Send your movie questions to FlickChickThe Illusionist and The Prestige Two Hollywood movies about turn-ofthe-century magicians in one year howd that happen Not that its unusual for competing projects about the same or similar subject matters to go into development but rarely do both stay the course A star drops out financing dries up someone blinks and then theres only one film left This weeks DVD Tuesday pick is The Prestige which isnt to say The Illusionist is a bad movie in fact they make a great double bill But The Prestige has a bracing mean streak that warmed the cockles of my dark dark heart Impoverished cockney Alfred Borden Christian Bale and well-born American Robert Angier Hugh Jackman he uses a pseudonym so as not to embarrass his family once worked together under the tutelage of Harry Cutter Michael Caine a renowned ingeneur or a guy who devises and builds mechanical illusions Both are talented but in completely
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Per Variety, Warner Bros. is looking to bring not one or two but a gaggle of superheroes to the big screen, with a feature film based on DC Comics' Justice League of America. Though the specially abled all-star team typically includes such top-shelf crime fighters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman, the studio is not specifying exactly who is on its wish list, nor whether Christian Bale or Brandon Routh would be wooed to reprise their franchise roles.... Universal has re-upped Robert De Niro and hopes to also have back Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand for Little Fockers, a second sequel to Meet the Parents.
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The impossibly hot Scarlett Johansson is in talks to play a duplicitous magician's assistant in The Prestige, a tale of rival tricksters in early-1900s London directed by Batman Begins' Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. If anybody dares saw her in half, I'm taking names.... Per Variety, Drew Barrymore will produce and may star in He Loves Me, a psychological thriller.
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Jessica Simpson is in talks to star opposite Dane Cook in Employee of the Month, a comedy in which the Dukes of Hazzard short-shorts model would play a discount-store cashier who makes the men act like, well, men.... Rock star David Bowie may join Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Michael Caine in Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Prestige, a novel about rival magicians working in early-20th-century London.
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What's in a name? Cillian Murphy
Question: I just saw Red Eye and there's something I don't understand: What was the exchange between the main characters, Lisa (Rachel McAdams, who was amazing) and Jack, about his last name being rude? I also thought the actor playing Jack was phenomenal; what's his claim to fame? Or was this movie his big break?
Answer: It's not that his name, Jackson Rippner, is rude. It's that it's menacing, sounding uncomfortably like "Jack the Ripper." And since Red Eye (2005) is a Wes Craven thriller, I don't think it's giving away too much to say that the suggestion isn't without meaning. Rippner is played by up-and-coming Irish actor Cillian Murphy, 29, who was studying law when he took a sudden career detour into acting.
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Remember how Tobey Maguire beefed up for Spider-Man and starved himself for Seabiscuit? Actor Christian Bale is another such dedicated (some might say deranged) thespian. He slimmed down dramatically — losing 63 pounds — for his new indie film, The Machinist (opening Friday). We're talkin' Lara Flynn Boyle skinny, kids. It ain't pretty.
Bale plays Trevor Reznik, a paranoid, sleep-deprived factory worker who, in fact, hasn't slept in a year because of a secret buried deep in his psyche. This, we are meant to understand, is a tortured soul, and he wanted to look the part for the sake of verisimilitude. "I lost about a third of my body weight," Bale reveals. "I didn't really see how else to do it.
"There are parts where your appearance really doesn't matter, and there are some where it's a very essential part of the character," he explains. "Trevor is in this ridiculously crazy downward spiral emotionally,
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