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Author Topic: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D  (Read 31100 times)

Johnny C

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BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« on: 03 Dec 2010, 15:49 »

PREMIERES TONIGHT IN SELECT CITIES AND I WON'T GET IT HERE FOR MONTHS BECAUSE IT'LL ONLY PLAY AT THE ARTHOUSE THEATRE BECAUSE ALL THE DUMB COCKSUCKERS HERE WANNA GO SEE DUE DATE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jaI1XOB-bs

if you live in one of those select cities please go and tell me if this is as fucking awesome as it looks
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #1 on: 03 Dec 2010, 15:55 »

it's been getting rave reviews from all the sources i trust. it's not playing anywhere in my city yet, as far as i can tell. which is fucking stupid and weird.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #2 on: 03 Dec 2010, 15:59 »

yeah, I doubt this will play anywhere close to me any time soon, but I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed.

been looking forward to it for a while
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #3 on: 03 Dec 2010, 16:02 »

I love Natalie Portman, but hate Mila Kunis.  Decisions.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #4 on: 03 Dec 2010, 20:15 »

Has Darren Aranofsky made a bad movie?

I'd characterize The Fountain as a noble failure, but I'm open to other Ps of V.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #5 on: 04 Dec 2010, 00:27 »

I am OK Natalie Portman, lukewarm with Mila Kunis but I LOVE it when people grow feathers.  Decisions.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #6 on: 04 Dec 2010, 05:49 »

 Makes me think of Suspiria.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #7 on: 04 Dec 2010, 07:27 »

JC, my friend in Houston caught it and said it was brilliant.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #8 on: 04 Dec 2010, 07:33 »

Man Jens why we gotta disagree on things, we normally get along so well.

Requiem for a Dream is a pretty amazing film. It's not top flight perhaps simply because it's just too fucking intense. It's like eating a whole box of chocolates all at once, but the chocolates are made of machine guns.

Quote
Makes me think of Suspiria.

I got overtones of Suspiria plus other Argento films, particularly Opera (Terror at the Opera in the US).

This is a very good thing, though Opera is Argento at the beginning of what looks like being a terminal waning.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #9 on: 04 Dec 2010, 08:23 »

I feel there's a lot about it that was fairly fresh, at least to that format and length of moving image, at the time it was made. I mean yeah, the last half an hour is like a high budget Nine Inch Nails video that never stops, but I guess I like that.

Ironically, most of the times I've watched Requiem for a Dream, I will admit to being seriously fucking wasted.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #10 on: 04 Dec 2010, 10:09 »

moviie bob from the escapist ave it a really good review.  he also said this movie actually uses natalie portmans potential.
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Johnny C

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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #11 on: 17 Dec 2010, 20:38 »

ANSWER TO THE THREAD TITLE: IT IS
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Johnny C

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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #12 on: 17 Dec 2010, 20:39 »

for sure the most stressful movie i've watched since antichrist
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #13 on: 18 Dec 2010, 01:25 »

I was definitely hooked during the run time (during the rehearsal scene where the black swan falls into a mattress, I jerked and spilled soda on myself) but afterwards all I was really left with was the strength of the performances (Natalie Portman is so good) and the surprising nuance of the peripheral characters (except Evil Show Mom, who is crazy and evil).

But overall I just could not for the life of me shake the feeling that the whole thing was an extended love letter to the works of David Cronenberg, even with the thematic mirroring of The Wrestler. Dude pretty much owns the body horror / physical-manifestation-of-psychic-sickness niche. That isn't to demean Aranofsky's work, which was pretty excellent throughout. It's just... yeah, I'm having trouble saying that it's better than the sum of its considerable parts. Certainly worth watching, whatever the case.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #14 on: 18 Dec 2010, 02:16 »

i dont think people are giving her mom enough credit as a character – there's some real joan crawford moments but there's also a lot of moments that speak to serious fears about her daughter's increasingly unhinged behaviour, and there's several of those moments where the character elicits at the very least some pathos. and i don't know that it has to be better than the sum of its parts, when the sum is this high. it's remarkable aesthetics wedded to remarkable performances of a script that embraces archetypes and at the same time fills them out. there's also a ton of seriously unsettling shit that we never actually get resolution on. a friend of mine compared it to lynch's lost highway. i think that comparison is apt.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #15 on: 18 Dec 2010, 02:37 »

Perhaps the mom character does care about her daughter, but her motives are harder to discern than those of her counterpart in Vincent Cassell - for one, her controlling behavior is pretty over-the-top, the cake scene in particular, and it felt to me as though her resentment towards her daughter gives her an impulse to sabotage as much as save her (though that is some extrapolation on my part) and in any case she'll only help her daughter on her own draconian terms. Cassell, on the other hand, while being a generally pervy and handsy type, was genuine in his assessment of Nina's technique and earnest in his desire to see her nail the black swan. I feel like that difference may have to do with Nina's perspective, though, since she chafes under and fears her mother while practically worships the director. Aside from possibly the last scene the film seems entirely immersed in Nina's headspace.

I was thinking about Lost Highway when watching it a lot too, particularly in that both movies have (arguably) a clear point of demarcation between the period in the narrative where the main character is balancing precariously on the edge of breakdown and the full descent into the psychotic rabbit hole, so to speak.

SPOILERS ARE HERE
...
...
...
...
...
In Lost Highway the turning point is the arrest of Bill Pullman's character, where his cognitive dissonance and denial are so strong that he becomes an entirely different person (and a much worse actor). For Black Swan it's Nina's night out, when she stands up to her mother for presumably the first time, admits to herself her repressed sexual desires (and even deeper gay/bi desires / deep-seated Freudian issues) and generally achieves the abandon needed for the black swan part at the ultimate cost of her sanity and (possibly) life. When she came home and her mother didn't acknowledge Lily it immediately signaled for me that the point of total lunacy had been reached.
...
END SPOILERS



So hey they got rid of smaller-than-average font sizes. I have no idea how to provide foolproof spoilers now.
« Last Edit: 18 Dec 2010, 02:41 by KvP »
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #16 on: 18 Dec 2010, 02:50 »

Anyway it should be said that even if the film's themes are unmistakably Cronenbergian they are equally Aranofsky...an. He makes films about destructive obsessions. It just so happens that with this one and his alleged next project (about a man who gradually turns himself into a cyborg, apparently) he's venturing into territory well-tread by the Canadian psych-horror demigod.
« Last Edit: 18 Dec 2010, 02:52 by KvP »
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Johnny C

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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #17 on: 18 Dec 2010, 11:08 »

cronenberg is a really appropriate thing. there's apparently a large debt to several polanski films which doesn't surprise me, and argento's a pretty good reference point in some ways as well.

the thing with the mother is that, yeah, there's an emphasis on the controlling behaviour (cake scene was egregious, although it ended with one of the more legitimately uncomfortable mom/nina bits in the movie), but the resistance on nina's part is really strange and aggressive and not altogether healthy either; she's capable of some serious emotional violence against her mother. it's an unhealthy and strange relationship and the mother has a controlling impulse for sure but i think it's frequently and in several ways rendered somewhat impotent. the power dynamic seems obvious but there's a lot of ambiguity within it.

spoiler
plus there are scenes where her concern for her daughter is surely genuine (e.g. the scene where nina screams and tears down all the pictures) and there are scenes that make you think her control issues stem from far longer-term fears about her daughter's health that she's ultimately powerless to affect (viz. nina's perpetual scratching).

two of the best movies i've seen this year have been like litmus-test psych-horror endurance runs, which is like really weird
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Johnny C

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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #18 on: 18 Dec 2010, 11:09 »

also i'm seriously surprised that people can find any part of this film particularly erotic since even those scenes are suffused with dread

e: question, though, i guess: is the movie's use of sexuality and sex exploitative?

double edit: reading some reviews i think the globe & mail's rick groen hits on kind of the way i feel about the functions performed by obvious & literal metaphor in the movie

Quote
At this point, as we’re drawn deep inside Nina’s fearful psyche, it’s becoming hard to distinguish the actual from the imagined. The bloody scratches on her back are surely real – in a physically punishing business, she’s given to self-mutilation. But when those scratches morph into inky scales and then black feathers, or when she wraps her rival in a lesbian embrace and then gets mean with a shard of glass … well, these are the way-over-the-top sequences where the film doesn’t just “lose itself” but its audience too. This is the risible stuff.

Or is it? The doings in the original Swan Lake are laughable at a literal level but poignant and lovely when viewed metaphorically. Maybe Aronofsky, in retelling the story and reshaping the imagery for a different medium, deserves the same respect. More profoundly, maybe he’s upping the thematic ante by adding a further element to the ballet’s explorations of the tensions between opposites – that is, art’s own tension between the literal and the symbolic, and the consequent wavering of the audience between dismissive laughter and engaged emotion.
« Last Edit: 18 Dec 2010, 13:35 by Johnny C »
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #19 on: 19 Dec 2010, 17:40 »

One particular thing that bothered me was Nina's age. How old was she supposed to be?
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #20 on: 19 Dec 2010, 19:18 »

My girlfriend was wondering about that too.

BUT HOLY FUCK, WHAT DID I JUST WATCH.  I never really understood what was going on at any time.

also i'm seriously surprised that people can find any part of this film particularly erotic since even those scenes are suffused with dread

e: question, though, i guess: is the movie's use of sexuality and sex exploitative?

I walked into it thinking it would be somewhat erotic, but when the things went down there was way too much going on for me to even think of it in a sexual way.
« Last Edit: 19 Dec 2010, 19:22 by Blue Kitty »
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #21 on: 21 Dec 2010, 20:07 »

SO STRESSFUL AGLDFGDKFJGFAGADFG
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #22 on: 26 Dec 2010, 19:26 »

One particular thing that bothered me was Nina's age. How old was she supposed to be?

I was wondering this, too. It said in the movie she'd been with the company for four years, so I'm guessing around 22? (Assuming she got in at 18, but that happens with dancers, and also 28 is "old" according to Nina when she talks to her mom.)

But man, what a ride.

Spoiler Alert! When it comes to the mom, though, even though she is horribly overbearing and controlling, we don't know WHY though. She's obviously very concerned when she thinks Nina is scratching again and since the bumps on her skin are not real (her mom points out the scratches, not the weird rash), I think she's concerned with why Nina is scratching - possibly some bad tick? Both characters are troubled in their own way (her mom's paintings weirded me out, especially in the scene where she was crying as she was working on one), but at least the mom realizes that Nina's problems are pretty severe. End Alert!
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #23 on: 29 Dec 2010, 11:55 »

Watching Natalie Portman go off the deep end in the last 30 minutes was one of the most riveting things I've ever seen.  There were obviously huge parallels to Aronofsky's other movies, but the pacing in the last 30 minutes as she wavers between realities was impeccable.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #24 on: 29 Dec 2010, 12:27 »

Oh man, watching her become the black swan was so. good.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #25 on: 29 Dec 2010, 23:31 »

I saw this a few weeks back and didn't have anything to add to this, BUT a friend of mine suggested that maybe the ending was also a fantasy only happening in her head and what we were shown was not literal (I AM DOING MY BEST TO NOT MAKE THIS A SPOILER but I made it small anyway just in case).

Actual spoiler
I also remember thinking on the way out of the theater, "that's weird that no one noticed she was bleeding profusely from her stomach," so my friend's suggestion that the ending was not as it seemed, just like much of the rest of the film, could make sense
« Last Edit: 30 Dec 2010, 07:31 by ALoveSupreme »
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Johnny C

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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #26 on: 29 Dec 2010, 23:32 »

Watching Natalie Portman go off the deep end in the last 30 minutes was one of the most riveting things I've ever seen.

yeah i mean the movie isn't exactly subtle but in the last act absolutely everything is on full bore and that's when it's at the height of its powers. i'm wondering if maybe the right philosophical sort of thing to apply to it is like the romantic version of the sublime, i.e. something beautiful and terrifying and enormous and that is just a little too big for us to fully understand.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #27 on: 06 Jan 2011, 20:30 »

PREMIERES TONIGHT IN SELECT CITIES AND I WON'T GET IT HERE FOR MONTHS BECAUSE IT'LL ONLY PLAY AT THE ARTHOUSE THEATRE BECAUSE ALL THE DUMB COCKSUCKERS HERE WANNA GO SEE DUE DATE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jaI1XOB-bs

if you live in one of those select cities please go and tell me if this is as fucking awesome as it looks
According to a coworker, it scared the bejeezus out of her.  I quote: "Not a movie you would want to take your grandma to see."
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #28 on: 09 Jan 2011, 09:00 »

I just loath films that get 'rave reviews'. Critics love it, my friends keep telling me "It's the best movie of the year!" and it sounded like an intresting plot premiss, as I didn't know too much about ballet. But I go in and...eh? It's a decent movie. I didn't fall asleep. And the ballet geuniely intrested me. But the plot just seemed to perdictable to me. I mean, it's established from the get go that Natile Portman is crazy and the pressure is getting to her. So then it just becomes a long steady trip into seeing just how crazy she gets. Once you see where the film's going, you have nothing to keep you engaed other then the story telling. Winona Ryder stole the movie for me, as she was just a wild crad. I had NO idea where she was going and her story geuneily intrested me. But the rest of the characetrs? Meh? Couldn't really connected with anyone and the ending just came so abrubtly.

By all means it's a decent film. And I'd love for Winona Eyder to get nominated for best supporting actress. But it's no timeless masterpiece. And am I the only oen who's tired of all these "pscholigical thrillers" comeing out ever year, around THE SAME TIME? It's like they're not even hidding the fact that , yeah, it's totally Oscar bait.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #29 on: 09 Jan 2011, 09:21 »

Did anyone here actually say it was a timeless masterpiece?  I just thought it was a pretty good movie.  I went in expecting her character to fall apart, knowing what the premise and a good deal of the story was.  Aronofsky has a pretty solid formula and he sticks to it.  I've watched tons of movies with predictable plots; quite frankly it's more important to me that the plot is executed well rather than in a new and interesting way.  I knew full well in advance that Nina would develop a schizophrenic bird alter ego, but that didn't make her downfall any less exciting. 

I was pretty wary about this movie because a) it's Oscar bait season, b) it's Darren Aronofsky and c) the lesbian thing was revealed to be something to get more people to go to the movie.  Sometimes Oscar bait movies are actually deserving of Oscars, Darren Aronofsky found a way to make his formula work better and honestly the lesbian gimmick was carried out pretty well.  I personally feel this movie was a good deal better than The Wrestler, which was Aronofsky's Oscar bait movie 2 years back.  Don't watch movies because critics say they're good, watch movies because they seem interesting to you.  That way your perception isn't tainted by what everyone else already thinks of it.  Sometimes movies that get rave reviews really deserve them, but it's all in the eye of the beholder.

And no, they make no attempt to hide the fact that it's Oscar bait season, it's when they start adding things like 'award-winning director/actor' to the TV spots.  Watch 'For Your Consideration', you'll probably get a kick out of it.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #30 on: 09 Jan 2011, 10:34 »

the argument that something is "predictable" is one that usually mystifies me a bit because it seems kind of like how my mom approaches media, e.g. whenever there's a pregnant pause she will try to guess the next line

i don't mean to say something can't be like eye-rollingly full of cliche but i think like the idea that something is a trope doesn't necessarily make it bad. whenever i'm reading or watching a movie or whatever i'm less interested in whether or not a character archetype has been done but rather whether or not it's done well. like dimmukane says, for me, i'm at a point where execution matters to me more than anything else. it's nice; i get less hung up on how "original" everything is and i just get to see whether or not it's actually enjoyable.
« Last Edit: 09 Jan 2011, 10:38 by Johnny C »
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #31 on: 09 Jan 2011, 11:22 »

I didn't care that much for the movie as a whole, but I definitely felt that way about the opening sequence of the latest Star Trek movie. It was absolutely chock full of tropes, but much like with the Wrath of Khan they didn't waver from the idea that space opera-- yes, even in all its cheesy glory-- could still be dramatic. Thus I ended up enjoying that sequence in a way that many more self-conscious movies rule out from the beginning.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #32 on: 09 Jan 2011, 18:05 »

i'm the wrong person to mention the new star trek around, i refuse to see it on the grounds that they show them building the enterprise on earth and you can't do that because how would you get it into space idiots
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #33 on: 09 Jan 2011, 20:03 »

the argument that something is "predictable" is one that usually mystifies me a bit because it seems kind of like how my mom approaches media, e.g. whenever there's a pregnant pause she will try to guess the next line

i don't mean to say something can't be like eye-rollingly full of cliche but i think like the idea that something is a trope doesn't necessarily make it bad. whenever i'm reading or watching a movie or whatever i'm less interested in whether or not a character archetype has been done but rather whether or not it's done well. like dimmukane says, for me, i'm at a point where execution matters to me more than anything else. it's nice; i get less hung up on how "original" everything is and i just get to see whether or not it's actually enjoyable.

Belive me, I thought the plot was amazingly orginal in how it was carried out. One of the few things I liked, was the look into the world of ballet. And Darren Aronofsky, cleary had a passion for the subject and created a story that made me care about it too. But once you know based on the freaking trailer, that the movie is just one long slow count down to Natalie Portman's inevitable break-down ( no doubt, brilliant acting can be expected, as this is Natalie and this IS Oscar season), I'm just pulled out of the story. Now that I know the ending, it's just me watching A+ drama students ace there final. All fine and dandy. But I came to have a good time. Not to watch overpaid actors have a good time. I just get so frustreaed by the way everything about the Oscars is just so clean and percise. They're not so much films as they are science fair projects. Blue ribbon worthy and all. But after the shows over, do you really want to have to have anything to do with it again?
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #34 on: 09 Jan 2011, 21:06 »

I'd watch it again.  I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'clean and precise'.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #35 on: 09 Jan 2011, 21:20 »

I'd watch it again.  I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'clean and precise'.

Like in the sense that, you can't go into the film and not know that ever emotion captured on screen, every emotion stirred, every lighting trick, film score cue, and actor intesnity witnessesd, was all desgined purely to inlict a response out of you to win an award. I know, I know, at the end of the day, they are actors, and they are at work, and they are working for a paycheck. But it's hard to close my eyes and be taken in by a story when I feel like the director is just nudging me every few seconds to impress me.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #36 on: 10 Jan 2011, 02:04 »

i'm the wrong person to mention the new star trek around, i refuse to see it on the grounds that they show them building the enterprise on earth and you can't do that because how would you get it into space idiots

This is pretty much as obstinate as my reasons for not watching Battlestar Galactica. I will however say that in the defense of the new Star Trek it doesn't really not make sense in universe. I mean in the fluff for TNG it said the Enterprise D was built at Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards and Utopia Planitia is a big plateau on Mars, so hey. They've got anti-gravity and free energy and teleporters and FTL drives and they can land their goddamn gawky swan-ships on planets and turn them round on a dime because they're held together by magic energy fields and they have intertial dampers. If you can swallow all that shit then quite honestly they can build their starships wherever the hell they want. Hell, with Star Trek technology you could build a starship on the surface of a sun.

I thought the new Star Trek movie was a bit shit though personally, but for other reasons. TOO MUCH FUCKING SHINY JESUS CHRIST.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #37 on: 10 Jan 2011, 11:13 »

But once you know based on the freaking trailer, that the movie is just one long slow count down to Natalie Portman's inevitable break-down, I'm just pulled out of the story. Now that I know the ending, it's just me watching A+ drama students ace there final. All fine and dandy. But I came to have a good time.

How many movies have ever existed when you pretty much know what is going to happen in the end?  I read/heard somewhere that anyone can come up with a beginning and an ending, but good storytelling is just that, "how did they get there, what happened to bring this eventuality, etc." 
Dunno, seems like you are trying to just not like the movie.  If you didn't like the movie or it just rubbed you the wrong way, just say so, it's totally fine, but these weird points of logic don't really seem to be holding up.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #38 on: 10 Jan 2011, 11:30 »

But once you know based on the freaking trailer, that the movie is just one long slow count down to Natalie Portman's inevitable break-down, I'm just pulled out of the story. Now that I know the ending, it's just me watching A+ drama students ace there final. All fine and dandy. But I came to have a good time.

How many movies have ever existed when you pretty much know what is going to happen in the end?  I read/heard somewhere that anyone can come up with a beginning and an ending, but good storytelling is just that, "how did they get there, what happened to bring this eventuality, etc." 
Dunno, seems like you are trying to just not like the movie.  If you didn't like the movie or it just rubbed you the wrong way, just say so, it's totally fine, but these weird points of logic don't really seem to be holding up.

Honestly it might be just this.  :-D I alwasy get really jadded around the Oscar season, and having to put up with every movie poster/trailer/comercial for films the reminded you over and over again it's "Nominated for an Academy Award!", just get on my nerves after awhile.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #39 on: 10 Jan 2011, 12:16 »

Oscar season is really annoying, yes, but there is a valid reason for releasing movies at certain times of the year. Movies will tend to make a lot of money if they come out in the summer (especially family movies) and Thanksgiving/Christmas (Oscar nods). The reason the Oscar nods get released later in the year is because they will be fresh on everyone's minds by the time Oscars roll around and it may/may not hurt chances if it's released at another time. (I don't know or care if that's true, but it seems like a possibility.) When the Oscars happen, look at the movies and see when they are released - most likely most, if not all, will have come out in summer or around the holidays. Why? Because movies make a lot of money around those times of year!

Tl;dr - Yes, Oscar season is annoying, but it's smart business on the studio end.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #40 on: 10 Jan 2011, 15:45 »

Honestly it might be just this.  :-D I alwasy get really jadded around the Oscar season, and having to put up with every movie poster/trailer/comercial for films the reminded you over and over again it's "Nominated for an Academy Award!", just get on my nerves after awhile.

If that's the case, then you should definitely check out For Your Consideration.  It's Best in Show if it were about the Oscars instead of dogs.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #41 on: 10 Jan 2011, 17:59 »


I thought the new Star Trek movie was a bit shit though personally, but for other reasons. TOO MUCH FUCKING SHINY JESUS CHRIST.

Enjoyed the opening, but yeah, a lot of it was pretty thoroughly crappy. By the time Simon Pegg was making his appearance I had felt ready to go home for quite a while.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #42 on: 10 Jan 2011, 19:26 »

Honestly it might be just this.  :-D I alwasy get really jadded around the Oscar season, and having to put up with every movie poster/trailer/comercial for films the reminded you over and over again it's "Nominated for an Academy Award!", just get on my nerves after awhile.

If that's the case, then you should definitely check out For Your Consideration.  It's Best in Show if it were about the Oscars instead of dogs.

I honestly have never heard of this film. It sounds hilarious, and the fact that it has most of the cast from my all time favorite movie, This Is Spinal Tap, makes it a win! :-D I'll rent it sometime. Thanks!
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #43 on: 11 Jan 2011, 00:38 »

This is pretty much as obstinate as my reasons for not watching Battlestar Galactica.

in my defense this is all completely true and has occurred to me, and furthermore might i add that it's the worst reason to not watch a film and the last time i explained it to someone i introduced it with "allow me to explain why i don't have a girlfriend"
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #44 on: 13 Jan 2011, 09:06 »

This was one of my favourite films of 2010.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #45 on: 13 Jan 2011, 22:27 »

Possible angle? (Spoilers in the link)

I think the more "mundane" explanation is more easily agreed upon (the given idea requires a... reading of events that have other explanations), but it still seems like a possibility. The "Ready for me" scene does seem to stick out.
« Last Edit: 13 Jan 2011, 22:30 by KvP »
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #46 on: 19 Jan 2011, 08:52 »

Saw it tonight, landing firmly in the camp that thinks it's a solid movie and pretty much well within Aronofsky's usual schtick of heavy-handed metaphor and well-worn tropes and unerring inevitability that still manages to be entertaining and interesting and worthy of serious consideration and conversation.

I read the article KvP posted before seeing the movie (I'm not too bothered about spoilers because as previously discussed in this thread, it's a pretty simple story when you get down to it and the interest lays in more visceral concerns) and although the guy makes his case somewhat convincingly, there's not much in the actual content to support, even when you go and watch it with that very theory in mind.
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #47 on: 19 Jan 2011, 14:13 »

The ready for me scene is the only thing that sticks out, but I don't really like that whole thing. I think her mom was controlling because she is a total stage mom and also because there's hints of Nina's having been a little nuts in the past (namely the scratching).
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #48 on: 20 Jan 2011, 05:58 »

This opened in Australia today so I went and saw it. It was certainly very tense, and the fact that the cinema was pretty crowded made it even more tense. There was lots of shocked laughter going on. (Judging by the specificity of some of the audience reactions I think there were also a lot of dancers in the cinema). I thought it was a pretty good movie, I definitely got big Cronenberg vibes off it as a few other people in this thread have. The only bits that I thought were really misjudged were:

SPOILERS

In Nina's big pyschotic episode, when the paintings were all moving and then when her legs broke, both these effects just looked really goofy to me; and although Natalie Portman's performance was generally excellent her "evil" acting when she came off stage just before going back on and transforming into the black swan was really on the nose.

END SPOILERS.

Also, it bugged me that she never went and just explained her mistake to the girl who she said "congratulations" to, but that kind of thing - where a big festering problem (though granted it wasn't really touched on again in the film, I just like to imagine) could so easily be avoided by a bit of sensible behaviour - tends to annoy me to an unreasonable degree in movies.
« Last Edit: 20 Jan 2011, 06:00 by Inlander »
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Re: BLACK SWAN IS APPARENTLY AMAZING, SOMEONE C/D
« Reply #49 on: 20 Jan 2011, 06:10 »

Also,

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