“BLACK SWAN” (Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barabara Hershey & Vincent Cassel)
I can describe this film perfectly in just two words; Awe & Full.
This is the worst movie of 2010, hands down – it is one of the biggest loads ever to be shoved into a dumpster & the critics are all raving it as a Best Picture contender?
It’s because it’s snooty – It’s about snooty ballerinas & the snooty ballet & there isn’t much more to it than that.
I was bored 1 minute into it watching Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers tie on her snooty ballerina slippers - & this isn’t a one time occurrence, we have to sit thru quite a few scenes involving Nina and her slippers.
Other than some snooty French guy (Vincent Cassel) putting together a stripped down version of ‘Swan Lake’, there is no storyline – Just skinny women flitting around on their toes pretending to be birds. Note to the filmmakers – birds don’t have toes & even if they did they wouldn’t waste their lives standing up on the tips of them – they’d fly off; especially if they were cast in this piece of s---.
From the beginning Nina always looks frightened and on the verge of tears – In EVERY FREAKIN’ SCENE she’s this way – so when she starts to ‘melt down’, there really isn’t much of a change. I found Portman’s acting in this so bad it was laughable. This film is like ‘Showgirls’ with ballerinas instead of strippers. & the worst part is – there’s no nudity!
Nina is void of a personality – always looking frightened & on the verge of tears tends to make a person unpleasant to be around. She has no life – she lives with her overly protective mother (Barbara Hershey) who treats her like a 10 year old. Someone like Nina would never reach any level of success as this story suggests because she’s too high strung and unable to control her emotions under any circumstance. She’s sad, pathetic and creepy.
We’re supposed to feel Nina’s torment because the overly dramatic score tells us ‘Oh My Gawd, This A Poignant, Dramatic Moment!’
Nina enters the hospital room of Beth (Winona Ryder) an over-the-hill ballerina that was hit by a car. Nina lifts the covers as Beth lies sleeping and sees a brace on her leg – the loud score builds momentum as Nina lifts another section and sees . . . a laceration!!!!
Nina flees from the hospital looking frightened and on the verge of tears while the score pounds in our ears that this is indeed a horrifying moment and we all need to hold our breath until Nina reaches safety – Oh, the brace... oh the laceration...
oh the humanity!
How much more of this can she (& we) endure?
Then there’s the dance rehearsal scenes; I counted 171 of them before I became bored and stopped counting. I believe ‘Black Swan’ just might be the dullest movie ever made.
About an hour into this travesty, there’s a scene involving an old man on a bus that made me laugh. Then dance rehearsal scene #88 followed and I was bored again.
Then to relieve the viewer of the monotony of dance rehearsals, they throw in a disco scene involving a long sequence of strobe light dancing. Wonderful! Now I’m bored AND I have a headache...
Mila Kunis, as in all of her movies, is the best thing about this film. The problem with Mila Kunis’ film career? She’s yet to make one decent movie. She’s great, but the films suck. (Book Of Eli, Date Night, Forgetting Sarah Marshall... am I forgetting anything good she’s been in?)
Now the weird mother-daughter relationship that develops here might have been interesting in a different, less boring setting but with all the elements (meaning; dance rehearsal scenes) the extremely uncomfortable ‘Mommie Dearest’ plot becomes boring as well. But Nina’s revolving door of traumatizing scenes that may or may not have actually taken place happen so frequently it reaches the point where the entire plot seems like a drug induced fairy tale and it fails to excite because it’s all so stupid.
There’s one scene where Nina rushes into the bathroom and tries to puke, but can’t...
I could relate because I felt the same way.
Anyone that thinks this dance rehearsal deserves an Oscar nomination is obviously a fan of watching other people dance and I just don’t understand how anyone could find that entertaining. And the fact that Natalie Portman is supposedly the ‘favorite’ to win Best Actress is utterly ridiculous – Personally, I thought she laid an egg.
12 comments:
Well... now all you have to see is The Social Network and 127 Hours to confirm that everybody who goes to movies are idiots. Oh wait...what do you call them... Oh yeah, sheep. That's it. Because those two films most likely will earn Oscar nominations as well.
I would definitely say I liked those other two films better than Black Swan, I can relate to those stories more because they are about guys and what happens to guys, but I guess Black Swan intrigued my avant-garde part of my brain.
I thought Portman's performance was the best of her career. It's hard to be emotional for that amount of time on cue with cameras all around you. Especially when you aren't like that in real life. Not to mention, I'm no big ballet fan but it is athletic and difficult to point dance. That's a fact whether people like ballet or not.
But I can also definitely relate to people that wouldn't like it. And just for the record, the film itself is getting mixed reviews, especially from the older generation, it's just Portman that's really getting good notices.
I was wondering if you'd see it. I had a feeling if you did just going by your past movie reviews, I wouldn't think Black Swan would be up your ally. It is an art house type movie that's for sure.
But didn't you find it at least unique ? Unsettling ? Paranoid or obsessive ?
If everyone that goes to movies is an idiot then I'm a huge idiot because - look at all these posts -I see a lot of movies!
But people ARE sheep. That comment I will not retract.
Other than exaggerate the number of dance rehearsal scenes tell me one thing in my review that wasn't true.
As far as Black Swan being intriguing, unsettling or obsessive; I'm reminded of Steve Martin to John Candy in 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' when he says,
"Here's some advice - when you're telling your little stories - try to have a point. It makes it so much easier for the listener."
What was 'the point' of this film?
I have no idea.
dbm is impressed by actors that do things they don't normally do - Actors that don't sing singing/actors that don't dance dancing. I'm not. I don't watch that show with karaoke contestants & I don't watch shows with so-called celebrities dancing. If I want to hear someone that knows how to sing, I'll put on a Burton Cummings CD, if I want to watch someone dance, I'll put a gun to my head & blow my brains out because it means my brain is no longer working properly.
No, I don't like ballet - that's an understatement - I hate it.
But the Oscar hoopla & the hype of this movie being 'dark' interested me enough to see it so I could form my own opinion. The darkness was unexplained - the fact that Nina (Portman's character) doesn't have any differently at the end of the film as she did in the beginning made her performance laughable to me. I chuckled when she kept making the same noise with each 'upsetting' breath she took & of course the constant look of fright on her face coupled with being on the verge of tears.
I know dbm, he'll look past all of that because, wow, she's doing her own dance scenes & that's impressive to him. I've always said, we all watch movies differently & we don't all look for the same things - my thing is acting & story & 'Black Swan' was a huge disappointment in those categories - it WAS awful.
So, what makes a film 'art house'?
Was 'Get Low' art house? I loved 'Get Low'. Is 'The King's Speech' art house? I loved it as well. If art house means movies that center on dancing - then no, I don't like art house movies.
Was 'Black Swan' unique?
You bet it was - it's not everyday you see a film as rotten as this one.
There was a plot and the film-makers had a point. The plot was the plot of "Swan Lake." The point was that perfection is often attained or approximated at the cost of one's humanity.
Ballet is not an interest of mine, but I found some details of the production of ballet interesting. Moreover, I had not seen a psychological thriller is some time, so "Black Swan" fulfilled that for me as well.
The music was adapted from Tchaikovsky in clever ways. the camerawork held my eye.
The film was disquieting and disturbing. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
Far from the worst movie of 2010, "Black Swan" was far better than "127 Hours" and was 125 hours shorter.
Lousy proofreading on my part: "Moreover, I had not seen a psychological thriller is some time, so 'Black Swan' fulfilled that for me as well." should have been "Moreover, I had not seen a psychological thriller IN some time, so 'Black Swan' fulfilled that for me as well."
& I didn't put the 'be' in front of 'have' so instead of behave I have 'have' which makes me look stupid, but we all know how intellergent everyone that contributes to this blog is so no harm, no foul...
Oh boy, I get to argue with Alan Smithee - not something I would recommend, but I'm as bold as I am stubborn. Alan & I don't argue very often, except over his obscene love affair with the Oakland Raiders, & I always win those because even Alan knows that it's obscene to be a Raiders fan...
Even though both films made my Bottom 10, '127 Hrs.' was better than 'Black Swan' because it at least had a plot - It could be told in two sentences, but it WAS a plot.
Should I throw myself upon the grenade of ignorance because I've never seen 'Swan Lake'? No, I won't do that because this isn't 'Swan Lake', it's 'Black Swan' & just as we argued with DBM that Danny Boyle didn't explain details in his movie that were included in the book, I'm using the same arguement here - If I was supposed to know the details of an entirely different 'story' to know what was going on in this one, then 'this one' is a turd.
I liked Chelsea Handler's line about 'Black Swan'; "Natalie Portman keeps getting interrupted while trying to masturbate so she goes nuts."
Mr. Smithee writes,
'The plot was the plot to Swan Lake'... Did Mr. Smithee realize how ridiculous that line looked after he wrote it? In other words, 'Black Swan' DOESN'T have its own plot, thus confirming my arguement that 'Black Swan' didn't have a plot.
I'm getting tired of writing Black Swan, so from here on I'll refer to it as TWMEM.
As far as TWMEM being a psychological thriller... How?
Other than Chelsea's line, what exactly drove Nina nuts? I've had mother's & sister's friends walk in on me whilst pleasuring myself -it was embarrassing but it didn't drive me bonkers!
I will agree with Mr. S. that the film was disquieting (the music sucksed!) & disturbing (because it never explained exactly what was going on!) but I found that I hated it more than I thought I would.
Could it be that Mr. Smithee has become 'snooty'?
Say it isn't so, Al!
I am the one throwing myself on a grenade, for Terry has played the "So what?" card. No matter what I now post Terry can always post another question dismissing/missing my point. Still, here I go.
The plot of "Black Swan:" A prima ballerina obsessed with perfecting a role goes so mad in striving to get the role perfect that she emulates the self-destruction of the protagonist in "Swan Lake."
That plot may not interest you, Terry. It is there. I only know the plot because I watched this movie.
How many times do you imagine I have seen any ballet, let alone "Swan Lake?" I have seen ballet as often as the mean Raiders fan -- 0 times.
How then did I gather the plot of "Swan Lake?" I paid attention during "Black Swan" when the film-makers repeated the plot of "Swan Lake."
[I half-expect Terry will now claim "Swan Lake" had no plot.]
As for not having a plot of its own, would you make the same complaint about innumerable classics that "borrow" older plots? Was "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" without a plot just because Homer originated elements of that plot?
Chelsea Handler's line would be puerile throwaway if she were a male. Since she is a female, let's just call her one-liner a willful distortion. No one who watched even part of the movie could accept that dismissive summary.
[Claim the film was so bad you fell asleep.]
I have answered already what drove Nina nuts. Her mother, her competitors, the fate of her predecessor, and her manipulative director/producer each and all drove her over the edge, so to speak. What was real and what was not supplied the psychological thrills.
As for your contention that the music stunk, good luck with that claim. Yes, that Tchaikovsky was a real bum. Maybe you and Chelsea Handler can collaborate on an expose on how "Amadeus" was ruined because Mozart could not compose owing to his priapism.
Yo! Don't you go dissing on Wolfgang, Holmes!
Well, if I missed the point to a pointless film, it won't be the first time my opinion has been 'wrong', eh?
I'm glad to see you haven't gone 'snooty' on me, Mr. Smithee; I just assumed (uh-oh) that perhaps your snooty first wife my have dragged you to a ballet or two during your tortorous tenure with her...
I couldn't tell you if the plot to 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' was borrowed or not since I only made it halfway thru that piece of garbage - talk about ear-wretching music! So if Homer wanted to sue anyone for plagiarism I'm sure he wouldn't be taken very seriously.
D'OH!
Sorry, but Chelsea's line IS appropo (& probably written by a male) because there are many ways to look at this very complexed film. Perhaps the 171 dance rehearsal scenes lulled me into thinking this movie was as useless as an organ grinder's monkey at a Star Wars convention and that's how I missed the very believable concept of TWMEM.
When Chuck forced Ludwig to roll over someone was suppose to pass the news on to Peter... S'not my fault he never got the memo.
Chelsea and you are entitled to your own opinions and to Chelsea's half-witticism. Neither of you is entitled to your own facts.
"The Black Swan" provided ample material aside from masturbation for Nina's descent. That is simply fact.
Hence, when Chelsea "mistakes" [in two senses] erotic fantasies for a primary cause rather than a secondary symptom, he/she willfully discards the vast majority of Nina's pressures and problems in the film in favor of a throwaway half-liner.
When a friend and I walked away from "Ordinary People," the friend said Conrad's [Timothy Hutton's] problem was that his head was up his ass. That was droll if more insight was coming; that was dull if no supplementary thoughts followed.
Chelsea's comment remains apropos of dismissive banter, perhaps, but unrelated to fair comment. If Chelsea would traffic in glib mendacity, she/he could at least be humorous.
I only have two words to say in response to your latest comment, Mr. Smithee . . . "So what?"
I liked the film, but I don't think it belongs in the Oscar ten best picture nominees. I like psycholical thrillers. I don't think there is enough of them, but the they are hard to pull off. I just felt that ballet at a high level is very pressure filled and Portman sold that she was practically losing her mind reaching for the perfection... add the domineering mother living through her daughter that I thought was believable because how many times have we seen that in real life ? Ask Todd Marinovich.
I also like Darren Aronofsky as a filmmaker. He takes chances and no one film of his has ever been in the slightest the same genre or otherwise.
I also give props to Mr. Smithee for bringing up the cinematography in Black Swan ( which was nominated btw ) Matthew Libatique has been long due. His lensing for The Fountain was outstanding but he was crimanlly snubbed that year. He's also responsible for Requiem For A Dream and the Iron Man films. He work in Black Swan is top notch. Very good eye.But when this category is considered I feel the long over due and 9 time nominated Roger Deakins will finally take home his first gold statue. He should have won way back for Shawshank.
I guess you guys are going to have to give me a couple of examples of 'psychological' thrillers because as far as I was concerned 'Black, er, excuse me TWMEM' doesn't fit the bill because the 'psychological' part was never explained - as my wife asked, "Were we expected to believe that she was turning into a bird? What was with the pulling feathers out of her skin scene?"
... Normally I have an answer for her - this time I did not because this dull, moronic movie did not provide any answers for all the nonsense we viewed.
Watch Nicole Kidman in 'Rabbit Hole' & tell me she didn't wipe up the floor with Natalie Portman's tutu - from an acting standpoint. Not from a 'oo look she learned how to dance ballet' standpoint because that isn't as impressive as 'becoming' another human being & making it believable. Kidman did it to perfection. Naomi Watts was incredible in 'Fair Game' & she should have been Nicole's only competition. People giving 'acting' awards because someone learns a dance routine, or for playing a lesbian is getting tiresome. Besides as an 'actress' Natalie Portman was awful - Yeah, yeah, kudos on learning how to dance on your toes, but your acting stunk. & I blame the director Aronofsky just as much because Natalie isn't as bad of an actress as she appeared to be in TWMEM.
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