great actors, great twists and turns, and great ending. The ending, which in my definition lasts for about 30 minutes, makes the best part of it. After the superb performance of Jack Nicholson, naturally. No one beats the old guy in the acting category. Not Matt Damon, who, though claimed as the better actor of the Matt/Ben duo, still confuses me with the question of whether he’s acting or just being Matt in every movie he stars in.

The Departed is simply a great movie. Period. Now go out and watch it.

By the way, somebody should index the use of the word “fuck” in this movie. I’m pretty sure it can go up in the list .

*Did not exactly complete it, but I will, maybe someday.

4.5/5.

The Machinist

The Machinist has something very similar to Fight Club. Except it’s darker and almost horrifying, for a person who doesn’t watch horror flicks. From beginning to end, darkness never escapes each scene. At Trevor Reznik’s machinery factory, at his lone apartment, at his call-girl’s place, at the airport, at the bar, everywhere. Darkness also clouds the protagonist (or antagonist?), who hasn’t been sleeping for a year, maybe delusional bordering on paranoid, and questions who he is. Symptoms of schizophrenia?

One thing you’ll notice first about Trevor Reznik is that he’s slimmer than a supermodel. His call-girl says, “if you’re any thinner than this, you wouldn’t exist.” Bones juts out from his back. He’s practically a living skeleton. The way I imagined it, if he was a Thanksgiving turkey, a family of 4 wouldn’t be contented with the dinner. Amazing was the transformation Christian Bale went through (shed off 60 pounds?). He, who was all shaped and built in Batman Begins? Are we talking about the same person?

The story itself is not all that spectacular. I was let down when the ending was revealed. I was bracing myself for a closure similar to Fight Club. That somehow the imaginary friend Trevor Reznik befriended with was actually his other personality. That would make up for the plot holes still unsolved until the end, I figured. Well, it’s not that grand, though it does have something to do with personality. Too bad, after all it was so well directed.

2.5/5.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Man, I haven’t had so much fun watching a murder mystery like this since Pulp Fiction (what do people call this genre exactly? neo-noir?). Kiss Kiss Bang Bang—the title should say for itself—is genius, hilarious, and surprisingly a real charmer. I admit I was pretty skeptic at first, not knowing anything of it except recalling that sometime ago the critics were throwing a few praises about the movie in which the freshly out-of-rehab Robert Downey, Jr. starred in. Only after I checked it just now that sometime ago was actually more than a year ago, and the rating is more than good; it’s almost glittery.

The center of attention is Harry Lockhart, a petty thief from New York flown to L.A by a casting accident. Harry is basically a loser who’s never really accomplished anything in his life, but he’s a nice guy who steals your sympathy with his decent attitude. Another center of attention is one Harmony Faith Lane, who, at age 7, described by Harry as “soon-to-be a fucked up girl” from a little town in Midwest, and at 16 ran away to L.A to try out her luck but never really got famous. In a way her life did turn up a little, well, fucked up when her beloved sister (who, btw, had had a more fucked up childhood than she did–I’m sorry, I can’t help myself) was found dead, supposedly murdered, left with Harmony’s identity. The there’s this Gay Perry, a consultant who does detective work for a producer, and ah, yes, he’s really gay.

Because this is a murder mystery, and murder and mystery are not appropriate dinner table conversation topics, let’s skip to the other aspects of the movie. (No, I’m just not good with synopsis, didn’t I tell you before? Besides, this is getting too lengthy already.) For me the entertainment value of this movie doesn’t really lie on the mystery or the murder, as I still feel there are unexplained gaps here and there, not to mention the rather patchy ending (Abraham Lincoln? wtf?? it did it for me nevertheless), but the witty lines and seemingly painful/harmless events in one scene after another were more than I asked for. Harry Lockhart himself narrated the story in the viewer’s point of view; it’s like asking “hello, how are you, audience?” and “thanks for watching this movie”, but wait, he actually did! My point is, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is not perfect, it may not be comparable to… hmm… a modern L.A Confidential?, and it’s not that serious, it contains scenes that ought to be laughable in action movies, but because it is what it is, a half-hearted murder mystery equipped with characters who could do better than act as amateur detectives, see how it turns out to be.

It turns out just the way it is supposed to be enjoyed. Twisted, sick, charming entertainment.

4/5.

Ah, by the way, I’ve always liked Robert Downey, Jr. He sings too!