Well, I don’t think there’s two different movies I could have seen this past weekend. On Friday night, the RRHB and I went to see The Illusionist. He had heard Jesse Wente on Metro Morning raving about it and wanted to see it. I had read about it in EW (of course) and also heard the CBC report, so I went along with it.
Anyway. I quite liked it: it’s very stylized, has a good script, Paul Giamatti is excellent and I heart Ed Norton when he’s actually acting (unlike Down in the Valley where he simply channeled) in a project that I can respect.
However, I would have enjoyed it more if they didn’t digitally enhance the magic and/or illusions, but maybe represented them historically as they were, but again, I’m not sure if the tricks he did even existed or not when the film is set. And, I don’t mean to be all, “I saw the twist coming,” but honestly, I totally did—I mean the film is called The Illusionist so you sort of figure he’s going to do one giant, ahem, act by the end.
The RRHB didn’t like it as much but I think that had more to do with his movie going experience than anything else. The only theatre in town the film was playing at was the Cumberland where the seats are shitty, the air terrible (as it it doesn’t exist) and we sat way to one end, which means you feel totally claustrophobic. So when he’s grumpy in a movie he talks through it, moves around a lot and asks me repeatedly if we want to leave. Heh.
And then on Sunday afternoon I went to see Snakes on a Plane. Holy crap, it’s so funny, but so bad, but I guess that’s truly the point. And when Samuel L. Jackson does the whole “motherf*^king snakes on the motherf*^king plane” line that’s all over the interweb, the whole audience hooted and clapped. Hilarious and awesome at the same time. I haven’t had such a fun movie experience since Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. Cuba!
Oh, but one tiny criticism: instead of “fancy snake doctor” someone, somewhere working on the damn film, especially the FBI guy, whose job it is to, oh, I don’t know, be smart or something, should have called him a herpetologist, because that’s what they ARE. Has no one watched National Geographic?