Swans and Dancers and Lesbians, oh my!

It is very rare that I save a movie and don't blow the whole story by reading the whole thing on the internet. I decided that Black Swan, a psychological thriller with a geeod pedigree of people attached was worth seeing on my own. I knew enough to tell my very Catholic mother to not see it, but I went in as clean as one can just seeing the trailers and knowing it won awards.

So in putting in this effort, here is my offical anylsis: Why does Natalie Portman win an Oscar and Elizabeth Berkeley gets to start her career from scratch? Is it because it's artistic and plays with your mind? Or is it ballet is much classier? Let me point this much out. The mind games that the hallucinations create in Black Swan are about on par with the mind games the terrible acting and story does in Showgirls. Lesbian sex and a not so great payoff make these movies about even on my mind. Okay to be fair, I have not seen Showgirls in its entirety because I thought that perhaps that wasn't worth my time. However, I got fooled by Black Swan's accolades. Shame on you movie critics. I trusted you and you betrayed me. And if I wanted to watch a creepy masturbation scene, I have Mullholand Drive, thank you very much.

One of these movie is not like the other. But pretty close.  

(And just a note to the LGBT community, I know there are no lesbians in this movie so much as sexually confused ladies that just go for whatever is striking their fancy, but much like these movies, I'm using "lesbian" as a buzzword to get the male attention. Did it work?)

Trying to Winning

A few days ago I was reading the headlines of the reviews of Charlie Sheen's one man show and was not even a little bit shocked that they were very bad. I'm slowly moving away from my caring about this whole thing, but I'm trying to imagine the type of people who would buy tickets to this show. I'm guessing the archetype of frat boy (and I say archetype because I've lived with and am related to some wonderful frat boys who know better than to waste their money on this crap). Does anyone think beyond trashing others and saying his catchphrase of sorts that this would be any good?

Many people can individually craft all aspects of a good piece of entertainment, but I get the feeling Charlie Sheen didn't anticipate that it takes some serious thought and creativity to punch out a quality show. Or at least some work. The fact that he says he need to retool shows me he does have some sanity left, because if he was running on pure egotism, he would just say "screw the haters, I'm awesome". Instead he's at least saying, if I'm going to avoid being a flash in the pan, I need to get better. I know fifteen minutes of fame lasts a lot longer than it used to, but I think he knows that Goddesses don't come free. (Personally, I think he's not a fifteen minutes of fame type. Tiger's blood has fifteen minutes. Charlie Sheen needs to have a Robert Downey, Jr. brand of reinvention. Someone get him to a Burger King.)

Good luck to you. I'm glad you're out of the well paying TV crap hole of Two and a Half Men, but don't milk Major League. Find yourself a new area to be funny. We know you're capable. Just do it.