Black Swan

I finally got to see Black Swan, which I really wanted to see due to the enormous Oscar hype. Natalie Portman deserves props for doing a great job of embodying a perfection-crazed (though I imagine most are) ballerina. Vulnerable, delusional, way too thin for my taste, and obsessed. She lives with her super creepy and insanely over-protective mom played very well by Barbara Hershey. The supporting cast is very strong with Vincent Cassel, the French dude from Oceans Twelve, Mila Kunis, and Winona Ryder, who does well as an aging dancer who is being shown the door in a rather unceremonious and unwanted fashion. Portman gets the lead in the Black Swan despite Cassel's characters insistence that he worries that she can't play the Black Swan because she can't let herself go and be vulnerable, seductive, and imperfect. Portman is driven to insanity trying to force herself into the Black Swan role and push herself out of her comfort zone. Portman, despite the recent controversies about her not dancing that much, really does a very good job, though I am a layman, of dancing. Impressive acting highlights the, as my buddy Nate noted, "Lifetime movie on steroids" that Black Swan is. As a man I merely thought, that bitch is crazy, and that was it. I didn't really get in depth with it. I thought it was good, but after the Oscar fuss I thought I'd get more. It's worth a watch, but don't expect a life-altering movie of immense emotional power.

Bottom Line: 7.8 out 10. Great acting, good story, I'm a dude so I wasn't THAT impressed.

I got to see Arrested Development for the first time and noticed how much I was missing. A supreme cast of individual talent thrown together and written for superbly. I am thinking the next time I see the whole season for 20 bucks I'm scooping it up. The show really propelled Michael Cera as the super awkward, nerdy kid. Jason Bateman as the sensitive, but sarcastically funny guy. David Cross is hilarious, he would be in anything, but his weird Doctor/hippy character is perfect. Will Arnett is awesome as a failed magician and weird dude. Jessica Walters, the voice of Mother in Archer, is awesome as the angry and uncaring mother to a dysfunctional family of idiots whose failure is accelerated greatly by their father, Jeffrey Tambor, being thrown in prison. Bateman tries to hold the idiotic family together to hilarious results.

The Brewers are all over the board as always and can never fire on more than 2 cylinders. Very happy with LuCroix, Weeks, Braun, Marcum, recently Axford, Fielder, and that sums it up. Not a lot of consistency anywhere, but McGahee and Gomez simply need to hit the ball better. Gomez is completely fucking lost at the plate. He probably should be bunting every other at bat. He flails at pitches that are low and away ALL THE TIME. He swings entirely too freely for someone with that much speed and he walks as much as Christopher Reeves from 2004-2008. Mcgahee needs to figure something out because it's not working. I'd REALLY like him to pull the ball sometimes because he pushes everything and that can't be good. Hart needs to get into mid-season form nowish because runs need to be scored. I feel Betancourt's defense was better than advertised and his bat was what realistically should have been expected, hopefully 20 homers, 70 RBI's and a .250 average. If Hart and Mcgahee return to last years form, this is definitely a playoff team in a pretty weak, all of the sudden, NL Central.

The NBA has two great series to look forward to. The Thunder are no longer the up and comers, but the here and nows. The Mavericks come off a huge emotional high sweeping the defending champion Lakers. The Mavs are by far the oldest team around and their lack of athleticism is going to get VERY interesting from here on out. The Heat-Bulls series should be a war after the Heat took the first game right on the chin. I refuse to believe Spolestra (too lazy to see how to spell his name)is a real coach. Thibodeaux will certainly coach circles around him, but I also refuse to believe the Bulls will get that kind of effort out of everyone again. I'm going Heat vs. Mavs in the finals, Heat in 6. I think it's a terrible prediction, but I'm going to assume Wade and James are made of more than what they showed in Game 1 and I firmly believe that kind of star power can't be denied.

NHL I need to try to pay more attention to, but it just loses out to basketball on a nightly basis. This article was written in descending order of sports importance. I watch Brewers, NBA, then NHL, so it leaves very little room for NHL viewing.