Defamer
Lay your head on your desk and have a quick nap. You've been back to work for minutes, and deserve a little break. When you awake, treat yourself to the weekend box office numbers:
1. The Prestige—$14.818 million
Enough people have probably now seen The Prestige for buzz about the movie's twist ending to build. Because we know that you can't stand the tension of not knowing what everyone's talking about, we'll let you off the hook by revealing the stunning third-act reversal (which, quite frankly, anyone who's paid attention to Jackman's career up to this point should have seen coming a mile away) in this space: [SPOILER ALERT—Read no further if you don't want everything you thought you knew about dueling, turn-of-the-century magicians in London placed in an ornate box and sawed in half] As master illusionist/showman Hugh Jackman stares into the face of freshly vanquished prestidigitator Christian Bale in the film's closing moments, their career-long, obsessive battle now at its bitter end, Bale salvages ultimate victory from his humiliating defeat with his final gasp: "I've already sold an exclusive musical adaptation of the story of our rivalry. And not only did I give your character all the best song-and-dance numbers and the most fabulous costumes, my executors have been instructed to let you audition, then deny you the part. Abracadabra, old friend."
2. The Departed—$13.675 million
The Departed's critical and commercial success seems to be pointing to a predictably tragic Oscar endgame for cursed director Martin Scorsese: another heart-wrenching Best Picture loss to a Clint Eastwood film written by Paul Haggis. The envelope is all but sealed.
3. Flags of Our Fathers—$10.20 million
While this disappointing™ opening seems to undermine the above prediction, we should probably point out that Million Dollar Baby opened at a little over $12 million when it went into wide release. Fate is just setting up Marty for the sucker-punch.
4. Open Season—$8 million
5. Flicka—$7.7 million
It's better that we ignore the talking animals and the horse movie and get on with our day.
- October 20-22, 2006 Studio Estimates [Box Office Mojo]
Comments
You read it here first: The Prestige is bringing back the top hat.
I thought we weren't allowed trick-endings without M.Knight.Shamamalangasing-song involved.
TSW: You're absolutely right.
However, the big twist at the end really isn't a twist in the Shamalammadingdong sense of the word. If you're halfway paying attention to what is happening on the screen, myself, hoping to see a battle royale between Batman and Wolverine, you already see what's coming. If I had to give this movie any credit it would be that even though I was fearful of David Bowie's presence I was happy that he actually managed to defer my attention away from staring at his eyeballs, comparing and contrasting.
Top hat? Make mine a homburg, hold the relish.
Interesting that the top 3 movies are all specifically aimed at adults, not children or teenagers. Hollywood's latest discovery: people over the age of 22. Expect breathless meetings held in all the studio boardrooms later today.
The Illusionist is better. Too bad Bob Yari is such a punk.
I almost threw up from all the accent-fakery going on in The Prestige. Also too much Cherry Coke. But seriously, Ms. Johansson, stop.
The Illusionist is better? Wow. The Prestige must truly be terrible. I couldn't stop laughing at Norton's stiff delivery and all the cheesy lines. I believe there was a line in that movie to the effect of, "I've traveled the world and discovered the secrets to the most complex illusions, but never learned how to forget you." Or something like that. I think the movie might have been written by some advanced high school students.
Nah. The Prestige was way better than The Illusionist, which had Paul Giamatti pulling one of those silly 360-degree-turn-around-while-thinking-to-yourself-in-montage-form-all-of-the-clues-that-solve-the-puzzle moments in it, complete with Giamatti's goofy face when he FINALLY gets it, an hour after any audience member with an IQ over 50.
Hugh Jackman is really adorable when he tries to act straight. It's kind of like watching children walking around in size 11 shoes.
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