Like The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, the film is a comedy that looks at magic from a slightly different angle. Unlike The Prestige which portrays magicians as very cool characters, the magicians in The Magicians are portrayed as geeks or nerds (which is probably close to the truth in most cases). Often, to be a magician you need to enjoy sitting on your own and practising for hours on end, so stands to reason that it attracts a certain sort of person. I don’t know how much this once large and troubling reality about going to the movies in India has changed for women, but I do see a few young women now, mostly college-going, catch a morning or matinee alone at a multiplex. Killing time, bunking college or an irrepressible passion for cinema? Whichever it is, it’s nice to see they can choose to watch alone. I wonder how much of that ridiculous old stigma had also to do with the poor reputation cinema had in India for several generations as trashy and artistically inferior cinema. Our movies are hip and cool now, but even until the late 90s they were thought of as cheesy and infra dig. (What we could all unabashedly relish and celebrate were the movie songs, especially the old Hindi songs). There is nothing wrong with watching a movie to escape and unwind. However, it’s more rewarding to watch with a clear purpose in mind, combined with a desire and curiosity to connect with the story and how it’s told. Madness resulting from one person living two personas through a ventriloquist's dummy has been portrayed several times before in film and television, most notably:

If you’re looking for magicians in movies, Magicians probably has more than any other film. Magicians is a British film, largely based around magic and magic conventions in the UK. The leads are from the UK sitcom, The Peep Show. David Mitchell and Robert Webb play magicians Karl and Henry who want to take part in a magic competition.

7. Lara's Theme (Dr. Zhivago)

Turn movie watching today into a joyful experience by taking an active role. Engage with the story and have the best time. Keep it light and playful. Don’t take things too seriously. Watch with playful curiosity and enjoyment as it comes naturally to you. If you feel you’re stressing out, you’re over-thinking. This defeats the purpose. The main goal is to have fun—consciously. Magic is a 1978 American psychological horror drama film starring Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret and Burgess Meredith. The film, which was directed by Richard Attenborough, is based on a screenplay by William Goldman, who wrote the novel upon which it was based. The score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Through movies we fulfill our need to connect with, and understand each other. With stories that bridge the gap and remind us of our shared needs and aspirations we enrich our lives and accentuate our humanity.

A Separation is a realistic movie that might be expected to make us think of life and shake us up, while something like Scorsese’s Hugo, a fantasy — a richly entertaining 3D fantasy — is as far away from true life as we can get, and yet they both fill our senses and touch us deeply. In different ways, yes, but both, a story about a boy’s adventure in a Parisian train station and an intimate, complex moral drama of two families in modern Tehran become in our hearts, in our imagination, one indelible emotional, aesthetic experience. It’s not the high level of realism in one and the delirious sense of fantasy in the other that get at us, but their art — cinematic art. I think cinema, movies, and magic have always been closely associated. The very earliest people who made film were magicians. ~Francis Ford Coppola How true is such a thrilling, lofty vision of cinema when it comes to our own movies? How do Indian movies rate as art and entertainment, both now and in the past? I’ve been talking mostly of our shared, common experience of movie-watching in theatres and not in our homes, so how have we fared with our movie-going practices over the years? Last summer I had a fun experiment with my family. We started watching the movies that won the Academy Awards for best picture.Canby, Vincent (November 8, 1978). "Film: Dummy Takes Over in 'Magic' ". The New York Times . Retrieved December 30, 2005. Although he is considered the first cinema artist, the cinema as we know it did not yet exist when Méliès went into production. In fact, it was the cinema that ultimately put him out of business. Barnouw points out that the movies effectively automated stage magic (as talkies would later render live musical accompaniment redundant): "The transfer to screen of the magician's most sensational illusions – disappearances, bizarre transformations and beheadings – proved ultimately catastrophic for magicians. Anyone with a camera and a splicer could produce the same miracles, and did." What then does "magic of the movies" mean in the light of the new situation, namely the development of computer generated imagery? Read My Lips", a 1993 episode of Batman: The Animated Series, features a villain called the Ventriloquist, who leads a group of criminals through the persona of his dummy Scarface. Decide on a theme. What movies would you like to watch? You can choose a certain category/genre, director, actor, or production.

Joanna is the enthusiastic amateur - asking the questions she’s always wanted to ask - and Stephen is The Maestro, providing the answers. Who was better: Mozart or Beethoven? Why do certain pieces of music make us feel a certain way? What do conductors actually do? They also discuss the great composers and symphonies, and the often-remarkable stories behind them, all delivered in Joanna and Stephen’s unique, engaging and affectionate way.With the occasional special guest, join the pair as they discover what it really takes to stay relevant in the public eye today. You know what your problem is, it’s that you haven’t seen enough movies - all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies. ~Steve Martin I mean, prefer the way movies tell stories to how novels tell them. Oh, it’s not choosing images over words — I do a lot of heavy duty non-fiction reading and love the long-form, immersive factual narrative — it’s more from a preference now for stories narrated in pictures than in words. (I just realised this explains to me my growing interest in children’s picture books!). There was a time I never went to a movie based on a book without first having read the book. Now I put the book down and wait expectantly for the movie version. (You’ll be surprised how many of them turn out nicely).