DVD review: Black Swan

First up:
No Australian would ever call a fillum like this Black Swan, because all of our swans are black and they're all serene and graceful and none of them shred their fingernails. Someone word up Alan Jones. This fillum is un-Australian.
Also: I think that Vincent Cassell has gotten off very lightly in reviews of this. As a charismatic artistic director whose mindpuckery aids and abets Nina's disintegration, he's about as charismatic and tricky as a statue. And the script doesnt help him along at all; its all very cliched....the likes of Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)or Paul Giamatti (Sideways) would have been more interesting in this role.
Thank goodness for the scary and suffocating Erica Sayers/Barbara Hershey. If it wasnt for her mother character I really would have thought that poor old Nina just had a breakdown because.
....Because there's not much other connection between Nina and the other elements of the film. She's unwell and hallucinating when the film starts, so its no surprise that she's unwell and hallucinating when it ends. Unless you want to count all of those depressing grey concrete brick walls as a connection. They'd drive me mad. And Mila Kunis was hot..and Winona was marvellously mad; she reminded me a little of Helena Bonham Carter.
Ultimately, Portman earned her Oscar, in the fine tradition of actors who get Oscars for portraying folk who are disabled, physically, mentally, intellectually or otherwise..she was terrific. But I didnt want to watch the fingernail bits.