As I remember, that was the point of each night’s game. On the first day, the goal wasn’t to find the real shoplifter, it was to find out who held the shoplifter card. If you managed to figure out how the photograph was staged, then you’d know the answer to each evening’s game in advance.
However, that wasn’t all there was to it. You still had to find Clinton (the host of the game) and give him the answer before the target of that night’s hunt managed to find him.
So the photograph would give you some helpful information, but not enough to guarantee you’d win. Clinton, having planned the game so meticulously, would have realized that. He may have wanted to post a hint in plain sight, but not at the risk of spoiling the game if someone figured it out.
I’m not sure that’s quite right. IIRC, one way to learn a person’s secret is to get to Clinton before that night’s target does — which is when he’d tell you who has that secret, instead of the other way around — but if you doped out the bit with the photo and never bothered to get to Clinton, then (a) you could discover everybody’s secret, without peeking of course, and (b) I figure that had to have been a possible way to win the game, per his quip about not having to move for it if you’re smart enough.
Back in Age of Ultron in 2015, the Avengers go to Hawkeye’s home and meet his family. Initially stunned by meeting Clint’s wife, Tony utters the line “This is an agent of some kind.”
Then in 2021, during the Hawkeye series, we find out that Laura Barton was in fact a Shield agent.
There’s an old Rodgers and Hart song called “I wish I were in love again.” It was one of my favorites of their songs, although pretty bitter and cynical in spots, and I always especially admired it because it was a song that had an unusual grammatic instance done correctly for once in a pop song.
Or so I thought. But I was wrong. (Grammarians, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)
“I were in love again” is the subjunctive mood. It would be grammatically correct, for example, to say “If I were in love again, then I would be happy.” But “I wish” does not take the subjunctive mood. So it should be “I wish I was in love again.” Shouldn’t it?
(Hart may have done this on purpose, although I don’t understand what his purpose might have been.)
THE PRESTIGE pretty much opens with stage magician Hugh Jackman framing rival magician Christian Bale for murder — by correctly figuring that Bale, in disguise and on the wings of a lie, will sneak backstage in hopes of learning how the trick is done.
And we learn, over the course of the film, that Jackman got that right the same way he got that limp: because Bale injured him, upon sneaking backstage in hopes of unscrupulously getting an advantage, when sabotaging an earlier performance — just like we learn that Jackman, in disguise, cost Bale some fingers by sabotaging Bale’s “bullet” trick. And just like we learn that Bale sabotaged Jackman’s “bird” trick. And we learn that Jackman didn’t just send a spy to work with Bale, but also kidnapped someone who worked with Bale; and the payoff to all of this is, Bale goes from getting framed for murder to, well, getting away with murder.
But what I’d never really noticed is: when they’re each starting out, and in need of a big break, Michael Caine tells ‘em: “You two go and see that show, and whichever one of you can tell me how he does the goldfish-bowl trick gets the prize.” As it happens, Bale quickly figures it out, and, before reporting back to Caine, promptly clues in Jackman — as if they’re fair-play types who can trust one another, or something? And, from Jackman’s response, that’s apparently the case!
It’s small, almost trivial. But the ramifications seem profound.
Watched Raiders of the Lost Ark today (I had it on while cleaning, as background I could pay attention to or not, depending on how I felt) and noticed something I never had before.
During the Fight in the marketplace (the one where Marion is wearing the white shirt and red pants, and ultimately gets kidnapped while in a basket and apparently killed), Indiana outmaneuvers a guy who’s trying to impale him on a sword, so that the sword guy ends up impaling another guy (his accomplice, I think).
I never noticed before that, when they go to the reverse angle and see him pull the sword out, he has also impaled two oranges (or some other yellow fruit), which fall off as he pulls out the sword.
Toht shows up at Marion’s bar with some thugs to try to get the amulet. One of the thugs is fighting with Indy, and Toht tells one of his men “shoot them; shoot them both.” For some reason, the thug that’s fighting with Indy keeps fighting him. If you’re that guy, wouldn’t you think that maybe your boss doesn’t deserve your loyalty?
Why are the directions to the relic of a Hebrew god in the Staff of Ra, professional courtesy?
The whole city of Tanis was buried and is being excavated by the Nazis. It’s lucky that they unearthed the Map Room before the Well of Souls or else the whole chase for the amulet would have been pointless.
A cute moment that I missed the first time I saw Raiders (probably the first several times - I’m not all that perceptive.) was that they did stop fighting for a second or two, just long enough to shoot the thug that had received the “shoot them both” order and was about to comply.
With him dead, they went back to struggling with each other. (And, yeah, I don’t know why the first thug didn’t give it up right then and there and volunteer to work for Indy and Marion.)
Memory could be failing me here but didn’t Angier get the limp because his alcoholic lookalike (also Jackman) sabotaged the trick one night and removed the safety mat?
Do you recall the alcoholic lookalike dangling from a rope while bound and gagged in front of an audience that’s laughing at him — and applauding Bale — while a freshly-injured Jackman 1.0 is under the stage?
I enjoyed THE PRESTIGE but I do not understand its premise. I must have seen it three or four times, and it still confuses me. Who is doing what to whom, and why, and where they’re pretending to have certain emotions and where they actually do hate, love, resent, admire etc. the people they’re claiming to feel this way about. Just a colossal mess, if a well-constructed one, technically.
Make sure to watch it with closed captioning on. The dialog is written so that pretty much every single line is meaningful, even the ones you think are throwaway lines. The accents and fast speech patterns make it really easy to miss something fleeting but important.
On Electric Light Orchestra’s Out of the Blue album, one whole side of one of the records has a grouping of songs that constitute, “Concerto For A Rainy Day.” As the first song kicks into gear, there’s a roll of thunder with Jeff Lynne speaking through a Vocoder at the same time. For decades, I thought it was just scat lyrics to simulate thunder. Guess what it’s really saying?