Black Swan

When I first started writing this blog I had decided I would write pieces about all the films I saw. But I thought fuck that. An earlier entry was about a run of the mill Chris Rock film. So I decided to focus on films that genuinely moved me.

The Black Swan certainly falls in that category. The story itself is fairly formulaic. It is of an obsessive dancer trying to achieve perfection and slowly being driven mad in the process. Nut that is all I would say was clichéd about it. The camera work was a little annoying at first but I quickly got used to it and the grainy film quality enhanced it perfectly.

It has a great supporting cast with Vincent Cassel as the sleazy but brilliant director and Barbara Hershey as the stifling mom. But overall this is undoubtedly Portman's film. As I sit here and think about it there were no scenes where she was absent. Quite honestly she is fantastic. She displays her characters subtle descent into  madness brilliantly without resorting to ticks and tricks often employed. You can see her genuine confusion about whether she is becoming mad and it is gripping.

It is simply a wonderful film and if you miss it you are missing out.

Dinosaurs

The press have been getting themselves into overdrive this week again and have managed to royally fuck it up again. Even when they get outraged for the right reasons they still end up making things worse.

I am referring to the situation with Richard Keys and Andy Gray. Last weekend they were caught on mic making some very sexist remarks about women and in particular their role in football. Quite frankly they made the pair of them look like complete fucking idiots, buffoons even.

They then compounded things by taking too long to apologise. The press smelt blood and when The Sun joined in the attack they must have known they were done for as no Murdoch paper is going to break ranks and attack another part of that empire without getting the green light first.

This is a classic example of the press running away with themselves in their own merry way. Not bothering to think about the consequences just wanting to get their man.

The outrage they were so busy trying to whip up was supposedly to do with offence they caused women. What bollocks. As if the Sun or the Daily Mail ever gave a shit about that particular cause. The Sun will still continue to sexualise young women on a daily basis as will the Mail with its mock outrage about Christina Aguilera’s X-Factor appearance while publishing all the titillating photos.

And what of Keys and Gray ? Many will say sod them but I can’t help but have a degree of sympathy for them. They were idiots but was the degree of outrage directed at them justified ? Of course not. They were expressing views that too many men in this country feel are perfectly ok. I find this pretty reprehensible but I hardly think that placing these two on the sacrificial alter is going to help address any of those issues.

They spent the first half of the week looking like fools, then moral pariahs and where are they now. I suspect the role they fulfil now is that of martyrs to the cause of PC gone mad. And it’s a role that the Daily Mail will have absolutely no problem unblushingly exploiting the next time they want to write a hateful piece about uppity women demanding to be treated fairly.