Word: illusionist
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...ILLUSIONIST...
...orca (a.k.a. killer whale) at SeaWorld in San Diego attacked its trainer, who survived. That summer an elephant killed its handler at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. In 2004 a gorilla at the Dallas Zoo went on a rampage, injuring four people. A white tiger critically hurt illusionist Roy Horn, half of the performing duo Siegfried & Roy, at the Mirage Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas in 2003. More recently, in February 2007, a jaguar at the Denver Zoo killed a keeper. Despite these, among other dramatic attacks, some people wonder why they don't happen more often. Salmoni suggests...
According to director Christopher Nolan's new movie, a great magic trick consists of three parts: "The Pledge," in which the illusionist produces a common object (or ordinary person) and promises to do something wondrous with it; "The Turn," in which he subjects this object to an astounding transformation; and, finally "The Prestige," in which perhaps a life, but certainly the illusionist's always tenuous hold on his audience, is held in thrilling and suspenseful balance. This narrative structure analogizes rather neatly to the customary three-act movie plot and it is both clever and apt of Nolan...
...DaVinci Code. I saw enough of it to be mystified at the failure of the estimable Tom Hanks and the enigmatic Audrey Tatou to generate the slightest romantic frisson (pardon my French) as they darted around Europe on their anti-clerical rounds. It ended, for me, with The Illusionist, a rather handsome gaslit period piece in which I failed to understand what Edward Norton saw in the blandly beautiful Jessica Biel, even though I did like his magic tricks...
...Excepting the last named - and reserving judgment on The Illusionist - all of these movies were successful at the box office. And all of them were about as sexy as a lettuce leaf. Or should we make that "fig leaf"? The summer's one notable exception to that generalization was Miami Vice, which featured the rip-snorting bedroom ballets of Gong Li and Colin Farrell. There was hunger in their encounters, and inexplicable need, and, for the audience, the joy of seeing two handsome people heedlessly enjoying one another. For reasons that probably have something to do with its grim...