WickedThought

Jack Shephard is Scott Summers done right.

I’ve been coughing all night. Not a wink of sleep for two nights. Every twenty seconds (I timed it), a violent cough. The kind I had when I was staying with ‘s family two years ago.

Cowboy Ron brought me a ton of DVDs to watch. He rules. Those DVDs include the first two seasons of Lost.

Watching the first couple of episodes, I was intrigued. But then, something happened that knocked my friggin’ head off. I mean, really. Something that just plowed me down. No mercy. Hammered on me. Kicked my ass and didn’t care what my name was.

Locke wiggled his toes.

I cried like a baby.

From that moment on, the show owns me.

Preview Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards.

(Right now, they have 30 second snips of Brawlers up. They’ll be adding more as the release date gets closer.)

Yes, I’m dancing. And probably throwing up.

Like most members of the male gender, I ignore the physical consequences of my actions. Despite being sick, I went to a movie last night.

And at 3:00 AM, I woke up unable to breathe, choking on the phlegm I’d been coughing up in my sleep.

There was a moment, a real moment, when my mind told me, “You’re alone. Nobody can help you. You’re going to die like this and nobody’s going to find your body for days.”

A few more moments of asphyxiation and I finally manage to choke it up. And breathe.

Today, I stop being macho and go to the doctor.

In the first act of the movie, one of the characters shows the secret of a trick to a young girl. “Never let them see how you do it,” he advises. “As long as they don’t know, they’ll respect you.”

Christopher Nolan has given away the secret of translating written work to the visual medium. He’s done it three times now–twice successfully, I might add, and once not as much. With Memento and Batman Begins, he had both a brilliant and flawed success, respectively. With The Prestige, however, he’s succeeded even more than his first attempt.

I’ve often said the trick of transferring the written word to the silver screen had little to do with changing the plot and everything to do with being true to the material. A film like Fight Club, for example, deviates heavily from the source material, but maintains a truth to the original work. So much so that Chuck Palahnuik–the author of forementioned book–now admits to being ashamed of his first novel, preferring to tell people, “Just watch the movie; it’s better.”

In this case, Nolan has taken The Prestige, a dense, dark and amazing novel and done something remarkable with it: he’s actually made it better.

Okay, maybe that isn’t fair. I enjoyed The Prestige when I read it and looked forward to the movie with all sorts of expectation. Watching the previews, I noticed Nolan had ditched the modern chapters of the book and gone for a straight telling of the flashbacks. This was wise on his part: with a limited amount of time, he had to focus on the meat of the story. Yes, he ditched an element of the book that made it brilliant as a whole, but he also pruned down the material to its source.

The Prestige is a book about duality and everything that comes with it. Opposing forces. Counterparts. Both trying to destroy each other, both unable to live without each other. This is the theme of the book. It is not a book about revenge, although revenge is omnipresent. Those who claim this is a revenge story are wrong. They don’t see deep enough. The two magicians are the complete opposite of each other, incomplete without each other, driven to destroy each other. Nolan knew this, and knowing it, created a streamlined version of the book that altered key plot components, simplified a few characters, and even changed the ending… but in doing so, he has made what is not only a breath-taking film, but also a darker story than can be found in the pages of the source.

With Memento and Insomnia, we saw a director who was unwilling to flinch when it came time to reveal just how ugly the human soul can be. With Batman Begins, we got a glimpse of it, but I would suggest that the folks who own the Dark Knight Detective would not allow him to go as far as he did with his previous works. We almost got the Batman Nolan wanted to give us. We even see glimpses of him, but never the full view.

With The Prestige, Nolan is back in action, giving us a story and an ending that does not turn away from the depths mankind can delve. It is a dark, ugly story. As they got up, the audience around me were visibly disturbed. Some were confused. Almost all of them–who were talking loud enough for me to hear–said pretty much the same thing the two young black girls behind me said.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” one of them said.

The other said, “I don’t know if I liked it.”

I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I am still sick.

My immune system has always been pretty buff. The 24-hour variety of flu usually lasts less than that, but as I get older, I discover that my immune system is getting older with me. The standard length of time I should be sick is one week. I’m hoping for 4 days, but suspect I’ll have this little bug until the end of the week.

I had a busy schedule planned. I made almost none of my scheduled stops. I missed Annie’s reception, Jess’s Requiem LARP, Cowboy Ron’s March of History. I got no writing done. Just me, in the bed, wrapped up like a viral burrito, trying to stay as warm as possible, watching all my worn-out DVDs.

I’ll be headed back to the bedroom in a moment, but I needed to check WD orders (which have picked up for some reason) and do a few things around the complex. Still sick, coughing up the gunk in my lungs, but someone has to empty the trash and sweep out the elevator.

And when I return to bed, I’ll have a limited choice of movies to watch. I’ve seen them all before, a hundred times each. Maybe I’ll splurge and head down to Best Buy to pick up something I can watch over and over and over again for the first time…