30 Day Movie Challenge: Day 11

            I decided to do the 30 day movie challenge as a blog series as it ties into my blog activities rather easily and I am once again not blogging my usual series with regularity in spite of saying that I would.

            Today is "A Movie that has my favorite Actress".  Here is a big surprise for you, my actress is Natalie Portman.  The movie is "Black Swan" but that is sort of a header rather than what this is all about.

Yes, this will also be mentioned.  Incidentally, this is the only cool outfit she had in all three of those over produced movies.

            "Black Swan" is a pretty good movie, it has a lot of slow build that, instead of seeming gratuitous like in "Let the Right One In" instead is used correctly in conjunction with sound and characters to make the audience feel filled with dread and ill comfort.  This movie had me covering my eyes at various points because of the very identifiable and stinging displays of pain.  All that being said, the movie could be shorter.

            What does push this movie up from mediocre to good though is the acting of Natalie Portman.  Much like the movie "There Will be Blood" pivoted entirely on the acting of Daniel Day Lewis, "Black Swan" is entirely about Portman.  She experiences every emotion a person can experience, from excitement and joy, to confusion and embarrassment, and then rage and fear, with a quick stop in sexual and drug experimentation land to show her character going around and around the bend.

Oh no.  Lesbianism!  What foul sin has brought her... I don't care.  Sex is not evil.
I find it strange when movies play it as such.

            Natalie Portman came to my attention through "Star Wars" where her acting was as flat and pointless as the scripts in those movies, turns out though, she had been acting for a while, playing a very strange and corrupted little girl in "Leon: the Professional", which was an alright movie, but isn't an all time classic oh-my-god-this-movie-is-so-amazing tour de force.

Nat, relax.  You'll do other things than just "Star Wars" after this.  now put the gun down.

            So between being a nerd icon for the ultimate bland role of Ms. Darth Vader, and being the best thing about movies I only think are all right, why do I like her so much?  Answer: cause she is fun.  She is willing to do movies about anything.  Dungeons and dragons with weed ("Your Highness"), Marvel super hero love interest ("Thor"), Horny modern professional woman ("No StringsAttached"), and terrorist ("V for Vendetta").  Its not just that she is the best thing about these movies, it's that she has the range and talent to have been in all of them and do something as daring as "Black Swan".  She is the omni-actress, and she isn't afraid to take her best actress golden statue and continue doing movies in which she helps fight aliens.  She is awesome.

A lesson from "V For Vendetta", anyone could be a terrorist, even the prostitute you got by mistake.