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Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan: The Movie Natalie Portman Couldn’t Save

Posted on January 31, 2011 Written by ripitup

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Black Swan starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder & Ksenia Solo
Black Swan starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder & Ksenia Solo. Directed by Darren Aronofsky.

And this year’s most overrated movie award goes to….Black Swan. Well, maybe not even just this year’s. I think I need to give up on Darren Aronofsky’s films because after The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, I’m quitting on this guy. Requiem for a Dream was just as bleak and depressing it was supposed to be. It was a hard thing to watch but at least it was engaging. I don’t think Black Swan and The Fountain were meant to be boring. Oh well.

There are many things wrong with Black Swan but let’s go over the plot first:

**

Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a talented and dedicated ballet dancer. She lives with her controlling mother Erica (Barbara Hershey) and lives to get the dual role of Black Swan/White Swan in Swan Lake during the new season. Her teacher Thomas (Vincent Cassel) thinks she is perfect as White Swan but isn’t sure she can pull the evil twin off. After all, she is timid, sexually repressed and pale. But somehow she gets the part and as the show gets closer, she starts getting more anxious. She is also seeing stuff. And what’s up with the new hot student Lily (Mila Kunis) who seems to want to be “close friends”. Will Nina be able to perform without losing it?

**

I’ll admit to seeing Black Swan purely because I gave in to the hype. Rated 8.6 on IMDB? Nominated for 5 Oscars? Golden Globe for Natalie Portman? I thought maybe it might be worth the time. Trust me, it isn’t.

Black Swan is one of the most annoying and boring films I have seen. People see movies for many different reasons. Sometimes you want to get blown away with imagination. Inception does that. Sometimes you just want an interesting true story told in a compelling way. The Social Network kicks butt at that. And sometimes, all you need is pure, pop-corn entertainment and The Tourist gives you all the fluff you need in a pretty package. Or you just want a decent epic movie with all the costumes and acting and budget. This year we don’t have epic but we do have a period piece – King’s Speech.

Now, these reasons above are also my reasons for seeing movies. I want to have fun or be in awe or be inspired or a combination of these, if I’m lucky. But I always want an enjoyable story. I want an enjoyable soundtrack. And I want interesting characters. Black Swan offers none. And don’t get me started on the dialogue.

The movie is all about Nina’s uninteresting life. She was raised by an obsessive mother, seduced by a pervert of a teacher and well, she is not so normal herself. Nina is boring, so is her story. The problem is, this drama/thriller is not dramatic or thrilling. I think it could make a lovely dance show if told in 30-45 minutes. But as a movie? Doesn’t work. And frankly, I wish Ricky Gervais had made some jokes about this one at the Golden Globes too.

Oh well. The only times I had fun watching this was when I saw Lost Girl’s Kenzi- Ksenia Solo, cast as a bitch. And it was nice taking a peek at Winona Ryder. Being a 90s kid, she has nostalgic value. But these two aren’t enough to make the experience bearable.

Fun notes:

–          Barbara Hershey dated Lost’s Sayid Naveen Andrews for 10 years. They broke up in 2009. She is 21 years older than Naveen.

–          French actor Vincent Cassel is married to Italian babe of an actress Monica Belluci and both Vincent and Monica co-starred with English actor Clive Owen in separate films. Vincent Cassel played the baddie in the thriller/drama Derailed, and Monica Belluci starred in the highly fast and entertaining action film Shoot ‘Em Up.

–          Vincent and Monica also starred in the extra-controversial film Irreversible together.

–          Maybe I shouldn’t swear off Darren’s films just yet as he is directing in Hugh Jackman in the second Wolverine movie. If he makes Wolverine boring… Fingers crossed, he won’t.

Other Natalie Portman Movies:

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits: The Natalie Portman Movie We Aren’t Excited About

Coming Soon:Thor starring Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins & Natalie Portman

Overrated: Closer starring Natalie Portman, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts & Jude Law

Preview: No Strings Attached starring Portman & Ashton Kutcher

Beautiful Girls starring Timothy Hutton, Matt Dillon, Natalie Portman, Uma Thurman

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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: Barbara Hershey, black swan, black swan cast, black swan movie, black swan Natalie portman, black swan review, black swan the movie, Darren aronofsky, drama, Ksenia Solo, mila kunis black swan, monica belluci and vincent cassel, movie black swan, Natalie Portman, natalie portmant black swan, Naveen Andrews, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder

When adultery is okay,part 2: The English Patient

Posted on July 5, 2009 Written by ripitup

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The English Patient (1996)

Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Naveen Andrews, William Dafoe, Colin Firth

The English Patient starring Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliette Binoche
The English Patient starring Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Juliette Binoche

BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!

Do not condemn me morally corrupt before reading all of the post. I am a hopeless romantic in general and value loyalty above all in relationships. But yet there are movies depicting a story so well, and so impressively that you find yourself rooting for characters that you could normally despise. Or, sometimes the person who is being cheated on is such a bastard-pardon the language- and the potential lover so dreamy, you actually can not wait for your lead to start an affair. The latter is the case in Revenge and in The Scarlet Letter. However The English Patient, you can’t help but like the husband from the beginning. It belongs to the first category…So let’s get to the story,shall we?

WWII. Julitte Binoche plays a nurse who is taking care of a badly burnt patient (Ralph Fiennes). He is in tremendous pain. We get to see what happened to him through flashbacks: a story about love,passion and obsession beyond anything and everything else that engrosses us. Did it sound too much like a tagline? Sorry, how his tale made me feel…

Ralph Fiennes, The English Patient
Ralph Fiennes, The English Patient. The desert.

The patient is Count Laszlo de Almasy, a Hungarian map maker. Along with other explorers he is working at the Sahara Desert.Among the people he met are a British couple Katharine and Geoffrey-played by Scott-Thomas and Colin Firth. Almasy is instantly taken by Katharine and he actually treats her badly as he becomes more attracted. He is also as opposite to her husband as one can get. Count is distant,quite,mysterious and ranges from overly polite to excessively rude. Her husband is polite,friendly,nice,loving and modern.So much that when he needs to leave for a mission for a couple of days, he is trusting enough to leave his wife among a bunch of men on a desert.Despite Almasy’s suggestions that he shouldn’t.Witnessing this,Katharine is sure that this weird man despises her. But during the time her husband is away, she sees through Almasy. Discovering the inside of caves together and being stranded on the desert during a sandstorm change things. Also, Katharine gets to read his journal where he has put his fascination with her into words.

The connection and attraction are undeniable. When they get back, they have sex. Although it seems more about obsession and lust, the intimacy afterwards is sincere and affectionate.

The second time also doesn’t seem romantic at all. It is quick,impatient and rough. But then there are these moments where they look like high school kids in love.

And then she finishes off. She is feeling guilty already. He doesn’t take it well. He gets into a jealous fit. She also doesn’t know but her husband actually did see them together. The way Ralph Fiennes can turn Almasy’s charm on and off is very impressive. He gives you many reasons to not to sympathize with his character. He has an affair with a married woman, and seems to have a clear conscience about it.But then it all changes,at least in my eyes…

Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient
Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient

The husband tried to crash his plane into Almasy.Almasy dodges the attack,

Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient.
Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient. My both favorite and least favorite scene of the movie.

but Geoffrey is already dead. And what’s worse is that Katharine was also on the plane and she is severely injured. As Almsay carries her towards the cave, we see his painful expression. When Katharine says that she has always loved him, he is in tears. And well so is most of the audience. This is the second and only other film I got teary. You feel his pain. You feel his love. The questions you might have had about the nature of their relationship and their feelings are gone. The husband you felt so sorry for, has now become the guy who (almost) kill his wife. And the guy who seemed more obsessed than in love, takes care of her in the cave on the desert. He decided to do impossible. He walks through the desert for three days, so that he might get to take her out of there and help her survive. But he faces all sorts of misfortune, does everything he can and gets back. Bu when he arrives, she is gone. This time he carries her out of the cave,tears of desperation flowing. The expression on his face is so painful and so powerful that it has stayed with me.And I saw the movie when it first came out…

Of course it is wrong to cheat on your husband. Of course it is dispeakable to cheat on the guy you willingly married and have been friends with and who has treated you just right. But then it is worse to try to kill your wife, yourself and try to kill her lover in the process as well. You wish that Almasy could have gotten a happy ending. His love for Katharine is so strong that you just feel that kind of love is above any rule or principle.And I would probably prefer to love and be loved like , over living a long,yet passionless life.

Of course there is more to the movie than the adultery.

The scenery is amazing. Written and directed by Anthony Minghella has done an amazing job. The movie has won 9 Oscars and I disagree with none. I think Ralph should have gotten best actor. His performance is amazing both as the healthy and horribly burnt Almasy. This is the first time I saw Naveen Andrews-his pre-Lost era- who plays the love interest of Hanna-the nurse Binoche is playing. Dafoe’s conflicted and interesting character adds mystery. This is the movie that made me a compulsive Ralph fan. Colin Firth plays the plain yet loving husband wonderfully- so wonderfully that I had no idea I would later consider him as a hearthrob, starting with his role in Bridget Jones. Is this a movie to be enjoyed by everyone? No. It might seem too long or like a sentimental piece of crap. It might seem just OK or like a master piece. You just have to check it out if you haven’t seen it already and decide for yourselves.

Buy The English Patient

Naveen Andrews as Kip
Naveen Andrews as Kip,pre-Sayid/Lost era
Juliette Binoche as Hana
Juliette Binoche as Hana
William Dafoe in The English Patient
William Dafoe
Colin Firth as the "wronged" husband


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Filed Under: Movies and Actors Tagged With: Colin Firth, drama, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas, movies, Naveen Andrews, period drama, period movie, Ralph Fiennes, Revenge, romance, The English Patient, The Scarlet Letter, William Dafoe

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