Are you watching closely?

The tag-line on the poster for The Prestige draws you in with a question, “Are you watching closely?”. If you’ve seen the film, and you should have by now or you’ve missed one of 2006’s best, you were likely watching very closely. And you will the next time as well. The really great thing about owning DVDs is you can watch as closely as you like and as often as you like. You’ll do both with this intriguing and magical mystery. But there are lots of reasons we love to watch movies again and again and a few reasons why it’s nearly impossible to sit through an encore of even the best movies we’ve seen. Kick back and let’s take a second look.

Ahh, those perennial favorites.

For most of us there are just certain movies we can’t get enough of. You’re flipping channels and you just have to drop the remote, glad that you’ve caught the first few minutes or bummed that it’s almost over. You have the same movies on DVD shoved back in some cabinet or in a pile next to the CDs yet there’s still something fun about bumping into an old friend.

There’s especially something about the holidays that makes us reach for the favorites. Settle back with friends and family and go back in time to hang with characters we’ve known for more years than we care to admit. I’ve spent my Christmases hanging with George Bailey since I was a sophomore in high school. And adding on to the classics, their are new Christmas DVDs vying for my collection every year. Just ask the studios if the phenomenon of perennial holiday viewing isn’t universal. In the entertainment business, the only thing more profitable than garnering the coveted “Holiday Classic” banner across you’re DVD packaging is writing a forever-selling classic children’s book. (Just ask all of the celebrities that have taken up pretending to write kid’s stories as their hedge against bad stock investments. You could create an entire publishing company around them.) There’s also the yearly “marathon” showings of the new classics and I’d be lying to tell you I don’t watch A Christmas Story, at least twice, back to back, on Christmas day. Since Halloween is the new Christmas when it comes to multi-watch DVDs, it’s starting to get tuff to squeeze in new movie watching from the end of October to New Year’s Eve

So what’s so appealing?

I’d call it comfort food from your favorite diner. Ever find a great place to vacation then book a trip there every year. There’s something wonderful in going back to somewhere we know and love. The town and the people of Groundhog Day, the fun, not too dangerous adventures of Indiana Jones, the they’re-fun-to-laugh-along-with-but-I’m-glad-they-aren’t-my-family silliness of the Griswolds in every one of the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies.

There’s also the joy of sitting down and repeating a great story. A tale so well told, so well made, so beautifully rendered and so convincingly peopled that the experience of going back for a another look is akin to climbing into a time machine and relinquishing yourself to be immersed in another place and time. By allowing ourselves, for a couple of hours, to be drawn into a fantasy, we share in the very reason for making movies in the first place and our common link for the human instinct of storytelling. These are the story classics, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Lady and the Tramp. Richness in detail, textures and emotion. Let your mind wander for just a moment and those journeys play back in your mind until you’re up and searching for the DVD yourself.

Magical moviemaking.

It’s wonderful, really wonderful to witness a new world, new characters and a new journey to embark upon. One so remarkably vivid and believable that not only would I want to take that journey again and again but one so rich in texture and substance that I could experience the story more deeply on repeated travels. From the 1995 novel written by Christopher Priest and the masterful screenplay by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan (Christopher is also the director), The Prestige is the best example in my recent memory of a movie who’s story construction, script nuances and craft of storytelling on film merited far more of my attention. The theatrical poster echoes the magician’s challenge, “Watch closely now...”. The DVD ‘s packaging excerpts Rolling Stone’s Peter Traver’s review, “You want to see it again and again.” You should and you will. I promise you that you have never seen truer advertising on a DVD package. The Prestige is that rare and special movie that continues to reveal it’s nuances and subtleties while you’re still relishing it’s gem polished surface. Simply magical moviemaking.

It’s the story. But it’s so much more than the story. Like any great magic trick, what eludes you is masked by what you see. Misdirection. Imagine sitting in the front row for a master magician’s signature illusion and with eyes intent on discovering the secret, find yourself completely taken by effect. As The Prestige explains, a magician’s feat is performed in three acts: the Pledge, the Turn and the Prestige. But the moviemakers here trump “the Pledge” by allowing you two hours and ten minutes to watch the trick they will pull off right in front of your eyes. They spin “the Turn” into a dazzling mix of mystery & intrigue and rivalry & love story. The movie is expertly drawn, perfectly paced and lovingly dabbled onto the screen with the care of a Van Gogh or Monet. As you’ve been immersed in the complexity of a dark london street in 1878 and in the fabric and texture of a fine victorian theater, The Prestige reveals it’s third act before you thought about where to look. And the real magic of this trick’s “Prestige” is what truly outdoes the real thing. It is executed with such genius, a tapestry of story elements that will take you back to the opening titles, that you are invited to begin again, and once again “watch closely now”. I was and am each time dazzled. Bravo.

Owning DVD’s you’ll always want to watch.

I have had extraordinary experiences at the movies, that as great as they were, are simply too hard for me to bear repeating at home. Two that immediately spring to mind are Amblin Entertainment’s incredible World War Two saga Saving Private Ryan from 1998 and Mel Gibson’s stunning 2004, The Passion Of The Christ. Extraordinary movies that I am glad I saw. Movies that merited a full theatrical presentation and that deserved the praise and the box-office they garnered. But these are movies that exact an emotional investment and for me, one that doesn’t suit a quiet evening in front of my television. Like the comfort food at the diner, I like a more relaxing diet in my living room. Go ahead and add the spice of some mystery or the flavor of a far off local but heart shredding sorrow doesn’t fall onto my list of experiences I want to repeat, though it may very well for you. Freed from scanning the “Fall Preview” issue of TV guide in the days when theatrical movies on TV were a really big deal, DVDs have given us all the freedom to be our own entertainment programmers. Program whatever you like, whenever you like and revel in the joy of discovering movies you just can’t stop watching.

As the holidays approach each year, it’s become family tradition to sit down with my Dad and rejoin Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye as we watch White Christmas. From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve we keep a running count on how many times Eddie shows up unexpectedly at the Girswolds in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. On a rainy Saturday afternoon I can’t help smiling and settling back when I see that some cable channel is running the entire Back to the Future trilogy, and if they only show one, I’m jumping up for two and three right after. The real beauty of owning DVDs gets back to the moviemakers themselves. The fact that we want to add their movies to our collections and will plunk down a few bucks for the privilege, is a nod to them that they’ve created something enduring and fun; a slap on the back for letting us enjoy a good time, time and time again.

In no particular order...

Here are some of the movies I have never tired of. Share you’re favorites with us and we’ll share them with everyone right here at Moviedozer.com.

I can’t get through Christmas without watching Home Alone 1 & 2 (stop at two or you’ll be sorry); Crosby and Astaire in Holiday Inn; Crosby again with the irrepressible Barry Fitzgerald in Going My Way; Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon and Jimmy Stewart (what a cast) in Bell, Book and Candle; Grant and Niven in 1947’s The Bishop’s Wife; and the “new classic” in my collection, Billy Bob Thornton as a really Bad Santa.

At Halloween I’m looking forward to Disney’s Hocus Pocus; Tim Burton’s classic Nightmare Before Christmas; and (a chestnut here) Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I’m not a big fan of horror, but I have a friend who was a corpse (the guy stuck quite decisively into the kitchen door) in Halloween so it occasionally makes my list.

On those rainy-snowy-dreary Saturdays I’m a sucker for silly adventure. Trilogies like the adventures of Indiana Jones (I leave out Temple of Doom), Back to the Future and the first three (episodes 4,5 and 6) Star Wars are long time favorites. For the just plain fun stuff you have to love Tom Hanks in The Burbs or The Money Pit; three funny film comics in Three Amigos; Chevy Chase again (with perfect partner Beverly D’Angelo) in Vegas Vacation; or how about Streisand in What’s Up Doc?.

Then it’s about classics. Try the one and only Peter Sellers eating up the scenery in three roles in Dr. Strangelove; Stewart, Hepburn and Grant in Philadelphia Story; the veritable talent launching platform of American Graffiti; two classic comedies that share Tony Curtis’s easy charm, The Great Race and Some Like it Hot; any classic film noir as well as the modern noir China Town. And a movie I can’t say enough about, 1983’s Local Hero by Bill Forsyth, one of the most charmingly simple and simply charming films I’ve ever seen.

There are so many great movies being released weekly that my DVD’s are now spread between three rooms. Take some time and go exploring your own collections. You’re apt to rediscover old favorites you’ve forgotten and there’s likely lots of new titles you’ll be adding soon. If The Prestige isn’t on your shelf yet, it’s a great place to start. I’m off to go watch a movie.

Friday, May 4, 2007