Pledge-Turn-Prestige

At the moment: trying to finish this as fast as I can


Okay. I owe you guys an explanation. I haven't been updating lately (thank you Captain Obvious) and haven't been visiting your blogs as well. The reason for this is that I've been in a somewhat health crisis. It's nothing entirely serious but I do admit that it was pretty alarming at first. I found two lumps in my right breast about four days ago. Now, being in a time where cancer is one of the most exposed illness on TV and the Internet, it was only natural for me to get all worked up because of it. First thought that came to mind was that it was breast cancer and if I don't get rid of it immediately, I'd die.

But it isn't. Sure it's a lump but all the doctors I've been to (there's two of them who checked me) said that I was too young to get breast cancer and that the lump isn't a tumor since the mass was movable. So yeah. Okay. It's not cancer but I still have to take it out and we still don't know exactly what the lump's made of. So I'm off for another examination tomorrow. ^__^


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Now that that's taken care of, let me just gush over The Prestige.


One of the best things this movie has to offer is that it keeps you guessing up until the very end. Like an ordinary person who's off to see a magic show, all that keeps resonating at the back of your head throughout the movie is "How did he do it? How did he do it? What was the trick? What's the secret?"

Watch closely. You'll be well rewarded.
-- Goes the movie's first few lines. It makes your seat snug and comfortable, gives you the aura that something good is about to happen. Exactly how things start during the magician's first act: The Pledge. The magician presents something ordinary. Like an empty box, a cage.. a casket maybe. Something innocent. He presents it to the audience and the audience takes it in like a sponge. The audience think they know what's going to happen and anticipates that vision. Now comes the magician's second act: The Turn. The magician makes that ordinary something do something extraordinary. A bird disappears inside the cage, a woman goes out of sight after being draped by a velvet cloth... oh yes. Something extraordinary. Something so baffling that you cannot even begin to comprehend what happened, much more how it happened. And like what the narrator said in the first part of the movie.. "Now, you wouldn't clap just yet" oh no, not yet. Not until what disappears, reappears. What you have taken from their eyes, you've got to bring it back. And that my friends, is The Prestige.


Wonderful, wonderful movie.
-- As I've said earlier, the best part about the movie is that it's practically a magic show in itself. The movie doesn't play in a linear pattern. Rather, it jumps from Past, Present and Future in the same way that a magician misleads you into watching the alluring movement of his right hand while his left pulls out that marble in his sleeve. It goes in so many directions... one second you'd think you had it all figured out and then another second passes and suddenly you don't know anything anymore.


The main characters are dark, twisted and obsessed.
-- Yes... both of them. You'd feel sympathy for both of them but it gets tossed around back and forth between the two. Unlike in most movies, you wouldn't root for one main man. That could've easily been the case since this movie is basically about the rivalry between two magicians. But you'd see that both men, Angier and Borden lead very dark lives. Both are as much "into it" as the other one. You would hate them, love them and sympathize with them for all the same reasons.


Most of all, The Prestige is simply just a delight to watch. I watched it with Julian at Gateway and thank God there weren't much dumbasses present in the theatre. Oh but there was one particular dumbass that's worth mentioning though. This annoying son of a fudgecracker got his cellphone ringtone on LOUD and even had the nerve to carry on the conversation in the middle of the movie. He didn't even seem apologetic and frantic that he's disturbing the 20-something people wanting to enjoy the movie. For all I can see, he hardly even cared that his voice was louder than Hugh Jackman's! Insensitive bastard!

That asshole.

I guess there's one in every theatre.


NOTE: thanks to MovieWeb for the movie stills.