The Prestige: Drunken Commentary Track
The reasons for recording (with Bride of Culture Snob) this commentary track to The Prestige are many and simple:
- Director/co-writer Christopher Nolan didn’t include one on the first DVD release – at least not that I’ve found.
- In my essay, I faulted the movie’s ending, but I now accept it as suitable and even necessary.
- There remains great confusion and debate about what actually happens in the movie, even though the script and presentation seem to me models of clarity and foreshadowing.
- Bride of Culture Snob and I continue to argue about the conclusion, and whether it fits or panders to an audience’s anticipated inability to follow the story.
- While it received generally favorable notices, The Prestige seemed to be dismissed as a mere entertainment, and I think critics and audiences failed to recognize the movie’s depth, density, and elegance.
Rather than merely join the 
The disappointment of Christopher Nolan’s enormously entertaining – and slyly provocative – The Prestige comes in its closing minutes, when it adds a fourth act to its illusion: the final reveal. As any magician will tell you – as the movie itself reminds the audience – knowledge of the secret robs the trick of its power and allure.