90. Biel, Fisher, Johansson…Magical Women

 

Now You See Me: A Magical Best Pick

 

Everyone goes to a magic show thinking they are smarter than the magician. They know the missing card is up his sleeve or the butler did it!!! This, of course, is before the show begins. When the show begins, the magician and his Bengal Tiger are on the stage as the lights suddenly dim and there is an explosion enveloping the two. When the lights come back up, the magician and his fierce looking tiger are on a pedestal behind your dinner table. Spontaneously, all the experts at the table are saying “nice kitty” at the exact same moment. Everyone was too frightened to say “how did he do that”.

Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco are the magicians in Now You See Me. They are trying to stay one step ahead of Mark Ruffalo (the police), Michael Caine (the financier), and Morgan Freeman (the magic debunker). The audiences they entertain with their show and give large sums of money to don’t care how they did it.

Be assured, like those attending the magician and his tiger show, you will be fooled at least three times in the movie.

Now You See Me’s movie trailer was fast paced. The movie is even more so as you are transported to bank vaults in Europe and then whisked back to cities all over the United States. Jesse Eisenberg may not be mentioned in the “best actor” roll call. However, his Facebook work and the work in this movie were riveting. Eisenberg, learning from this movie, will receive greater mentions if he keeps on putting great and interesting actors around his work.

The Prestige…A Magical Best Pick

If you haven’t had your fill of magic after this movie, you should run straight to your On Demand channels and queue up The Prestige when you get home. It is number one on the best magic movie lists of a large number of critics. This turn of the century tale has Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman fighting for magical supremacy and Scarlett Johansson.

The movie, at first, is about magic but quickly turns to hate as the men try to destroy each other and any chance of sharing the many theaters featuring magic throughout Europe. One of the neat aspects of the movie is David Bowie playing Nikola Tesla. Tesla was electricity’s “mad scientist” as he rivaled Edison and others with his groundbreaking work. His ideas are featured in The Prestige. Tesla would only live in a hotel with New York as his main stomping ground. Nikola’s penniless death in 1943 is a suggested and interesting research topic.

The Illusionist…A Magical Best Pick

Three magic movie suggestions do not constitute overload when the movies are the quality of the ones featured here. The Illusionist is an adaption of the short story Eisenheim The Illusionist. In the movie, Ed Norton plays the magician who is in love with a beautiful woman way above his class. She belongs to Rufus Sewell (Crown Prince Leopold), who since the woman is Jessica Biel and not Melissa McCarthy, does not want to give her up.

Plotting, magic, plotting, and more magic stream throughout the movie. The beauty of 19^th century Vienna frames the battle of wits and magic. The landscape overshadows the brutality of the Crown Prince to his subjects and to woman as Jessica Biel fears for her love of many years ago, Norton. Paul Giamatti plays the prince’s henchman inspector in one of his few serious roles.

The June And July Playlist…Weddings And Anniversaries

People Magazine just came out with a great concept wrapped around what songs are the best songs for a June wedding. Keeping in mind the musical tastes of the bride and groom and the attending invitees, here are our top ten selections. They will appeal to the rock and roll, jazz, classical, country, and blue grass fans. Well, may not the bluegrass audience!!! Should they be great dance tunes as well as wedding message tunes, too?

Here are our choices. Many are not the original artists. These are the artists we would play. A giant interactive screen would show the video as the songs were presented at the wedding. High Valley’s up tempo play of a usually slower Let It Be Me will add some pep to the wedding dance floor. What three songs would you add to the list? What was your first dance with your new partner tune?

Wedding Playlist

1. Elvis Presley…I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You
2. Etta James…At Last
3. Sugarland…When You Got A Good Thing
4. Olivia Newton John…Hopelessly Devoted To You
5. Wynonna Judd…To Be Loved By You
6. Clay Aiken…Something About Us
7. High Valley…Let It Be Me
8. Michael Crawford And Sarah Brightman…All I Ask Of You
9. Andrea Bocelli…Dare To Live
10. Frank Sinatra…You Will Be My Music

There are three great getting back together videos on YouTube that we discovered while reviewing wedding songs.

Bon Jovi…You Want To Make A Memory is super well-staged video.
Matchbox Twenty…Overjoyed is a new song that will help you to reunite with a past love. Does anyone make playlists like John Cusack anymore?
Beyonce and Luther Van Dross…The Closer I Get To You is one of Beyonce’s best duets and shows her sweet voice without the gyrations.

Kellie Pickler…A Quantuum Of Fresh Air On The View

After her appearances in the Poconos and Atlantic City, Kellie Pickler took her new album tour to co-host the view last Tuesday. She should be invited back as one of the four permanent hosts on The View. Her discussion of cutting off all her hair to support a friend going through chemotherapy was endearing and poignant.

We are nominating Kellie for full time host on The View. She would give a younger, not know it all, refreshing, mid-west view to the show. CMT, the site that tracks the social lives of stars, introduced the additional subjects she discussed on the show and we reprinted them below.

Other topics Kellie Pickler shared with the viewing audience:
Learning to dance from Derek Hough: “It was amazing. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I had a great teacher. You have to have that dancing drill sergeant.”
Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson being physically abused in public by her husband: “That ain’t got nothing to do with her cookbooks. That’s not our business.”
The trend of boudoir photography for brides and their bridesmaids: “I don’t think that girls need any encouragement taking nude pictures of themselves. There’s been a lot of problems with that in the past.”
On the medical need for getting a lot of sleep: “I’m a napper.”
“Are you a big fan of zombie movies?”: To Mireille Enos star of the new zombie movie World War Z with Brad Pitt.

  

Pink Nation Speaks…Pinkalicious Is The Winner

The Pink Nation has recently welcomed a new member. We are not talking about the recording artist Pink, or the Victoria Secret Pink section. We are talking about Pinkalicious the new children’s book and the character Pinkalicious Pinkerton created by Victoria Kann. Pinkalicious has taken over the minds of kindergarten through fourth grade girls throughout the Americas who formed the Pinkalicious Societry and have Pinkalicious parties where, what else, pink is the theme.

There are over ten books in the series as Pinkalicious finds ways to introduce situations from emerald to silver. The first book Pinkalicious is a good start but Silverlicious is our favorite. In the book Pinkalicious loses a tooth and her taste. She asks the tooth fairy for help in a letter. Every “buddy” in a young child’s realm from a Christmas elf to cupid to the Easter bunny sends her help letters and goodies to no avail. She needs the tooth fairy. Naturally the fairy is nowhere to be found. The book introduces letter writing and friendships that are great lessons and short-term projects for young readers.

Helping Local Businesses, Entrepreneurs, And Artists

More and more community members and business representatives are sending information about their companies, businesses, and work to the column. Next week we will begin featuring the best writers, poets, critics, artists, and gamers from local high schools and colleges. If you have something that can be featured in the column please send me your picture and your post and we will feature you on the column (tjpalumbo.aol.com).

New Visitor’s Greeting…Welcome to Let’s Talk, a freewheeling column on movies, theater, television, books, educational practices, the arts, current events, and the Internet. If you are a first time visitor to the column, I recommend that you start with the About topic in the Index Bar at the top of the page. Follow About with the Let’s Talk column I in archives. It was the first column of the New Year. Proceed to Let’s Talk II and then work your way up to today’s column. These columns will introduce a plethora (a better word choice than myriad) of new ideas and old delights you may have missed. It will give you a strong foundation for some of the issues we are introducing and then following up in newer columns.

New Visitors…New visitor’s comments are welcome, too. They are immediately placed on this page in the contributor’s comment section or are shared with the column’s readers on Sunday. You are welcome, also, to suggest topics for discussion or enlist help from the site’s family of readers. I am a compendium of useless information. Challenge me, please, with great theater, travel, history, books, movies, and educational issues that would interest a wide audience of readers. The “compendium comment” was stolen from Orson Bean. Bean used the quote many times on television talk show interviews. Please recommend my column to your friends and other lovers of creative discussion.