BLACK SWAN

An artistic work of severe passion and visual splendor. Some will find it superb and depressing at the same time, most others will be awestruck and exhilarated by the way it creates a sense of fatalism within the world of ballet. Black Swan is very much about paranoid schizophrenia as it is about ballet. True followers could not possibly doubt its director Darren Aronofsky, famous for “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Wrestler.” But it would be easy to walk in and doubt the abilities of Natalie Portman, whose “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium,” “Garden State” are decent films for their core audience but hardly a stretch. Portman’s performance though is simply amazing, she not only raises the squeamish dread of the piece but she brings a delicate beauty to the stage.


Nina (Portman) has never been a headliner for the New York Company ballet but she is approached by its impresario director Thomas (Vincent Cassell, a coup in casting) who lets her negotiate for her big break. Thomas turns everything from ballet, to cocktails, to individual coaching into an opportunity for sexual innuendo – he forces kisses on his menagerie of girls. The other girls are inherent competition.


Former ballerina star (Winona Ryder, puffy but intimidating) is dropped by the company – an implied decision by Thomas – paving way for bright future stars such as West Coast arrival Lily (Mila Kunis, a princess bitch who likes to party). Nina becomes guarded with Lily’s arrival, convinced that she wants to steal her role. Lily’s “friendliness” is a threat because there could be a shroud of duplicity as part of her confident personality.


It’s a life in a bubble for ballerinas who practice 12 hours a day, stick to a strict diet, pedicure their toes, and go to sleep early only to day after day repeat the cycle. Even for that lifestyle, Nina is a case of extreme discipline. Not one to require a boyfriend, Nina lives with and obeys her mother (Barbara Hershey), who lives vicariously through the success of her daughter. Some people aim so hard for perfection that no variants can be allowed in a routine.


Early on in the film, she is bothered by a rash that is getting bigger on her shoulder blade. The mother takes such concern that she watches Nina in every room of her house. When Nina awakens in the morning to masturbate, only to be startled, it is not a delusion that her mother is resting in the love sofa placed on the opposite side of the room.

But Nina starts seeing delusions as part of her obsessive-compulsiveness (she has a bad compulsion with her hangnails, too). She sees different versions of her own self in the mirror, sometimes a morphing of Lily who she fears, idolizes and fantasizes about all at the same time. The ballet requires a two-fold performance from Nina: To possess the pure graceful qualities of White Swan, and the tumult and fury of Black Swan. Nina is an expert of the former, and Thomas spends weeks of rehearsal razzing her so she can build up a wilder persona which the Black Swan part requires. Self-doubt feeds Nina’s paranoia, but is there some truth to her fears that Lily wants to seduce Thomas in the off-hours so she can replace her? Perhaps Thomas was right, and Nina needs to learn how to become the seductress.


Aronofsky designates his heroine with masochistic qualities as similar to his characters in his previous films. This isn’t the kind of romanticized ballet that was seen in “The Red Shoes” (1948) which had its tragic elements but was primarily embodied with an ornate beauty. “Black Swan” doesn’t always have a conventional beauty but it certainly is eye-popping. Aronofsky does have a beautiful way of photographing Portman as a pirouette. And as truncated as the final performance is for sake of running length, you still get an idea of what “Swan Lake” is all about if you have never seen it. Backstage disturbances mirror the drama of the stage performance like an unwise partnership between naïf and some version of Lucifer.

Grade: A

I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS

Features Jim Carrey in a corrosive black comic performance, yet at the end this is a dubious accomplishment. I Love You Phillip Morris has Jim Carrey as a con man and Ewan McGregor as Phillip Morris, disguising itself like feel-good entertainment for a few minutes until you see the undertow. It’s a gay love story with an unsympathetic and dishonest protagonist at its center. Lies and deception are not traits of his character; it is his character (it’s also based on a true story). All this might have been okay if it had taken a hard and perceptive approach in chronicling a pathological con artist. But it wants to be comical and quirky, and with that method, it comes out as real slimy entertainment.



Not all of it is boring, but it’s not comforting either. Steven Russell (Carrey) is a half-hearted policeman who does the dirty deed (sex!) with his wife Debbie (Leslie Mann) one minute, and then the dirty deed with another man the next. After Steven leaves his wife and quits his job, admitting dissatisfaction, he relocates to Florida to pursue a roving homosexual lifestyle. He wears gold watches, drives convertibles, and he lives in swank flats at adjustable low prices. Acts of fraud land him in prison.


While in prison, he falls for Phillip Morris. The most versatile and concentrated of actors, McGregor doesn’t do much in this movie other than act fey – it is not one of his more creative performances. Steven offers him the skies and the heavens, and as the dominant man he pretty much delivers. While they start out on different cellblocks, Steven soon fixes it so they can share the same cell. The movie is preoccupied with talking about oral sex a lot, which they both seem to share an affinity for its pleasures. But Steven gets a transfer to another prison which means they will have to acquiesce as pen pals. It’s not over, though, because when Steven gets out he educates himself on the law and figures out a way for Phillip’s case to be repealed.


Once they are both on the outside they are able to move in together. Steven desires for the both of them to have a grand and luxurious lifestyle. Steven becomes a lawyer imposter and gets himself a great big six-figure job at a fancy law firm. He doesn’t know what he’s doing at first but he soon masters it (these are among the most entertaining parts of the movie). But a great job is not good enough so Steven starts to defraud the law firm. New house, new cars, new jet skis – the spending doesn’t stop. But Steven is soon on the run from the law.


Steven keeps getting caught and then keeps fleeing, over and over again, for the rest of the film. Phillip is a flustered romantic object who gets tired of waiting for Steven, and then eventually, stops trusting him. Can Phillip love Steven back even through all that distrust? The film arrives at the most distasteful con, involving terminal disease and bilking the system, you will ever come across in a movie – if it fooled me it will likely fool most of everybody. This isn’t funny. This is about deep mental illness of a protagonist with sociopathic profiling. But the filmmakers want you to laugh it off. Take a shower at home afterwards and scrub off the muck.

Grade: C-

BURLESQUE

Campy spectacular-craptacular. Burlesque is made especially for girls who fantasize about dressing sultry and transforming from rags to riches. For guys, it is a T&A show with more emphasis on airbrushed ass. The essentials: Christina Aguilera is a beautiful blonde babe with the voicebox of an opera house orgy, a love triangle exists with Cam Gigandet and Eric Dane competing for her affections, the dance numbers are bawdy and glitzy, the one-liners sling like bitch slaps, and Cher is like a madam who ordains the fate of every rising dancer in the musical-striptease club. What else? Lots of pink and girls in high heels.

Twenty minutes in, it sustains a zingy, felicitous and campy appeal with bounteous beautiful girls. And less slimy than “Showgirls” which had T&A but no sense of what sexy is. Writer-director Steve Antin, an acquaintance and obvious admirer of The Pussycat Dolls, has a thing for limber girls in bustieres getting twisty on stage. He has an ear for overripe dialogue and uses Stanley Tucci, as a peppy stage manager, to channel fountains of gay humor. But Antin’s plotting is clunky, resulting in an overlong entertainment that bumps, if not grinds, along. The second half in particular doesn’t streamline smoothly, often forgetting characters for chunks at a time and adding subplots that don’t go anywhere.

Aguilera, as Ali Rose, is an Iowa girl working as a waitress at a beat-up café. The first scene has Ali saying goodbye to her shabby existence followed by her first solo number – no café customers, just a movie audience to perform for. Movie moments later, she’s on Hollywood Boulevard browsing through the classifieds for that job that will give her a big break. She stumbles onto The Burlesque Lounge by accident, and within minutes is enthralled and wants on the stage. Cher, as Tess the club owner, doubts her abilities and shoos her away like a stray cat. Ali assumes herself as a waitress ready for a big break.

Kristen Bell and Julianne Hough co-star as the racy dancers, both of them slink into a “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number lip-synched, unsuspecting that Ali will be the one to take over as the club star because she can sing. Bell, in dyed black hair, is a backstabbing shrew with rather tame backstabbing schemes. Not much gets in the way of true unbridled talent. Ali’s numbers are ready for soundtrack sales, “Show Me How You Burlesque” and “Express” will likely be radio hits for Aguilera.

During Ali’s financial struggles, she crashes the house of bartender Jack (Gigandet), who has a fiancé away in New York. What starts out as friendship soon gets complicated, as Jack falls hard for her but can’t (yet) act on his emotions. Big shot Marcus (Dane) is an entrepreneur with limitless funds and hook-ups, who comes off as a genuine benefactor, who pursues Ali in fast-lane courtship.

Eventually this leads to my least favorite cliché in the movies, and I’ll confess that nothing makes me groan in repulsion when I see it (which in American movies is often). Ali is in bed with her dream guy for the first time. The morning after, the former girlfriend storms in and tries to reclaim her boyfriend. The boyfriend tries to explain to Ali that it was over and not to leave before he explains his intentions and his former girlfriend’s lies. Ali interrupts and disallows any explanation and storms out before the situation is settled. Arrrghh.

“Burlesque” was considered for another audience besides me. Many will get juiced up by its flash, glitz and catchy show tunes. Aguilera has a voice like none other and her body is built for sashay, although her character goes to lovable to diva who forgets her roots and then back to lovable (I didn’t like the diva parts). Cher is the harridan before she becomes the best friend, and she has two shameless but righteously tailored songs. If you were heading to it then you will enjoy it, like cherry truffles. If you were ambivalent about going, then you probably aren’t right for it. It has the I.Q. of Mariah Carey’s “Glitter,” but it’s at least halfway fun to a non-convert of girl movies like me.

Go to the official site at http://www.burlesquethemovie.com/?hs308=BRQ6186

Grade: C+

TANGLED

The revisionist aspects on the Rapunzel story are evident but not tacky. Cheerfully animated, Tangled should keep tykes everywhere rambunctiously entertained while the older crowd should be pleasantly occupied. Over-thinking adults will be musing how this could be a much darker psychodrama if ever played straight. The witch (voiced by Donna Murphy) keeps her would-be daughter (Mandy Moore) locked up in a high tower for one and a half decades. You wonder how Rapunzel could be so loquacious with no formal education and no companions other than the voiceless pet chameleon she talks to. Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi), who goes from thief to guardian of our blonde beauty, is a vivacious hunk of a hero benevolent enough to rescue her from solitude. They make a good pair, and they engage in song (and on down times, banter) and become matched to soothe each other’s hearts. Sweepingly romantic by teen standards and funny for all, and light on contemporary pop culture references, mercifully.

The opening scenes are at the most storybook-esque although the narration is a bit hipster. Thank you, Flynn, for filling us in. In the prologue, the witch snatches Rapunzel from her cradle. Rapunzel has been blessed with the gift of Fountain of Youth powers found in her magical hair which the witch will exploit for the rest of human time. Rapunzel grows up not knowing her real royal parents. The witch instills in her to not trust another living person, insisting the outside world is cruel. It must be acknowledged that the meanest aspects of psychological torment are glossed over for… well, crowd-pleasing jokes. It’s a merry time at the movies, an entry that comfortably represents the Disney brand and not Marquis de Sade.

Fairy tales can have it both ways. Flynn is a scoundrel thief but he is also a swashbuckling cool guy who likes loots and attractive blondes – so we look past his scoundrel traits. Flynn is on the run from knights dispatched from the royal palace to get back a crown that he has stolen, until he comes up on a high tower that he can use for refuge. Rapunzel has never interacted with another person so she gives him a whack over the head (cartoon violence is not really violence) and binds him to a chair, later to negotiate to have him escort her to a stargazing presentation in town – her dream, and alas, will be her first embark on the real world.

And only in a fairy tale can a horse, named Maximus, be an adversary who has the jowls to chomp the hell out of Flynn. The roughhouse chases between Flynn and Maximus could be the most pure throwback moments to classic Disney. Maximus wants to arrest Flynn (he can carry him in his teeth) and take him back to the royal palace singlehandedly. There are other lunkhead knights that try, usually unsuccessfully, to capture Flynn as well. It would probably be best for Flynn to ditch Rapunzel and venture on his own way to avoid trouble, but he’s in love. And she’s in love at the same time. There is a certain decree in formula that characters must click two-thirds into the story and not fail each other in any circumstance.

As family friendly packaging, Disney delivers. As said, kids will be enchanted and the older family members occupied. To adults, they should find the pacing of the movie brisk and only patience testing after seeing the on-screen duo go through one too many runs from the law and from the witch. But the filmmakers know how to consistently make things up tempo. The songs are boisterous: the witch gets a scintillating song called “Mother Knows Best,” but our two protagonists share a swell song with “I See the Light” which also marks Rapunzel’s transition into a self-sufficient woman who learns to trust kind strangers in the world. Through verses, there is a well-composed ethics message to be found.

As a seasoned critic, I didn’t get tangled by “Tangled” but it did pry a few smiles out of me. As long as they don’t do a live action remake with Sarah Jessica Parker as the haughty evil mother and Katherine Heigl as the preening Rapunzel, I’m OK with it.

Go to the official site at http://adisney.go.com/disneypictures/tangled/#/home/


Grade: B-

UNSTOPPABLE

Sensational and rip-roaring with lots of nonstop speed, Unstoppable is one of those certified “breathless” action movies because it truly is nonstop. After awhile, a movie buff like me gets tired of men-with-guns action movies. This is a man versus machine action movie grounded in reality. Denzel Washington (“Book of Eli”) and Chris Pine (“Bottle Shock”) are ordinary men on a mission to stop a runaway train before it crosses a dangerous elevated S- curve in Stanton, Pennsylvania that will undoubtedly tip over the speeding 39-car train carrying highly flammable toxic material and doom the town’s population of over 700,000. The constant variation in backdrops while the trains are in motion adds graphic texture to the film. Disaster and wreckage fans will dig it most.

Ill-tempered audiences will simmer about Denzel’s character having two airhead-y tart daughters working at Hooters especially in how they root and cheer their dad on while observing television news footage instead of being stifled with worry. Discerning movie fans will find that some particular exposition is genre cheeseball, but if you can laugh at it all and still get psyched over the next wave of juggernaut excitement, the results can be hella fun.

Frank Barnes (Washington) is the veteran engineer with nearly three decades of experience under his belt, and Will Colson (Pine) is the new conductor who through nepotism was able to slide his way into the job. Friction occurs between man of experience and man of inexperience, each of them undergoing negligible family problems at home. If you are a hot-blooded male, you will prefer when the movie cuts to Barnes’ nubile daughters more than to cuts of Colson’s unhappy tight-faced wife.

Not wasting too much time, the predicament begins when a sloppy and careless engineer hops off the train to flip the track switch thinking that he pulled the breaks on the train. As the train gets away, a report that a “coaster” is on the loose means that it is traveling at slow enough speed to catch up with it ahead. Attractive yard master Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson) puts out a quick alert and assigns yard man Ned (Lew Temple), a caffeine-hyped and ponytail guy, to get this thing stopped. They both learn soon enough that the train is on full throttle.

Connie sticks to the control room dispatching quick orders and Ned spends time racing his truck alongside the train. Corporate executive and dunderhead Galvin (Kevin Dunn, good as a white collar dunce) does not want to derail the train, that would bring things to an immediate close if done early enough, because he is concerned about the financial losses of a destroyed train.

The alternative ways of commandeering, blockading and hindering the full throttle locomotive lends plenty of danger. Quick solutions are needed to stop the train before it collides head-on with a commuter train full of school children and other prospective casualties. As the worst of disasters becomes imminent, it seems that Barnes and Colson become the last line of defense, their proposed actions meeting the approval of attractive Connie but not the soulless Galvin who is more invested in the outcome of the company’s stock holdings. Barnes and Colson run their train backwards so they can latch on and bring the runaway to a stop by means of a tug–of-war.

For those ambivalent about director Tony Scott (“Man on Fire,” “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3”) and his fixation with noise and excess, I’ll say to you that this is the best film he’s ever made and probably the best one he will ever make. This time avoiding overkill, Scott lends the torrent of images a suitable velocity without over editing or over cranking his cameras. Heaps of the action is captured by a helicopter news camera that provides us with cohesive overhead images. But the mechanics of the story are there, too. We give a damn, in terms of smart engineering dynamics, in just how these guys are going to prevent disaster before time runs out. I friggin’ love runaway train movies. There must be at least five of them: “The General” (1926), “Silver Streak” (1976), Runaway Train (1985), “Under Siege: Dark Territory” (1995) and now this bad boy.

Go to the official site at http://www.unstoppablemovie.com/
 
Grade: B+

127 HOURS

Unflinchingly graphic but a riveting survival story, too. 127 Hours sounds like the most static of all film concepts, but it never is static and instead is relentlessly visually inventive. James Franco (“Pineapple Express”) stars as the real life Aron Ralston, the 27-year old hiking and exploration jock who went out on his own in the Canyonlands National Park in Utah and literally got his arm stuck between a rock and a hard place, sandwiched in, with legs dangling. Until then, the endless miles of natural landscape splendor is awesome. After the crucial turning point, the film still has flights of imagination and dreamlike liberation. Pain enthusiasts and realist enthusiasts will be drawn in, and suckers for hardcore drama will be pinned to their seats.

Danny Boyle directed two of my favorite films in recent years, the brainy sci-fi “Sunshine” and the Indian orphan’s rise to triumph in the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire.” With “127 Hours” he uses various color stock and employs the best use of split-screen photography since, say, Brian DePalma’s “Carrie” (1976). While keeping an eye on Aron, the film utilizes split-screen in order to get the images inside his head, as if we were entering his sub-conscious. With this new film, Boyle proves he is really on a roll with proven ability to tackle drama with stylized action dynamics. Although it must be said that “127 Hours” might not be meant for everybody due to its explicitly realistic detail of body injury.

Opening with rapid-fire action, Aron showers and packs up and hits the road in the wee hours of the morning. Upon his arrival at dawn, he shoots out the back of his truck on his bicycle and soon takes a nasty spill, that, of course, doesn’t faze him one bit. While on his hike, he meets up with two attractive girls (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) who are just doin’ fine, if a little lost. But Aron, within bounds of politeness, really
begs to be their new tour guide. It’s his superstar time to show off.

The conventional route will show the girls the same gorge undertow and destination cove that every other hiker has ever seen. But Aron wants to show them a special way that is off the map. He leads them to a narrow crevasse that would be safer if they were all wearing suction-cups. He urges to girls to let go and fall at the end point, a drop that leads to an underground hot springs. Aron is so much a daredevil that he doesn’t realize that it just might be dangerous to the girls he has dragged along.

This is not the pivotal incident that leads to body trap, instead, it establishes the reckless nature of Aron. The girls invite him to a party to be held the following night in town (they still think he’s cute), and Aron graciously appreciates the invitation while not fully committing. Aron, now off on his own, like a primordial hunter, mad dashes across and through some jagged terrain with chasms collapsed below. Without caution, he steps on a rock that drops in a blink of an eye, his body falling over it, into a gorge with a descending boulder that pins his arm to the wall. His feet dangle, but can find foot support if he stretches them apart. His backpack is intact full of survival arsenal of descending uselessness, but when he puts the parts together he is able to manufacture an indefinite escape plan.

The food and water rations are low, and with only one free arm, he is prone to make mistakes by spilling precious crumbs and droplets. On his first night, he closes his eyes at 12:17 a.m. to get much needed sleep and jars awake after wearying agony to see that only a few minutes have passed. In the morning he gets his sight on thirty-minute sunshine that combs his body’s lower half. If he listens carefully, he can tell that there is absolutely no one to yell to for help. The more time he spends there, the more fated to hallucinations he undergoes. Persuasively, he tries to put a lid on his entrancing delusions. According to other nature survivors that have been isolated or stranded before him, Aron is bothered by songs that won’t leave his head. To keep sane, his temper is prudently self-monitored.

Aron’s tiring work on a conventional escape plan proves futile, but while in process, we come to see that while it is not working in freeing him, he is at least making the situation more bearable. Just like what really happened, Aron pours out his thoughts onto his mini-camcorder first as a diary and then as a testament. He makes apologies to his mother for not returning her calls and explains why it is a wrongful part of his “hero” nature to never tell anyone where he was going. He is the grandiose loner-adventurer who never needed assistance until now. As he continues to go through hunger and numbness, we finally arrive along with Aron the drastic measures he must choose if he wants to survive, and the option is far from pretty. The option is a salute to pragmatism over pride.

Some viewers might think that Aron made an arrogant mistake that is too painful to watch. Would it help for me to tell you that the misfortune makes Aron more cognizant to the meaning of personal attachments and teamwork? Perhaps it is worth saying, even in the face of mother nature’s confinement, the world still needs guys like Aron to trek the world where no man has gone before, so he can caution us behind. “127 Hours” is a detailed ordeal that can be riveting if you are one rapt by how the smallest tools, literal and figurative, can be orchestrated towards survival. Franco is pitch-perfect in his blend of cockiness, vigor and testy bravado; his descent is met only by spiritual enlightenment. Boyle drapes a fever over you that you can’t kick, and when it’s over, you might find yourself walking out swinging your arms and legs in appreciation.

Go to the official site at http://www.foxsearchlight.com/127hours/

Grade: A-

DUE DATE

It gets lots of early laughs but when the characters get abnormally stupid well below the plausible level you stop having faith in the movie. In Due Date, Robert Downey Jr. is a short-fused mean professional who has to share a ride across country with Zach Galifianakis as a doofus with a perm, a lot of memory problems, and an absolutely certain passive aggressive disorder. These two actors are seasoned veterans with these archetypes yet here they take it to an obstinate fault. Downey, as Peter Highman, is a stuck up white collar type who makes a very forced and unbelievable transition to tolerance (he needs the ride so he can return home in time for his wife’s delivery of their first child). Is this a comedy about letting people violate your personal space? ’Cuz Galifianakis, as wannabe actor Ethan Tremblay, is the violating annoying guy.

Flick is bound to get systematic negative reviews by critics who decisively hate mean-spirited characters and mindless boobs, and yet in this case, they might have a point. But beware the critic who declares this Todd Phillips comedy (he directed “The Hangover”) as a nadir in bad taste and coarseness. It’s not that bad in those terms. And while the movie’s insistence on the clash between normal fellows and schmucks may get annoying to some viewers, it’s never that boring.

The creative and witty writing in the first act pits the two leads on an airplane before they are discharged by TSA agents for being deemed a threat (don’t say the words “bomb” and “terrorist” so nonchalantly), and become prohibited from commercial flying in the rest of the state of Georgia. Peter loses his wallet with money and credit cards, and as a matter of convenience, joins his early nemesis Ethan in his rental car along with his deceased father’s ashes in a coffee can. In no time, they are having waffles together at a rest stop even though Ethan is allergic to waffles. “Don’t go to a waffle house then if you are allergic to waffles!”

They make a second stop at Heidi’s (Juliette Lewis), an unlicensed medical supplier who provides Ethan with marijuana to treat his glaucoma. If this isn’t a reason for impatient Peter to shake his head then the fact that Ethan spends $200 on grass is certainly a reason for Peter to get upset. That’s a major chunk of the gas money. On the next stop, Peter has to have his wife (Michelle Monaghan) wire money to them at a Western Union that leads to a fiasco brawl with a paraplegic played by Danny McBride. In another scene, Ethan has a crude masturbation episode while he thinks Peter is asleep, and his French bulldog gets in on it, too.

That’s the pattern of the movie, though, one obstruction episode after another that keeps Peter away from arriving home on time, plus the hassle of a memoriam stop to scatter dad’s ashes. There are highway hi-jinks, maybe two of them, not to mention a stop at the Mexico border. Some of the dialogue is funny. Such as when we find out that Ethan wanted to be an actor because of “Two and a Half Men.” Jamie Foxx plays a friend in Dallas who lectures the exasperated Peter on altruism. And Ethan’s inability for improv actors monologues are so pitiable that it’s easy to snicker at him, too. But it is Peter who suffers martyrdom. “Do I look okay? I have a broken arm. I have three cracked ribs. I have seven stitches in my armpit. Does that answer your question?”

The finale is awkwardly patched together but blessedly it sticks away from delivery room schmaltz, although Ethan’s subsequent play at sanctimony can make you want to scratch your eyes out. A half hour after you walk out you might forget most of what you just saw, but you might remember “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” (1987) years after, which this movie carbon copies. I would rather have watched “Due Date” in the due future from my bed, after midnight, after some beer on some dubious weekend night.

Go to the official site at http://duedatemovie.warnerbros.com/

Grade: C+