What did you think of Black Swan?

Darren Aronofsky's latest film opens in 8 cities this weekend. If you're one of the people who got to catch it this weekend or in previous screenings, have at it in the comments section and tell us what you thought of the film. I've already had my say here. Feel free to come back to this thread when the film opens in your area, I'm genuinely curious to hear everyone's thoughts on it. Have at it in the comment section!

Updated Oscar Predictions 12/2/2010

* = Predicted winner


Best Picture
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The King's Speech *
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone



Best Director
Danny Boyle - 127 Hours
Christopher Nolan - Inception
David Fincher - The Social Network *
Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan
Ethan and Joel Coen - True Grit



Best Actor
Jeff Bridges - True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
Colin Firth - The King's Speech *
James Franco - 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine


Best Actress
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Lesley Manville - Another Year
Natalie Portman - Black Swan *


Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale - The Fighter *
Matt Damon - True Grit
Jeremy Renner - The Town
Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech


Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams - The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech
Melissa Leo - The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld - True Grit *
Dianne Wiest - Rabbit Hole


Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours
The Social Network *
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit


Best Original Screenplay 
Another Year
Black Swan
Blue Valentine
Inception *
The King's Speech 


Best Art Direction
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
Shutter Island
True Grit *


Best Cinematography
127 Hours
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
Shutter Island
True Grit *


Best Costume Design
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech *
Shutter Island
True Grit


Best Editing
127 Hours
Inception *
The Social Network
True Grit
The Town


Best Makeup
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Shutter Island *


Best Original Score
How to Train Your Dragon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception *
The Social Network
True Grit


Best Original Song
Burlesque
127 Hours
Tangled
Toy Story 3
Waiting for Superman *


Best Sound Editing:
127 Hours
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception *
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy


Best Sound Mixing
127 Hours
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception *
True Grit
TRON: Legacy


Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception *
Iron Man 2
TRON: Legacy


Best Animated Feature Film
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3 *


As always, have at it in the comments section and feel free to share your own predictions as well!

National Board of Review 2010 Winners

The National Board of Review announced their winners today, and it's clearly bodes well for David Fincher's The Social Network. Most curious is their complete omissions of 127 Hours, Black Swan, and The Kids Are All Right. A couple of things happened here. First, the NBR always loves Clint Eastwood, so of course Hereafter was going to get in. Also, their tastes tend to be a little more traditional, so the lack of edgy, intense fare like Danny Boyle and Darren Aronofsky's films is not surprising. It does, however, confirm a fear I had about The Kids Are All Right, even if it's a critical indie darling. The film may just not have hit a home run with as many people as we thought. It was a critics darling back in the summer, but I find a lot of people are bucking against the film now that they have seen it on dvd and blu-ray. Not sure what the trend here is, but it's an interesting one. Here's the full list of winners. 

Best Picture: The Social Network

Best Director: David Fincher - The Social Network

Best Actor: Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network

Best Actress: Lesley Manville - Another Year

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale - The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Jacki Weaver - Animal Kingdom

Best Original Screenplay: Buried

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network

Best Foreign Language Film: Of Gods And Men

Best Documentary: Waiting For Superman

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Best Ensemble Cast: The Town

Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone

Best Production Design: Shutter Island

Ten Best Films (In Alphabetical Order minus The Social Network)

Another Year

The Fighter

Hereafter

Inception

The King's Speech

Shutter Island

The Town

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter's Bone

Top Ten Independent Films

Animal Kingdom

Buried

Fish Tank

The Ghost Writer

Greenberg

Let Me In

Monsters

Please Give

Somewhere

Youth In Revolt

Things I learned from my second Harry Potter viewing...

1. The cinematography is stunningly beautiful, especially since I could actually see the damn screen this time, instead of looking up and to the right from a bottom row seat. 

2. Dobby's death makes me cry. Hard. And I got misty-eyed in the Godric's Hollow scene. If nothing else, this film certainly packs an emotional sucker punch. 

3. The film moves at a slower pace than I remember, but that's merely an observation, not a complaint. 

4. Harry and Hermione have excellent music taste, as they were dancing to a Nick Cave song. 

5. I maintain that this is the Empire Strikes Back of the Harry Potter films. Never before have we seen such a dark, menacing film in the series where our heroes are so utterly defeated, so utterly lost, so hopeless. The world is going to hell and the film makes that known. Ultimately, I liked the film the first time I saw it, and loved it the second time. I would argue a lot of that has to do with knowing what to expect, being able to view the screen properly, and not having rude rednecks sitting next to me talking to the screen. It's definitely one of the best in the series, as it captures the tone, characters, and setting so beautifully. 

6. That being said, I still can't decide where it stands amongst the rest of the series, as again, it's not a complete film. It's one half of a five hour epic, and I'm ok with that, because as I see it, we're on an 8 month intermission between the first and second act. Once we've seen both parts and can view them back to back, I will be more than happy to give a full and proper review. Until then, I love what we've seen so far. 

As always, have at it in the comments section and tell me what you thought of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1!

Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

I'm not going to attempt to assign a numerical rating to this film as that would be reductive. The reason being is that while it is a two and a half hour film, it's not a complete film. It's one half of a five hour film. That being said, I still have a lot of things to say about it, mostly ecstatic things. It goes without saying that I absolutely loved the film as it were, but again, I'm having a hard time really sorting out exactly where I would place it within the series, since, again, it's one half of a whole. But I will try to simply talk about what worked and what didn't.

For starters, this is a notably dark film. Parents and casual movie-goers have been complaining endlessly about how the series has gotten progressively darker, more violent, and less "magical". Every time I hear said complaints I just shake my head and let them whine in a corner. Of course it's getting darker. The series is following the pattern of the books, which got darker and less and less about magical wonder and more about characters, story, and matters of life and death. That last bit about life and death is certainly true in this film. From the beginning, in one of the most amazingly well done and well acted scenes in the films, we understand that Voldemort is not playing any games. He's out for blood, and nothing is getting in his way. He relishes every kill, every bit of violence. And it's not going to end any time soon.

Luckily, the film maintains a balance between it's nearly overbearing sense of impending doom and a few light hearted moments with some hilarious humor thrown in. The ministry sequence in particular, had me and the rest of my audience howling with laughter. The sweet character moments are also there, and boy do they ever work. In fact, that's what works best about this film, character development. There's so much I could say about it that I might burst, but I will save some of that for future conversations. On the technical side of things, the film's productions values, as is common for the series, are top notch, especially for score, cinematography, art direction, and of course, visual effects.

Really, the film really works as a great adaptation of Rowling's book, my only complaint is that it's not finished yet. For now, it's the Empire Strikes Back of the films. I can't wait until next July when this epic saga finally comes to a close. As always, have at it in the comments section!

Awards Season 2010 - First round of Predictions.

I was going to write up a longer post about the state of the Oscar race right now, but the simple truth is that until Awards season proper kicks in sometime early December, nobody really knows anything. For now, I'll simply offer up my first set of real nomination predictions of the year. Here's hoping for some real clairvoyance soon.

Best Picture
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The King's Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

Alternate: The Way Back

Best Director
Danny Boyle - 127 Hours
Christopher Nolan - Inception
Tom Hooper - The King's Speech
David Fincher - The Social Network
Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan

Alternate: Peter Weir - The Way Back

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges - True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
Colin Firth - The King's Speech
James Franco - 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling - Blue Valentine

Alternate: Robert Duvall - Get Low

Best Actress
Annette Bening - The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman - Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence - Winter's Bone
Lesley Manville - Another Year
Natalie Portman - Black Swan


Alternate: Michelle Williams - Blue Valentine

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale - The Fighter
Aaron Eckhart - Rabbit Hole
Andrew Garfield - The Social Network
Mark Ruffalo - The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush - The King's Speech

Alternate: Jeremy Renner - The Town

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams - The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter - The King's Speech
Sally Hawkins - Made In Dagenham
Miranda Richardson - Made In Dagenham
Dianne Wiest - Rabbit Hole

Alternate: Hailee Stienfeld - True Grit

Best Adapted Screenplay
127 Hours
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit

Best Original Screenplay 
Another Year
Black Swan
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech

Best Art Direction
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
The King's Speech
Shutter Island
True Grit

Alternate: Alice in Wonderland

Best Cinematography
127 Hours
Inception
Shutter Island
True Grit
The Way Back

Alternate: Black Swan

Best Costume Design
Alice in Wonderland
Inception
The King's Speech
Shutter Island
True Grit

Alternate: Black Swan

Best Editing
127 Hours
Inception
The Social Network
True Grit
The Town

Alternate: The Way Back

Best Makeup
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Shutter Island

Alternate: The Way Back

Best Original Score
How to Train Your Dragon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Let Me In
The Social Network

Alternate: The King's Speech

Best Original Song
127 Hours
Tangled
Tangled
Toy Story 3
Waiting for Superman

Alternate: None

Best Sound Editing:
127 Hours
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Toy Story 3
TRON: Legacy

Alternate: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Best Sound Mixing
127 Hours
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Toy Story 3

Alternate: TRON: Legacy

Best Visual Effects
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Inception
Iron Man 2
TRON: Legacy

Alternate: Black Swan

Best Animated Feature Film
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Alternate: Despicable Me

That's all I got for now. As always, have at it in the comments section!