Janszoon

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

zachsd

Good, but not my type of movie; very It's A Wonderful Life-esque, but more well-done, not rare (or even medium-rare for that matter).

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VEGANGELICA

I just got back from watching the late show of "Black Swan" with a friend, and I enjoyed the portrayal of the main character's deepening struggles. I also enjoyed squirming and cringing in my seat while trying to distinguish fantasy from reality.

I agree with downwardspiral's, Zero's, and Dr. Seuss's earlier reviews of the movie. Natalie Portman's performance was excellent, although I felt her character's fragility and childlike quality were overdone and thus hard to believe.

Dj, I agree that what was happening *was* obvious in "Black Swan," but I feel the movie was intended to be a study of psyches burdened with expectations and pressures, rather than simply a mystery movie.

My main complaint with the movie is that the "good girl" (virgin)/"bad girl" (whore) subject matter inherent in the actual ballet (and movie) is trite and simplistic although probably quite relevant to many women's real lives (although hopefully not as intensely as in the movie). Sadly, I could relate to the movie quite a bit.

I feel the movie did an excellent job of showing how the conflicts played out. I also loved the dancing even as the movie reminded me why I never wanted to dance ballet seriously. Afterwards, the movie left me wondering to what level of disturbance I could ever descend while wrestling with my thoughts, perceptions, and choices. Hopefully not that deep! It reminded me a little of "Jacob's Ladder," one of my favorite movies.

Watching "Black Swan" was also fun because it was the first time in over a decade that I have gone to see a late show...and I can't remember the last time I went to a movie with a woman friend. Scary.

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djchameleon

See, the same reason that you enjoyed it is the reason I hated it. I didn't like him trying to play with my mind and jumping all the time between fantasy and reality like he was trying to play a trick on me when I already knew what was going on. The longer and more he did it, the more I just wanted it to end and see the credits roll. I don't mind when certain movies do that but the way he did it in black swan was not desirable to me one bit. I understand what the movie was showcasing about pressure of being in a ballet company and showing the type of dedication the dancers need to have.

I didn't mind the ballet dancing in the movie but at times I was trying to understand what he was looking for in her while she was dancing in practice and trying to accomplish the black swan side of the swan queen. I feel like by the end of the movie I understood ballet dancing a bit more because of her final performance and finally understood what the company director/leader was looking for.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

Guybrush

^djchameleon, reading that, it seems like you view watching a film as engaging in some kind of metal competition with the director that you want to win.

No offense and that's probably not it, I just found the idea kinda funny.

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Something Completely Different

djchameleon

maybe i'm just weird but that's usually what happens to me when I watch psychological thrillers and the director is usually trying to get a reaction out of the viewer

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

VEGANGELICA

I can see how you might feel toyed with by the "Black Swan," as if the movie were trying to play with viewers' minds. Yet I don't see any other way to present the subject matter to make it interesting. The movie was trying to show *her* view of reality. If it had been a "documentary" type of movie, then it would have lost its key artistic feature: it was trying to show someone's *mind*.

So, I felt "Black Swan" was simply trying to give me a chance to see the world through another person's eyes rather than fool me with a complicated plot, although I understand your perspective.

I agree with you completely, though, that the movie exaggerated how important a dancer's emoting during her performance is. I also agree, like you said, that her performance at the end shows the difference in "feel" between dancing styles. Yet in real life if I'm sitting many rows away from a ballet, I can't see the dancers' faces and I *might* not strongly notice the difference between someone dancing slightly more tentatively (yet beautifully) and someone dancing more aggressively and confidently. Nor would I care.

Without the assumption that this difference in dancing styles is important, however, the whole premise of the movie would fall apart! So, I was willing to suspend disblief in order to submerge myself in the movie's world. Maybe in real life ballet dancing is like that: companies need flamboyant, gripping stars, hoping to rouse patronage of ballet to try to stay afloat financially, which must often be a struggle.

As an aside, one of the previews in the movie theater was for a Metropolitan opera that was going to be shown soon...in 3D! Hang on to your hats as a whoosh of 12-year-olds floods the theater for THAT opening!

My thought was: how pathetic. Opera has been reduced to "going 3-D" in movie theaters to try to get people to watch.

No amount of 3-D-ness is going to make up for the fact that I find the plot of most operas (rather like "Black Swan") to be overly melodramatic and the singing style contrived, stilted, and unappealing (with a few exceptions).

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djchameleon

I think another reason it had that effect on me is because I went into the movie thinking that the reason people loved it was because of some sort of twist at the end. I'm pretty much conditioned to try to solve and figure out twist endings because quite a lot of movies have been using that technique over the past decade or so.

3-D puts kiddies in the seats regardless of content or so they are hoping. lol

The whole 3-D thing that's going on with films wanted to be released in 3-D format is extremely greedy of the movie industry and they are going to start alienating the movie go-ers this way. They are trying to get as much money as they can with fewer ticket purchases.

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Fame, fortune, power, titties. People say these are the most crucial things in life, but you can have a pocket full o' gold and it doesn't mean sh*t if you don't have someone to share that gold with. Seems simple. Yet it's an important lesson to learn. Even lone wolves run in packs sometimes.

Raust

It was pretty bad. Andrian Brody and Sarah Polley did a very poor job acting. Other than that it was just ****ed up and stupid.

Dr.Seussicide

I loved this movie. The character development in this superb and it's emotionally enthralling. I'd really recommend this to everyone, definitely worth your time.



Also a very good movie. Lyndsy Fonseca is so fucking hot btw. But yeah, the action in it was pretty top notch, Hit Girl is fucking insane. I definitely enjoyed it.

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