West, End, Girl.

When is the remake of a movie classic actually a good idea? When the brothers Coen are at the helm. (Let’s just say The Ladykillers is the exception that proves the rule.) Both laugh-out-loud funny and tinged with melancholy for the disappearing West, the brothers’ impressive adaptation of True Grit feels like the unearthing of a forgotten piece of Americana, and it makes the 1968 Charles Portis serial from which both movies are based feel as quintessential an American coming-of-age story as To Kill a Mockingbird. Whether you love, hate, are indifferent or just oblivious to the John Wayne-Kim Darby-Glen Campbell version of 1969, this is one remake that’s worth your time.

I should say that I haven’t seen the original movie, which I remember as more family-friendly and Old Yeller-ish than this version, since I was a kid — younger even than Mattie Ross, True Grit‘s 14-year-old protagonist. I do remember liking the film, and I’m pretty sure it was my first-ever exposure to John Wayne, Movie Star. (At the time, I had no idea that the Duke as Rooster Cogburn was basically stunt-casting.) Nor have I read the source material, so I really can’t tell you how faithful the Coens are being to Portis’ novel either (or for that matter, Night of the Hunter, which the brothers — and Carter Burwell’s score — apparently reference early and often in this film.)

Word is the brothers have gone the extra mile to keep Portis’ prose front and center in this version, and that may well be true. Still, there are more than enough wry conversations, colorful eccentrics, and sudden spurts of violence here to suggest that, at the very least, Portis is a spirtual ancestor and kindred spirit to the Coenverse. (Maybe it’s just a coincidence that Mattie seems to channel The Big Lebowski‘s Walter in one of her first scenes, when she complains about the high cost of burying her father, but the wandering frontier dentist in a bear suit had to have been a Coen creation, yes?)

In any case, in this telling of the tale, Mattie Ross (newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, a find) is considerably younger than Kim Darby was in 1969, and she, not Rooster, is the heart of the film. As True Grit begins, her father Frank lies dead in the Arkansas snow, shot down by a no-good lout named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), who’s since gone on the lam in Cherokee territory. And since no one else seems to care, it falls to the young, headstrong, and remarkably worldly-wise Ms. Ross to make arrangements. That means paying for the funeral, putting her father’s things in order, and finding somebody to hunt down Chaney and bring him to justice. (“The wicked flee when none pursueth,” admonishes the title card by way of Proverbs 28:1. If Mattie gets her way, that won’t be a problem.)

And so, to track down her father’s killer, Mattie enlists the services of the meanest (and drunkest) US Marshall she can find — an ornery, one-eyed old cuss named Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, leaving the Lebowski-ish affectations back at Encom.) Also along for the ride, on account of an earlier crime by Chaney down in Texas, is Mr. LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a well-meaning but slow-witted Ranger who’s at turns goofus and gallant. So, a little girl, an old drunk, and a nincompoop: It’s not exactly the most promising posse in the world, particularly once word comes that Chaney is hanging with Lucky Ned Pepper’s gang (here played by Barry Pepper — a descendant?) Still, the codger may still have a few tricks up his sleeve yet, and, as she shows time and again, Mattie is nothing if not a force of will.

If you’ve seen the original film, you know the hunt for Chaney is mostly a chance for this posse to get to know each other over a series of conversations and episodic vignettes. And that’s how it plays out here, too, except both LaBoeuf and Cogburn are less heroic and more conflicted buffoons this time around, and Mattie has to figure out over the course of her travels if these two are — literally and figuratively — straight shooters. It’s a tough call: LaBoeuf can assuredly be a preening, condescending, and self-aggrandizing schmuck at times. And for every twinge of conscience Cogburn displays, he definitely has his darker side too, and especially once the bottle gets involved. (Just ask the Indian kids he sadistically pummels for taunting a mule.)

Mattie ultimately finds her quarry are multifaceted folk too — However mangled his teeth, Lucky Ned Pepper in particular has a weird streak of nobility about him. Heroes can be dastardly and villains can be chivalrous: It’s the type of real-life nuance that the Old West shows of Mattie’s later life, with their white hats and black hats, could never quite capture properly. And it’s one of the many truths she learns over the course of her occasionally harsh adventure — her coming-of-age in the last days of the West. (As the aforementioned ursine dentist attests, there are shades of Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man here too.)

True Grit isn’t my favorite Coen movie. That remains Miller’s Crossing. And it’s not my second favorite Coen either — There, the Dude still abides. But like No Country, A Serious Man, and Fargo, True Grit — even after only one viewing — seems like another top-shelfer from the brothers and one of the best films of the year. May they continue to ride high.

Festival of Lights.

Uh, did anybody see the movie Tron? No. No. No. No! No. No. No. No. Yes…I mean No. I mean Yes! In fact, I have also now seen Joseph Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy, and I gotta say, despite a rather tepid reception from both critics and fans, I actually quite enjoyed myself at this film.

I know, I know: After just feeling lukewarm about a universally praised movie like The King’s Speech, and now saying nice things about this so-so-reviewed film, I may be heading deep into Armond White territory for the past weekend. And, inasmuch as you can evaluate them empirically, Speech is probably a better film. Still, despite its often dopey plotting and the exposition bomb that derails the movie in its middle third, I had a grand time at Tron: Legacy. The film has definite problems, sure, but it looks and sounds great. (Daft Punk are easily the MVPs of this enterprise.) And, basically, it’s as good a movie as we had any right to expect for a sequel to a 28-year-old Disney film involving neon frisbee fights.

The thing about the original Tron, and I’ll probably catch flak in some circles for saying this, is that while it’s an interesting, even ground-breaking movie in its time in both story (it’s The Matrix before the internet) and FX (early, rudimentary CGI), it’s still not a particularly good film. I bought the DVD several years ago and was dismayed to discover that, David Warner’s villainous Dillinger notwithstanding, Tron didn’t really hold up to the warm glow of nostalgia I had suffused it with — The ideas work a lot better than the execution. (When I uncorked it again earlier this week and watched the first half-hour or so, I had basically the same reaction.)

With that in mind, I basically went into Tron: Legacy expecting not much more than a fetching, futuristic two-hour Daft Punk video. And, y’know, that’s basically what I got. Particularly in the first hour or so, when our hero Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund, bland but passable) finds himself immersed in the 2.0 versions of the original movie’s gladiator games — the discs, lightcycles, and whatnot — Tron: Legacy delivers exactly the neon-lit, 200 bpm, raver-kid spectacle I was looking for from this flick. True, the story is all over the place, even early on. But watching Jeff Bridges goofily channel his inner Obi-Wan, or seeing Rinzler — the Big Bad’s acrobatic, twin-disced #2 — steal every trick out of the Darth Maul-Boba Fett “cool henchman” playbook is a thrill all its own. Sure it’s blatant pandering to the fanboy crowd, but it gets the job done.

This is not to say Tron: Legacy doesn’t have problems. Right about the time Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde first show up, this once-propulsive movie pulls into an expository gas station and stops dead for a good twenty minutes, while Kosinski et al try desperately to prime the story with deeper meaning: Bridges’ Flynn is the Creator of this realm. His first and most important creation, Clu (CGI-Jeff Bridges), has now turned against him. His Son — Son of Flynn! — has just shown up…I think you see where this is going. (The edgiest thing Tron: Legacy does here is to make the new lifeforms in the Tron-world — “Iso’s” — spontaneously generated, a.k.a. an accident of “biochemical jazz.” When you extend the metaphor, that makes humankind also a happy accident rather than divinely inspired…not that anyone but fan-folk are going to dissect the theological implications of this movie anyway.)

So, these are all intriguing ideas, but — as in the original film — they are somewhat hamhandedly introduced, and they all basically boil down to establishing the Maguffins that will get us through the rest of the picture. (“We need to get to the Portal!” “Don’t let Clu get the Disk!”) By the time Michael Sheen shows up soon thereafter as an egregiously over-the-top (apparently by design) nightclub owner, the movie’s recently-coined mythology is already severely confused, and the plot is barely even trying to hang together anymore. Why did Sam need “Zuse” to hop on a solar sail? What powers does Flynn possess in this world again? (To be fair, they were ill-defined in the first film also.) What is Castor on, exactly, and where can I get me some of that? The movie is getting to be a mess at this point, but…hey, look, it’s Daft Punk! And some Matrix-y ass-kicking to a electroglitch bounce!

By the third act, you’ll either have to allow Tron: Legacy its increasing plot absurdities or check out of the ride completely: Why can’t Clu and his Leni Riefenstahl army just jump through the Portal without this all-important Disk? Is that army really big enough to take over the world anyway? (It reminded me of Douglas Adams’ G’Gugvunntt battle fleet, who due to “a terrible miscalculation of scale” ended up getting eaten by a small dog.) And what got into ole Rinzler there? That seemed terribly convenient.

I can’t really defend the movie here — It’s loud and flashy and more than a little derivative of various moments in Star Wars (cf. Lando, the TIE fighter attack, the aforementioned Obi-Wan and Fett.) But, for whatever reason, I was perfectly happy to bask in the production design and score — and Jeff Bridges clearly having fun as a Zen Sensei –and just let the more ridiculous elements of the movie slide.

Did the world really need a sequel to Tron? No, probably not. But this film does decent justice to its goofier-than-remembered progenitor. And even if it doesn’t reach the level of its ambitions, it’s a perfectly entertaining event film that at least gets its 3D-thrill-ride aspects right. So I’d be up for another outing in the Tron-verse, particularly if they find more to do with Bruce Boxleitner and bring back Daft Punk (and, for that matter, the MCP. There has to be some reason Cillian Murphy was waiting in the wings…)

Talking Monarch Blues.

Part monarchical bromance, part speech impediment Rocky, Tom Hooper’s impressive if Oscar Bait-y The King’s Speech — about King George VI of England’s attempts to overcome his debilitating stammer — is, in its own way, as edutaining and well-made a recent royal micro-history as the film concerning his daughter, Stephen Frear’s The Queen. The acting is on point, the writing is keenly-observed, the direction is crisp and well-paced, and if Colin Firth gets a Best Actor Oscar for this to make up for his A Single Man loss (much like Jim Broadbent won for Iris after being overlooked for Moulin Rouge), well, no harm, no foul.

The point being, if in doubt, go see this film. You probably know if this sort of thing — a BBC-ish historical production with a feel-good, sports-movie narrative arc — is your cup of tea, and if it is, have at it, good fellow. Still, chalk it up to haters gonna hate, but I left the theater feeling a little underwhelmed by The King’s Speech. Yes, it is well-made. But it also didn’t do anything that surprised me — wait, so Geoffrey Rush’s speech therapist is both wacky AND wise? Irreverent AND endearing? What a delightful combination! — and I ultimately found the stakes to be rather small.

The film opens in October of 1925, as the shy, discomfited Duke of York, Prince Albert (Firth), waits within the bowels of Wembley Stadium with his doting wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter). Third in line to the throne behind his father the King (Michael Gambon) and his rapscallion brother David (Guy Pearce), the Duke is about to deliver an address — to be broadcast worldwide — at the closing ceremony of the British Empire Exhibition. This, alas, he bombs painfully: Albert’s pitiful, strangulated attempts to overcome his stammer make the speech a chore for speaker and millions of listeners alike.

Cut to a decade later, and the poor prince is still prisoner to his unruly glottis. And so, with the Duke at the end of his rope, Elizabeth (who we know better as the beloved “Queen Mum.”) seeks out some aid from a commoner who’s ostensibly trained in the arts of speech therapy, one Lionel Logue (Rush). An Australian transplant to the isles, Lionel is a congenial family man far removed from the etiquette and ostentation of the Crown: The closest he’s ever gotten to royalty is his well-reviewed portrayal of Richard III — another “rudely-stamped” Duke of York, as it happens — back in Perth. But is it possible this scampish, egalitarian therapist has the wisdom and the potential to break through to the future king where others have failed? Gee, you think?

I don’t want to make light of Prince Albert’s stammer, because it seems like a cruel fate indeed for a man born into a family business of speechifying to be afflicted with such a curse. (And Firth does a great job of conveying the sheer horror of it all. At any moment, you can see his fear that he might once again be betrayed by his tongue.) Still, perhaps it speaks to a failure of empathy on my part — I usually do well on the Voight-Kampff, I swear — but the question of whether or not an extraordinarily wealthy and catered-for man can manage to overcome his embarrassing speech impediment was not one I found all that engaging in the end. (This is sorta the same problem I have with Sofia Coppola films, and I fear Somewhere will be no exception.)

It seems the writers recognize the problem here, so to square that circle they invoke the encroaching thunder of World War II. Albert (later George, of course) is more and more explicitly contrasted with that eloquent demon on the Continent, Adolf Hitler, who is mustering a frightful army by virtue of his silver tongue. How will England’s monarch be able to stand against the wrath of Nazi Germany, if he too is not possessed of royal gravitas and a kingly p-p-p-p-poker face? Well, ok, that does raise the stakes some, and, yes, from his decision to stay in London during the Blitz to his 1939 Christmas speech (not featured in the film), the dignity and fortitude of King George VI was indeed a rallying point for his people during the Second Great War.

Still, from watching this movie you’d never get the sense that John Bull already has a great orator in his pocket, in Winston Churchill. (Here, Timothy Spall, who sadly comes off like a guy in a Halloween costume.) At the end of the day, it’s Churchill’s speeches — “their finest hour, “blood, toil, tears, ands sweat,” “we shall fight on the beaches” — that stand the test of time, which, for all its good intentions and attention to craft, makes the central tale in The King’s Speech feel like even more of an historical footnote. (And, as Dangerous Meta points out, Churchil himself was a stammerer. That’s mentioned briefly in the movie, but perhaps not given as much due as it could’ve been.)

In the end, though, the question of stakes is less important than the nagging suspicion throughout The King’s Speech that it was basically just a sports movie for the Merchant-Ivory crowd. There may be a Big Speech at the end instead of a Big Game, but we’re still playing in the same old ballpark. We even have a training montage at one point.

Speech is very well put together to be sure, and if this genre speaks to you then do go see it. Still, I left the theater feeling like I’d seen this exact same sort of tale — adversity overcome with determination and the aid of a kooky-but-wise mentor — way too many times before. Adding British accents, and a stammering one at that, doesn’t really change the tried-and-true Rocky/Remember the Titans/Great Debaters equation at work here in the end.

Venetian Grind.

Let’s get right down to brass tacks: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Tourist, his major studio follow-up to The Lives of Others (#11 on the decade list) is brazenly, woefully, blog-stoppingly awful. I’m serious — this movie is terribad. It’s been awhile since I’ve felt the urge to get up and leave in the middle of a film so strongly (and that’s something I never do, because if I break that seal, it’ll be katy bar the door from then on.) But it’s probably just as well I stayed, since pretty soon thereafter I got the 21 Grams giggles to carry me through this canal of Venetian drek.

So, oof, where to begin? It sounds like von Donnersmarck was mostly a hired gun for an already-troubled production here, so let’s give him a pass to start. (Sam Worthington, Charlize Theron, and Tom Cruise — who mined similar material this year in the considerably better Knight & Day — were all attached as stars at various points, and director Alfonso Cuaron was rumored to be replacing von Donnersmarck when he tried to walk away early on.) So how about the two leads? Angelina Jolie is one of the world’s great beauties, and Johnny Depp is no slouch in the heartthrob department either. But, here, she looks cadaverous, he looks paunchy, and together they have zero chemistry whatsoever.

I’ve long thought that Depp is one of our best working actors, but it has to be said — After two dismal Pirates sequels, he’s now been front and center in two of 2010’s worst bombs, this and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. And after seeing Depp play so many weird parts over the years, one has to wonder if he’s now like butter scraped over too much bread: Maybe he just can’t do normal anymore. (But now that I think about it, has Depp ever played a convincing “normal” romantic lead? Benny & Joon, maybe? Gilbert Grape?)

Anyway, Depp’s character — Wisconsin widower and schoolteacher Frank Tupelo — is meant to be just an average guy in over his head, unwittingly caught up in a spy drama as The Wrong Man. (Jolie’s character picks him at random on a train to be a mark for the Interpol-types following her.) But Depp seemingly can’t help but play Frank as all twitchy and affected. He speaks with Hunter Thompson cadences half the time and eyes his surroundings — and his co-star, for that matter — like it or she are going to sprout wings any moment. He can’t even sip his nightcap without Jack-Sparrowing his way through it. “Hey, look, a beverage! In my hand! I shall drink it! Ooh, it kicks!”

And then there’s Jolie, who also seems bored throughout (and who has her own 2010 sins to atone for in Salt.) For one, Jolie and Depp definitely don’t seem to like each other very much: There’s no romantic spark between them at all. (So much for “tourist attraction.”) But the main problem here is they’ve given her character — Elise Clifton-Ward, beautiful femme fatale with a hidden agenda — a British accent. Now, Jolie can either act or do the accent, but, for whatever reason, she pretty clearly can’t do both at the same time. (And, as you’ll see if you somehow end up watching this disaster, she definitely can’t act, do the accent, and drive a boat.)

And so most of the movie Jolie just seems very far away, a cold neutron star. Her sheer presence can overpower a film sometimes — say, her turn as Matt Damon’s crazy wife in The Good Shepherd. But, here, any spark of personality, wit, or warmth is quickly snuffed out by her stultifyingly bad impression of an English person. It’s like the prom queen somehow got roped into performing in the high-school production of Oliver Twist, and she’s just going through the motions so it won’t negatively affect her cred.

So Jolie and Depp are definitely a drag on the material. But, to be honest, it’s hard to imagine a different set of A-list stars with real romantic chemistry — say, I dunno, George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones — pulling off this film either. Some fetching images of Venetian splendor notwithstanding, there’s just no there there. The Tourist moves at a snail’s pace for most of its run, and not in a contemplative Eurofilm way like The American. And more often than not, the movie makes no sense.

To take a few examples: Frank finds himself running from Russian mobsters but doesn’t think to change his appearance in any way. (Here’s a tip — lose the Jack Sparrow ‘do.)The Big Bad dispatches his minions in such an over-the-top Bondian manner that nobody would ever actually work for the guy (although that might explain why said Russian goons can’t hit the broad side of a barn.) And there’s a ridiculous third-act twist which many will see coming within the first five minutes of the movie. But just because you see it coming doesn’t make it plausible.

Granted, these are the type of foibles and Scooby Doo logic you might forgive in a more enjoyable film. But with nothing to latch onto here for entertainment value, they stick out like a sore thumb. So, is there anything good about The Tourist? Well, the movie does feature a cast of obviously European actors, which gives it more of a sense of place than your average studio film. And it starts out with a surveillance scene, which made me think fondly of The Lives of Others for a few beats at the start. Um…Timothy Dalton’s in it, so that’s cool, I guess. (He fares slightly better than poor Paul Bettany, who’s stuck with the clueless inspector role.)

But that’s about it, really. Make no mistake: This is a bad, bad film. Mr. von Donnersmarck, Mr. Depp, Ms. Jolie: Let us never speak of this trip again.

Hammer and Prongs.

Metallica roadie or Norse God of Thunder? Chris “Papa Kirk” Hemsworth finds himself stuck inside of Midgard with the Asgard blues again in the teaser for Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, also with Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Ray Stevenson, Clark Gregg, Kat Dennings, Colm Feore, Rene Russo, Jaimie Alexander, Stellan Skarsgard, and Idris Elba. Hmmm. Like the forthcoming Green Lantern over on the DC side, this looks rather cheesy…but maybe Loki will be fun.

Meanwhile, a more promising upcoming comic creation announces its main villain — one who’s also potentially featured in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises — in this impressive trailer for Batman: Arkham City, due out next fall. Looks great, and Arkham Asylum is both very fun and a totally immersive Batman experience. But, while I get that they’re riffing on Call of Duty: Black Ops here (and take that, Sam Fisher), I’m already way over the recent trend towards interrogation scenes in my gaming.

Life Through Other Means.

In the trailer bin of late:

Whatever they may show in the trailer for Jodie Foster’s family dramedy The Beaver, I’m guessing Mel Gibson’s imaginary puppet friend says unspeakably filthy things in his downtime. Anyways, The Beaver also has Foster, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence, and Cherry Jones. Tell me if it isn’t terrible.

Rome‘s Ray Stevenson gets his chance to shine as a son of Eire among the seventies Mob in the trailer for Jonathan Hensleigh’s Kill the Irishman, based on the true story of Danny Greene and co-starring Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, Vinnie Jones, Linda Cardellini, Vincent D’Onofrio, and a whole lot of usual suspects in the mobster kingdom (Steven Schirippa, Robert Davi, Mike Starr, Paul Sorvino.) Eh, definitely maybe.
HUGH JACKMAN. BOXING ROBOTS. SHAWN LEVY’S REAL STEEL. 10.7.11 (Oof. Only if there’s a lot of drinking involved beforehand.)
“There’s a distinct visual look, and a grand scope, and even of a sense of narrative (sort of). What’s hinted at here is a big-canvas movie in the best sense, one with both cosmic significance and intimate drama.” Sadly, the trailer that prompted this post doesn’t seem to be online yet. Nonetheless, in front of Black Swan last week was our first look at Terence Malick’s eagerly-awaited The Tree of Life. And it looks appropriately mystical and Malickian: May 27th, 2011. Update: It’s finally up.

Radagast the Seventh.

Five armies, seventh Doctor? The cast for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit fills out further with Sylvester McCoy (Radagast the Brown), Ken Stott (Balin), Mikael Persbrandt (Beorn), Ryan Gage (Drogo Baggins), Jed Brophy (Nori), William Kircher (Bifur), and, back for more, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel. [Earlier casting here.] Very glad to see this moving along.

Danse Macabre.

Well, I was rooting for Darren Aronofosky’s Black Swan. I generally think well of Aronofsky even if The Wrestler notwithstanding, he has a penchant for operatic self-indulgence. (In the Best of the Decade list I put together a year ago, The Fountain, The Wrestler, and Requiem for a Dream clocked in at #77, #35, and #30 respectively.)

And, at least in general terms, the subject matter of Black Swan hits close to home, given that my sis is a professional ballerina who’s well-versed in the Odette/Odile role(s). (Although, as far as I tell, she hasn’t gone off-the-wall, certifiably bugnuts crazy…yet. Gill’s thoughts on Black Swan are here.) All that being said, Aronofsky’s attempted Cronenberg variation on Tchaikovsky here doesn’t really work. The movie is arousing a good bit of passion and controversy at the moment — some critics love it, some hate it, there may even be an age divide — but, for the most part I just found it overwrought and silly.

Black Swan begins auspiciously with the prologue of the ballet from which it’s riffing: Young dancer Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) dreams she’s on stage performing the opening “transformation sequence” of Swan Lake, when Odette first encounters the villainous sorcerer Von Rothbart. (Here and throughout, Portman doesn’t really have the ballet chops to pull off the dancing, but, to my layperson’s eye, the workarounds seemed decently convincing. And she’s actually quite good otherwise.) But outside of the Dreaming, Nina is still just a lower-level dancer (presumably a soloist) in her Lincoln Center-based company, living with her (s)mother (Barbara Hershey) in a too-small New York apartment.

But opportunity knocks for Nina when the company director (Vincent Cassel, seemingly playing himself) tires of his veteran principal (Winona Ryder) and decides to recast Swan Lake from the ground up. (And for some reason, he only seems to be picking one cast.) Nina seems like a perfect fit to dance the willowy, innocent Odette, the White Swan. But can she handle the Black Swan half of the equation: the alluring temptress Odile? In fact, there’s a carefree, sensuous new corps member — with swan wing tattoos, no less (Mila Kunis) — that seems born to play that role. So if Nina wants to live her dream and dance the lead in this new Swan Lake, she has to cut loose from her perfectionist moorings and embrace her dark side. Which, unfortunately for her, brings on the Madness…the Madness, splitting in half…

Thus ensues a series of increasingly nightmarish vignettes, in which Nina — already fragile and anorexic on her best days — succumbs to teh crazy: Mirrors start acting funny, a stress rash grows worse and worse, and soon she’s ripping long strips of flesh off her fingers at the cuticle. (I wasn’t kidding when I said this was a Cronenberg variation, although the “all-in-a-day’s-work” body horrors of The Wrestler also come to mind.) Unfortunately, while Black Swan pretends to be a psychological horror movie, most of the scares here are really just of the jump-scare or gross-out variety. And, other then an ecstasy-fueled nightclub scene that recalls the druggy cinematic syntax of Requiem (and that eventually devolves into a ludicrous “sapphic succubus” tryst that seems like something out of Showgirls), Black Swan spends too much of its run dancing dangerously on the precipice of boring.

The thing is: If we know the lead character is going bonkers, and that’s made pretty clear from jump street, these endless nightmare sequences have very little dramatic weight to them. Something bad happened, somebody got killed? Eh, she’s probably just imagining it. What might’ve made Black Swan more interesting is to emphasize not how she’s going mad, but why. But, in that department, Aronofsky mostly just burdens Nina with trite Freudian baggage — an overbearing mother and a sexy crush on “father” (a.k.a. Cassel) — that was hoary and cliched even in Tchiakovsky’s day.

And so it’s hard to sympathize with Nina because neither her character nor her plight is at all convincing. So she has to somehow play both an innocent AND a seductress? ZOMG how will she ever manage? Well, I dunno, how about…acting? Sure, there are cases where Method types will lose themselves too much in a part. (Heath Ledger’s travails with the Joker come to mind.) But, perhaps due to familiarity with ballet folk, playing the white and black swans just doesn’t seem like an insanity-inducing event to me. (Although, now that I think about it, I guess a psychotic break after portraying evil twins might explain the late career path of the Shat.)

In the Financial Times, dance critic Apollinaire Scherr makes a key and telling point: In emphasizing the psychological rigors of the Black Swan role, Aronofsky sorta missed the point of the ballet. “Sure, there is a good maiden and a sly vixen in Swan Lake, but, like the ballet’s dopey prince, Aronofsky gets them mixed up. The virtuous woman has a self to lose; the schemer merely fakes it. Odile the Black Swan is easy to understand…what you see is what you get…Odette – part swan, whole queen, once simply a woman – is complex: wild but also majestic, animal yet gentle.”

In other words, the White Swan is the character with actual depth, while the Black Swan is basically all sizzle and flash, the prince falling for a pretty face. In that, the movie Black Swan is much like its namesake. I suppose it works decently well as a cheesy midnight movie for goth girls and the like. But in terms of anything approaching tragic or psychological depth, Black Swan misses the mark wildly. Its pleasures and pains barely scratch the surface.

Cackling into the Night.

“‘The idea is to use these fragments of cut scenes and use CGI to have The Joker appear one last time,’ a source explained. ‘Chris wants some continuity between movies and for the franchise to pay tribute to Heath and his portrayal of the Joker.‘”

Take for what it worth, but a New Zealand paper is reporting that Chris Nolan will give Heath Ledger’s Joker one final bow at some point in The Dark Knight Rises. “‘It would only be a fleeting moment in the movie and would only be included with the full consent of Heath’s family,’ the source added.” Perhaps an after-the-final-credits flourish? Update: Or not. “‘That’s all wrong,’ said the writer-director.“

The Clown and the Ringmaster.

“‘I am serious,’ Nielsen replies. ‘And don’t call me Shirley.’ The line was probably his most famous — and a perfect distillation of his career.” First dramatic, then comic actor Leslie Nielsen, 1926-2010. (See also Matt Zoller Seitz’s appreciation.)

“I’d say he was probably the most successful versatile director in Hollywood. He could do just about anything really well, from science fiction to cult thrillers to domestic dramas to westerns to romantic comedies.” To, of course, Star Wars films. Director Irvin Kershner, 1923-2010. (The great Kershner pic above via Quint at AICN.)