Black Swan - Tim

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, 2010

"Well, nobody's perfect" ranks #48 among the most famous movie quotes. But even a good 51 years after Joe E Brown stated the obvious in Some Like It Hot, a lot of us still strive for perfection in a dog-eat-dog society. Although after seing Black Swan (twice!) I should say danseuse-eat-danseuse. At first glance, the plot is simple enough as a sacrifice-everything-for-success story, like Aronofsky's previous picture The Wrestler: Nina (Natalie Portman), who dances for a New York ballet company, competes for the lead role in a new version of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Under pressure from her mother (Barbara Hershey) and the ballet director Thomas (Vincent Cassell), her uncompromising self-sacrifice seem to be driving her over the edge. Or is someone really out to get her? Thomas rejects this notion, telling her 'the only person standing in your way is you', and recommending masturbation as a way for Nina - perfectly apt to play the white swan - to discover the dark, lustful side she must unleash to embody the black one as well.

Black Swan is built on an awe-inspiring centre performance by Natalie Portman, whose amount of preparation for the role even dwarfs those of Robert de Niro for Raging Bull or Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler: 6-12 months of ballet training, putting in the occasional 16-hour day have paid off when you see the end result. It is hard to imagine any other actress playing this part, fragile innocence on the one hand - an insane, even violent will to suceed on the other.

Sharp contrasts are the recurring theme of the film. There is company newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis) who possesses all the emotions Nina desires - lust, independence, self-indulgence, humour - and effortlessly inserts them into her dancing. There is the contrast between the safe but restrictive flat Nina shares with her mother and the cold, dangerous, but exciting and liberating world outside. There is Thomas who plays hot and cold in an all but revolting manner and whose office, a visit to which is an unavoidable stopover on a young dancer's way to fame, holds no colours except black and white. Lastly, a vital role is played by mirrors. Whether in the changing rooms, at home, on stage or the underground, Nina cannot escape from the fact that sooner or later, her face on the posters will be replaced by a younger one and she will no longer be summoned to the ballet director's office. It is this sneaking, insufferable realisation that makes her hate herself - and break the mirror.

Black Swan is likely to win the following Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Best Actress: Natalie Portman

Kevin Costner - a Tribute

I was playing trivia the other night with some friends at a bar and one of the bonus questions was designed to award points to the team that could name the most movies featuring Kevin Costner. My team won. I named 14. I figured I needed to do something about this. I mean, if you figure that each movie is at least 90 minutes and that I have seen Robin Hood, a low ball, 20 times, Tin Cup - 30 times, Dances With Wolves - 10 times, Bodyguard - (somehow) 5 times, Field of Dreams - 15 times, Bull Durham - 10 times, well, then, I have spent a decent amount of time watching Kevin Costner movies. As a result, this is the first in a series of posts wherein an actor's filmography will be discussed and ultimately ranked. So here is to Kevin Costner!

My rankings of the 14 Costner movies I named in the bar:

1) Tin Cup

I hate when people ask me what my favorite movie of all time is. I usually answer differently each time. I would say, though, that I have answered Tin Cup more than any other movie. It is one of the most fun movies every made. I'm indebted to all those involved with its making.

2) Field of Dreams

I've never rooted for a protagonist more than I have Ray Kinsella.

3) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

This movie shaped who I am and want to be. Only Swiss Family Robinson and Last of the Mohicans were more formative.

4) Dances With Wolves

Game changer. Took epics to a new level. It re-made an archetype better than those before it and has been re-made by others only in vain.

5) Bull Durham

Only Costner and Sarandon can weave baseball and romance without seams.

6) The Bodyguard

Impossible not to get sucked into this thriller every time it is on TBS.

7) Waterworld

I have never been more confused in my life as I was when everyone hated this movie. I am consistently baffled when people bash it.

8) For The Love of the Game

I love how much Kevin Costner loves sports.

9) JFK

Probably the best performance of his career.

10) Open Range

I thought going in that I wouldn't believe him. I believed him and I believe that he is still out there somewhere in Montana.

11) 13 Days

I only trusted that Kevin would lead us out of this mess.

12) The Gunrunner

A lesser known Costner movie. Yet, I think, the movie that made the rest of them possible. He needed to leave Bull Durham behind, get in touch with the deeper Costner and then deliver on Ray Kinsella - the meshing of a drifter and a baseball lover.

13) Rumor Has It...

I have seen it twice.

14) The Guardian

I mean this movies was terrible but I loved the crap out of it.

Again, here is to Kevin Costner, always consistent and always A-OK in my book.

Browning Version - James King

For: Stephen Samson, classicist

“I may have been a brilliant scholar, but I was woefully ignorant of the facts of life.”

-Professor Andrew Crocker-Harris

I could think of reasons ad infinitum why one mightn’t want see the Browning Version. For starters, it’s in black and white—an olden film about an ag-ed man. Not only ag-ed but sadly—an olden film centered around an ag-ed, sadly man. Now consider that this film is set in an English boarding school—a place inaccessible from our sunny, small, Southern public schools. Here, light never penetrates the walls of classrooms or repressed feeling. Expressions of human warmth and kindness could barely heat a kettle. Emotional Reticence is always the lesson of the day.

Ok, now I want to tell you why this movie is great and you should netflix it (advantage to the netflix age is that you could never find BV at a Movie Gallery, that being said, I very much miss the J’ville Movie Gallery—Thanks for the Memories).

v Acting ~ Every role is played to perfection. None more so than Micheal Redgrave in the lead as Andrew Crocker-Harris. Being desensitized by reality television and formulaic melodramas, it’s startling to see how much a talented actor can convey without histrionics or the need to blurt out feelings. You see something so much deeper by watching for subtle expressions or the things left unsaid.

v Simplicity ~ It’s a simple story of a retiring professor looking back over his life and realizing that he had somehow gotten it all wrong. Is it too late or can he yet atone and begin again?

v Entertainment ~ No drugs, explosions, or 3-way kisses, but somehow, someway this movie keeps you engaged to the point of riveted from beginning to end. Maybe the powerful, understated movie is now a lost art, the cinematic equivalent of ‘Greek fire’ (Stephen, yes!).

I do hope that you give poor Professor Crocker-Harris and his story a chance. Sometimes it’s the gloomy, colorless, difficult things that have the most to offer those willing to look.

The Hurt Locker - Rob Culpepper

I'm surprised no one has reviewed The Hurt Locker. As you probably remember it won the Oscar for Best Picture last year over Avatar and Inglourious Basterds, among others (it also won Best Director). So here goes.

I had really high hopes for this movie. Not only because of the awards it won, but also because everyone I talked to said it was really intense. I had a couple people tell me they couldn't watch it again. So I was freaking ready. And yes, the first half was intense. I perspired a little. But after a while I found myself used to the tension and relaxed a bit more. At some point I realized the writer was not about to let this character he was really proud of get blown to smithereens.

Some critiques I had heard of the film include: the sniper scene (bomb defusers would not have a fat clue how to effectively use a sniper rifle), the Bagdad-at-Night scene (no way someone would have done that or made it back alive), and the second Bagdad-at-Night scene (after the tanker truck blows up...no one would do that and put his comrades in that kind of danger). It's got to be hard to make a war movie these days because you can see actual combat footage online, on any news station, and in docs like Restrepo and others. Moviegoers just know too much about how things are actually done to buy into un-realities like you have in The Hurt Locker. I'm not saying cavalier people don't do crazy things in the military, but to put them all on one character in the span of a two hour movie pushes the believability into negatives.

Speaking of the characters, I felt like they were pretty one-dimensional. Jeremy Renner (as William James, badass) played what is undoubtedly a fun character. He has no fear, no concern for others or protocol, and no reservations about anything. He's a cowboy in a foreign desert. We know everything we need to know about him in the first 30 seconds he's on screen. But he doesn't grow. He's impervious to the conflict around him. Then there's Anthony Mackie's character (named Sanborn) who acts a foil to William James. He's responsible and courageous, but he's not James's equal. The worst part of the movie, in my opinion, was supposed to be one of the emotional high-points, when, after a bomb almost kills them all, Sanborn tearfully tells James, "I want a son, I want a little boy!" Really? No, really? you've got to be kidding me. Perhaps what James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow shared in common was their love of terrible dialogue (cf. Avatar). The third main character, Eldridge, was played by Brian Geraghty. He's the coward who has to be told he's doing ok and will make it, etc. Again, another tired role, though perhaps not unfounded on the field of battle. He does finally stand up to James, but only after James is responsible for almost killing him. The only other character we meet from the whole company is a hapless colonel who gets himself blown up.

As for the plot, what else can I say? It had it's moments, but its arc was weak. The one interesting thing about the movie is the collection of bomb parts Renner's character keeps under his bed. It becomes fodder for a bad joke (Eldridge finds James's wedding ring in the box and asks "what is this?" to which James replies "like I said, things that almost killed me.") Since plot-realism was thrown out early, it would have been cool to have this squad of bomb defusers coming up against the same bomb maker and playing a bit of cat and mouse. There's this scene where they're trying to defuse a bomb and someone is videotaping the scene from a balcony. You think: are the bombmakers learning how the defusers work, how they operate? this could be really interesting. But that's the last of it. That story is never explored. The moviemakers instead opt to make the movie about the people and not the plot. Which doesn't have to be a bad decision. But the characters just aren't interesting enough to keep it going for 2 hours.

Decent movie about war? Sure. Best Picture? Hardly.

True Grit - Rob Culpepper

A Review; Or, Why You Should Stop What You're Doing Now and Go Watch This Film

I heard it said that No Country For Old Men was the Coen Brother's take on a modern western. If that's so, then True Grit is the Coen's take on the classic western. And it is TIGHT. Like most movies the Coen Brothers put their hands on, True Grit is, plain and simple, really good. Story telling, humor, pacing, memorable characters...the Coen's do it all.

Don't get me wrong. They aren't flawless. But I think they've been able to capture Today what it must have been like to see a western at the pictures back in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. I think we're so used to the western as a genre thanks to TBS marathons that we aren't as carried away by the mythology of the west. Even Clint Eastwood's late attempts at creating the definitive western (Unforgiven) or any of Kevin Costner's tries (Dances With Wolves, Open Range) fail to create the magic of the West in a movie the way the old ones do. But True Grit does it for me. It's got a great story, good archetypal characters with enough personality to make them distinctive, and one event after another to keep things moving.

As you probably know, the film is a remake of the 1969 film starring John Wayne (for which he won his only Oscar, though arguably as a tip of the hat to his 40+ years of dominating). But the film is it's own piece. The dialog is Coen Brothers, as is the blood splatters, as is the way it's shot. There are very few sweeping vistas; the film is not about the land--The West--but about these characters who have found themselves bound together by a story thread in The West. Those are: Jeff Bridges, who is solid, and paired with the Coen Bros again is great. Matt Damon, who manages to make you forget you're looking at Good Will Hunting (though he reminded me a bit of his role inThe Informant). He's solid as well. In important but less screen-time roles are Barry Pepper and Josh Brolin and some others who are all at top form. (I think the Coens mask people well, so you see a face you recognize, but not so much that you only remember the other characters they played.) The real star of the show, though, is Hailee Steinfeld. Her IMDb has no info (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2794962/). Who knows where the Coens found her. But she is phenomenal. Not only does she hold her own among some very good Oscar Winners, but she shines in her toughness and in the few moments where she breaks open a bit. I don't know what else to say about it other than that the characters are superb.

This movie was so good that instead of waiting in the lobby of the cinema for my sister and brother-in-law, who had gone to see Little Fockers, my dad and I headed right out to the car as soon as the movie was over, still talking about how cool it was, and drove all the way home. You Must See This Film, especially the scene in which Rooster (Jeff Bridges) makes this famous (John Wayne) charge, with guns blazing in both hands, the reins of his horse in his teeth, one man against four....

127 Hours - KDJ

The awaited return of the emotive director of Slumdog Millionaire is just that, a return. The actors are different, the setting is different but the themes are as similar as the camera angles, music, and split screens are.

Those hopeful enough to assume that James Franco (still holding to, in my perspective, his characterization of The Fonz on Freaks and Geeks) would convincingly depict Aron Ralston, the infamous self-amputee-ing, adventurer, will be satisfied. Franco's performance was enjoyable and believable, though I imagine that Ralston runs with a less goofy gait than the predictably less-athletic Franco. After all, Franco publishes short stories he wrote at Columbia and currently studies queer theory at Yale. We can't expect him to compete in triathlons with McConaughey and make out with Sean Penn - that would be too much mixing of art and masculinity.

Franco, though really good in this movie, is held back and over-shadowed by the cluttered split screen flashbacks and sigur ros-esque mash-ups that Boyle is known for. Those hopeful for a true Samuel Beckett experience will be let down. Danny Boyle and Samuel Beaufoy know to well that the Academy needs a good trailer in order to garner any support. Don't get me wrong, I am a sucker for Coldplay genre mash-ups but for this film they come across as reaching and ill-timed. Ralston would make no money in the endeavor yet I think a cooler movie would have been made by Lars Von Trier or another up-and-coming Scandinavian director.

Beaufoy, when he heard that Boyle wanted to make this movie, thought Boyle was crazy - how does one fill up 90 minutes with one guy trapped under a rock? I don't think it too crazy but I'm not sure this movie reached its full potential. Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are showing high enough ratings and it will probably be nominated for some stuff. The disjointed story telling just made engaging Ralston's predicament difficult. In the end, 127 Hours is definitely worth seeing. I just needed a choreographed dance scene to bring me full tilt.

The Tourist - KDJ

I have absolutely no idea as to why Johnny Depp agreed to do this movie. The experience of watching it is confusing. I spent the entire movie waiting for Depp to vindicate himself - not his character either, like, himself, really. As the movie awkwardly transitioned from one cheesy scene to another, I wondered, is this why Depp never watches his own movies? for fear that one may actually, accidentally end up like this one? Towards the end of the movie, after having watched Angelina Jolie smugly strut for hundreds of yards at a time, for what seemed like an hour total, I wanted to grab Depp by the shoulders and give him a talking to; "Dude, Depp, you are Edward Scissor Hands, and Gilbert Grape, and the dude that was brave enough to make a Sweeney Todd movie, you are Sands, Mort Rainey, you are George Jung, you are Roux, and Ichabod Crane, Raoul Duke, and Donnie Brasco, you are the freakin Libertine. You are not the freaking Tourist!" Maybe it was Jolie bringing him down. Maybe she is so good looking that she is destined to fail in every movie she ever makes. Maybe she will always be more good looking than the movie is good. Maybe, since Tim Burton didn't make it, there was too much light on Depp. Maybe if they would have dimmed the lights in every scene and given him a weird quirk to do the movie would have convinced. But they didn't. And Jolie, as mentioned, strutted as a Samford Seductress might, and there were entirely too many lights turned on. In the end, I'm afraid Depp needed a down payment on his new Vineyard, which probably isn't cheap. So, he made a movie that paid well, spent a fortune, and achieved only awkward, cheap thrills. If you must see Depp, as some must, wait a few weeks and Blockbuster will have about 400,000 returned copies in the post-Christmas buy back stacks.

The Social Network - T.J.

Directed by David Fincher, 2010

Apart from Julian Assenge, who currently finds himself at the receiving end of uncountable lawsuits, hackers' worship and a fatwa by Sarah Palin, Mark Zuckerberg is the person most likely to be named TIME person of the year 2010. The Social Network, a biopic (spanning only around four years) directed by one of today's most respected thrill-directors, is not the reason Zuckerberg is likely to be picked - it is rather a symptom of the influence he has had on 2010, if not the bulk of this past decade. Based on the 2009 bookThe Accidental Billionaires, which recounts the making of facebook from the point of view of Zuckerberg's once best friend, Eduardo Saverin (played in the film by Andrew Garfield). The Social Network will be among the films to look out for at the upcoming Academy Awards.

After being dumped by his girlfriend ("not cause you're a nerd - it's cause you're an asshole"), Zuckerberg gets drunk and starts blogging about her while creating facemash.com, where users can rate female Harvard students according to attractiveness. The site is so popular that the system crashes - and Zuckerberg realises the power a keyboard can bring. The predicament that this night gets him into establishes the basis for the rest of the picture, a long and grueling lawsuit. Fincher and screenwriter Sorking must be given a great deal of credit for telling this story in a thrilling way while sticking to the, admittedly somewhat subjective, story. There are very few moments in which you think there's no way this happened while Eisenberg's performance is gripping from start to finish. Fincher, whose most characteristic films are gloomy thrillers like Se7en, Fight Club or Alien³, puts his mark on the projekt by portraying Harvard as a rainy, clique-hell, where your only goal can be to get into one of the societies. Zuckerberg himself is no exception. The final scene , which I obviously will not disclose, shows how despite how far he has come since that fateful night in 2003, that initial humiliation still haunts and drives him. Good or bad, hero or villain? The TIME jury will have to ask itself the same question when they choose which nerd is the most influential: the one who, to get to 500 million friends, made a few enemies; or the one who made at least half a billion enemies and few friends.

The Social Network is likely to be nominated for the following Academy Awards:

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin

Best Picture: Fincher, Rudin et al

Best Director: David Fincher

Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg

Best Editing: Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall

Nomi vs Nina - JAK

Deciding between renting a flick at the local video/tan shop or packing into the station wagon for the late show of an independent art-house movie can be a difficult holiday decision. Consider the Showgirls/Black Swan debate that will occupy millions of American families this year. Ever since Elizabeth Berkley gyrated onto the scene with her 1995 morality tale, families have suffered schisms about whether to flick over to TBS for Christmas Vacation or to pop in dad’s well-worn, intentionally mislabeled VHS of Nomi . How much simpler the season would have been if Berkley hadn’t traded in her Jesse Spano pocket protector for a pair of Nomi Malone stilettos.

In the tradition of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, Nomi’s story of a small-town girl who just wants to dance, but is violated by the big city, but becomes a big star anyway, but gives it all up to go home, has inspired a generation. But now we get a different take on this holiday story with Natalie Portman’s Nina, a ballerina who finally gets her big break, but has to embrace her dark side, but loses her mind in the process, but dances great anyway, despite—or maybe even because of !—her violent delusions. Obviously hoping to draw from theShowgirls holiday demographic, Black Swan pays homage in more ways than the same heart-warming premise. Take for instance howBlack Swan’s repeated refrain of “you dance without passion” is only a thinly veiled inversion of Nomi’s “dancing like your f*!*1-1=0!g”. Or consider the Showgirlsesque sub-story of Nina usurping stardom from an established rival. Like with Nomi, this involves a leg injury, hospital visits, and titillating lesbian (or in Black Swan’s case, graphically homicidal) encounters. Lastly, the final act of both productions gives the audience the satisfaction of Nina and Nomi reaching the apotheosis of their art. For Nomi this is the result of indefatigable sexual gyration filthily coupling itself with old-fashioned gumption; for Nina, however, this is the inevitable conclusion of an artist who allows herself to be physically and psychologically consumed by her art.

Sooo which will you pick? Portman giving the performance of the year in a poignant, visually-stunning piece of art, which leaves you feeling tense and kind of down; OR Berkley jerkily thrusting her body into Vegas super stardom in a movie that defies logic, reason and taste—but never the ability to leave you, and anyone else who “gets” Nomi, feeling like a Christmas miracle.

Super racy trailer mashing up Black Swan and Showgirls:http://www.ology.com/screen/watch-showgirlsblack-swan-mash

The Fighter - KDJ

Wahlberg, in the role he was made for, and Bale, with the performance of the year, and an appropriately trashy-pudgy, Amy Adams, complete a 'made for the movies' story and deliver on Wahlberg's promise - 'It's the best movie of the year'.

Four years ago I heard that Wahlberg began training for this movie. I checked up on it probably bi-weekly for two years. Last year, Aronofsky was in, then out, then in again, and finally this year, out again. I was pretty devastated. I can't say I was jacked when David O. Russel signed on. Kind of how I'm not jacked about Sam Mendes doing the next Bond. At any rate, I love Three Kings. I really like Flirting with Disaster (check out the cast on that movie) and still enjoy watching Huckabees. Nonetheless, I was really unsure about him taking the reigns on a movie that I had already invested so much time in.

I was wrong to question. I was resolutely put-in-my-place towards the end of the movie. It happened when Bale, in some of the most convincing acting I have seen since Cassel in Mesrine, walked onto Amy Adam's porch and pleads for understanding, not forgiveness. The moments on the porch were almost like stop-motion; each movement and line seemed crafted and deliberate yet remindful of moments in our own lives where we know how it feels to be in their place. In other words, it was worked over, but just natural, and therefore powerful. The scene was crafted with enough nonchalance to balance the sheer discomfort Bale exerted. And just when it seemed that David Russel was getting ready to fall back on his, mostly unneeded go-to, comedic relief, Bale saves the day - "It's icing from the cake" - just as the scene was the icing on the cake, for me at least.

The Fighter is a full on movie-going experience. As my good genius friend Morris once said, in all his lighthearted and genuine humility, "Give me a good come from behind story, some movie-going friends, and a movie theater, and I'm cool." I agree, Morris. I'm cool with this movie. I'm cool enough with it to give it my nod as the movie of the year (with Bale earning performance of the year).