Ballet as a Bloodsport

BLACK SWAN

Darren Aronofsky, 2010

Got a secret

Can you keep it?

Swear this one you'll save

Better lock it in your pocket

Taking this one to the grave

If I show you then I know you won't tell what I said

'Cause two can keep a secret if one of them is dead

- The Pierces, Secret

How far are you willing to go for the sake of absolute perfection? For Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), as far as it takes.

In Black Swan, ambitious ballerina Nina Sayers is tapped to star in the new production of Swan Lake, which is being helmed by the company's flirty director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel). As the production approaches its first show, Nina finds her life resembling that of the two main characters in Swan Lake: the Swan Queen and her wicked twin, the Black Swan.

Dismantling the Stereotype

SETTLE DOWN
Guy Franklin, 2010

And in celebration of Women's Month, here's my take on Kimbra's feminist song, Settle Down. Kimbra, in my opinion, is kinda like the sober and sane version of Lady Gaga. Born in New Zealand, this underrated singer is mainly popular in Australia, focusing more on her music as an art, not as a means of worldwide fame.

I happened upon one of her songs, Settle Down, when its video was used as a promo for a music festival here in the Philippines, in which Kimbra is the main performer.

Settle Down has a sardonic undertone in it, implicitly saying that not all women want to get married, at the same time dismantling the stereotypical notion of "a lady housewife."

Hollywood: Going Forward AND Backward

I've never really looked up to Hollywood as the benchmark of masterful filmmaking. Capitalist filmmaking, yes. Filmmaking as an art? Not exactly. Most Hollywood filmmakers look at cinema as a piggy bank, not as an art medium.

On the same note, I never really took the Oscars® seriously, it's mostly just a popularity contest. Oscar® — the tiny, golden, (and probably) naked guy — mostly favors the popular and the money maker, not the artistic. Just think: Hitchcock never won an Oscar.

White Oscar

With (alleged) propaganda film American Sniper getting lots of publicity and attention, it wouldn't be a surprise if the film wins the major awards at this year's Oscars.

Gone Girl Finds Herself

Forsaken by that Lady fair

She glides unheeding through them all

Covering her brow to hide the tear

That still, though checked, trembles to fall

She hurries through the outer Hall

And up the stairs through galleries dim

That murmur to the breezes' call

The night-wind's lonely vesper hymn.

- Emily Brontë

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

Peter Weir, 1975

Forming a sense of attachment is often easier than the mere thought of detachment. Change is the only thing that is permanent in this world. That's a fact that we know. So why do we still cling to things of temporary existence? Simply because we want what we can't have.

In Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, a group of schoolgirls and their teacher disappear during a Valentine's Day picnic at Hanging Rock. Those left behind are shaken to their Victorian core.

Fave Movie Quotes: Picnic at Hanging Rock

Our seven year-old monitor finally gave up, and I'm typing this on a darkened half screen. Won't be getting a new monitor until around early next year. So all I can post as of the moment is this tiny but memorable quote from 1975's Picnic at Hanging Rock. Happy holi-f*cking-days!

What we see and what we seem are but a dream... a dream within a dream.

- Miranda

Subplot: Picnic at Hanging Rock

Nearly forty years since it came out, Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock is still a visual poetry of an enigmatic kind, as fascinating as the mystic clairvoyant that is Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert).

Princess Sara Loves Queen Miranda

An Ambitious Fairy Tale

BLANCANIEVES
Pablo Berger, 2012

Blancanieves is a very Spanish take on Snow White, the classic fairy tale by the Grimm brothers.

After his flamenco singer wife — Carmen de Triana (Inma Cuesta) — dies in childbirth, matador Antonio Villalta (Daniel Giménes Cacho) practically abandons his newborn daughter Carmencita to live with Encarna (Maribel Verdú), an opportunistic nurse.

Carmencita (Sofía Oria) is raised by her compassionate grandmother (Angela Molina). Longing for a mother she never met, Carmencita develops a keen interest in flamenco, her mother's career. Her grandmother dies, so Carmencita is sent to her stepmother's mansion, wherein her father is now a paraplegic prisoner.

Rebellion Against Routine

THE SEVENTH CONTINENT
Michael Haneke, 1989

Have you ever felt drowned in your routine? So drowned that you want to off yourself like a goldfish jumping out of an aquarium?

The Schobers are a well-off Austrian family who plans to migrate to Australia, the seventh continent. But why the f*ck would they leave behind a good life just to risk it all in a place they've never been to before? Michael Haneke aims to answer that question — and the ones in this essay's first paragraph — in his existential feature film debut, The Seventh Continent.

The Seventh Continent shows the life and routine of a middle-class family. The film is divided into three chapters: 1987, 1988, and 1989.

Dope Horror Movie Soundtracks

Halloween's here. Time to look stupid for that costume party sh*t, yes? Along with Christmas, Halloween is the time of year when we become extra generous — in terms of creativity and candies. You get busy decorating costumes and the party's set.

While you're at it, why not add a little more touch of terror by playing these film scores from some of the scariest movies of all time?

A Religious Antireligious Absurdism

WISE BLOOD
John Huston, 1979

"It's wise blood. It ain't everybody has it... see, it's a gift... the gift of the prophets."

- Enoch Emory

"A religious antireligious absurdism." That's quite a lot of adjectives there, but Wise Blood is essentially an absurdist tragicomedy about antitheism, which sprouts from the lead character's childhood guilt.

War veteran Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif) is a twenty-something ambitious idealist. Driven by his own concept of truth, he starts his own church: The Church of Truth Without Christ, "where the blind can't see, the lame don't walk, and the dead stay that way."