Movies in a Minute: The Black Swan

Check out my Black Swan post. And also check out my guest post on the Secret Society of List Addicts--it's on anthropomorphic snacks!

Mrs. Sayers: "Time now for your grapefruit, Nina."



Nina: "No! Time now for dancing!"

Middle America: "Wow, Natalie Portman's got such devotion to her art. Look how thin she is."

Jezebel.com: "Way. Too. Thin. Patriarchy at its worst."

Maris Crane: *shudder* "The flab..."

Thomas Leroy: "So! Which of you will dance the lead in Swan Lake now that my beautiful little princess, Beth, is over the hill?"



Nina: "God I hope I get it..."

Thomas: "You, Nina. I grow weary of Winona Ryder. Beetlejuice was great and all but Autumn in New York? And Mr. Deeds--what was that about? No, you shall be my new little princess!"



Beth: "Great. First cast off by Tim Burton and now a George Balanchine knock off."



Mrs. Sayers: "Congratulations, honey! I got you something!"

Nina: "Gee, Mom, I just purged myself down to eighty pounds. I don't know that a Cake Wrecks knock off is my idea of a celebration."

Mrs. Sayers: "OK, fine! In the trashcan it goes, ungrateful child! You know Christian Bale's mom visited him on the set of The Fighter to bring him cake and after verbally abusing her for ten solid minutes, he ate his cake."

Nina: "Sorry, Mom. Mmm, finger licking good."



Thomas: "Your white swan is good, Nina. But your black swan lacks that je ne sais quoi. Come. Let me seduce you into giving a good performance."

Nina: "GAH! TOO MUCH PRESSURE."

Thomas: "That was me seducing you when it should have been the other way round!"



Jane Spofford: "You know, when I was in your position, it took me one cello solo to get my groove back."



Lily: *giggle* "Oops, I messed up, but that's OK! I'm going to laugh it off like the free spirit I am."



Thomas: "Look at Lily, Nina. She has Black Swan written all over her. Literally. Did you see the tattoo? Doesn't she evoke freedom, passion, sexuality? Can't you just hear a refrain from Bizet's Carmen playing whenever she walks by?"

Nina: "Note to self: visit a tattoo parlor and invest in Forever 21's underwear as outwear collection."

Lily: "Hey, I'm sorry I told Thomas you complained. I didn't mean to go all Single White Female on you. Want to go out for dinner?"

Nina: "Okay..."



Lily: "Waiter, I'll have a burger, rare, extra beef. And extra cheese. WOOF!"

Nina: "I'll have seven and a half capers artfully arranged with a teaspoon of low fat dressing. Well, it's been nice but I should go home. My stuffed toys aren't going to tuck themselves in."

Lily: "But I want to pick up boys and channel Lord Flashheart and make the club scenes in Party Monster look tame."

Nina: "So, my place or yours?"

Mrs. Sayers: "You naughty girl! Where have you been?! I can see your dirty pillows! Well, I could if hadn't dieted your chest into oblivion but you know what I mean."

Lily: "Sweet girl."

Nina: "Lily, why'd you leave this morning without even offering to take me out to brunch at Monk's?"

Lily: "Wait, you think we did it? You had some lezzie wet dream about me? Was I good?"



Jack's Sense of Mounting Indignation: "Lucky. I had a vaguely homoerotic relationship with a suave, liberated alter ego and all I got was a t-shirt and a third degree lye burn."

Thomas: "So, yeah. I'm going to make Lily, the perfect seductive black swan, your alternate. You're not...threatened, are you?"

Nina: "Beth! She's trying to take my part! I need your help. Oh, by the way, these are yours."

Beth: "You STOLE from me?"

Nina: "Oh, don't look so shocked."

Beth: "I'm not perfect. I'm NOTHING."



Nina: "GAH! Hallucinations! TOO MUCH PRESSURE!"

Mrs. Sayers: "Nina! What happened to my sweet girl?"

Sadako: "Haven't you read enough Reviving Ophelia spin offs to figure it out?"

Nina: "She's GONE! And now I'm off to dance! Okay, here goes."

Thomas: "Nina, how could you fall over?!"

Darren Aronofsky: "It's okay. It'll be that much more awesome when she succeeds. That's how the ballet world works. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. I saw Flashdance like eight times."

Lily: "Nina, you totally can't do this. Let me dance the role."

Nina: "NO!" *stab* "Now to hide the body, dance the role I was mean to dance, and outsex a French lech."

Audience: "Ahh."



Nina: "I'm doing it! I'm doing it! I've unleashed my inner beast and now I can dance the black swan!"

Sadako: "All with a little help from tinted contact lenses and crazed eye make up."

Lily: "Hi Nina, you were great. Well, bye!"

Nina: "...crap."



Randy "The Ram": "Eh. It's been done."

Movies in a Minute: Bowling for Columbine

Michael Moore: "Columbine proved we Americans sure do have a problem with guns. Look! You can get a gun in a bank."

Michael Moore: "And look! A beagle with a rifle. Could we be any kookier? Well, speaking of kooks...let's talk to a famous crazy gun nut."

Assistant: "Mr. Moore, we couldn't get in touch with Phil Spector's people but Terry Nichols is available to talk to you. Also, your shipment of bacon covered bacon just arrived."



Terry Nichols: "I sleep with a gun under my pillow."

Michael Moore: "Cue the montage of gun use!"



Beatles: "Happiness is a warm gun..."



Michael Moore: "Did you guys know that Lockheed Martin was responsible for creating bombs that were dropped on Kosovo the day of the Columbine massacre? And look who's in charge of Lockheed. A white man! In a suit. Now, cue Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World and let's watch some tapes of the U.S. doing evil. Next, we have a tape of the Columbine massacre."

Assistant: "Should we play The KKK Took My Baby Away or My Generation in the background?"

Michael Moore: "Let's be understated and just play the hysterical 911 call a Columbine teacher placed at the time instead. Anyway, after that, the NRA still came to Denver."



Charlton Heston: "FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!"

Michael Moore: "So, why do we have higher rates of gun related deaths than any other countries, despite the fact that other nations also love video games, heavy metal, and also have experienced the breakdown of the nuclear family? I'm not sure, but let's have another montage while we play the synthesized version of Beethoven's Fourth made popular in A Clockwork Orange."

Stanley Kubrick: "I really should have more control over this sort of thing."

Michael Moore: "Matt Stone who created South Park also grew up in Colorado. Speaking of cartoons, I'm going to show you a South Park esque cartoon. Draw your own conclusions about who animated it."



Cartoon Character: "Being a rich white oppressive moron is so much easier with a gun."

Matt Stone: "Note to self. Remember this moment when writing the script for Team America. Also, look into the physics of marionette fornication."

Michael Moore: "Americans sure are afraid of things. Probably because of the news depicting black people as criminals. Even the wild, Africanized bees can't catch a break."

Professor Barry Glassner: "That's right. You know, on TV, they make black and Hispanic people look like bad guys but the real tragedy is that we can't see the Hollywood sign because of all the pollution. The police are here covering a story of a suspect with a gun but no one seems to care about the pollution issue."

Michael Moore: "Is that so? Excuse me, Mr. Policeman? You can't see the Hollywood sign because of the pollution. Mr. Policeman? Also, I dropped my fudgsicle. Can you arrest someone?"



Policeman: "Absolutely not."

Michael Moore: "But, but...the pollution!"

Al Gore: "Hands off, Mike. That story's all mine."

Black Kids Playing: "La la la..."

Policeman: "Hmm..."

Michael Moore: "Why not? ...uh, why not?"



Policeman: "Excuse me a sec, I'm in the running for the LAPD's much ballyhooed Mark Fuhrman award."

Michael Moore: "All right, that's enough critical thinking. Now, back to pop culture. You know what else sucks? COPS! Cue the theme song!"

Cops Creator Dick Herland: "Well, exploring the true causes of crime would be hard. So we mostly just follow around cops and pour our scriptwriting funds into Krispy Kremes."



Michael Moore: "Do a show called Corporation Cops! Everyone in America with a dead end job is gonna love seeing a rich white boss man get taken down. After all, who wouldn't want to punch a guy wearing a suit and tie?"

Sadako: "At this point, I can't tell if Corporation Cops is supposed to pass for wit or if it's just another promo for Stupid White Men."

Michael Moore: "Time now for the O Canada section of our film. Did you know Canadians have a lower rate of gun related murder than the the U.S., despite the same poverty levels, gun ownership rates, and enjoyment of violent movies as we do?

Sadako: "Also, that the Canadians have about seventy ways to describe french fries topped with gravy and cheese, but no word for hatred?"

Michael Moore: "So, Canadians. Do you guys lock your doors?"



Canadian: "Nope."



Canadian: "No."

Canadian: "Not at all."



Michael Moore: "See? Hi. Hey there!"

Canadian: "Oh, hello. Up for a game of luge?"

Michael Moore: "Plus their news is free of propaganda and their politicians ready to engage in intelligent discourse."

Bureau of Canadian Tourism: "Here's your check, Mike."

Michael Moore: "Now we're going to return to Flint. Yup, Flint, Michigan. My hometown and site of both my first movie and first documented stalking experience. A six year old boy shot a little girl at school. No one knows why."

Sadako: "I'll go with institutionalized racism with a side order of The White Man."



Charlton Heston: "FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS! AGAIN!"

Michael Moore: "As he had after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up with a pro-gun rally after this shooting, too."

Sadako: "Just when your little morality play needed a rich conservative white man to cast in the role of villain most."



Michael Moore: "Next I decided to meet up with some kids who still had bullets lodged in their bodies from the Columbine High School shooting. I figured this movie still didn't have a moment that rivaled the skinned rabbit scene in Roger and Me for tastelesness, so I took the kids to K-Mart and asked if we could return the bullets in their shrapnel ridden bodies for cash."

K-Mart: "Well..."



Michael Moore: "When that didn't work, I had the kids show off their bullet wounds. Lift up your shirt--show 'em the bullets."

Dov Charney: "Compared with this, my unitard ad campaigns are positively G-rated in terms of exploitation levels."

Michael Moore: "Then it was time to harass Charlton Heston while Mr. Roger's Neighborhood played in the distance and I broke the all time record for ironic music in a film."

Charlton Heston: "Hi."

Michael Moore: "Why do YOU think there's so much gun violence in America?"

Charlton Heston: "Ethnic strife?"

Michael Moore: "Are you saying you hate black people?"

Charlton Heston: "I don't know. I'm an old man. I get confused!"

Michael Moore: "So, why do you hate poor, black, oppressed people? And why do you like to have rallies after children have just been murdered? And does it burn you up that you were never considered for the part of Paul Kesey in Death Watch?"

Charlton Heston: "..."

Roger Smith: "Just smile and nod and wait for him to take a cheeseburger break."

Michael Moore: "Will you at least apologize?"



Charlton Heston: "Moses doesn't apologize for shit."

Michael Moore: "Mr. Heston, wait, come back, I need to get a shot of you pissing on a murdered girl's photo. Mr. Heston, WAIT. Screw it, we'll amp up his evil quotient in post-production. As I left, I reflected on our gun problem and thought: it was a glorious time to be an American."

Joey Ramone: "And I say to myself...what a wonderful world..."

Michael Moore: "In case you couldn't tell before, I was being sarcastic."

Movies in a Minute: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Hey, guys. No new posts this week, sorry--I've been taking it easy. But in honor of Xmas this weekend, check out this classic (NOT old) blog post on Home Alone 2!


Kate McCallister: "Peter, do you think we should do anything for Kevin? I feel so guilty for leaving him at home last year."

Peter McCallister: "Don't worry. I gave him my old tape recorder. He thinks it's a great new toy and it didn't cost us anything. Well, off to Florida tomorrow. Kevin, go get your tie out of the bathroom so your whole family can verbally abuse you for not reacting to Buzz's humiliation of you with gentle good humor."

Uncle Frank: "Get out of here you nosy little pervert, or stuff some singles in the shower curtain, because I'm not giving all this away for free!"

Kate: "Oh no, we slept in again!"

Kevin: "My parents are on that flight! And my boarding pass is...somewhere."

Airline Security: "Go on in. You look trustworthy."

Osama Bin Laden: "And you guys at the convention laughed at me when I came up with my grand plan. You said, no, Osama, go for the empty cornfield in Kansas. Now who's laughing, eh? Eh?"

Kevin: "I'm in New York? Oh no. I did it again. OK, time to check in at the Plaza. Credit card fraud? You got it."

Mr. Hector: "There's something not quite right about that young boy. I'm going to make it my life's mission to unmask him. Cedric, watch him like a hawk."

Kevin: "Excuse me, why were you going through my bag?"

Cedric: "I thought there might be a non demeaning movie role in there for me?"

Kevin: "Sick. An old man Marley doppleganger who's also a vector for bird flu. Well, time for shopping!"

Mr. Duncan: "My, my. Where did you get all that money?"

Kevin: "Uh. Lots of grandmothers. I'm part Mormon. So what's with this Mr. Duncan? Is this store an extension of Neverland Ranch or what?"

Mr. Duncan: "Well, you see, Mr. Duncan is a kindly old man who loves to talk about himself in the third person. He loves kids so much that every Christmas, in between serving F.A.O. Schwartz with lawsuits, he just takes the money from the cash registers and brings it to the children's hospital. Oh, take an ornament from Mr. Duncan's tree. The turtle doves are especially exquisite."

Harry: "Look who it is. A witness to last year's crime and someone who also tortured us on several occasions. Let's get involved in his life again."

Kevin: "Oh no! Marv and Harry! And I forgot to buy Marv a Hanukkah gift."

Mr. Hector: "What's the matter? Not cute enough to pass off a...stolen credit card?"

Kevin: "Angels with Filthier Souls, don't fail me now."

Johnny: "You was here. And you were smooching with my brother. You've been smooching with everyone. Cheeks. Bony Bob. Cliff."

Cliff: "It's a lie!"

Chris Columbus: "Oh, man. Is there anything that can't be made funnier by homophobia?"

Harry: "Come to Papa! We're going to waste you and then rob a toy store. Say hello to Spider for me."

Marv: "He's getting away!"

Harry: "No, he's going into pre-tidied up by Rudy Giuliani Central Park. He's a dead man."



Kevin: "Help! A rock! Aah. Oh. You're not so bad."

Bird Lady: "When I take my schizophrenia medication, I'm downright chipper."

Kevin: "So what's your deal?"

Bird Lady: "Got my heart broken, and now I can't trust in love."

Kevin: "A heart is like a pair of roller skates. Use it before you outgrow them and all your friends make fun of you for not wearing neon inline roller blades."

Bird Lady: "That's good. You got any kid friendly metaphors for my alcoholism and mental issues?"

Kate: "Excuse me. What kind of idiots do you have working here?"

Mr. Hector: "Well, Cousin Itt's wife isn't the brightest, but ever since he stopped paying alimony, she's got no choice. And don't be hard on Cedric--he's not much of a bellboy. His main field of expertise is in making the copies."

Kevin: "Hey Marv and Harry? Don't mess with kids on Christmas."

Bird Lady: "And take that. Bird seed."

Kevin: "Awesome, all the loose plot points have been wrapped up before my family got here."

Buzz: "Kevin, you've taught all us a valuable lesson. Lie your way into the Plaza and then make them give you a huge suite in exchange for not suing anyone."

Kevin: "Bird Lady, here. It's a turtle dove. You keep one and I'll take the other and we'll remember each other."



Bird Lady: "Great. I'll hang it on the bird feces encrusted pine tree I call home."

Peter McAllister: "Kevin? YOU SPENT $967 ON ROOM SERVICE THAT I HAVE TO PAY FOR ON TOP OF UNCLE FRANK'S PLANE TICKET, ALL NATURAL AIRLINE PEANUTS, AND PAIN AND SUFFERING SETTLEMENT FOR HAVING BEEN SEEN NAKED BY YOU IN THE SHOWER?"

Glad you guys enjoyed the last Home Alone post, and hope you enjoyed this one, too. As always feel free to let me know if there are any other recaps that have to happen on this blog.

Movies in a Minute: Interview with the Vampire

Louis: "I am a tragically beautiful vampire. You want me to tell you my life story?"

Daniel Malloy: "That's what I do for a living. I interview people. On the radio. I'm thinking I can parlay my interview with you into making myself into a Howard Stern meets Elvira persona."



Louis: "Shall we begin like David Copperfield? I am born, I grew up? Or, instead, shall we find a convenient way of reducing this film to about two hours by instead beginning with the year I was born to darkness? I was deeply depressed because of the death of my wife and son in childbirth. And then a vampire came to me, and..."

Malloy: "Bit your neck and turned you into a vampire?"

Louis: "Like Charlotte on season one of Sex and the City referring to copulation as "lovemaking," we prefer to call vampirism the dark gift."



Lestat: "I'm going to give you the choice I never had. Want the marble coffin or the onyx? Now, Louis. You must feed!"

Louis: "Oh. Uh. Er. Got any TruBlood?"

Lestat: "Wuss."

Louis: "I longed to know more, learn about my vampire heritage. But Lestat didn't want to indulge in my angst. I thought of leaving him, but Lestat, like an undead Kato Kaelin, liked hanging around and feeding off my wealth. So after I fed off a little girl, he turned her into a vampire so I wouldn't leave."



Claudia: "I'm hungry! Please sir, I want some more."



Lestat: "Look, Louis! Claudia. Our own little vampire daughter. We're one big happy family."

Sadako: "How is the Christian right rioting over poor Tango and not saying boo about this?"

Louis: "To me, Claudia was a child. A child with whom I spooned nightly in a coffin."



Michael Jackson: "What a glowing testament to fatherhood!"

Louis: "But to Lestat, she was a prodigy, a cold blooded killer. And to Hollywood, she was the prototype for Hit Girl, Let the Right One In, Ringu, and hundreds of other evil little girl movies. But thirty years had passed and Claudia still had the body of a child. Her eyes alone told the hidden story..."

Claudia: "I'll never go through puberty! I'll never become sexy! I'll never be able to dance about in 19th century garb with my cleavage on display! I want more! I want the chance to star in a slow paced period piece with a bustle and corset that emphasizes my womanly physique!"

Sofia Coppola: "Just wait a few more years..."

Claudia: "You did this to us! You! Let's kill Lestat! Here, Lestat, I brought you two little boys drunk on brandywine. Feast!"



Lestat: "Mmm. I love the taste of offending middlebrow America..."

Claudia: "Psych. They were already dead. And now you will be, too!"



Lestat: "Noo...."

Louis: "Claudia, I don't know about this..."

Cesar Milan: "Rules, boundaries, and limitations!"

Claudia: "Let's dump Lestat in the swamp. Now we can go to Paris and learn about our vampire heritage!"



Lestat: "I'm back! I feasted on reptile blood in the swamp!"

Sadako: "Suddenly Nicole's prosthetic nose in The Hours seems a lot less brave..."



Louis: "He's hideous. New plan. Let's burn him alive, run screaming into the night, and then go learn about our vampire heritage."

Claudia: "Isn't Paris wonderful, Louis?"

Louis: "But no vampires were to be found in the Old World, no matter how hard I looked. And so it was when I gave up my search for another vampire that one finally found me."

Patti Stanger: "It's like I always say. Even the undead can smell desperation a mile away."



Armand: "Hello. Take my, how you say? Ah, yes. Card. Come to Theatre des Vampire. Bring the little one, too. We put on plays where we kill and feast upon the living for a human audience. We like to think we're pioneering reality theatre."

Louis: "Can you tell me more about our heritage and what it really means to be a vampire? And could you possibly cast off my human name, Louis, and give me a more fitting vampire name? There's no way Ann's going to write a human sequel called The Vampire Louis."

Armand: "If by all that you mean ogle you and smile suggestively...then...yes. Oh, and by the way, I know the plot is getting dull again, so it's against our code to kill another vampire, and we know about Lestat. How, you ask? We can read minds."



Claudia: "You would leave me for Armand if he beckoned you!"

Louis: "I would never leave you. And if I did, I'd be extra angsty about it."

Other Vampires: "You killed Lestat! Preapre to die! The little one will be left outside to scorch in the sun, and you will be locked in a box for all eternity just in time for Armand to save you."

Louis: "Claudia! No!"

Armand: "Sorry about Claudia. You want to come upstairs and look at my, how you say? Ah yes. Etchings?"



Louis: "That night, I took my revenge. I set fire to the vampire lair. When I was finished, all but Armand were dead. Also, I had established my reputation as the Uncle Tom of vampires."

Armand: "Come. Stay with me. You are perfection. The embodiment of our tragic century! I will teach you to be...how you say? Ah yes...without regret."

Louis: "No. All I have is my suffering. My regret. And a homosexual vampire relationship just doesn't have the shocking social stigma as a relationship with a seven year old girl vampire. Sorry."



Armand: "How you say? Ah yes. Good bye, Louis."

Louis: "I went back to New Orleans. Things changed. Then it became the new century, and I got to go to movies to be exposed to things that I couldn't experience as a vampire, like sunrises and non-stilted conversation. I'm debating buying a Betamax. Oh, and I saw Lestat again."

Malloy: "But...how...?"

Sadako: "Enough Louis/Lestat fanfic writers slit their wrists and said they do believe?"

Lestat: "Louis! Stay with me, don't leave me! I can't bear the new world. All these lights. And the price of frozen blood. Oh, Louis, you're as beautiful and enchanting as ever."

Louis: "Well, that's it."

Malloy: "Brilliant! Now make me a vampire, too! I want to be your companion of the night, like Lestat and Armand."



Louis: "Silly boy. I'm out of your league. Now go start a Weezer tribute band and get these thoughts of vampires out of your head."

Malloy: "Back to playing Magic the Gathering and crying. Holy crap, another vampire!"



Lestat: "For no real remotely logical or plausible reason at all other other than the fact that I'm Ann Rice's Mary Sue, hereeee's Lestat. I'm going to give you the choice I never had."