Black Swan or Showgirls for smart people

  Wow, Black Swan sure got hyped last year, didn't it?  Well, that happened and I must say it happened with grace, it happened with beauty, it happened with dignity and style and it happened with girl on girl action.  This thriller is much like Aronofsky's other films in the sense that although beautiful they come at you with a paranoid hard driven anxiety and don't exactly leave you wanting more.  That's not to say you won't be thinking about Black Swan when you leave the theatre.  You will.  You wont be able to get Natalie Portman's red eyes out of your mind or the pounding of Tchaikovsky's mood music mixed with the brilliant composition of Clint Mansell's madness, out of your ears as your perform everyday tasks like cooking and cleaning, the music stabbing at your psyche causing you to drop the fork you are drying and scream in anguish or dart your eyes back and forth madly muttering everything must be PERFECT.  You wont forget the frantic flocks of beautiful jumping swans or the nail severing drama of bonky ballerinas...you just wont ever want to see it again. 

    The film stereotypically starts with a dream and ends with a nightmare.  In the beginning when I first heard Portman's whining voice I thought to myself is this going to be the same old Natalie Portman who waltzes around the screen and somehow convinces us she is good simply just by looking so?  I was proved wrong.  This performance was different; towards the end of the film her commitment to the role was obvious and impressive.  Ugly and powerful and worth the possible noms (although I can think of five other films more well suited for Best Picture).  Other standouts were Mila Kunis who was nothing but refreshing and sexy in what seems to be a dramatic twist for this comedienne, Barbara Hershey as the stage mom who cant control her spawn, and Winona Ryder as well, Winona Ryder, beautiful has-been in a world where youth works and old is thrown to the history books.  Her role in the movie is much like her role in the media; you're never sure what's going on, never sure what really happened actually happened (ahem pill induced theft frenzy) and you're never sure when you will see her again.  The blunt delivery of her laughable lines added dimension to what could have been an otherwise one note film.  The film wraps with a horribly tense experience causing you to leave the theatre unsettled and nervous.  All in all I get the hype, I just don't think I'll get the DVD.