The Prestige / Quarter Horse Bourbon (feat. Bilge Ebiri)

0:00 So here's the deal everybody. We just absolutely love producing as much content as possible for film and Whiskey Nation. But if our regular episodes aren't enough for you, then you can head on over to patreon.com/film Whiskey. Sign up for one of our memberships and you will get a slew of extra content for your listening pleasure. Check us out on patreon.com/filmwhiskey. In 2006, director Christopher Nolan and stars Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman gave the world a mysterious thriller that had role reversals galore. In 2023, we make a return trip to Kentucky to try a brand of mysterious origin. The film is the prestige.

0:44 The whiskey is Quarter Horse Bourbon. We'll review them both. This is the. Film and Whiskey Podcast. Welcome to the Film and Whiskey Podcast, where each week we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad Gee. And this week we are continuing the Christopher Nolan retrospective. With his 2006 film The Prestige. Bob, doesn't retrospective mean like they are no longer with us? Isn't that what it's called at the Oscars? No, that's like in memoriam.

1:33 Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah, well, regardless, we're looking back on some Christopher Nolan films. He is very much not dead at the time of recording, so. I'm glad to hear that also at the time of recording, like, do you expect him to just? Listen man, you got to, you got to prepare, you got to be prepared for these kind of things. So man, Brad's a new world record. We have gone off the rails in 32 seconds on this podcast. Today it's it's quite impressive, Bob. All right, so Brad let me set the stage a little bit with The Prestige. This is a movie like Memento that I have not watched in a long time, partially because I remember when I first watched it, I was not the world's biggest fan of it, and I know that it has since become.

2:17 One of Nolan's best loved films. And there are people who will, like, fight you to the death about The Prestige. And I did not want to come in here and crap all over The Prestige. And I was trying to kind of hedge a little bit and make sure that there was somebody to balance me out. Luckily, Brad, we have a guest on this show today. He is a film critic, one of the nation's preeminent film critics, Writer for Vulture in New York magazine. Bilga Abiri, Bilga, how are you doing today? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great and I feel like I can already sense in your voice that you don't know where I'm going to go with my thoughts on The Prestige. So let me just say upfront, Brad Bilga, this is a damn good movie. It sure is now, now so, so that you are one of the people who has changed their opinion of the Prestige, because there are a lot of those people.

3:08 Very much so, yeah. Yeah, Bob, I am so glad that you've come around on this film because it's a movie I remember seeing when it came out in the theaters. I believe I went with my dad and my brother to see it, and I I just remember being blown away by how cool it was. The problem that I had with The Prestige, if I could say that I had a problem, was that I watched it when it came out, and then I didn't watch it for probably a decade, and I would always forget because it came out at the exact same time as another magic movie. And I would always be like, wait, was which one was it? Was it the the prestige or the illusion? I don't remember which one I liked because I saw them both in theater and for the longest time, they both stuck in my brain as as kind of the same movie. Well, let's get this out of the way now. Let's talk about this the the double bill of magic movies we had in 2006, Brad, we didn't know what we had at the time. What what a time to be alive to get these two movies. I really liked The Illusionist when that movie came out, and I was really hoping to be able to go back and revisit it before today because I was the guy that was like, you guys are dead wrong.

4:13 The Illusionist is a much better film than The Prestige. I really loved it when it came out. I'm bummed I didn't get to revisit it, but I think that my big problem with The Prestige that I didn't have with The Illusionist was that we were in like Peak Shyamalan. The wake of M Night Shyamalan on Hollywood and how every movie at the time was being marketed as if the twist was the key to the whole film. And I remember with The Prestige being like, I don't think that that was the way to market this movie because, you know, they don't give you all the cards until the end of the film. But if you're paying attention, like, no one's really not trying to hide the twist of the movie from you. And I remember kind of holding Nolan accountable for what the marketing of the movie had done.

5:05 And I think that really kind of tainted my appreciation of the movie at the time. So I don't know, man. All that to say, I don't know how The Illusionist holds up, but The Prestige divorced from that context, really good movie. Yeah, Like I said, I'm, I'm glad that you say that, Bob, because it's coming back to it now. I believe I watched it again in the late, you know, 20 tweens. Watching it again, probably my third or fourth time. I love this movie, man. It just, it hits all the boxes of a really suspenseful, fun thriller. And I I'm, I'm excited to talk about it. Bill Good, Can you help us set the stage for, I mean, like just, I don't want to say historically, like this movie is not that old, but 2006 Nolan's coming off of Batman Begins and he has this relationship.

5:56 Where it's almost like a, you know, one for them, one for me film that he toggles throughout the Batman trilogy. What do you remember the initial kind of reception to this film being? With The Prestige, you know. But part of it was the 1-2 punch of the fact that Nolan released both of these both Batman Begins and The Prestige in the same year, if I remember correctly. And and Batman Begins was a hit, but Batman Begins, you know, was was was a. Fairly modest hit it wasn't. It wasn't in a huge hit. It was I think it out of making like $200 million some some something thereabouts. Which was good which was which was you know which was good and and it had decent legs but it wasn't like you know, it it it didn't like blow a hole in the box office. It did however get great reviews and I remember, you know I was kind of Issy on Nolan before Batman Begins. I I liked Memento.

6:52 I found Memento very clever. I did not like insomnia. I didn't quite know what to make of him. And then Batman Begins, I had zero interest in a new Batman movie. But, you know, then friends of mine were like, oh, you got to go see it, you know? And and I went and saw it and I loved it. And and then when The Prestige came out, I was like, all right, this, this, this is a major dude. This this guy's making money, you know, this guy's churning them out. And and ironically enough, it's the last time he churned them out. But. You know, and the films contain a number of elements that are that are similar. I mean, obviously, you know, there are themes that run throughout Nolan's films and stylistic, you know, flourishes and things like that, but the stories are very different.

7:39 I I will say I I also saw The Illusionist around that time. I hated The Illusionist. I have revisited it, but I thought that movie was absolute. Garbage. You mean Jessica Biel as the the main female over Scarlett Johansson didn't intrigue you? I will say this, I am a Jessica Biel fan. There you go. And it's got Giamatti. I mean, it's a yeah, nothing wrong with the cast of that movie, but I just found it so ludicrous and. You know, I mean think about a magic movie, that's tough is it has to, it has to dazzle you in some way. But it's like cinematically it's it's hard to dazzle you with magic tricks because it's like, I mean it's movies you can, you can do whatever, like, you know, the idea of a magic trick is is you know and ask them at the movies, even though movies share qualities with magic and and many qualities with sort of the way magic evolved.

8:36 But what I love about The Prestige is it does kind of through its twists and through its use of distraction and red herrings and things like that, it actually does kind of make you feel like you've seen a magic trick. That's that's the thing that I loved about it and the other thing about it and and and you know it's it's interesting to hear you guys talk about revisiting it. You know Nolan has made movies that. Sometimes they're sometimes people think of them as puzzle movies and sometimes people think of them as twist movies. I mean this is 1. Obviously the Inception is another. And sometimes people use that as kind of a knock against them. But what I would say is you know the class puzzle movie or twist movie.

9:26 You know the the twist or the puzzle or the solution of the puzzle or whatever or like you know the. The mind F at the end of the movie, like those are often kind of the raison debt true of the film, right? That's that's like the film is basically almost an excuse to have the twist or the puzzle or whatever. I don't find that to be the thing with Nolan movies. I mean, I return to them over and over and over. I've seen The Prestige like, you know, 1015 times at this point. You know, I've seen the Inception even more. The puzzle is not. The puzzle is not the thing. The puzzle is the thing that that maybe creates some level of interest and excitement and engagement with the film.

10:08 But but the film stand on their own without that. And same with the and what I love about the prestige, you know that that idea of misdirection which is kind of the the heart of magic. He does that here, right? I mean because he because he because he sets up one twist, right. And then at a certain point, you kind of realize, you kind of understand where the movie is going and what that twist is. And that's interesting and it's exciting, but it's not actually the final twist. Like, exactly missurrection. And then and then he brings the hammer down in the very final shot of the movie and you're like, whoa, wait a minute. And then he just fades out, you know? Which is which I think is beautiful, interestingly. I mean, I I don't know if you guys have read the book, but the book is quite different from the film. But yeah, I know.

10:55 So just to say, I was a big fan of The Prestige then I found it interesting some, some I had a couple of friends who disliked it when they first saw it because they thought, oh, you know, this is like a fantasy or like it's science fiction or something like that. Like like like they they they felt like it, it changed genres. But really it didn't. I mean it it. It it adheres to that old Arthur C Clarke saying, which is like, you know, a great, I can't remember the exact saying, but it's like a great scientific discovery is is basically the the feels no different than a magic trick, you know. Well, and I agree with you, I think that yes, he gives, he brings the hammer down at the end of the film, but also he gives you enough of the twist throughout the movie that watching it through this time.

11:45 I was so much more impressed with this movie than I was with Memento, a movie that I also like, but that I feel is much more about the twist than this movie is about the twist. This movie is so much more about the deeper themes of obsession and artistic integrity and sacrifice to make art. And I think because of that, it plays much more like a great tragedy than anything else. And. Brad, I think we've kind of beat around the Bush a little bit here because I have been waiting with bated breath to get into our first segment of the day, which we call, Brad explains. Brad's going to give us the movie plots with only 60 seconds ticking on the clock, so let's go ahead and do your take with this little segment that we call.

12:27 Brad explains. Brad Explains is the part of the show where Brad breaks down the plot of the film that he has just seen, often for the first time. I think you've already said this was like your third or fourth time seeing the film, so hopefully that will help you as we put 60 seconds on the clock here. Brad, do you think that like and not to spoil or step on your thing here, but like this is another sort of Nolan fractured timeline thing. Do you think that plays into the explanation of the movie at all or not really? Honestly, not really, because I don't think he's like, out of all of his films. I mean, Dunkirk is probably up there, but he's the least clever about the time stuff here.

13:12 Like he never tries to trick you into thinking that one timeline is a different one. Like, I don't, I like, I don't know about you guys. It seemed pretty obvious when we were going to the past versus the present, and I don't know. So, no, I don't think so. All right, great. Well then, that makes it a much more straightforward task for you, Brad. You've got one minute on the clock. Spoil this movie as you go and. The Prestige is a film about two magicians in Victorian England, one of whom was married to a woman who gets drowned in a magic trick gone wrong because the other magician tied the knots too tight on the rope she's unable to escape, and this sets off a decades long rivalry between the two that becomes, as you said earlier, Bob, obsessive, bitter and to the point of almost evil. The two men fall in love with the same woman played by Scarlett Johansson, who works for both of them at different times, and the movie ends with one framing the other for murder.

14:16 And it turns out that he is unable to truly pull that off, as the final reveal is that the man framed for murder has a twin brother who has been playing him the entire time. And not to bury the lead too much, but. Nikola Tesla is also going to say. Yeah, 1900s cloning. Yeah, am I right? Yeah, no, no big deal. All right, guys. Where do you want to start today, Brad? I'll let you kind of steer us here. Do you want to jump right into performances? Do you want to keep talking about the Nolan of it all? Where should we begin? I I'm. Just fascinated by the fact that David Bowie was in this movie, right? I don't know about you guys, but he he walks on screen and you're like, huh, that he looks kind of familiar. And then you look on IMDb and you're like, oh, why is David Bowie in this movie?

15:07 And why isn't he in every movie? He's great, He's great and everything he's doing. Incredible in this. He's doing a preposterous accent and I am all for it because, you know, Nolan really chased after Bowie to get him in this movie. Apparently Bowie declined a number of times and Nolan kind of really pressured him into being in the film. And I think that it's such a stroke of genius in terms of the casting of it, because like, what is Bowie associated with, right? Like his first big stage persona is Ziggy Stardust this like. Maybe futuristic alien that comes down as like a as like a savior motif. Bowie always had this sort of otherness to him and like, what better way to introduce the themes of science and progress and the science fiction elements than to put somebody like Bowie in that role. I think it's just a stroke of genius just to put him in the film.

15:59 Yeah, the science being indistinguishable for magic. That feels like a Bowie concept. But I I want to say, you know, in in your summary of the film you said the final reveal is, is the fact that you know that that Christian Bale's character is a twin. That's not the final reveal of course, right. I mean the final reveal is that you know, Hugh Jackman has been killing himself every single night and and and you know, burying his, his doppelganger in, you know, tubs of tubs of water, I mean. That's the part that that that's the that that to me is the is the great reveal of the movie. Because I think at a certain point, there's a certain point in the film where you realize the the twin thing, I think where where yeah, it starts to dawn on you around the time when when Hugh Jackman takes one of them hostage at that point. I remember starting to think, oh, wait, I I see what's going on here. 1 guy's a twin.

17:03 I'm like, I I got it. I figured out the movie. And of course, of course like it. It builds to that. But then the real, the real reveal is what Hugh Jackman has been doing every night. Can I say, though? I actually think that I'm. I don't know if I'm just being that guy here. I actually think that the final reveal of the movie is that Michael Caine ended up helping Christian Bale. Because that that's like literally the last shot of the film when they're with the daughter and and like Michael Caine is helping him. And I I think that for me, you know, you were talking earlier, Bilga, about how this film endures because it's not just about the twist.

17:47 And I think that that's why this movie works, is that it's more about the dark levels to which obsession can take you. And it's about the human drama between Bale and Jackman. And like the the idea that that Kane's character, who once nailed a guy into a coffin box for Hugh Jackman, would then switch sides once he saw how dark he went is like, that's like, that's like the twist that you don't expect. I I don't know. No, I love that. It's fair. Yeah. No. And and and you're absolutely right. I mean, it really is about the characters. I mean, and I think, you know, I I would say the reason why this movie and I, I, I would agree with you, it resonates for me much more than Memento, which is a Memento is like a perfectly put together film.

18:42 No knock against it. But there's a certain to me, there's a certain human drama missing from it. Not because of what's happening on screen is actually what's happening on screen is is very sad. But because weirdly, because of the perspective of the film, for some reason it's hard to. I mean, you feel for that character, but for me, I feel, I feel in the abstract, in an abstract way for him, he doesn't move me the way, yeah. Bail does in this particularly. I mean, his face has to look like a computer that's resetting every 10 minutes. Yeah, it's hard to connect with that. Yeah, yeah, right, right. Because you know something about something about memory is is is is what's, you know what's so moving and and you know, there's a there's a very sort of, I mean, you know, refined almost existential aspect to the story which is the idea that. You know, Christian Bale or Borden has been living. You know, it's not a double life, It's like a half life, right.

19:48 I mean the idea that these two men, these, these two, these twins have basically been sharing the same life and the same identity. And it's funny when you read the book, it's it's more almost more vivid in the book because it's like Borden narrates part of the book. But it's like the two of them. So it's like he's constantly, it's almost, it's actually a bit like Memento because he keeps forgetting or he keeps reminding himself of something he said or did and sometimes speaks about himself in the third person. And and later on you realize, oh, it's because it's actually two people narrating. So it's like this, this idea of the divide itself, but not just divided, but literally living half lives, right. It's not, it's not a twin that's hiding. It's not a twin that's like.

20:36 Sometimes filling in for one person like they they are kind of they are literally living one life to the point where their identities have been subsumed into one another And that's you know that's a thing that that is very, you know it's it's an abstract notion But somehow no one in that cast they they make it very vivid in the film and and and very moving I find. And you know that's one of the things that I every time I return to the film. I'm really struck by the beauty and the power of of Christian Bale's performance and and his character. I really don't think that you can divorce this film either from like where it falls in the Nolan catalog. This is smack dab between 2 Batman movies and Brad. We talked last week about how you you just really can't underestimate what those Batman films did for Nolan as he continued to hone his craft, but also to develop the themes that he would continually return to.

21:33 And I think that with this film, and to the point you're both making, the reason this movie works for me better than it worked, better than Memento worked, is because you have characters grappling with their own humanity and with how far they are willing to go to either maintain an illusion or to, you know, sacrifice themselves in service of that illusion. And I think with Memento, because for that character Leonard, every moment is new. He doesn't really have to weigh those options very much. Like you get one scene at the end where he decides to self sabotage, right. And that's the key to the whole movie. But you never see him really grappling with that and to kind of tie all these things together.

22:14 I think this is best embodied in Michael Caine's performance and character of Cutter in this movie, because to your point, Brad, he is the person that at the end of the movie. Has kind of made the biggest. He is the biggest character arc from defending one of these rivals to completely being in the other's camp. And it's because he's not allowing himself to go to those extremes that he saw Hugh Jackman go. And I wanted to talk about Michael Caine's performance here. This is the second movie that he makes with Nolan. He makes 6 films in a row with Nolan before Dunkirk breaks that streak. I think that his performance here is just pitch perfect. And really does influence how much Nolan expands the character of Alfred in the latter 2 Batman. Like the story he tells in this one Brad about the guy drowning and it being very peaceful and then he comes back later and says that was a lie.

23:10 Like that's that's the exact same function that the some men just want to watch the world burn Speech has in the dark Night. But you know what He can give that speech or something that's like functionally equivalent to that speech in every movie. And I will still sign off on that as a choice because it's it's freaking great. I'm. Just going to eat it up, man. Michael Caine is a international treasure like he's he's just such an incredible actor. And honestly, like as he was, you know, giving the second-half of that speech about drowning, you know, at the end of the film, I thought that Hugh Jackman was acting his butt off man. Like the the horror on his face as he, as he's hearing him, like confirm what his fears are and even like, you know, watching it this time through, you catch. Or at least I caught how.

24:05 Hard. He has his eyes closed while the people are inspecting the cloning machine because he knows that he's about to drown and like that. Like that hit me this time where I was just like, man, Hugh Jackman was killer in this movie, yeah. Brad, I like, I have so many thoughts on Hugh Jackman, like let's let's hold on Hugh Jackman, we'll do Jackman and Bale at the same time. But I really Bill Guy, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Michael Caine in particular. I mean, Kane is wonderful in this film. I've actually, over the course of the past year, I've been, I've been in the midst of a Michael Caine rewatch. I'm watching everything he's done. Wow. So. So where do The Muppets fall in for you?

24:47 I mean that he well he's he's he's great. And that one he's so great. I actually, I actually have not revisited that one yet because. Because. I think in the end it's all going to result in the ranking, you know, in those rankings it's going to be like 200,000 words. So I haven't even been younger yet, but but he is, you know, he's he's, he's able to bring such humanity to a part with just, you know, I mean just a few few lines of dialogue and just a few minutes of screen time. I mean how much of this movie is he in? He narrates part of it. But he's also the audience surrogate, right? I mean he's he's with Hugh Jackman when we're with Hugh Jackman and then he's and then he turns on Hugh Jackman around the point when we turn on Hugh Jackman right. I mean he aligns himself with Christian Bale when when we start to align ourselves with.

25:43 I mean it's not like they're it's not like they're totally antagonistic to us while watching the movie. But you know Hugh Jackman has he has a legitimate cripe. His wife was killed. You know, like. And there's a something very cocky about Christian Bale at first, right. But then later later the the the tables turn the emotional tables turn and and and Michael King kind of rides that and as a result you know he his presence sort of. Helps propel us towards that character as well towards, you know, towards one or the other characters. So he's used very, very cleverly in the film. His character is, I mean his character is like an afterthought in the novel, like that character is is just kind of mentioned in the background.

26:32 He becomes a much more pronounced character and noble one's telling of it. All right, let's talk about the. I guess the, what I would say are like the the two female leads of the movie. I mean, we could talk about Piper Perabo as. Julia, Hugh Jackman's wife in the early scenes. But really, we need to talk about Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson and I will say just forever, like, you know, from here on after Rebecca Hall is great and everything she does, she is a freaking treasure. She's great in this movie, in a very tortured performance. And I think that in the wrong hands, that role could really tip into kind of overdramatic acting.

27:12 But she really, really nails. The slip into alcoholism and depression and that characters kind of tragic arc is just played so beautifully by her. Yeah, I I really felt like as I was watching her this time that Anne Hathaway in Les Mis had to have based some of her performance off of Rebecca Hall here. Interesting. Like they like they had so many SIM. There was just something about her by the end of her arc, right? Like when when she is finally. At the lowest of the low that I don't know. There's just something about it that felt really similar to me. And part of it's the era, you know, the Victorian era and that, but it that it made me think of her in Les Mis quite a bit. I yeah, I can't say I thought the same, Brad, but I'm I'm not going to discount your experience. Bob, I know that you're, you know. Film history isn't quite as extensive as mine, and so I draw on a lot of difference.

28:12 For a noted lame is hater. I am just I'm very happy to hear you at least mention the movie here on this podcast. Hey I liked like the 1st 45 minutes of lame is it was the the other 3 1/2 hours that I didn't like. I mean, Lame is is a terrible movie, but but she's very good in it, and might I add. She's in that movie The same year she's in The Dark Knight Rises there. You. Go might have been, might have been doing some research into previous Nolan films for I actually I said the reason I know this is because I know or not that I know this. The reason I remember this is because I remember in New York Film Critics Circle that year we voted her best supporting actress.

28:56 But the way we vote is we we. We only put the name of the actor on the ballot. We don't beat in the film and I was voting for her for The Dark Knight Rises not for Les Mis although she's very good in Les Mis. And then at the end when I when an actor wins if they've been in other movies that could potentially qualify. We take a vote on whether to include those other movies and and of course because. New Film Critics Circle is full of snobs. You know, they they struck down the idea of including The Dark Knight Rises, your award citation. But this, this was my early years in the Circle. So in future years I became a little more aware of this, the way this phenomenon worked.

29:41 But at the time, I felt so angry because I was like, but wait a minute, she got my vote for that movie. Like I was voting for her in that movie. It's kind of. Bogus that like, we can't then include that in the citation because you know, my vote help put her over the top, whatever. But I think she's great by the way, but. If you need to keep talking this through like we're happy to listen. We can help you work through this trauma. But the but the thing about Rebecca Hall in The Prestige is that, you know, she has to like you said. I mean, what she has to do is really difficult. One, she doesn't get a ton of screen time, but also she has to express an emotional reality that we at that point do not have access to. Right.

30:30 So it almost feels like a flaw in the film's design at first, right? Because we're like, and she's like, do you love me? Yes, I do Not today. You know, or today you mean it, you know that whole thing, which we don't yet know what's going on. Right. So it feels like this weird sort of emotional situation that she's in. Like it's it feels like a problem that she has, but because we're not seeing enough of their relationship at that point And you know, I mean and and Dale is a very good actor. I I mean I think Dale was like, you know, possibly the greatest actor of his generation, but he's not. That nuanced an actor because at that point we're not aware of like the fact that it's two different guys right And and it's it's funny because it's this delayed emotional reaction to her. So by the end of the film fog performance the gains a kind of retrospective gravity but while she's while her character is alive.

31:34 We might sort of be wondering like, what's what's what's going on here? Like, what's what's her problem here? And there's a way to do that. I mean, she could have done that in such a way that it just came off as laughable and completely old. But she doesn't like, like, we buy it. Like we understand that she's we understand that she's unhappy and that she's conflicted and that she doesn't really know what's going on. And that feels very sincere. Even though we don't have the full picture yet and I think that's that's actually very high degree of difficulty both for the filmmaker and for the for the actor And this idea of delayed reactions and kind of delayed knowledge, I mean it's an idea that runs throughout Nolan's films, you know, I mean he I interviewed him recently and he said, you know delayed reaction is just kind of like what all my movies are about, you know, and. And if you watch him, I mean that's that's exactly, you know that.

32:30 I mean if you watch him with that eye, it's like that's the structure of every one of his films. So. So in that sense, I mean I think The Prestige works beautifully and and it is really, you know, it's like a magic trick. I mean there are all these things that he's, he's like he's all these balls he's got up in the air and all these things he's juggling and you kind of don't know where it's going. And then by the end it all, I mean it all just comes together so beautifully for me at least. Yeah, I think that's what's so beautiful about her performance is that she is getting gas lit, right? Like, like super hardcore by the man who loves her and by the man who is pretending to be the man who loves her. Like they're both gaslighting the heck out of her.

33:10 But the crazy thing that he pulls off is like we as the audience think that she's the crazy one. Like and and and. I just don't know how you pull that off as a performer to be able to. Show what it's like to get gas lit and you, the audience member, don't even realize that you're partaking in the gas lighting until it's like, way too far gone. Yeah. Yeah. On the other hand, let's talk about Scarlett Johansson. And I don't know that we need to spend a ton of time on this, but I think this is the movie where I realized that Scarlett Johansson was like like a capital letters movie star. And I'm gonna say this in the nicest way I can.

33:51 It's cuz I think this is probably one of her weakest performances. Like she's just she doesn't do the accent well. She doesn't have a ton to do in this movie. And yet when someone is a star of the caliber of Scarlett Johansson, it's almost like. I don't know how to explain it, Brad. It's like you forgive them because even when they're off as a character, they still succeed at being Scarlett Johansson. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it's like when when Tom Hanks every once in a while you're like, I don't know, he seems miscast in Road to Perdition or whatever. But then it's like, oh, but it's Tom Hanks and I still will watch Tom Hanks do anything I want. You know what I mean? Like, and this is, I think that kind of Scarlett Johansson performance for me, where I certainly wouldn't rank it among her best, but like. She's she's very enjoyable to watch in everything she does. Yeah, I I guess I would agree with you just from the sense that out of all the actors in this film, I think I probably would have the least notes on Scar Joe. I just think she's incredible and everything that she does. She is truly one of my favorite actresses. So I I really like her here.

35:01 I think she does a great job. Particularly in the scene where she goes to Borden, Christian Bale's character, and like tells him the quote UN quote truth, but then the actual truth. And then when they return to that scene later in the film, like that whole scene between her and Christian Bale, you can feel the raw energy within her. And I think that's probably her best scene in the movie. She doesn't. I mean, you're right in that she doesn't ultimately have. That much to do in the film. I mean, I think she's very good, but she is, you know, she kind of has almost like a dimension removed because she's not conflicted in the way that the other characters are. I mean, she's conflicted in the way that she has the changing loyalties from one to the other.

35:49 In that sense, she almost foreshadows Michael Caine, right? I mean she's kind of a, you know, when he's not on screen, she's kind of an audience surrogate as well, I guess. But but I'm all, I'm, I'm with you. Brad and in the sense that I mean she can do no wrong. I I think she's an incredible actor and you know the year that I mean I thought that was just an incredible year she had with marriage story and JoJo Rabbit and yet so many people just like dunked on her and I was just like you are all going to regret this one day. I mean this is this is a person working with the highest level of of their art form. Yeah, I was going to say Marriage Story and JoJo Rabbit A2.

36:32 Incredible movies, but be two incredible performances from Scarlet. Incredible performances, yeah. And you know, it's just, it's so weird because because she kind of got on the Marvel train and got on the Marvel train in a way that I mean. Belatedly, she got her own movie. But for a long time she was the one who didn't get her own movie, right. And so she she never quite got the, I don't know, it's like she never quite got the the respect or the, you know, the the box office sort of that's that. Maybe some of the others did. Yeah, yeah, it was almost like she. Was she? She was in every single.

37:13 And then she got killed. Right. I was going to say it, it was almost like she was undermined from from both sides, right? Like she lost the respect of certain people who wanted her to avoid Marvel films. But then she never quite gained the Marvel fans respect either for the reason you're saying. Like she was never headlining a movie for them. And so yeah, kind of easy to forget about in some of those movies. Yeah. And she was, you know, I mean, you remember. I mean, she was, she was in art house darling, right. I mean, she was in, you know, she was in, you know, Ghost World. And I mean, it was, it was. Well, okay, let's talk about the two leads before we go to break, because, you know, we've already talked about Christian Bale a little bit.

37:55 I've been kind of chomping at the bit to talk about Hugh Jackman because my, my hottest take on this movie is that I think this is Hugh Jackman's performance in this film is one of the best performances in any Nolan film. And I'm quite honestly shocked that Jackman and Nolan never worked together again after this Hugh Jackman. Brad, we've talked a lot about, like Jack Nicholson and how we always mentioned that the key to Jack Nicholson is that he's really good at portraying anger. Like when when Jack gets angry, it's just something that is. And I think with with Hugh Jackman, it's even more specific than that. It's not just like blind rage, which he does have, but it is exuding, like bitterness, like deepseeded bitterness.

38:39 And I think about. The look he gives Christian Bale when he shows up at the like mausoleum and and man it's the same look that he is giving throughout Prisoners. I don't know if you've ever got around to seeing Prisoners. Brad might be my favorite Hugh Jackman performance. He is just he's and that's why he works as Wolverine, right. I hate to keep bringing this back to comic book movies but it seems kind of unavoidable today. The reason he works is Wolverine is like he's able to channel this deep seated bitterness and anger towards everything around him and it this is the perfect combination of him being sleazy, him being a showman, and him channeling that sort of rage that made him famous.

39:21 I think this is like the Platonic ideal of a Hugh Jackman performance. Yeah, I was. I was going to come in today and say the same thing, Bob. I like, I think Hugh Jackman steals the show here and I freaking love Christian Bale in this movie. But Hugh Jackman, I I think the reason I love his performance so much is because he starts off so optimistic. Right. Like the the kiss that he gives to his wife on her leg while he's tying up her feet and and the way they interact and the way, you know, they have that banter when she gives him the name, the great Danton like that. There's just so much in that that is lighthearted and fun and and honestly like just cutesy and you don't really get a lot of that and Nolan films and so to see him move from that. To someone who is willing to clone and kill himself night after night for 100 nights straight so that he can, you know, ruin the life of his enemy, it's it's a descent unlike many we've seen in Cinema Bob. Yeah, the thing about Hugh Jackman that that I think he's really good at is is a kind of like righteous anger, right? He's got justified rage.

40:34 I mean, I know I would. I would contrast him with Jack Nicholson, who is. It was just like who came out of the womb angry at the world. And that's that's always Jack's thing is he's just angry at the world. Which is why he became such a star in the late 60s, early 70s, when like everybody was just angry at the world. I mean, he, he captured that quality. And then later as the 70s wore on and then the 80s came about, you know, his his anger, there was a kind of distanced, almost snarkiness to it, which was. So perfectly, which so perfectly encapsulated the way that the Boomer generation just like checked out a kind of any kind of sense of, you know, social justice or, you know, world betterment or anything like that. I mean, it was, it became sort of a perfect, even though he's much older than the yuppies, but he became kind of a perfect yuppie icon as a result.

41:35 Whereas Hugh Jackman, I mean, Hugh Jackman is in that sense, he's kind of a perfect superhero because the superhero is always angry about something right there. He would have actually made a great Batman, but but you know, he's got justified anger. There's always something that sets him off and and once it does, you know it, it it makes perfect sense. I mean you can really sort of, you know, click into his anger and that's I think what makes him special and why, why I think he's so good here. I mean, you really buy him as a man. Just completely obsessed. Yeah. All right. Bill, you you have just said a minute ago that you think Christian Bale might be the best actor of his generation. I'd like to just hear.

42:16 I hate to pit the two of them against each other, but if you had to pick the better performance in this movie, who would you go with? In this movie? Yeah. I mean, I think it's Bale. I think they're both great. I mean they're both, they're both really great. Sorry. There's like fireworks going off here. They're they're both great. I think they all because he has to. I mean they both have secrets, right. Like each character has a secret that is sort of haunting them and that is that is driving us and and also feels like you know as we watch their performance like we can tell that there's something they're keeping from us that we're going to find out about I think with.

42:58 With bail, there's a bit more of it. There is a bit more of a an unreadability to him, but but not a, you know, not a not an unreadability that works against the performance and unreadability that makes us more interested in in what's going on with him. But I mean it's very close. I mean I probably, you know, they're probably. You know, every time I see the movie, I might change my opinion on who's who's better, right? Because because Jackman also, you know, in the second-half of the film especially, you know Jack, Jackman is also hiding something from us and he's haunted in a way that that he isn't early on, right. I mean, the the scene that I always think about with this film, I can't remember the exact line, but you know, it's after Jackman goes to see The Transported Man for the first time.

43:49 And before we see the actual act, there was just like, I can't remember if it's like a zoom in on his face or not. But before, like he says, you know, I went to see an act today and he was like it was the greatest magic trick I've. Ever seen he? Says that before we see it and we totally believe it. Like at that point, I mean that does such a great job of setting up The Transported Man and we kind of need that, even though they even though it's an incredible magic trick, but we need somebody to say. This is a whole other level. Of Well, it's somebody that we trust knows magic, right? You know what I mean? Well, that was that was the other thing I was going to say is like this structurally this script does such a good job of putting its thumb on the scale of either of these guys at different times so that the audience is sympathizing with each of them and root kind of actively rooting against the other at other parts of the movie.

44:42 And I'm thinking in particular about the fact that like. When Tesla leaves the machine to him and is warning him and warning him and he says, you know, Tesla knew that his warnings would go unheeded. You get this great scene of Jackman, like literally rolling up his sleeves and getting to work tinkering on the machine. And it's this great picture of like, you know, America versus Britain and like the American ingenuity and the the hardworking guy who's going to pull himself up and make something of himself and and win this battle. And as that's happening, they're intercutting it with essentially like the end of Christian Bale's marriage, where he seems to be at his most villainous as a character. And so I just love the way that Nolan makes the, I guess I would call the downfall of Jackman's character all the more tragic because at certain points of the movie, you're actively rooting for him.

45:35 Yeah, I agree. I mean, and and, and that, you know, his obsessive journey into the, you know, into America. You know, the performance has to drive that to such an extent. I mean it's such a, I mean if you think with this story turns on a die, the guy writes Tesla on a piece of paper and the other guy goes to America and this is like what the 1870s. I mean this is not, this is not an easy trip. This isn't like, you know, I booked the flight. I mean this is like. He changes his life, right. I mean, you know, to to go into the American heartland in the 1870s from the UK, even though he is American, which is kind of funny, you know, that's a huge deal especially for someone who was who was fled from his background, right.

46:24 I mean it's like and it's just like because Christian Bale wrote Tesla on a piece of paper like and to to sell that to us is, you know, that's that's again. It's a high high degree of difficulty situation there and and he does it you know we we totally buy that that this man would go to was effectively the ends of the earth in that age for this. Brad, I think this is a good place for us to hit pause. What do you say we tried this quarter Horse Bourbon, then we'll come back and keep chatting about The Prestige. Let's get to it.

47:06 All right, everybody. Today we are looking at Quarter Horse Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey. They did not market the full horse, only one quarter of the horse. Brad, when you go to your horse butcher, you can ask them for a quarter horse. That's a great joke for people from Kentucky. I'm sure they love it. All right, so here's the thing about Quarter horse. I picked this up for us, Brad, when we made a trip to Kentucky and I stopped at one of my favorite stores in the world, Party Source. And up towards the front of Party Source, they have a huge section of little 50ML sample size bottles. You know, we used to call them airplane bottles, but you don't get them anymore.

47:46 And it was all the major brands. It was like Maker's Mark and Jack Daniels. And then they had Quarter Horse. And I thought to myself like, well, I've never heard of this brand, but for them to be carried at such a major retailer and to have invested so much money in making these little tiny bottles. Like they must have a big conglomerate behind them. Maybe this is like a Heaven Hill brand or something that I've never heard of. So I picked a couple up for us. They were a dollar a piece. And I have come to find out that I know very little about this brand because they are not what I thought they were. Like, they're they're an Owensboro, KY distillery from my understanding, and I think that they're aging their bourbon more now than they were when we bought these samples about a year ago. I'm looking at their website.

48:30 It says that their bourbon is now considered a straight bourbon, which would mean at least two years old. And the ones that we have in our hands do not say that. And in fact on the side and very small print it says aged a minimum of one year. So this is very young whiskey. Very excited to pair this with the Prestige. See if they can pull off a magic. Trick here. Oh man. Well we'll see about that. I don't have any mash bill info. I know that it says it's 46% ABV, so 92 proof. That's all we have to go with, Brad. That's about it, man. Yeah, I'm, I am not excited to get into this with you. I have been letting this kind of air out in my glass for a little while now. When I first poured it out, it had.

49:11 I mean, I'm just going to be frank here and almost offensively young smell to it a like a a craft whiskey smell and also a young whiskey smell where it reminds me of some of those like, really bad whiskeys we've had. I will say that this one it had that it didn't quite have that like chemical Tarnex smell I've gotten before, but it smelled almost like artificial, like coconut hand lotion or something. It almost smelled like artificially sweet to to like mask how young and grainy it is. Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm with you 100% and like every time I think about coconut hand oil. All I can think about is eating it, so this is going to be a great.

49:58 Great experience and. I can already tell. Yeah, I don't like this on the nose, man. I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off, but I forgot to give it a score. I'm going to give it a 4 1/2 out of 10 on the nose. Yeah, I give it a 5 out of 10. It smelled like cherry Robitussin to me. There's the corn, there's the ethanol, and then this is a note that I've never given before, and it's a note that like. If you if you know, you know, you know it's it's it smells like barn. I just love that you described it as if you know, you know, you know. Yeah, yeah, it smells like barn Bob.

50:38 Yeah. It does. That's all I'm going to say about that. Yeah, I think that's kind of what I mean when I call it grain forward, it's not Even so much grain forward. It's like, hey, forward. You know what I mean? Like what there is that, hey, yeah, 100%, man. Not great, and I'm sipping this live. I know you've tried it already, so I'm going to give it a sip while you influence me with your tasting notes. Yeah, honestly, the taste is not good. It tasted kind of like cheap red wine. Like like if you bought like a $4.00 bottle of red wine, it was it was kind of fruity. It tasted like sweet corn that didn't have any, like seasoning or butter on it, and it tasted like ethanol. So 4 1/2 great, great score for a one year aged whiskey. I don't know how to explain what just happened on my palate. It's almost like this whiskey rushed itself down my esophagus like it was the fastest tasting experience I've ever had. It was like sweet, sweet, sweet honey, vanilla. You swallow it, It's like a little bit of oak and then like, midway down my esophagus.

51:53 It like detonated a bomb of like really, really prickly alcohol to the point where I was like, oh, the if like it mimicked the feel of like, acid reflux. You can hear me over here. I'm like struggling through it. I wouldn't call it a harsh whiskey, but it's like not complex at all. And then you don't notice what you've drank until like midway through the finish of it and then it like. Reignites this really prickly alcohol burn. I don't think this is a poor whiskey on the pallet, but it's nothing to write home about. I'll give that as six. The finish again, like I'm struggling through it. It doesn't taste bad, but the alcohol burn doesn't feel balanced out with the rest of the experience.

52:39 It is a little bit harsh, so I'm going to give it a, I don't know, a 5 out of 10. Yeah, I actually gave it a 5 out of 10 as well in the finish. It's it's short, it's grainy, it's generically sweet. It does. It's not the most offensive part of the whiskey, but it's not good for balance. I give it a four out of 10. I actually think this is well balanced in the sense that it's all bad, but I'm not going to give it a good score because it's the the, the the well balanced experience all the way through. I don't know if we're just like finally living into our truest selves. Brad, we're usually not this curt with our comments on a whiskey. But like folks, I really am enjoying our conversation with Bill good today and I really want to get back to that. And I just don't like this whiskey. It's not it's not great.

53:32 I will give it a 5 out of 10. On the balance, I think that with some time, this actually could be a pretty good whiskey. Like, it doesn't taste like offensively young or anything. It's just a really young whiskey that tastes harsh right now because it needs time to mellow out. At four years, this might be good at one year, which we have it at, Not great. So it's a 5 out of 10 for me, and that brings us to value. Now, like I said, we were drinking one dollar's worth of this. Brad, how much is a 750ML bottle of this? It is. $30 Bob. It's hard to give it a a true value score because I know that they're releasing a more aged version of it now. Yeah.

54:13 If this what we have was magnified up to 750, I would not pay $30.00 for this. I I mean if this was like 15 bucks, I'd be like all right, cool, give it a shot. I know it's a craft distiller and honestly $30.00 for a craft whiskey is not bad at all, but the whiskey itself is not good, so I'm going to give it. I don't know. I'll be generous. I'll give it a six out of 10 on value. Bob, this is a one out of 10 on value bro. $30.00 for this. Come on, come on I. Guess what I'm saying? That their two year product is better? Yeah. But I'm going to give it fine. I'll give it a 1 1/2 out of 10.

54:55 I think the only reason I'm giving it, you know we it's our our classic thing of like how we consider value. I don't know that a craft distiller, well, I don't know that a craft distiller. Can make it can produce a bourbon for less than like a $30 price point. Like this is pretty you got to admit, when you think about like all the craft distillers we've ever sampled from their bourbons are always like $45.00 because it's it's really hard for them to make a profit off of this. So like this is already like bottom, bottom, bottom tier pricing for a craft whiskey and I'm trying to at least give him credit for that because it's not like they're trying to upcharge people too much. But you're right, I don't think it's worth $30. I'm coming out to a Go ahead. I have 3 words for them make better whiskey. Man, you are like you're on one today, dude. Jeez.

55:46 Well, there goes the possibility of us ever working with the quarter horse whiskey folks. I am not going to be quite as harsh. I'm coming out to a 26.5 out of 50. What are you coming out to, Brad? I came out to on the dot a 20 out of 50. So we're at a 46 1/2 out of 100. This is, folks, one of the lowest rated whiskeys we have ever had on film and whiskey. And I it feels weird to say that, Brad, because I know for a fact we've had significantly worse whiskey than this one. But I mean, there's nothing to write home about with this whiskey. It's, you know, it needs more time. It just does. Bottom line, end of story.

56:28 Yeah, this is a whiskey that needs more time and a lot of things, Bob. It's not good. You know what is good? What's? That the prestige. The Prestige is so good, man. It's such a it's just so entertaining. Let's get back into talking about that. What do you say, Brad? Let's get to it. All right, everybody. That was Quarter Horse a whiskey that I refuse to say another word about. All right, There it is. Man. I'll, I'll say a couple more words. Not great whiskey, Brad. No, you didn't have to say. Yep, Yep, I see what you're doing. All right, on that note, I will segue us into our next segment, which we call 2 facts and a falsehood.

57:14 Brad is gonna try to stumpy ball. You are right and what is wrong? 2 facts and a falsehood. 2 Facts and a Falsehood is the part of the show where Brad presents three items to me as fact about the making of this movie, one of which is a total lie and it is my job to suss out which one is the fabrication. I thankfully have a big fan of the movie here today that seems to have some inside knowledge about this movie, so Bilga will be my phone, a friend on the day if I need some help. Brad, I am sitting right around 500 on the season. You've been doing a pretty good job keeping me in check this time around, man. Yeah, I I think that we are like evenly matched at this point and honestly that makes it a little more enjoyable for me, I think.

58:00 It's like it truly is a microcosm of the Prestige. Like I you have metaphorically shot off two of my fingers and and I'm coming for you at this point. Is is this podcast just going to end with us murdering each other somehow? Do you have a twin brother out there? Little do you know, man, can we? Just like they don't talk about this at all. But like, was this really just a plot for the twin brothers to both have sex with multiple women? Christopher Nolan and his brother writing this screenplay, or like, you know, it would be awesome. Because if we could tell our life story same time, I'm sorry, I can't. Be the only person that thought about that. This is this is basically Christopher Nolan's version of Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

58:49 Exactly. Exactly. Like we can get very Freudian with this movie. And I feel like we will before the day is over, Brad, but at the moment. You have a task ahead of you, and that is to lie to me and I hopefully will be able to figure out which one is the lie. Hit me with your two facts in a falsehood. Fact #1 Chung Ling Su was a stage character in real life created by William Ellsworth Robinson, a white man who disguised himself as a Chinese man to cash in on audiences enthusiasm for the exotic. He lived as Chung, never breaking character while in public. But he died in 1918 when a bullet catch trick went wrong, saying my God, I've been shot, which were both his last words on the on the stage and the first English he had spoken in 19 years.

59:37 That's a heck of a that's a good one. That's a good one. Man, yeah, even if you made that up, I got to say that. Nicely done. Fact #2. Ridley Scott was initially attached to direct this film in the early 2000s and had hired Jonathan Nolan to write the film. He chose, however, to work on other projects, and Jonathan suggested the project to his brother Fact #3. When Alfred is in prison, his inmate number is D23. The movie was released by Touchstone Pictures, a Disney subsidiary, and D 23 is the official Disney fan club 23, referring to 1923, the year Walt Disney opened the studio.

1:00:18 So. Are you saying that it's an intentional reference or just like something fun? I believe it is an intentional reference. Got it, got it. But the person on IMDb who wrote that, you know, I I don't know what was going on in their mind. Sure, sure, sure. OK, Bilga, I think #1 is true. It at least sounds true. It is dense enough that I don't think Brad took the time to write all that down. That is rude. One sounds true to me too. Yes, Not having not having met you before, Brad. Just going to stay. You know that the, the, the. I don't see that intelligent. Is that what you're saying? You seem like a guy that cuts a lot of corners, That's what he said. I'm saying, you know what I'm saying. This doesn't seem like a thing that he would have put that much effort into.

1:01:07 Believe me, you are you are correct. It does feel right, but it also feels it does feel like a piece of like great Magic lore, like it feels it feels true in that sense. #2 is one that I'm kind of circling here because I know just from skimming the Wikipedia page before we press record that there were other filmmakers attached to this project. The one that I saw was Sam Mendes, which I think would have been made for really interesting and and probably not as great movie. But I did not see Ridley Scott attached, and so I'm kind of circling that as a potential okay. Maybe not #3. I'm struggling to figure out, like, how it even applies to this movie. Like like, oh cool.

1:01:49 The letters D23 sometimes mean something else, so Bill got I'm really waffling back and forth between 2:00 and 3:00, but I'm I'm kind of leaning towards 2. Do you have a sense in your mind of which one is the falsehood? I'm I think. I think 2 is the falsehood. And I say that despite the fact that I know that Ridley Scott is a is a serial developer and serial attacher of himself to things. So it feels like it it could very well be trained. But that's also why I think it might be false, Whereas the other thing is just to to it's it's it's too stupid to not like, it's too stupid to not be a thing that people talk about like I'm. Like so.

1:02:37 So what? You're saying Bilga is? Either the facts are too smart for me to write or too stupid for me to write. No, no, it's not that. It's it's it's it's it feels like the kind I you know what it is. I'm what I'm saying is you're too smart to have come up with a falsehood like 3. Ah, thanks. I'm like if you are going to come up with a falsehood, you would have come up with a better like a more intelligent falsehood than three, which just sounds like some random thing that some idiot on the Internet said. I am half inclined to just say three's the falsehood just so we can stop stroking Brad's ego here for a minute. Let's see. I'm going to say Two's the falsehood, Brad.

1:03:18 I'm going to lock it in as my final answer. I think that this is the happiest I've been to say that you're right. Hey. This I will say normally 2 facts in a falsehood is a roller coaster for Bob. That was a roller coaster for me. Guys. I I'm feeling, I'm feeling emotionally drained right now. It was. It was a combo of getting beat up emotionally and then getting affirmed at the end, you know? Yeah, I really got you. Yeah, you guys. Pulled the rug out from under me and then helped me up. Yeah, it's like we delivered a little prestige there at the end. Exactly. All right, here's here's the thing I want to talk about.

1:03:59 Here's my question for you. So I was reading Roger Ebert's review on this because at this point, if the movie has a review by Ebert, I have to read it. And he he gave it three stars. And the final part of his his commentary I thought was fascinating because he basically docked this movie a star because at the end of the day, it wasn't. How do I want to say it? There was actual magic involved, right? Like he like, he is getting cloned. And I I think that the way Roger presented it was like I wanted it all to be a trick at the end that, you know, was manufactured because that's the whole point of magic tricks. Like we're not in the 1800s anymore. We don't think that these things are, you know, truly supernatural magic.

1:04:52 And I thought that that was a fascinating point and it it it took me to this point. Where I'm wondering, like at the end of the film there's a clear villain, right? Like Hugh Jackman is the villain of this movie and Christian Bale is is cast upon with a A merciful light by the end of the film. Is this movie a commentary on CGI? Yes, it is that Brad, thank you for that. This was going to be my big think piece pitch to Bilga and Vulture for the end of this. No, but I I really do think that there is a particular reason. And and Ebert was not alone in this, in his criticism of the movie, he basically argues that Nolan stops playing by his own rules, the rules of the world that he's created by introducing A literal like Deus Ex machina. At the end of the like there's a machine that clones somebody. We did not know that that this universe operated it within this set of rules.

1:05:51 Right. I mean, it's almost like a Tarantino, like, oh, by the way, we killed Hitler, right? Like, oh, I didn't realize that this was a. Historical fix, we can do that, Yeah. And and I was reading another review that basically the poll quote from it was like, I don't mind science fiction. I just want to know that that's what I'm watching. And so there were a number of critics that felt kind of duped by the end of this movie. I think that's intentional. And I think that like, if you're going to take the Freudian O tourist reading of this movie. The person that breaks the rules, the person that can't get one up on Christian Bale by playing fair, is the guy who introduces new technology into the mix. And Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan has gone on record and become one of the biggest champions for filming movies on film and preserving movies that are shot on film like he he has become.

1:06:47 I think probably more than anybody else, except maybe Scorsese, like the champion of the analog as opposed to the digital and this movie. If you want to take that reading, I think you could look at that Hugh Jackman character and say that's exactly what what Nolan was trying to do, was to present this guy as you're cheating by trying to introduce this entire new system. You can't do it better than somebody, and so you cheat, and the cheating is the introduction of these. Computer, you know, facsimile movies that are being churned out from the time this movie is made to now. I really do think that's a legitimate reading of the movie, Brad.

1:07:29 I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna soak in that for a minute. Watch Bill go, come in and be like, yeah, that's not a that's not a legitimate. Are idiots. I think that's a really interesting reading. I mean, I I think I I don't know that that's what he was thinking of. Like in the moment. Like in the moment, but, but, but I mean, I think, I think you know having watched his films and and you know having read interviews with him and things like that. I mean there is a kind of how do I say this without without sounding like a criticism but there is a kind of you know almost a Burkean conservative quality to Nolan, a sense of like. You know, preserving the past, they're preserving aspects of the past and and being, you know, somewhat skeptical of of technology.

1:08:21 I mean, it's not, I mean it's in, it's in all his movies, right. The idea that that knowledge can be a dangerous thing or the idea of the machine that must not be used, right. I mean, I think he's fascinated by the stuff. I think he's fascinated by the idea of. You know, science and the idea of progress and the idea of, you know, can we build this thing? Can we can we do this thing? Like, these are all ideas that that I think he's, he's engaged with throughout his career. But then there's also this like, Oh my God, what have we done? Right. I mean, you see it in the, you see it in the dark night, right, with with Batman's like the citywide sonar that he creates at the end of the film, which, you know, a lot of people. We're critical of the film for that because they were like, oh, this is a justification for Bush era surveillance. I was like, no, it's actually like a criticism of Bush era surve.

1:09:14 Yeah, exactly. Like it's it's a thing that in many ways it's it's that man's moral downfall that he uses that thing and he and he and you know he asks that it be destroyed. And in many ways it's one of the reasons why he exiles himself from Gotham at the end of the film. You know it's kind of. You know, allows himself to be punished and and thought of as a murderer because because of the the guilt that he feels over this thing. So and you know, I mean you know people will see, I mean anybody that knows the story of Robert Oppenheimer is like that. I mean the machine that must not be used, the ultimate machine that must not be used in atom bomb you know and so I mean it's an idea that runs throughout no one's filmography and.

1:10:02 And so there is that, there's that kind of fascination with and skepticism of that type of sort of quote UN quote scientific progress. I mean, it's not like it's not really scientific progress, but the idea that, you know, there are things we can do. And and if we take our knowledge and our research to their logical conclusion, like are we sure we're going to be happy with what we find, you know? Brad I I really do love the idea of these characters as sort of representative of Nolan in a way, though, And I think that there there are elements of the themes that we see throughout Nolan. So, like, if you want to read Nolan on to these characters, I think that final confrontation between the two, between Bale and Jackman, has such fascinating implications because they're both right and they're both wrong, and it's really. Jackman in a way that gets the last laugh, even though he's dying.

1:10:58 And he he basically tells Christian Bale, like, you never understood why we do this. Like you're obsessed with the craft, you're obsessed with getting better, but you get no pleasure out of it, you get no enjoyment out of it. And he says, like I, I have a much more pessimistic outlook on the world, but what I get joy from is being able to fool these people for one second and seeing the look on their faces. And I've. I've been really struggling to figure out like, is does Nolan believe that, like is Nolan inserting himself into a character that he may not actually agree with his motivations on? Like, because I think I can't tell if he's associating himself more with bail or more with Jackman.

1:11:41 Right. And it seems in a way, like Nolan's almost trying to teach himself something at the end of this movie. And I find it to be, you know, we have these movies every now and then, Brad, where we you and I just. You know, we had a field day with Spielberg. Like, every every movie with Spielberg is like, you could psychoanalyze the hell out of this, right? Yeah, I feel like this might. This movie in particular seems the most like a window into Nolan's psyche, but it's not always 100% clear what he's implicating himself in. Yeah, I mean, in in a certain sense, this is a movie about putting on performances, right? Like getting up on a stage and putting on a show for people where they suspend their disbelief.

1:12:24 So like in a weird way, this is a movie about making movies. And I I think that with that in mind, you can definitely point to certain things and say like, yeah, Nolan is is most likely inserting himself into these places. I I think the fascinating thing for me is the idea of like. Jonathan and him as a as a duo like to me it's just fascinating that Jonathan continues to write these movies for him and the idea that they are a pair here like that is fascinating to me. To see played out in the prestige that these two brothers are so close that they're able to work together in such a capacity. Right.

1:13:05 Like there's got to be something there, right? And to, you know, and to share a woman, you know, like, very crucially that is we, we cannot emphasize enough. That is the key to this whole Christopher had to like, sit down with his wife one night and be like, alright honey, like this isn't actually about please, please don't read too much into this movie, Brad, before we get into our last couple segments. I feel like I'm going to be the guy that I always hate hearing from. And that's the guy that's like, well, actually, I found some plot holes in this. I hate the plot hole guy, right? But I do think that the reason I will not give this movie like a perfect score and that I don't think it works perfectly is that while it's not reliant on the twist, there are implications of the twist that are kind of like, hold on a second, you know what I mean? Like.

1:13:55 Why did Hugh Jackman just hold on to all of these bodies in the basement? Like, you know, you can't like, dump them in the river, like tie a brick to them or something. Like there are there's just a few unanswered questions that if you think about it for more than two seconds, it really does kind of harm the twist of the movie. I think that's ultimately why, like, the fact that the movie's not relying on the twist is a good thing. Because if it was relying on the twist, I think people could really, like, eviscerate this movie if they wanted to. But there's just something about, like, was the makeup on on the Twin really that convincing that they could kidnap him and bury him alive after, I'm assuming, roughing him up And, like, his false mustache never came off. Like, and they never noticed that he looked exactly like Christian Bale with a mustache.

1:14:44 You know what I mean? Like, there are elements of the movie that it's you really got us stretch the limits of your belief. For me, the one thing that really stretched my belief was the fact that he just had made millions and millions of dollars off of his magic show so that he could go live in Colorado for six to 10 months and finance all of Nikola Tesla's stuff. Like that was the one thing where I was like, man, where did he get all this money? And then he comes back and he's able to establish himself as an English Lord. With like a castle and grounds and servants, I was just like, where did all this money come from? But isn't isn't his whole thing that, that, that that's actually like that he is actually he comes from money, right? Isn't that I thought that was the whole thing like. Yeah, like there's definitely class elements to it. That's because he does have that line where he says, like, you know, my family thought that this was too, you know, low for me.

1:15:47 Yeah, like he's running from his his family well. No, you're probably right. I honestly didn't think about that. Yeah, but but you know that's that's fair. One thing that really pulls me out of the movie, and this is a complete aside, guys, is like when he's dressed up as the Twin, what's what's the guy's name that he calls himself as the Twin? Oh God, I forgot. Yeah, OK, whatever. You know, we'll call him Jeff when he's when he's dressed up as Jeff. They get, you know, he has these kind of like little pudgy chipmunk cheeks a little bit. He looks exactly like Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, like in Victorian garb.

1:16:28 And there were a couple times that I was like how much better would this movie be with like a Day Man song inserted into it. You know, like I I could not get over, go back and watch it again. It's it's uncanny how much he looks like Charlie Day. Oh man, we need to get away from day man real quick, Bob. So I I actually have a a a plot hole as well. And it it, I think it only really dawned on me the last time I saw the film. Possibly it dawned on me before too and I just forgot about it. But so I mean, as we see in the opening scene of the film, Christian Bale, he's his character like it's, you know, Hugh Jackman is doing The Transported Man, Christian Bale.

1:17:12 Goes down there, sees Hugh Jackman in the in the tub of water drowning. And he, you know, he tries to, you know bust through and he doesn't. And you know is is accused of killing Hugh Jackman. But like, given how quickly the the magic trick works, by that point Hugh Jackman would have been. Replicated already in the audience. And like, reemerged. Yeah. 100% emerged, right. So at that point, you can't blame it, like you can't accuse him of murdering the guy. After you have to reveal that there is another Hugh Jackman, right?

1:17:55 I mean, it's it's that doesn't quite work for me. I think the implication there is that, like with most times where they're both undercover, the magician figures it at like. He I think he sees Christian Bale come up on stage and makes the split second decision of like I am not going to come out and reveal myself after I get cloned. I'm going to run off and start this new life because this is my opportunity to frame Christian Bale like that was at least my reading of it, right Like he made he made the decision because I I think the the cloning machine he recalibrates it so that instead of cloning him in place. The clone is the one that stays behind in place and gets dropped into the the water, and then the real Hugh Jackman is the one that gets shot into the back of the theater, right?

1:18:43 Oh, see, I never thought that. They're both real. That's the thing. It's like, cuz, he says. I never knew if I was going to be the one to drown or not. Like that's that's the thing that's that's tearing him apart. Is that it? I mean, it's a it's a if you think about it, it's kind of an elegant counterpoint to the fact that. Christian Bale is living 2 lives like he's he's like dying a death. Like he's he's he's he's dying 2 deaths in a way. Like not two deaths, but like it's a kind of like, but it's like a mirror image of that, right? Because you know, Christian Bale never knows who's going to, who's living his life at any given moment. And then Christie Hugh Jackman doesn't know who's dying his death at any given moment. Yeah.

1:19:29 So that's the thing. It's like she doesn't know because his consciousness is being fractured essentially. And there are two of them, but one dies. And that's, I mean that's fascinating because he doesn't know. He doesn't know like when he goes into the thing, that particular consciousness. Am I? Am I the one that's going to end up in the drink, or am I the one that's going to end up in the thing? Got it, got it. Honestly, it it almost feels like getting into a time travel conversation with your friends about like how time travel works, where you're like, well, if he if he's splitting, like is he an exact copy at the back of the at the back of the theater that like. Not only is an exact copy of knowing everything that the original knows, but also feeling everything that the original feels like, feeling the depth of hatred towards Christian Bale and and like, like, there's so many questions that I had coming out of the theater when I first watched this of like and it was all about the cloning.

1:20:28 Like, I didn't, I didn't care about anything else in the film. I was like, I need to know how this cloning works. And now 15 years later, I'm like, oh, the movie's a lot more than that. Well, I mean it is, but it also it's like it ties directly into that, right. It it ties into this idea of the fractured self and and what that means for cloning and which is actually, you know, which I guess is a question if, you know, if cloning were to be possible, like that's that's the thing that we would have to be wrestling with. And but The Fractured Self is also this idea that runs throughout Nolan's movie. I mean the superhero movie is like Bruce Wayne and Batman. I'm talking about a fractured self and a guy who can't live. One full life, one fully realized life.

1:21:11 I mean, you see a variation of it Inception. You see a variation of it in Interstellar, you see it in tenant, right? I mean, you know, the most powerful moment of tenant for me is, you know, at the end when they go back to the airport and we suddenly realized, oh, he was fighting himself in that scene. That scene is so powerful to me because it's like. Obviously within the context of the movie, it's about a specific thing and you know it's an action movie and whatnot. But like there's such a such great metaphorical power in that, you know and and I think Nolan is very much aware of it because he's been, he's been playing with this idea his whole life, right? And even even Memento. Oh yeah.

1:21:51 Like who killed my wife? Oh, I did. You know, like. But I can't live with that. So let me Yeah, exactly right. So yeah, I mean it's just this thing in in in all his movies and I find that really powerful. But yeah, you know it's in the book. It's it really is it's it's a really great book. But it is so much more a novel than a film. And and and I actually, I gained even more respect for Nolan and and for Jonathan Nolan after I read the novel because I I just kept thinking to myself. There's so many changes they've made to the novel while sort of maintaining its spirit.

1:22:33 Like the changes that they've made make it so much more effective as a film. But the novel, you could not adapt that novel straight into a movie. It just wouldn't work at all. It works beautifully as a novel. And it's so different like the film is so different in so many ways but but they've streamlined it and simplified it but then it expanded on certain other elements in the in the novel that are just briefly mentioned and and it really it's just it's a it's a wonderful adaptation in that sense. I mean if I ever like taught a class about you know adapting books to film, I would assign this one. Man, I'm really regretting not picking the book up before we recorded this one, Brad. Like.

1:23:14 Yeah, you know, every once in a while I think you can get away with it. Like, yeah, I didn't really need to read the book because the movie's so good, but it sounds like they really, you know, it. It is. It's really interesting when it's a true adaptation, when it's not just lifted from page to screen. And they they do find ways to make it more cinematic. It sounds like that was the case here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you don't have to read the book to to be able to appreciate the movie. So. So don't worry about the fact that you haven't read the book. But it is like if you do read the book, you gain a newfound, a different appreciation of it because it's like, oh wow, like what possessed them to to do this with this story element? You know, it's you'll, you'll read the book. I mean it's it's honestly, I read it in like 2 days and I'm not a fast reader at all and it's like 350 pages. It just breezes by.

1:24:00 Well, guys, I think this is like a perfect segue into talking about a perfect movie to pair this up with. So Brad, let's get into our final segment of the day, which we call, let's make it a double. We're near the end of the episode, so thanks for listening to the film and whiskey show. Let's pair another film with this one. Even if it's struggle, it's a final segment of the day. Now let's make it a double. Like I said, let's make it a double is the part of the show where we paired this movie up with a second film to make the perfect double feature. Brad, as we have a guest with us today, I think we should let him go first. Bilga, we've been giving you some time to to ruminate, to marinate on this. What would you pair the Prestige with? You know, I went back and forth on this one.

1:24:42 Obviously there are two sort of obvious examples that that I need that are not going to be my choice. But you know, we've talked about the illusionist. I mean it. The movie effectively was a double feature in that sense. You know Illusionist, which is the other period magic drama thriller that about obsession that that came out around the same time and which I think. Lows but. Haven't revisited since then, but was also seen by a lot of people as because Prestige was kind of like the studio movie and the illusionist was like the Sundance movie. So no, the Illusionist is like the real real good movie and Prestige is just. You know, studio fluff with movie stars and so.

1:25:26 And then of course there's the, the obvious, also obvious double feature of Batman Begins, which was Christopher Nolan's other film this year, which is also about a fracture itself and about obsession and about trauma and, you know, righteous rage that. Kurdles into something worse. And I mean there's there's so many themes that are in both movies that you could create a great double feature of the two films. But the movie I'm going to go with is a movie made by a gentleman with whom I just published an interview that I think also makes movies about two opposing strong opposing personalities who in some ways.

1:26:10 Can't live without each other, but are often trying to destroy one another, and that movie is John Woo's face off. Yes. Which is which is another movie that turns on like a scientific invention that seems utterly absurd and yet the film just kind of takes it as a matter of fact. But also is about like, I mean in in its own completely demented, entirely unknown like way, but is about like 2 characters. Who are kind of unable to live their their real lives because of their obsession with one another and that becomes, you know, physically manifested in like the fractured cells in so far as in this case, they trade each other's faces, yes, face off and the prestige I think would make a fantastic bell feature. Brad, I don't think we're going to top this. I'm so mad that we didn't say that for last because that's what I mean.

1:27:09 Anytime you can suggest a Travolta Cage pairing with any movie we do, you you win. Yeah. All right, Brad, you want to go next? Sure. I, you know, I usually try to pick my double feature based on the theme of the film. And so I started thinking of my brand. I was like, what are some great movies about, like obsessiveness? And I realized there will be blood. I think would be just an incredible double feature and I so yeah, that's my pick. There will be Blood. I think it would be a really depressing evening but I think you would watch some great cinema. There you go. In reading a little bit about this movie and some of the reviews that came out, one of the films that continually came up as a comparison point to this was Amadeus in terms of, you know, a a diabolical and deadly rivalry.

1:28:02 And I think that that's a fantastic pairing, but it's not original to me, so I'm not going to claim it, but I do think that's probably one of the better ones you could do. I started thinking back through movies about obsession as well, Brad, and I'm going to come out with a pretty, you know, a pretty milquetoast 1 here. But like, it's Vertigo, man. Like a movie about a man who's the, the, the blonde love of his life is taken from him by a lie that is being told around him. And that he obsessively tries to recreate a time in his life by making it again in his own image, only to his utter ruin. Like if it does not get more similar thematically than to pair this movie for me at least, with Vertigo.

1:28:45 And I think that like any chance I get to recommend Vertigo to people, I'm going to do it. Yeah, that that's a that is a perfect recommendation, Bob. It's not as good as face off, but I had. I did my best. No, it's a good one. Both. Both of you came up with great ones, I think. I will say that the, the, the Vertigo thing makes me think, you know there's probably a really great like Brian De Palma film that prestige would we could also like hire Brian De Palma to remake the prestige and which would probably result in the just the sickest movie ever. But but yeah, you know like like I mean body double or femme fatale or you know there's so many films that you know that that take the ideas that are in the prestige and just that are late in the prestige and just make them over. You know, I was thinking about this, actually. It's a, it's a great point that you make like in in the current IP wasteland that we're in, where every filmmaker just has to get, you know, a Mattel product handed to them or something.

1:29:41 Like, I've been trying to think of, if Nolan were to do a recognizable IP again outside of Batman, like what would be a great one? Thematically, they've been thinking about Frankenstein and like. No one's made a good Frankenstein movie in a long time, and I really think this idea of like, trying to resurrect the past and creating a freakish creature out of it and the ruination of everybody as a result, like that's a Christopher Nolan movie if I've ever heard of 1. So this is my official. Pitch like. Yeah, exactly. Now if you could tell it in like 4 different story like timelines then it it's definitely a perfect. Well, you'd have to tell like, like the the story of the bride and then, yeah, Frankenstein.

1:30:27 And then you'd have to tell the story of. Like Dr. Frankenstein. And then you'd have to tell the story of, like, Mary Shelley, and then you'd have to interweave them. But which, by the way, like, why are we even talking about this in public? We should just, like, write that treatment and send it to him A. 100%. But yes, and then you know Nolan is a is a big fan of of Stanley Kubrick obviously. And every Kubrick movie is, is on some level of Frankenstein story. You know like it's no, you're right, you're absolutely right. And Frankenstein like all those ideas that are in his movies. You know, the idea of, you know, the monstrousness of scientific knowledge and and the machine that was not be used. And I mean there's so many great great ideas there. Wow, that's a great idea.

1:31:09 I will leave it at that. I was complimented by Bill Gabiri and my day has been made. Guys, let's give this movie some final scores. Brad, I'll just get mine out of the way real quick. I think this is a really, really good movie. My enjoyment level of the movie was probably like a nine out of 10 and I was not expecting that. I think I'm going to come to an 8.5 on this movie just because I do think there are some plot holes in the movie. There are some flaws to the film. It's not a perfect movie, but this has pretty rapidly risen up my ranking of Nolan films. I think this is a great movie and definitely fodder for some really good double features as well. So it's an 8.5 for me.

1:31:50 Yeah, I think for me, I I came into this curious, you know, this is his fourth film. Fifth maybe? 5th movie. 5th movie and I I feel like watching Memento, we mentioned that there was one or two moments, especially in the flashback scenes, where I was like, oh, there's Nolan, like, like I can feel him in this scene and I feel like prestige, you know, you get some of that and Batman Begins there. There's there are things from that movie that feel very Nolanesque. I feel like this is the first movie where I am fully immersed and I feel like I am watching a Capital C Christopher Nolan film, right? And so I think that that goes a long way towards showing what an incredible director he is, that that he is getting his grip on what his movies are going to feel like.

1:32:41 And on top of all that, it's an incredible story about two men. And their obsessive nature that just spirals into insanity. And I I really, really love this movie. It's going to keep me coming back for years to come. So yeah, it's a nine out of 10 for me. I think I I mean, I I'm terrible with ratings because the movies I love are the ones I love and and I can't, you know, clearly, like it's a 10 out of 10 for me. I just, I revisited so many times. I I have a an ongoing null and ranking at Vulture. I think it's #3 there, number three or four. But it's also like every single one of those movies is great like except for like maybe the bottom two which are following in insomnia, you know.

1:33:26 So it's like I can't I can't give it less than a 10 even though you know it's it's not quite on the level of Dark Knight or Dunkirk for me. But you know what is? All right, so there you have it. I gave it an 8 1/2. Brad gave it a nine. Builder gives it A10. I love it when our scores ascend as we give them. That's always nice. It's always nice when a guest comes on the show and is like, man, I love this movie and here's why. And I'm have zero shame. It's a 10 out of 10. That like that just warms my heart. Me too. And that's like, my expectation because when we when we send out invites to guests, like, we let them pick the movie. And I'm always shocked when someone's like, yeah, this is a solid 7. Like, what are you talking about? Like, you, you picked this movie, man. So.

1:34:11 So Bilga, thank you for doing what you're supposed to do and giving this movie a 10 out of 10. I appreciate it. Oh yeah. All right, as we wind down today, Bilga, please plug yourself. Where can we find you? What are you working on that you're allowed to divulge to us now? I you can always find my stuff at vulture.com, that's, you know, that's my employer. So that's really kind of where my stuff is for New York Magazine. And these days, well, I'm working on an Oppenheimer piece that that will be dropping soon, hopefully at the time of writing at the time of at the time that we are talking, it has not been filed yet.

1:34:54 Hopefully it's not killed before this run set. But you know I'm always, I'm always, you know every week I review something. So we always got something in the works. I love it. Is there like a is there a code of ethics around saying that your piece on Oppenheimer is dropping sometime soon? Like are we, are we allowed to to lean into the double entendre of that one or not so much with Oppenheimer? Yes, somehow I suspect my piece will have less of an impact on world history. That is fair, that is. Fair to assume. Than the other one that dropped, but yes. Well Bilga, we cannot thank you enough for joining us today everybody. This has been Bilga Ibiri, one of our favorite film critics and lovers of the movie face off Brad.

1:35:40 We will be back next week as we finish out our little miniseries on Christopher Nolan with his 2017 film Dunkirk. I'm pretty excited for that one. Is that going to be a first time watch for you. It sure will, Bob. No, that's exciting. Cool. Yeah. All right. So join us next week for Dunkirk. But until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad Gee. And we'll see you next time.