127 hours was pretty good. Not something I'll ever see again, mind you, but something I'm glad I did see. It is a good story, but I just thought it was dreadfully slow. I mean, going in to the movie we can guess it's basically just going to be James Franco with his hand stuck under a boulder for a long time and in that sense, the film didn't disappoint.
     Going into this film, I'll admit, I was terrified. I'd heard soooo much about how terrible and how gross the scene was where Ralston cuts off his arm that I was really expecting to faint, vomit, have a seizure or something... Can we say LET DOWN? Seriously, if you puked or fainted or had to leave the theater because of that scene, you're weak. Sorry, but I was just so disappointed. I waited for a full hour and fifteen minutes in utter fear and agony, and when it was over (like 30 seconds after it started) all I could think was, "that's it??'' I found it way more gross when he drank his own pee. And yes I have seen Bear Grylls drink his own pee too, but it's still nasty.
     Other than that, I thought that the color was ridiculously over saturated. I get it Danny Boyle, you want to be "stylish," but I just found all of the over the top color correction to make everything really blue or really orange distracting. It didn't make me say "wow how beautiful" it made me say "wow how obnoxious." This mainly happens in the beginning whenever Aron's character is happy and excited to be out in nature and it's dumbed down later when he's trapped and not quite so happy any more. At that point I thought the footage was beautiful.
     I thought Franco's portrayal of Aron was fine. He did do a good job, but I don't really understand all of the Oscar buzz. I mean, let's face it...he pretty much just stood in a cave and grunted for an hour. He did occasionally talk to himself or his camera, but that was about it. If that's what defines an Oscar worthy performance, then shoot let's give it to him now. He was great for what the role called for, I just didn't think that it was anything earth shattering.
     I think my favorite part was this close up of Franco who was sleeping while ants were crawling on his face. We're zoomed in so tight and the theater screen is so big you can actually see the ant pinch his skin. It looked really cool.
     That's it folks. It was an ok film, just don't go in expecting to see a lot of action or a lot of blood. There's a good 30 seconds of it but it's really not that bad...

    I thought this was a pretty solid film. Maybe it wasn't spectacular, but it was really entertaining and engaging. I didn't think there was anything stand out-ish about the camera work, but I did really like the sets and costumes a lot and I will definitely watch it again. David O. Russell did a good job over all.
      I've heard a lot of people saying that they felt it was slow, but I thought the pacing was fine. I just felt like it lacked high enough stakes...the climax wasn't climatic enough. As we could have guessed, this important part of the film is centered around one last big match between Micky (Markii Mark) and a big steroid-y, intimidating other boxer dude who he probably should have lost to, but doesn't. If he had lost the title he was just going to go back to "regular life", and he had already quit boxing and gone back to "regular life" one other time in the film and just hung out with Amy Adams' character Charlene.
     It's garnering some Oscar buzz because of Christian Bale's performance and in my opinion, he's the front runner so far. It was so nice to see Bale in such a high-energy roll. I think of him in movies like The Prestige or 3:10 to Yuma....he did great in those films but this time he was different. He had a lot of spunk and portrayed a very solid role that mirrored the actual real life person's personality very well. He had to lose a lot of weight to play Dicky as a crack addict...his transformation was very impressive. As far as other characters go, I thought that the inclusion of the tacky white trash sisters of Dicky and Micky were hilarious. Melissa Deo played the Eklund matriarch and she did an awesome job. Very nice comedic relief throughout the film. Amy Adams played Micky's love interest. She had to curse a lot and wear skimpy clothes throughout the film and it just didn't feel right. She did a good job, I don't think the problem was with her acting but I do feel like she's just been so
type cast as the sweet, innocent girl in most films she's been in that it was hard for me to feel that this character was real. I think that's unfortunate because I like Amy Adams a lot and I love that she's trying to step out of her box a little bit, I just think she may have done it a little too late in her career. Of course our leading man was Markii Mark Walberg and I thought he did an ok job. His character was very calm and reserved, so he had to be very calm and reserved. I feel that although he was portraying a role different than his norm, I love his norm and wanted to see more energy from him. I also thought he was too old for the role. His character was supposed to be 31 but he looks more like 45...or as my coworker Nicole put it...."FORTY FINE." You can't really argue with that...

 **I apologize for the poor formatting, I don't know what is going on with Blogger tonight...

I cannot believe no one else has picked up on this. 
 
Perhaps I've just seen Center Stage a few times too many (very possible) but as I was watching Black Swan I couldn't help but notice some major similarities. Of course the endings are quite different but as Black Swan was getting started I found some things pretty interesting....

• One of the main characters being an uptight, fearful of imperfection, innocent ballerina who is the most talented member of her respected company/school

• Nina in BS and Maureen in CS
• Because of the pressure to be perfect, this character is extremely skinny and has an active eating disorder  

• This character's mother is a single mom who had to give up on her own dream of being a successful ballerina.

• The character who is a somewhat rebellious ballerina that doesn't follow the rules but is extremely talented and respected as a dancer.

• Lily in BS and Eva in CS
• Both of these characters light up a cigarette in a building where they're not supposed to and are told to put it out by the Nina/Maureen character 

• The heroin having a weird love interest in a superior. This man teaches them about sex and its importance to their role portrayal on stage.
• Jody with Cooper in CS  and Nina with Thomas in BS

• The ballet directors being referred to specifically as a "prick"
• Thomas in BS and Jonathan in CS

• The first montage of the film being one of getting ballet shoes ready...Stripping them down, wearing them in with a knife, wetting the front of the foot. Then a pretty little shot of some blistery feet thanks to point-shoes.

I'm just sayin...

Holy Crap. That's all I could say at the end of this film as the credits rolled. Ho-ly crap. I just don't even know where to start with this review. This is definitely one of the best films I think I've ever seen. It was just so well rounded: great acting, great camera work, great costumes, great sound...the director
Darren Aronofsky really paid attention to every little detail, every little thing he needed ensuring that we as audience members had the exact experience he wanted us to have.
     Let's start with the acting. I'm going to get the whole Mila Kunis thing out of the way first. I didn't think she was all that special. I want so much to like her, but I just don't. Her voice really gets on my nerves and I just think of her as Meg Griffin. Barbara Hershey, whom I've loved loved loved ever since I saw Beaches (don't judge) did a great job also. Winona Ryder and the guy from the Ocean's movies (aka Vincent Cassel) were fine as well. Natalie Portman is currently the headliner when it comes to the Oscar race in her category. I mean, she was amazing. She did an excellent, excellent job.You could just tell she lived the part in order to portray a character on screen. Her body language was the main reason she was so successful. You could tell she felt like Nina felt. She didn't have a lot of lines, at most she would speak 5 or 6 words at a time. Her real performance came from the way she interpreted the action around her.
      I think Portman's success however, was aided immensely by the camera work. Aronofsky wanted us to feel extremely tense throughout the film and he achieved this through a variety of different means. For one, there's a lot of hand held camera work. Normally I get annoyed when directors use this method because it's just done to be "stylistic" or in my opinion just pretentious, but its employment in this movie was extremely effective and made it feel more gritty over all. There are a lot of close ups of the back of her head, we feel as though we are following her and peeking into her world for a great portion of the film. There were also an insane amount of close ups of every main character throughout the film. We definitely get to experience every little bit of fear in Portman's eyes.
     The sound also helped her out in this aspect. When she's alone or when she's dancing we can hear every little breath she takes. Usually there's a quiver hidden in there which illustrates her tenseness and/or fright. The score was also great. It was very effective when it came to making me feel something without realizing it. The sound effects were much louder than in other films, especially when coupled with a generally quiet film. There's not a whole lot of talking and instead we hear every movement. This in turn exemplifies the fact that the scene was other wise very quiet.
 
    The special effects and post production elements were great also. As the film goes on, Nina starts to become the black swan in her own personal life. Whenever she does anything "bad" her skin gets scaly in places. It comes and goes and is pretty stinking awesome...it's subtle but definitely very effective. The harsh lighting in the opening scene was really great too. I loved the use of mirrors which again was subtle but effective. We see how Nina and other characters view themselves through their reactions to their reflections. There was also a color theme of black and white throughout (mainly in Thomas' office) I thought it was a kind of cheesy homage to the white/black swan...but that's just my opinion.
     I suppose I need to mention the girl-on-girl scene since it's receiving so much attention. All I'll say is that I generally feel as though bedroom scenes like that are pretty unnecessary. I don't really enjoy them and I think it's a cheap ploy to market attention. I will say that I thought this scene was necessary in the plot. The "event" never happens and it's one of Nina's many hallucinations. I think it was important because it illustrated sick she was. Not because she imagined getting it on with another girl, but because of how vivid the hallucinations were. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
     This was definitely a great, well rounded film. Be prepared to feel uncomfortable. I've heard people saying that it was scary and that's not the case at all. Aronofsky just does a great job of making you experience situations as Nina does. She's fearful of imperfection in every sense of her being and we can really feel her tension and the pressure she puts on herself for 108 minutes.