Magic In The Moonlight
In 1928, an illusionist, Wei Ling Soo, performs in front of a crowd in Berlin with his world-class magic act. Soo is actually a British man named Stanley, who wears a disguise in his act. In his dressing room, he is greeted by old friend and fellow illusionist Howard Burkan. Howard enlists Stanley to go with him to the Côte d'Azur, where a rich American family, the Catledges, has apparently been taken in by a clairvoyant, Sophie; the son of the family, Brice, is smitten with her. Howard said he has been unable to uncover the secrets behind Sophie's tricks, and is tempted to believe she really has supernatural powers. He asks Stanley, who has debunked many charlatan mystics, to help him prove she is a fraud.
Magic In The Moonlight
Berlin, 1928 - Stanley Crawford (Colin Firth) is a British illusionist/magical debunker performing a show under the role of Wei Ling Soo, a Chinese magician. He does such tricks like making an elephant disappear, sawing a woman in half, and entering a sarcophagus and re-emerging in a chair, to the delight of audiences. Backstage, Stanley is rude and snobbish towards his assistants and a fan seeking an autograph. He is approached by his old friend and fellow illusionist Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney). Over a drink, Howard asks Stanley to travel with him to the French Riviera to see a wealthy family that have been enchanted by a young woman claiming to be a medium. Stanley's task is to reveal her as a fraud. He informs his fiance Olivia (Catherine McCormack) of his trip, as she is also a skeptic.
Stanley still doesn't believe Sophie has any gift, but she is able to shake him a bit when he mentions his uncle and she gets another mental vibration of a "death by water". Stanley admits to Howard that his uncle drowned a few years back. Later, Sophie mentions seeing Wei Ling Soo as a child and enjoying the performance. She knows Stanley is the magician and tells him not to doubt what she can do. It's obvious Sophie has a hold on him as Stanley can barely sleep at night.
Stanley, Sophie, and her mother gather with reporters for a press conference. Everyone asks Stanley about his new feelings regarding this type of magic or how he feels now as a skeptic. Moments later, someone comes in to tell Stanley that his aunt has been in a car accident. He immediately steps out.
His most recent movie is Magic in the Moonlight seemed to capture a lot of the magic that made Midnight in Paris one of my favorite movies of all-time. Once again set in France, the movie is about a famous magician played by Colin Firth who has come to aid a friend in debunking a very convincing psychic played by Emma Stone. Super simple concept, and a plot that anyone can get behind without to much fuss. In a lot of ways Magic in the Moonlight is filmed more like a stage performance then a feature film. It has very few set pieces, and contains more monologues then I remember in past Woody Allen movies.
Taking place on the French Riviera during the opulence of the 1920s, the film follows Stanley (Colin Firth), a misanthropic English magician whose arrogance and cynicism has kept his roster of friends small.
What follows is a series of events that are magical in every sense of the word and send the characters reeling. In the end, the biggest trick Magic in the Moonlight plays is the one that fools us all.
Light Magic is one of the 23 starter Base Magics that can be chosen once a player starts the game for the first time. All of its attacks inflict the Blinded status effect. Light magics' blindness effect can stack, meaning that if a player or NPC successfully hits multiple attacks on a target, the opposing enemy can be completely blind for a few seconds. Currently, the blindness effect does not affect any NPCs. This feature was hinted at when the TGR was being discussed. Blinding status effects might affect NPCs after the TGR.
Light Magic is a unique magic that has a focus on speed as it has the fastest magic speed out of all the base magics. However, it has poor clash advantages, low damage, and lack of defense against status effects as a repercussion. It does not synergize with any other status effect, nor is any magic inherently bad to use with Light, however it is counterproductive to use with Shadow. In the upcoming TGR update, it will receive different synergies making Light a more viable option than it already is when using with other magics.
Nice post David, thank you. It is indeed interesting how that wonderful early Cornwell vignette achieves a sense of moonlight without the usual clues - how it does not come across as a reproduction with a very bad blue colour cast.I can't give you any reliable technical answers as to how the effect is achieved as I have never painted a moonlight picture. But I was sorely tempted to last summer - I was standing in my conservatory one night and the plants were throwing shadows of their leaves across the floor from the light of a full moon. Maybe I'll have the courage to do it now. :)
Paul Sullivan-- Thanks for the thoughtful appreciation of Cornwell. You are right on all counts. This painting was from his early period in the 1920s, which I agree was his best. It was originally printed in black and white, yet came across convincingly as moonlight. The Kelly Collection of American illustration follows the clear line of influence from Howard Pyle to Harvey Dunn to Cornwell. Pyle used to tell his early students that they needed to master color because even though magazines of the day could not reproduce color accurately and economically, the technology was evolving fast, and one day color would become important. We see Cornwell straddling that great divide; some of his earlier paintings were painted in color but reproduced in black and white. But by the end of his career, color was everywhere.Chris Bennett-- Do it! I'd love to see what you come up with.Kev Ferrara-- As you know so well, the details on these old paintings make all the difference in the world. I've seen reproductions of both the Cornwell and the Wyeth before, but never in a way that enables you to see how the paint is applied. That is a totally different experience.
With Moonlight, Allen continues his jaunt around Europe, after having made a stop in the States for the Oscar-winning contemporary dramedy, Blue Jasmine. This new comedy - shot on location in the South of France - is set in the 1920s, where Stanley (Firth) makes a living by pretending to be an Asian magician (not exactly an admirable profession, even back then...), who debunks fake seers and mediums for a living. However, the cynical Stanley may've met his match at last, when he crosses paths with a young, sharp-witted, American spiritualist named Sophie (Stone). 041b061a72