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The Prestige, a review by goodguy

The Prestige (2006) Written by: Jonathan & Christopher Nolan, based on a story by Christopher Priest Directed by: Christopher Nolan Starring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine DVD: R2-DE Warner (2007) My rating:

IMDb Summary: A mysterious story of two magicians whose intense rivalry leads them on a life-long battle for supremacy.

The Prestige is a clever construct in a pedantic and unambigous way, and it hammers home its meaning with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Upon rewatching, the movie's first line "Did you watch closely?" becomes plainly insulting, because their is no longer a twinge of confusion or surprise to distract from its unevocative blandness. Still, the period dressing is nice to look at, the acting is solid, but overall it's an underwhelming affair.


(From goodguy's Watch Log on July 25th, 2010)

Campfire Tales, a review by Danae Cassandra

Campfire Tales
Year of Release: 1996
Directed By: David Semel, Martin Kunert, Matt Cooper
Starring: Jay R. Ferguson, Christine Taylor, Kim Murphy, Christopher Kennedy Masterson
Genre: Horror

Overview:
Horror takes a detour deep into the woods in this terrifying cross between Scream and Tales From The Crypt, starring Christine Taylor (Dodgeball) and Ron Livingston (Office Space).

Returning home from a concert and driving recklessly, four teenagers crash their car on a deserted road. To ward off the cold, they build a fire and wait for help. But the hair-raising stories they tell around the fire put a deeper chill into the night. Each tale is more lurid, more horrifying, more shocking than anything they've heard before. Yet for these unlucky teens in the woods, the biggest shock is still to come...

My Thoughts:
This is a competent enough film, but suffers from being thoroughly predictable. After their car crashes, four teens are forced to spend time by the side of the road telling stories, all of which are well-known urban legends. "The Hook" is the most well-known, and a throwaway bonus tale. Nothing special here. "The Honeymoon" does well to leave you never actually seeing the creatures, and therefore letting the imagination run wild, and I liked that the girl fought back instead of just screaming and cowering. "People Can Lick Too" does well with creating tension but the villain doesn't act as someone like him would. It almost seems the filmmakers are afraid to go where the story should take them. I thought this was the weakest of the group. "The Locket" was my favorite. I liked the production design and atmosphere here, even if I knew how it would end. The wraparound story wasn't bad either, but you could easily see where it was headed. Twist ending aren't as fresh now as they might have been when this was released.

This is a low budget film, and there's some pretty clear technical errors (most glaringly to me, the red camera sights that were visible multiple times). The acting was competent, but nothing spectacular, though I did like how expressive Jacinda Barrett was in "The Locket," especially given I think she was cast because she was very pretty. Recommended if you like anthology horror, but don't expect any surprises.

Bechdel Test: Pass

Overall: 2.75/5

2015 Horror Movie Count: 13

(From Horror/Halloween Marathon 2015 on October 29th, 2015)

Smallville Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

12. BULLETPROOF
Clark Kent, undercover cop. He poses as a police officer to find who shot Det. JOHN JONES, AKA MARTIAN MANHUNTER. Tess discovers that she is linked to Lex in a surprising way.

My Thoughts:
A good episode. I liked the whole going undercover as a cop thing. Even if it has been done before (Lois & Clark).

My Rating:

13. POWER
Can move at superspeed and snatch a bullet out of the air: That person is...LANA LANG. She uses the empowering nano-thechnology skin graft of the Prometheus Project on herself. But Clark worries that her new abilities may be too much for her.

My Thoughts:
While I did enjoy this episode... I didn't like it as much as most the others. I don't know that I like the whole super-powered Lana idea. I don't know if this is something that follows the comics or if it is a Smallville thing.

My Rating:

14. REQUIEM
A toymaker turns his creation into kryptonite-laced bombs. One detonates inside the LUTHORCORP boardroom with deadly results. Another will take down the Daily Planet building if Lana and Clark don't find it. But finding it will have consequences....

My Thoughts:
I am not sure why... but the person that plays the Toymaker looks familiar but can't place him. While I still don't care for the whole superpowered Lana idea... this is a pretty good episode. And is this the last time we see Lana? I really can't remember if she been back on the show since or not.

My Rating:

15. INFAMOUS


My Thoughts:
I found this episode to be excellent. I liked how it showed Clark what would happen if the world found out his secret. It seems normally shows like this goes one of two ways an alternate reality or time travel. In this case they decided to go with time travel and set it up back in the episode of Legion.

My Rating:

(From Smallville Marathon on January 21st, 2010)