Tag: swan

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Black Swan on DVD & Blu-ray 16 May

The awesome-ass Black Swan starring the ever so beautiful Natalie Portman is set to release on home video in three days. That means Monday. I'm so buying this. Check out the trailer for it's awesome awesomeness, and a few clips from the film to prepare you for the release on the 16th of May: Trailer "Attack it" "Go Away!" "Rough Start" Also, check out the website, "Becoming the Black Swan" Kazed

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Annie Reviews: Black Swan (2011)

I wanted so much to be blown away by Black Swan, partly because I wanted the justification for the purchase of one of the beautifully rendered 1920s style posters that have been produced to commemorate the release of this much Oscar-buzzed film.  I also wanted to love it because so many other people had – friends, family, respected critics.  I just couldn’t get over the sheer melodrama of the piece, however, or the overbearingly clunky use of cliché and stereotype, which made it difficult for me to swallow as a serious film, and deserving of all its hype and buzz. I found the protagonist Nina, played by Golden Globe winner, and hotly tipped for Oscars glory Natalie Portman, cloying in her innocence and childishness.  She was hard to age as a character, but I would hazard a guess at her being meant to be around the mid-twenties point, and yet she sleeps in a Disneyfied haven of teddy bears and butterfly wallpaper.  It is not unusual these days to find children in their twenties still living at home, but the idea that she wouldn’t have redecorated in a decade was frankly more than a little hard to believe.  I understand that all this – her insistence in wearing only pale pink and pastel colours, her teddy bears, her soft voice and tendency to tears – were used to emphasise the transformation into the black swan, and the casting off of her childish shackles in order to embrace her new wilder, more adult side.   It fell short of convincing me, however, because it was so extreme, and in some ways I was more convinced by the descent into madness than by Nina’s original state as the innocent ingénue. The film is of course, sublime in its ridiculousness.  And perhaps this is the point, but I just couldn’t at any point in my viewing fully embrace Nina as a believable character, and therefore, couldn’t sympathise with her.  And it wasn’t just Nina who was an almost farcical exaggeration of a stereotype.  Her foil Lily (Mila Kunis) is also reduced to type as the wilder, free-spirited, sexually dynamic San Franciscan to Nina’s repressed, childlike, Upper West Side Wasp.  Vincent Cassel is also somewhat wasted in his talent as the sexually manipulative director Thomas; a man who seems to think it his artistic right to sleep with all of his principal dancers, in order to bring out their darker, more seductive side.  Despite finding myself hating Thomas for his presumption and tendency towards manipulation, he is also funny and wry, and he has a point about Nina; she is weak and ineffectual, and maybe that’s why I found her so grating, because she represents a part of us that we have to leave behind at a certain point in life, lest we flounder in our insecurities, dependencies and butterfly bedecked bedrooms. The problem with Black Swan is that it tries too hard to make its point, and in doing so left me feeling alienated from all the characters, because they only represent parts of us, and not one of them is representative of the fine balancing act it takes to be a well-rounded human being.  They are caricatures of men and women in a melodrama, rather than fully formed characters in a film.  In creating a melodrama, I can’t help but feel that Aronofsky has fallen short of the film he could have made, because, for me at least, a psychological thriller needs to have believable characters at the centre of it in order to create a convincing portrayal of the psychoses that can affect us all. None of this is to say that Black Swan isn’t enjoyable, however, because it is; it just isn’t quite the film I wish it had been. Rated: A disappointing but not terrible 3/5

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Kazed reviews: Black Swan (2011)

Synopsis: A thriller that zeros in on the relationship between a veteran ballet dancer and a rival. It's an amazing time in a young woman's life when she transforms into a Swan. All of her beauty is multiplied by 6 billion and transferred to her feathers n shit. Director of such films as The Wrestler and The Fountain, comes an interesting take on Swan Lake. What stood out the most in this film were the incredible performances by Natalie Portman (Nina Sayers) and Mila Kunis (Lily something- It's not really clear what her full name is in the film). The contrast between the two characters in the film was ever so fitting to the story, and it worked so well that I didn't care much about the story or the film at all. That's a lie. The entire film was a brain intercourse, and it was like watching an episode of Lost; every 15 minutes or so was me trying to figure out what just happened. After getting up to speed with the story, I slowly began to realise how badass the film is. The film was a little slow from the outset, but about 20 minutes into the film, business picked up. there was more going on, the hallucinations began which made it that little bit more intense. As Nina's 'visions' started to become more intense, so did the pacing of the film, which made for incredible watching. It was so freakin amazing, the film was as gorgeous as The Wrestler and as exciting, if not better. Like I mentioned before, the performance were most definitely the highlight of the film, other than Kunis and Portman, Vincent Cassel (playing Thomas Leroy) and Winona Ryder (Beth MacIntyre) were simply incredible in their respective roles, and added that extra bit of class to the already brilliant film that was Black Swan. 8/10 Kazed

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The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010) review

Synopsis: As a string of mysterious killings grips Seattle, Bella, whose high school graduation is fast approaching, is forced to choose between her love for vampire Edward and her friendship with werewolf Jacob. Having seen the first two from the Saga, so far, this would be my breakdown of the three- Twilight: easily the best of the bunch so far. New Moon: Utter disappointment, from a Film standpoint, anyway. Eclipse: a slight step up from New Moon, very impressed with many aspects, including the acting, surprisingly. What a segway to begin the review. I'll also state again that this review will be written from a Film standpoint, so none of you hardcore Twi-Hards be hatin' on me. So Eclipse. Although a little slow at the beginning, it picked up a little when it delivered some intense fight scenes between some of the scenes. I was impressed, but I wasn't too thrilled about the CGI in the film. It just didn't work, the scene where the 'transfomed' Jacob is comforting Bella looked pretty effing stupid. There were some funny pieces of dialogue in Eclipse, which, quite surprisingly made me laugh. Kudos to the screenwriters, here. I'll be honest, I did enjoy this installment moreso than New Moon, but still not as good as the oh-so wonderful first film. Lovely film, there were some really bad, stupid moments which made me want to murder everyone in the theatre. 5.5/10 Kazed.