Black Swan

OPENING: 12/03/2010

STUDIO: Fox Searchlight Pictures

RUN TIME: 108 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
A film by Darren Aronofsky.

Opening Statement
With a filmography that includes Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain and The Wrestler, director Darren Aronofsky has established himself as a genuine auteur of modern cinema. His latest effort, Black Swan, is likely to be as polarizing as anything he has done, but it’s undeniably an ambitious motion picture.

Facts of the Case
Nina (Natalie Portman, Closer) is a extraordinarily gifted ballet dancer. She has worked tirelessly for years at perfecting her craft, and all of the effort pays off when Nina lands the coveted role of The Swan Queen in her ballet company’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The role is a particularly challenging one, as Nina must essentially inhabit two roles: the graceful, elegant White Swan and the seductive, passionate Black Swan. While Nina handles the former role flawlessly, she has trouble meeting the challenges of the latter. She’s too insistent on perfection to really capture the uninhibited sensuality the role requires. With the aid of a lusty director (Vincent Cassel, Eastern Promises) and a free-spirited fellow dancer (Mila Kunis, The Book of Eli), Nina begins an intense personal journey that may enable her to overcome her fragility and capture the dark intensity the role requires. Unfortunately, this transformation comes at a harrowing price.

The Evidence
Darren Aronofsky has stated that he intended Black Swan as a companion piece to his previous film, The Wrestler. While his earlier film offered a look at the surprising tenderness and warmth behind the violent, rage-filled exterior of pro wrestling, this film offers a look at the brutality, cruelty, jealousy and pain behind the graceful, elegant world of ballet. You could say that Black Swan is a reversed mirror image of The Wrestler, which is appropriate enough given that Black Swan is a film that quite frequently uses mirrors to remarkable (and sometimes unexpected) effect.

As an exploration of duality, the film dismisses subtlety in favor of wildly theatrical symbolism and feverish bombast. I can certainly understand how this might turn off those hoping for nuance and realism, but Aronofsky’s approach to the material is both valid and thrilling. The director is at his most De Palma in Black Swan, reaching a kind of exhilarating resonance by traveling down a path that includes elements of exploitation and operatic excess. It’s a blatantly cinematic film that owes a great debt to other films (most explicitly Powell & Pressburger’s The Red Shoes; that great ballet movie which also has a plot mirroring the ballet within the plot), but it transcends those influences enough to become great on its own terms.

”Perfection isn’t always about control,” Cassel’s director tells Nina. It’s a statement that Nina simultaneously understands and fears, as she yearns for the personal liberation required to play the Black Swan but is terrified of losing her magnificent precision as a result. It’s a brutal, violent inner war that Nina must fight in order to find balance between the two, and this conflict is also captured in Aronofsky’s direction: while the ballet sequences are pristinely choreographed and demonstrate exceptional attention to detail, the entire movie is shot with an alarmingly jittery handheld camera. This does wonders for the effect Aronofsky is attempting to achieve, as there are times when it feels as if the images onscreen might leap right into the audience.

Just as the role of the Swan Queen requires a skilled and versatile dancer, the role of Nina requires a skilled and versatile actress. Fortunately, Natalie Portman is up to the task. Portman has come across as somewhat stilted in her more prominent roles (Star Wars, V for Vendetta), but when a role really demands something of her she’s capable of delivering. In Black Swan, Portman turns in her best performance since Closer — maybe her best, period. She’s excellent as the timid perfectionist who’s still a little girl at heart (her room is filled with stuffed animals), but she slowly captures Nina’s darker side to startling effect. Portman does some of her own dancing as well (she reportedly trained for a year for the role), but the camera is more preoccupied with her face than her feet. In a film filled with relentless close-ups, Portman carries a considerable load using only her alternating expressions of fearful torment and unhinged exhilaration.

The supporting cast is uniformly impressive. Vincent Cassel effortlessly captures the sleaze, intelligence and arrogance required for his role. He’s hit similar notes before, but this performance is a very successful variation on a familiar tune. However, the real surprises come from the ladies. Mila Kunis sinks her teeth into her most substantial role to date as Lily, playing the devil on Nina’s shoulder with wicked glee. Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice) makes the most of a small but important part as the embittered dancer Nina is replacing, while Barbara Hershey (Hoosiers) has a very strong presence as Nina’s overbearing mother.

Closing Statement
While Black Swan will undoubtedly play like a silly, pretentious exploitation film to some, I must admit that I found the experience spellbinding. Aronofsky weaves a compelling web of jealousy, ambition and fear in his film’s first half; then delivers a full-tilt audiovisual thunderstorm in the second. As the film madly rushes towards its dizzying, increasingly inevitable conclusion, I found the same awestruck thrill in the film’s craftsmanship that the members of the audience at the ballet find in the climactic performance. Black Swan is the year’s most audacious film and one of its best.

The Verdict
10/10

The Book Of Eli

OPENING: 01/15/2010

STUDIO: Warner Bros.

RUN TIME: 118 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.

Opening Statement
The Book of Eli delivers an excellent entry into the post-apocalyptic genre, with amazing action and great performances.

Facts of the Case
In a post-apocalyptic America, Eli (Denzel Washington, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is following a divine calling to deliver a sacred book to an unknown destination. During his 30 year journey, he has protected the book against thieves, murderers, and gangs, knowing it has the power to save civilization from itself.

The Evidence
In the span of a year, at least three apocalyptic films have been released to theaters. 2012 gave us the mindless summer blockbuster we sometimes need for a laugh. The Road presented a bleak, post-apocalyptic America, leaving us depressed. But The Book Of Eli offers us hope in a world of emptiness.

Set 30 years after a war termed the "Big Flash," America is a wasteland of rubble, much the crumbling America we see in The Road. That film was presented in mostly grays and blues, while The Book Of Eli was processed using a palette of sepia tones. This could be related to the season presented in each film, but probably more so with the feeling their directors were trying to convey. The father and son in The Road were trying to reach a place the father knew might not bring a better future. Eli, on the other hand, is following a path bigger than himself, providing an internal peace throughout the journey, and a tone for the picture. Although the world is rampant with crime, Eli is dead set on getting the book where it needs to be, by following direction from a higher power.

Depending on the film, I find Denzel Washington’s acting to be hit or miss. He severely overacted in Training Day, but gave a great performance in American Gangster. Quiet and subdued, Washington does an excellent job with Eli, playing the part of a peaceful, yet dangerous man with perfect reservation, only showing intense emotion when the scene calls for it.

One of the better actors of his generation, Gary Oldman plays the antagonist, Carnegie, in his usual superb fashion. He nails the role of ruthless man with sympathy for no one who will stop at nothing to find the book. Knowing it contains much power, Carnegie’s goal is to use the book as a tool for getting the masses to follow him. Oldman gives us a man who is not as confident as his followers might think, but is powerful because he’s smarter than those who follow him. When Carnegie meets our hero (a man who cannot be persuaded), he is weakened by realizing that only through force can he obtain what he needs from Eli.

Based on a graphic novel, The Book of Eli was directed by the Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society, Dead Presidents). I was glad to see they chose to present fight sequences in real time and not with a constant barrage of slow motion shots. Fights are quick, intense and to the point. Slow motion shots can be very effective, but when the majority of a scene is built using those shots, the effect wears off quickly. Limbs are removed so quickly by Eli’s two foot knife it will take a second viewing to catch all the lightning fast strikes (including several decapitations).

The Hughes Brothers present a character in Eli whose life has a mission. It doesn’t take long until we figure out what the book is, and see Eli as something more than human. There is a clear peace to him and others see it as well. Any time Eli comes into contact with a male, they immediately sense something different about him and are angered that he obtains something they do not. Females, on the other hand, feel safe with him, as if for the first time in their lives. One scene depicts the rescue of Solara (Mila Kunis, Family Guy) from a gang whose only intent was rape. Afterwards, walking alongside Eli, she breaks down in tears because she feels unworthy being in the presence of such goodness. This was one of the most powerful scenes in the film, and no, I didn’t tear up. I just had something in my eye. The relationship between Solara and Eli is a stark contrast to the relationship depicted in The Road. Solara, cared for by Eli, is now living in freedom, whereas the boy lives in total fear, even while under the protection of his father.

The Book Of Eli‘s most questionable aspect is the ending, which I definitely did not see coming. Without giving anything away, it will make you think through everything you just saw. Honestly, I’m not sure the ending worked because it made me wonder how plausible most of the previous scenes were. In the same way, my biggest grievance with The Road was the ending, which seemed inconsistent with the rest of the picture. In that film, director John Hillcoat presents a completely hopeless and fearful world, only to have kind people appear out of nowhere in the end. However, I sensed throughout The Book of Eli that we would receive some important revelation and my mind was trying to piece together what that might be. Unfortunately, the reveal wasn’t as grand or profound as I had imagined. Still, the twist did have a wow factor, and I guess that counts for something.

Closing Statement
The Book Of Eli may bother you if need the film to be totally believable, but like The Road, the performances and storyline are more than strong enough to warrant a positive ruling, even if the conclusion is clumsy or a little hard to swallow. In the end (pun intended), both are welcome additions to the post-apocalyptic genre.

The Verdict
8/10

Extract

OPENING: 09/04/2009

STUDIO: Miramax

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Sticking it to the man has never looked so good.

Opening Statement
Over the course of the past decade, Mike Judge’s Office Space has become a cult classic. His amusing take on the suffocating horrors of the white-collar working world remains perhaps his most well-regarded achievement, and it’s hard not to compare the thematically-similiar Extract to Office Space. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t come close to measuring up to its spiritual predecessor.

Facts of the Case
In Extract, Judge moves from a white-collar office building to a blue-collar factory. The factory is owned and operated by Joel (Jason Bateman, Arrested Development), who has turned his passion for flavorful food extracts into a rather successful medium-sized business. He’s considering selling the business and retiring, but just before he’s about to work out a deal with General Mills, something at the factory goes terribly wrong. An accident causes a simple-minded but hard-working employee named Step (Clifton Collins Jr., Capote) to lose one of his testicles. This definitely means a large insurance settlement, but a gold-digging new employee named Cindy (Mila Kunis, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) has hopes of convincing Step to sue the company for all it’s worth.

Joel is deeply dismayed by the situation, particularly considering that he was already stressed out due to his seeming inability to convince his wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig, Saturday Night Live) to engage in marital bedroom action. Joel’s sexual frustration leads him to lust after Cindy. He’d like nothing more than to have an affair with her, but knows his guilt would be too much to bear. Joel’s buddy Dean (Ben Affleck, The Sum of All Fears) has an idea: what if Joel hires a gigolo to seduce Suzie? That way, after Suzie has an affair with the gigolo, Joel won’t need to feel guilty about having an affair with Cindy. As you might expect, not everything will go according to plan — and even if some things do, the results might be entirely different than anyone anticipates.

The Evidence
I really wanted to like Extract, mostly due to the fact that Mike Judge has been treated rather unfairly at the box office. Office Space was a flop before becoming a hit on home video, and his overlooked Idiocracy received notoriously awful treatment from Fox Searchlight during its short-lived theatrical run. Both films used broad comedy to make some rather pointed statements about society. Extract shows flashes of similarly sharp humor, but it’s mostly an aimless comedy that provides little more than half-smiles until it runs out of steam and quits.

This is a very gifted ensemble cast, but it’s rather startling to note just how terribly these individuals are wasted. Each character is given a rather one-dimensional personality type, and few are able to make their single joke work more than once. J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man) plays a manager who can’t remember the names of any of his employees. Ben Affleck plays a guy who thinks drugs are the answer to everything. Mila Kunis plays a sly con girl who predictably attempts to take advantage of everyone at every possible turn. Dustin Milligan plays an idiot who doesn’t seem to have learned the simple art of processing words other people are saying. Each of these characters turn up, amuse us for a few minutes, and then wear out their welcome.

The biggest problem is the script, which just can’t build up any comic momentum. In fact, it completely drops the ball in the baffling final act. There is a moment late in Extract in which Bateman’s character does something incredibly foolish. Bafflingly, the film completely lets him off the hook for this action, offering no consequences (comedic or otherwise), and supplying a shockingly mundane happy ending that feels like the work of a writer/director much less savvy than Judge. Was he afraid that a less friendly conclusion would earn him the sort of poor audience test screenings that killed Idiocracy? To witness the final act of Extract is to see one of this year’s most striking examples of cinematic timidity.

Still, the film isn’t a complete waste of time. Even though many elements aren’t working, Judge manages to supply enough laughs to keep Extract watchable and occasionally entertaining. David Koechner (Anchorman) is nothing short of hilarious in his role as Joel’s obtrusive neighbor, and the underused Kristen Wiig has some slyly fun scenes of guilt-ridden anxiety. Bateman manages to hold the whole thing together quite well, relying on an appealing everyman quality that makes him easy to identify with.

Closing Statement
Extract is by no means the bottom of the barrel in terms of cinematic comedies of 2009 (this is far more intriguing than something like Year One), but it should have been so much better. What makes it all the more painful is that Judge does occasionally hit those spot-on moments of comic genius (such as the soda-addicted man in Step’s house who ponders calling Pizza Hut for a Pepsi delivery when he runs out of his favorite beverage) that remind of us of how good he can be. A surprise misfire from a talented man.

The Verdict
5/10

Approximately nine months ago, my wife brought up an interesting proposal: “Why Don’t We Go to San Diego for Comic Con?” This was without virtually any prompting on my part; I had no horse in the race, so to speak. I’m not that big of a comic book fan, but we were looking for something to do. So why not go, right? And if you’re going to go, go in style; I booked a room at the newly opened Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego, which seemed like a pretty cool status symbol. Aside from an experience at the franchise’s New York restaurant years ago, I did forget that the Hard Rock plays music. All the time. But, compared to other places, it was rock music. The merchandise shop played Black Flag in there, so booyah bitches!

Anyway, the film lineup was pretty good, and I’ll be sharing those here after the jump of the films I managed to sit in on. I’m sure the webs have the footage somewhere, so feel free to search on your own time. On with the opinions!

The Day The Earth Stood Still: Fox was the first to the show, and Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) and Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) came out to pimp the remake of the 1951 classic to be released in December. It was discussed, sometimes at great length, with a couple of shots from the film, and an extended trailer. No, we didn’t get to see Gort, but WETA is doing the work on him now, and things are still very close to the vest. Aside from Connelly being VERY much out of place, barely talking, I’d come in fresh to this, and personally am still wondering why it’s being remade to begin with.

Max Payne: Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), Mila Kunis (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Chris Bridges (a.k.a., the artist formerly known as Ludacris) and John Moore (The Omen) discuss the film which is coming out in October. Wahlberg clearly had fun and played up to the crowd, and everyone talked about how fun it was to do it, meaning how cool it was to fire weapons all day. Moore talked about their own little version of “bullet time” that was employed for the film. Aside from an extended trailer cut to a live version of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” this was a bit of a yawner.

Wolverine: Ole Wolverine himself Hugh Jackman came onstage as an unannounced surprise to throngs of delirious hysterics. After shaking the hand of Len Wein, the creator of the comic book icon, Jackman was happy to finally actually be onstage, as he’d apparently missed the X-Men presentations that occurred in previous Cons.  I’m going to rattle off the cast here; Ryan Reynolds (The Nines) as Deadpool, Liev Schreiber (The Sum of All Fears) as Sabretooth, Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights as Gambit, to name a few who appear in the trailer. And it’s loaded with action too, which doesn’t hurt. Definitely the one people will be looking forward to in ‘09, unless the GI Joe teaser comes strong.

As a side note; what was particularly interesting about the Fox presentation was that a lot, and I mean A LOT of people got in early so they could be ready for Summit Pictures’ presentation of Twilight. Everyone around my wife and I was there in their “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” shirts, whatever that means, but unfortunately I was called away for other events. I’m told though that the Twilight footage was essentially an extended version of the second trailer with the climatic ballet room sequence, and everyone ate it up. As they should I suppose. But I thought it was a little funny that the Fox gang seemed to trot out their products to hordes of Twilight fans, without knowing what they were getting into. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Watchmen: Try as I might to stay away from the masses, I snuck in for a second, where Zack Snyder (300) and the cast were discussing the film. Aside from an extended trailer, more shots of the heroes were shown which really illustrated Snyder’s vision and faithfulness to the source material, and since this is being released in March, expect some more mad money on a Snyder production.

The Spirit: Frank Miller (Sin City) might be an influential comic book figure, but he needs to lay off the liquor or something. At times he seemed to ramble, and cast members Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Jaime King (Blow) seemed to notice. Still though, the footage that was shown of the film looks good, done visually much in the same way that Sin City was. While there’s humor, there are also a couple of required action sequences that look impressive as well. A concern I have a little with this film is that it might not seem to possess the spark of similar comic book films that possess a similar visual style, but I hope I’m proved wrong in this because at least from what I saw, The Spirit could potentially be a good film.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: Showed up a little late to the game on this one, as I was drinking with some of the cast of ABC Family’s Samurai Girl, which appears to be a Buffy-ish show, except without some of the wit and wisdom. But I will say this about Kevin Smith, he’s got some fans in the biz, for sure, and now in this film, he’s got a couple members of the Judd Apatow stock company in Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) and Justin Long (Accepted) together in this film that looks pretty funny. Bonus points for Long’s, er, “moment” with Brandon Routh. Yes, that Brandon Routh, from Superman Returns. Aside from listening to Rogen’s kind of funny Ian McKellen joke and Jason Mewes looking very impressive all cleaned up from addiction, Zack and Miri comes out in October hopefully, and should be worth the hubbub, even if they might have to change the title.

Terminator Salvation: You know, Christian Bale and Bryce Dallas Howard(?) aside, McG seems to carry himself as a bit of a pompous arse. Why exactly would we want to see a film about a battle with first-generation terminator robots? Why would Arnold Schwarzenegger even consider appearing in this? Ugh. To be fair, McG (Charlie’s Angels) likes paying homage to the previous three films, even including attendees who dressed like Robert Patrick and Linda Hamilton from T2 on stage with him, along with an Asian kid whose Arnold accent seemed to venture into Walken-esque territory. He showed an extended teaser of sorts, without any CG shots in it, and the results? Meh. I counted nods to The Road Warrior and The Great Escape in there, along with something that looked visually a little like Charlie’s Angels, right now to the hot chick almost taking her top off. I’ve got to say I liked the teaser in front of Dark Knight more than I did this stuff, and unlike some of the buzz so far, am concerned that this “reboot” might nuke the franchise from orbit.

Pineapple Express: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sneak into the preview screenings that apparently were going on in town, and the footage that Judd Apatow (40 Year Old Virgin), Rogen and gang brought seemed a little to be desired. It seemed like they basically brought stuff from the website or something. One of the scenes came from the Superbad DVD. But come on, you know what this film is going to be about, you’re either going to go see it or you’re not. Oh, and Green Hornet is still on the track of getting made, so yay to that.

Well, that’s the short story on the film side. A quick note on things to come, expect a review of Tropic Thunder in the very near future, along with TV Verdict thoughts from the Heroes and Lost panels, including some teasing of Heroes 3^rd season, as the opener was aired in its entirely exclusively for the Comic Con folks. Until next time, get the funk out your minds and into your hearts people!