which is why I haven't posted for quite some time. That's right, I've been Everywhere & Nowhere [nr Bollywood, in this instance] !
*no ! be a doctor, accountant, or a lawyer - not some disreputable dj*
[courtesy http://eandnremix.heroku.com/ ]
was to walk out of The Dilemma after the first hour, or to fracture into multiple personality disorder [like the heroine on John Carpenter's The Ward] in the hope that my original identity would somehow emarge unscathed from the trauma of this offence to cinema.
Nowhere in the production notes above will you find it written that TD is essentially two movies. The first is a broad knock-about comedy, featuring: a tall fat guy, a short fatter guy, a short fat black woman, and a piece of beefcake. The second is a drama examining the moral obligation inherent in friendship and the consequence thereof, featuring: everyone else.
It's this second movie in which Jennifer Connelly & Winona Ryder star; and portray convincing, detailed character arcs. In the first movie, in which Vince Vaughn/Kevin James/Queen Latifah/Channing Tatum appear, you will see potatoes being convincingly portrayed. Potatoes half-baked, thin-sliced, shallow-fried, and ultimately burnt to a narrative cinder.
Below you will find a carefully & successfully structured official trailer for The Dilemma. "Successfully", for it is only the moments in these frames in which there's a semblance of a coherent single film. Watch this by all means, but don't pay to sit through the other 110 minutes of footage the studio ill-advisedly spent money on.
[courtesy universal]
Natalie Portman, Natalie Portman, Natalie Portman. On her narrow shoulders rests Black Swan, in very much the same way as Taxi Driver fell in Robert De Niro's; except the physical committment to her role has been more extensive than missing out on a few burgers & staring at just her own reflection in one mirror.
On further reflection, what she has achieved is more analogous to Christian Bale's performance of physical anorexia & psychological disintegration in The Machinist, but further stretched with the assumption of a completely different artistic discipline - namely that of prima ballerina. For these reasons, Black Swan is a painful film to watch, but one which one cannot help but admire; and not only for its acting, as Darren Aronofsky has created a microcosm which seems entirely capable of generating the populace & sequence of events narrated.
Whilst the most obvious link to this director's earlier work is with the physicality portrayed in The Wrestler, there are subtle asides to the coloured originality in which he washed The Fountain, and un-ignorable references to the chaotic shards of obsessiveness & mental fracture examined in Pi.
Until the morning after the film, I was slightly disappointed that the progression of Portman's character from Nina Sayers to The Swan Queen was not more linear [or even geometric], so that the triggers to her unbalancing could be more easily discerned. In hindsight [one that may require a second viewing to fully attain] it can be seen that she was actually written as unhinged from before the very first scene - by the restraint of her upbringing, the perfectionist service of her talent, & the stifled drives of an unacknowledged adulthood.
In reality, the meltdown of the talented is more ugly than seen here, if one recalls how those of - for example - Tiger Woods or Britney Spears were documented. Yet, as with Swan Lake itself, beauty is indeed found in the fictional depiction of a dramatic tragedy such as Black Swan - rather than the sad cases seen in real life.
Incidentally, wouldn't it be amiss not to make a point of doffing one's cap to the aforementioned famously captivating backdrop to this tale - along the film's musical arranger Clint Mansell: that source material of the original Swan Lake.
[courtesy foxsearchlight]
Shamed by the effect of the previous evening's sleeplessness on my control of basic English grammar, I took a 2hr kip. However, on awakening, I resembled a shellshocked meerkat that had been dragged through a hedge backwards. This, I find, is the perfect state in which to view a Bollywood movie. In this instance, one Yamla Pagla Deewana ["to go, please - and no dog's dinners", ie I know it sounds like a restaurant vegetable side dish & could well have proven as messy in consumption].
Being unable to stray from the wc [not necessarily as a consequence of the aforementioned] to a keyboard all the next day, it is only now I am able [to sit comfortably &] inform you that YPD is a tale of separated family & drunken conmen; and as genre protocol dictates, they are the best conmen in the world/with errant husbands being forgiven/ & estranged lovers reunited - all accomplished wearing the most garish of clothing, and overacting to the point of gurning.
Incidentally, there was an ambulance waiting outside as I left the cinema. I wouldn't have said the movie was so bad as to leave the audience in need of medical attention, though the plot perhaps could have done with a little resuscitation.
[courtesy eros]
That's not to say I was badly stung by The Green Hornet in 3D - it was palatable. What did have me anaphylactic was the performance of the lead actor, Seth Rogen; who - yet again - threw up his under-achieving, IQ-challenged, potato-faced, slack-voiced persona onto another screen.
[courtesy columbia]
If only this movie had been as concise as its title, instead of the sprawled torture that was it's reality.
In fact, let me spare you the horror of the remaining two hours of this misshapen filmic foetus, and instead present the "high"-lights in the form of the promotional trailer.
The sole portion that I didn't view through the hand covering my eyes [and I only risked one eye, peering between opened fingers] was through being tempted out for two minutes, by some harem pants that were slung as low as my brow - as unnotably noted below.
Whilst said event did elevate me to the rank of monarch of that cinema audience, I'd rather have my full eyesight returned. Don't risk your's ![courtesy hariom utv]
Why, as the rest of us, he dances like an intoxicated fool.
Merry Christmas 2010 - especially to you ho ho hoes!
The current subzero conditions are free, and so's this music.
