H.Y.S.T? | S1E21 | The Prestige & The Illusionist - H.Y.S.T?

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Heist, I'm Bradly Hackworth, joined by Jonathan Ems, otherwise known as

(00:05):
Doc.
This week we are going to be covering The Prestige and The Illusionist, a heavyweight
debate from 2006 over which one is the better film.
A pair of peculiar picture- oh, that's right, that's right, I got it.
A pair of period pieces about prestidigitation.
I spent an hour working on that and I forgot it, Jesus.

(00:29):
You'd think you'd write it down if you spent that much time on it.
You'd think, right?
Yeah.
Oh, right.
I mean, okay, so I- no idea.
I've seen both of these films.
I saw both of them when they came out, loved both of them, then loved them both even more
now.
You were in China when both of these came out.

(00:51):
I was in China when these came out, yes.
Yep, this was my first time watching them and wow, wow.
I did not know what I was in for in either case.
But I gotta tell you, man, and this is true, it's not like these are the only magician
movies ever made, and just seeing these two in a row just really brought it forbearance

(01:15):
of it.
When you are watching a movie about stage performers, magicians, anything like that,
you spend the entire movie doubting every single fucking thing.
You're like, is this a fake out?
Is this the misdirect?
Are they lying?
Are this- I mean, you basically are trying- like when you're going to watch a magic show,

(01:42):
you're looking for the trick every time, and I'm not 100% sure that I enjoy that at that
long of a stretch.
Hmm.
Okay, so the prestige is like that.
The illusionist is not like that.
I don't think the- because what are you gonna catch?
What are you gonna catch on the illusionist on the second time that you're not gonna see

(02:04):
the first time?
I caught maybe three things.
But like that I keyed in on because I knew they were there?
Other than that?
No, the illusionist is just a beautiful story.
The prestige?
Ooh, you gotta pay attention.
Yes.

(02:25):
That is- I'll give you that one.
I think I even told you that when we were talking on the phone this week.
This one, like the prestige, you gotta have the energy for that one, man.
Yeah, it was a heck of a flick, yeah.
And I watched it in the virtual theater too, so I got the full experience, and man, that

(02:48):
was a- yeah, it was a- I'm really glad I did that.
I'm glad I discovered that app, let me tell you, because that really kind of adds the
whole effect to a lot of these films we've been watching.
I've tried it, it doesn't really- I don't know, it doesn't get me the same way.
I don't know.

(03:10):
Maybe I'll give it another shot.
Yeah.
Alright, so what do you say we get into it?
Let's do this.
Alright, The Prestige, written by Jonathan Nolan, based on The Prestige by Christopher
Priest, directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Michael

(03:31):
Kane, with Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Samantha Mahiren, David Bowie, rest in peace,
and Andy Serkis.
I mean, my god.
Yeah.
And Scarlett Johansson, looking her best, I might add.

(03:53):
She was a little distracting when she was on screen, I gotta say.
Well, where that is true, her best has not faded yet.
No, that's true.
But she does a few movies where she does kind of, not ugly herself up, but tone herself

(04:14):
down, I would say.
Oh, like, what was it, We Bought a Zoo?
Something like, yeah, yeah.
And what was that?
Under the Skin, too.
That was an art flick she did a few years back, and she gets like- she practically does
the movie with like no makeup almost, the whole thing, and so it kind of, yeah.

(04:36):
All right.
But still good, but yeah.
All right, so The Prestige.
We open on all the hats and the primary line of the film.
Are you watching closely?
Which, no, I was never watching close enough.

(05:01):
It just, it couldn't happen.
Borden sneaking beneath the stage as part of the act to witness the death of Angier.
Everything, like, this is a movie to watch twice.
This is a movie to watch a hundred times.
This is- how do you want to talk about this?

(05:22):
Do you actually want to talk about it in the style of the reveal, or do you actually want
to go through it?
That's a really good question, because this is one of those movies where you feel like,
you know, like I know we've said before, this is a spoiler podcast.
If you haven't seen this movie, then you're gonna get spoiled.
But this one, it really does feel like, especially- especially we're talking about a Magicians

(05:48):
movie, of Magicians never reveal their secrets code being so deeply ingrained in the movie.
Like I really feel like I'm committing some kind of crime by talking about this movie
out in the open like that, with the chance that- with the slight chance that someone
might overhear without seeing it yet.
Like it's weird, right?
But that's kind of what this movie feels like.

(06:10):
Is almost 20 years old?
And it's a Christopher Nolan film, and he's still one of the biggest directors.
I mean-
You make good points.
I'm not gonna say we are doing anything wrong.
It feels wrong.
Alright, here's- here's the way that I would like to go about this.

(06:32):
I- I would like to basically treat it like the deep dive that it is.
I want to talk about it, who Borden is, like all the things I want to be able to highlight,
because I want to be able to talk about which one is Borden and which one isn't.
Like I want to be able to, as we're going through that, because that is- that's what

(06:54):
I want to talk about.
Like when you talk about a movie, those are the things.
Right, okay.
So we're just gonna say flat out, if you have not seen this, you have to turn this podcast
off right now and go watch it first, because holy shit.
Just don't drop any hatred in the comments to me about spoiling something for you that

(07:15):
came out in 2006.
That's all I'm saying.
But.
And while we're at it, by the way, Vader is Luke's father.
I under- I- What?
Dude, I've only seen the acolyte.
Right.
Alright, okay.

(07:36):
Did I- did I tell you about the time?
Sorry, I know, like, um, and this is another spoiler.
But my father actually ruined a movie for someone out of spite, like literally, like literally
at the movie theater.

(07:56):
We had just gotten- we had just gotten out of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
We were walking- we were walking out of the movie theater after seeing Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,
and there was literally a line of people waiting to get into the theater we were just leaving.
And so- and there was a guy in the line who was going like, all right, let's go, let's
do this, come on, we want to sit down.

(08:17):
And the attendant was basically saying like, well, we've got to clean the theater first,
just, you know, be patient, sir.
And the guy was being an absolute dick, so my dad walks up to the guy and goes, hey,
she cons them, and walks off.
That is- awesome.
Phenomenal moment, phenomenal.
That is- I give- I give good credit for that one.

(08:40):
Alright.
You know what, this is how we're going to do it.
So Borden's sneaking beneath the stage as part of the act to witness the death of Angier.
So what- how do we call them, the brothers?
I mean- Do you want to call the good one Borden and

(09:01):
the bad one Fallon?
I mean, they're- they're Borden, Fallon, they're- I mean, that's kind of the point is that they're-
there is no good, bad, they are the same thing.
I mean, they are both, you know- But see, that's the thing.
We see some pretty clear evidence that one of them is a hot-headed crazy son of a bitch,
and the other one is a cool, calm family man that is trying to keep things together.

(09:28):
Like- Okay.
I think- like, I think there was the magician and the evil twin.
Okay.
I feel- but well, I mean, I suppose- So that's how I'm going to do it.
I'm going to refer to the hot-headed one as Fallon, and I'm going to refer to the family
man who actually, as a Mrs. Borden, as Borden.

(09:53):
See, the thing is, I think- I think it's the other way around, because I think Borden is
the one who was the magician, who was in- you know, was there at the beginning, who
actually was also the one who screwed up the magic trick, and then it wasn't until after

(10:17):
that, because he got the- because he basically got the idea from the Chinese magician about
living the life.
So when we are introduced- No, no, no, no.
See, oh man, we have got to figure this out, because just talking about this is going to
be a rough one, because I completely disagree.
See, my theory is that when we see Fallon for the first time, when the wife walks in

(10:43):
and sees him sitting there, I think that is when the brother got roped in, and he wasn't
really a part of the whole magic thing.
So the hot-headed magician is the one that we have seen from the beginning, the calm,
quiet one is basically the timid brother who's going along with it, and yeah.
Completely disagree, but we'll get into why.

(11:04):
Okay?
Okay.
So we have the hot-headed twin sneaking beneath the stage as part of the act to witness the
death of the Angier, and then we cut to the trial with Cutter, played by Michael Caine,
explaining that Borden must have set up the death, and Cutter's not going to reveal the
trick because as an ingenuer, he would lose money by doing that.

(11:32):
Right.
I really enjoyed the fact that even in court, the mystery was kept alive from the public.
All of it.
So the fact that you bring up that point makes me need to go back and watch it again, because
I need to go back and actually see if we see a Fallon beforehand.

(11:52):
Because the fact that none of them know he has a twin brother, and they've been working
together for a bit of time, already indicates the fact that he's already doing this.
Which, you say that he got the idea from the Chinese musician when he goes to see the fish
bowl.
I think that's how he was able to see it so easily, because he was already doing the same

(12:15):
thing and living a double life.
That is a good point.
That is a good point.
See what I mean?
This one is, this is going to be a fun one.
All right.
Yeah, okay.
Owens, played by Roger Reese, which never, never, he never doesn't crush it.
He is often given the same role, but he absolutely is perfect in that role every time.

(12:39):
So I absolutely love that one.
He arrives to the prison to try to buy the transported man.
And Bale won't reveal his secrets, but his daughter will be taken to the orphanage.
So when it's like when it's about the secrets, it's one thing when it's about his little
girl, it's like, all right, right.
I have things to switch around, which I don't know if I know that actress from anything

(13:05):
other than being the Walker system heroes.
Season one, she was the GPS.
She was the GPS that could find any hero anywhere in the world.
Oh, no, I didn't.
The one that Parkman and Mohinder like adopt.
Right.

(13:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nope.
I didn't recognize her at all.
Oh, dude, that little girl had such a unique smile.
If I ever saw her, I knew exactly like 100 percent.
Getting into the cell with Angier's journal and then the same time seeing Angier's trip

(13:46):
to America to meet Tesla and translate the journal that he got from Borden later on,
later on in the film, earlier in the story.
Right.
I this this was a time skip around.
This was a time skip around, but I really liked the effect of these two guys reading

(14:07):
each other's journals like through it throughout this film.
Like discovering what's going on.
Yeah.
I thought that was a really, really nice like storytelling mechanic.
It was a nice effect.
And it really kind of also played into the entire like mechanic of just how obsessed

(14:27):
both of these men were of each other.
Yeah, I don't think I've ever I cannot, at least in my mind, recall seeing anything like
that in any sort of storytelling mechanic or any any movie or book or something.
But I really, really, really liked it.
Yeah, I don't know.
I would have to kind of dig into that to see, but I really enjoyed it.

(14:51):
Angier's trip to America to meet Tesla.
I already said that.
Yes.
But while he's trying to translate the journal and staying indefinitely at the hotel, it
is amazing to see Andy Serkis like right when people were starting to realize that this
man was talented.
Right.
Yeah.
And I was just golem like people did not know how incredibly talented he was.

(15:16):
He was.
Yeah, he was a mocap guy.
And then, you know, top it off, he was what's his he's what's his name?
The in the Marvel Universe, he's that guy that that's that's who he mainly is.
He's claw, I think.
Claw.
Right.
That's right.
And that's why it took me a little while to recognize him.
It wasn't until his second scene when he's being a little more smarmy and he's got a

(15:38):
little bit of that Ulysses Clow thing going on.
I was like, oh, shit, it's Andy Serkis.
Like the whole first scene where he's like, you know, just being like, don't touch the
electric fence.
Like I was like, wow, this is a weird looking dude.
True.
Now he like he's like Andy Serkis, he got his plastic surgery and now he pretty much
always comes with a beard.

(15:58):
Like no, this is like this is before Andy Serkis kind of like landed on his look.
You know what I'm saying?
Right.
But I mean, I absolutely loved it.
Because as he comes up, he's like yelling at him.
And then once he looks at me, he's like, you had a great day and time.
Like and he's like, I saw your show seven times.
And then walking away.

(16:19):
What am I holding?
I you know, there was this there was a lot of charm in basically every scene of this
film.
Yeah.
Like, so when they say when you're like writing, you need to find like the love in the scene.
This had love in every scene.
It had obsession in every scene.
It had anger.
It had like it had like every emotion in every scene.

(16:40):
And that.
Mm hmm.
Top notch.
Absolutely top notch.
So here you go.
Reading his journal when Borden, like when Angier is reading Borden's journal, he's talking
about we were just two young men.
If you're Angier and you're reading that, you're thinking that he's writing about you.

(17:04):
Right.
Because if he doesn't know he's a twin, Angier thinks he's like we were just two young men.
He thinks that his obsession with Borden is just as much as Borden's obsession with him.
He doesn't even realize that Borden's barely even talking about him.
OK, I see what you're saying there.
So that does make that does make more sense that they were from the beginning starting

(17:25):
out as as twins.
OK.
Yeah.
Like I like I said, I like I got some ammo on this one.
I really thought about this.
Oh, oh, Angier and the leg kiss and then tying the knot, which sets up what is going to happen
very, very shortly after because Borden wants to go higher.

(17:48):
And I think this this is the hot headed Borden, the one that I'm referring to as Fallon.
OK, we got to go.
I do want to talk.
I do want to talk about that scene when we see the first iteration of the of the water
escape and.
You got in that scene, you've got Michael Cain, who's the professional, you know, on

(18:14):
Janu and when they start the trick, he's he picks up an axe, a fire axe and a stopwatch
and he's timing at what like this is a trick that even though they've got it all worked
out, it is a dangerous trick and he is prepared to charge the stage to with the with the axe

(18:37):
to break that tank if anything goes wrong like that.
Like that's kind of one of those things where it's like there are maybe a handful of of
still existing stage acts that are on that level of actually dangerous, where you literally
got to have a guy with a fire axe and goes like this goes over one minute.
You have one minute after that, I'm charging in.

(18:59):
Yeah, screw the audience.
Yeah.
No, that is.
And he alludes to that later on.
And he says like people who are looking, people who want tricks like that are looking for
an audience and a theater owner who is hosting something like that.
Eventually, there will be one.
What's that going to do for sales?

(19:21):
Like I really enjoyed that mentality in the way that he flipped that around.
Angier knows the financial safety and favorites and that like you really do kind of see this.
Angier is already the greatest showman.
He knows what to do if like that.
If it wasn't for this petty obsession with Borden, he would have been a wildly successful

(19:43):
whatever he wanted to be.
Right.
Yeah.
Discussing the bullet catch and cutter setting up that all anybody has to do is drop a button
or got like got six a bullet in there and it's done.
And here is my one hundred percent proof that the twin was already in.

(20:07):
Borden says I've got a true trick that like like when he's already talking about the trick
with his twin.
Oh, OK.
And he's saying no one can do it but me.
Right.
Right.
Right.
He's already he's already at the very least got it planned out for sure.
Yeah.
OK.
OK.
Borden and Julia played by Piper Perabo.

(20:30):
I don't know if she's very high on your list, but she is a personal favorite of mine.
Oh, I'm certainly aware of her.
I recognize the name.
I've never recognized her on screen because she's kind of a chameleon in that regard.
But I do know the name.
And yeah, I've never never not been impressed by her for sure.
No, I I she has given me butterflies since she was in Coyote Ugly.

(20:57):
OK.
Hands down, flat out.
And every time I see her on screen or anything like she never she's always amazed me.
So yep, Piper Perabo.
I absolutely love you.
But she wants to try that dangerous not as well.
So Michael Caine saying that Borden's a natural magician and that's why you can't trust him

(21:18):
to Angier.
This is true.
It is true.
You can't trust this man.
He is a man to work with and all this.
But there is that side of him which is not a side is an entirely different person.
Right.

(21:39):
Borden immediately understands the fishbowl trick and Borden sees it because Borden is
doing the exact same thing in real life.
And I think that this is what the character that I'm calling Borden that I'm referring
to Borden as kind of the calmer, the family man, but only because he has a Mrs. Borden.

(22:02):
And that makes the most sense to actually call him.
Right.
Right.
Right.
OK.
So Julia comes up with Angier's name to go by the great Danton.
He doesn't like it because it's French and then it becomes a heartbreaking just hmm part

(22:22):
of the film.
Yeah.
Borden reads Angier thinking what does he know of self sacrifice and that cheeky ass
smile that Christian Bale gives when he is reading that like when somebody's talking
about him and what does he know about sacrifice.
He's like right.

(22:43):
And he even calls him like you bloody fool.
And literally because this one I did watch twice this week.
OK.
Because I had to.
And when he like his response in that moment it really does tell a lot.
It really tells a lot.

(23:04):
I still don't know which one wound up in prison though.
I don't know which one.
I think it was basically the mastermind, essentially the one who first wanted to get into being
a magician.
You know, the one who was the hot head.

(23:24):
I think it was both.
The thing is, when?
We'll get there.
Man, we'll get there.
We're still like at the beginning of this movie here.
All right.
So Borden wins that matter, the contest to figure out the magic trick and then sees her.
Sarah played by Rebecca Hall at the show and.

(23:50):
A smart little kid immediately understanding like where's his brother?
It's like, oh, why would you take a kid who understands the reality of magic tricks to
a magic show?
Oh, well, she probably had no idea what was going on either.
She you know.
So I maybe.

(24:10):
Yeah, I mean, I think it basically comes down to that kid was just basically the smartest
one in the family is basically my guess.
OK, maybe there is definitely that possibility.
Yeah, magically breaking into her place is charming.
Well, it makes a lot.
It makes a lot more sense now that we know that there's two of them because I'm not talking

(24:36):
about.
I'm not talking about.
Yeah, I'm not talking about the practicality of it.
I'm talking about how did she not go in there and immediately freak out for the dude that
she just turned down from coming into the bedroom and then all of a sudden there's a
dude in your house like that.

(24:59):
That came off like if you are not already way established with somebody, that is a huge
red flag.
Yeah, yeah.
But that is also like I mean, that goes all the way back to because because she even says,
you know, it's like you can't come in.
It would scandalize the landlord kind of thing.
You know, that's a good point.

(25:21):
Yeah.
I mean, it's one of those kind of like very problematic but truths of the of the olden
days and like the reason why we get into this habit nowadays where a guy's got to be like
overly aggressive is because for 200 years, women were expected to say no when they mean

(25:43):
yes for a long, long time to basically, you know, you know, make it make a make the guy
prove that he really means it and be to, you know, you know, put on a presentation that
she's not that easy or something like that, you know, and it's okay.
So that's, you know, it's kind of a crapshoot at that point where it's like if you know,

(26:05):
doing something like that, breaking into her house is romantic or creepy.
And really what it comes down to is, you know, do you look like Christian Bale or not?
That's the deciding factor.
Well, that wouldn't hurt.
Yeah, no, that's for sure.
Yeah, that doesn't hurt.

(26:25):
Cutter introducing the machine built by Tesla, a real wizard, was a really beautiful like
he wants to destroy everything that he like, he knows how much money could be there, but
he still wants it gone.
And I really appreciate that about the cutter character.
And also seeing the drowning tank and putter thinking that that is the same tank that his

(26:52):
wife died in makes that way worse.
Makes that way, way, way, way worse.
Like because that set him up.
So Angier set it up.
So cutter would think that Borden used the same tank that his wife died to kill him,
but would send cutter into an absolute rage to actually take down Borden, which there

(27:18):
really is only one evil character in this movie and it is Angier.
Angier is the only evil character in this movie and he is fucking evil, man.
True, but to be fair, he was driven there.
Oh, he was driven there.
Yeah, sure, sure.

(27:39):
But yeah, he's just straight like once he, yeah, once he makes that turn, he is fucking
diabolical all the way through.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, once he loses his wife, it is game over.
She speaking of she signals him and he ties the tougher knot.

(28:00):
So that's the thing.
He did it.
And he knows he did it, but he can't tell Angier because telling Angier would be telling
him that his wife basically killed herself.
Yeah.
And so he can't do that.
So that's where I'm kind of wondering like, I don't like, he knew he obviously knew he

(28:23):
totally knew 100%.
But he made the decision not to tell Angier because he knew how much more that would torture
Angier than what the truth, than the lie that he believed.
And I mean, but and that's kind of like what got me about it is that like if that like
they even said when they were first when they were first foreshadowing this, when they were

(28:46):
talking about the the different knot and stuff like that, they even said she's like, I could
slip it and we can practice it.
They never practiced it to at least to our knowledge anyway.
You know, they did it on a whim.
And it's like that is that is I'm sorry, but that goes against the the tenets of magic.

(29:06):
So you don't you don't do an unpracticed trick on stage.
Oh, no, I'm not exclusively blaming her, but I'm not.
But I'm saying.
I think that would make it hurt more.
Yeah, probably.
But yeah, and it makes it weird that, you know, and he's kind of like folding in his

(29:27):
own like, you know, to life thing into into the the explanation when he says I'm half
of mine that I didn't and I'm half of mine that I did, you know, and he's basically saying
we're both to blame.
She signaled me to do it.
And I agreed without even thinking we are both to blame here.
But I don't want to put that on her and therefore on you.

(29:48):
And so I'm using the same like weird doublespeak that I use when I'm talking about my twin,
which is I'm half a mind of one and half mind the other, you know, and that kind of like
that doesn't seem to help the situation any better.
But we are at the funeral and Putter is telling Angiers that he talked to somebody and he

(30:12):
was who had drowned before and survived and he lied to comfort Angier and he tells him
that it was like going home.
And then I think this is the real Borden that showed up at this moment who actually was
filled with regret.
The one who would not have done that not the one who was not the hothead.

(30:36):
Right.
Showed up to actually express his sorrow.
But he couldn't tell him yes or no.
My other theory on that is the hotheaded one is actually lying and saying I don't know.
And that's possible.
It's also possible that the hotheaded one that yeah, I think I think you might be right

(30:57):
that it was two different ones.
There was the one that tied the knot into the trick and then there was the one that
showed up at the funeral.
And it's possible that the one that tied the knot refuses to answer his brother's question
about what about what happened.
And he what I'm going to have one that shows up the funeral literally doesn't know when
I go back to watch it again because it's going to happen.

(31:18):
I need to figure out why they couldn't look at the knot when she was at when they got
her out of the tank.
Like did they just untie it too fast or like I because that actually should be part of
this.
But I screwed up.
Well, you know, I mean, I would I would put that as like kind of one of those like movie

(31:39):
off things.
I mean, I'm like, yeah, but I'm not 100 percent sure.
Jennifer Nolan written film directed by Christopher Nolan.
You don't know.
They tend to be pretty detail oriented.
That's true.
Yeah.
That is the entirety of every single detail matters.
I mean, inception and it oh my God.

(32:00):
Yeah.
I need to go watch Tenet.
Wait, Tenet again or first time first time.
You have not seen Tenet yet.
OK.
OK.
Yeah.
I mean, I've I've sat down with the intention of watching it, but I just kick something
else on instead.
It's a miss.

(32:20):
It's I.
As we have discovered in this show, there are many, many projects that I have not seen
that are quite amazing just because I was doing something different.
You and me both.
I mean, I've gone 20 years without seeing either of these two instant classics.
So you know, that is fair.
Sarah almost meeting Fallon and this is where she's actually talking to Fallon about everything

(32:50):
like this, because when he's like, we should have we should have told Fallon and then she's
like, some days you mean it when you tell me you love me.
They you don't.
And it sets up a very painful line later on in the film.
She's like, today you're more in love with magic than you are with me.
That's Fallon.

(33:11):
That's why we should have told Fallon because he was the dad.
OK, OK.
So that well, I mean, but that.
That's a moment I guess they never they never talk about it.
They never actually explicitly state whether both of the brothers are hooking up with both
of the women or not, but they never say it's not happening.

(33:33):
So that's the thing is like that kind of calls.
Like it seems pretty definitive, like jumping again to the end that the guy in jail is the
father of the daughter.
But when that's the thing is like, how would they know for sure?
Unless it literally was a case of when it was Fallon's turn.

(33:57):
Don't fuck my wife.
You know, pretty much like, hey, man, I need you to be at my home tonight.
But at the same time.
Have a headache.
Or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, they really don't.
Yeah, they don't go into the details of that dynamic.
That's the interesting thing.
Yeah.
That bullet catch when he goes into the bar and he's given that whole performance and

(34:21):
they're all throwing food and drinks at him and then he pulls the gun out.
He's like, this is what you came to see.
And that whole jazz.
But before that, talking with Sarah and explaining the danger of it and all this, which.
Which what a what a relate relatable thing.
You're showing off to your girl.
You know, you're trying to do all this and then she's like, oh, well, it's not dangerous

(34:45):
at all.
And then you're like, wait, no, no, no, I'm I'm still a tough guy.
Hold on.
No, no, no, it's still dangerous.
No, no, still, I am the dangerous risk taker you thought I was 30 seconds ago.
Right.
Like I thought that was a really, really relatable scene, at least for me.
Yeah.
And he's in that bar and and you're literally does what Cutter says could happen and what

(35:11):
Borden tells Sarah.
He drops a bullet in there, ask him the question again.
Fallon comes to the rescue and is the only reason that Borden survives.
But here's something that the show or that the movie didn't establish was how many times

(35:32):
they went to the show before getting on stage and or before being who got to be the one
because it just kind of seemed like Angier went there and just got the gun immediately
and Borden went to the show and was the one to inspect it immediately.
Like they just like that was the only part of the movie that felt convenient when it

(35:57):
just should have been to the shows in the final one.
Right.
And the final one, they did kind of play into it because there is this there is that whole
montage at the end up to the actual death where we have Borden and Fallon basically
going like, how is he doing this?
Like we we've we've sit here and watched it a dozen times.

(36:20):
Yeah.
I am very excited to talk about that scene in particular, because that scene and one
line when he's in prison has me questioning which one is which.
Otherwise, I think I thought I had it locked, but it's just those those mess with me a little

(36:40):
bit.
Right.
Angier still doesn't get his answer.
And then and then as he's reading the journal, how could he not know?
He must know what he did.
And we already kind of talked about that.
We're in the journal.
He references he's like, sometimes I think I did this not sometimes I think I did this
not.
I really don't know.

(37:01):
But what we find out later on is that journal was put in Angier's hands deliberately.
So everything in that journal was written intentionally for Angier to hear it.
So Borden is laying all of these steps to the film hasn't said it for the second time
yet, but I'm going to.

(37:22):
Are you watching closely?
It was not.
Oh, my God.
Angier and Cutter team back up for the stage, bracing the name The Great Danton.
Now this is what I really liked.
Nobody was going to work with Cutter except for the person who knows that it wasn't his

(37:43):
fault that she died.
So I really appreciated how those two's desperation meets because I mean, Angier was not desperate.
And anyway, he was a very, very wealthy man.
Very wealthy man.
So it turns out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So his desperation was not.

(38:04):
And when it came to money or anything like that, it was literally just about being better
than Borden, I guess.
Because that's what it all came about.
Yeah.
Or or something.
Yeah.
Because it wasn't even like he had.
It wasn't about the show.
It wasn't about any of it.
It just became about beating Borden.

(38:26):
Yeah.
And it's like when he like when he sees that Borden's back on stage performing again, he's
like, all right, I'm going to get back on stage and I'm going to steal his trick just
to fuck with him.
And he's even like later on when he goes to follow the guy around and he sees that he's
got a family and a kid and living happily, that's like when he's really pissed off.

(38:49):
Like now he's like, now I'm going to I'm going to go to the ends of the earth to find a way
to fuck with you.
Like, yeah, like it really is just about the fact that he's like he would have been fine.
But you know, and that might be maybe if he wasn't rich and he had to actually get a job
and be concerned with something else, maybe he would have done had a better life.

(39:12):
But no, the guy's got money and the guy's got money in time.
So he's got nothing to do but obsess about how this fucking two bit trickster got his
wife killed.
Maybe that is a good point, man.
Cutter telling Angier that he's going to have to get his hands dirty eventually.

(39:34):
But introducing that gadget, that is a real that is a real trick.
Which I looked at.
I saw the name of the magician who invented it.
I should have kept that.
But which worked out because the theater owner is an animal lover, which I would not have
expected in the eighteen hundreds or whenever.

(39:55):
Right.
Yeah.
Borden arrives to sabotage.
And I already talked about this, but just always wondered how he got so picky or so
lucky to be picked to go on stage the first night without Olivia's help.
Like if he had her help, it would make sense how he got up there the very first night.

(40:17):
But one male volunteer, fully stacked house and Borden is the one who gets up on stage.
I think that's a level of convenience that did bother me.
Yeah, that one's a little weird.
And and not only that, but he knew exactly how to sabotage the trick immediately.
Yeah.

(40:40):
But he was the true magician.
That's true.
Like he was because he wasn't just the magician, the magician.
He was also the engineer.
So that's a good.
I wonder about that.
Circus joins Angier for a drink and gets a tour and then Angier gets a tour of the field

(41:05):
current and is blown away by real magic.
The craziest thing about this movie is that is real.
No, yeah, I know.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tesla's wireless wireless electricity transmission.
Yeah, that was a thing.
And that was and yeah, it was one of the things that Edison precisely wanted to see destroyed

(41:29):
because he was making money off of installing wires everywhere.
So yeah.
Yep.
So yeah, a different world, if we would have had Tesla's technology, we'd probably be about
five hundred years ahead of where we're at right now.
Maybe maybe 50, I think.

(41:51):
Or movies wouldn't be the same.
Cell phones couldn't die.
Oh, no, that's a good point.
Yeah.
Our batteries.
But but we'd also have a different world where where you wouldn't have an electric bill.
Electric bills would not be a thing.
You would basically pay your taxes for a local generator in your town and everybody just

(42:15):
get uses whatever they need.
That's that would be a beautifully different world.
Yeah, but that's not and that's not how we do.
Yeah.
The tormented wife and child.
That we haven't talked about yet.
Each year, literally from an outsider's perspective, talk like reading about
Orton and Fallon and the split personality, essentially, and all of this.

(42:42):
The effects that it has on Gordon's wife and child.
Right.
Yeah.
Which is I had to see that time when Fallon is with Sarah and it ain't OK.
Yeah, and that's interesting because it like it didn't even occur to me until just now.
There is the bit where he's talking about how, you know, I'm reading this and there's

(43:07):
some days that he's totally in love with her and there are some days in which he hates
the entire relationship and the confines of it and everything.
And it's like it didn't even occur to me like like these guys, like not only were they swapping
lives, but they were like literally like to the point of it was two different people right
in the journal, right?

(43:28):
You know, that was supposedly not going to be read by anybody.
Or even if it was a fabrication just for for Angiers to read, they still took turns doing
it in and like and I know that's the entire point is that they're sitting like their entire
point is how much they have to commit 24 hours a day to the trick in order to make it work.

(43:49):
But I mean, my God, no wonder.
No wonder the no wonder the other one's so angry all the time because he's got to pretend
to be married to somebody he doesn't like.
But think about it.
If Olivia was there and he was using the journal as a way for Olivia to prove her love to him,
he probably had to be writing the journal in front of her.

(44:13):
He probably would have been spending that time doing that over a good bit of time to
where she would have been there when he was supposed to be writing it, so they would be
forced to do that.
It's fair.
OK, it's a good point.
I do this thing.
I can't I can't actually find a hole in this entire movie beyond the convenience of them

(44:35):
getting on stage for each other's acts.
Yeah, it.
But Borden's realization when he's reading Angier's words about Angier's perspective
on from the outsider being able to see his wife is tortured.
Right.
Borden realizing that in prison and then just kind of retroactively realizing is like my

(45:00):
wife was alive.
Even somebody else could recognize it.
Like it's like I really should have seen this coming.
I really could have thought this.
I felt that realization coming from him.
Very, very good scene.
Or you just a very good moment of that scene.
Look like you're going to say something.
Go ahead.

(45:21):
Oh, no, I was I was thinking of something else.
Probably bring it up later.
OK.
Angier meets Tesla.
Oh, sister sister.
Borden playing a trick on the guard.
And I liked this moment.
He's like, maybe I'll get there, maybe I'll ask, are you watching closely?

(45:41):
Which I like that because he is telling us that when he told us at the opening narration
of the film, are you watching closely?
He was tricking us.
And I loved that.
Like the realization of that when I watched the second time, I was like, oh, my God, Mr.
Nolan's.
Oh, yeah.

(46:01):
Great job.
Great job.
The same line we were fed at the beginning.
Angier meets Tesla and gets a lesson on electricity, which that scene where Tesla is walking through
that electric current.
I 100 percent like the first time I watched it, I was like, did he just teleport there?

(46:24):
But no, he just walked through it.
No, yeah, you do see him coming through.
Yeah, that's true.
But I didn't realize it the first time.
I was just like, oh, pretty sparks.
Dude, there's a guy there.
Like that was it.
The discussion over obsession and Tesla tells Angier that he has already begun building
it and I enjoy the discussion over obsession.

(46:47):
And I just I really loved the fact that Tesla knew ahead of time that he was not going to
change this dude's mind.
There was no way.
Right.
Yeah.
But that was very good.
Martin is back as the professor, which was one of the most popular nicknames for stage
performers like musicians and illusionists of the time.

(47:08):
They would often, often go by the professor.
Yeah.
And it was like it was like a sort of.
Kind of a put on almost because it's it's, you know, like a high level of education,
you know, you know, it's the same thing as like, you know, it's one step above doctor

(47:33):
and it's the same thing as someone being like, you know, I'm Dr. Teeth of the electric mayhem.
No, that's not right.
That's something else.
But you get what I'm saying.
Huh?
That's an interesting perspective because I would put professor under doctor.
To my knowledge, it's above because basically, yeah, it's like I'm going to have to double

(47:57):
check that, but I'm like, well, professor, you're.
Right.
And that's basically like you get your doctorate first and then after spending some years in
the field, then you become a teacher.
That's like the final level.
Now you're the one teaching the future doctors.
I straight up thought a professor was just a college teacher.

(48:21):
I'm I'm going to admit I'm not 100 percent on that.
I don't know.
I think no, I have no idea.
I'm inferring from context based on all the different movies that I have seen, you know,
from Europe that.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
All right.
We'll we'll look into that.

(48:42):
We'll figure that out.
And here is amazed at the transported man and the showman versus the magician.
It was good.
And oh my God, looking for that double.
And then Hugh as Gerald Root.
Oh my God.
That was very clear.
Yeah, Jackman.
Now I know that was kind of amazing.

(49:03):
Yeah.
Hugh Jackman playing his own bad double even to a degree like he even kind of like the way
he held himself differently almost made him look even he like they pointed out later like,
oh yeah, when he comes out, he's like overweight.
He kind of looked overweight because the way he held his face, he looked like he had a

(49:24):
double chin thing going on on top of the fake buck teeth they gave him.
And yeah, that whole that whole performance as as his own double.
That was that was where Jackman really shined in this movie was when he was playing the
fake him.
Yeah.
Like this was this was kind of a weirdly straightforward, almost boring role for Jackman, except for
when he's playing the double.

(49:46):
That's true.
That is true.
At the same time, you name a scene in this where Jackman doesn't absolutely deliver.
Oh, no, of course, it's just a more dialed down performance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, this is no Oklahoma for sure, but it's still, you know.

(50:13):
Showing Olivia the trick and meeting himself.
Oh, right.
Root meeting himself, the double.
That was weird.
Right.
You drink.
I love that part where like where he comes out.
And I think they twisted the editing on this because he comes out and he's drunk.
He's like, you drink too, if you knew the world as I do.

(50:36):
And right.
Yeah.
But they're like the end of the scene is like, yeah, if I just come out drunk every night,
like nobody will know the difference.
I think they switched the editing around because I think he like Root was supposed to say that
in response to Angie are saying that.
Go watch that scene again.
It feels like the it feels like it was edited out of order.

(50:59):
I suppose that's possible.
I mean, I thought it was.
I. Yeah, it seemed to me like he was saying it in response to the fact that when Root
first came out, he immediately tripped.
And so that's what that's what Jackman that's what he was saying to that.
He was like, oh, sure.
Yeah, all I have to do is be happy.
But it's one.
But it's that would have been the right time for it.
But he doesn't say that until a little bit later.

(51:20):
For some reason, in my mind, that is when he said it, because that's
copying the transported man and successfully pulling it off under the stage and his ego
can't handle it.
But like that first time where he's under the stage and he takes the bow, I was like,
all right, man, there's our healthy dude.
He won.

(51:40):
OK, take that bad.
Enjoy it.
But nope.
Soon as his ego like can't hit, I mean, dude, this guy sucks, man.
Yeah, that would that was his ruin right there.
Like, yeah, if he could have if he could have accepted that the applause was for him, even
if he was under the stage, if he could have just accepted that it was for him anyway,

(52:01):
then he would have been fine.
He could he could have retired back to the chalet as a winner.
Everything would have been great.
No, his downfall was Olivia.
When he sent Olivia over to Borden, that triggered Borden to respond.
Which he would not have done if he just accepted it.

(52:22):
That's the thing.
Remember, remember.
Yeah.
So if he if he had just been happy with it and he had kept up the relationship with Olivia,
the reason why he sends Olivia over is because he can't let it go.
He wants to be the one accepting the applause on stage, which means he wants to figure out
how the guy is transporting from one place to another.
He's not happy with keeping the double.

(52:44):
So that's when he says to her, go be a spy.
And that's what fucks everything up for him.
Yep.
Which, which my God, next three notes, like I get I get the guy technically is still in
love with his wife.
But what kind of a dumbass sends Scarlett Johansson off to the streets like seriously?

(53:07):
Well, see, this is that moment.
I know actually it comes up very shortly after.
Well when he gets that journal and he says and he says he's like, I don't care about
my wife, I only care about a secret.
And then he kind of realizes that he said that.

(53:27):
Yeah.
Ooh.
Could have been a turning point for him.
Could have been the moment he went, oh, I've I've gone too far.
I've clearly gone too far.
But no, instead he leans into it even further.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, we're we're we're this is this is like stage magician breaking bad that we're
watching here.

(53:49):
Then we cut the Tesla testing on the top hat and they think it's a failure and Al or circus
is removing Angier as they're going and he's just completely handling him.
He's like, oh, don't worry about it.
We're going to come back next week.
We got to just completely handling him like a pro.
And I really enjoyed that.
Yep.

(54:10):
This is what we were just talking about with Olivia meeting Borden and the way her eyes
just slightly the emotion behind her eyes changes for a frame before they cut that scene
when she is about you know what she did.
The movie tells us, but it only gives us a frame to notice.

(54:35):
And that was the only time I was watching closely.
That was the one time I was like, hey, success.
I actually did what the movie wanted me to do.
Yeah, I mean, but they they they did.
I mean, let's be honest, they made it obvious it was a very tight one shot on her and it
was a very obvious change.
I don't care if it was obvious or not.
I'm taking my win and I'm running.

(54:56):
It was one frame, but it was a it was a hell of a frame that only that only Scarlett Johansson
could fill.
She is a beautiful.
Realize that matter.
Yon talented route realizing his position and Borden opening across the street.

(55:17):
Borden choosing to open right across one.
Borden did kind of.
Yeah, he fed that a little bit to.
It was the Pantages.
Where else would you want to book?
You want a big you want to book at a big place like the Pantages.
I get it.
Yeah.
I mean, that that's like, you know, I mean, that's like getting, you know, if you're in

(55:38):
the theater district, why would you get mad at someone opening their show in a theater
right next to yours in the one part of town where all the fucking theaters are?
I mean, come on.
I mean, really.
Oh, God.
Cutter is right.
Michael Caine's character Cutter in this movie is completely right the entire way through,

(56:01):
even when he helps kill the guy at the end, he is still right.
Angier has climbed too high for professional embarrassment.
And what happens next?
Yeah, because Borden sabotages Angier through route and then with a broken leg, Borden pulls
it off and then does an advertisement or his own show across the street.

(56:29):
Which wowed Paul.
Yeah.
Also, like how?
How much pain route looked like he was in when they dropped him down from the ceiling?
He actually looked like he was in pain.
So I was like really curious what Borden did there.
I mean, my guess was because we saw Fallon in the in the audience.

(56:55):
So my guess was is that they actually kidnapped him and tied him up that while he he was not
in on that route was not in on any of this.
Oh, I didn't think about that.
Maybe.
Yeah, that's a good point.
That's a good that's a good call.

(57:17):
They're asking, do you think it was her and then confronting Olivia?
And this is where she copped out.
Like she brings up the disguises and crazy thing about this is they are both completely
correct.
It is a double.
It is that simple, but it is not that simple.
There's more to it.
There is disguises and all of this and she talks about it.
They can have their entire conversation and they are completely correct.

(57:40):
And neither of them understand that both of them are correct.
This was incredible.
I was blown away the entire time.
This is when she gives him that journal and he says that that thing about his wife.
I don't care about my wife.
I care about his secret.
And I do what and the interesting thing is to is like she isn't like she may have betrayed

(58:06):
him like by giving away a lot of the secrets or may not have because she is telling him
the truth.
She's telling him about the wigs and everything backstage and he's like that's just to throw
you off.
We find out later on is no, those were not to throw her off.
Those are the Fallon disguises.

(58:29):
Like she may genuinely have been torn between the two of them where she did fall in love
with what we later find out is Fallon.
I think this was the tipping point.
When he was like going off on her and everything like that and then she like whips out the
journal which was the test to prove her love to Borden.

(58:51):
I think Angie are going off like this and what he says like and all of that.
But he doesn't say the thing about his wife until after he has the journal.
So I really don't know what Olivia's character really was in this movie.
I don't know what her actual motivations are.
I do know that I absolutely hated her.

(59:13):
I mean hands down by the end.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I mean by the end of the movie, I absolutely hated her and she earned it.
The show with his machine.
Go ahead.
Well, because yeah, it's like she goes on about like she she betrays Algiers because

(59:33):
she's fallen in love with with him.
But as soon as he's arrested for murder, she fucking vanishes.
She's not there for his kid.
She's not there for him.
She literally falls off the face of the earth as soon as he's arrested.
So after everything that she played a part in, honest or not, to fuel the fire between

(59:55):
these two, as soon as it came to a head, she was nowhere to be found.
Yeah.
But at the same time, it's not like anyone was asking around for her.
So it kind of, you know, it seems to be kind of one of those like everybody's the villain
in that one.
OK, fair.
This is that moment where Cutter helps trap Fallon and I cut her get shot, which pretty

(01:00:21):
much his exit for a big part of the film.
And burying Fallon in the cemetery was a whoa moment.
Yeah, that was a hell of a thing, too.
What that reminded me of, like the way they like they know he's following him.

(01:00:42):
They lead him up a staircase.
The staircase is faulty and he falls right into a coffin that they immediately start
nailing shut.
That reminded me of an old TV show that used to be on in the 80s called FX, where the TV
show it was a crime procedural that was literally about practical special effects artists using
tricks like that to get people to like incriminate themselves or confess to crimes or something

(01:01:06):
like that.
Like that was that was like an episode of FX where they basically took magicians tricks
and used it in a practical manner to trap a dude in a fucking coffin.
And I was like, damn, that's that's to even think of that is some cold blooded shit.
Yeah, some pretty rough stuff right there.
Yeah.
Meeting in the cemetery gets the cipher for the journal and then this whole this whole

(01:01:34):
essentially a face off here, which how calm this version of Borden is.
I think this is the family man Borden, one who is in the coffin is the mad man brother,
which is why when we go when we go to that dinner.
I mean, oh my God, the dinner with Sarah, Olivia Fallon and Borden.

(01:02:00):
That's the mad man brother right there.
The one who like he is flipping off, going off about everything like that.
The softness in Fallon that leaves with Olivia.
Right.
Yeah.
Like because every time every time the mad man Borden is going off on Sarah, you see
the softness in Fallon and you just see like like he wants to do something, but he just

(01:02:24):
kind of like saunters off all that.
He goes to protect the daughter and, you know, something like that.
Like, right.
Yeah.
And they do kind of like they make they even make it make logistical sense because right
after he digs him up, he's got to go do a show.
And then after the show was dinner and then it is explained to us that that was when they
switched.
They would always you know, whoever was playing Fallon would take his makeup off.

(01:02:48):
They'd be the same guy on stage and then the other one would be the one to put the Fallon
makeup on.
So that means the guy who was being Fallon and has to leave with with with, you know,
with Scarlett Johansson after dinner, that's the guy who just dug him out of the ground
and the guy who's sitting there being frantic.
Of course, he's frantic.
He was just buried alive that morning.

(01:03:10):
Yeah.
So when he's talking about something that like something precious was almost lost to
him, it was his own life.
But he can't write.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And that is that is a rough one.
Sarah is being driven mad by the double personality when she is like yelling at him and saying,
I know what you are.

(01:03:31):
I wish I knew what she thought.
My assumption when I when I when I was watching that scene for the first time, my assumption
is she thinks that he and Fallon are lovers.
Oh, that never crossed my mind, but that does make sense.

(01:03:54):
Yeah, I that is a very open ended thing for me.
It admits to loving her in the journal and writes about tricking Angier with the journal
and Angier furious goes to Tesla, pulls that experiment.
And then they're saying that they need to try a living being as an experiment.

(01:04:19):
And circus actually lets him use the cat.
I'm like, dude, yeah, like he doesn't even just say like, like he doesn't just take an
animal out of the fucking forest.
He he grabs his assistant's cat and circus is like, what are you doing with me?
Cat, you know, and it's like, dude, I don't know.
I understand it's Nikola Tesla, but you got to draw the line somewhere, brother.

(01:04:41):
You know, don't let him electrify your fucking cat.
Yeah, I just looked at my cat and I was like, no, that ain't happening.
We get Edison's men show up to the hotel and Angier reading the real version of Olivia's
interview.
And there's a big reveal there.
That's the thing is like that was what really caught me was after that scene after the cat

(01:05:06):
and nothing happens to the cat.
It's fine.
Yeah.
Yeah, because he angrily leaves and then he hears the cat and the clone of the cat fighting.
And there's that Eureka moment in Borden.
And it's not just a Eureka moment, but when he walks in and he sees a pile of top hats

(01:05:27):
in the forest floor, which was what we saw at the very beginning of the movie and had
completely forgotten about all the way up until this point.
Like I thought that was a cool little little turnaround where it's like, by the way, you
forgot about the big pile of top hats in the forest.
We showed you at the very beginning.

(01:05:48):
Here they are.
What do you think?
I will say that is the right way to do it.
When you cut like you don't cut to a dead body or somebody lying on the ground going,
hey, you wonder how I got here?
I don't like this is how you do that.
That is the wrong way to do this.
This is the right way.
No, I agree.
Yep.
I like that moment when he's leaving.

(01:06:12):
He's like, like, don't forget your hat.
He's like, well, which one's mine?
They're all your hat.
That was Tesla handling this very well, I might add.
True.
But I love how quickly Tesla kind of catches on to what is happening and the warning that
he leaves behind for Angie.

(01:06:34):
Doesn't remember his promise.
You mean it today.
Or yeah, that's it.
Where he is talking to his daughter and he can't remember a promise that he made to his
daughter, which you got to imagine does kind of happen pretty often if one can't remember
to fill the other one in on something.
And we do see that scene where Borden is talking to Fallon about, take her to the zoo today,

(01:06:56):
stuff like this, all that.
And you just kind of think it's going to be him as Fallon, but it's not.
It's him.
It's like him informing the other Borden.
Outstandingly well done.
I could not.
Like I mean, Borden trying to convince Fallon to help him while having to go be Fallon.
It's like, if you could just, if you could just help me out.

(01:07:17):
Like that's why I think you had the one that was the family man and you had one that was
the one who was actually obsessed with Angier as much as Angier was obsessed with him.
I think you had like Angier versus the evil twin and the one dude is like, come on man,
can we just, can we just not?
Can we just be magicians?

(01:07:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh my god, this is the moment where I really started hating Olivia.
Leave your family at home where they belong.
Wow.
Yeah.
Like oh my god.
Wow.
Yeah.
I wasn't okay with that.
Not one part of me.

(01:07:58):
I was like, oh, I hate, oh, wait, the fact that you can make me hate Star Lid, Johansson.
Good job.
Didn't want to, but there it was.
Yeah.
But then we cut to Angier sees Edison's men leaving the hotel, very satisfied, heavily

(01:08:20):
implying that the, uh, the sabotage did happen.
And you gotta, you gotta kind of get a little bit of joy from Borden's joy and reading about
the sabotage and all this shit because he's basically reading about his enemies hardships
and he's like, getting a little bit of, that's like his only pleasure in prison.
So I thought that was a little bit funny.

(01:08:43):
Uh, Angier gets the box from Tesla and Tesla's warning to throw the machine to the bottom
of the ocean.
I loved that because Tesla knew what he did and he knew what was going to happen.
Right.
That was, but do you think maybe he made a second Tesla?

(01:09:09):
That's a good question.
I don't know.
I mean, they had, I mean, there, there was the cat.
So there was that.
And if they couldn't work that out, like, yeah, maybe there's a whole nother movie there
of, of what, of, of, you know, five David Bowies and six Andy circuses running around
just making electrical shit, you know, I would have watched that.

(01:09:29):
I would have.
That's the Rick and Morty that we deserved.
Hard agree.
Hard agree.
Yes.
I did enjoy, uh, he prepares the, he prepares the gun for things to go wrong and he winds

(01:09:52):
up needing it in a way different way.
And I love what happened there, but we, we only get a hint of that here.
Right.
Gordon gets in, gets his info.
Oh, Borden gets his info cut off with the looming info about his being accused of murder.
Love that.
Yeah.

(01:10:12):
Oh, the anticipation that they brought up.
You're re you're reading.
I know you're reading this like I've done the same thing to you.
I made a fake journal just for you and I'm ending it with, I know you're in jail.
You're reading this in jail for my murder.
Like man, like the fact that the fact that the, the heat, like Borden didn't immediately
go this motherfucker's still alive.

(01:10:34):
Yeah.
Like they like, it's kind of weird that he didn't like, he may not have been able to
put together how, but he had like, that's one of those like, there's no way this dude
really let himself die.
No, I wouldn't think so either, but I mean, we saw what happened.

(01:10:55):
Yeah.
Won't give him the prestige until he gets to see his daughter.
And I liked that.
I liked that.
Like just being able to say goodbye to your daughter, everything.
Like that was a good one.
Like they just took to my heartstrings a bit.
Fallon, Fallon taking Jess away from hearing Borden freak out on Sarah.
She wants that true honesty.

(01:11:16):
And when she asked, do you love me?
And he says, not today.
And this is where you were talking about where you think maybe she thought they were gay
lovers, which like I said, my brain never went there.
My God, does that make complete sense?
And really, that really does, but when she goes into her unaliving scene, and when she

(01:11:51):
goes in there and she just goes and the very second, very, very moment she touches that
rope straight cut to it, that hurt.
That was a, that was a beautiful transition in a very painful way.
And oh my God, oh my God, cutter is summoned in the same way as he did Angier to the new

(01:12:18):
theater with blind stagehands, which the blind stagehands definitely needed.
Definitely definitely.
Yeah.
The limited show demonstrating the transported man.
I love that man's reaction.
He's like, when he says, pardon me, it's very rare to see real magic.

(01:12:40):
And then he talks to me, he's like, you have to dress it up and disguise it, give people
a reason to doubt it.
We don't want people knowing that real magic exists.
I was like, dude, I'm loving this.
And then then Scarlett Johansson has that like now, now you want to talk about his family?

(01:13:00):
Are you kidding me?
Yeah, that was an interesting turn for her all of a sudden, like after all that.
But my guess is maybe she was feeling a little bit guilty because probably he was with me
probably because he was with her when it happened.
They don't say so, but I'd say the odds are good because no one was in the shops.

(01:13:22):
Where else was he going to be?
Yeah.
And then like she's saying, it's inhuman to be so cold.
And it's like, OK.
This woman should also have died.
I would have been fine with that.
I hated her characters.
Well, I think what's interesting about her is that she's just kind of an example of I

(01:13:46):
don't think she was ever really truly.
The thing is, when he's in the scene and Borden says that only a part of him ever loved Sarah,
I actually liked the fact that he kind of admitted the truth.
Olivia, like he was on, he kind of felt like he was on his way to telling her.

(01:14:07):
Know what I mean?
Or he at least really, really wanted to.
Like he would.
This was probably the first time he's starting to doubt if the sacrifice of the of the shared
life is worth it.
His brother, his brother has been doubting it for a long time.
Now he's starting to doubt it.
But yeah, I would I can I can see that.

(01:14:27):
So what were you just going into?
I was going to say I was going to say about about Johansson's character.
I think her her whole thing.
Wow.
You know, you've got like these different like failures, motivation of failure kind
of thing where Angiers is completely obsessed and just motivated by hatred and spite.

(01:14:49):
And then you've got the Fallon forgot his other name, Gordon.
Borden, thank you.
The board, the board and Fallon, depending on which one is in charge of the life right
now, they've got different motivations going on.
Yeah.
With her, I think she she basically is just kind of an example, an example of just general
weakness because she doesn't like she's kind of very much about the the opportunity, very

(01:15:17):
much about just trying to mitigate any sort of responsibility or damage on herself.
She goes she goes along with what is expected of her and doesn't really other than other
than the scene where she says, leave your family at home.
She never really stands up for herself.
You know, I think I think she's basically well, yeah.

(01:15:41):
But I think that that's kind of like where we're seeing like these are all different
examples of human failure.
Hers is weakness.
She's not a strong person.
She's just trying to, you know, as best she can and not really stand up for anything,
let alone herself.
I can see that.

(01:16:01):
I feel like I lost the thread there for a second.
I had it in my head.
But then, yeah, I'm not sure if I explained that correctly.
I think so.
And your showmanship is heavy with anticipation.
He is really good.
And maybe my biggest laugh of the movie is when he is going from door to door and he's

(01:16:22):
talking about if you are already familiar with this trick or whatever, whatever he says
to try to comfort the audience.
This is only known to certain men of the Orient and the Himalayas.
That was probably my biggest laugh.
But I actually think that was on the the false transported man that he was doing that one.

(01:16:43):
This one is straight up.
He pulls off.
I heard a really great variation of that in another bit, completely unrelated.
But it's that it's that same kind of take on the whole, you know, performative magic
like and this is a secret only known to wise men of Tibet or something like that.
I heard one guy goes and he's like, and now I'm going to show you a trick that I learned

(01:17:07):
in the Far East.
And his, you know, his, his foil, his partner basically goes like, oh, you mean like China?
And he goes, no, Brooklyn.
And the partner goes, Brooklyn's not the Far East.
And the magician goes, it is if you go the other way.
Hey, look at that.
Nice.
It pulls off the transported man.

(01:17:30):
I think the only time in the movie we actually get to see a trap door.
And I like that, because it showed that the engineer like Borden was able to see that.
This is something I really wanted to get into.
And then freaking out to Fallon and then Borden telling him we're done in this scene.
I don't think there actually was a Fallon.

(01:17:51):
I don't think there was any makeup.
I don't think the other one.
I think we were actually looking at Borden and Fallon like just we just didn't realize
that we were seeing both of them.
We were seeing the calm one saying, let's let it go.
We were seeing the other one that says, so you can see a trap door.
How do like he's freaking out about it.
And the other one's like, he won.
Did I disagree?

(01:18:13):
I think they are the opposite ones, like you said, but I think these were separate times
because that first one where he's yelling, you know, we know he's got a trap door.
We don't anything.
You can see Fallon sitting at the table with the beard hat, everything with the notes,
trying to figure it out.
So you can see Fallon in that scene and Borden is yelling at him.

(01:18:36):
And you can tell that guy is kind of because he's not just saying like, how is he?
He says, how is he outsmarting you?
Like he's like he's saying you're the smart one of the family.
You're the brain of this operation.
How is he outsmarting you?
I can't figure out is what actually reinforces my opinion.
You had the magician, the good one, the smart one, everything like that.

(01:19:01):
The only thing, the only reason that the madman brother was there is because he had he was
a twin.
He was not actually like his.
Him being a twin is the only thing that kind of brought him in there.
I actually think Borden was a good dude, a good character through and through whole way.
His whole like I in my eyes, his morality, his character isn't intact.

(01:19:26):
But you've got that evil twin that just jacked everything.
OK, that's possibly true.
But I think it was actually Borden that went under stage and not Fallon on on that night.
Yeah, OK.
And I'll get into my justification as to why.

(01:19:50):
Borden going to the performance.
But I do think you're I do think you're correct, though.
I do think you're correct, though, that later on the one saying we're done, we're not going
back there.
That that's it.
I think that they were switched.
I think that was the calm, collected one, like you're saying that was saying that.
So the question is, is why?
So how so how do you go from him being the one saying we lost, we're just giving up,

(01:20:15):
we're done, we're not going back there to being back there unless it was the hot headed
one?
Well, that's the thing.
Maybe they both went anyway.
Like that was I mean, just because it was what he wanted doesn't mean he actually got
what he wanted.
OK, that was where I was kind of taking it, because if you like if you had a madman brother

(01:20:40):
and his twin brother, everything like that, and if his discovery would like ruin you,
wouldn't you keep an eye on that fucker?
So I mean, I suppose that's true.
Yeah.
So Borden going to the performance to find out, ignoring Borden, I guess.

(01:21:02):
But I think I just kind of reversed that.
Witnessing what really happens every night.
So to our audience, what does happen at the end of every night is when one of them gets
transported, a trap door kicks in and the other one goes down into a drowning tank and

(01:21:26):
is killed.
So basically what we find out in this in this is that Tesla's machine works, kind of.
It is a transporter, but it creates a double of you at the other side.
It's really more of a fact.
And there's another of you in the original space.

(01:21:46):
And so what he decides to do as his trick is to execute the person who stays behind
multiple times until basically until Borden takes the bait.
He keeps murdering his other self.
He was only going over and over again.
He was going to do a limited run, only 100 shows.

(01:22:08):
So, right.
So his body count would be a maximum of one hundred and one cutter catches him in the
act and has to identify the body rough one and then begging the machine to be destroyed.
And here's the here's the human element, human element that destroyed and your plan is Caldlow

(01:22:29):
or Reese Reese Reese telling Cutter that he's like, I can't stop you during delivery or
something like that.
If it weren't for him, this movie would not go the way it did.
Now.
It was only because of that.
So weirdly, the character who had the least amount of screen time is the one who's who

(01:22:53):
screwed everything up for Angier, which was kind of a fun one.
Lord Caldlow reveal and straight up, man, this is what I was saying at the beginning.
Angier is one hundred percent evil.
One hundred percent evil all the way through.

(01:23:15):
Really kidnapping his daughter to realize his own like he saw his he saw that Borden had
a wife and a family and all these things that he lost and everything that was taken from
Angier.
So what does he do?
And he tries to take it back in his eyes.
Dude.

(01:23:36):
Oh, my God.
Which is a very crazy, which is a very rich person way of thinking.
Very, very true.
But I like that moment where as a little girl is being taken away with Caldlow.
Borden is telling her, like, I'll see you again.
I get out of here real soon because he knows that Fallon is going to take his spot and

(01:23:57):
all this and he's never going to know that she actually lost her father.
Yeah.
So that was something that I really did appreciate that.
But yeah, he's freaking out.
He's like, if that man is there, then I'm not guilty.
Like he's doing everything that he can.
Right.
Here was the moment.

(01:24:17):
For Borden and Fallon part ways.
When Borden tells Fallon that you were right, I should have let it go.
That makes me think that it is Fallon that is in prison.
But you know what?
Taking it back.
I'm taking it back.
Borden was the one in prison or Fallon was the one in prison because in that death scene

(01:24:41):
for Angier at the end, Borden doesn't care.
He did let it go.
It was done for him.
And now that he's killed Angier, it is all the way done.
So I think that is Borden.
I think evil twin died in prison.
Evil magician, rich magician died in the basement.

(01:25:03):
The good magician with his daughter escaped.
Well, and I think also to that, like my big clue was the final scene between Borden and
Fallon when Borden's telling him, go on, live your life as they're as they're drag, you
know, we're not going to be magicians anymore.
The trick's gone.
Just go, go be you.
Now we're done.

(01:25:24):
One of the last things he says to him as they're dragging him away is, by the way, I'm sorry
about your wife.
I didn't never mean to.
I'm sorry about your wife.
I didn't mean to hurt her or he says her name.
I can't remember her name now.
Sarah, he says, I'm sorry, Sarah, he goes, I'm sorry about Sarah.
I didn't mean to hurt her because.
Yeah.
OK, there you go.
The reason why she hung herself was because the fight they had the night before where
he said, I don't love you today.

(01:25:46):
You know, so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
OK, there is that.
There is that.
OK, I guess I was digging for subtext.
I could have just looked at the text.
But when Cutter meets and sees that Caldlow is actually Angier and fully understands the

(01:26:06):
evil of Angier, that was really, really big.
It was really, really big.
He's like, holy shit, dude.
But are admitting that he lied about a lot, lied about it being like going home and admitting
that he said it was agony.
And then Angier's reaction once Cutter leaves and he puts his hand and he's like connecting,

(01:26:31):
like trying to like and realizing that he's tortured all of these men, all of these different
it wasn't like he was sending them home.
Of course, it was.
And that is one of the dumbest things that he could have ever believed.
Yeah, I know.
Like who?
Yeah, that's so weird.
And well, and the weird thing is, is that he should know that, too, because after the
after the she died, we see him with his face in the water.

(01:26:56):
He's trying to understand like he's trying to figure out how much she suffered before
she died by kind of simulation drowning himself in the sink in their.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So he should know he should have.
He should.
He shouldn't have bought that bullshit to begin with.
Cutter passes it off to Fallon, knowing what's next.

(01:27:19):
And I love and that's why I say Cutter's character is completely intact this whole movie, because
if you're an accomplice to this dude's murder, I'm OK with that.
You know, like if you're going to get revenge on the dude who straight up planned, murdered
your brother and kidnapped his daughter and all this stuff, I'm OK with that.

(01:27:43):
Yeah, that works.
That's why I say like, Cutter's character.
Perfect.
So Fallon returning to kill Angier and then Angier finding out as much as he can before
he died, because that's all that is his obsession.
It's not about living.
It's not about any of that.
It's literally he has to know.
And and.

(01:28:06):
We flashback to the clone killing scene where you really get that because like I was saying,
this is kind of a fax machine.
Yeah, yeah.
When this happens, you can't tell because you would never know which one is the original
and which one is the clone.
And so exactly when he says he has it, he's like, no, I'm not the and then he gets shot.

(01:28:30):
He's going to say I'm not the clone.
Like he like, right.
Or I'm not the copy.
Yeah, the copy.
Yeah, whatever he was like, whatever they would have said.
Yeah, I don't.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know if clone was in the vernacular at that time.
Yeah, that's a good question.
I'm not sure about that one, not that one up.
And here's where I really connected to the Angier character more than any any other point

(01:28:56):
in the movie.
He was doing it for the looks on their faces.
That really like that was why he got into it.
That was why he started.
He loved performing and he loved the results of it.
He would have been he probably would have been just fine and perfectly happy and a healthy

(01:29:17):
ass dude and all the stuff if his wife hadn't been taken from him.
Yeah, because and yeah, and they and that was their that was their whole plan, too.
Like she was he was practicing as a stagehand for a magician.
She was practicing as the pretty assistant for the magician.
They probably they planned from the beginning that this was just practice to learn the craft

(01:29:38):
and then we're going to go on and take our own our own act on the road.
And then, yeah, boom.
It's gone like he's got and he's got nothing, you know, except except vengeance on his mind.
And he decides to take a form of showman's vengeance by by not by not just getting this

(01:30:00):
guy but fucking with everything, stealing his act, stealing his kid finally, you know,
like this is he's a straight up Batman villain.
This guy I was about to say, like this is the Joker.
The difference between you and me is one bad day.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
All right.
So final thoughts on the prestige.

(01:30:22):
Final thoughts on the prestige.
I was going to I was going to throw this as like a conundrum question, but I realize we
did just answer that with that with that line.
I was going to say, like, do we think he ever wanted to be a magician or was he just doing
it for his wife?
Because she was because she was really into the whole act.

(01:30:42):
She was the one who was like, yeah, let's take the risk with the with the better not.
She seemed to be more into it than him.
That could have been her motivation that we never got to hear from her.
That's the thing is like now that you mentioned it with the whole like, yeah, he was doing
it about the face.
So it could be it was just that I mean, because they both shared that love is what made them
work as a couple kind of thing.

(01:31:02):
And it wasn't just one of them following the other along, because I was thinking if
that was the case, if it had if this had been her idea all along, then that just makes it
that much more vicious that he decided to continue a career in magic that he never wanted
just to fuck with this guy.
But yeah, but, you know, I don't think that's the case now that you meant now that we mentioned

(01:31:27):
that the his his last words basically kind of give the game away that no, he really he
really did care about the show, too.
So it wasn't entirely out of spite.
It was just his methodology, his his motivation was spite.
His methodology was genuine showman.
There you go.
Would you call it a musty?

(01:31:52):
You know, I'm actually kind of torn on that because it is really, really good.
Well, let me get let me give mine and then maybe maybe that'll help you decide.
Okay.
So the reason why I'm going to call this a must see is because it is multiple powerhouse

(01:32:16):
actors at their young heights before they were because we don't even know if they have
reached their heights yet.
But these are their young heights.
And also, for the double blind type of filmmaking where you really are you watching closely?
I'm having a hard time coming up with a film that did it better.

(01:32:38):
Because even when I was very good point directly into Fallon's eyes and listening to him talk,
I never saw Bale.
That is true.
That is a very good point.
Yeah.
The way they performed it, it was.
Yeah.
Go ahead.

(01:32:58):
And it really does come down to two.
I think what's interesting about this is this isn't, you know, like most movies about stage
magicians where it all hinges on, you know, the simple reveal of, oh, it was a mirror
the whole time like that.
They actually kind of dealt.
They kind of delve into an actual like realm of sci fi a little bit to just kind of continue

(01:33:21):
on the extension of the story of just how far Hugh Jackman's character is willing to
go for this obsession of his.
This is a this is not a story about stage magic like most stage magic movies are.
This is a story about obsession and and dedication that just happens to have stage magic as the

(01:33:44):
backdrop to it all.
And I think that kind of puts it a cut above all the other, you know, stage magic type
movies.
Like, I know there's more, but I keep thinking about that one that Eisenberg is in.
Jesse Eisenberg's in.
Now you see me.
And then now you see me.
Yeah, that those those movies like this is definitely better than those if you.

(01:34:08):
So yeah, I'd say I'd say this is a must see because it kind of it kind of raises the bar
on that whole genre.
So yeah, I'm thinking it's pretty much the top of the tier.
And you're and you're right that like we are talking like powerhouse performances.
Every single character is played by a freaking not just a star, but a blazing sun.

(01:34:34):
I mean, my God, my God, they got David Bowie to play Nikola Tesla.
I don't even know why I was humming and hon.
That alone makes us a must see.
All right, fair enough.
So the prestige we're calling it a must see.
And that's going to bring a close to the to part one of this week's episode.

(01:34:59):
All right, here we are for part two with The Illusionist written by Neil Berger and Stephen
Melhouser based on the short story by Stephen Melhouser directed by Neil Berger, starring
Edward Norton, Jessica Beale, Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell.

(01:35:20):
Talk about powerhouse.
Right.
This one doesn't quite have the every face is recognizable thing as prestige had going
on.
But my God, the people they got were just a I mean, especially like I of course, I feel
this way every time I see Giamatti.
But I kind of feel like Giamatti stole the show on this one.

(01:35:42):
Like this is the movie that never realized that Paul Giamatti steals the show every time.
Like I knew of him, but this was the one that I was like, oh, my God, I need to watch him
because it's like closer.
He like his he's he's he's sharing screen time with all of these like Oscar nominees,

(01:36:05):
I think.
Right.
And Giamatti is owning the scene every fucking time.
No, I would say Giamatti is the highlight of this movie.
100 percent.
I he is the standout.
God.

(01:36:25):
Yeah.
Let's get into this one.
All right.
Because I can't even wait, I already can't wait to get in for my my wrap up on this one.
So we got some shit to say, huh?
Do man, I love this movie.
So we open on a demented Eisenheim with a captivated audience and the police.

(01:36:49):
And no, it's her arresting Eisenheim and reporting to Leopold played by Rufus Sewell.
Right right out of the get go.
I got to say, you know, something's up because he's sitting on stage.
Quiet.
He's not saying a thing.
He's just staring off into space.
The audience is enraptured with the fact that he is sitting there doing nothing, staring

(01:37:14):
off into space and in the back of the theater, a line of cops just watching this all.
So we are five seconds into this movie and already we're like, oh shit, something's going
down.
Well, like how well this movie does at keeping you captivated.
Incredibly.
Absolutely incredible.
Yeah.

(01:37:35):
And we get Paul Giamatti showing up to the Princess Place played by Rufus Sewell and
like.
Getting into the backstory and talking about it like he's saying like, are there still
things that we need to discuss?
What details need closing?

(01:37:55):
What don't we know about it?
It's like, well, actually, we know a great deal.
And he goes into the backstory and young Eisenheim, did you recognize who he was played by?
I did not know.
That's Aaron Taylor Johnson.
Of?
Oh, the American Godzilla movies.

(01:38:17):
He was Quicksilver in the MCU.
He was in Kick-Ass.
Oh, oh, wow.
No, I can't.
Wow.
No, I did not recognize him at all.
Holy cow.
Weird.
OK.
Oh, he's had a he's had a pretty good career.
But I guess so.
Yeah.
I didn't know who he was back when I first saw this back in 2006.

(01:38:37):
I mean, he was a kid.
Meeting Sophie and the love is absolutely inspired there.
Showing her magic magic tricks until they get in trouble and like you have to remember
their peasants stay away from them.
Like this whole.
Yeah, basically the old story.
Classism is on full display in this movie.

(01:38:59):
I loved it.
Absolutely.
The puppy love through their childhood was I loved it.
The music, the film style, planning to run away and then him designing that necklace.
Yeah.
And what I really got was that that that scene the first time that they pulled her away.

(01:39:19):
Yeah, the first time they pull her away and he basically like chases the carriage that's
carrying her away from from his slum house to her, you know, duchy where she lives.
And they do this really like they've been doing this kind of throughout the this whole
kind of flashback where everything is in a deep sepia tone and there's even like a little

(01:39:43):
bit of a shadow around the corners like you're like you're almost watching like old developed
film kind of thing.
And then he rounds the corner to and has to stop dead at the archway that's basically
between his slums and the duchy.
And on the other side of that archway where the duchy is the trees are bright green.

(01:40:04):
So you've got like this sepia tone life that he lives in and the technicolor life that
she's being dragged away to.
I really, really liked that effect.
It was such a simple little thing.
And it takes a film nerd to even notice that that's why that scene catches you so hard
because it was such a subtle change in the color.

(01:40:27):
Even noticing it, even seeing it, I still appreciated what they were doing there.
And I was like, oh, yeah, no, that's symbolic, man.
I'll give you that.
I will definitely give you that.
That scene where they're hanging out and they have their they run away and she says, make
us disappear.

(01:40:47):
Watching a young Eisenheim actually trying to make them disappear so they could be together.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, the heart tugging at the heartstrings so hard.
I loved it so much.
Then 15 years later, introducing Eisenheim as the adult played by Edward Norton, the

(01:41:08):
speech of time with the orange and the orange tree illusion, how he slows down that orange
peel, or the orange as it comes down.
We talked about the showmanship of the prestige.
Neither of them had the showmanship of Edward Norton in this film.

(01:41:30):
No, yeah, no, that's the thing kind of blew me away in that scene is because I'm sitting
there watching it.
I've seen enough sleight of hand and close up magic in my life to know the difference
between a CG, an actor who can't do sleight of hand.
And so they got a CGI shit versus an actor who actually knows how to do that shit.
And Edward Norton apparently actually knows how to do that shit because he fucking did

(01:41:51):
it.
And I was like, holy shit, did he has he always know how to do that?
Or did he just spend six months practicing just for this one film?
It said we're Norton.
You don't know you cannot know which one it is for him.
You know, because he's been known to do.
Who coached him on his.
But I did find who coached Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale on their sleight of hand.

(01:42:13):
So interesting.
But I don't know if I just don't.
I don't know if I just didn't look far enough into that.
The orange tree.
Yeah, I remember I remember seeing that once.
Sorry.
I. Oh, OK.
Yeah, I think I have heard of that.
Yes, they did CGI it for this movie, but I have heard of the trick.
I think.
Yeah.
I remember I was I was on a film set once and one of the scenes we were shooting was

(01:42:39):
supposed to be a card table thing and the dealer supposed to use sleight of hands to
stack the deck.
And so they had like a hand double.
They brought a guy in who was a sleight of hand magician to basically double as the main
actor's hands and do the actual sleight of hand trick in front of camera.
While we're waiting to shoot, he's just sitting there practicing shit.

(01:42:59):
You know, he's not practicing the trick that we're doing.
He's practicing all the other shit he does.
He was doing like six or seven tricks over and over again just to get his thing right.
And the one that really threw me was when he was doing a coin flip trip where he would
flip a coin and it would literally he was flipping it from his bottom hand up to his
top hand.

(01:43:20):
And I would sit there and watch it go slowly halfway up and then speed up just before he
caught it in his other hand.
And I'm and I must have sat there and watched him practice it for an hour trying to figure
out how the fuck he was doing that because it was literally flipping slowly and then
fast midway through the air.
And I'm like, how are you doing that?
And he just looks at me goes practice, dude.

(01:43:42):
And like that was his answer.
I have my guess.
But yeah, I mean, that's the thing you never found out.
I know I never I asked him and his answer was practice.
And that was it.
Like he was he was a stone cold magician, man.
He didn't give up anything.
Nice.
I like that.

(01:44:02):
I like that.
Yeah.
The Orange Tree Illusion is the thing that pulls Giamatti all the way in.
And I love the amount of acting that Giamatti does in this film purely off of reaction is
a master class is an absolute totally master class in what you're supposed to do in a scene

(01:44:24):
when somebody else is performing.
Oh, my God.
The pages of dialogue that were just coming out of his facial expressions were an entire
movie in and of itself.
Absolutely.
Totally.
The trick with giving the poor kids money, man, that was that was charming as hell.

(01:44:46):
I loved it.
I love how charming that was.
Yep.
In the exact opposite of what we saw in the prestige, it is established that Edward Norton,
the magician, is a good guy.
Yes.
Kind of.

(01:45:08):
Because he had this plan before he found out that the prince was a murderer.
So he was going to do this no matter what.
So I don't know.
Maybe.
I mean, word travels.
We are talking about the small country of Austria here.
I'm sure he must have heard the rumors way ahead of time and just pretended to not know

(01:45:33):
when people were saying like, oh, you know, this and that.
And he's just kind of sitting there going, he's like, oh, you don't say like.
So that that that is in the summarization, because I do have some questions.
But let's get in.
Let's keep going.
Meeting with Joseph, played by Eddie Marsan, which this person is constantly delivering

(01:45:55):
in whatever he is in.
He just never got really, really famous.
But I don't really think there is any reason.
He just doesn't have the, I don't know, je ne sais quoi of a leading man.
Maybe yeah.
But no, he is.
He does kill it.
Decent receipts, but an incredible review.
Investigate.
Oh, and then the police come up to investigate the performance before the prince shows up.

(01:46:16):
How delighted Giamatti is, is so incredibly delightful.
He is beyond intrigued.
Like even like as simple as that trick where the blood drains from your head, from your
hand when it's up to you.
He's like, oh, the.
Like he loves Eisenheim.

(01:46:39):
Like he is like he met.
Oh, yeah.
He's like, oh, man, why can't we be best buddies?
I completely let me be the Watson to your Sherlock Holmes, which actually not.
I said that loud.
That kind of what is what this movie is, is Norton is Sherlock Holmes and Giamatti is

(01:46:59):
Watson just like, you know, unwillingly so.
I'm going to I'm going to slightly change that to Leopold is Sherlock.
And Giamatti is still Watson.

(01:47:21):
Norton is.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Are you thinking Moriarty?
Thank you.
I had Maserati in my head and I'm like, don't say that.
Sir Maserati.
But yes, this is this is the this is the movie where you're rooting for Moriarty.

(01:47:43):
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, see, then that's kind of like where I'm I'm a little back and forth because I
mean, I think I think Leopold definitely fancies himself a Sherlock because he keeps trying
to figure it out.
But he's really not.
But he's right, though, every time.
That's the thing.
As we're going through the movie, everything he's calling out that he's like, why are you

(01:48:04):
blind?
This is what he's doing.
And he's right.
He's just a dick.
He's a dick who's right.
I mean, I get it.
But he's right.
I suppose that's true.
Yes.
Yeah.
But the second performance and bringing the soul out of Jessica Biel, who when she plays

(01:48:25):
the Duchess and as she's coming up and somebody says her name like Duchess Fontaine or something
like that, I can't remember, but oh, my God, the look over Edward Norton, like what his
face portrays there.
And even when he says the words like, do you know me?
It's almost like he wants her to actually recognize him right there, even though that

(01:48:48):
would ruin.
Oh, he absolutely does.
Oh, yeah.
No, I get that, too.
Yeah.
Oh, that felt so powerful.
I when when she when she said when she goes along and says, no, sir, we haven't met,
you can literally see the heartbreak on his face.
Like he would have rather ruined the show than have her not actually recognize him for
sure.
Completely.
Absolutely.
And then but before that, the prince volunteers his lady for the show.

(01:49:13):
And I'm like, OK, that we know he's a dick immediately.
That's kind of hypnotizing her and the image that does not reflect and the death in the
reflection, those very standard stage illusionist type tricks.

(01:49:33):
But right.
Still very fun, very fun to see.
Well, and I think that's what that's what's interesting about this is that they basically
took a lot of the you know, a lot of classic illusions.
But rather than, you know, try to hem and haw with how is the trick done?
This movie just kind of went ahead and exploded their effectiveness into the realms of fantasy

(01:49:57):
to basically let the audience know, do not obsess with this.
Do not concern yourself with this.
We are we are taking these classic tricks, but we are delivering them in a way that is
flat out fucking impossible.
Even by today's standards, you cannot do this on stage, you know, now or then.
So don't focus on how this trick is done, because it's because we're doing it impossibly

(01:50:23):
here.
The point is that this guy is a fucking genius at this.
To that level of quality, yes.
But there was not one trick that was in this movie that it was not actually explained through
the mechanics.
Like they are like all of the butterfly trick, the illusion trick, the soul trick, all of
those are all completely explained.

(01:50:44):
When you go into research the film, they tell you which magician invented that trick, like
what year it came out.
Everything you can go into and see all that.
Actually it's the same for the prestige and the illusionist.
OK, all right.
But the butterfly ones got me.
When those butterflies came fluttering in holding that handkerchief, my thought was

(01:51:08):
what Hogwarts bullshit is this?
What is this movie?
What are you trying to do movie?
That beautiful film, but all based off of real world tricks.
Meeting with Leopold and Sophie afterwards.
And then when he says to her, perhaps next time I'll make you disappear.

(01:51:31):
Her realization as Leopold is dragging her out of the room.
Oh man, like this movie could not go five minutes without absolutely breaking my heart.
Yeah, in a wonderful way.
And that was kind of amazing, too, because the what's the line?
He goes, maybe I'll make you disappear.
I mean, that's like that's straight out of like, as you wish from Princess Bride, like

(01:51:56):
it hits her like a fucking bolt of lightning when he says that.
Like I loved it.
Like that was fantastic.
But this is what we were talking about with Joseph giving details about how abusive and
potentially murderous Leopold is.
So if Eisenheim didn't have the plan, this is where he kicks it in.
And this is where he comes up with.

(01:52:17):
So yeah, there is kind of your argument right there.
The secret meeting in the carriage, discussing, realizing one another.
I really did enjoy that.
I enjoyed that we didn't have to think about that.
We didn't have to wonder about that.
The movie itself answers it for us.
And that was that was really nice.
Well, yeah, well, and that was like I was saying before, you know, it's like when you're

(01:52:41):
watching a movie about, you know, stage magic, you kind of assume everything's in this direction
and it kind of fucks with how you watch the movie.
And so when I'm watching this movie and he does the whole like, do you know me?
And she says no.
And, you know, you as the audience member realize right away that's the girl all grown
up.
And so I'm sitting here going like, wait, does she really not recognize him?

(01:53:04):
Or is he literally there to rescue her from the fucking prince?
And she knows it.
And this is all part of the act.
It wasn't until the scene where she pulls him into the carriage and she's like, hey,
now I remember you that I'm like, oh, OK, no, that actually played.
That actually was exactly what it appeared to be.
That's why I appreciated that scene.
I thought that was a great version because of that.

(01:53:27):
Yes.
Congratulating her on the upcoming nuptials and she is just jealous and envious of his
freedom.
I you really do see.
Something that like there's not a lot of time dedicated to explaining that, but it's so

(01:53:47):
unbelievably clear that it plays very well.
Meeting Giamatti and discussing the dynamics of.
Go ahead.
They haven't gotten.
No, it's like they haven't just gotten no never gotten over each other.
Well, like her, I don't know if it's as much that she never got over him.
She never got over the life that she had when they were kids together, when she could sneak

(01:54:13):
out of the palace and go hang out with him, when she could just be a kid like he's still
in love with her.
She's still in love with the life they had as kids.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So they, you know.
No, I can get I can get on board with that.
Meeting Giamatti and discussing the dynamics of being children of laborers versus royalty.

(01:54:40):
It was really nice that Giamatti had that line include is like I'm the son of a butcher,
he's the prince.
What kind of friends could we be like Giamatti does understand that they aren't friends,
that he is being used as a tool and that he's getting something out of it.
Right.
It's it's nice that you see that Giamatti is that kind of character that he understands

(01:55:02):
that he's not being taken for a ride, but it does lower the integrity of him as a care.
Right.
But it does it does also kind of go into like he like I know people say this a lot, but
I think in G in Giamatti case, it's true.
He is a complicated man.

(01:55:22):
This character is a guy who who knows right from wrong.
He knows the reality of things and he's just trying to do what he has to do.
He's aware that sometimes it means he's got to be the bastard, but he's also aware that
if he's not the one being the bastard, then someone's going to be the bastard on him.

(01:55:44):
And so he doesn't like it, but he's got to.
And he kind of has a lot of back and forth moments where you kind of see him.
He makes a choice one way like he wouldn't wait.
Like we even see at the very beginning when he's tossing the theater to, you know, basically
under the pretext of, oh, the the prince is going to see your show tonight, so we're making

(01:56:04):
sure that there's no assassin's hiding in your in your water vase here.
But it's really he's there to try to figure out how he did the trick.
You know, he's kind of abusing his authority a little bit there, but he is still polite
about it.
And once he gets that one satisfaction of learning the ball trick, he's like, all right,
yeah, no, you you really are clever.

(01:56:26):
I like you.
All right.
I'll we'll be friends.
I'll leave you alone.
I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to tear your set apart.
So, you know, we're good.
Like he's he's he's got a very he's got a very back and forth kind of pendulum swing
on that wasn't what I was on how much of a because he's part of the attempt or of the
coup that's going to be attempted in overthrowing the king.

(01:56:46):
That's what I was talking about.
Oh, right.
I forgot about that.
Right.
Yeah, that is a whole thing.
Yeah, no.
But he is taking full advantage.
He is setting himself up to be a bad guy in the eyes of the country, everything like that.
He is.
But that's like that's the level of complicated because he may be stuck in that situation.

(01:57:07):
But as we find out towards the end of the movie, he could have like once Leopold started
what was going on, he could have gone to the chief.
Like could have gone, you know, higher over his head.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, the dude was he was going to help overthrow the king so he could get promoted.

(01:57:28):
This movie did not start off with him being a good character.
No, I guess that's true.
Yes.
His redemption came in one single act.
But you can see he was struggling with it the whole movie.
Like he had that turmoil.
The secret meeting in the carriage discuss already went there.

(01:57:52):
But discussing the dynamics of being the children of laborers versus royalty, he warns him,
he likes him, but he knows what he would have to do.
The third performance at the prince's home.
This is what we were saying like Leopold is kind of the Sherlock character because he's
never wrong about a single thing.

(01:58:12):
And he gets everything right.
The painting nailed it.
The sword and playing the Excalibur legend.
He never even gives a guess as to how the sword is going.
But what I did like about this scene is where Eisenhein picks the sword up, he has his handkerchief

(01:58:33):
right where the two gems that he steals that that continuity stays with the phone.
Oh, I didn't even notice that part.
That was very good.
I mean, you know me, I love little details like that where it's completely locked in.
Yeah, I probably would have noticed it if I watched it a second time.

(01:58:54):
Probably.
I would definitely assume so.
And because of what he does with the sword and he just kind of like lets it linger a
little bit and makes a little bit of a fool of Leopold.
He gets shut down a little bit of a fool, a little bit of a fool.
He fucking bitch slaps him right in front of all his people.

(01:59:16):
I mean, like everyone knew what was going to happen after that.
Like he how he did not see that coming is kind of obvious because he fucking humiliated him.
Even the Duchess goes up to him and is like, what would possess you to do such a thing?
Like, yeah, but that's the thing.
He was setting it up.

(01:59:37):
He was setting him up to look like the jealous person to do all of these things.
All this shit.
Completely like.
Eisenhein is the bad guy, but he did it for love.
That's why we root for him.
And I guess that's the thing.

(01:59:58):
I guess I hadn't even that hadn't even occurred to me because that's where I was thinking
that, you know, in my mind, I was thinking he started concocting the plan when they had
their meetup and she said, I want to leave with you.
But if he know if he was already stealing the jewels off the sword, even way before that,
then yeah, he probably rolled into town with this plan.

(02:00:19):
You're right.
I think he decided on the plan the second that Yosef told him that he shoved the other
lady off a balcony.
OK, yeah, that would make sense, too.
I think that's when that kicked in.
Now he's trying to go.
He can't focus.
And then here comes the Duchess, Jessica Beale, showing up on horseback.

(02:00:40):
Very, very tasteful, very beautiful love scene.
I thought it was a very good one.
And I like that they discussed that she kept the butterfly necklace, which definitely plays
into that butterfly trick of the first scene before we even see her, before we know that
she's going to be in the film before he knows that she's still doing the butterflies.

(02:01:03):
Like that was that was a great, great touch to the story and talking about going to Hungary
and getting in and the engagement or her going to Hungary and the engagement.
And she knows that they're going to try to overthrow the king and all this stuff.
Like, it would make sense if this would be the moment that he would start that.

(02:01:26):
But it's already in motion.
It is already in motion.
He's already stealing those jewels.
He is already starting his game.
It's already going.
I think I think this is kind of like where things kind of got scaled up.
Like maybe he was thinking that this was going to take longer to like get her on board because

(02:01:46):
her cooperation is definitely necessary for this whole plan.
But the fact you know, so he was probably thinking it would maybe take another couple
weeks or something like that.
But the fact that she's saying, oh, yeah, we're announcing our engagement in in Hungary
tomorrow, he's like, oh, shit, we got to do this now.
Like this, this can't wait.
Yeah.
Returning to the theater to find out that it's been shut down, barely even phased, going

(02:02:11):
to the bank to withdraw money just for her and then finding out he's been getting spied
on this.
Like when Giamatti tracks into the train station and we see our first hint as Eisenheim is
like explaining things to the doctor, Eisenheim slips up here, but nobody even catches it.
Not us, not the police.

(02:02:33):
Nobody catches it.
He should like Giamatti should not have seen that doctor.
Well not best thing is like that.
I assume that that was intentional.
If you're talking about the end of the film for Giamatti to discover what's going on,
maybe.

(02:02:54):
But the fact that Giamatti saw him and just didn't recognize him, that's where there's
a little bit of a hole for me.
Okay, see, I assume I assume that it was intentional that he was basically establishing the motivation
he was he wanted everyone to know that ahead of time that she was planning on running away.

(02:03:17):
So that when she's found dead, yeah, so that when she's found dead, he's.
He was the only part of that that I think was because that was the only one that was
actually true.
Every single part of that was true with him.
So if the police inspector would have recognized him, plan over.

(02:03:37):
There were plenty of other breadcrumbs that he had dropped along the way.
This is the only one that I think was Eisenheim and everybody's mistake.
Giamatti didn't recognize that doctor.
Him actually met with him.
Then why did the doctor change his beard for that?

(02:03:58):
I would assume.
Just to look more professional than just the big beard.
I don't know.
Huh?
I don't know.
Or I literally don't know.
That was my assumption.
I just thought it was weird.
I do.
I do agree with you.
Like, I think that it's a question.
I think it is something that the filmmakers maybe knew was going to be a question.

(02:04:20):
Because that's just the thing.
If Giamatti would have recognized him, game over.
The entire game over.
Because we didn't recognize him.
We saw him in one scene.
He's literally two scenes later.
The only difference is that his cheeks are shaved and now he's got a goatee instead
of a full beard.
We didn't recognize him until the flashback that showed us that that was the same guy

(02:04:40):
at the end of the movie.
See, that's the problem.
So why would you?
I think the specific actors, I did recognize him because I recognize the actor from other
projects.
So when I saw him on the train, like when I saw him at the train station, I was like,
oh, I wonder what he's going to be doing in this.
And then I saw what he was doing in this.
And I'm like, ah, so OK.
I didn't like I didn't miss that.

(02:05:01):
But that was not because I'm epic at watching films.
It's because I already knew who that guy was.
OK.
So, yeah, no, I didn't I didn't recognize him.
I didn't realize it was the same guy.
So until until the flashback scene at the end, a very very Kaiser Soze moment for for
Giamatti in that in that section of the movie, I loved it.
I will agree with that.
And the joy on his face when he was like when he was discovering how much he'd been deceived

(02:05:24):
was amazing to me.
Yeah.
Jim OK.
Lies about witnessing them kiss, probably afraid to die, I'm guessing.
You don't want to be the one telling the prince that his girl was kissing somebody else, right?
Right.
Yeah.
Or at the very least, afraid that, you know, there, you know, Edward Norton would be immediately

(02:05:48):
dispatched as well.
You know, some someone's dying if he if he says it and he's just going like, we don't
need that.
Like, I'm fine.
I'll arrest the dude.
No one has to die, Your Highness.
OK, I can give you that.
I can give you that.
I can get on board with that, at least.
So Sophie confronts Leopold and oh, damn, does she bring the heat.

(02:06:09):
And she is bold as hell with that goodbye.
And this this whole little bit here, huge gamble, huge gamble on her behalf.
And oh, yeah, I, I, I felt it like no matter what, even if it went like exactly how it

(02:06:30):
was supposed to go and everything like she could have easily drowned in that river while
she was asleep.
Yeah.
Like, like every part of this, like, yeah, like, well, especially even like the night
before, like she had to have when the she fed him a drug to throw him off.
OK, she had to make sure she timed it just right when she storms out so that he passes

(02:06:56):
out in the stables and not in the middle of the street where everyone can see him.
She's got to, you know, make sure she pisses him off enough to chase her down, but not
enough that he stabs her right there in the house.
You know, like, and then and then she's and then assuming all that goes right, then she's
got to set up the crime scene and escape like she's already dead on the back of the horse

(02:07:19):
where everyone can see and not lift her head and hope the horse does not run them both
over a cliff.
Like in all of the risks taken in this movie, like she is literally almost dead multiple,
multiple times, she must really not want to get married.
Well, just not to this dude, pretty clearly.

(02:07:42):
Back to Eisenheim and he is freaking out about their plan.
And this is something that I really enjoyed because once he discovers and all that and
they start packing up, he tells them to leave specific lanterns in the theater because he
has those lanterns set up all over town to later on in the film, imitate spirits.

(02:08:05):
Or to emulate spirits as they're doing their thing.
So that was a moment.
Literally, it was never thrown back to again.
It just says, leave the lanterns.
That's it.
Right.
Exactly.
Never again, never goes back to it.
Never apology.
A moment like we have later to discuss that or anything like that.

(02:08:26):
That is left for us to pick up on that one single line.
And I love it when they.
Yep.
Well, I'll tell you what, what's because they even they even kind of go into an explanation.
They show what they're trying to figure out how we did it.
And so they have an engineer kind of mock up how it will be done.
And we see how that shit was actually done.

(02:08:48):
A projector against mist kind of looked like a hologram.
Basically still what hologram technology for the most part is doing that up here.
That is our director cameo.
Oh, nice.
Nice.
OK.
He was he was he was he in the mist or was he run the projector?
He was in the mist.
He was the one being projected.
Nice.

(02:09:08):
Nice.
Nice.
Well, I thought that was a very good like so little you would know nobody would the
screen like it would never pull the audience out of it ever.
Like that is how a director does a cameo.
I thought that was very well done.
Very well done.
But yeah, but that's the thing is like that's where I was saying is like what they example

(02:09:29):
there that ad hoc kind of misty looking thing.
That was how it looked back in the day when people were pulling that off.
This perfectly solid walking down the aisle so you can reach out and touch it version
that they have in this movie.
That's fucking that's that's movie magic.
And that's what I was talking about before of how they're basically saying this guy's

(02:09:51):
a super genius at this.
What he's doing is beyond what is even capable today, let alone what they could do back then.
So don't focus on how the trick is done.
That is not the important part of the story.
You know, we're just going to blow that out of the water so you don't even think about
it.
We're just we're going to make it look like it's actual magic, you know.
Enough.
We talked about this.

(02:10:11):
So her horse arrives without her hovered in the blood and search heart search party.
Thank God Eisenheim was the one to find her because he had to be the one.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nobody else.
Nobody else was going to work.
She bled to death from a slash to the throat and then finding the gemstone or the doctor

(02:10:34):
found the gemstone in her dress and gave it to the inspector and won like Eisenheim's
misery.
Edward Norton plays miserable so well.
I'm pretty sure that that's his default function.
I think so.
I can believe that.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, I believe him when he's happy, but I really believe him whenever he's miserable.

(02:10:58):
Yeah.
This was a great delivery from Giamatti.
He's like, are you completely corrupt?
And she was like, no, not completely.
No.
What amazing honesty from what and and and the indignant of it just like how dare you
suggest I'm completely corrupt.
Of course, I'm not complete.

(02:11:19):
I am.
I am only corrupt the, you know, normal amount like every other man here.
What an exchange.
I dare you, sir.
But then I really appreciate the fact that Giamatti actually investigates the prince.
Eisenheim, like we see Eisenheim's descent into madness and we see the investigation
into the prince.

(02:11:39):
It's great.
Like you like how it unfolds and how we see the characters.
I had I had some questions, but they did get answered.
Firing the manager, Yosef, and opening a new theater.
No longer the illusionist.
Now the conjurer of spirits.

(02:12:00):
And oh, so yeah, so now that he's a conjurer of spirits, the first thing that he conjures
is this boy, this deceased boy from Brune, and they get to ask him questions and he gets
to talk a little bit and then he disappears and you just you're just left with the like

(02:12:20):
like Eisenheim on stage who is just sweaty and distraught and right.
And his eye kind of took issue with his little bit.
A cult like they are right.
Yes.
But we only got to see snippets of his show over time, you know, but I was really getting
the feeling, especially at the very last one, the very last show I was starting to feel

(02:12:44):
for the audience getting ripped off because it felt like his shows were now like a minute
long at most.
People were paying full ticket price, filling into that theater.
He was coming on stage, conjuring one ghost and then going, who I'm spent.
Good night, everybody.
And that that seemed to be his show for this whole time it was going on.

(02:13:04):
We never saw like the full the full spectrum of what he was doing or what was being accomplished
that got all these people on his side.
That's all we saw were little snippets.
If I'm paying a full shilling, I want at least an hour of spirits, sir.

(02:13:24):
Hey, but you know, you know damn well, if there was somebody who could conjure spirits,
people would pay top dollar just to go in and see that it's real.
It wouldn't like you sit there for an hour or something like that.
Sure.
You know, I'd probably sit there for the whole show, but eventually I'd get bored.
Wait, I suppose that's true.

(02:13:46):
Yes.
Because there's only so many dead people you can see before it starts getting.
How are they doing this?
Yeah.
How are they doing this?
I'm hungry.
I guarantee that's how that would go for me.
His followers, but they said they're becoming more cult like and even in the church due
to Eisenheim, the spirit has been reaffirmed and that is really starting to see I wasn't

(02:14:11):
100% sure that that that that was a church.
I was getting the vibe that that was like almost like a college like though that it
was some kind of college professor doing it.
I couldn't tell honestly, I mean, come on.
Yeah.
Poor aspects of Austria, Hungary at that at that era.
Like, yeah, I have.
Yeah.

(02:14:32):
It was basically a bunch of old dudes in a small room.
One of them's at the podium shouting some shit.
It could have been either one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, realistically, Leopold wants him to be proven a fraud and they are trying everything
they can to figure it out, which is what we talked about.
We got to see our director cameo when they tested it out and he keeps conjuring the spirits

(02:14:53):
all over town.
I will say that little boy staring into Giamatti's soul.
Giamatti's reaction reaction after that one really got got he I got a lot of laughs just
off of watching Giamatti react to things.
Yeah.
Now that now that YouTube and TikTok has become thing about people reacting to stuff, I would

(02:15:17):
just like to see Paul Giamatti like reacting to YouTube videos and like professional acting
ways.
Well, that's that's like most of it like like Giamatti reacting to things is the best part
of any movie that Giamatti is in.
Yeah, his his reactions are phenomenal.
They are like he I love it.

(02:15:38):
As they're investigating and telling him that he will be arrested as a fraud and all this,
he knocks it out of the park goes right onto the balcony.
He's like, hey, it's not real.
Sorry.
He's like, yeah, can't prove me as a fraud.
Now, can I go?
Like, I love that because if he was truly corrupt, he would not have let him go.

(02:16:01):
Right.
But yeah, that's how that went.
And I really appreciated that.
And it was an interesting kind of like look into to Norton's character to where like the
audience and and all of that kind of like, you know, the show must go on.

(02:16:23):
You know, I've got to keep the fantasy alive.
Can't give away the secrets, all those sort of thing.
That's no longer important to him.
He's got a plan here.
And the audience does not play into it.
If the audience all go, OK, he's a he's a charlatan and we're out.
Doesn't matter.
The plan still works.
And so he's just like, OK, you know, I'm just going to go ahead and go, you know, blow

(02:16:45):
the whole secret to the audience and carry on with the plan.
Well, because right after that, what does he do?
Leopold is freaking out and goes undercover to see the show.
And like, you got to imagine, Eisenheim has been waiting for Leopold to come and see the
show.
Because that's the night he conjures Sophie.

(02:17:07):
And then people ask, like, were you killed?
And she says, yes.
By who?
And she says, someone here.
And that is for one man.
That is for Giamatti.
Giamatti is the only one who knows that Leopold is in that room.
And that is basically Eisenheim acting as though a dead person's confessing to the murder

(02:17:31):
or not confessing, but accusing.
Yes.
Accusing her murderer of being in the room and everything.
The prince isn't here.
And Giamatti's like, and he looks like right over to him.
He's like, oh, I think I had a good time out of that one.

(02:17:54):
And then that one guy, which maybe you can remember what his name is, but like the legal
eagle from the Muppets.
Sam the Eagle?
Sam the Eagle.
Thank you.
Thank you.
He's like, Sam the Eagle.
He really did.
What are you going to do about Prince Leopold?

(02:18:16):
Like, I like it.
It turns around.
He's like, what is your name?
Well, I don't see how that matters.
I swear to God, if that was Sam the Eagle, the voice of Sam the Eagle, I would buy that
all day long.
Like, if that was like a Sam the Eagle cameo, because that sounded so much like him to me.

(02:18:40):
Right.
Yeah.
I try to remember.
I Sam the Eagle done by Frank Oz.
I can't remember for sure if that's one of his.
Oh, I couldn't even tell you a little bit before my time.
Giamatti just telling him he's a very special person spiritually or equally gifted if it's
a trick.
Like, I really enjoy that he gives him that credit.

(02:19:04):
It's a very good point.
It's like, look, either you have magic powers or you are the smartest motherfucker in the
world to be able to pull off making it look like you have this much magic power.
And that's true.
Yeah.
I just love that Giamatti can't stop complimenting him.
Look, you are a traitor and a danger to the country.

(02:19:30):
And I'm supposed to I'm supposed to be hunting you down and finding a way to to make you
pay for the insult to the crown.
But I decided to come here and tell you how much I love you instead.
Yeah, it never stopped killing me.
Because I almost thought Giamatti was in on it.

(02:19:50):
Oh, yeah.
I almost because like right at that moment, like when when the prince says, like, I don't
care, go arrest his ass and the very next scene we see Giamatti basically lambasting
Edward Norton, basically saying like, you've pissed off the prince.
You've pissed off everybody.
And I thought this was the scene that we're going to reveal that Giamatti is in on it,

(02:20:14):
that he's saying like, look, you've got to pull the plan back because the prince just
told me to arrest you.
Thank God.
So we've got to figure this out somehow.
I may too.
Like, oh, my God, thank God.
That's not how it went.
Like, I was so glad that that that that that didn't happen.
But yeah, but he but he's still kind of on his side.
He's sitting there going like, look, I've been told to arrest you and I don't want to.
So I'm begging you to please stop doing this.

(02:20:35):
Well, that's the thing.
He actually thinks that Sophie is dead.
So he's like, please, what are you going to do?
What are you what are you going to do?
He's like, I just want to see her like and just how the heart before you know the heart
in that is just crazy to me.
I loved it so much.
Yeah.
And I love it.

(02:20:57):
Well, it's OK.
That's the that's the clue.
Right.
Because he doesn't when she when he doesn't say, go ahead.
Because that's the thing is G.M.
Adi asks him what's the point of doing this.
He doesn't say to see her again.
He says to be with her.
That's his exact words.
He's actually saying he's basically confessing, no, this whole thing is one big, big illusion

(02:21:19):
to make sure the prince fucks off and doesn't chase me and my girl all the way to Prague,
you know, and and that that's what he says.
Right.
It's to be with her, not to see her again.
To be with her was it was an act word.
So he's basically he's basically telling him exactly what's up without telling him anything.
But I did like the fact that when I by conjuring Sophie, he does give clues.

(02:21:46):
He has Sophie say that I was wearing my necklace and that prompts you to go back to the stable
and find the necklace.
And he also finds that jewel that was there as well.
That like the green one.
And when he picks up that sword and he matches them in there, he gets definitive evidence.
And that evidence is what he sends off to the king because you kind of realize there

(02:22:09):
is nothing he could have done by just saying what was going to happen.
He actually needed that evidence.
So I gave it to him and I really loved how that went.
You got up when they go searching for him after he disappears, though, the extreme giddiness

(02:22:32):
on Giamatti's face when he finds the orange tree.
Right.
What he finds is going to be the plants of the orange tree, but it actually winds up
being the locket and his giddiness runs into that.
Like, again, that reaction that like he's right.
He solved the puzzle.
Yeah, he sees he sees the plants of the locket.
He knows what the locket is.

(02:22:53):
He remembers her sent mentioning the locket back at the show.
What I thought was really funny was the fact that while he's doing that, before he even
notices that he picks up a jar of fake blood, looks at it and puts it back down and doesn't
even give it a second.
It just moves on to look at other stuff.

(02:23:14):
No, like the entirety of the mystery is laid out right in front of him, the audience, everybody.
But it's just done so damn well that it doesn't even matter.
Right.
Yeah.
Really, really beautiful.
All the way caught up to the beginning at this point, like everything has been passed
off.

(02:23:34):
Everything has been dished off and reveals everything about their plans to the police
headquarters.
And here's the thing about Giamatti.
And we find out that Giamatti has basically been telling Prince Leopold this entire story
from his perspective all the way until this point.
Then Leopold goes absolutely nuts trying to explain his innocence in the matter and winds

(02:24:00):
up offing himself.
The only thing is, everything that Leopold says in this scene is completely true.
He is completely.
Yeah.
He is 100% innocent.
He has been manipulated.
And yeah, the only thing he's guilty of is trying to off his own dad, maybe one day.

(02:24:21):
And being a serial abuser.
And yeah, being a serial abuser.
We don't know for sure he actually did kill the other woman.
It's the rumor, but we do know.
But we have seen enough of him to know it's probably pretty true.
There's probably some truth to it.
Yeah, we're pretty sure there.

(02:24:42):
Giamatti getting pickpocketed and chases Eisenheim to the train station.
It was very important for Eisenheim to get that necklace back.
I will agree with that.
Yeah.
Like that was that was a good, good moment.
Risky as hell.
But, but, but yes, it was important.
He's like, especially.
Yeah, he's not going.
He's like he she loves that not lock it.

(02:25:03):
She's held on to it for 20 years.
He asked her to give it up for evidence.
He's not showing his face at that farm without getting it back for sure.
No, no, it's like that relationship ain't lasting if he doesn't show up with a locket
in hand for sure.
But I think that Giamatti or I think that Eisenheim wanted Giamatti to find him the

(02:25:24):
way that he looks back before he crosses over, it doesn't seem like he's looking back to
go.
Am I followed?
It's looking back to he's like looking back to go.
Did he follow?
Like did he catch it?
Did he key in?
Like that's more what that yeah, that's more what that look how that look landed on me.
Yeah, I think he wanted I think he wanted Giamatti to know everything that he could

(02:25:51):
get away with telling him without forcing Giamatti's hand to I got to arrest you now.
Jesus, man.
But I do Giamatti's joy in the discovery of this scene when he's standing at the train
station realizing everything like he's been had so hard, like his entire life has completely

(02:26:12):
crumbled and everything he is back to being a poor man again and like his position with
the government and all that all gone.
He does not care in this moment.
He is just so wildly stupidly happy and the way that it was shot to I felt it there.
I felt all the joy all the adventure that like all of it.

(02:26:33):
It was great.
And Eisenheim and Sophie get their happy ending as he returns her locket.
What a moment.
She's there in in pristine brand new peasant clothes, brushing her new horse.
She's happy as shit.
She is.

(02:26:54):
All right, Doc.
Final thoughts.
Final thoughts.
Yeah, this movie is a must see.
I didn't even have to think about that one.
I I yeah, I mean, just for Giamatti alone, like everything we've been saying about him
throughout this movie, this is probably one of his pinnacle moments.

(02:27:16):
I think it's a master.
But yeah, I react to reacting.
Totally.
Yes, very much so.
But also, you know, like I said, you know, classism was front and center in this.
I loved that.
I think we need to we need to have more of that.
But yeah, no, I I don't know.

(02:27:38):
I only just, you know, still having just watched it for the first time, sitting there going
like, man, I can't believe I missed this when it came out.
But yeah, like, yeah, I wish I had seen this in the theaters.
I wish I had seen this in the theaters.
And I didn't see this one in theaters either.
So while you were in China, I was in basic training.

(02:28:01):
Oh, OK, sure.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
But also, like, like I mentioned before, like in the beginning of the movie where they did
those little like the color tricks to kind of like show the difference between the two
lifestyles that that's just one example of shit they did all through this movie.
This is not a movie that just hung one hat on one gimmick.

(02:28:24):
Everything about this movie was visually stunning.
Like, I mean, we didn't even talk about how the hallway to the prince's office was fucking
covered in antlers.
I mean, that was an astounding image every every time Giamatti is walking down that hall.

(02:28:46):
There's like three different moments where he's got to walk down that hall to go have
a meeting with the prince.
And every time you see him walking through that hall of antlers, just feeling sick at
it, you know, and just intimidated and and angry at the world and his position in it,
you know.
And yeah, no, it was like a just yeah, like like generally speaking, this is mastercraft,

(02:29:10):
not just in reacting, reacting as mastercraft and storytelling in the use of imagery in
filmmaking to never, never, never at any point think there's any moment in your movie that
is a throwaway moment that you just need to get this out of the way and move on.
Then none of that happens in this movie.
Every single thing counts in this movie.

(02:29:32):
And it's a great example of that kind of mentality and filmmaking and storytelling and character
acting and all that.
Like yes, this is a must see movie because this is, you know, at a higher standard of
making sure your your your movie is a work of art beyond whatever script was thrown at

(02:29:55):
you, you know.
I am going to agree with you that it's a must see.
I don't really have anything to add on top of what you said.
I okay.
But now you understand why in 2006 it was the prestige and the illusionist and people

(02:30:20):
were fighting over which one was the better movie nonstop.
And that is a fight.
I can see it.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I can see kind of movie though, just because they have performers in both like
stage performance, right?
Both movies.
That is why it's a fight.
Even because of the misdirect.

(02:30:42):
It's a pair.
It is a it is a pair of period pieces about prestidigitation, as I said before, and that
is where that is where they come together.
And so yeah, that that can that can trick you into thinking they're comparable.
But yeah, you're absolutely right.
They are two completely separate movies that just happen to use stage magic as a backdrop.

(02:31:03):
But when you get down to it, they are wildly, wildly different stories.
Very, I mean, one is a story of tragedy and the other one is a straight up love story.
Yeah, yep.
Exactly.
Like how do you even compare the two?
For my personal preference, when it comes to the style of film that I like to watch

(02:31:25):
and stuff, the illusionist beats the illusionist takes that takes the cake.
That is my personal standpoint on the kind of like where I get my most the most.
I would I would I would tend to agree because I definitely liked a lot of the twists and
grittiness and stuff like that.

(02:31:46):
My one the one thing that takes me back to preferring the illusionist of the two is that
just for my own personal preference, I think movies about stage magic should stay the fuck
away from real magic.
So so is that why you'd like to proceed more?
Because you said the illusionist more.

(02:32:08):
Yeah.
OK, OK.
Because I didn't know if you like using the technical aspect of like Tesla and stuff like
that in with the magic because it separated magic from technology.
So I didn't know where you were going.
Yeah, but it was but it was still but that's the thing is, it was still I mean, it was
it was it was a teleporter slash clone machine.

(02:32:29):
That was fucking magic.
OK, they may not they may they may have been it may have been presented more as sci fi,
but that's the thing.
It was it was it was taking illusion magic and turning it into real magic.
You know, that would be like if we if we were doing I mean, I'm trying to think of an example
here that that would be like if if now you see me was like the the prequel to Harry Potter,

(02:32:57):
like that's basically what that was to me.
OK, you know, which there's nothing there's nothing wrong with that.
If that's what you're into, that's fine.
I have definitely enjoyed movies like that before.
But if you're going to ask me what my preference was, I would say no, I prefer it when it's
when the two the two lines are separated.
If you're going to have a movie about magic, have a movie about magic.

(02:33:18):
If it's a movie about stage magic, it's stage magic.
I like the line drawn between the two.
But that's just me.
And and yeah, so that's why I would say I prefer the illusionist of the two for just
that one reason.
Other than that, they are incomparable.
Yeah.
For the two for the two films, I feel like the prestige will kind of exhaust you.

(02:33:41):
And like that is like that is going to be the movie that you are going to watch.
The illusionist can kind of like bring you to life.
Yeah, no, that's true.
Yeah, I could see that there is there was definitely.
No, that's true.
These really are two wildly different films despite appearances.

(02:34:02):
Yeah.
All right.
So what do you got for me for next week?
For next week.
All right.
Let me tell you.
OK, let me hit you with what I got for you.
So what I'm thinking for next week, I'm going to hit you with Soldier starring Kurt Russell
and Gary Busey, Jason Isaacs, Hurt Wee.

(02:34:26):
I mean, it goes on and on and OK, long standing love for this film.
OK, well, in that case, I've heard of Soldier.
That's like that's a sci fi flick, right?
All right.
Yeah, sci fi.
Yeah.
OK.

(02:34:47):
Well, I've got the exact opposite of that.
In fact, I have a.
Fear of a black hat.
It is a mockumentary that a black cat or black hat like hat with an H. OK, black hat.
Yes.
Fear of a black hat.
Think spinal tap.

(02:35:07):
In fact, it's almost a direct replica of spinal tap in a lot of ways.
One could say it's an homage, not a rip off.
It is an homage to spinal tap, except where a spinal tap was about an 80s rock group.
Fear of a black hat is about a 90s hip hop group.
OK.
I'm on it.
Yes.

(02:35:28):
And I'm telling you right now and I know this is a bold statement, but I'm going to tell
you right in front, Brad, you're going to fucking love this movie.
I guarantee it.
I mean, we'll see.
I I. You have been you have nailed it on the head pretty much every time so far, so I got
no reason to doubt you so far.

(02:35:49):
All right.
So next week is going to be soldier and fear of a black hat.
All right.
Thanks for joining us, guys.
Thanks for watching.

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H.Y.S.T? | S1E21 | The Prestige & The Illusionist

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}H.Y.S.T? | S1E21 | The Prestige & The Illusionist