Movie Review: The Prestige

As a huge fan of Memento, Christopher Nolan’s amazing first movie, and more recently Batman Begins, it’s pretty surprising that I’d missed out on The Prestige – his most recent release. I’m glad to say that it was well worth the wait. The Prestige is visually stunning, full of twists and turns, stunning acting from a great raft of stars and a great story. Did I mention I liked it? I do. A lot.

The basic story follows two upcoming magicians, played by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, as they follow their careers together from young assistants to Michael Caine, a talented creator of new illusions, to creating their own new stage productions. Along the way there is an accidental death, which causes an obsessive rift between the two protaganists as they try and out do each other. This quest is the core of the story, but the truth in magic is never quite what it seems and as more is revealed you find yourself on the edge of your seat waiting to see what happens. Like Memento, the timeline for the movie is wonderfully non-linear in a manner that Nolan handles masterfully. Add to this cameos from David Bowie as Nikolai Tesla and Andy Serkis as his assistant, as well as Scarlett Johansson and you have a visual and mental feast. I can’t recommend this movie enough – so go get it now, or ask for it for Christmas {:)

Snowfall #1

Well I’m back up in Montreal, having finally let go of my lovely little New York apartment. Sniff, sniff. Ah well, change is good – plus not having to spend money on rent is good as well. I will miss that sunset view of Manhattan though…

The positive news is that the apartment has gone to a good home, so I know it will be cared for and fed properly.

So now I’m back up in Montreal after a drive through New York’s first snowfall of the year and freezing rain in the dark Adirondacks. Thankfully this was on Sunday, the day before Montreal had it’s first big snowfall of the season – currently we have a good foot and a half of snow sitting on the balcony waiting to fall on some poor innocent, unsuspecting passer by. Or Max. Hee hee. Time to get the snow shoes on…

The Earliest Christmas Shop Ever

Amazingly I’ve already done pretty much all of my Christmas shopping… In fact at this very moment packages are speeding their way back home to my family in England – fingers crossed they arrive safely! The hardest part of shipping stuff home for Christmas, other than getting it done a month in advance, is filling out the customs form. In theory they want exact details of every item, including not only its price, but also its weight. Given it was hard enough fitting everything in to sensible size boxes and packing to minimize damage risk, the added task of weighing everything individually was beyond me. In fact it was a near miss on my customs form when I wrote ‘Pot’as one line item, before realizing the second meaning and quickly adding ‘..tery’. Good to know I’m on the ball sometimes.

Merry 30th November everybody!

The Darjeeling Unlimited

It’s been a few years since genius film-maker Wes Anderson’s last film, The Life Aquatic, so it was with great pleasure that tonight we went to see his latest, The Darjeeling Limited. Unsurprisingly we weren’t disappointed, Anderson’s trademark visual style has been transposed effortlessly onto an Indian continent backdrop and the story, written by Anderson, Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, is wonderfully uplifting and melancholic at the same time.

The movie centers around three estranged brothers on a journey across India on the Darjeeling Limited line. Each brother has his own character flaws, and the inter-play between them all is wonderfully engaging. As their journey progresses across the country other colourful characters are introduced, each with varying impact on the brothers and their life trajectories. Family relations, trust, spirituality and escapism are all investigated as the brothers continue their journey, and by the end of the film they are all changed – but for how long is the question given the embedded character flaws that have kept them going up till now.

Darjeeling Limited is a another great film from Anderson, perhaps not his best but it’s hard to tell these things on first watching. The dynamic nature of Life Aquatic is missing somewhat, being replaced more by emotional tones than melodies. If you love Anderson, you’ll love this – and if you’ve never seen his films then this is a great place to start.

Oh, and as a bonus before the main feature there’s a short – Hotel Chevalier – which fills out a sub-plot of the main movie, plus gives you a chance to how short both Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman are. Amongst other things.

Guitar Hero Tab: Can’t You Hear Me Knocking by The Rolling Stones

One of my favourite tunes off Guitar Hero II, an amazing game that you should go buy if you don’t already have it, is ‘Can’t you Hear me Knocking’ by the Rolling Stones. It’s a driving, simple but grippin’ blues riff that sticks in your head like super-glue or the latest chart topper by Britney… when she has something that hits the charts that is.

Anyways, as part of my irregular series on guitar practice I decided to tackle this classic tune, or at least Keith’s rhythm part.. which thankfully is relatively simple, once you’ve tuned your guitar to G, and ignored some of the nuances. Like playing guitar with a burning ciggie stuck in your fretboard… To try it yourself check out the tab here.

Ps, if you’re feeling suitably rockin’ after that, go check out some of my mate Alex’s smashing rock t-shirts, for the guitar god in all of us.

Toilet Roll Trauma

Having flown back in to Montreal last night from England I was feeling a bit dis-orientated, as is usual from all those hours in a plane with no in flight entertainment system (come on Air Canada – get your beautiful IFE onto every plane now!). Our lovely house-sitters had left the place in good shape, thanks to Malcolm & Max. Of course it wasn’t all plain sailing – somewhere in the mix we’d run out of loo roll, which didn’t sit at all well with my post-flight stomach.

So, braving the torrential rain, I set out to our local dep, stocked up on useful sundries such as sparkling mineral water, picked up some lovely Polish food from Stash and headed home. Happily only slightly damp I reached the front door where that nagging doubt from the dep kicked in fully, as I realised I’d forgotten to get loo roll… the whole reason for the trip. Splendid.

One big Polish meal later the rain subsided, so I wandered back to the dep and picked up some loo roll where I declined a plastic bag in the cause of the environment. Walking back past home past the upmarket resto-bars I realised there was was no way to look cool holding a pack of loo paper… Do you casually hang it from your hand? Tuck it under your arm? Balance it on your head and pretend to be from Cirque do Soleil? I guess celebrities like George Clooney et al don’t suffer this existential crisis having people to do this sort of thing for them, but I’d imagine that even they would find it hard to maintain their usual ‘effortless’ cool at this point and the paparazzi from have a field day. Luckily for me it was obviously too rainy for the paps to track me down, so I reached home safe and anonymous in my angst ready for a session of deep meditation.

Upcoming: Radiohead interview on Monday 19th

Steve Lamacq over at BBC Radio 6 has an interview with Radiohead this coming Monday – 19th November*. This should be interesting listening, as its their first interview since In Rainbows was released online for the wonderful price of ‘whatever you feel like paying’. Also on that page is a great cover of The Smiths from the Radiohead boys which I’ve embedded below:

* Don’t worry if you miss it on the 19th, you can listen to it on the BBC’s player for a week after that.

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Something

For our last night in London we splurged out and went to see Patrick Stuart in Macbeth, at the Gielgud Theatre. There was one word for this performance – outstanding. I’ve never actually seen Macbeth, or Stewart act for that matter, but both the production and the acting from the entire cast kept me riveted to my seat the whole three hours. Great stuff, with an intense modern production, some disturbing effects and fine timing of Shakespeare’s words. Highlights, aside from Patrick Stewart’s amazing Macbeth and Kate Fleetwood’s magnetic Lady Macbeth, were the three sisters as nurses, the sheer gore of the production and the re-enactment of the dinner scene once with and once without the ghost of Banquo. Genius.

As an aside; In an attempt to be ‘organised’ we tried to get tickets yesterday, but it was already sold out as the run finishes 1st December – but they told us that at 10am every day excess premium tickets can come up, so today at 9.56am we got to the counter and got the last two tickets, much to the dismay of the person behind us. So a big thanks to London Underground for getting their act together this morning for a change {:).

America’s Sicko Health System

Just saw Michael Moore’s latest expose on the American health system – Sicko. A great film from Mr Moore, incisive, emotional and as usual he manages to bring up 9/11 as often as a Republican Presidential candidate, hopefully to more positive ends. The subject of the film is America’s singularly unique approach to healthcare – privatization to an extreme degree. Every US citizen has to pay for their healthcare in monthly payments to private organisations, although more normally this is through their employer. Should the inevitable happen and they need to go to the doctor, their HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) has to pre-approve any charges raised, from the consultation, ambulance trips, x-rays and everything. This all sounds a great win for private industry and free choice (the positive view on HMOs) until it goes wrong and the company’s bottom line becomes more important than saving lives – the situation Moore says now exists.

I’ve had to go through US medical treatment a few times now, with varying levels of medical cover. The first time was due to an icey slip into a puddle which resulted in a sprained tendon that took an age to heal but no major operation thankfully. The slip also resulted in about $5,000 in medical bills from a few hours of emergency room checkups (that weren’t even that quick). Luckily this was all covered, but it would have been an unwelcome cost should my HMO have decided not to pay out. In Moore’s movie the many ways that HMO’s avoid payouts and the impact on peoples’ lives is gone into in detail, often heart wrenching detail as death is regularly involved. Unsurprisingly the government’s link with big business is singled out as a driving factor by Moore, and his old pal George W comes in for the usual treatment.

Having revealed the warts of the US system, Moore then proceeds to wax lyrical about overseas systems based on ‘socialist’ practices – ie, taxes pay for everyone’s health cover however poor, all are equal. Canada, Britain, France and Cuba are examined and Moore acts out his country’s amazement on how well these systems work. As a Brit I know the British system isn’t as wonderful as Moore makes out, but I’m glad we have that rather than the US system. Equal healthcare for all is a wonderful thing, as none of us know who will be unlucky in the good health lottery.

Sicko is a great film, more emotionally wrenching than his previous offerings and a lot more human while staying political as only Moore can. Generally the US doesn’t get much sympathy these days due to its oil driven global policies, but this film reminds us that the citizens of the US are often the ones who suffer. Hopefully this movie will help drive positive change for all.

Disclaimer: Many years ago I did some work for Humana, one of the HMO’s mentioned in the film. In fact when you watch the film and see the ridiculously huge and be-marbled Humana offices in Louisville, look at the small brick building to the right – that’s where we were working.