This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Biel, Johansson, and Fisher: Magical Women!

Biel, Fisher, Johansson…Magical Women

Now You See Me: A Magical Best Pick

A Video On Demand Best Choice

 

Everyone goes to a magic show thinking they are smarter than the magician. They know the missing card is up his sleeve or the butler did it!!! This, of course, is before the show begins. When the show begins, the magician and his Bengal Tiger are on the stage as the lights suddenly dim and there is an explosion enveloping the two. When the lights come back up, the magician and his fierce looking tiger are on a pedestal behind your dinner table. Spontaneously, all the experts at the table are saying “nice kitty” at the exact same moment. Everyone was too frightened to say “how did he do that”.

Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco are the magicians in Now You See Me. They are trying to stay one step ahead of Mark Ruffalo (the police), Michael Caine (the financier), and Morgan Freeman (the magic debunker). The audiences they entertain with their show and give large sums of money to don’t care how they did it.

Find out what's happening in Malibuwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Be assured, like those attending the magician and his tiger show, you will be fooled at least three times in the movie.

Now You See Me’s movie trailer was fast paced. The movie is even more so as you are transported to bank vaults in Europe and then whisked back to cities all over the United States. Jesse Eisenberg may not be mentioned in the “best actor” roll call. However, his Facebook work and the work in this movie were riveting. Eisenberg, learning from this movie, will receive greater mentions if he keeps on putting great and interesting actors around his work.

Find out what's happening in Malibuwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Prestige…A Magical Best Pick

If you haven’t had your fill of magic after this movie, you should run straight to your On Demand channels and queue up The Prestige when you get home. It is number one on the best magic movie lists of a large number of critics. This turn of the century tale has Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman fighting for magical supremacy and Scarlett Johansson.

The movie, at first, is about magic but quickly turns to hate as the men try to destroy each other and any chance of sharing the many theaters featuring magic throughout Europe. One of the neat aspects of the movie is David Bowie playing Nikola Tesla. Tesla was electricity’s “mad scientist” as he rivaled Edison and others with his groundbreaking work. His ideas are featured in The Prestige. Tesla would only live in a hotel with New York as his main stomping ground. Nikola’s penniless death in 1943 is a suggested and interesting research topic.

The Illusionist…A Magical Best Pick

Three magic movie suggestions do not constitute overload when the movies are the quality of the ones featured here. The Illusionist is an adaption of the short story Eisenheim The Illusionist. In the movie, Ed Norton plays the magician who is in love with a beautiful woman way above his class. She belongs to Rufus Sewell (Crown Prince Leopold), who since the woman is Jessica Biel and not Melissa McCarthy, does not want to give her up.

Plotting, magic, plotting, and more magic stream throughout the movie. The beauty of 19th century Vienna frames the battle of wits and magic. The landscape overshadows the brutality of the Crown Prince to his subjects and to woman as Jessica Biel fears for her love of many years ago, Norton. Paul Giamatti plays the prince’s henchman inspector in one of his few serious roles.

Read Mr. Palumbo's 100 top movie picks for this year at thomasjpalumbo.wordpress.com. Sign up for his column in the follow box for his weekly take on movies, theater, music, books, and education.



We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?