some terrifying dark art

So far, the reviews on The Prestige are largely not good. The book is very complicated and hinges on an obsessive attention to detail about things most people don't care about, so it's unsurprising the movie would be hemmed in by the same. That said, most of the criticism seems to be not about this, but the fact that the characters are so driven and because of this, so seemingly heartless. Yes, that's right folks, one of the movies I've been most eager about this year is being panned because it's too Slytherin.

That said, The Village Voice has a review that's pretty good and written in a rather lovely way:

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0642,foundas,74759,20.html

Its final paragraph sums up, largely, how I feel about most everything:

Directing his first period feature, Nolan has picked the ideal setting for a filmmaker of such rationalist inclinations—that seismic moment at which the Victorian era began to cave under the weight of the nascent Machine Age. Thus The Prestige, filmed with a minimum of digital chicanery, is at once a lament for the loss of the manual and analog and an awestruck marveling at the possibilities of electricity and mechanization. In one moment of ethereal beauty, Tesla makes a field of oversize lightbulbs burst into brilliant illumination without apparent benefit of wires or generators. And so one is reminded how, for all the wonderment of a Houdini or a David Copperfield, the true magic of the universe lies in the onward march of science and industry, and in those many things we now take for granted—like movies themselves—that once seemed the workings of some terrifying dark art.

update-ish

Desmond is sort of the only character on Lost who holds my attention these days, but this episode has been worth it for the "Einstein of the bear community" remark. Colbert should be traumatized for about a month.

Meanwhile, I'm having a really hard time with one of my hands, and I don't know if it's because of all the typing I generally do 9although I had a big break with the ball and the L&O gig or some sort of bad celiac thingy -- it definitely feels like nerves not listening to me right as opposed to muscles. I'm not concerned concerned, but I'mm concerned.

I'm going to view the classical fencing class a week from today, and then will start class the Monday following if it's viable at my current strength level.

Goals for tonight, after Project Runway: another chapter of Ghosts up, some more Regency photos, some Descensus work, some emails about the PR panel I want to submit on multimedia fics and a bit of poking my Swordspoint bunny with sticks.

Project Runway

Michael: Wow, what happened?

Laura: No one complains Vera Wang is limited in scope.

Uli: Probably the best combination of marketable, wearable and innovative of the bunch.

Jeffrey: Maybe it's something more in person, but on TV is seemed not that wearable and not exciting enough to make up for that fact. I don't get it. But then I like my deconstruction to be a "remembrance of a lost world" sort of thing as opposed to a "post apocalypse" sort of thing (which is also why Santino didn't really do it for me.