Black Swan

[Sacred Jellybean]

Black Swan was god damn breathtaking. The acting, the cinematography, the plot, the characters, everything was exceptional. Releasing it close to the end of the year was possibly a calculated move (Oscar season and all), but it's actually unique and very entertaining, not exactly Oscar-bait with overwrought plots and scenes of EXTREME ANGUISH like a kid dropping off a puppy in the middle of the woods because his parents tell him he can't keep it.

The flick's wonderfully creepy, and though the pacing stood out on me at one moment I could remember, it's very intense. It's not 100% subtle, you could probably cut the subtext with a knife, but it's not exactly pandering either. I think it's my favorite Aronofsky film. The Wrestler was impressive to me, and it has similar themes, but this one blew me away in a way that the other did not. I wanted to stand up and applaud at the end. The ending scene perfectly captures everything. Go see it.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Except for Black Falcon, because he's a big pussy who doesn't like depressing movies. :D I didn't feel depressed after this, though. I could see someone being so, but it would miss the point IMO.

[Great Rumbler]

Haven't seen it yet, but I'd like to.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Granted, it's not in 3D. :D

[Great Rumbler]

Neither is True Grit, but I'll be heading out next week to see that. :)

[Sacred Jellybean]

Shit, that's next week? I want to see that too. Tell me how it is without spoiling anything. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

If it's what you say it is, then it's completely different than the movie they're advertising in the previews. That movie is a "psychological thriller" with some ballet dancer being hounded by some murderous other ballet dancer. I think the look on the "black swan's" face when she's trying to look menacing is... the most hilarious thing I've seen all year.

That said, the phenomenon of completely misdirecting movie previews is pretty bad lately (look at Tangled's previews), so it could easily be this other movie you're talking about instead.

(On a side note, is having to leave a dog behind because you can't keep it REALLY traumatizing? Parents do that all the time, ALL THE TIME, and it's not considered abuse, just reality. I mean if you'd said the parents forced the kid to DROWN the puppy or something then I'd get it, but just not being allowed to keep it? Heck I can think of 5 movies off the top of my head from the 90's, kid's movies, where exactly that happens.)

[Sacred Jellybean]

Exactly, it's a movie trope. :D

I don't watch TV so I only saw the trailer online. I went pretty much on faith in the director, and I wasn't disappointed. And yeah, trailers are pretty bad, particularly for comedies. The problem with it is that good comedic pacing is hard to reduce to little one-liners. It's funnier if an idea is introduced at one point and brought back later in regards to an underlying plot. A lot of the zany humor seen in trailers just makes me want to roll my eyes.

In a lame trailer I saw recently, the humor they were trying to inject in Green Hornet made me want to groan. I think one line got a chuckle out of me, but christ that looks bad. Hopefully this trend of super-hero movies will die down soon enough. There was a trailer for Thor that went along with it, so :crap:

[Dark Jaguar]

Unless I misunderstand, you're saying that Black Swan is a comedy?

[Sacred Jellybean]

I meant that post more in general about trailers, and how comedy trailers are the worst. That said, I've seen some reviewers who looked at it as a comedy. It has a few dark comedic moments.

I didn't view it that way, but to hopefully do the movie better justice than its commercials, I'll explain a little more about it. It is, in part, psychological thriller, but it's more of a character study. There's tension and paranoia from Natalie Portman's character towards Mila Kunis's, but it's not really the main theme. Kunis isn't out to murder Portman, but Portman sees Kunis as trying to sabotage her chances at the role and outshine her, replacing her.

It pretty much goes like this: Portman is given the chance to play the Swan Queen in a ballet. She's been working her ass off at the production company for years and this is her dream. The director tells her she must play two roles: the White Swan and the Black Swan.

She easily captures the White role, which the director tells her, but he pressures her to better capture its inverse. Kunis is a new ballerina, one who's entirely unlike Portman. Where Portman is hard-working, virtuous, and innocent, Kunis is lazy, laidback, and more naturally seductive. This is basically the Black Swan role.

The obvious theme is that the movie is about a woman's life in a male-dominated world, where one must play two conflicting personas: innocent sweet virgin, and wildly sexual seductress. I viewed it from that lense, which made it more enjoyable.

But the point in all this is that Kunis is really only one pressure towards Portman. You have the director, pressuring her to lose herself in the Black Swan role. He's kind of a sleaze-ball and has his own motivations about getting into her pants, yet at the same time, he does have passion for the show and want her to succeed in it. Then you have Portman's mother, who's pulling her back in the other direction. She did a number on Portman, who's basically a repressed, grown child.

Typing all this out, it might sound a little cheesy, but Aronofsky is a master at making really his films riveting, making you feel exactly how their characters do with his choices of cinematography and soundtrack. I think he's one of the most talented directors in Hollywood.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hmm, maybe it's worth a look.

I still can't get over that "evil glare" though. It just looked laughable, but maybe that was kinda the point of that scene if it's how you say (movie previews often splice two totally unrelated scenes together as though one is a direct response to another).

Want to see the worst preview of all time? Well, at least the most dishonest preview of all time?

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Yeah, all that awesome magical stuff like stopping a sword in mid-air and splitting into two and that orb? All completely invented JUST to sell the movie as something it isn't.