Black Swan (2010)

She's a maniac...dancing like she never danced before

Like the "The Wrestler," this is a deeply woven character study that paces as a dark drama with a young woman named Nina (Natalie Portman) at the center attempting to push herself at the expense of personal relationships and her own physicalities when a once and a life time role comes her way. You get an intimate look at the behind the scenes of a ballet dancer, from routine stretches, make-up, feet taping, auditions, music rehearsals, to the make-it-or-break-it competitive inner circle that surrounds it. The bigger the role, it's stress and then some. Some have the strength of character to make it happen, while others let the make-believe character take over too much of their personal lives.

Nina's self-conscious and emotionally fragile when confrontation and criticisms come speeding at her. She ducks, hides and is afraid to express how she really feels in front of others with the exception of her live-at-home mother who is a shoulder to cry on but is overprotective of her to the world at large. To Nina, the world is Ballet and nothing more. It's on her mind when waking in the morning to conversations on the phone and when meeting outsiders. She's a woman who's partly still a little girl due to her tunnel vision and this causes her to cower away and misinterpret actual meanings as something else. She was riding on a thin slope to begin with and now with the role of Swan Queen--where she has to pull off both of the opposites of White Swan and Black Swan on the same stage when it's normally just one--being presented to her she loses all perspective and starts to slowly dream up and hallucinate.

Mila Kunis plays Lily, which represents a wild card amongst the conformity that usually comes from the traditional background of stage dancing. She's the rebellious, spontaneous one that's able to rebound from the unexpected. Nina is a perfectionist who practiced exclusively for the role of the delicate White Swan and now that she has to learn how to also play the dark and seductive Black Swan without a hitch in between characters, she starts to look at Lily's temperamental personality as both an inspiration and a threat due to the Black Swan coming to her naturally instead. Winona Ryder's character Beth--who was a former lead who stepped down--was impressionable to Nina but now can see the after effects of how much it takes a toll. Though at that point she might have traveled too deep on a downward spiral to turn around.

"Black Swan" takes an artful, niche subject and etches a darker shade onto it. There's no glamor here and you have to wonder if anybody is having fun or they're just doing it compulsively due to losing the spark but still having the talent left over. It uses ballet as a backdrop for a character expose and how something can be taken so far without seeing the forest through the trees. With the exception of a few exaggerated hallucinations that nail the point home, the film was subtle and not so direct, though without being vague either due to its progressive nature. A balance was struck without analyzing the character like a garden variety lay-down-on-the-couch shrink session, but rather an unhealthy breakdown that a viewer can see unfolding before their worrying eyes. The flow is gradual, the cinematography only comes with so many effects compared to other modern pictures, and the traditional stage music is frequently used to get the feel and atmosphere of the world they've encapsulated you in. This eventually builds up to a thrilling finale to show the final act of lost innocence during the big opening night that everyone's been anticipating.

Rating: 9/10

Director: Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain)
Stars: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder
Link: IMDB

The Dentist 2 (1998)

Our favorite dental sociopath's back!

This is basically a continuation with the doc unleashed onto a smaller country town. It still mirrors the template of the first as it starts out somewhat innocently and then builds up and escalates the scenarios instead of going right for the throat. Which would be fine because it doesn't make this as predictable, however, the movie takes too long to switch gears between substantial scenarios and it can feel like it coasts at times. This doesn't feel as provocative or controversial with what he gets away with like in the first either. Feinstone says he doesn't remember the original events during therapy. He gets partly rehabilitated, escapes and then gradually the other evil persona starts to come out of him. As he explains: "He is me, I am him." And then the clincher, "No Dr., it is not over. It will never be over. Every second of every day asleep or awake, I see her face."

He attempts to make a measly but comfortable living a few states over in Paradise, Missouri where he's known as Lawrence Caine. But things keep on luring him back to work on patients: a misplaced cap here, a cavity of a friend and growing love interest named Jamie there. He has to fight the demons like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, including cutting himself and clearing his head from the piling visions of corroding teeth and gums. The only dentist in town falls to his death and with some convincing from the people, he takes over the practice. He keeps up the nice guy act till someone recognizes him as Feinstone, also a private eye hired by his all-gums ex-wife is getting close, not to mention Jamie catches another side of him when he starts to suspect something is going on with another blue collar worker.

"The Dentist II" tries to play it straight and somewhat legitimize itself beyond its B movie trappings, but as a result it takes too long to dig into the juicy stuff that a viewer is just waiting to see. There are some flashing scenes when he hallucinates that attempt to lend a hand to atmosphere. Though for a good chunk of the picture it seems somewhat reserved and the tone feels more a drama. By the time he goes full throttle with the carnage, the level of anticipation is through the roof, which makes everything detrimental to having to sit through him find his place in the town. The wife coming back was fairly anticlimactic for the amount of time built up to it and could have been edited out. He delivers with some drilling, teeth prodding and poking, not to mention quotable condescending lines, but the reasons are just that he needs to interrogate the people rather than the variety of angles and fears he capitalizes on in the first.

He's an opera listening, poetic phrasing, self-inflicting lunatic...who does do his job from time to time. The reason he doesn't always take it to the hilt, is because it's playing on a little bit of perspective and sympathy as he can't always help it himself, which leaves him tortured between both sides, and the audience not sure whether to love him or hate him. "The Dentist II" made an attempt to personalize the story and take itself a little more seriously--still with some dark humor in places--but even then it wasn't able to make this a moment-by-moment experience and that can cause the audiences' focus to waver more than someone under laughing gas.

Rating: 4/10

Director: Brian Yuzna (Return of the Living Dead III)
Stars: Corbin Bernsen, Jillian McWhirter, Jeff Doucette
Link: IMDB


Quotes:

Dr. Caine/Feinstone: "Drill 'em, fill 'em, bill 'em, that's your philosophy, huh?"

Dr. Caine/Feinstone: "You know, you and your ilk, Doctor Burns, make dentists the boogeymen of medicine. Something to be feared, to be avoided at all costs. I've worked my entire career to change all that."

Dr. Caine/Feinstone: "Sir, sit back down. I cannot leave that tooth untreated. I took an oath."

Dr. Caine/Feinstone: "Oh sure. You come in here under false pretenses, nose through my files, you sit there asking all your wheeling questions. And then you beg me not to hurt you? What world do you live in, Bevie?"

Dr. Caine/Feinstone: "This is how we bond our teeth in Hollywood, Bevie. Bonding in bondage. It's all the rage."

Dr. Caine/Feinstone: "New game, Bevie. Truth or tooth."

The Dentist (1996)

You better brush 3x a day!

Dr. Alan Feinstone (Corbin Bernsen) is a dentist who's a perfectionist to the extreme as he finds fault with everything down to the finest, nitty-gritty detail. From the doc himself: "Nothing, no matter how good or how pure is free of decay. Once the decay gets started, it can only lead to rot, filth, corruption." He has a philosophy that he uses to reinforce his tainted world views. He's already riding the cusp of unreasonableness and losing all perspective, and then is completely pushed over the edge when the IRS is breathing down his neck and he sees his wife getting frisky with the pool guy. In the state of cracking up and getting delusional to everything being wrong or dirty around him, he turns to taking out his aggression on teeth: stinking, rotting, corroding teeth.

No one's safe here: from the little boy and his first dentist trip to those looking to push around the guy who controls all those potentially nasty contraptions laying around the dental office. Every worst dentistry fear and agitation is capitalized here: scrapping metal against teeth, hooks into gums, touchy-feely while under, yanking teeth without anesthesia, needles shoved into gums, a noisy drill splintering molars and not to mention the endless waits. God help this last one! The whole experience is to make one cringe and supply a state of creepiness as it also takes on the view point of the "villain," or just the antihero of breaking down barriers of modern day constructs. If you nodded to the latter, you might be as loopy and sadistic as him. Though almost everyone else around him does a did-he-just-do-that double take, but typically back down because it goes to show how much someone in a white doctor's coat and in a position of authority is trusted.

The creative teams behind "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond" take a different route with "The Dentist," as it's a horror film that dodges the jaded and supernatural and goes for the day-to-day in the suburbs just like the one you're probably living in now. The horror is often captured in broad daylight and in innocent looking rooms. Instead of having a deeply enriched story, this is more of a character study and as a result it's a little more gradually paced than other horror films, as it steadily escalates and goes for the little subtlelties that cause him to have a mental breakdown. Meanwhile two detectives are butting their nose in from investigating a dead animal at the neighbor's house where the dentist first got the taste of blood. And the people that rely on him can only make so many excuses when all the amoral dabblings start to pile up.

Corbin Bernsen plays Dr. Feinstone with such conviction and intensity that when I see him in other roles, it's hard to shake the obsessive and sadistic dentist persona he held down and made his own. The actors around him range from just getting the job done to somewhat effective, but then that's as far as the limited scope the role can take them. The cinematography can get experimental at times, adding to the film's strange atmosphere. This has a completely pitch black sense of humor, as most of the people getting it aren't exactly deserving, just incidental victims. Even after a number of viewings over the years, this still gets me yelling out loud and reeling back because when it shows the carnage it gets the loudest sound effect and sometimes the tightest shot you can imagine. This is a campy movie that manages to do a turn around from what it appears to be at first glance due to the creative but loopy effort put into it.

My very own dentist has admitted to catching this one. Not sure if he said he liked it though...

Rating: 7.5/10

Director: Brian Yuzna (Bride of Re-Animator)
Stars: Corbin Bernsen, Linda Hoffman, Ken Foree
Link: IMDB


Quotes:

Dr. Feinstone: "Decay is always busy, so we're always busy."

Dr. Feinstone: "You don't know what it's like. The discipline, the long hours, the lack of respect in a world that goes on ignoring dental hygiene."

Dr. Feinstone: "I am an instrument of perfection and hygiene--the enemy of decay and corruption...a dentist."

The Killing Jar (2010)

Bullet hole with your coffee, sir?

"The Killing Jar": the "jar" being a small town diner and the "killing" being people trapped inside with their fate up to a gunman. This begins by familiarizing the audience with these simple town folk just out for a late night bite at their favorite greasy eatery with jukebox, stifling heat and cheap prices. After hearing a radio broadcast about four murders of a husband, wife and their two children, the patrons--couple, waitress, deputy, cook, truck driver and passer through--speak their disgust but go about their business and shoot the breeze.

You get the hardened boss/cook (Danny Trejo), who's overshot vocal tone and miscued body language indicate he quickly filmed some scenes at different times than who he's interacting with. The young couple aimlessly use a video camera and talk about idle dreams. The most natural and credible performance is by the passer through (Harold Perrineau), who is a salesman that just wants to get back home but he'll need a strong cup of brew. The truck driver and deputy keep it familiar as if this is the same routine. A Rockabilly type (Michael Madsen) eventually enters. He's demanding and acts suspicious, which upsets the waitress and causes the deputy to get into a threatening confrontation, which sends Madsen's character over the edge. He can go from spaced-out, henchmen-confident to sympathetic and unsure but not always clenching the transition in between to make it all credible. The moment he storms back in with a shotgun, you lean forward in your seat for hopefully the real start of the adventure.

The rest tries to maintain an intrigue and build up to a twist ending, though apart from a few abrupt and bloody deaths it feels like one giant tedious string along without a major purpose or relatable reward, with the exception of the simple but capable waitress being offered the opportunity and courage to get out of the rut she's at in the restaurant and in her life. However, with everything padded and piled around her to equally get coverage of everybody else, she's not consistently at the focal point of attention to realize this till the latter portion. The gunman kills for no apparent reason other than being provoked. All of a sudden he gains some kind of higher righteousness and uses a skill-set from a past profession to interrogate the patrons and a revelation comes out about the news report involving the murdered family.

On paper this reads like a good idea to produce a low budget movie concentrated on story and characters than one-liners, extravagant sets and location changes. But since the film is so claustrophobic, the flow, character interaction and direction tried to continually throw off the cinemaphile who studies all the details and tries to figure out the puzzle beforehand, though it did the opposite as it didn't fluidly come together to put the audience in the direct moment or believably rationalize with their motivations enough to wholly care that this could actually happen where innocents are being killed in this far away place. It shows how much some filmmakers are willing to go to guard their secret twist, even at the expense of the rest of the picture. It also didn't help that they tried to clash quirkiness and sarcasm amongst sentimental moments, such as Jake Busey's character looking laughably tacky with a weaselly grin mixed with pseudo introspective shots that pan around the diner possibly to throw the scent off. "The Killing Jar" had the right ideas going in, just some of the wrong execution as the flow came in and out in waves.

Rating: 4/10

From Black to Red recommends instead: "Hostage" from 2005, which had an ensemble cast, gravitating performances, mysteriousness and a number of thrills.

Director: Mark Young (Tooth & Nail)
Stars: Michael Madsen, Harold Perrineau, Amber Bensen, Jake Busey
Link: IMDB