Ten Quick Thoughts on...Black Swan

1) Like most people, I have never really been a fan of Natalie Portman's acting. She tends to end up being either annoyingly cutesy or distractingly wooden in just about everything she's been in. Even something like Garden State, where her performance was somewhat memorable seems to suffer in hindsight (to be honest, I thought both she and the movie were kind of overrated at the time that I first saw it). I would say the only performance of hers that I have enjoyed thus far in her career was the stripper she played in Mike Nichols' Closer. That is, until I saw this movie. Portman is actually a revelation in Black Swan. I bought every paranoid, high-strung moment that her character, fragile ballerina Nina Sayers, spent on the screen (and no I don't care how much of her dancing she did). She totally deserved the Oscar she received for the role. Her incredible performance in fact was enough to forgive her for co-starring in an Ashton Kutcher film as her follow-up. Come to think of it, that Your Highness slop she just put out didn't look like such great shakes either. But look, man, she could use a break after that heavy lifting! Let's just hope she doesn't pull a Nicolas Cage after Leaving Las Vegas and never make another decent film.