Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Black Swan
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Black Swan
(In theater)
Aronofsky keeps to his theme of the physical, mental, and spiritual toll of seeking some level of perfection or immortality again in Black Swan.
Nina (Natalie Portman) is a competent dance troupe member seeking only perfection in her performance. Her obsessesive, controlling mother (Barbara Hershey) is one of the examples in her life of what Nina could become - never a lead, always part of the group, but isolated and neurotic. When it's announced that the primary ballerina Beth (Winona Ryder) is retiring everyone's focus becomes getting the lead in their newest version of Swan Lake. The group's director, a schmarmy, Euro-sleazy svengali named Thomas (Vincent Cassell), has his eyes set on the “ice queen†Nina, hoping he can bring out her sexy, uninhibited side and become Beth's replacement.
Nina is clearly thrilled and intimidated by this opportunity but what becomes quickly evident is that she's going to have her work cut out for her breaking out of her frigid, perfect-form-obsessed life. Thomas gives her some useful advice (“Go home and touch yourself.†Classy.) in this area but it's when she meets the free spirit and overly-sexualized Lily (Mila Kunis), who's new to the dance company, that she begins her transformation. The depths of that transformation and what it will demand of her, however, are only hinted at early on with hallucinations of tearing her body apart and something inside trying to get out...
Aronofsky is a master of keeping up with characters clearly on the downward spiral and, here, while he has to eventually rely on some special f/x to really drive home what's happened inside Nina's head he does it all unrelentingly. Rather than becoming her “almost was†mother, or just another prima donna to get burned out/through (in Beth's character), or to be completely her own person (Lily), Nina fuses these screaming disparate, jostled personalities into one new creation, one that completely transforms her, one that demands sacrifice but rewards with absolute, full perfection.
Rating: A-Posting comments is disabled.
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (271)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4140)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2512)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (385)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (295)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (496)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: April 30th, 2024.
Director: Lee Frost
Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
Year: 1969
Purchase From Amazon
Hot Spur – Movie Review:
Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but...-
Channel: Movies
03-22-2024, 11:53 AM -
-
Released by: Mondo Macabro
Released on: April 9th, 2024.
Director: Max Pecas
Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
Year: 1985
Purchase From Amazon
Death Squad – Movie Review:
Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual...-
Channel: Movies
03-22-2024, 11:46 AM -
-
Released by: Quality X
Released on: February 28th, 2024.
Director: Chuck Vincent
Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
Year: 1982
Purchase From Amazon
Roommates – Movie Review:
Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),...-
Channel: Movies
03-15-2024, 01:10 PM -
-
Released by: Blue Underground
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Jess Franco
Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
Year: 1970
Purchase From Amazon
Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:
Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it...-
Channel: Movies
03-15-2024, 01:07 PM -
-
Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Saul Bass
Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Phase IV – Movie Review:
Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and...-
Channel: Movies
03-15-2024, 01:02 PM -
-
Released by: Radiance Films
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
Year: 1969-1972
Purchase From Amazon
The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:
Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this...-
Channel: Movies
03-13-2024, 11:30 AM -