Black Swan

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Plot:   Ballet Dancer Nina (Natalie Portman) is the Swan Queen both in her local ballet company, and in her real life struggle with her Mom (Barbara Hershey), the old Prima Dona (Winona Ryder) and with rival ballerina Lily (Mila Kunis).  As the movie plays out, Nina becomes the dark Black Swan more and more. We don't know what is dream sequence, what is psychotic delusion, what is Magic, and what is real life. 

The movie retells the story of Swan Lake, which is based on a Germanic folk tale about enchanted girls who turn into swans. It has battles between the girls and their mothers, elders and with each other for suitors. 

Basically,  Nina is the White Swan and aspiring new Swan Queen, and she fights to break a magic spell by winning a "gentleman's heart", here the heart of ballet director Thomas (Vincent Cassel). She must force the old primary dancer into retirement and fend off her rival Lily, the Black Swan, who tries to impersonate her.


See how long it has taken me to describe the plot, some people will hate this movie for that reason. Read the Swan Lake Wikipedia entry for more info -- it really helps.  

Review: This is a top movie. Don't let the ballet theme fool you. It is really a story with big mythical themes, and you don't need to know much about ballet. The story gets darker near the end like a psychological thriller. 

The movie shows battles between Nina and the old guard and then her peers, as she grows up to be an independent artist. Nina needs to grow up and embrace her 'dark side'. Here this means breaking away from her mother's vision of goodness to become an adult, though it might mean drugs, bloody killing and lesbian sex.

Natalie Portman gives the best performance I have seen in 2010. Really Oscar deserving. Her facial acting when she learns she got the Swan Queen part was a master piece -- deserving of an Oscar by itself. I don't know how much dancing Natalie really did, and how much was a double, but her dancing looks realistic throughout.



I like the interplay between art and life, and how the two twist back and forth.  I like how the Magic/Dream gets stronger and darker as the movie progresses. The movie is not for people who demand linear story telling. 


Everyone likes it when Nina finally turns darker and darker at the end of the film. When she may not really be in control of herself, she is really most in control of everything else.

Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel


Directed by: Darren Aronofsky; Screenplay by Mark Hayman

Rating: 4.0 stars: my favorite for best picture.

More: [Spoiler] The bold art movie ending is just what the movie needed. I choose to believe that Nina lives happily ever after -- whether in heaven or on earth. 


Even More: See my review for Natalie Portman in No Strings Attached.

Morning Glory

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Plot: Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) is a young TV producer who takes over DayBreak, a struggling national morning show. DayBreak has two anchors, the overly-serious Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) and the catty Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton). Pomeroy thinks doing fluffy, frivolous stories wrecks his hard-news reputation. Peck is catty off-screen and glibbly friendly on-screen.

Becky struggles to get Pomeroy to cooperate, while she tries to spice the show up before it is canceled

Review: Morning Glory's strength turns on Becky, the Rachel McAdams character. She is a young 'every-woman' who is trying to get by in a strange world. The film is best when showing her in her strange modern sit-com situations, which she overcomes with her spunkiness, spiritedness, and directness.

Morning Glory is an update of the 35 year old Mary Tyler Moore Show, where a young producer tries to make a TV news show. In both shows, the cute female producers are not interested in romance, but instead want to make a career for themselves in television.

The movie is OK; it misses because Pomeroy, the Harrison Ford character, is too inhuman and stiff. The main relationship is between Becky and Pomeroy, and while it advances during the movie, Pomeroy is too weak a character to save the movie. The other supporting characters were even weaker. The Mary Tyler Moore Show succeeded because of the strong supporting characters especially clueless anchor Ted Baxter and tough newsman Lou Grant.

The sound track was good, but there is no soundtrack on iTunes -- all the songs are posted on this site. The story could have been told in a visual way, and at first I thought that it was adapted from a stage-play (but it wasn't.)

Cast: Amy Adams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton

Directed by: Roger Michell

Written by: Aline Brosh McKenna who also wrote the screenplay for similar themed
movies like Devil Wears Prada, and 27 Dresses

Rating: 2.5 stars; Actually a more substantive a film than it seems. It has its fun moments, but the sum total does not measure up to 3 stars.

More: This movie could easily be a television show pilot.

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Love and Other Drugs

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Plot: Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a slacker and hustler who is trying to break into the pharmceutical sales business. He meets artist Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway) who likes him, but does not want a relationship because she has Parkinson's disease. There are sub-plots involving Zoloft and Viagra, as well as Jamie's loser brother Josh.

Review: Love and Other Drugs starts out with two flirty, horny hoties, but then takes a turn through the medical world with sarcasm about anti-depressant sales. Toward the end, living with terminal disease, specifically Parkinson's disease, enter the story.

The two lead actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway have smart dialog throughout the movie, but all the other dialog is just sitcom set-up jokes. Director Zwick dips into one serious bit, flips back to a sex joke or topless scene, and them back to terminal illness. It seems calculating and contrived to keep the future cable-TV audience from drifting away.

It is a romantic drama about living and loving with disease, and then a lot of Viagra jokes. This is a better film than Hot Tube Time Machine for example, but it is schizophrenic too.

I liked the sarcasm with Pfizer, and I wonder how the producers managed to avoid being sued. I am sure their lawyers worked overtime clearing the script, especially with all the comments about Zoloft and Viagra that crept into the film.

The soundtrack was pretty good including some interesting uses of silence.

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway

Directed by: Edward Zwick

Rating: 2.5+ stars, edging toward three stars. The movie was good, but fell down in "funness", especially late.




More: I really loved Maggie's apartment. It did not have any walls, just wall studs and wiring, with big industrial windows, and rough concrete. Funky, arty, off-beat, and also a call-for-help.

Even More: [MAJOR SPOILER] I wonder how families live with late stage Parkinson's disease. It helps to be as cute as Anne Hathaway to get a caregiver.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

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Plot: Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) grabs control, and seeks to kill Harry and his other opponents. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermionie (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) take to the wilderness to hide, and to work on destroying Voldemort's Horcruxes. 

Review:  Deathly Hallows makes no pretense of bringing along non-fans who would undoubtedly be lost. The movie dispenses with silly spells, school-boy games, and father figures from the earlier movies. Here our heros are struggling adolescents who must rise to the challenge to save lives and save the world.

The best parts are the subtle interactions between our three heros, and the fighting is just a side plot. All of the main actors have matured and are good actors, with Emma Watson delivering some great lines and reaction shots.

The wilderness scenes were beautiful, but there were too many of them -- this section is too long in the book too.

The end was not satisfying; it needed cliffhanger or a major turn in the story to punctuate the ending.

I am sure the five hour combined version of this movie, when it is eventually done, will be more satisfying. I want to see it that way next summer when part 2 comes out.

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

Directed by: David Yates

Rating: 2.5 stars; This is a worthy effort. Enjoyable but it falls short in funness.


More: The opening sequence is unforgetable when Hermione, calls her parents, and then erases their memories of her saying "Obliviate."

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Unstoppable

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Plot: A big freight train with toxic chemicals is set to derail in a Pennsylvania town unless railroad veteran Frank (Denzel Washington) and railroad rookie Will (Chris Pine) can stop it.


Review: The video of the trains, bridges, rails, pick-up trucks were colorful and great. Director Tony Scott has a great eye for colorful and shiny machinery, however, some of the dialog was awful, and attention to detail sucked. All the dialog from the TV reporters, the daughters, railroad coworkers was bad bordering on stupid.


Happily the dialog between Frank and Will was good. They did a nice job of integrating the back-story with the plot. Denzel's acting was serviceable -- not great but competent and entertaining. Chris Pine was a more engaging. Rosario Dawson, as railyard master Connie, stole the show -- lots of good lines and reaction shots.


In summary, the main train story was action-packed and entertaining. The dialog between the main characters was good enough. The rest of the actors and story was embarrassingly dumb.


Cast: Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson


Directed by: Tony Scott


Rating: 2.0 stars



More: This is the first movie (that I have seen) with omniscient TV reporters. Rather than have a character or narrator explain the plot twists , a series of local Fox 43 News reporters do it. It informs the audience, but it was in no way realistic. I can forgive a little of this, as a story-telling device, but it got too distracting.


Even More: I was distracted by the endless "product placement" of the Rupert Murdock-owned Fox TV Network in this Rupert Murdock-owned Twentieth Century Fox movie.

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Conviction

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Plot: Kenny Waters (Sam Rockwell) is a low-life in rural Massachusetts, and he is accused of a terrible murder and convicted. His sister Betty Ann (Hillary Swank) is certain he is innocent. She gets her GED, her BA, and her JD -- then goes to work as Kenny's attorney to clear his name. The rest of the movie, which is based on a true story, is fairly predictable.

Review: This movie is a predictable drama, and about average in entertainment value. The story was engaging enough, but a few more plot twists would have helped.

Betty Ann Waters is a sympathetic character, but Kenny Waters is unlikeable. I could see why the police would want to lock him up. The characters get into a rut where they are always angry at each other or at the police. Anger was probably the proper emotion, but the audience gets worn out by it.  The subplot with Betty Ann's kids helps broaden the story out. Swank is a good actress, but the range of emotion required in Conviction was not-so great.

I liked Minnie Driver as Betty's law school friend -- she had some great facial expressions. It was interesting to have Barry Scheck, the real life DNA attorney from the the OJ Simpson case, as a character here.

In summary, a non-enthusiastic recommendation. A good drama for a rainy afternoon.

Cast: Hillary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver

Directed by: Tony Goldwyn

Written by: Pamela Gray, based on a true story

Rating: 2.0 stars


More: The film fails to mention that Kenny Water's died in a fall six months after being released from prison. His estate received $3.4 million from the state for wrongful conviction. It would have been gutsier to have ended the movie with the fall.

Even more: The sound editing during the dinner scene was awful. I never heard such gross-sounding Mac and Cheese. My wife and I both thought the sound of the spoon scooping the Mac and Cheese sounded like something vile from a Halloween funhouse -- like a bowl of gooey eyeballs or a tub of guts.

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Hereafter

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Plot: George (Matt Damon) is a psychic who finds psychic abilities hurt his ability to meet girls, as we learn when he brings Melanie (Bryce Dallas Howard) home. There are two intercut sub-plots: a troubled boy (George/Frankie McLaren) wants to contact his dead twin; and a French newscaster, Marie (Cécile De France,) plagued by her near-death experience in a tsunami.

Review: A disappointing flop. Hereafter has good performances in the service of an intensely dull and slow moving script.

The movie begins with its best scene, a dramatic tsunami hitting a vacation beach, and Marie's death and rescue in the flood. After this scene pace slows to a crawl, Matt Damon's George is a calm, slow character. I like Damon's acting best in the movie, but the movie drags between his scenes, and the acoustic sound track is like a lullaby . Marie is French, and for some reason most of her dialog is in French. I can't understand this: how does it help the movie to have one third of it in French?

The third story is about a twin boy, Marcus, who survives the death of his brother in a traffic accident. The boy is depicted as a saintly child caring for his drug-addicted mother, and bedeviled by the need to reconnect with the dead twin. The boy's character is not realistic, does not make sense, and the actor depiction of the character is uninspired.

Clint Eastwood fell on his face in this movie. This self-important, ponderous movie wastes its good acting with clumsy editing and a poor story.

Cast: Matt Damon, Bryce Dallas Howard, Cécile De France

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Rating: 1.5 stars


More: More than anything else I am bored by the mythos of near death experiences. Can someone think of something new to say about it?

Even more: My DW liked the movie. She identified with the spiritual seekers, and especially how the "regular" people disregarded Marie's and Marcus's need to deal with their issues. 

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RED

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Plot: Someone is trying to kill ex-CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), and threatening to kill the girl he has been stalking, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker.) Sarah eventually learns to like Frank because he prevents her from getting shot. Frank hooks up with old friends Joe (Morgan Freeman,) Marvin (John Malkovich,) and Victoria (Helen Mirren.) They take on CIA bad guys, arms manufacturers (Richard Dreyfus,) and politicians.

Review: The plot is a rehash of a dozen movies like A-Team and Rambo 3 where old guys get together and fight for justice. RED keeps moving helped by the support cast which was very strong including Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Richard Dreyfus, and especially Helen Mirren. Helen delivered some great lines that were fun to watch; sadly she was not in the movie that much.

Head tough-guy Frank/Bruce Willis is not interesting or likeable enough, and he is the weak point of the movie.

I liked Marvin's paranoid rants that turned out to be just what the NSA was doing to find them. That was pretty funny and decent political commentary at the same time.

The special effects were solid and good enough -- not as great we see routinely summer blockbusters. The end of the movie was clever, and I liked that. I did not care for the post card motif -- perhaps this is borrowed from the comic book.

This is almost a comedy because the shooting isn't realistic, and few people actually die. These people can't seem to hit anything with their automatic weapons. 

Excellent soundtrack by Christophe Beck -- I've already bought two tracks: Radical Early Discovery and Ruined Election Dinner.  I am toying with buying album.

Cast: Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Richard Dreyfus

Directed by: Rober Schwentke; based on the graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner

Rating: 2.5 stars; this was better than I thought it would be. It might be a 3.0 for people who like Bruce Willis more than I do. Also I did not like the stalker/kidnapping episode --see the Even More bullet below.



More: Gotta love Helen Mirren with a machine gun -- the best part.

Even More: I don't like how Sarah eventually learns to like her stalker and kidnapper Frank.  Showing the hero capturing a girl who then learns to love him only encourages sexual violence.  Strange how I forgive a movie full of shooting, and object to the kidnapping -- but to me this is worse.

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Easy A

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Plot: Olive (Emma Stone) makes up a boyfriend and a sexual encounter to get out of a camping weekend. Someone overhears her excuse and soon the whole school thinks she sleeps around. Later she pretends to have sex with a gay friend to help him stay in the closet convincingly. Soon all the gay boys are pretending to have sex with her, and all the fundamentalists are trying to have her expelled. She takes to wearing a red "A" on her shirt like Hester Prin in the Scarlett Letter.

Review: This is a likeable movie with a sharp script, and a likeable star in Emma Stone.  Everyone knows that this could not really happen, but it is so exaggerated to be funny. The word is farce -- it is not a regular romantic comedy.

Olive narrates the story which breaks up the action, but helps us understand Olive better. She is the only real character in the movie. All the other characters in the movie are carcatures, and there arn't any real friendship. Olive has a lonely life that is part of her appeal, and the irony is that everyone believes she  has dozens of relationships.

I liked Olive's parents played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson. They provided comic diversion, and  did most of the sex jokes. The teacher (Thomas Haden Church) and guidance counselor (Lisa Kudrow) were bigger than life, troubled personalities.

Cast: Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes, Stanley Tucci

Directed by:  Will Gluck, written by Bert Royal

Rating: 3.0 flasks, too funny and clever to be any less. Not ambitious enough to be any more.


More:  I liked the Huckleberry Finn joke.    . . .  I don't know anybody who runs away with a hulking black man . . .

The Social Network

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Plot: Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) was a sophomore at Harvard, when he got in trouble for inventing Facemash, which rated Harvard undergrad girls for hotness. Two upperclassmen hired him to write a program called Harvard Connection, but while he was doing that he wrote Facebook with a backer Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield.) Later Mark meets Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), who gets Facebook big money funding, and then tricks Sean into selling out. The movie is told in flashback during a legal case from the other founders of Facebook. The flashbacks feature frat parties, drinking, and flirty girls.

Review: From the opening dialogue with Jesse Eisenberg and Roone Mara (as girlfriend Erica) the writing is clever, fast moving and witty. The plot keeps moving, and the story is about the people not the legal angles. The plot details seem dull, but to the movie's credit it is interesting and engaging.

They pull a Hollywood trick of intercutting (seemingly) technical details with sex scenes or in one case a girl spitefully setting a bed on fire. This makes the movie interesting visually for those who are glossing over the details, but mostly it means meaningless girl-on-girl kissing and gratuitous skin.  A little of this is OK, but when I start to notice it, then it is too much.

A second problem was the sound editing, which was noticeably poor -- good sound editing should not be noticeable. Several times foot steps and props did not sound right.

I liked this movie a lot mostly because the writing was so clever. It was engaging throughout. Mark Zuckerberg was not especially likeable, but he was a strong personality that we rooted for. I also liked the that there was some amount of computer geek-talk in the film, and that the geeks win. I did not like the elitist Harvard stuff.

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Roone Mara

Written and directed by: Alan Sorkin based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich

Rating: 3.5 flasks; Performances are good. The script is outstanding. Not the world's funnest movie, but very strong. Closer to 3.0 than 4.0 though.


More: Hollywood movies generally don't have a lot of fact in them. Supposedly Mark Zuckerberg is much less articulate in real life. Cameron Winklevoss says he was deceived and swindled out of the original concept. 

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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

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Plot: Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), the bad guy in the first Wall Street movie gets released from prison after 13 years. It's 2007, and he writes a book about the pending financial collapse of 2008, and soon young Wall Streeter Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) tracks him down. Jake is engaged to Gordon's daughter Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan). In the meantime Jake loses his job working at a Lehman Brothers-like investment bank when it goes bankrupt due to toxic assets. Jake gets a job at a rival company and hooks up with with Gordon for advice. Gordon wants to reconcile with Winnie, and Jake tries to set that up. As the financial crisis of 2008 unfolds, there is narrative about the bank crisis and Federal Reserve actions, as well as much moaning about "moral hazard."  

Review: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is uneven. It has some excellent scenes especially at the beginning before Michael Douglas enters the story. There are some wonderful and poetic visuals that are worth seeing. I loved the richness of the sets. The weakest part of the movie was the preaching by Michael Douglas: no one talks like that. The dramatic scenes with Michael Douglas were not that good either.

The Shia LaBeouf scenes are strong though, and I liked his scenes with Carey Mulligan too.

The plot involving the fusion power company struck me as clever. I liked how it was threaded through the movie. The plot was well-crafted to deal with the issues of the financial crisis without being too pedagogical. I suspect that someone without much financial background might be lost though.

I liked the ending. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was enjoyable, but lacked consistent dramatic or artistic content; it is a near miss.

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Michael Douglas, Carey Milligan

Directed by: Oliver Stone

Rating: 3.0, almost 2.5 but I liked the ambition and the subject matter.


More: They said "moral hazard" over and over again, but seldom used it correctly.

Even More:  I liked how Jake's Mom (Susan Sarandon) quits real estate and goes back to nursing.
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The Town

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Plot:  Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) lives in an Irish working class district called Charlestown in Boston.  "The 'town" is home to an Irish bankrobbing mafia. At the beginning, he and his friend James (Jeremy Renner) rob a bank. They take the bank manager Claire (Rebecca Hall) hostage and release her when they get away. Later Doug and Claire get romantic while FBI agent Frawley (Doug Hamm) investigates. 

Review:  An exciting movie with solid dramatic action, a great script, and  dynamic scenes. The chemistry between Ben Affleck and Rebecca Hall was tops. Ben Affleck's performance was Oscar worthy.

A highlight was the bankrobbery scene dresses as nuns, as shown in the poster. I liked the idea that these losers were organized and professional enough to pull of a Mission Impossible style crimes. I liked the Blake Lively plot line especially her roll in unravelling the final heist.

What I like about this movie is that it has everything, action scenes, flirty romance, three dimensional characters, fun chase-scenes, and a no holds barred ending.  It reminds me of Mystic River which also combined grittiness, action, and clever dialog in a crime drama.

Cast: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner, Doug Hamm

Directed by: Ben Affleck

Based on the book "Prince of Thieves" by Chuck Hogan

Rating: 4.0 flasks; One of the year's best.


More:  When we lived in Pittsburgh, we knew a mafia florist too.

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