Black Swan

In his follow-up to the Oscar-nominated film "The Wrestler", director Darren Aronofsky this time turns his focus on another athletic profession: ballet.  Natalie Portman plays an ambitious ballerina named Nina, who after years of toiling as a secondary dancer in her ballet company is ready for the spotlight.  When a famed director arrives to put on a show of his own dark, sexy version of "Swan Lake", Nina beats out the competition for the coveted lead role of the Swan Queen.  But between an unrelentingly critical director, an overbearingly parasitic mother, and her own fear of failure, Nina starts to unravel as she succumbs to dangerous delusions and extreme paranoia.  Aronofsky once again perfectly captures the extreme emotions and pressures associated with competitive sports.  In this case, his keen eye allows the audience to experience the masochistic world of ballet close up.  Nina's obsession to be the best dancer possible is portrayed with scary realism by Portman, who deserves an Oscar nod for this fearless performance.  The actress underwent months of training to pull off dancing like a real ballerina, and it shows.  But Portman goes further than that and succeeds in pulling off not just a complete physical transformation, but a mental one as well.  The ballet's director, Thomas (played with just the right blend of seductive cruelty by Vincent Cassel), rides Nina hard and belittles her technically perfect but cold performance every chance he gets.  And when Nina projects her insecurities on a rival dancer, Lily (a carefree and sexy Mila Kunis), she convinces herself that Lily is out to get her in order to steal her role - even after Thomas's insistence that the only one standing in the way of Nina's greatness is herself.  The result is a completely enthralling and exhilarating descent into Nina's madness that words cannot fully describe; it just has to be experienced.  "Black Swan" will get into your head and under your skin... and Nina's uncontrollable quest for perfection is at times both disturbing and liberating.  But if I had to sum up this thrilling masterpiece in one word, I guess I could borrow the last line Nina utters after delivering the best performance of her life: "Perfect.  Just perfect."


5 out of 5 stars

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is a live-action adaptation of the Mickey Mouse animated short from Disney's "Fantasia" (and I use that term lightly as it is a very loose adaptation).  It takes the premise of a powerful sorcerer and his apprentice and builds on that by forming a story around the original master wizard, Merlin, and his three apprentices, Balthazar, Horvath, and Veronica.  When Merlin's biggest enemy, Morgana, rises to power and Horvath betrays his master to take allegiance with her, it's up to Balthazar to find the Prime Merlinean - the only sorcerer who can defeat Morgana.  A thousand years later, Balthazar finally crosses paths with geeky physics student, Dave, who appears to be the chosen one to inherit Merlin's powers.  But even with Balthazar's training, does Dave really have what it takes to defeat a sorceress as powerful as Morgana?  Nicolas Cage plays Balthazar with his usual slightly mad recklessness and eccentricity.  Cage seems to be having a really fun time in this role, and his good humor is infectious.  And with his now trademark scrawny, awkward loser type, Jay Baruchel plays Dave; I'm sure one day we will all get sick of seeing Baruchel play the same character, but I can honestly say that day hasn't arrived for me yet.  The story is silly at best, the effects are all-out explosively thrilling (in true Jerry Bruckheimer form), and the acting is pretty much beside the point.  This film is just mindless fantastical fun - it doesn't quite live up to its magical aspirations, but it comes pretty close.

3 out of 5 stars

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The sequel to the Swedish hit, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", takes place over a year after where the last film left off.  Our anti-heroine Lisbeth Salander is putting the pieces of her life back together, while her sleuthing partner, Mikael Blomkvist, continues exposing the crimes of the European elite for Millenium magazine.  This time around, Mikael is working with a young reporter, Dag Svensson, on a sex trafficking scandal.  But when Dag and his journalist girlfriend are found dead in their apartment, the evidence links Lisbeth to the murders and she and Mikael must work together once again to solve the crime.  This installment - based on the second novel in the Millenium trilogy - is less intense and engrossing than the first film.  With our two protagonists separated by geography (Lisbeth must stay on the lam for most of the film while she tries to clear her name), much of the excitement of uncovering clues together is gone.  Unfortunately, the two working alone does not lend itself to the chemistry that Mikael and Lisbeth shared in the first story.  Nonetheless, we follow the couple as they investigate who is behind the conspiracy to put Lisbeth behind bars.  In doing so, the story dives even deeper into Lisbeth's dark past to uncover the grisly details of her childhood.  The film ends rather abruptly with no sense of closure, presumably leaving the story wide open to pick right back up in the next and final installment.  Again, don't expect the thrilling allure of the first movie.  But the mystery will still keep you intrigued, and Mikael and Lisbeth are such great characters that you'll definitely be coming back for more.


3 out of 5 stars

The Kids Are All Right

Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson) are intelligent and thoughtful siblings from an educated and well-off family.  Their parents, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore), are a lesbian couple who used a sperm-donor to get pregnant.  When Laser starts getting curious about his biological father, he pleads to Joni (who is now 18 and of legal age) to make the call to the sperm bank and obtain the donor's identity.  Soon, Joni and Laser are meeting and bonding with their new dad, Paul (Mark Ruffalo).  But introducing Paul to the family dynamic and figuring out where he fits in to all of this produces some mixed results.  Written and directed by Lisa Cholodenko ("Laurel Canyon"), the story is genuinely heartfelt and original - not due so much to the fact that it depicts a non-traditional family, but more so due to the realistic portrayal of the trials and tribulations of married life.  Nic and Jules are interesting and familiar characters because they act and speak like real couples do, and when they come at a crossroads in their relationship you feel their pain and frustration.  Bening and Moore are both nakedly honest and emotional as Nic and Jules, and it is refreshing to see these two naturally beautiful actresses completely stripped of their vanity (no makeup or salon tresses here).   And then there's Ruffalo (who, it should be menioned, I can never say enough good things about).  As Paul, Ruffalo exudes more sexual and masculine energy than I thought was possible for any man to do.  Such manliness and swagger should be off-putting, but Paul is just so damn charming - with his tanned easygoingness and radiant smile - that he ends up winning you over.  "The Kids Are All Right" is an apt title for this family drama; Joni and Laser definitely seem to have it the most together when compared to their emotionally messed-up parents.  But in the end, we're left feeling hopeful that Nic, Jules, and Paul will find their way back to being all right, too.


4 out of 5 stars

Predators

"Predators" is a direct sequel to the 1987 blockbuster "Predator" (starring a pre-gubernatorial Ah-nuld).  This time around, our rough and tough commander is a dark and brooding mercenary named Royce (Adrien Brody).  Royce wakes up during a free-fall and lands in a strange jungle setting with no recollection of how he got there.  He is joined by a group of other deadly killers like himself, and they begin to explore the area to try to figure out where they are and how to get out.  Soon they discover that they are being methodically hunted one by, and they must band together if they are to survive in this alien land.  The story starts off interestingly enough as we get to know our ragtag gang of fighting machines and try to solve the puzzle of why they've been mysterioiusly thrown together.  It's always fun to see Walton Goggins (TV's "The Shield") show up in unexpected places, and here he plays his typically redneck sociopath.  Brody, though, is horribly miscast as the ruthless Royce.  He may have beefed up his normally scrawny physique a bit to play the role, but his sweet, tender eyes make him way too sympathetic-looking to pass as a heartless soldier.  The plot progresses into boring territory soon after the introductions are over, and the film quickly becomes a tired retread of the campy, but fun original.  I suggest giving the Schwarzenegger classic another viewing and skipping this unoriginal sequel (not to mention the laughable "Alien vs. Predator" franchise that was spawned in 2004) altogether.


2 out of 5 stars

Sex and the City 2

The sequel to the touching and emotional first feature film follows our four favorite Manhattan gals two years after we saw them last.  Carrie now has two years of marriage under her belt, Samantha is still single and premenopausal, Charlotte is juggling two kids, and Miranda is still trying to find the perfect balance between work and family.  Not much has changed, really, as the situations and men in their lives may be different but the women remain the same.  This time, they decide to take a vacation to Abu Dhabi and ponder over their lives in the Middle East for a change of scenery.  While there, Samantha gets up to her usual fornicatory antics and Carrie runs into Aidan, the one that got away.  All this prompts the ladies to reassess their priorities and Carrie to realize what her marriage really means to her.  What once was a fresh, funny, and relevant portrayal of the single life of four NYC best girlfriends has now officially jumped the shark.  Carrie and Co. were more intelligent and real in their younger days whereas now they just come off as faded caricatures of themselves.  Take Samantha, for example: While it's sometimes nice how some things never change, how many times can we see Samantha having wild and crazy sex before it stops being funny?  And how many times can we see Carrie run into an ex and be tempted into slipping up?  We get that there will always be feelings there for the other guy she almost married, but the back and forth between these two men is exhausting and played out (on a sidenote, it is always nice to see the sunny and adorable John Corbett again).  It also seemed counterintuitive to me to put these women in a situation of excessive lavishness while a minute before they were all just lamenting on the poor economy and how they've all had to cut back in different areas of their lives.  It was almost as if the filmmakers couldn't decide if they wanted to pander to the masses ("See, we're hurting from the times, too!") or have us live vacariously through the foursome.  Either way, the films does not do justice to these four women who we've come to love and know so well.  If there's a SATC 3, let's hope they give the fab four something more interesting to say.


2 out of 5 stars