The Illusionist and Elemental Magic reviews

[alobear]

I meant to go and see The Illusionist when it came out in the cinema but somehow never managed it.  It's been on my DVD rental list ever since but never been selected, so it was very cool when Dave randomly downloaded it and we watched it the other day.  One can't help comparing it to the other 19th Century magicians film that came out at the same time - The Prestige.  I would say The Illusionist was not as good, but that I enjoyed it more.  I pretty much figured out the mystery as it went along, but that didn't spoil it at all, and it's always good to see Edward Norton at work, particularly since I don't think I've seen him do a period role before.  Interestingly, I think the best performance was given by Paul Giamatti as the policeman - interesting because I've never been keen on him before.

Elemental Magic is a book of four short stories (about 100 pages each), one by Sharon Shinn, the others by authors I hadn't heard of before and can't remember off-hand now.  It was mildly entertaining, but a little disappointing as all four stories were very predictable and a little lacking in depth.  Romantic fantasy can be done extremely well, as Sharon Shinn has demonstrated in the large majority of her books, but I can happily do without explicit sex scenes, which put me off two of the stories, and the other two were just a bit bland.

Comments

[vampadvocate.livejournal.com]

I first noticed Paul Giamatti is in a film I really love called "Sideways" - he's very good in that too. It's nice to see that he's seems to be doing well for himself despite not being movie star handsome.

[alobear.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I really didn't get on with Sideways. I only got half way through it, though I couldn't tell you specifically what was wrong with it - it just didn't engage me at all. I've seen many really good reviews of it, and it's been recommended to me by several people, though, so I must be missing something! :o)

[quintus-marcius.livejournal.com]

You're only missing something if you are unable to understand why these people like the film. I would have thought it would be fairly obvious why I do, for example. Was that what you meant (your statement that you enjoyed the Illusionist but considered The Prestige a better film exemplifies either this concept or a lack of confidence in your own judgement)?

By the way, you have twice in this post called the book Elemantal Magic, which I have to assume is deliberate. Does it explain the unusual spelling anywhere?

[alobear.livejournal.com]

There are lots of books, films, etc, where I can appreciate the quality without getting enjoyment out of them myself - these are things where I can see why other people like them. Sideways I just found tedious because I wasn't interested in any of the characters, so no, I don't see why other people like it. That's not to say that I think other people *shouldn't* like it, as I am very much an advocate of the theory that nobody should belittle other people's enjoyment of things just because they don't share it.

As for the spelling of the book title - I'm afraid my brain must have just been having a consistent aberration, as it is actually called Elemental Magic and I have no idea why I would have spelt it incorrectly twice!