Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

Yeah, I'd heard that one before yet I forgot to mention it. That being said, it doesn't feel like a serious flaw even when thinking about it in hindsight. Seeing as nobody on both sides of the conflict knew the Ark's true power at first, it was still a potentially dangerous unknown that could be weaponised and thus had to be accounted for, hence why the government agents sought Indy out in the first place. Plus, even if Indy knew that the Ark would kill the Nazis anyway, he's still being offered the chance to go after a legendary artifact and getting paid handsomely on top of that so of course he'd still go ahead with the mission. At the very least, his interference doesn't actively cause problems like it does with the heroes mentioned in this Cracked article.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

#502 - Catwoman
Pitof, 2004



When a lowly office worker at a cosmetics company is murdered for accidentally overhearing her superiors conspiring, she is brought back to life as the latest in a long line of "catwomen".

The early-to-mid-2000s were not the best time for superhero movies, and this thread will definitely attest to that fact. Even so, there seemed to be an especially high level of vitriol reserved for Catwoman to the point where I knew that it had to be something that I saw for myself. When watching the so-called worst movies ever made, I often get a twinge of disappointment that the film doesn't seem to quite live up to its reputation as a horrible excuse for cinema (I think the most recently watched example of this would have to be The Last Airbender, though that was still plenty terrible anyway). Catwoman, on the other hand, is the real deal. Even by the already low standards of mid-2000s superhero movies, Catwoman is pretty impressive in its ineptitude and not just for seeming to throw out the established canon in favour of crafting a whole different story. Catwoman starts off with a flash-forward to the protagonist (Halle Berry) lying dead in the water and narrating to us just so that the following handful of scenes don't fool audiences into thinking that they've walked into an extremely trite Hollywood rom-com. Berry's character is the typical klutzy introvert that lives in a crummy apartment and works a soul-crushing job in the marketing department for a make-up company that is planning on launching a new face cream. Of course, when she ends up visiting the office late at night, she is murdered and left for dead, but things change when...a cat brings her back to life.

While I grant that this isn't too far removed from what happened to Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, here it's taking to excruciating levels. The film tries to ape Spider-Man by showing how Berry's powers are animal-based with typically cat-like reflexes and agility, but this also involves her mimicking cat behaviours like sniffing her hands or eating cat food straight out of the can in what I think is supposed to be comical but just comes across as ludicrous. To this end, the film establishes a whole new mythology in its opening credits that show how "catwomen" have been around since time immemorial and that Berry is now the latest to take up the mantle thanks to cat magic. In addition to the set-up outlined above, the film once again strays (no pun intended) into boring rom-com territory as she strikes up a relationship with a police detective (Benjamin Bratt) that is challenged when he starts investigating a recent wave of cat-burglaries. There are also her bosses (Lambert Wilson and Sharon Stone) who do make for some terrible characters even before the truth about them is revealed. Then there's her whole ludicrous quest for revenge against the people who killed her. This includes hunting down a henchman played by Michael Massee, whose presence really made me realise how much this film lifts from The Crow. Ordinary person is murdered as part of an evil conspiracy but is brought back to life by a magic animal and starts taking revenge on those who wronged them? Yeah, it sounds very familiar.

There's enough going on with Catwoman to guarantee that its reputation for being one of the worst movies made in living memory isn't without good reason. The way in which this film's story completely distances itself from its supposed source material would be one thing, but here it's exacerbated by the film trying to aim for a rough mixture of superhero campiness and post-Matrix coolness. The effects are rubbish, as is the case with the magic cat or even the long shots of Catwoman scurrying along walls and over rooftops. This make for a pretty bad experience when combined with an aggressively obnoxious filmmaking style - look no further than the scene where Berry and Bratt play one-on-one basketball while on a date to see just how aesthetically unappealing this film manages to be. When you're not noticing how much of its style and tropes it cops from other comic-book movies, you're noticing how much it plays out like a generic rom-com that just so happens to be about a superhero. Berry's whole transition into Catwoman feels a lot like the trope where the frumpy-looking woman gets a makeover to show that she's actually beautiful underneath. That's without getting into the reveal behind the plot, where the film's attempts to define itself as an action film that isn't afraid to be feminine get pushed to a ludicrous extreme. Camp value may be something of a redeeming factor when it comes to a lot of bad movies, and while Catwoman does try to be campy, here it just comes across as painful.

This is just too high of a rating for this.

What can I say? I don't give out zeroes.

I've had Visitor Q on my watchlist for a very long time. That basically means that despite my interest, I'm not expecting to enjoy it.

Agree with every word regarding Raiders of the Lost Ark-brilliant film!

#503 - The Hunt for Red October
John McTiernan, 1990



When the captain of a high-tech Russian submarine goes rogue at the height of the Cold War, a CIA analyst is brought in to determine what is going on.

I had not really gotten around to seriously checking out any of the Jack Ryan movies and I decided that if I had to watch one then it'd have to be The Hunt for Red October. A lot of that was due to the fact that it starred Sean Connery as a Russian submarine commander who naturally spends much of his screen-time talking in an extremely thick and broad Scottish accent. Of course, that ends up being the most remarkable part of a film that is pretty middle-of-the-road as far as thrillers go. Having a somewhat respectable action director like McTiernan behind the camera doesn't do all that much for this film, which you'd think would benefit from taking place while onboard submarines but doesn't quite deliver when it comes to palpable tension. It does deliver some ambiguity thanks to the various conflicts that develop between three sides and the people within those three sides, but that's about all that film has going for it. Though there are some solid actors involved in the conflict, the characterisation is ultimately pretty empty, especially on the part of Ryan himself (Alec Baldwin) who doesn't have much in the way of distinguishing features apart from seeing things that other good guys don't.

From a technical standpoint, The Hunt for Red October is decent enough. Some of the effects work hasn't aged well, whether it's torpedoes being fired underwater or something as simple as really obvious rear-projection. At least there's a nice visual aesthetic thanks to the complementary contrast of red-soaked control rooms and the deep blue sea. Unfortunately, not even the constantly shifting conflict between the Americans, the Russians, and Connery (plus the men involved in each faction that have their own agendas) isn't enough to make this glacial underwater drama generate all that much in the way of thrills, to say nothing of how generally forgettable Basil Poledouris's score ends up being. It's got its charms thanks to a solid cast and a somewhat twisty plot, but this is a film where the slow burn isn't pulled off all that well. I may watch the other Jack Ryan movies at some later junction and might even try giving this film a second chance, but there's not all that much going on here that makes me think that will be a priority.

#504 - 28 Days Later...
Danny Boyle, 2002



A young man wakes up from a coma to find that England has suffered a viral epidemic that renders people murderously insane.

I was surprised to find myself underwhelmed by this film the first time I watched it. Even so, it still had enough quality to it that I sort of liked it and did not mind giving it a second chance, and give it a second chance I did. Of course, having gotten a lot more critical in the intervening years probably wouldn't do it any favours. The early scenes are full of this, whether it's the incompetence of everyone involved in the laboratory prologue that leads to the virus getting released in the first place or the fact that the film's protagonist (Cillian Murphy) even manages to wake up from a coma in an empty hospital in the first place and doesn't encounter so much as a single dead body as he wanders through a desolate London. This soon gives way to a film that tries to offer a somewhat serious take on zombie movies (specifics be damned) but it is that same attempt to be serious that does undercut it somewhat. While the first half does guarantee some striking imagery of an empty world that is occasionally plagued by red-eyed monsters, it also results in a rather flabby middle as Murphy and a more experienced survivor (Naomie Harris) team up with a father and daughter (Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns respectively) to try to survive together by heading towards a remote broadcast signal, which does result in strong attempts at character-building but not in any sufficiently meaningful way.

While the film has drawn some flack for its third act involving the main group of survivors meeting a platoon of soldiers who are holed up in a mansion, by this point in the film it's a welcome change of pace from the extremely repetitive zombie-survival structure of the rest of the film (even if it does feel like a somewhat derivative and condensed version of Day of the Dead). Arguably, that's the main flaw with 28 Days Later... - despite the insistence on the enemies in this film not technically being zombies and the maintaining of an unusual visual aesthetic thanks to the frantic documentarian style provided by digital video, it struggles to actually provide a decent enough plot. Characters give us just enough reason to care whether they live or die and little else beyond that, even though there are some decent actors in the mix. I can also appreciate the musical choices - playing Godspeed You! Black Emperor over post-apocalyptic scenery is one of the most appropriate marriages of sound and vision possible, while the music that plays during the film's finale gets under one's skin in the best way. Of course, without a sufficiently solid core on which to build things these little moments and the technical quality that goes into them, the film's quality ultimately comes across as a little haphazard and thus I don't feel like I generally liked it. A bit of tightening things up could have done this film some serious good.



Addendum: I don't think this was on the DVD version that I first watched, but this time I watched the film on TV and the ending was different for some reason:

It's been many years since I saw The Hunt for Red October, but I thought it was better than a movie. I'll have to re-watch it and see if it still holds up today.

#505 - Kurt & Courtney
Nick Broomfield, 1998



A documentary that is primarily concerned with investigating the conspiracy theory that Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain did not commit suicide but was actually murdered.

Kurt & Courtney is quite underwhelming as far as documentaries go. Host-director Broomfield proceeds to assemble an extremely unauthorised documentary that starts off with a cursory exploration on the life and death of Kurt Cobain, starting off in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. Though Cobain's aunt makes for a kind enough person with which to start the film, Broomfield himself immediately comes across as an extremely irritating investigator, especially when the first thing he says while entering Cobain's old middle school to interview a teacher is to say that people investigating Cobain is the only reason people ever come to Aberdeen. Another early segment involves him trying to chase up as many possible leads as possible in trying to investigate Cobain's life - one of the most memorable instances involves him bursting into a lottery office simply because Cobain used to fire a BB gun through the windows during his adolescent years. This prompts the desk clerk to call security on him and his crew. The hypothesis that drives this film is that Cobain did not actually commit suicide via self-inflicted gunshot wound, but was in fact murdered. To this end, the film decides to lay the blame on Courtney Love, Cobain's wife and the lead vocalist/guitarist in alt-rock band Hole, who allegedly hired someone to murder Cobain and make it look like a combination of a heroin overdose and shooting death.

Though it's arguable that Broomfield's constant barreling into areas while wielding a microphone is supposed to either catch his subjects off-guard or capture tense situations first-hand, but even so he still comes across as an obnoxious muckraker. His extremely dull and monotonous manner of speaking only serve to make him an even more grating presence. It's impressive how the few people who willingly grant him interviews seem so gracious about his presence, even if they lack every other possible social grace (as evidenced by the interview with the incredibly abrasive El Duce, whose wild-eyed wackiness makes his claims of Love asking him to kill Cobain for $50,000 seem equally outlandish and believable). This being an unofficial documentary that paints Love in an unflattering light (especially when Broomfield interviews her father, who has some rather unkind words about his daughter), there aren't any actual Nirvana songs on the soundtrack and Broomfield is careful to explain this to you. I do like how songs by noise-rock Earth appear on the soundtrack, as well as the fact that Earth founder and Cobain's long-time friend Dylan Carlson is interviewed and makes for an interesting screen presence without being annoying. This much goes up until the film's closing minutes, which feature Broomfield crashing the stage at an event being held in part to honour Love. That moment crystallises everything that distinguishes Kurt & Courtney for the worse. Though the conspiracy theory premise is somewhat interesting, in the hands of Broomfield and co. it feels too weightless to sustain a 90-minute documentary.

I've seen Kurt & Courtney and 28 Days Later once each. I agree with you about the former. It just doesn't work well at all and that's coming from a fan of Broomfield's work. The latter I felt was ok until about 45 minutes in or when they leave London. It's about that time. After that I was really done with it and I hated everything at the mansion.

I've not seen Catwoman as it's just never been something that I thought I'd like to watch, even as bad as it is. Lately I've been thinking I might give it a go with a Rifftrax, though.

I think I saw The Hunt For Red October two or three times in the 90's. I remember liking it, but enjoying it far less with each viewing. Basically all these Ryan/Reacher/Bourne/whatever films are Bond, though, and I'm only a fan of Bond when he's in full 70's Moore mode.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I won't deny that 28 Days Later... drops off in quality a bit once the four of them make the trip out of London - too much of a road movie for its own good. That being said, once they arrive at the mansion the change in pace feels like a decent enough development. I do wonder if each of the film's acts is supposed to reference the different parts of the Dead trilogy - you have the lone survivor joining up with fellow survivors and holing up in a house (Night), then a group of four escapes the city in search of somewhere to survive (Dawn), and then winds up trapped in a military compound (Day). What problems do you have with the whole mansion sequence specifically?

Also, a related question - which half of Natural Born Killers did you like more - the road half or the prison half?

#506 - Cobain: Montage of Heck
Brett Morgen, 2015



A documentary about the life of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

For someone who's not really a fan of Nirvana, one must wonder why I'd not only watch Nick Broomfield's unauthorised conspiracy theory documentary Kurt & Courtney but also follow it up with a documentary that purports to be the absolute opposite of that. Cobain: Montage of Heck is a far more official documentary that may toe the party line and deliver a fairly straightforward summation of the man's life with little in the way of significant insight, but that doesn't mean it's not well-made. Montage of Heck (so named after Cobain's first mixtape, the creation of which is depicted here) compiles a number of different sources from which to build a film that spans from troubled childhood to tragic demise. This includes interviews with the people that knew Cobain best - his parents, long-term ex-girlfriend, wife Courtney Love, and Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic (whose presence only made the complete absence of a Dave Grohl interview especially noticeable). Of course, these interviews don't make for the most interesting exploration of Cobain. Instead, that extends to the considerable archive of material that Morgen and co. have brought together for this film, which includes a large number of journals, notebooks, and recordings created by Cobain himself. To add the kind of visual flair that's often lacking in straightforward documentaries, the film features a lot of animated sequences based off Cobain's output. Whether it's rotoscoped-looking reconstructions of certain life events (mainly from his time as a juvenile delinquent) or disconcerting animations based on his sketches, the film does make a reasonably good attempt to keep things looking interesting, though whether or not that's appreciated will naturally vary from viewer to viewer.

Seeing as this is a sanctioned documentary about Cobain, this naturally means that the soundtrack is laden with a lot of Nirvana tracks and variations thereof (though the variations can be corny, such as an a cappella choral rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" playing over footage of the song's video). Even though the film tries to keep your attention as it speeds through its two-hour running time, it ironically seems to lose momentum as it covers Nirvana's meteoric rise to fame. This also means having to put up with an increase in appearances by Love - while I still have no opinion one way or the other about whether or not she was directly responsible for Cobain's death, she's still a fairly irritating presence here and the film hits something of a brick wall whenever it plays Love and Cobain's home videos. Even so, Cobain: Montage of Heck is a sufficiently solid documentary that does try to provide an engaging warts-and-all insight into the man. If you don't know much about Cobain, then it's a fairly educational experience. If you do, then this will still have quite a bit to offer you as it creates some rather well-animated sequences that do their best to approximate what Cobain's thought process was like.

#507 - Maggie
Henry Hobson, 2015



A man learns that his daughter has been infected with a slow-acting zombie virus and brings her home to care for her in her last days.

What I've seen of Arnold Schwarzenegger's post-Governator career generally hasn't been too impressive. The Last Stand was a fairly generic attempt at remaking High Noon that wouldn't have drawn my attention without his presence, Escape Plan had a decent high concept but didn't make the most of having him team up with long-time rival Sylvester Stallone, while Terminator Genisys hasn't felt particularly good in recollection. Amidst all these predictably action-oriented projects that tried to work around his advancing age, there came a little movie called Maggie. Here, Schwarzenegger goes completely against type as he plays a Midwestern family man who is searching for his teenage daughter (Abigail Breslin) in the wake of a zombie apocalypse. When he does find her, he learns that she's been bitten by a zombie and is infected. Rather than run the risk of her being forced into quarantine with other infectees, he chooses to spirit her back to the family homestead in the middle of rural America, which of course presents its own set of complications as he must figure out how to deal with her incurable condition.

While the idea of a Schwarzenegger zombie movie would imply that it would result in a fairly standard film where he would mow down hordes of the undead, here I'm grateful that this instead tries to be a more contemplative drama. The whole "infected family member" trope is one of the oldest tropes in zombie fiction yet this is the first instance I can think of where it formed the basis of an entire film more so than a singular dramatic device within the context of a larger narrative. This is possible because, unlike other zombie infections that range in duration from a matter of seconds to a couple of days, the zombie infectees in Maggie happen to turn very slowly over the course of what seems to be weeks (though of course it's all up to each individual person just how much time they themselves take). The extremely long duration of the infection means that the normally apocalyptic zombie uprising is more or less relegated to the background, but that's just as well since the film is supposed to be a small-scale story. This also results in the zombie virus being like a terminal illness, which does mean that the whole film's main conflict plays out like a metaphor for euthanasia (with a bit of virus paranoia thrown in for good measure). However, the metaphor does get a little muddled by the existence of "quarantine"; people are being encouraged to turn over infected loved ones to be quarantined before the infectees become full-fledged zombies, even though quarantine is heavily implied to be a horrible fate in and of itself. As a result, Schwarzenegger must try to decide how and when he must deal with Breslin's inevitable transformation into a zombie, while Breslin herself is forced to face up to not just her own mortality but also cope with the wasting disease that takes its toll on both her body and her soul. Both sides to this story make for simplistic but effective drama that is solid enough to sustain the film for 90 minutes.

This might be a bold claim to make, but I genuinely think that Maggie might be the best film Schwarzenegger's done since leaving office. He gets the chance to show some range by playing a decidedly ordinary man who may fight off the occasional zombie (and manage to not look awesome while doing it) but is mainly concerned with guaranteeing his family's well-being, frequently showing cracks in his typically stony countenance as his world crumbles around him. Breslin, meanwhile, manages to infuse her character with a very believable vulnerability that manifests itself in manners ranging from self-harm to a doomed romance with a fellow infectee, all the while losing more and more of her humanity. Other characters may be relatively flat in comparison but they don't distract from the core conflict at the heart of the film. There is some nice cinematography thrown in as well; though the film does occasionally lapse into cheap horror tactics that rely on disorienting visuals, it is done rarely and manages to serve some purpose when it appears (such as Breslin's flashbacks to her being infected). It does feel a little drawn out at times for such a short film, but it still manages to include some affecting character moments and keep the suspense over its main conflict going until the very last minute. It's rough, but if this review has piqued your interest at all then you might very well find something of worth in this film regardless of your attitude towards Schwarzenegger or zombie fiction.

#508 - A Most Violent Year
J.C. Chandor, 2014



In 1981 New York City, the owner of a heating oil company must contend with mounting pressure from organised crime outfits.

I watched J.C. Chandor's feature-length debut Margin Call a couple of months ago and thought it was a perfectly respectable ensemble drama, albeit one that got dragged down a bit by the fact that its jargon-heavy script about the events leading up to the Global Financial Crisis demanded constant attention in order to follow along. With A Most Violent Year, he downplays the verbosity while still attempting to make a sufficiently cerebral and morally complex drama, this time set against the backdrop of early-'80s New York. Oscar Isaac (who is shaping up to be one of my favourite new actors) leads the film as an up-and-coming businessman who is trying to get his oil company off the ground. Though he himself just wants to make a honest (if lucrative) living, he is beset on all sides by people trying to grind him down, whether it's the assistant district attorney (David Oyelowo) who is trying to dig up dirt on him or the actual criminal organisations who are trying to sabotage his operation by any means necessary. This even extends to his home life, where his wife (Jessica Chastain) plays Lady Macbeth as she encourages him to fight fire with fire and take a stand against the constant aggression, especially when it extends to their house.

A Most Violent Year definitely feels like a throwback to all the classic '70s dramas and thrillers that used the grimy and crime-infested New York City as not just a setting but also a character in its own right. This much even extends to the instances where the film tries to break up the various verbal exchanges with the occasional piece of external conflict, such as a gunfight erupting between one of Isaac's employees and some hired goons or a pitch-perfect homage to The French Connection that sees Isaac himself chasing down a hijacker. Aside from simply being the best scene in the film, that chase scene is good at illustrating just how well Chandor can stage a solid action sequence but it also exposes how overly dependent the film is on interpersonal conflict. Isaac delivers a suitably intense and driven performance as a man who is constantly struggling to do the right thing in a world that seems to want him to do anything but, while Chastain makes for an equally intense and driven character but in the complete opposite direction and generates some engaging arguments with Isaac in the process. Other solid cast members such as Oyelowo or Albert Brooks (as Isaac's attorney) also get in some good scenes with Isaac, especially the former. Though it's not quite as challenging to comprehend as Margin Call, there are still plenty of plot threads that you do need to pay close attention to in order to follow along, though the fact that the film is willing to pace itself by throwing in more viscerally thrilling scenes is a plus. As it stands, A Most Violent Year definitely has more than a few strengths thanks to some good performers and Chandor's willingness to balance out a mostly dialogue-driven film with some rather well-crafted and sparingly used action (which might just give it the edge over Margin Call), but it's still a way off from being a genuinely great movie.

I think I'll try A Most Violent Year and Maggie. They sound like they're worth watching.

When I get through these bloody headaches I've had for the last couple of days, I'll try and catch up with this thread. A Violent Year was something I thought looked like my kind of thing. Are you looking forward to Black Mass, Iro?

I'm never quite sure exactly how high/low my rating has to be to make a film "worth watching". I figure people can leave it up to their own discretion.

Ehhh, not really. I wasn't all that fussed about other Depp-starring gangster true-stories like Donnie Brasco or Public Enemies so I can't imagine this one being significantly better. I probably will end up seeing it, though.

I love Donnie Brasco and am very much looking forward to Black Mass. I'm sure a lot of that has to do with being a Bostonian.

#509 - Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky, 2010



A young ballerina starts to suffer a nervous breakdown around the same time that her ballet company makes her the lead in their upcoming production of Swan Lake.

I think it was around the time that Black Swan came out when I realised that Darren Aronofsky was something of a one-trick pony. As of writing, I've seen all his films save for Noah, but they all feature a common thread in that each film features a protagonist having a breakdown, each time for a different reason. Mathematics, drug addiction, a dying spouse...these all provided other Aronofsky protagonists with their own reasons for collapsing. However, while these were all sufficiently different at first, when Aronofsky ended up making The Wrestler and Black Swan back-to-back it was not hard to feel like he was repeating himself a bit. Both films share a common thread beyond the downward spiral narrative common to every other Aronofsky film - they both focus on professions that are physically and emotionally demanding in the name of providing extremely theatrical but entertaining performances. The Wrestler may not have shied away from showing the inherent falsity that has characterised professional wrestling as we know it, but it definitely demonstrated the serious duress that it takes on Mickey Rourke's ageing has-been as his dedication to the one constant good in his life proves hazardous to his health and relationships.

Black Swan is superficially similar in how many of its elements seem to be deliberate attempts to provide a contrasting counterpart to The Wrestler. Instead of the low-culture thrills of pro wrestling, there's the artistically respectable world of ballet. Instead of a middle-aged legend fallen on hard times, the protagonist (Natalie Portman) is an up-and-coming ballerina whose star is on the rise. Instead of Rourke trying to rebuild his life by connecting and re-connecting with people, Portman is caught in a Kafkaesque situation where every other character seems to have an ulterior motive when it comes to interacting with her. The parallels between the two films do reflect somewhat unfortunately upon Black Swan (to say nothing of other obvious influences such as Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue), but Aronofsky and co. do their best to distinguish it in its own right. Portman understandably earned an Oscar for her work as a ballerina who is clearly struggling with mental instabilities that are in no way aided by her former ballerina stage mother (Barbara Hershey) or her rigid dedication to being a perfect ballerina that ironically makes her an imperfect choice for the role of the loose and uninhibited Black Swan. Throw in some potentially destructive influences such as a sleazy director (Vincent Cassel), an embittered has-been (Winona Ryder), and the company's free-spirited new recruit (Mila Kunis), and what you have is a recipe for disaster...and perfection.

Portman certainly puts in the hard yards to showcase the rigours of ballet training while also demonstrating a considerable range of emotions as both the training and her delusions start to take their toll on her. The style in which they are captured is worthy of note as it starts small with details such as out-of-focus paintings with shifting eyes before blossoming into self-harm that disappears instantaneously, Portman's face appearing on other characters' bodies, and eventually full-on body horror. While this was all especially striking on an initial viewing, a repeat viewing hasn't done it a lot of favours. Some of it is still effective, but some of it just looks silly. The same goes for the twisting, turning narrative - while not knowing what was real or imagined (within reason, of course) worked wonders the first time I watched this, it doesn't hold up during the second time. Black Swan definitely demonstrates enough competence to make it a somewhat solid piece of work, but since a lot of what made it so well-liked (especially by me) was its constantly surprising nature, this is unfortunately not one of those films where being aware of what the film had in store made it any better. Much like its protagonist, it tries for perfection and achieves it once, but that's all it does.

Aronofsky a one trick pony? Then a lot of other directors should be considered the same too, including Hitchcock and Ozu. His plot might be similar but inside I consider them to be really diverse and intense. It's what he's best at, and he keeps doing it, and for that reason I love his works. Glad you at least didn't hate Black Swan.