Black Swan

Stunning...Visceral...Illogical...Dark...Painful...Breathtaking...

They all describe Darren Aronofsky's new masterpiece. Aronofsky is one of the most talented people in Hollywood. His previous films are Pi, Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler. Pi is a solid black and white movie about math. Requiem For A Dream is one of the greatest movies you'll never want to see again, it's so dark and painful to watch that you can't help but feel bad about everything. The Fountain is quite possibly one of my favorite movies, a love story over 3 life times. and finally The Wrestler is a brilliant character drama made so much better by its should-have-been oscar winning performance by Mickey Rourke.

Black Swan is about Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) who is picked to be the Swan Queen in a stage production of Swan Lake. As opening day grows near the role consumers her to the point of obsession.

Aronofsky's newest outing holds strong to his Independent roots. I am simply in awe of his simplistic style and plodding story-lines. In the past he hasn't relied on overly complex special effects or crazy camera moves. Although when it comes to Black Swan, he throws caution to the wind. He keeps his trademark stationary locked down camera style, but adds some CG effects to show the mental transformation of Natalie Portman.

Never have I been yanked into a film so emotionally. The biggest thing about the film is that it is an allegory, the whole film is about being creative person. I think my boss/friend at Envision Sean said it best, "We give up so much to be creative people, it's mentally and physically exhausting, but it's the end product that makes it worth it." This is no truer than in Black Swan. I know that in my creation of The Last Chapter and my book "True Fantasy" I have gotten to the point of being so engulfed in the characters, story, and ideas that it ends up becoming everything in my life. To the point of saying lines that the characters would say as the characters walking to my car in the rain.

Another one of my favorite lines about being a creative person is from George Lucas, "I don't make movies because I want to, I make movies because I have to."

See being creative is like being gay...you don't wake up one day and say I think I am going to be xxxxx, it's hardwired in our brain.

Through out the movie Nina slowly becomes the Swan Queen. It's a gorgeous and heart wrenching transformation too. Without telling too much there's multiple scenes where parts of Nina become Swan body parts.

There are brilliant performances from not only Natalie Portman, which is a Golden Globe Nominated performance, but Mila Kunis, also nominated, and Vincent Cassel.

Darren Aronofsky is nominated for best director, and it's nominated for best picture. This is a top 3 movie of the year. A must see and just a terrific explanation of the creative mind set.

It will be nominated for all the awards so if you watch award shows you have to see it.

Soon I'll post about the best movies of 2010.