Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky's new film Black Swan was difficult to watch because I knew how it was going to end, but I didn't know why bad things were happening and whether or not they were real.

This confusion stems from the fact that the film is from Nina's (Natalie Portman's) perspective. We see what she experiences without any indication of whether or not what she's experiencing is real. Then, we start to realize that much of what we had believed to be true is not true (never even happened, really). But as soon as we start to understand this, the film reaches such a level of intensity through great use of music and frantic cutting that we forget we've been tricked by what Nina has seen before. We start believing what we see again. This part (the suspense, the fear) is very well-crafted. And it is oddly triumphant- much like The Wrestler.

What doesn't work so well is the premise itself. In the end, the question becomes "Can an artist immortalize herself through one role (or one work of art)? And can the process destroy the person inside of the artist?" We don't get the critical distance to think about the answers to this question until we start to catch on to what is going on. Throughout, we are too concerned with Nina's physical well-being as her body falls apart to care about why this is happening.

Performances from the actors are all great. Mila Kunis's rough around the edges ballerina was surprisingly believable, and Vincent Cassel was creepy as the director and (at least in part) the only character who was aware of the questions about artists, their bodies, and their legacies.

I'm always impressed but turned off by Aronofsky's films. The most disgusting things are confronted unflinchingly. He is, of course, not the only director who employs this tactic. But he is the only one who clearly (at least by the end) does it in order to make us think about why we're alive and what alive actually is.

127 Hours

Yesterday, I saw 127 Hours at Century.

*Spoiler Alert*

I knew James Franco's character was going to cut his arm off, but I wasn't seriously worried until I was walking up the ramp to theater #7 where I noticed a small white sign taped to the wall. It reminded viewers of the one graphic scene that had caused viewers to feel sick and almost faint. And then I realized what I had actually signed up to see, how every single shot in the film would hint at his entrapment and his eventual escape. I was sweaty and scared during shots at the beginning in which James Franco simply ran his hands across smooth rocks. That is effective filmmaking.
But from now on, I don't think I'll mention the arm thing, which was harrowing, but I think Danny Boyle didn't want to make it the focus of the entire film.

Here's why. There's a framing device used, shots of people on a crowded train platform, fans in a packed stadium, cars on a highway, all emphasizing the multitude of people everywhere else, except for where Aron Ralston was trapped. We get the sense that he wanted to be alone, and while I haven't read the book he wrote, I'm going to assume that this is something he had written about extensively. This is about as much as we get in terms of character development...and really about as much as we can expect, and as a result, a lot of the flashbacks revolve around his experiences with an ex-girlfriend, which allow us to escape the ridiculously claustrophobic conditions in the canyon, and also shows us what would prompt a person to go somewhere so lonely without letting anyone know where he was going.

This makes the people helping Aron in the end seem like they're functioning symoblically as well. He needs people to survive. He has learned his lesson. It's no longer just a factual account, and I respect the desire to incorporate a small arc, or a small emotional change into such a big, terrifying, and life-altering experience.

But did it work? Kind of. It was visceral. It made me at first want to get away from the crowds and the noise, and then it made me want to go right back, to never be alone.

And all of it, really, was pretty. A combination of the colors from Slumdog Millionaire and the movement and effects from 28 Days Later.

Dare we say that Danny Boyle is an auteur? And can we watch anything he makes without thinking of his big smiling face at the Oscars?

"Year One" and "Whatever Works" and "Food, Inc" and "Away We Go"

I don't want to keep writing about the films I've been going to see, but it's probably the only thing Micah and I have been doing that is at all worth writing about. Unless, of course, there is some interest in a play-by-play of yesterday's most disorganized water fight, or the delicious pizza we had after that.

But I want to record my impressions of these films. I skipped Away We Go when it came to blog posts because I liked it and felt that there was nothing more to say. But I still don't like Dave Eggers, and it's important to know why. But I don't know why. So, I'll leave it at that.

Year One- Did anybody else see the clear Apocalypto spoof throughout? The hunt at the beginning? The capture of the entire village? Slavery in a big city? Religious sacrifice? In any case, it was one of the few things worth paying attention to even thought it wasn't particularly well-done.

Food, Inc- Predictably, it made me want to change my eating habits, but I am a coward. I also don't have the means to do as much as I would like to. And also, it's hard to give up things like Cheez-its because they seem harmless, but they're not. And, the biggest message that the film conveyed was that you can hardly get away from the McDonalds of the world if you don't grow all of your own food because big fast food chains are also big buyers of produce which means that they control the market. I'm not making myself very easy to follow, but the point is that evn lettuce that we buy is McDonald's-controlled lettuce in a way.

Whatever Works- Larry David doesn't act. He plays Larry David with Woody Allen's preoccupations. All other parts are enjoyable.

"The Hangover"

# 126 on IMDB's Top 200. Reviewers on the website describe it as "truly, hilariously, funny" and "The tale of how three friends tries to find the lost groom before his wedding after their crazy night in Las Vegas. The movie gets funny from the Las Vegas part right till the end. There is hilarious stuff in every other scene. Not to be missed, one of the best comedy of 2009."

But ALL OF THIS IS A LIE. There are barely words that can describe my distaste for the people in that theater who laughed uproariously at the most disgusting and stupid things for over an hour and a half. In the film, Phil (played by a greasy Bradley Cooper) sets out to give his friend Doug the best bachelor party on the face of the planet by taking him to Las Vegas. We know from the first scene that the night has gone horribly wrong because Phil is calling Doug's fiance to fess up to something. The rest of the film takes place as one long flashback that skips the actual bachelor party bit in order to mimic the effects of a certain drug (a Forget-Me-Now if you will) which forces the characters to piece together the events that led up to Doug's disappearance. That's it. And in the end, the men are rewarded for their behaviors in a number of ways- I think I'll just go ahead and spoil it. Stu (Ed Helms) gets the courage to stand up to his controlling girlfriend, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) gains partial acceptance from Phil who after a night of debauchery funded by money stolen from his elementary school students gets to come home to a loving wife and son while Doug is forgiven at the altar for being sunburned and late to his wedding with absolutely no explanation. Everything about the wrap-up scene at the end smells of the horrors of Broland. It is okay to break up with your girlfriend if she doesn't want you to marry a stripper. It is okay to steal from kids to pay for gambling and strippers as long as you cover your own child's ears when a friend swears. The bachelor party is a man's due payment for putting up with marriage for the rest of his life. That logic is not once challenged throughout this film because every problem is solved through the ingenuity of the alpha male who has all the answers. They even win a total of over 160,000 dollars in the course of less than 48 hours! Perfect night, bros.

This, of course, just barely scratches the surface of what is wrong with the entire set up of this comedy. After Doug, Phil, Alan, and Stu take their first shot of Jager where one of the characters says, "this reminds me of college." I find it hard to believe that these guys ever left.

I'll just leave you with the memorable quotes page from IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119646/quotes