OF A GOLDEN AGE

In unrelated Bowie news, this weekend I finally saw The Prestige, one of 2006′s two victorian-magician pictures. Bowie cameos as (no shit!) Nikola Tesla, a desperate creator who laments and celebrates the unpredictability of science. More and more, Bowie starts looking like Brian Setzer, the most ironical doppelganging I’ve ever noticed.

Prestige has a fantastic cast including Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, the everwooden Scarlett Johansson, and a charming Piper Perabo. It’s seamlessly acted (again, except Miss Scarlett) and a well-done period piece. In these ways it’s strikingly similar to The Illusionist, its contemporary in the theaters and part of the topical pissing-contest nature of big movie studios.

Illusionist is a great movie too, don’t get me wrong, but Prestige absolutely blows it out of the water. If only we could attach Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, and Rufus Sewell to the better movie. Besides bonus points for casting Bowie as a complex, dark intellectual, Prestige has pure gosh-wow on its side: false narratives, competing traps, lost fingers, murder, and all manner of other mayhem I can’t describe without ruining it. I read the ending on Wikipedia while I was watching the movie* and thought, “There’s no way that can work,” and goddamn if it didn’t still stun me.

Luckily The Illusionist is saved on my DVR because I can watch it again and shake out the cobwebs. The bottom line might be as simple as this: two magicians are better than one.

* This is something I do frequently and it never, ever detracts from my joy in watching a movie. I even sometimes read the plot synopsis of a movie I’m going to see in the theater. Don’t ask, I don’t know why I do it. Maybe it’s because I like seeing the difference between the product and the way someone boiled it down into print. It’s like Cliff’s Notes versus the real thing: not even close.

(NOTE: This title bastardized from Walt Whitman’s lascivious, overly-sharing mind. Just whose body electric is he singing? Best not to ask; it could be his own.

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