Movie Review: Black Swan (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

I have never been one attracted to Natalie Portman much past her obvious physical beauty. With the exception of early turns in The Professional (aka Léon) and Beautiful Girls, her performance style has always struck me as perfect to the point of being brittle. So Darren Aronofsky's use of her in Black Swan stands out as an astute bit of exploitation, mining Portman's own flaws to inform her role as an overambitious ballerina. Indeed, one could apply this to the entire ensemble cast of this thriller mashing up the ballet movie with the psychological horror film.

Movie Review: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

by Tony Dayoub



The very Catholic director, Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather), clearly approaches Bram Stoker's Dracula with an eye towards religious iconography, as photos below make the case. But I guess the point escaped me—until my recent viewing of it on Blu-ray—that Coppola views Dracula (Gary Oldman), not just as rebelling against God, but as Christ's antithesis in both action and appearance. Not necessarily an alien concept, that; but it is so blatantly obvious when one watches it silently (without the secondary romantic plotline there to distract), that I feel a bit foolish not having caught it before. So in honor of today's festivities, and anticipating tomorrow's holy day, a look at Dracula as the Antichrist.