Christopher Nolan's new film, The Prestige

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 02 Jun 2006, 16:56

This sounds promising. Great cast and director too.

Nolan Conjures The Prestige

Director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins) told SCI FI Wire that he's well into development on his next project, a supernatural period movie called The Prestige. "It's a film about two magicians in turn-of-the-century London," Nolan said in an interview at the Saturn Awards in Universal City, Calif., on May 2. "And they enter into a deadly rivalry. And it's the story of how the two of them essentially try and sabotage each other's careers over the years."

The Prestige is based on the book of the same name by Christopher Priest and features Nolan's Batman star Christian Bale and X-Men's Hugh Jackman as the competing magicians, whose escalating conflict eventually leads to murder. Bale's Batman co-star Michael Caine also stars, as well as King Kong's Andy Serkis and The Island's Scarlett Johansson. Nolan said he was particularly excited about one of the smaller roles in the film. "There are a couple of historical figures in the film, including Nikola Tesla, the inventor," he said. "He's a fascinating character who features briefly in this movie, played by David Bowie."

Nolan has always been interested in the world of magic, even before reading the book. When the project was brought to him, he jumped at the chance to delve into a world that he felt hasn't been fully explored on film before. "I am a fan of magic, and I felt that I hadn't ever really seen a film address magic and what it takes to make magic and what it represents," he said. "And that's what the film tries to do. Really, there's magicians from the day in which, pre-television, pre-radio, a magician was a very large figure of that time. It's an interesting film with a lot going on."

Following The Prestige, Nolan expects to return to the world of Batman for another sequel film. Although he wouldn't say much about his plans, he did admit that the creative process is already underway. "[It's] not really anything that I'm prepared to talk about yet," he said. "[Co-writer David Goyer] and I have been working on what it's going to be. And as soon as this film is finished, we'll be figuring it out more specifically."

As for the rumors that the Joker or Harvey Dent, aka the villainous Two Face, will appear in the next Batman film, Nolan remained coy. "Anything's possible," he said. —Cindy White

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.ph ... 854&type=0

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 02 Jun 2006, 17:07

Christopher Nolan can do no wrong imo.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 02 Jun 2006, 18:07

I don't like Insomnia. The way he can't keep the camera still on one person's face makes me dizzy too.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 02 Jun 2006, 18:17

You sure you weren't drunk?

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 02 Jun 2006, 18:36

Haha, nah I've got the DVD and I tried to watch it again the other week but couldn't because of the way it felt like the director or editor had ADD. It's the same with Batman Begins in a fair few places, and I'm not just talking about the fight scenes. Shame, since Memento didn't seem to feature this problem.

ReconFive · Post by **ReconFive** » 04 Jun 2006, 08:15

Insomnia is a fantastic film and Christopher Nolan is a great director and writer.
I will admit that i am one of the few people who actually likes the type of photography you are talking about as long as its not completly overdone. If the technique is used appropriately it can add alot to certain types of dialog heavy scenes.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 17 Aug 2006, 12:01

First teaser is up. Been up for about a month now.
http://www.movie-update.com/download/90 ... _h640w.mov

Right-click > Save link as.

EDIT: I watched the trailer, it looks great. Am looking forward to it now.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 17 Aug 2006, 12:31

I saw the trailer for this quite early on (bookmark the Apple trailers page, people, they get 95% of the trailers first, and they tend to do them in glorious HD as well

).
It's strange that, again, there are two films coming out which have similar themes. There's this one, and one called The Illusionist starring Ed Norton.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 17 Aug 2006, 12:38

Kurgan wrote:I saw the trailer for this quite early on (bookmark the Apple trailers page, people, they 95% of the trailers first, and they tend to do them in glorious HD as well ).

Apple.com sucks, you don't get direct links to the trailers and A. streaming rubbish or B. having to dig through the page source to find the MOV link which may or may not be downloadable (a lot of the time they're just streamable only from my experience).

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 17 Aug 2006, 12:46

Apple's trailer page. Click on a given link which takes you to another page to view the trailer in your preference of size, HD or otherwise. Once its done, save the file using the little drop down menu.
What's so hard about that?
They have never used streaming Quicktime for the trailers on that page; it's just not good enough to watch a film trailer in. Other pages like Yahoo! trailers have used streaming before, both Windows Media Player and Quicktime as well.

Beats having to search around for various films individually.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 17 Aug 2006, 13:25

http://www.movie-update.com/ is much better, period. Just direct links.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 17 Aug 2006, 15:13

Ooooooh

I'm quite interested in how this'll stack up against The Illusionist. They both features magicians who seem to possess supernatural powers and both have pretty good looking leading ladies

It must've been one of those Deep Impact/Armageddon scenarios where one studio gets the idea from another and rushes their own version into production.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 18 Aug 2006, 01:21

Thanks for the trailer Eva.

Nah Dave's Trailer page is by far the best.

Kurgan wrote:I saw the trailer for this quite early on (bookmark the Apple trailers page, people, they get 95% of the trailers first, and they tend to do them in glorious HD as well ).

I can barely play 720p let alone 1080p. I stick to 480p so no HD for me.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 18 Aug 2006, 19:34

This looks awesome!

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 19 Aug 2006, 02:38

Poster:-

Looks okay, I've seen far worse floating head montage posters in the past.

Source: AICN.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 19 Aug 2006, 02:57

That poster art is great. It's not up to French standards but few do movie art like the Frogs.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 24 Sep 2006, 18:51

The trailer is now showing in the cinema. I of course avoided it by shutting my eyes, placing my hands over my ears and singing "la la la". But from what I over my spoiler preventive method, it sounds awesome.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 12 Nov 2006, 18:49

The Prestige

7 out of 10

I saw this earlier and thought while it took a bit too long to get going (20 or so minutes could probably be exorcised) it was otherwise excellent.

There's two cracking twists. Funnily enough I got one (the Angier twist) but not the other (the Borden twist), but the person I was with got them round the other way. It's the sort of film you're left thinking about for ages afterwards, trying to work out where all the bits fit together.

You need to pay attention as there are lots of little clues sprinkled right throughout the film, which my friend and I enjoyed pointing out to each other afterwards.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 12 Nov 2006, 18:53

I liked the film

stupidly I guessed the twists wayyy in advance of them being told one of them I guessed within the 1st half

The problem with the film is its bloody god damn depressing, one hell of a dark film with no real nice bits in it at all. Still good, if a little long as by ass went a bit knumb (from the seat ahem).

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 12 Nov 2006, 18:55

Agreed it was a bit long, the first half parts were lost one me with all the plot strands going back and forth.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 12 Nov 2006, 19:18

The Prestige – 3 out of 5

Good, solid film, but bloody depressing it has to be said and really while it was well made it kind of did signpost many of the twists. Still acting wise it was fun, and its dark tone is a little offbeat and new feeling, but hell it wasn’t a nice story and isn’t a likeable film full of nice people.

It could have been confusing mind you, but after a little time the timeframe got easy to catch onto, but I will say a lot of people WILL be confused as hell as to what’s going on. As long as you concentrate you should be fine.

It’s maybe too dark for its own good and by the end it was a tad to long-winded and could have been reduced a little. Still David Bowie was great fun, hamming it up no end and really most the cast did a fine job. Just don’t expect a film packed with laughs and hilarity, its wrist slittlingly moody and tortured in its own ways.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 12 Nov 2006, 20:26

romerojpg wrote:It could have been confusing mind you, but after a little time the timeframe got easy to catch onto, but I will say a lot of people WILL be confused as hell as to what’s going on. As long as you concentrate you should be fine.

Agreed

romerojpg wrote:Just don’t expect a film packed with laughs and hilarity, its wrist slittlingly moody and tortured in its own ways.

Huh? Does a film have to be all nice and gooey? Tortued WTF!!! It's just dark is all but considering all the director's work is dark I didn't expect anything else.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 13 Nov 2006, 17:22

Ohh I didnt expect a fluffy film

its just the fact its a 12 rated film, there were a lot of kids in the showing I went to, you could see they were bored out of their skulls after the 1st 30 minutes. Its not a film for young people. I liked the tone as hey its not normal, but it is a little odder than your average film.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 13 Nov 2006, 18:24

The rating system isn't concerned with whether it's a film an age range will like, it's concerned with whether it's suitable.

The same applied to "Million Dollar Baby" being a 12A but not something kids would like.

I wouldn't say it's odd at all, there are many depressing or down-beat films out there.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 20 Nov 2006, 17:47

Prestige 4/5
A little predictable but excellent nevertheless. As with Fight Club, I have a feeling my opinion of this film will be even better upon a second viewing. Great character study into obsession and interesting 'science vs magic' underlying theme. A DVD purchase is inevitable.