Black Death 2010 Christopher Smith

I guess it's been long enough since Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Now people are finally ready for a serious movie about the Plague.  Unlike The Seventh Seal or The Virgin Spring, though, this one's in color!  Now you can see all of the black boils and seeping wounds just like in real life!  Feel the filthiness come off the screen and into your lap!  Good times.

In this one, Sean Bean leads a God appointed task force to find villages that don't have the plague and wipe out the witches and devils that live there, so all the good God fearing people can get the plague like God wants them to.  He and his team are good at their jobs, but not so good at directions, so they stop at a local abbey and ask for a monk to lead them to this super remote witch village in order to pillage, kill and spread God's word and disease.  But of course, things don't always go as planned, even when you're on God's side.

This movie is pretty good.  There are a few shots that echo Virgin Spring & Seventh Seal, but nothing as obvious as playing chess with Death.  The heathens are appropriately creepy and enticing, and God's chosen knights aren't exactly the most pious bunch of executioners.  The deaths are gory and inventive.  Maybe it's just me, but I always like to see a good drawing and quartering (at least I hope it's not just me...that would be weird....)   Anyway, if you're in the mood for a medieval drama that's full of death and squalor, this is the movie for you.  It's not even very funny, at least intentionally.

Black Lightning 2009 Dmitriy Kiselev & Aleksandr Voytinskiy

Here we have a heartwarming story about a boy and his first car.  There's a movie about a boy and his first car that I love, and that's Christine.  This is not that kind of movie.  First of all, it's Russian, so instead of a Plymouth Fury, Dima there gets a Volga, an old Soviet car.  Secondly, unlike poor Arnie's vengeful cherry red death machine, Dima's car is a jet black, rocket fueled hero car.  Well, it's not a hero car, really, but Dima is a good guy, so he has hero tendencies and that pretty much makes his car a good guy.

This is a very interesting movie because it's obviously influenced by American movies of the 1980's, namely Back to the Future.  Everyone in the movie dresses and acts like they just came out of 1985.  They have all the modern amenities - even IPhones - but everyone in the movie seems so black and white you can't help but root for the good guys and sneer at the baddies.

The first Spider-Man movie is another obvious inspiration.  You don't have to strain your brain to figure out what has to happen before our hero learns that with a great flying car comes great responsibility.  It's time to stop using that car for fast flower deliveries and concentrate on helping people in need.  And maybe get the girl, too.  And stop the evil tycoon from drilling into the bedrock below Moscow to get at some diamonds so the whole city doesn't collapse into a big sinkhole.  Passing your Economics test, too.  Don't forget that, hero with the flying car.  Just make sure you wear your black hoodie, so none of the news cameras can capture your face.  That's a lot for a kid with his first car to remember, don't ya think?

It all sounds a little hokey and corny, and it is.  But it's also totally fun.  The special effects aren't the greatest - you won't believe a car can fly - but that's not the point.  If you had fun going to big summer blockbusters when you were a kid, you'll like this movie.  If you would use your flying car to save a pedestrian from falling icicles (It's Russia.  It's cold), you'll like this movie.  It's a good family movie. It's just a good movie. Period.

Black Swan 2010 Darren Aronofsky

I don't know why it took me so long to see this movie.  I really wanted to, I just never got around to it.  Well, now I have.  It's not as shocking as I'd been led to believe, but it is really good.  Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman, Closer) is an emotionally fragile ballerina who gets the lead role in the new production of Swan Lake.  The ballet company's artistic director (Vincent Cassel, Irreversible) isn't quite sure she can handle it, her mother (Barbara Hershey, The Stunt Man) treats her like a 12 year old, and a new girl (Mila Kunis, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) might be trying to take it all away from poor Nina. 

So of course she starts to lose her shit.

It all looks fantastic.  There were times where I thought, "Oh no, it's just gonna be a chick version of Fight Club....." and I was a little discouraged.  But no!  I was happily wrong.  And Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis are really good in it, and not just because they have a drunken night of lesboliciousness - that could happen to anyone - but I was actually wondering just what the hell was going on in terms of what was real or not.  You're never quite sure what's up with Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman actually makes you care about her walking trainwreck of a character.

So I say you should see Black Swan.  I'm probably the only one who hasn't seen it, but whatever.  It's really good, and it's about ballerinas.  So there.  Now why can't every chick flick be this good?