However, there are a bunch of legitimately interesting movies coming out right now. So much so that I am willing to go to the movie theaters to watch them (though I’ll admit that this decision is assisted heavily by the 2 for 1 deal I can get every wednesday).

One such movie that has just come out here in the UK is Black Swan, staring the ever impressive (to me, anyways) Natalie Portman, and the spunky Mila Kunis who shocked me with an actual acting ability. Classed as a psychological thriller, Black Swan draws you in, and then effectively horrifies you on any number of levels for most of the film. For those too lazy to read the rest of this review, I will leave you with the words I uttered when the credits began to roll:

“Holy shit… Holy. Shit.

Synopsis

Nina, played by Portman, is a ballerina at a large theatre house in the city she lives in (both, as near as I can tell are unmentioned). She’s a dedicated performer that hopes to become the next leading lady in the house’s production of Swan Lake. Her mother, played terrifyingly well by Barbara Hershey, is a failed ballerina that has in turn focused all of her energy, hopes, and dreams into Portman’s career. So much so that their relationship is far from healthy.

As the movie progresses, Nina wins the role but is told that she must be both the White swan – fragile, beautiful, a ‘virgin’ – and the black swan – evil, manipulative, seductive – which is a mental state that Nina cannot easily summon. This is due to her borderline insane home life that has cocooned her in a semi-child-like life and has stunted her sexually. She starts noticing scratches on her back, and starts to see a darker version of her as she walks around or looks in mirrors.

Then you have Lily, played by Kunis, who is for all intents and purposes, Ninas opposite. She’s sexy, she’s carefree, a rebel, and a dancer that doesn’t conform to perfection, but flows naturally to the music and as such can lose herself in the moment. Effectively everything Nina is not. They strike up an odd friendship that just goes all over the place. There is a shockingly passionate scene between the two in the film, but when Nina confronts Lily about it, Lily denies it ever happening. This adds weight to Ninas worries that she’s losing her mind, and her paranoia goes through the roof.

As the movie nears the end, Nina distrusts Lily, thinking that Lily is trying to steal her spot as the Swan Queen. As all this is happening the movie gets more and more surreal, with Nina visually losing her mind, not understanding what is going on or even why. Her personality becomes more erratic, and she’s terrified of what’s happening to her.

The movie climaxes with Nina taking her spot as the Swan Queen – much to the chagrin of Lily. As the white swan, she’s nervous and actually blunders one of the scenes. There’s an altercation with Lily where Lily is killed before the show, but at intermission we find out that she’s not dead at all. This confuses Nina, but only for a moment before she transforms herself into the black swan. She dances ‘perfectly’, transforming on stage into what appears to be a human swan. In actuality no such thing happens, but this is what Nina sees.

The end of the movie is very much the same as the play in which the movie surrounds itself with. She embraces the role, and as she says she was ‘perfect.’ This carries so much gravitas, and caused me to go slack-jawed from the power of its delivery.

What I liked

Oh where to start? I could gush for a very long time about Black Swan, but I’ll do my best to stay at least somewhat objective about it.

The acting

Everyone in Black Swan holds their own. The casting was shockingly well done, with everyone managing to click. Portman, Kunis, Hershey, and Vincent Cassel do an utterly amazing job of making you give a shit about the story. Everyone plays their part perfectly; Portman plays the insecure and fragile ballet dancer that just wants to be perfect; Hershey plays an unstable mother with control issues stunningly; Kunis plays what is probably an easy role for her as the sultry, carefree temptress; and Cassel does an amazing job of playing the manipulative, greedy, semi-antagonist.

The chemistry of everyone on screen is explosive. Each direct relationship works perfectly. Real cudos should be given to Natalie Portman, who does an amazing job throughout the whole film. While all the supporting actors work perfectly in their roles, Portman does a good portion of the movie solo. This is a hard thing for any actor to do, let alone one that must demonstrate a degrading psyche with bouts of paranoia and an emerging split-personality. Tack that onto the fact that this girl is fragile in so many other ways, and you are left with a performance that will leave you awed.

The music

You never really realize where some scores are from until it’s spelled out for you. In this case, pretty much all of the music is pulled directly from Swan Lake itself. The tone and flow of the movie fit unsettlingly well with the scores chosen. While many of the scenes in the movie can hold their own without music, the accompaniment of scores from the ballet do so much to help underscore the joy of some scenes, the adulation of others, and the reserved , crushing sadness of the rest. Whoever set up the score for this movie deserves a medal.

The cinematography

This is probably the first film I’ve watched that does a follow-cam to good effect. A good portion of the film is shot over Nina’s shoulder. This happens more and more the further along the movie you go. The technique is used to brilliant effect, and the entire time it’s happening you feel like you’re literally watching her from over her shoulder. This in turn makes her seem uncomfortable to the watcher. There are scenes that are shot in this method where you can hear Ninas breathing, and mild panic-y grunts as she dances trying not to step out of perfection. Sounds are ramped up during many of these scenes so that you really get a feel for how she’s feeling.

Other shots are done with an experts eye. Mirrors are featured heavily throughout the film, and there are many shots that take full advantage of them. Many of the special effects applied are through these mirrors, and of them, most are subtle. If you’re not looking at the right spot at the right time, you can actually miss some of the more unnerving elements of a scene. Many scenes will have just a moment of something off-putting: a face in the mirror glancing in the wrong direction; a ripple in Ninas skin texture; the off glances; the list goes on.

Symbolism

Oh man. Ohhh man. If I was in university for say, psychology or mental illness or occult studies or something, this movie would have made me cream myself. There are layers and layers to this movie that you could spend hours ripping apart and analyzing. You’ve got the creepy one-on-one relationships, Nina’s youthful room, the scratches, the use of mirrors, the self-visualizing Nina does, the sexy-time scenes, the eyes, the use of blood, and a billion other things that I won’t bother listing.

What impresses me about these though is not so much that they’re strewn throughout the movie, but that they’re applied with such academic perfection, that in many cases you don’t even realize what’s going on unless you’re looking. Yet the fact that they’re there affects your interaction with the movie regardless of your noticing them or not.

The movie operates on so many levels that it actually took me a good while of thinking about it to really start to understand just how much was truly going on. I mean on the surface, the plot is not dissimilar to Swan Lake (how meta), but under that there are layers of emotion and concepts that the movie is trying to convey to the user. The strain of being in Ninas position, the stress her mother puts on her, the pressure she gets from Thomas Leroy (Cassel), this list goes on and on as well. Under all that, the movie opts to explore mor basic human nature and needs. Seriously there’s enough going on in this movie to let you analyze it for days.

What I disliked

Shockingly little ends up in this section. Other than a couple of odd bits of CG use that just didn’t look as polished as they could have been, I’ve got no real complaints about Black Swan. I wish there was more to say about what fell short with this movie, but honestly there’s nothing. The only thing I could think to mention is some people seem to dislike Portman for no reason, and seem to transfer that dislike over to the movie itself. This is a damned shame, but people are allowed to do that.

A word of caution

Black Swan is fucked up. I don’t mean that in a zombie-fest sort of way, or in a Chucky sort of way. I mean fucked up on a truly disturbing and upsetting  level. A common phrase to use for Black Swan is that it is ‘difficult to watch.’ This is very true. Black Swan pulls no punches, and while some movies love to roll around in the field of your personal discomfort (laughing all the way), this movie does not. It makes you uncomfortable because you need to be to really get into this movie. Black swan takes no pleasure in upsetting you, but does it so that you can understand (or at least try to) just how tortured Nina is.

If you dislike movies with a lot of thinking, movies with deeply unsettling themes, or scenes of people being sort-of taken advantage of, you will not like Black Swan. Please trust me when I say that this movie will not be for you, and you will be angry at yourself, the movie, and its creators if you go to watch it.

Black Swan is fucked up. It’s amazingly fucked up, but it’s fucked up all the same.

Overall

I could go on and on about Black Swan. It’s one of the best movies I have seen in a long time, and will easily land itself in my favourites list.

The acting was stunning, the score was perfect, the technical aspects were spot on, and there was enough content to read into that could keep my chronically over-analyzing brain happy for a long time. It’s screwed up, it’s dark, it’s revealing, and it’s a work of art.

9/10

So here’s the idea: I’m going to pick a word at random, and then continue writing down all the words and first thoughts I have based on that word and everything that follows. Things may not actually follow in a fluid pattern. I’m sure this will be a clear window into the dark regions of my mind. To stop outside influences, I am performing this without any music, Television or other stimulus.

You’ve been warned.

P.S. I invite any and everyone to participate in the comments!

First attempt:

Cabin, crab, cake, cone, arboretum, Algonquin, tether, plink, plankton, absolute, jackson, mrow, appleby, huckleberry, Adrien, pinto, Zack, cack, Orlando, Mesopotamia, gold, gilded, Greek, merium, bottle, cranberry, choir,  sing-a-long, lois gram and Sharron, skiminarink a dink e dink, elephant, umbrella, trumpet sounds, Babylon, platsky, groin, cabin, I’m thinking about cabin a lot. weird, Singapore, Mercedes, merecat, boo ba loo, coo coo kajoo, Randy Pausch, Patterson, Bill Cosby, rev, electrify, meowmix, deliver, litter box, cat, to do, cabbage patch kids, Indiana Jones, amazon, Atlantis, sam n max, Lucas, x-wing, space quest, I wonder what that detective game was called, Mississippi, Mississauga, Florida, Massachusetts, Klingon, some popular techno song on the radio; name escapes me, womanizer, fuck, crapshoot, puppy, portapotty, ring tone, fuck womanizer is stuck in my head, foundations, clone high, student bodies, joke, driving, broom, valentines, toupe, Kraken, Jesus jumping sticks, Adam Sandler, Trisha, Megatron, lyrics from grow old with you playing in my head now, fuck womanizer again, Adam Crosby (i have no idea why this name sticks in my head), Barny Rubble, fruity pebbles, restaurant, pod, bubble plinko, Tarzan, techno song again, tag, flippant, Doctor Who, jazz hands, “keeg”, “hey you guys”, boat, Warcraft, jinx, jip, Nippon, ax, ax to grind, jurassicsaurus rex, free, egg, eggy, loony toons, good idea bad idea, Taylor, wacky, Peru, New Zealand, zap, Zelda, alphabetical, jacks, train, train station, ticket, conductor, stuttering, snakes on a train, ese, womanizer again ( I don’t even know the fucking words), slob, slut, teeter, clip, clank, zipper, traction, tire, ice, phone phoenix, trailer, techno song again, closer, jammin’, hero, hank, husband, zero, Garland, Tesla, ow, electric, vote, vixen, viceroy, VIM, Maylox, shoppers candidate, tile, trinket, train, ziffer, crane, tanner, trachea, voice box, “mmmnnngggg”, book, Captain Jack, eh ohh, Dance Dance Revolution, Playdium, round-about, ka-ching, loser lounge, laser, Dr. Evil saying “laser”, “throw me a frikin bone”, sharks with lasers on their head, ill-tempered. that’s a start, cindy loo hoo, kazba, zombies, neck, west, Atreyu, zinger, car park, Cheat Commandos, “rock rock on”, “aww fiddlesticks”, “pony on pony action”, dysentery, gold mine, oxen, over and out, flounder, axiom, flowers, zero, taboo, Matlock, action, mega monster movie store, help me out i need it, killers, lyrics, without you, callus, dire ants, Mt. Fuji, dreadlocks, tatters, train, traction, genius, trambler, island perk.

Attempt number two:

pineapple, conga, testosterone, wanker, weenis, dean, twang, tazzer, willywoddle, jack the ripper, red, night, dark, James,imbew, traction, sword, train, Star Wars, rebel, rebellion, android, apple, Adrien (again?), executor, “For Aiur”, I love the combat, arbiter, Terran, Zerg, Zergling rush, bunker, Starcraft, Wo lo loo, Wood please, Stone please, I’ll beat you back to Age of Empires I, Moonraker, bond, Sean Connery, James Bond Theme now playing in my head, Casino Royale, card, spade, jack, blackjack, bluff, citron, drink, woman, tar and feather.

At this point I got stuck.

Attempt number three:

Compass, initiation, tabloid, paper, article, newsprint, lithography, tainted, grant, book, while looking at my book: ladder, fireman, hose, water, dog, dalmatian, fire pole, calendar, stupid firemen, flames, building, “save my baby!”, tree, cat, The Incredibles, “you should learn to be more… flexible” marriage, kids, ice cube, baby, step-ladder, food, fruit rollup, snacks, fruit by the foot, sweet tarts, brownies, doughnuts, Zehrs, flours, bread, eggs, meat, deli, cold deli, flame-grilled whopper, burger king, THE KING, wallet, fries, deep fryer, kids zone, DC: DISCOVER ZONE, Daniel, cheating, stamp, bathroom, car, Doolies, drunk, blue not green, puking, white carpet, going to work hung over, parmigiana, smells, kid puking, cardboard scoop, cheese, Hungarian salami, mask, Darth Vader, Hoth, solo, Jaba talking about Solo, AH HA HA (Jaba laugh), UUEEEEHEHEHHEHEHEH (Jabas pet), cantina band, butt-face, Carl, Simpsons, Moe, Lisa, elementary school, skinner, blue hair, willy, hallways, tunnel, train, traction (again? wtf), Action Jackson, JACK DUTSON, Jack (from Doctor Who), Owen, “Doctor!”, *TARDIS noise*, phone bill, ring ring, GOING TO BE KILLED BY A CHRISTMAS TREE!, Jackie, vwooosh, ping, ta da!

I am a screwed up individual.

Recently, I found an all-classical FM station broadcasting out of Toronto that I can actually listen to in Brantford, Cambridge, and Kitchener-Waterloo. This may not sound like anything impressive – who even listens to FM radio anymore – but if you have ever tried to listen to Toronto-based radio in those areas, you would know what I’m talking about. There is something about this strip of land that just destroys radio signals.

Regardless, since I’ve found this station, I have yet to change it back to the others that I listen to. Classical 96.3FM does an amazing job of not only featuring brilliant classical music, past and present, but also features spots like “Sunday night at the Opera”, “The Greatest Music Of All Time…” and spoken poetry. How can you not love this?

Though I feel their website could use a little information architecture – It’s rather busy and cramped in some places- they offer a surprising amount of content for a radio station website. They have an online listening section as the Internet radio is all the rage now, and even the “What Was That Piece” list: a minute to minute feature of every song they’ve played throughout the day and the entire week previous.

I must also mention that though they play the typical classical music, they also feature some fantastic choice music, moving opera pieces, and even arrangements from movies (Lord of the Rings, Forest Gump, and Star Trek to name a few). I actually got home and sat in my car for an additional 6 minutes to listen to the end of Misere Me, Deus by Gregorio Allegri, a moving choir piece. The best part is that I have no idea who that is yet, but thanks to the station and their website, I can find out.

If you’re in the mood for some audible culture, Classical 96.3FM is a station to tune into. If you aren’t in the Toronto area, attach yourself to their Internet radio player.

P.S. be warned: All of the personallities they have working there can hypnotise you with their voice. Every damned one.

To start, I want to say that I’m going to avoid explaining  Evil Dead The Musical is so chalked full of tribute lines that it’s a little impressive that they got some of them in. I admit that one or two of them feel a little forced, overall they had excellent delivery and got great crowd reactions. The Dialogue was pretty solid throughout the entire play, and true to the movie there were so many bad puns and plays on words that it was killing my a little on the inside.

This killing was in the best way possible, of course.

Ryan Ward does an almost creepy job of emulating Bruce Campbell while at the same time giving the role his own touch. He delivers the 12 gauge S-Mart speech so well that everyone who knew it were saying it along with him. Truly fantastic. The rest of the cast do a great job of bringing the show to life, and without them the show probably wouldn’t have been nearly as good as it was. Special mention has to be given to Tenja Hagenberg and Mike Nahrgang for standing out and nearly stealing the show with such solid acting. Truly fantastic.

The songs were, quite frankly, rather rude. I’m not complaining about it as I tend to swear more than your average sailor. The singing was entertaining, on key, and far better than I was expecting. The sound in the Diesel Playhouse really helped make the experience that much better. When you have song titles like: “Stupid Bitch”, “What the Fuck was That?”, “All the Men in my Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons”, and “Ode to an Accidental Stabbing” you know you’re in for a good show.

I have to give special mention to the props, or a lack therein. The sparcity of the props really made for an interesting performance, and really puts the pressure on the actors to deliver a strong show. The props played a subtle but important role by accenting everyones work. Especially the blood.

There was a lot of blood.

Let me take a moment to explain the ‘Splatter Zone.’ If you are sitting in the splatter zone, you will get soaked in faux-blood. They even hand out poncos to people who want them. The blood they use apparently washes out easily, but somehow still smells exactly like blood. It sorta freaked me out when I smelt it and I wasn’t even in the zone. The Splatter Zone was also completely sold out when I went to purchase tickets, though you do pay a premium to be there. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure it would have been totally worth it.

I was so entertained by the show, I and emplore everyone to go and see it. The show ends September 6th of this year, so get out and see it. For twenty bucks, you can’t go wrong.

8/10

Not at all.

For those who bother keeping up with my site, you will have noticed that I’ve recently been accepted to school for graphic design. Now I never actually saw any requirement for purchasing a laptop, and I prayed that I had dodged that financial bullet. Turns out that I did no such thing, as I was alerted via letter that I would have to purchase a MacBook for the course.

I was … unimpressed to say the least. Not only did I not know I had to purchase one (which would have affected my saving plans just a touch… roughly 1400 dollars), but I was being told that I had to get a device that I have little knowledge of or about. This does not make me a happy camper.

The start of it all

I bit the bullet and bought the standard MacBook (which I notice they’ve “cheapened” since my purchase. Had I waited I would have saved roughly 60 bucks. Woo.) I didn’t get any bells and whistles, as I figured I’d get them as I needed them. I placed my order, felt my wallet give a death shudder, and felt rather dirty. Please note that this was on a Saturday. It’s important to the story. It told me that my new MacBook would be shipping within the next 8 days (free shipping! YAY!) and I could expect it 8 days after that. Fair enough, I thought.

So Monday morning rolls around and I get an email saying that my Mac has been shipped. “Wow!” I thought, “that was fast.” Alright I’ll get it next week, which will give me loads of time to get used to the bastard. Tuesday after work, my mother hands me a letter saying that Purolator had come and missed me. “That can’t be my MacBook. It’s only been a couple days!” Wednesday morning I woke up early, swung by Purolator, and picked up my mystery package.

It was my MacBook. My order went from 16 days down to 3 days (4 if you include me getting it the next day). I have to admit that turn-around time like that is nothing short of herculean. My mind was blown, and I figured that Apple was working extra hard to try and convert me.

So what do I think of my new computer-turned-art?

It’s pretty.

From the second I opened it, to my current use of it (this blogpost has been entirely done via the new Book, as a bit of training for me) the whole thing has just been so damned pretty. no, not pretty; sexy. Sexy like that 23 year old teacher with the low cut tops. Sexy like the rich guys car down the street that he bought to make up for his useless penis. Sexy like those dreams that you don’t tell anyone about while you’re washing your sheets at 3 in the morning. That sort of sexy.

Everything works pretty much the way you expect it to.

It took me five minutes to get it all setup and started, which is something that the PC user in me geeked out over. The wireless setup was simple, and within moments I was up and running. Programs run smoothly, and I’ve yet to experience any crashes or oddities. All the weirdness is reserved for the input devices.

New buttons ahoy! Fuck you normal other buttons!

Where the hell is my Home key? How about my End key? Paging? nope, not there. Oh wait it’s all multi-key combos now? Excuse me while I blow my brains out. Why the hell would you remove common keys like that? Stupid users (like me) are used to them on their keyboards! I’m still getting used to using the function, alt, control, and option keys to do different things.

Now to rag on the mouse.

Whether it’s mighty or not, the mouse for the mac makes me want to kick puppies while flipping off an old lady all while stealing money from a blind beggars money can. The fact that I have to use the mouse in conjunction with the keyboard angers me so very, very much.

I’m a lazy person, I shouldn’t have to plug in a third party mouse that has a left, right, and middle clickwheel just to get what has become standard functionality. Even with the improved “two-finger” options built into the touch pad, I still find myself having to jump between the two inputs. This is not what I call simple, nor sexy. This failing sits in the “granny-panty” section of the sex market.

Built in programs are … cute but useless

iCal: sucks. TextEdit: Weak. Mail: Sucks, Front Row: totally useless. Preview: Waste of time. The list goes on. Don’t get me wrong, I like that there are basic versions of commonly used things… but there is such a thing as too basic. I ended up having to get more robust programs to handle everything. Not a bad thing, but somewhat annoying.

The battery lasts for-fucking-ever

Seriously now. When a battery can clear the 4 hour mark while playing music? That’s just impressive.

Overall I think I like it, though I’ll reserve my comments for until after I’ve had to do some serious work with it. I’m sure I’ll swear at it as much as I swear at PCs.

And with that I am going to lay down, because my head feels like it’s about to explode.

Yes I’m aware that this is a bit of a cop-out post, but I made a bonus one on Friday so that’s my excuse.

G’night.

Much of the movie revolves around the Vietnam War, and the protests that went on during the time. All the characters are pulled into differing sub-cultures and left to their own devices, and are let to play out their lives with what they’ve gotten themselves into. It demonstrates what people are capable of when they feel the need to work for something. It displays people in their best and worst moments without much in the ways of compromise, and shows that people aren’t perfect nor do situations always work out glowing. It does glaze over one or two areas that probably could have had more explaining, but you cannot realize this during the film and it probably isn’t worth dwelling over.

I was captivated throughout the movie, though I could say that some scenes could have been cut a tad shorter or removed simply to save time. There was little point to some scenes other then to demonstrate a characters inner feeling(s) at that moment. In some cases this is deep and truly moving, others it just seems like they needed something to help separate scenes. Having said that, Prudence probably could have been left out of the movie as she didm’t really do anything for it. She felt more like a song que and a side-kick throughout the film and hence a filler character.

The music is completely comprised of songs from The Beatles, but re-sung by the characters in the movie. It contained stunning visual effects and a solid flow. Some of the more… outlandish scenes were a little strenuous on the eyes, and let me tell you that on a digital projector those scenes tended to be both stunning and blinding. Don’t take that the wrong way, they were amazing and original, but wow. If thats what acid trips look like, count me out. As the movie progresses, the visual effects and ques become more obvious to the watcher, and helps integrate the viewer into the characters lives. Helping them to see what the characters see. Mr. Kite’s musical scene was … amazing, terrifying and utterly mind-shattering all at once.

If you enjoy musicals, this is a complete must-see. If you don’t like musicals, screw it and watch it anyways. It’s a well directed film with impressive direction and plays out smoothly. It’s a simple movie about love and what people are willing to go through for it, and the hopeless romantic in me glowed from watching it.

Oh, and I will be picking up the soundtrack for this as soon as humanly possible.

8.3/10