The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) or, The Men of Magic

9/28/2013

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) or, The Men of Magic

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Las Vegas Movie of the Year

Three big stars, three shades of ridiculous; here on the effervescent poster for Don Scardino's The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is a Las Vegas-set farce comedy that (finally) pulls the finger solidly on the ridiculous world of professional magicians. It is based on Chad Kultgen's script, Burt Dickinson: The Most Powerful Magician on Planet Earth, bought by New Line Cinema in 2006, with rewrites by John Francis Daley (Vacation (2015)) and Jonathan Goldstein (Bones (2011, TV-series)) and story contribution by Tyler Mitchell (Kidnapped (2007, TV-series)).

Burt and Anton are magicians who have been doing the same show, more or less, for 10 years, and their 'magical friendship' is has also lost its magic touch. But making solo acts proves harder than they both had thought, and in returning to their game, they have to fight off the young, hot competition; extreme street magician, Steve Gray.

Wonderstone is a wonderful comedy of the type that don't come around very often: Originally plotted, skilfully executed, and with a stellar, game cast: Steve Carell (Melinda and Melinda (2004)) co-produces and shows off his great comedic and dramatic talent as the bloated ego title character, who in the course of the film has to come back to Earth. He is supported by Steve Buscemi (Time Out of Mind (2014)) as his magical partner Anton Marvelton; an amazingly funny Alan Arkin (Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)) as the magician child idol, Rance Holloway; James Gandolfini (The Mexican (2001)) as the aptly named hotel franchise boss, Doug Munny; and Jim Carrey (The Truman Show (1998)) as the awful present day personification in the guise of guerrilla street magician, Steve Gray. Olivia Wilde (In Time (2011)) tries to navigate in this testosterone-heavy, male-dominated world, and she does well, although she doesn't get a single laugh in herself here.
Arkin on the other hand, continues his string of delightful, comedic roles here; a late career comeback of sorts that seems to have gotten fueled out of his work in the beloved and also Carell-starring Little Miss Sunshine (2006).
The film here is a glitzy, pop-music filled, happy time balanced with dark humor and a real reverence and nostalgia about artistic craftsmanship and better, nobler, past days in show-business. The many magic acts are done with care, and it is a joy to see them; the ones that are explained, and the ones that aren't. David Copperfield acted as magical advisor on the film and also cameos in it. Much of the film was shot in Vegas, and it both shows and feels right.
Wonderstone is a treat that holds many laughs and a well-rounded story. It is even suitable and enjoyable as a wacky family watch. It is directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Don Scardino (Me and Veronica (1992)).

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Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 30-34 mil. $ (different reports)
Box office: 27.4 mil. $
= Huge fop (returned between 0.80-0.91 times its cost)
[The Incredible Burt Wonderstone premiered 8 March (SXSW Festival, Austin, Texas) and runs 100 minutes. After several rewrites and years of development, shooting finally took place from January - March 2012 in California, including Los Angeles, and in Las Vegas, Nevada. The film opened #3, behind holdover hit Oz the Great and Powerful and fellow new release The Call to a 10.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd week and grossed 22.5 mil. $ (82.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 2.6 mil. $ (9.5 %) and the UK with 0.9 mil. $ (3.3 %). Scardino returned with 19 TV credits so far, (TV-series and TV movies), and has left the theatrical feature world alone. Carell returned in The Office (2005-13)) and theatrically in Despicable Me 2 (2013); Buscemi with a voice performance in Monsters University (2013) and physically in Grown Ups 2 (2013); and Wilde in Rush (2013). The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is rotten at 37 % with a 5.16/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

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9/28/2013

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) or, The Men of Magic

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)

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