Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis Get Nasty in The Black Swan

Whether you like Darren Aronofsky’s films or not is entirely a matter of choice, but one thing cannot be debated or argued – Aronofsky is a visionary filmmaker and a cinematic artist. He made waves at the Sundance Film Festival in the late 1990s with his black and white thriller, Pi, and followed that film with the disturbing and haunting Requiem for a Dream, the dreamlike and romantic The Fountain, and the gritty Oscar darling, The Wrestler. His newest picture, The Black Swan, opens in limited release on December 1, 2010 and is scheduled to open the Venice International Film Festival next month.

The Black Swan stars Natalie Portman (Brothers) and Mila Kunis (The Book of Eli) as two ballerinas working for a New York City stage production of Swan Lake.  Portman is the innocent White Swan and Kunis is the sensual Black Swan, and as you can see from watching the trailer, their seemingly tetchy rivalry turns into a bizarre friendship, wherein it seems Portman goes a little nuts. One thing is certain, the look and feel of this preview seems to mirror the bright visual sensation Aronofsky paints in Pi, Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain.

I’m interested to see if Aronofsky can follow the success he enjoyed with The Wrestler, and I’m also interested to see the performances of Kunis and Portman. Both are extremely beautiful women, but Portman is a tad overrated in my book and Kunis hasn’t given me anything but a pretty face to be impressed over. What do you think? After watching the trailer, do you have any interest?

Denzel Looking Apocalypticly Bad Ass in New Eli Poster

Apocalypticly isn’t a word, but this is a blog, so AP style, Strunk and White and my sixth grade English teacher can all suck it. Behold the newest poster for Denzel Washington’s new film, The Road The Book of Eli.  Dan picked this as his Trailer Tuesday back in July and while the trailer wasn’t anything spectacular, I’m starting to warm to the idea of Denzel and Gary Oldman going toe-to-toe in this post-apocalyptic action movie from the Hughes Brothers (Albert and Allen), the directing twins who gave us Menace II Society and From Hell. I should also point out having Mila Kunis in the cast does not hurt this movie’s chances with me. She’s smokin’ hot and on this Thanksgiving holiday, I tip my hat to her gene pool and hope she performs better than she did in last year’s craptastic Max Payne.

Check out the poster (click it to supersize) and let me know your thoughts. The Book of Eli hits theaters on January 15, 2010.

Eli Wants You to Read His Book

We’ve mentioned Denzel here at AATM before. While everyone loves Mr. Washington as an actor, we contend from role to role Denzel simply plays Denzel. And that’s cool with me, because I like chest-pounding Denzel and smiling-I’m-getting-frustrated-and-you’re-about-to-get-it Denzel. I like calm Denzel. I like stoic Denzel. And it’s a good thing Book of Eli has Denzel attached as star, because everyone else likes Denzel, too and post-apocalyptic movies seem to fare worse for wear than others. Which is too bad, because I like them and all their depressing portents.

And that’s what Book of Eli is- post-nuclear war tale about a guy who wanders around with a book full of secrets to save everyone who’s not growing third arms out of their ears and buttcheeks.

Oh, and did I mention this movie also costars one of my top five favorite actors Mr. Gary Oldman, because it does. Eli also stars Mila “Am I a lifeless TV star destined to fade out in movies or not” Kunis, which isn’t a draw as much as statement that post-nuclear America will still birth cute girls.

Book of Eli hits in January of 2010, which may not be soon enough because the trailer looks intriguing to say the least. Am I wrong?