Black Swan

I found this movie to be utterly captivating.  The story of a ballerina slowly unraveling after being chosen to play the swan queen in a major production of Swan Lake, Black Swan manages to be creepy and elegant, tragic and inspiring all at once.  Natalie Portman does an exceptional job in every aspect of her performance, from capturing the timid, fragility of a woman cracking under self applied pressure, to displaying skill worthy of any true ballerina.  Much to do has been given to the fact that Portman trained 8 hours a day for a year to perfect her ballet technique, but not enough attention has been payed to the fact that she exhibits all evidence of true natural talent as well.  As a dancer myself, I cannot understate the importance of having believable dancing in a film like this.  Any actress given the time and resources, could train like Portman did - but hardly anyone would achieve such results.  She worked for every ounce of it, but Portman is truly an exquisite dancer, which gave the movie such depth and resonance. There were no cut away shots to a dancing body double and then back to a close up of her head - the camera has the freedom to swing in and out capturing every movement and emotion because of her efforts and skill.  The opening shots are of a ballerina's feet, dancing en pointe, and the technique is no wonderful, their arch so perfect, that years of history make you immediately assume it is a stunt double, so when the dancer lowers herself to the floor (without a cut in the shot) and you finally see that it has been Portman the whole time it comes as a revelation.  probably not to other people, but to me at least.*

And the rest of the movie is just as intense.  Delusions, paranoia, the movie crackles with suspense and trepidation as we watch the main character, Nina, buckle under the strain of perfection.  She no longer knows what is real, and neither does the audience.  The final performance is edited in such a way as to be so vibrant and thrilling and emotional; truly the culmination of everything Nina has worked and suffered for.

Many people I have heard have been confused by the movie, or at a loss what to think about the ending.  I will leave all interpretation up to each individual viewer, but I will say, as someone who has been on stage, has been through that kind of intense pursuit of the perfect physical performance, I understood it perfectly.  As a dancer, the best performance you will ever give is one you won't remember.  When you are completely in sync, your body moves by memory and instinct alone; you do not have to think, you do not have to feel, you simply are.  At that moment, there is no separation between yourself and the music and the movement and thought becomes impossible and irrelevant.  There are no consequences; there is only dance.

Go see Black Swan.  You may not love it like I did, but you won't regret it.

Black Swan 1hr 48min R

* update: obviously, much ado has been made about the fact that is was not in fact Portman dancing, but a body double.  So this whole paragraph is basically wrong now.  I'm not rewriting it because it is true to what I thought/believed at the time.

The Thousand

The Thousand by Kevin Guilfoile


This was a much more enjoyable choice than my last book selection.  Good plot: cult of Pythagorean follwers called The Thousand, are out to protect their secrets.  Great main character: Canada Gold the daughter of a brilliant conductor who was murdered after being acquitted of murder himself, with cool powers: due to an implant in her brain that was meant to control her ADHD she know has superhuman powers of observation.

This book has everything I like in a novel - really quick pace, easy to fly through, and thoroughly engaging characters and action.  I especially like that at no point do any of the characters know exactly what is going on - it is fun seeing their decisions based on assumptions that we as the reader know are wrong.  Definitely a fun read - very much along the lines of The DaVinci Code in terms of a secret society being after an innocent person.  If you like action and are just looking for a fun read, pick this up on your next trip to the bookstore.

True Grit

 SPOILER ALERT
******** I WILL MAINLY BE DISCUSSING THE ENDING*********
*DON"T READ THIS UNLESS YOU DON"T CARE WHAT HAPPENS*

True Grit is a good movie.  Beautifully filmed, superbly acted; a fine Western tale.  And yes, I would recommend seeing it.  In fact, I ask that you go see it, because then maybe you can explain the ending to me.

The story revolves around a 14 year old girl who hires a US Marshall to help her hunt down the man that murdered her father.  The resulting chase/journey is the meat of the movie, and I wouldn't dare give away how it unfolds.  But the very ending has left me wondering what the intention was.  I haven't seen the original, so perhpas this remake is only using what happened in the first movie, but that doesn't really make it any more logical.

You see, after the big climactic fight, the culmination of the hunt, where good guys and bad guys face off for the final time, the girl falls into a hole in the ground and gets bitten by a snake.  She must be rushed off to the doctor or whatever.  This is all fine and good, an emotional closing sentence to a brilliant story (with the exception of the drawn out focus on the poor horse being ridden to death, which I hated and felt gratuitous - I can't stand movies that torture animals).  But then we have this little coda, showing the girl 25 years later all grown up.  Again this would be just fine, showing us she survived and never married and how her life turned out.  Wrapping things up so to speak and giving the audience a little breath after the intense action and emotion of the ending before they have to leave the theater and find their cars.  But instead, it sends her on a little journey to visit the man who saved her, and then we find out he died 3 days before she got there.  So the entire coda is completely futile.  I just don't understand the purpose of this.  If they had just wanted us to know that the one guy died, couldn't that just have been said in voice over: "oh, I wanted to see Rooster again, but he died before I could get there."  Instead we see her heading to meet him, all interested in what he is doing know, and then it's all "oh, he died a few days ago."  Random letdown.  Instead of closure we are left with vague disappointment, which, following the brutality of the climax, results in quite the bummer ending.

Now, I'm not against a downer ending, per say, but it has to leave you with some sort of emotion or understanding you can take with you when you leave.  Having the final notes of the film just be futility is so unsatisfying and really weakens the movie in my opinion.  Instead of leaving exhilarated by the action and bolstered by the 'true grit' of the characters, I was just left confused and unfulfilled.  Which is a failure of movie making, in my opinion.

Still.  99% of the movie was great, and you should definitely see it, especially in light of all the award nominations sure to come.  But if you do see it, can you let me know why the ending was so deliberately lame?

House Party

Have you seen this commercial?




It features people I am assuming are football players who have apparently not won a Superbowl, looking across an outdoor bar area at another cabana where various football players and coaches (ones I actually recognize, ha!) are having a WAY better time.  The end tag line is "it's good to have a ring."  Pretty funny, and I sort of get why usher is in the video because I think the song playing is one of his.  But why is House there?  Did Hugh Laurie win a Superbowl I am unaware of?  Admittedly, I'm not as educated on football as I could be.