The New York Film Critics Circle forms, together with LAFCA (Los Angeles Film Critics Association) and the NSFC* (National Society of Film Critics), the holy trinity** of critics awards. LA & NY combined can be a potent influential mix... not that they often agree. But this year they did, further underlining the dominance of The Social Network this awards season. The other big boost went to The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko's warmly funny family-at-crossroads film, which picked up three major wins (Actress, Supporting Actor, Screenplay)

Picture The Social Network
Director David Fincher for The Social Network
Actress Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right
Actor Colin Firth for The King's Speech

We already knew that Best Actress was shaping up to be a Bening vs. Portman showdown. But it was not confirmed in a neatly bi-coastal way since Portman did not take LAFCA yesterday. She wasn't even runner-up. Nevertheless, it's still firmly on track to turn out that way, a two-person battle, since they're the likely Globe winners in Comedy and Drama, respectively.


Supporting Actress Melissa Leo for The Fighter
Supporting Actor Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right
Screenplay Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg for The Kids Are All Right
Cinematography Matthew Libatique for Black Swan
Animated Film Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist
Documentary Inside Job
Foreign Film Carlos
First Feature David Michôd's Animal Kingdom
Special Prize is there one this year? I haven't seen one specified online and their site has not been updated.

Having been a big fan of Animal Kingdom all year, I am pleased for David Michôd's win, since the praise has usually reduced the film to the Jacki Weaver show. Weaver aside, the entire cast is strong and so is the film so good on NYFCC for noticing.

Animal Kingdom's cast: Frecheville, Stapleton, Ford, Weaver,
Joel Edgerton and Ben Mendelsohn

In other film critics org news today, The Southeastern Film Critics Association named The Social Network the years best and also hilariously named True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld the best "supporting" actress of the year. What she's supporting, other than her entire Coen Bros picture, we don't know. They used to call that "carrying" a film and that's only done by lead actors. What the Christ? She's even more of a lead than Frances McDormand was in Fargo! See also: BFCA Nominations for this year's most egregious Category Fraud party. Every year has one.

*in recent years it seems that the NSFC has been fading -- so perhaps the only powerful critics orgs are now LA & NY... at least in terms of media interest -- given NSFC's late voting and the ever expanding roster of film awards.

criticism· NYC· The Kids Are All Right· True Grit

NYFCC's 2010 Wins: "The Social Kids That Are All Right Network"

The New York Film Critics Circle forms, together with LAFCA (Los Angeles Film Critics Association) and the NSFC* (National Society of Film Critics), the holy trinity** of critics awards. LA & NY combined can be a potent influential mix... not that they often agree. But this year they did, further underlining the dominance of The Social Network this awards season. The other big boost went to The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko's warmly funny family-at-crossroads film, which picked up three major wins (Actress, Supporting Actor, Screenplay)

Picture The Social Network
Director David Fincher for The Social Network
Actress Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right
Actor Colin Firth for The King's Speech

We already knew that Best Actress was shaping up to be a Bening vs. Portman showdown. But it was not confirmed in a neatly bi-coastal way since Portman did not take LAFCA yesterday. She wasn't even runner-up. Nevertheless, it's still firmly on track to turn out that way, a two-person battle, since they're the likely Globe winners in Comedy and Drama, respectively.


Supporting Actress Melissa Leo for The Fighter
Supporting Actor Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right
Screenplay Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg for The Kids Are All Right
Cinematography Matthew Libatique for Black Swan
Animated Film Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist
Documentary Inside Job
Foreign Film Carlos
First Feature David Michôd's Animal Kingdom
Special Prize is there one this year? I haven't seen one specified online and their site has not been updated.

Having been a big fan of Animal Kingdom all year, I am pleased for David Michôd's win, since the praise has usually reduced the film to the Jacki Weaver show. Weaver aside, the entire cast is strong and so is the film so good on NYFCC for noticing.

Animal Kingdom's cast: Frecheville, Stapleton, Ford, Weaver,
Joel Edgerton and Ben Mendelsohn

In other film critics org news today, The Southeastern Film Critics Association named The Social Network the years best and also hilariously named True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld the best "supporting" actress of the year. What she's supporting, other than her entire Coen Bros picture, we don't know. They used to call that "carrying" a film and that's only done by lead actors. What the Christ? She's even more of a lead than Frances McDormand was in Fargo! See also: BFCA Nominations for this year's most egregious Category Fraud party. Every year has one.

*in recent years it seems that the NSFC has been fading -- so perhaps the only powerful critics orgs are now LA & NY... at least in terms of media interest -- given NSFC's late voting and the ever expanding roster of film awards.

Need one more critics group for the day? No? Well then don't open up this window.

The New York Film Critics Online, which is a fairly new organization as critics awards go, embraced most of the Oscar frontrunners with the exception of The King's Speech. Their awards went like so... I may have missed a few but I shall update again if I have.


Picture: The Social Network

• Their top ten list is (alpha order) 127 Hours, Another Year, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, The Ghost Writer, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The Social Network. 
 

A couple mild surprises in that top ten but the awards themselves are very Oscar-predictiony.

Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Actor: James Franco in 127 Hours
Actress: Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Ensemble Cast: The Kids Are All Right
Debut Performance: Noomi Rapace for The Millenium Trilogy.
Debut Director: John Wells, The Company of Men
Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Cinematography: Matthew Libatique, Black Swan
Music or Score: Clint Mansell, Black Swan
Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Foreign Film: I Am Love
Animated Film: Toy Story 3

criticism· NYC· Oscars (10)

NYFCO (Prizes and Top Ten List)

Need one more critics group for the day? No? Well then don't open up this window.

The New York Film Critics Online, which is a fairly new organization as critics awards go, embraced most of the Oscar frontrunners with the exception of The King's Speech. Their awards went like so... I may have missed a few but I shall update again if I have.


Picture: The Social Network

• Their top ten list is (alpha order) 127 Hours, Another Year, Black Swan, Blue Valentine, The Ghost Writer, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The Social Network. 
 

A couple mild surprises in that top ten but the awards themselves are very Oscar-predictiony.

Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Actor: James Franco in 127 Hours
Actress: Natalie Portman in Black Swan
Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Ensemble Cast: The Kids Are All Right
Debut Performance: Noomi Rapace for The Millenium Trilogy.
Debut Director: John Wells, The Company of Men
Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Cinematography: Matthew Libatique, Black Swan
Music or Score: Clint Mansell, Black Swan
Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop
Foreign Film: I Am Love
Animated Film: Toy Story 3

Setting aside for a moment the personal view that people rush too quickly into naming their favorites every year (usually well before the annum is over) I do love reading a good top ten list. When those  lists are from magazines, they have a long lead excuse so let's enjoy them.

The L Magazine, a local NYC offering ("the L"is a subway), has released their Best Films of 2010 and as usual there's a lot to argue with. For instance, Mark Asche lulled me into a state of hipster foreign-film auteurism before clobbering me by honoring Woody Allen at the end. Did not see that coming given the rest of the list and, what's more, I'd call You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Woody's nadir if I hadn't failed at successfully erasing all memories of The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Hollywood Ending. Where is Lacuna, Inc when I need them? Nicolas Rapold, like Asche, leads with Carlos but then has to go and throw in Oki's Movie. Someone please point me to a review of this that explains its worth. I remain perplexed that some cinephiles go apeshit for a movie that is so anti-cinematic; it all but refuses visual interest. "I'm just gonna leave this camera here and not for a brilliantly composed one shot either but just because I can't be bothered to think visually. There! Deal with it." And so it goes throughout the lists with the mix of "yes, good point." and "wtf?" but what would Top Ten Season be without that? Dull, that's what.

The most eccentric list belongs to Benjamin Strong who starts with Godard and ends with... Splice? The most surprising list is the most mainstream (they don't often go hand in hand) coming from Jesse Hassenger who mixes geek-causes, Oscar hopefuls, mainstream comedies... and Greenberg. Noah Baumbach's miserable middle-age protagonist is totes the new mascot for L Magazine appearing on five of the six lists. I liked the movie quite a bit, especially Greta Gerwig's deliciously unactressy actressing if you get me, but I'm not sure I follow all the top ten / awards enthusiasm. Not sure it clears those "best" hurdles, though it's definitely a worthy effort.

I Am Love, a succulent dish.

Finally, you should all head over to Anthony Lane's top ten list at The New Yorker. He's long been one of my favorite writers, no matter what he happens to think of any particular movie. He's just so damn readable; an expert at the turn of a phrase, the offhand quip and the skillful resolution. My favorite part is this awesome "divisive/unifying" double feature since I deeply love both of 'em.

There were films that divided, in 2010, like Luca Guadagnino’s “I Am Love,” whose peach-like ripeness of sensation made some recoil, but which to others, a mite less embarrassable, showed with fine, Italianate panache how uncontrollable feelings can be held and sustained by an organizing eye. And there were films that united, like David Fincher’s “The Social Network”; who would not revel in the irony of a movie about smart-ass kids that was suitable for intelligent grownups? People felt moved to feast, in the aftermath, on its many implications—scary or succulent, depending on your taste for the new, endlessly mediated world. And how long, incidentally, has it been since you saw a film that was gripped by great animus and hostility but was not resolved by violent means? Quite the opposite, in fact; when someone raised a hand against Justin Timberlake, he backed away like a kitten.

But go read the whole thing for takes on Winter's Bone, A Prophet, Dogtooth and more.

What? You still want more? You're insatiable with list lust. Here's a few more.

•  rjrucker's "top ten (so far)" I guess I egged him on.
• Awards Daily dissects Peter Travers awards whoring list.

Greenberg· I Am Love· magazines· NYC· The Social Network· year in review· You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

It's Top Ten Time! (Not Here, But Elsewhere.)

Setting aside for a moment the personal view that people rush too quickly into naming their favorites every year (usually well before the annum is over) I do love reading a good top ten list. When those  lists are from magazines, they have a long lead excuse so let's enjoy them.

The L Magazine, a local NYC offering ("the L"is a subway), has released their Best Films of 2010 and as usual there's a lot to argue with. For instance, Mark Asche lulled me into a state of hipster foreign-film auteurism before clobbering me by honoring Woody Allen at the end. Did not see that coming given the rest of the list and, what's more, I'd call You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Woody's nadir if I hadn't failed at successfully erasing all memories of The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Hollywood Ending. Where is Lacuna, Inc when I need them? Nicolas Rapold, like Asche, leads with Carlos but then has to go and throw in Oki's Movie. Someone please point me to a review of this that explains its worth. I remain perplexed that some cinephiles go apeshit for a movie that is so anti-cinematic; it all but refuses visual interest. "I'm just gonna leave this camera here and not for a brilliantly composed one shot either but just because I can't be bothered to think visually. There! Deal with it." And so it goes throughout the lists with the mix of "yes, good point." and "wtf?" but what would Top Ten Season be without that? Dull, that's what.

The most eccentric list belongs to Benjamin Strong who starts with Godard and ends with... Splice? The most surprising list is the most mainstream (they don't often go hand in hand) coming from Jesse Hassenger who mixes geek-causes, Oscar hopefuls, mainstream comedies... and Greenberg. Noah Baumbach's miserable middle-age protagonist is totes the new mascot for L Magazine appearing on five of the six lists. I liked the movie quite a bit, especially Greta Gerwig's deliciously unactressy actressing if you get me, but I'm not sure I follow all the top ten / awards enthusiasm. Not sure it clears those "best" hurdles, though it's definitely a worthy effort.

I Am Love, a succulent dish.

Finally, you should all head over to Anthony Lane's top ten list at The New Yorker. He's long been one of my favorite writers, no matter what he happens to think of any particular movie. He's just so damn readable; an expert at the turn of a phrase, the offhand quip and the skillful resolution. My favorite part is this awesome "divisive/unifying" double feature since I deeply love both of 'em.

There were films that divided, in 2010, like Luca Guadagnino’s “I Am Love,” whose peach-like ripeness of sensation made some recoil, but which to others, a mite less embarrassable, showed with fine, Italianate panache how uncontrollable feelings can be held and sustained by an organizing eye. And there were films that united, like David Fincher’s “The Social Network”; who would not revel in the irony of a movie about smart-ass kids that was suitable for intelligent grownups? People felt moved to feast, in the aftermath, on its many implications—scary or succulent, depending on your taste for the new, endlessly mediated world. And how long, incidentally, has it been since you saw a film that was gripped by great animus and hostility but was not resolved by violent means? Quite the opposite, in fact; when someone raised a hand against Justin Timberlake, he backed away like a kitten.

But go read the whole thing for takes on Winter's Bone, A Prophet, Dogtooth and more.

What? You still want more? You're insatiable with list lust. Here's a few more.

•  rjrucker's "top ten (so far)" I guess I egged him on.
• Awards Daily dissects Peter Travers awards whoring list.

No, not that BOB.

Box Office Blather. Let's call it "BOB".

One should probably discuss it weekly (and not on Wednesday? Shut it. I'm late.) if only to be more "in the world" and less hermetically sealed in one's own bubble, he said to himself while gazing at his navel in his 360º mirror.

In all seriousness this is a problem. I sometimes stare at box office charts and think "'The Warrior's Way'?  What the hell is that?" And, bear in mind, I think and write about movies 7 days a week so these blind spots can be problematic. And yet, when you live in a big city and you have options you don't always notice what's playing in thousands of theaters when you can obsess over something like Black Swan which is playing in just over a dozen. Thus one stays sealed in one's bubble.

Box Office Blather Bakers Dozen
("Bobbed!"...why do I need names for everything? It's a sickness)

1. Tangled (2nd week) $21.6 [cumulative: $96.5] -55%
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1 (3rd week) $17 [cumulate: $244.5] -65 %
3. Burlesque (2nd week) $6.1 [cumulative: $26.9] -48%
4. Unstoppable (4th week) $5.9 [cumulative: $68.7] -47%
5. Love and Other Drugs (2nd week)  $5.6 [cumulative: $22.5] -42%
6. Megamind (5th week) $4.9 [cumulative: $136.6] -60%
7. Due Date (5th week) $4.1 [cumulative: $90.8] -42%
8. Faster (2nd week) $3.9 [cumulative: $18.2] -53%
9. The Warrior's Way DEBUT $3.0
10. The Next Three Days (3rd week)  $2.5 [cumulate: $18.3] -45%
11. Morning Glory (4th week) $1.6 [cumulative: $29] -54%
    
12. 127 Hours (5th week) $1.6 [cumulative: $6.6] -5%
13. Black Swan DEBUT $1.4

A few random or obnoxious observations about that chart [src] come after the jump




Let's start off by alienating all of you! Wheeeee. Back in 2001 and 2002 I was incensed with Hollywood for being so lame / literal when the first two Harry Potters emerged and they were like books on tape only the tape was film. Then, through sheer force of ---FULL STOP. We should save this for the "Year in Review, Cinematic Shame" section later in December.

About 127 Hours... should it or shouldn't it be doing better business? It's a matter of perspective I suppose. One of my friends shared this on Facebook and said I could share it here. It's just too amusing while also illustrating a box office obstacle to the movie.

My parents' review of 127 HOURS (they went with another couple): "We all really enjoyed the movie a lot. But we didn't see the one you wanted us to see. We got to the theater, and Rhonda didn't want to watch the arm-cutting, so we saw 'Morning Glory' instead. It was adorable."

lol.

I'm sad that Burlesque isn't a smash. Now, we'll never get the sequel Burlesque 2 that Joe Reid pitched like so...

Burlesque 2, where Cher and Xtina must deal with a rival burlesque club that moves in across the street, run by a wizened Madonna and her protégée Britney Spears.

I would pay a month's wages to see that movie.

Moving on... Black Swan's $77,000 per screen average is a feat (a record for Fox Searchlight) as is the #13 status when it's only on 18 screens. But it remains to be seen how well that ballet thriller will transfer once it widens. "Weird" movies don't tend to play all that well at the box office, no matter how brilliant they are. You could counter with Inception but how weird is that? It explains the weirdness to you to make sure you don't get confused and the dream imagery, for all its gargantuan f/x thrills, isn't surreal like actual dreams. I'm trying to think of a strange movie that did well at the box office and I'm coming up blank. Do bizarre movies -- even the thrilling ones -- ever make a splash at the box office? (Post 1970s I mean.) Think of the fervor for Mullholland Dr (2001) and remember: it only managed $7 million in the States. My friend who I was discussing this with thinks I'm underestimating the accessibility of Swan but agreed that there's still going to be a ceiling; maybe Precious sized grosses? Help me out in the comments. What do you think the ceiling is for the high/low mix of psychological ballet thriller and camp horror hallucinatory artistic metaphor? 

Argh! And there I go again with the bubble. 127 Hours and Black Swan are only 451 screens between them and that's immediately what I start talking about. Perhaps this will be a project for 2011. Go to more mainstream movies. Experiment. (Didn't Tim Brayton agree to review anything that opened at #1 at the box office. Or did I imagine that? Think of the things you'd have to review!) My point is this: My brother called last week wanting to talk about Skyline which opened on 2800 screens and Megamind which opened on nearly 4,000. I hadn't seen them. Total bummer because I don't talk to my brother enough and he called about movies, sniffle, my favorite topic.

Tangled has nearly equalled the entire The Princess and the Frog gross
in its first two weeks.

So outside the bubble... Tangled. Do you think Disney will attribute its success to that misleading obnoxious ad campaign positioning it as a Shrek-like affair or to the fact that it's a throwback to their late 80/early 90s musical princess heyday. Or will they attribute it to both and advertise all future movies as the opposite of the type of movie they actually are?
*

127 Hours· Black Swan· box office· NYC· Rapunzel

Box Office Blather: Unstoppable Potter and the 127 Tangled Swans

No, not that BOB.

Box Office Blather. Let's call it "BOB".

One should probably discuss it weekly (and not on Wednesday? Shut it. I'm late.) if only to be more "in the world" and less hermetically sealed in one's own bubble, he said to himself while gazing at his navel in his 360º mirror.

In all seriousness this is a problem. I sometimes stare at box office charts and think "'The Warrior's Way'?  What the hell is that?" And, bear in mind, I think and write about movies 7 days a week so these blind spots can be problematic. And yet, when you live in a big city and you have options you don't always notice what's playing in thousands of theaters when you can obsess over something like Black Swan which is playing in just over a dozen. Thus one stays sealed in one's bubble.

Box Office Blather Bakers Dozen
("Bobbed!"...why do I need names for everything? It's a sickness)

1. Tangled (2nd week) $21.6 [cumulative: $96.5] -55%
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1 (3rd week) $17 [cumulate: $244.5] -65 %
3. Burlesque (2nd week) $6.1 [cumulative: $26.9] -48%
4. Unstoppable (4th week) $5.9 [cumulative: $68.7] -47%
5. Love and Other Drugs (2nd week)  $5.6 [cumulative: $22.5] -42%
6. Megamind (5th week) $4.9 [cumulative: $136.6] -60%
7. Due Date (5th week) $4.1 [cumulative: $90.8] -42%
8. Faster (2nd week) $3.9 [cumulative: $18.2] -53%
9. The Warrior's Way DEBUT $3.0
10. The Next Three Days (3rd week)  $2.5 [cumulate: $18.3] -45%
11. Morning Glory (4th week) $1.6 [cumulative: $29] -54%
    
12. 127 Hours (5th week) $1.6 [cumulative: $6.6] -5%
13. Black Swan DEBUT $1.4

A few random or obnoxious observations about that chart [src] come after the jump




Let's start off by alienating all of you! Wheeeee. Back in 2001 and 2002 I was incensed with Hollywood for being so lame / literal when the first two Harry Potters emerged and they were like books on tape only the tape was film. Then, through sheer force of ---FULL STOP. We should save this for the "Year in Review, Cinematic Shame" section later in December.

About 127 Hours... should it or shouldn't it be doing better business? It's a matter of perspective I suppose. One of my friends shared this on Facebook and said I could share it here. It's just too amusing while also illustrating a box office obstacle to the movie.

My parents' review of 127 HOURS (they went with another couple): "We all really enjoyed the movie a lot. But we didn't see the one you wanted us to see. We got to the theater, and Rhonda didn't want to watch the arm-cutting, so we saw 'Morning Glory' instead. It was adorable."

lol.

I'm sad that Burlesque isn't a smash. Now, we'll never get the sequel Burlesque 2 that Joe Reid pitched like so...

Burlesque 2, where Cher and Xtina must deal with a rival burlesque club that moves in across the street, run by a wizened Madonna and her protégée Britney Spears.

I would pay a month's wages to see that movie.

Moving on... Black Swan's $77,000 per screen average is a feat (a record for Fox Searchlight) as is the #13 status when it's only on 18 screens. But it remains to be seen how well that ballet thriller will transfer once it widens. "Weird" movies don't tend to play all that well at the box office, no matter how brilliant they are. You could counter with Inception but how weird is that? It explains the weirdness to you to make sure you don't get confused and the dream imagery, for all its gargantuan f/x thrills, isn't surreal like actual dreams. I'm trying to think of a strange movie that did well at the box office and I'm coming up blank. Do bizarre movies -- even the thrilling ones -- ever make a splash at the box office? (Post 1970s I mean.) Think of the fervor for Mullholland Dr (2001) and remember: it only managed $7 million in the States. My friend who I was discussing this with thinks I'm underestimating the accessibility of Swan but agreed that there's still going to be a ceiling; maybe Precious sized grosses? Help me out in the comments. What do you think the ceiling is for the high/low mix of psychological ballet thriller and camp horror hallucinatory artistic metaphor? 

Argh! And there I go again with the bubble. 127 Hours and Black Swan are only 451 screens between them and that's immediately what I start talking about. Perhaps this will be a project for 2011. Go to more mainstream movies. Experiment. (Didn't Tim Brayton agree to review anything that opened at #1 at the box office. Or did I imagine that? Think of the things you'd have to review!) My point is this: My brother called last week wanting to talk about Skyline which opened on 2800 screens and Megamind which opened on nearly 4,000. I hadn't seen them. Total bummer because I don't talk to my brother enough and he called about movies, sniffle, my favorite topic.

Tangled has nearly equalled the entire The Princess and the Frog gross
in its first two weeks.

So outside the bubble... Tangled. Do you think Disney will attribute its success to that misleading obnoxious ad campaign positioning it as a Shrek-like affair or to the fact that it's a throwback to their late 80/early 90s musical princess heyday. Or will they attribute it to both and advertise all future movies as the opposite of the type of movie they actually are?
*

This is a gay rag here in NYC. Anne was on the holiday weekend cover promoting Love and Other Drugs, and though the inside article is dependably slim, she once again proves herself not just a wonderful celeb but a cool person and major friend of the gays.

"I was at the Empire State Pride Agenda dinner a few years ago," she recalls. "And Margaret Cho put it perfectly. She said, 'I can't believe we're still dealing with this shit!'" If a class act like Hathaway is cursing, you know she means business.

Love her. How beautiful are these photos by twin photographers The Riker Brothers?

Anne Hathaway· GLBT· NYC· politics

Anne Hathaway, 'Next' Cover Girl

This is a gay rag here in NYC. Anne was on the holiday weekend cover promoting Love and Other Drugs, and though the inside article is dependably slim, she once again proves herself not just a wonderful celeb but a cool person and major friend of the gays.

"I was at the Empire State Pride Agenda dinner a few years ago," she recalls. "And Margaret Cho put it perfectly. She said, 'I can't believe we're still dealing with this shit!'" If a class act like Hathaway is cursing, you know she means business.

Love her. How beautiful are these photos by twin photographers The Riker Brothers?

The New York premiere of Black Swan was held last night at the Ziegfeld which is the theater for premiere's here in Manhattan. I have so many fond memories of the place. All the stars were in attendance including Darren Aronofsky, Vincent Cassell and Barbara Hershey. Plus the deliciously dark rival ballerinas Mila, Natalie and Noni.

I think it goes without saying but I'll say it: Winona Ryder is still one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Those eyes. That coloring. Gah.

Why Noni is wearing a tux we can't be sure but we love that she did. Why Aronofsky refuses to shave that Flynn mustache we can't be sure but we wish he would. Why Natalie is carrying around Nabokov's Lolita* we... wait, what?

There's got to be a story there. I hope it does not involve obsessive fans of The Professional.


*Okay, it's apparently a clutch by Olympia Le Tan  - thx Dom - fashioned as a replica of the literary classic. The replica costs only $1,321.00 more than the real thing. But can the real thing hold your lipstick, keys and money?

Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman

Aronofsky· Barbara Hershey· Black Swan· books· Mila Kunis· Noni Ryder· NYC· red carpet lineup

Red Carpet Lineup: Swan Break

The New York premiere of Black Swan was held last night at the Ziegfeld which is the theater for premiere's here in Manhattan. I have so many fond memories of the place. All the stars were in attendance including Darren Aronofsky, Vincent Cassell and Barbara Hershey. Plus the deliciously dark rival ballerinas Mila, Natalie and Noni.

I think it goes without saying but I'll say it: Winona Ryder is still one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Those eyes. That coloring. Gah.

Why Noni is wearing a tux we can't be sure but we love that she did. Why Aronofsky refuses to shave that Flynn mustache we can't be sure but we wish he would. Why Natalie is carrying around Nabokov's Lolita* we... wait, what?

There's got to be a story there. I hope it does not involve obsessive fans of The Professional.


*Okay, it's apparently a clutch by Olympia Le Tan  - thx Dom - fashioned as a replica of the literary classic. The replica costs only $1,321.00 more than the real thing. But can the real thing hold your lipstick, keys and money?

Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman