Black Swan - How far would you go to experience perfection?

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan has been garnering a lot of critical praise for a while now, and we're just a few days from the movie going nationwide.  It's currently playing in limited release.  I was fortunate enough to catch it this afternoon on my last day in NYC for a little while.

Let me say upfront that I'm a fan of Aronofsky's prior work.  A huge fan of Pi and The Wrestler, but I will confess that I've never seen Requiem for a Dream.  I've tried to watch it once or twice and I just can't get through how bleak it is.  It's a critical shortcoming on my behalf, and I plan on fixing that soon...I promise.

I don't think Black Swan is his best film, but it's a hell of a film none the less, and worth seeing for Aronofsky's visual trickery, and a stellar performance by Natalie Portman.  You'd do well to check out the trailer, and consider if the film might be for you after watching it.  I don't think it's a movie for everyone, but it will certainly find an audience, and I think most of the praise it's getting is pretty well deserved.  Though I think it's a bit over-hyped...just a little bit.


Here is the Apple trailers synopsis:
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BLACK SWAN follows the story of Nina (Portman), a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her retired ballerina mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) who zealously supports her daughter’s professional ambition. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis), who impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side with a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.
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Just a quick note to say, "Where the hell did Mila Kunis come from?!" She's really good in the film, and I hope we see more of her on the big screen.  (Never would have guessed she was on That 70's Show as I never cared for it...)


Without talking too much about specifics, and spoilers I will say that Aronofsky's ability to unsettle the viewer with disturbing yet often subtle visuals is really, really good.  The twists and turns the plot takes, at points making you wonder what's real versus imagination, continue to grab at every corner and keep your attention.  Some of the visuals go over the top a bit, and even border on comedic at a point or two.  However, they are so brief that the viewer is more often left wondering what they just saw, than really having seen, and understood, it at all.


I appreciate his attention to detail, you get a real feel for what these performers go through on a daily basis.  You come to understand that it's a cutthroat business driven by passion, perfection, excellence, and...fear.  Knowing that your time as a ballerina is finite, that the lights will go out on you eventually, whether you break out of the corps and into the prima ballerina spot or not, is a harsh and unforgiving reality.  The pressures can damage and break anyone.


The film works on a lot of different levels, and Portman's performance shines through in each and every scene.


I do take a bit of issue with the score for the film, more appropriately Aronofsky's insistence on pounding you over the head with it at points of key tension.  Yes, we know, she's stressing out and under pressure, she is losing her grip, we don't need the volume keyed up to 11 to understand that.  I almost wonder if muting things, or muffling them would be more effective.


On the whole I really enjoyed the film.  It'll certainly be the material for some great conversations between friends.


I think it begs the question, how far would you be willing to go to taste perfection and would it be worth the cost?  If you lose yourself on the way to the top, if being the best means finding yourself alone, what have you gained?  What have you won?

127 Hours - Danny Boyle's newest film hits hard and resonates.

I remember hearing the story of Aron Ralston a few years ago on an episode of 60 Minutes and being absolutely floored by what the man went through.  When I heard that Danny Boyle was bringing Aron's story to the big screen in his new film 127 Hours it was a no brainer for me to check it out.  Boyle has a great track record with films like Trainspotting and, one of my favorites of the last few years, Slumdog Millionaire.  Both are excellent films, and they hum with a certain life and vividness that Boyle seems so good at bringing to the screen.  Ralston's story in the hands of Boyle was sure to be an interesting time in the theatre.  I wasn't disappointed.

I'm going to be honest with you here, I don't really know how to talk about this film.  I've started writing this a couple of times now and each time it seems to get harder and harder.  Why?  I'm not exactly sure.  Here's what I know, the film resonated with me.  It struck a chord deep inside me, and I didn't even know I was so deeply invested in the story until the film's final moments.

127 Hours shares some of the same characteristics as the Ryan Reynolds movie Buried from earlier this fall.  Both feature a main character who finds himself in a desperate (and almost incomprehensible) situation.  Both films pretty much rely on the leading man to carry the entire arc of the plot, and are located principally in a single location.  For Reynolds it's waking up to find himself buried alive in a coffin, and for James Franco's Aron Ralston it's trapped between a boulder and a canyon wall.

However, whereas I would call Buried a great movie, I would call 127 Hours a great film.

The difference?  Buried is an exercise reminiscent of some Hitchcock films.  It's a 90 minute exercise in building tension, filling in some of the story, and keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat until the final credits roll.  

127 Hours is a human story, a personal story born of surviving extraordinary circumstances.  It's somehow life affirming, and makes you glad for the people you have that love you, and that love you.  Though at first glance the story appears to be about Ralston's dilemma, struggle, and the steps he takes to get out of the situation, it's actually about something different altogether.  As the story unfolds, and the hours become days, you come to understand that it's all about something bigger for Aron.  The self reliant, tough, capable explorer who's willing to go it alone ultimately causes Aron to find himself isolated from those he loves, and those he has loved and lost.  His "strength" is what gets him into the predicament that he's in, and the revelation that his actions have been holding himself back is what finally allows him to move forward.

I'm sorry to say that I'm not being terribly eloquent on my thoughts here.

Here's what I can say:  We can't do this alone.  We can't do "life" alone.  We are meant to have love, to have support, to seek it out and provide it to others so that they don't have to be alone either.  There is no shame in needing help from time to time, and looking to others for support.  Leaning on those you love can make you stronger, allowing those you love to know your feelings makes you stronger, and that strength will help you tackle whatever comes next.

See the movie.  It will move you.  You will rejoice at being alive.  You will rejoice at life.

Catfish - I'm on the fence?

Before you read anything, click on the picture over there and watch the preview if you don't know about this movie.  Don't worry, I'll wait.

Ok?  Checked it out?  Then let's move on.

It's almost impossible to talk about Catfish as a film without giving anything away, and I really don't want to do that.  As I walked out of the theater I definitely felt a bit rattled by the movie, but not for the reasons that the preview would lead you to think.  Once again I take up issue with how movies are being promoted, even though I understand the necessity of needing to market certain products in certain ways.

You watch that preview and you think, "Holy crap, what happens in the final 40 minutes of the movie?!  It looks like those guys pull up to this old barn in the middle of nowhere and then....what?  Something must go wrong, all hell must break loose....or something....right?"  The entire premise of the film is interesting enough and we can talk a bit about that without giving too much away.  Stop reading here, however, if you don't want to know any more than what's in the preview, ok?

Nev, the film's main character, is a photographer based out of NYC who gets a package in the mail one day from a young artist.  It's a painted version of one of his pictures that was published in a NYC newspaper, and the artist who painted it is an 8 year old girl named Abby who lives in Michigan(?).  Over time, more and more paintings begin to show up and Nev's roommates (who just happen to be filmmakers) decide to document this blossoming friendship.  Abby is apparently talented beyond her years and Nev and the young artist eventually become friends on Facebook.  This new angle of the story is where things really begin to pick up.  Facebook acts as a doorway into Abby's life and we eventually discover that she comes from a talented family of artists, her older sister (Megan in the preview) is a dancer, singer, musician and her mother Angela also has talents.  Friendships and connections develop over a serious of months, all through the very tenuous connections of Facebook, text messaging, and phone conversations.  Ultimately things begin to fall apart, and Nev's curiosity gets the better of him.  He, with friends in tow, decides to visit Abby and her family in rural Michigan.

That, in a nutshell, is the film.

Did I enjoy the film?  I have no idea honestly.  Is it compelling and unique?  Definitely.  Is it, as it claims, true?  I'm not sure, and from everything I've read on the internet no one else is really certain either.  Certain parts of the film seem genuinely real, and other parts of the film seem a little more "Blair Witch Project" than actual documentary.  If the previews piqued your interest then you might want to try and find this one and check it out, but if the whole premise of it doesn't grab your attention then maybe you should give it a pass.

SPOILERS BELOW - STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW HOW THIS ONE ENDS.  Click and highlight the inviso-text below if you want to keep reading....

Everybody gone?


Ultimately it's the finale of the movie that is the most unsettling aspect of the entire ordeal.  But it's not unsettling in the way the previews make it out to be and that is where I think a lot of my issues with marketing come back into play.  The previews would have you believe that something ghastly happens when the boys finally arrive at Abby's home in Michigan, or at least it leads you in the direction of thinking that.  What ultimately transpires is not so much ghastly as it is...sad.  Yeah, it's definitely disturbing what the anonymity of the internet allows people to do, but it shouldn't be that surprising to anyone I wouldn't think.  I mean, how hard is it to make a new gmail address for yourself?  Or a new FB account?  It's probably one of the easier things to do on the internet at this point in time.


The sad part, for me, is seeing how this woman struggles to exist within the realities of her life.  The way she fights with the compromises that she has made with herself in order to have a family, and have some sense of security while, at the same time, begrudging those very things for "holding her back from her dreams."  I think the commentary is fascinating.  She builds herself a fragile house of cards knowing that the slightest inspection might cause the whole thing to collapse, and yet she continues with the illusions anyway.  It begs the question however, if she'd made no compromises, if she'd tried to become the dancer/singer/artist/musician that she dreamed of...and failed...would that life be any better?  Would she be any less broken than she is now?

I'd love to hear thoughts from any of you who've seen this one.

Where the hell have I been?!?!

Ok, ok, ok.  I admit it, I've been slacking...ok?  I've seen a whole ton of movies over the summer and now into the start of fall and I haven't written a damn thing since Iron Man 2?!?!  I mean, what the hell, right?  For all 4 of you dedicated readers out there you have my sincerest apologies.  I'm going to try and get back on the horse and ride again (or something like that....)


In truth, I was feeling a little bit like this was a pointless adventure.  With so many reviews and critiques out there I don't see how adding my voice to the din is helpful or necessary.  But you know what?  Screw it.  I like talking about movies, and if some of you want to hear what I've got to say, then all the better.


Now comes the tricky part, how do I proceed from here?  I guess it would make the most sense to just skip the summer altogether as most of the movies I would choose to write about are already out of the theaters and on their way to being pressed onto blank DVDs for arrival at your local Best Buy store over the next few months.  Here's what I will say about this summer, and then I will move on to reviewing a couple of flicks I've seen lately (a few of which aren't even playing yet in your neighborhood!!)


This summer was pretty lackluster on the whole for me.  As I think back on it, only a couple of movies really jump out at me as being memorable.  What were they?  I thought you'd never ask....

For me this summer ultimately came down to 2 movies.  First, Christopher Nolan's Inception was an amazing spectacle for reasons so numerous that there isn't a point in trying to go into all of it here.  Suffice to say it's a mind bending film that takes chances like no other major Hollywood release in recent memory and pulls most of them off skillfully.  It leaves you walking away from the theater scratching your head and wondering about all the various possibilities the story puts forward.  While the characters aren't exceptionally engaging, it's the ideas behind the story being told that are the characters to watch for and listen to.  As soon as this final credits rolled I wanted to watch it again, and I did about 5 days later.  Great performances, fantastic action sequences (The fight scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the hotel hallway is unbelievable) and a hell of a premise make this the most memorable movie of the summer for me.

The other most memorable title of the summer?  Easy.  Pixar scored another home-run with their send off of Woody, Buzz and the gang in Toy Story 3.  There isn't a single wrong note in the entire film, it honors everything that has come before it, and leaves you smiling and a bit teary eyed at the conclusion.  It's a sweet film that has tension, heart, and a lot of laughs.  How Pixar continues to nail each and everything they put out there is something that boggles the mind quite honestly.  (I'm a bit concerned about Cars 2 next summer....but here's hoping!)  This is supposed to be the final movie in the Toy Story saga and it couldn't end on a better note.  I truly hope that no one at Pixar or Disney have the idea of trying to revisit this franchise in a couple of years because I don't know what more there is to tell about these characters.  It's great for young and old alike and lets you walk away from the characters knowing they're in good hands.  If you didn't see it this summer (shame on you) you might be able to find it at a $1 movie theatre near by.  Otherwise you'll probably have to wait till the holiday season to catch it when it finally hits DVD racks.


Honorable mentions for the summer?  Despicable Me  had a ton of heart, Splice was uncomfortably creepy, The Switch was hurt by bad promo.  Was ultimately more drama than comedy, and was a decent enough film with a great child actor as the focus.

Iron Man 2 soars - Just not quite as high as the first.

The original Iron Man came out of left field (not to mention successfully reviving Robert Downey Jr.'s career single handedly) to be one of the best films of the 2008 summer season.  A great story, wonderful cast, excellent villain, and tremendous pacing all came together for a roller coaster thrill ride to start the 2008 summer season right.  Has the sequel followed the likes of X2, Spider-Man 2, and The Dark Knight to turn out even better than the original?  Not quite.  But don't think that the movie is the next Spider-Man 3 or Superman 3 because it certainly isn't.  Jon Favreau has returned to the director's chair to put together the next exciting chapter in Tony Stark's life, and has continued to build on Marvel Comic's greater ambitions for the eventual Avenger's movie (which is probably going to have the longest list of Hollywood superstars ever put into the opening credits of a film.)


SMALL SPOILER ALERT


Let's get the pros out of the way before taking a look at the cons shall we?  Jon Favreau has an impeccable cast and gives just about every single one of them plenty of screen time to display the characteristics and traits that they each bring to the table.  There couldn't be a better choice for Tony Stark than Robert Downey Jr., constantly riffing on others around him, a bit of a womanizer, excellent comedic timing, and great when the drama calls for it, he simply is Stark.  A man who walks a fine line that balances playboy lifestyle, responsible businessman, peace bringing superhero, and an individual who is struggling to come to terms with the legacies left behind by his equally brilliant father.  Don Cheadle takes up the role of Lt. Col. James Rhodes after Terrence Howard was unceremoniously removed from the cast after the original.  I've always liked Terrence Howard and don't really know why he was booted from the project but Cheadle is a great replacement and does seem to fit the part a little better.  Mickey Rourke commands just about every scene that he's in as the vengeful Ivan Vanko, a known method actor you'd have to look pretty hard to somehow find evidence that he isn't a russian ex-con who's spent a lot of years doing some hard time.  Sam Rockwell is a welcome new element in the mix of Tony Stark's world and plays the part of a scheming rival really, really well.  He's sleazy, slick, smart, well spoken, and an entrepreneur looking to fill a void.  He's fun to watch on screen from top to bottom, I think he's an underrated actor who has done some really great work.  Samuel Jackson and Clark Gregg return as agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and, thankfully, each of them get a little more screen time than the original.  Jackson is hysterical as a man trying to get a narcissistic superhero under control.  Gwyneth Paltrow returns as the able-bodied assistant Pepper Potts, lovely as ever and her rapport with Downey Jr. is as strong here as the original.  Lastly on scene is Scarlett Johansson in a role that, while fun, isn't quite given the screen time it feels like it should have been.  Not at all like the tacked on Venom in Spider-Man 3 who was an add that Sam Raimi didn't want to put in the movie, she fits just fine, and is worked into the plot but just feels under utilized which is a shame.  Hopefully we see more of her in the IM3.


The plot is strong for the most part, and picks up fairly quickly after the events of the first movie.  Stark is dealing with issues on a lot of angles from confronting the American Military industrial machine, to ghosts of his father's past business practices, the fallout of revealing to the world that he is Iron Man, and dealing with the realities of the fact that, at the end of the day, he's just one man in a suit, his abilities and health are all impacted or supported accordingly.  I think one thing that both the original and now the sequel do well is make one think about the realities of weaponry in our world today.  War as a business continues to be a running theme and, even though Stark is out of the business, it shows that there will always be others looking to take up the mantle and continue to evolve it.  That's a scary prospect, and not necessarily a fictitious one.  One of the best elements of the first movie was the humor, Tony Stark constantly cracking jokes at inappropriate times and things like that, and thankfully Favreau and his screenwriters have expanded on that in nearly every area of the film.  There's a lot of laughs to be had and almost none of them feel forced.  A particular sequence in the middle of the film might get a bit hokey, but it's easily looked over for all the other successful humor.  The action sequences are fast paced and intense.  It's obvious that Favreau is getting more and more comfortable with big sequences that involve a lot of elements and characters.  While being chaotic and busy, I still feel the sequences were easy to follow from an audience standpoint.  While the good guys and bad guys look somewhat similar in the movie, it's easy to tell who's who and what's going on at all times (unlike some other movies of late...ahem....Transformers 2....)


After saying all this you're wondering where I find fault with the movie and why I wouldn't say it's quite as good as the original.  Here's why.  I don't feel that the villains found here are quite as villainous as Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane in the original.  They're bad guys, no doubt, but I don't feel that either of them get to really explore how bad they might actually be.  Maybe we'll see them in a future film?  I'm sure at least one of them will be around for a few more sequels.  I also felt the story was a little unfocused, or maybe too big in scope?  There was a lot going on with a lot of individuals working towards different goals and, consequently, it felt that some ideas were a little half-baked.  It's a shame because all of the threads are pretty compelling, so to see some of them get shorted is kind of sad.  Without getting into spoilers I think those are my major qualms.


One final note is that I absolutely loved the casting of Garry Shandling as a smarmy US Senator.  I've never been a fan of his, but this bit of casting was inspired brilliance.  He was fantastic in the few scenes that he was in.


Be sure you sit through the credits for the final scene at the end.  It's a brief one, but important as Marvel continues to build towards The Avenger's movie.

Nightmare on Elm Street - Nearly bored to death.

What's most amazing about the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot that just released is how utterly and completely boring it is.  With such great source material, and such an iconic villain in the form of Freddy Krueger, it boggles the mind how the director and screenwriters managed to cobble together a horror film that has absolutely no tension whatsoever.

I enjoyed Jackie Earle Haley in Watchmen and thought he was a good choice to cast as the new Freddy, and he's pretty good in the movie, he just doesn't have much to work with unfortunately.  The rest of the cast seems comprised of kids who didn't make the Twilight call backs and, thus, had some free time in their schedules to work on a watered down, WB knock off version, of an 80's classic horror flick.


I had vaguely high hopes about this flick, as the original was a kind of seminal moment in my early movie watching career (I have a vivid memory of watching the original sitting on the floor at the foot of my parent's bed one sunny afternoon and being scared out of my mind.)  Like the recent Alice in Wonderland, it seems as though the team behind the project decided to cherry pick some of the most memorable moments of the original story (however not the Johnny Depp blood geyser for some reason??) as way of paying homage, but then they decided to cut those moments down to about 15 seconds of screen time (again with no tension) and quickly move right past them.  For the rest of the film's "scary" beats they opt for lame jump out and get you moments that you can see coming from a mile off, or badly edited quick cuts to supposedly "frightening" imagery that...well....isn't.


There's honestly not much more to say.  The first is a far superior film in just about every way.  It's scarier, the plot is better, and Robert Englund is given more time to terrorize.  It's weird because, there is a moment or two right near the end of the film where you can tell that Jackie Earl Haley's Freddy has real potential to be a world-class creep.  The final climactic beats where he's facing off with the new Nancy are, in fact, creepy mainly because this version more directly addresses Krueger's backstory as a pedophile.  However, just as he's getting warmed up the credits roll (after a quick cut to black on a lame final beat.)  It was in these few final moments that I found myself thinking, "Wow, if we'd seen this side of him the whole movie this really could have been something." and instead they went for cheap scares and watered down imagery to frighten you.


Stay home and rent the original.  Now, on to another point I want to discuss briefly....


You know what sucks?  Knowing that this reboot is the most recent in a long, long line of reboots that's just begun with scads more coming down the pike.  This line includes such titles as the recent Wolfman, Clash of the Titans, The Crazies, and the upcoming American Pie, Spider Man, Robin Hood, The Thing (okay it's a "prequel"), Arthur, Fright Night, Red Dawn, I Spit on Your Grave and, (yes Andrew) Footloose.



I understand the idea behind all of the "rebooting", Hollywood figures it's better to bet on a known quantity that's been successful in the past to get people into theatres rather than betting on new properties that are unfamiliar to audiences and, therefore, less likely guaranteed to draw a crowd.  Hollywood has been hit hard by the recession like just about everyone else out there, so the math makes sense.


What pisses me off about this trend, especially what we've seen of the product so far, is that the studios don't seem to give a damn about the material they're rebooting (I will admit that Star Trek was a great reboot....)  To me that's insulting, and a slap in the face to moviegoers.  I'd like to believe that if you're going to try to retell a story that's already been told once successfully, that you'd want to try to not only service the original, but do it one better, add to it in some new and insightful way.  Instead the idea of all of these remakes seem to be focused on telling a rough outline of the original story and filling the rest of the screen time with lame special effects and overblown action sequences that add nothing at all to the story being told.


It's a nasty game to be playing on us moviegoers and I hope that some of the upcoming reboots buck the trend that's been established or the movie going horizon is going to be bleak for the foreseeable future, and that sucks for all of us.  Here's hoping.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo-An excellent adaptation.

Today was a good day for me in the movie realm. Why? Because after last night's laughably bad experience with Clash of the Titans I had the pleasure of finally getting to watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This is a movie I've been waiting on for a couple of months and I'm thrilled to report that, not only did it wash the taste of last night's debacle out of my head, it was every bit as good as I was expecting it to be. The film has been getting really positive reviews coming out of a number of film festivals (including one right here in Miami a month ago) and they're all well deserved. Between this and The Ghost Writer you've got two great options for thrillers at the theater right now (that is, if you can find them as they're still in somewhat limited release.)

Based on the critically acclaimed novel by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a complex, dense, thriller/murder-mystery centering around Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative reporter who is tasked with attempting to solve a 40 year old cold murder case, and Lisbeth Salander (the titular Girl) a resourceful, mysterious, and troubled young computer savant who ultimately becomes Mikael's valued assistant as he struggles to find answers for Henrik Vanger, one of Sweden's most powerful businessmen, uncle of the murdered girl.

I'm not going to touch more on the plot, as it's a pleasure to watch unfold on screen, so no spoilers here. You've got the basics, and you know I'm really pleased with it, you'd do well to seek it out if you can.

One of the best things I can say about this movie (among many) is what a faithful adaptation of the source material it is. We all know that books are always better than movies, and that's still the case here. The book is a terrific read without question, but the movie is a really strong interpretation that manages to maintain all of the major plot points, the atmosphere, and juggles a large cast of characters and suspects admirably. It's probably one of the best book-to-movie adaptations I've seen in quite a while, so if you've read the book and are skeptical, fear not, it's well realized.

Larsson has crafted a fantastically complex character in Lisbeth Salander and she's just as intriguing on screen as she is in the book. All of her most compelling scenes from the novel make the translation, and it's something to watch her operated in the real world and not just in one's imagination. Noomi Rapace plays Salander extremely well, and the visual transformation that she underwent for the character is pretty remarkable. She's a pleasure to watch on screen, she seems really comfortable with the character and really brings her to life.

Be forewarned, there is some rather extreme violence and a couple scenes of nudity/sexuality in the film, so if you're not comfortable with those two ideas you probably want to give this one a pass. Also, it's a foreign film with subtitles so if you can't be bothered to read then it might not be for you either, however the titles are brief and simple to read so it shouldn't prove too problematic for anyone.

I can't recommend this one enough, seriously. It's tense, deliberate, well acted, and superbly scripted given how intricate the novel is. It won't disappoint. I hope that the inevitable sequel is put together with the same care. The final book hits store shelves next month, I can't wait!