Dear Big Content,

I love your movies. Especially the ones that are all s’plodey and where stuff flies off the screen. And I love your records, the Led Zeppelin catalog in particular. I’ve always been a good customer: I don’t infringe, and I’m loyal to a fault. But I do have a few questions for you.

First, why do you treat me and my friends like punks? We buy your stuff. But you make it really hard to do it in a way that fits with our digital reality. I’m looking at you, movie and TV peeps. You really want me to accept the violation of a decades-old consumer compact whereby we could rent a movie on the same day it was available to purchase? Do you really think that making me wait TWO MONTHS to be able to rent Mars Needs Moms on DVD (I’m not even talking streaming) is going to drive me into Best Buy to plunk down for the petrochemical disc? Do you secretly like piracy? Because that’s exactly what you’re encouraging.

And music guys: how come you create the conditions where there are only three companies that can afford to offer your wares? Do you know how much fucking money you’re leaving on the table by clinging to your prehistoric licensing terms? Once upon a time there was this disruptive, infringing technology called radio. Completely freaked song publishers out. They wanted to force every broadcaster to pay an individually negotiated amount for every spin. In hindsight, that seems not only inefficient but imbecilic. Maybe the government needs to step up and prod you goofballs towards more internet-friendly terms. I bet you could even keep your car service! Now, I know that you fought the phonograph. And the CD. And the MP3. But you don’t have much fight left in you. So the time to get your shit together is probably now. And yes, me and my friends will be paying VERY close attention to make sure that the artist splits are fair. Because frankly, I’m not all that convinced that you’re providing much value anymore. Consider this your opportunity to be cut into the future while you still have a chance.

And would you please get a basic grasp of how the internet works? Why are you so keen to demonize an entire class of technology? Let’s take search for example. I can look up a recipe to make hash brownies. Or I can look up a recipe to make regular brownies. Now, we all know that those criminal scumbags offering the former must be dealt with in the severest possible manner. But what you’re proposing is like blowing up the entire library because you don’t like that the card catalog system tells you which shelf has the book on hash brownies. Are you really this boneheaded? I get that you’re jealous about Google making bajillions from search. But is that a reason to compromise a mechanism upon which millions of global internet users rely? I guess it’s true what they say: the entertainment industry isn’t all about the money — it’s about ALL the money.

Also, could you please stop pretending that the SOPA/PIPA debacle was about Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood? (Or, as you prefer to characterize it, homespun creators vs. Google.) Literally millions of internet users — many of them copyright holders — had issues with your overreaching bills. They didn’t jump into a controversial intellectual property debate because they wanted to. They felt compelled to, due to the fact that big-money industry lobbying groups like yours were attempting to speak for them.

So kindly cut it out.

I want to be your friend. But you don’t make it easy. The arrogance, belligerence and outright bullying that you employ is hardly endearing yourselves to an entire new generation of creators and rightsholders. If I wasn’t so goddamn genteel, I’d go ahead and list some of that stuff. But unlike you, I have a modicum of class.

Consider this a friendly bit of advice from someone who cares. The road you’re going down leads to disaster and heartbreak. But it’s not too late to turn around.

Your pal,
Casey

There’s been tremendous buzz around director David Fincher‘s interpretation of the novel Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — the beach book to end all beach books. By now, anyone with a pulse knows that Fincher’s film follows a Swedish movie that received high marks from critics and audiences. Having just seen the American translation, I can say outright that it tops the Swedish version, and also manages to improve on Stieg Larsson‘s original novel in a number of ways.

Larsson didn’t exactly do filmmakers any favors with his clunky and overly-descriptive yarn. In between lengthy inventories of what characters had for lunch (usually any combination of Aquavit, small sandwiches, coffee and something called Billy’s Pan Pizza), the author delivered unflinching observations of murder and degradation, particularly those acts committed against females. His real contribution to literature, however, is the introduction of an indelible character named Lisbeth Salander — a petite and ferocious young woman who has been chewed up and spat out by institutions ostensibly there to protect people like her. The novel strongly suggests that Salander may be a high-functioning autistic, which may make her the first officially Aspergian detective hero (though I’ve long suspected Sherlock Holmes). In Lisbeth, Larsson created a character both irresistible and off-putting, characteristics that would be difficult for any actress to evoke — particularly when said heroine doesn’t do a lot of talking.

Noomi Rapace played Salander in the Swedish film, and did a fine job of it. Still, Rapace’s portrayal made Lisbeth’s behavior seem like a choice, rather than the product of systematic mistreatment, an iron will or neurological wiring. She was also likely a bit too old for the part. Numerous characters in the novel are continuously surprised — often at their own peril — to discover that this antisocial creature who is often mistaken for a young teen is such a dynamo. Rooney Mara, on the other hand, captures every nuance of this hard-to-pin-down character — from autistic inwardness to intellectual curiosity to explosive rage.

It helps that Mara is physically closer to the Salander in the book, painfully thin and angular, with features that nevertheless could be seen as attractive if not for the deliberate attempts to obscure them with body mortification and a yanked-up hoodie. Credit must be given to whoever designed her wardrobe, which improves greatly on the dated techno-nihilist look of the Swedish film. Fincher and Co. must have spent some time observing pissy crustpunks and misanthropic hackers in real life. (Insert OWS joke here.)

What Mara really brings to the role is ice-cold detachment and a palpable lust for information, especially that transmitted through electronic devices. With precision comportment and a credible Swedish accent, Mara embodies Lisbeth Salander on a cellular level. Whether she’s piecing together clues at superhuman speed, enacting rough justice upon an abuser, or engaging in rapacious lovemaking, this Lisbeth is a force to be reckoned with. I’m still somewhat in awe that a relatively unknown actress could pull off such an arresting performance.

Fincher’s filmmaking style is perfect for at least the first tale in Larsson’s trilogy. The mood is chilly and pensive throughout, and mostly manages to avoid the book’s narrative stumbling blocks. I’m not sure what kind of impression will be generated in viewers who haven’t read the novel, but I’m guessing there’s enough intrigue to entertain. Fincher manages to thread the book’s numerous characters and subplots together in a way that Larsson would have done well to take note of, were he alive to see it.

Daniel Craig is also fantastic. His Mikael Blomkvist is a huge improvement over the Swedish actor, and definitely more likable than the character in the book. (It’s pretty clear that Larsson was writing the fantasy version of himself — a heroic whistleblowing reporter who is, despite advancing middle age, irresistible to women of every conceivable variety.) But it’s not Daniel Craig’s movie. It’s Rooney Mara’s, and she positively owns it. It’s also nice to see Robin Wright as Erica Berger, Blomkvist’s partner at Millennium Magazine (and in the sack). She, too, is leaps and bounds above her predecessor.

If you even marginally liked the book, I expect you’ll really dig the movie. If you’re one of those people who rolls their eyes at American “remakes” of foreign films, get over it. Fincher’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is simply superior.

In fact, I look forward to seeing it again this weekend.

Geeks have always shown Ridley Scott deference because of Blade Runner, and horror fans respect him for giving us the original Alien. Now the director is revisiting both. This week, news broke that Scott would be making another Blade Runner installment; this follows his upcoming film Prometheus, which is loosely — but crucially — tied to the original Alien.

As exciting as that may seem for a child of the 1970s like me, I can’t help but have reservations. Look at George Lucas. The Neckless One is not, nor will he ever be, the same caliber filmmaker as Scott, but what he did to the Star Wars canon is nonetheless reprehensible. Scott has made more watchable films in the last decade than Lucas has in his entire career, but that’s not to say there haven’t been a few stinkers (Robin Hood, anyone?). Having worshiped at the altar of Alien (see this previous post about my childhood fixation with Kenner Toys’ doll from the ’70s) and endlessly pondered the mysteries of Blade Runner, I reserve the right to be deeply disappointed if Scott pisses on these achievements.

I know, I know — the Alien series has already been tarnished. Alien Vs. Predator did a fine job of that. Still, I stand by the original passel of sequels (even the much-maligned Alien3), and the first movie is one of the best horror/sci-fi films of all time.

I’d love for Scott to reproduce the claustrophobic, retro-futuristic terror of the first flick in any context. And that seems to be exactly what Prometheus aims to do. Originally a straight-up prequel to Alien, the movie is now being described by Scott and co-scribe Damon Lindelof (“Lost”) as a standalone work that “shares DNA” with the original film. How much DNA remains to be seen, but there are rumors that Prometheus will touch on the origin of the “space jockeys” — those ginormous, fossilized figures glimpsed on the planet where the crew of the Nostromo first encounters the Xenomorph (or at least its face-hugging eggs).

I have hope, but we’ll have to wait until June 2012 to find out whether it’s founded. (Check out this report from ComicCon for a few more details.)

Even less is known about what Scott has planned for Blade Runner. Is it a prequel? A sequel? How many more steps removed will it be from the Philip K. Dick source material? At this point, there isn’t even a script, to say nothing of a release date. As things come together, it could end up being like Prometheus and only share “DNA” with its predecessor.

What do you guys think of all this? Is it a cynical cash grab destined to diminish our formative cinematic experiences, or the promise of something great?

Back in April, Salon published an article called “Val Kilmer’s Dramatic Decline,” which used the straight-to-DVD movie Blood Out as a springboard for belittling the actor. I haven’t seen Blood Out; I doubt I ever will. But I am something of a Kilmer afficianado. Not on the level that some people worship Nic Cage, but close.

The first time I saw Kilmer in a film was Real Genius — still among my favorite goofball ’80s comedies. The character he played made being a science geek look cool. I was never actually a science geek, but I did identify with intellectual outsiders who were fast with a quip. And there are plenty of those in Real Genius. Example: “Would you be prepared if gravity reversed itself? The only thing I can’t figure out is how to keep the change in my pockets. I’ve got it. Nudity.” OK, so it’s not particuarly funny as written dialogue. But that’s what makes Kilmer so awesome — he sells it with a kind of slick, left-field charm. (That quality is also evident in the mock-tastic Top Secret, another early role.)

Everyone of a certain vintage is familiar with Kilmer’s turn as Jim Morrisson in Oliver Stone‘s The Doors, so I won’t go into why he’s the best thing about that bloated bag of inaccuracy. And as the Ice Man in Top Gun? Brilliant.

Kilmer has had some rough years. Not a lot of good roles. Packed on some pounds. Almost ran for governor of New Mexico.

Kilmer is an easy punchline, for sure. On the other hand, everyone loves it when an aging weirdo actor gets a shot at redemption. All eyes are on Francis Ford Coppola‘s “horror” flick Twixt as the potential vehicle. (I put horror in quotes because we all saw what the formerly-great director did with Dracula.)

The trailer is the kind of ridiculous that great horrible movies are made of:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP7cQnOcU7I

What do you think?

Let me just say up front that I’m thinking of starting a “free ideas for Hollywood” series. I have a lot of concepts for movies and TV shows, but little interest in shopping them. Plus, some of these ideas are really dumb. Which means they’re perfect for any major motion picture studio.

Hollywood is pushing hard for stronger intellectual property enforcement due to “rampant piracy” on “the internet.” But instead of feeling bad for them (or entertaining their more ludicrous proposals to lock down the web), I’m giving them free, unfettered use of my own intellectual property. Hey, it’s the least I can do!

The following is an idea for a movie that I think will be boffo at the box office. It pulls something from the world of telecom policy, but as they say, “write what you know…”

SPECTRUM: A HORROR FILM TREATMENT

Possible tag lines: “Beware of early termination.” “He’s dialed into your fearquency.” “Meet Buzz: He’s a real dead wire.”

Premise: Cody “Buzz” Maddick is an occultist serial killer condemned to death for the ritualistic slaying of more than two dozen people. Along with his co-conspirator girlfriend, Devina, Buzz is a member of a deranged satanic cult that believes that blood sacrifice is key to immense power in the etheric plane. Devina explains how all this works in an early flashback scene, where the two are preparing to murder a teenage girl. She tells Buzz that, by positioning electromagnetic devices around the victim, their connection to the etheric plane will be amplified. When enough astral doors have been opened, they will be able to cross the threshold and dwell in a perpetual state of evil exultation.

When Buzz is arrested for his crimes and sentenced to death, his girlfriend (who has thus far evaded any charges) tells him that she will cast a powerful spell at the precise moment of his execution. But nobody except the prison warden knows that Buzz is to be killed using an untested new method: powerful microwave radiation. A bill has passed in the Texas state legislature that would make this means of execution legal. Yet due to political pressure, the governor has yet to sign it. The governor and the warden go way back — they’re part of the same secessionist group — and the warden has been assured that he can go ahead and flip the switch on Buzz and everything will be just dandy. He tells his execution staff that the killing is a go. “You boys will just love it,” he says. “The beauty is, no mess! Them my-crow-waves cook ‘em right from the inside, just like a reheated burrito!”

Buzz is executed as planned, and his girlfriend casts her spell. At the moment of his death, we see his murderous soul converted to electromagnetic energy, which shoots up through the walls to the top floor of the building, blasting skyward via a huge radio antenna on the prison roof. We hear demoniacal laughter.

The killings begin anew. Buzz is now a spectral being who manifests through radio-capable devices, just long enough to dispatch his victims in clever ways. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, Devina, is finally brought in by the law and imprisoned while awaiting trial. Buzz now has a reason to eliminate key witnesses, including family members of his original victims.

Death scenes might include the following:

Buzz comes through a victim’s tablet computer. She is using an eReader when Buzz appears in a social network chatbox. “Buzz wants to chat,” the message says. The victim keeps trying to close the window, to no avail. Eventually, Buzz’s face looms large in the device’s screen, until he managers to stick his head out and bite the victim on the lower lip. He pulls several times, smashing the victim’s head repeatedly into the screen until she dies in a burst of plasma (blood and electronic) and glass. As the screen goes dark, we hear Buzz’s disembodied voice: “That’s my kind of face book.”

A couple is getting frisky in bed in a remote lakeside cottage. An old boom box is positioned on a bedside table. An upbeat pop song comes on, something along the lines of Katy Perry. The girl interrupts the foreplay to turn up the radio. “I love this song,” she says. The boy looks annoyed for a second, then they get back to business. Suddenly, the Katy Perry track is interrupted by crackling, then a scratchy vision of “Walking After Midnight” comes on. Annoyed, the girl shoves the guy aside and starts fiddling with the dial. The song is on every station. “What is this shit?” she exclaims in desperation. Buzz’s voice cuts through the airwaves. “What’s the matter? You don’t like the classics? Maybe you prefer something more… cutting edge.” Weird light begins to emanate from the speakers, until Buzz appears before them, with whirring, electric saw blades for hands. He does his sick business and then disappears.

A day trader is using a cellphone. He’s trying to tell his wife he’ll miss his kid’s soccer game, while firing a useless subordinate on the other line. While switching between calls, he ends up on a channel with Buzz. “Please hold while I disconnect you,” Buzz says. The day trader stares at his smartphone in disbelief. At that moment, buzz appears on all of the many computer monitors in his office. Buzz then manifests at the center of the room, with the Wall Street index flashing all over his semi-corporeal body. “Buy low, die lower,” Buzz says, as he crushes the day trader to a pulpy, mangled mass on the floor that briefly gives off sparks.

Meanwhile, an investigator is banging his head over these new murders. But he begins to discern a pattern. In each killing, he notices the presence of spectrum-powered technology. On a hunch alone, he reaches out to an expert in wireless telecommunications, who comes along to a fresh murder scene. At a key point, the expert says, “I think he’s traveling from place to place using the electromagnetic spectrum.” Not wanting to accept what he’s hearing, the detective replies, “Is that even possible?” Without missing a beat, the wireless expert answers, “It is now.”

And that’s basically all I have. Surely that’s enough for some studio-contracted screenwriting hacks to thread together into something marginally cohesive. Like I said, it’s pretty fucking dumb. But that doesn’t mean it’s not potentially profitable!

So c’mon, Hollywood, why not bring Buzz to life and start a whole new horror franchise? I promise I won’t sue…

David Fincher‘s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has its trailer in theaters now. Tagline: “The Feel Bad Movie of Christmas.” It’s a well-put-together montage of scenes that look more like what I pictured in my head when I read the book than what appeared in the Swedish version.

You probably know that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are doing the soundtrack (the two won an Oscar for Fincher’s previous flick, The Social Network). Well, this trailer features a cover of Led Zeppelin‘s “Immigrant Song” performed by Reznor and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I don’t love it, but I certainly admire it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yUwXwrR35U

Definitely looking forward to the film…

It was only when he decided to let me go that I would be able to walk away.

My grandfather was an ex-priest who continued to hold confessions at his dining room table while we feasted on pizza and Sprite, singing Muppets songs together. There, over hundreds of games of Uno, Parcheesi, and Backgammon and over nearly thirty years, we would talk about life, of friends and family, or any problem I was dealing with at the time. You could chart every event of my life on the conversations at that table. He listened without judgment. Always there with a sympathetic ear, he would rarely give me answers, but rather asked questions that led me to my own conclusions — which always resulted in the best outcomes.  The last day we sat at that table together with familiar pizza and Sprites, I showed him pictures of the immigrant ship and the Ellis Island records of his grandfather’s arrival to America. He thanked me and told me it was an honor to have a grandson like me.

My grandfather was a fan of movies and took me to them as often as he could. To him, no movie was above my understanding. He never balked at seeing flicks like The Mission or The Last Emperor with his elementary school grandson. Sometimes the movies were just beyond my comprehension, but he found a way to explain them to me. These were films that opened my world to new ideas and possibilities. Our movie, the one I will forever connect to him, was Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, which he took me to see when I was eleven years old. After each movie, we would go to the Kuala Mauna where we would discuss universal themes, character development and symbolism.

We saw every Star Wars film during their initial run in the theaters (well, he swore he took me to see Episode IV when I was one year old, but I highly doubt it — I think he just wanted the experience to feel complete). He would read the opening scroll to me, leaning across the armrest to whisper the words into my ears. Much later, when the new trilogy came out, he did the same. I didn’t stop him, despite being 22 years old at the time. We just laughed.

My favorite movie memory with my grandfather was the time we saw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This was 1982; I was six years old. About 20 minutes in, the filmstrip broke and the screen went to white — exactly when Khan put that space bug into Chekov’s ear. Picture a theater full of Trekkies reacting to the theater manager telling us to be patient while they repaired the film.

We ended up waiting an hour. As people gave up and left the theater, my grandfather took the downtime to discuss how the movie was actually a retelling of Moby-Dick — how the characters represented good and evil — and how Kahn’s relentless quest to destroy Capt. Kirk was the same as Ahab’s monomaniacal hunt for the whale. He spoke of themes related to the Holy Grail, the things we strive for that remain out of our reach, how anger can engulf the soul and how the film’s core message fits within the theme of Anti-Transcendentalism. We talked of Jungian archetypes and symbols. An hour later they fixed the film and we, now alone, sat and watched the movie — a far more enriching experience than if had it not been interrupted.

Yes, my grandfather taught me about Anti-Transcendentalism and Jungian archetypes when I was six years old. So stop asking me why I became a literary teacher.

Our very last day together was spent watching The Wrath of Khan. Cancer had riddled my grandfather’s body, while late-stage Alzheimer’s wasted away his mind. At times he thought I was my uncle Mike. But when that bug was put into Chekov’s ear, a memory was sparked deep within. “And this was where the film broke!” he said, smiling. “Ah, yes. Right here.”

One day my grandfather came to pick me up for one of our many weekends together. This was after the innocence of childhood and the onset of teenage pessimism and angst. He drove up with a brand new bumper sticker on his car, which read “Magic Happens.”

“Grandpa!” I asked, “What does that mean?”

“Magic Happens,” he replied. He told me he believed that magic was everywhere and magic was everything. All you had to do to see it was look around. The world was made of magical things. “Magic Happens,” he said.

I told him that I thought that that was stupid. His reply was simple and to the point and stuck with me. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, I hope someday you change your mind. And you can explain it to me.”

Twenty-three years ago, my grandfather, Joseph Smyrski, wished that I would find magic and be able to explain it. Like his usual manner at the dining room table, he didn’t offer the answer directly, but rather created the path towards my own resolution.

Magic is a movie theater with my grandfather, where across the screen flicker images of heroes and villains, playing out stories of human struggle and triumph. Of far-off galaxies with closer-to-home life lessons. Magic is a broken filmstrip, an empty movie theater and the hero who now occupies the seat next to you. Magic is the conversation after, over Polynesian ribs and noodles.

Magic is a dining room table and an ever-evolving conversation. Where school problems become work problems that become career problems. Where conversations about girls become conversations about girlfriends to conversations of fiancées to conversations about marriage. Where the problems of being a son to your own father come full circle to conversations of becoming a father, and finally, a grandfather.

How do you find magic? You embrace these moments in life, the seemingly insignificant ones that somehow become embedded into your own soul. You grab them and hang onto them with every ounce of your strength, you pull them close to your heart hoping to not let one slip from your grasp and out of your memory. You squeeze them as tight as you can… just like…

The Claw.

Magic is my grandfather’s unbreakable grip. One that he placed on my head the day we first met and which tightened with every movie we saw, every Muppets song we sang, every conversation we had. A grip that to this day is wrapped around not just my skull, but my entire soul. And it’s not loosening. Magic is that my grandfather, Joseph Smyrski, is no longer here, but he has yet to let go of me, and will only let go when he is ready to let go. A day that magically will never come.

Magic Happens.  Magic is my grandfather, Joseph Smyrski.

This video of my hero, Nicolas Fucking Cage, shows him doing what he does best: screaming brilliant nonsense at the top of his lungs with such wild abandon it sends chills down our collective spines. But I guess these square Romanian club bouncers just aren’t hip to the Genius of the Master.

It’s OK though, WE get it. Yes Mr. Cage, you will die in the name of honor, and we’ll love you all the more for it. Can’t wait for Ghost Rider 2.

Sick with the flu. A really bad bug. Managed to make it out of the house yesterday, though, as there was an errand that absolutely had to be run. As a reward for putting up with the obnoxiousness that is gift-season retail, my better half and I went to the movies for some uplifting holiday fare: Black Swan.

We are mostly Darren Aronofsky enthusiasts here at Contrarian HQ, and the chance to see what happens when the notoriously tough director puts the screws to the vapid Natalie Portman was too good to pass up. At my recollection, Portman hasn’t acted in a film since 1996. She has appeared in quite a few movies, however.

Now, I have nothing against Portman as a human being, and, like many fellas, have even gone through a “she’s kinda cute” phase. Which wore off after seeing her consistent inability to deliver lines like “good morning” with anything approaching authenticity. We heard that this was the role of her lifetime, though, and the word “Oscar” — which is rarely used in conjunction with “Natalie Portman” — has even been invoked.

Also, there are ballerinas.

Black Swan is, at its heart, a psychological horror film — equal parts Polanski, Cronenberg and De Palma. Specifically, The Tenant, Dead Ringers and Carrie. It’s cruel, pervy and studiously misogynistic like Polanski, splattered with gross-out body dysmorphia a la Cronenberg, and taut with dread, like the best of De Palma. If that doesn’t get America rushing to the theaters, I don’t know what will. (Certainly not that DOA Depp/Jolie vehicle.)

Aronofsky is not a subtle director. In fact, it’s taken me a while to come around to his style, which can be mopey and oppressive. I don’t think there will ever be a point in my life where I will willfully subject myself to another viewing of Requiem for a Dream. I still have those Kronos Quartet cello stabs lodged in my frontal lobe. I remember liking π (the drum-and-bass soundtrack was very cool for the 1990s), and more recently enjoyed The Wrestler, along with the rest of humanity. The Fountain was beautifully flawed and emotionally provocative, regardless of Hugh Jackman. So I was totally down for a classic ballerina-goes-insane story.

Viewed in a certain light, Black Swan is about the quest for artistic perfection and the physical and psychological costs of achieving it. Like The Wrestler, it shows both the grace and agony of a particular athletic discipline, in this case, ballet. Not for the squeamish, Black Swan features scene after scene of damaged dancer physiques, from smashed toenails to self-inflicted malnourishment. Yet it also reveals the beauty of dance and the power of classical composition. The story essentially mirrors Swan Lake, but to say any more would spoil the heavy-handed metaphor, around which Aronofsky somehow manages to construct a thrilling movie.

The incredible cinematography and powerful performances certainly help, as do the meticulous editing and sound design. Portman is every bit as good as the hype. Actually, she’s better than the hype. She transcends any pretense to “acting” by wholly becoming her character — the lithe, lovely and emotionally impaired Nina. Some of what she does could be termed “method,” such as losing a bit too much weight and possibly not getting enough sleep. But unlike, say, Christian Bale, who does this stuff like some kind of circus trick, Portman completely inhabits her damaged dancer. In this way, her performance is closer to Robert De Niro‘s portrayal of on-the-ropes boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull.

Black Swan is no doubt Portman’s movie, and she earns it frame by frame. The supporting cast is equally riveting, particularly Mila Kunis, who has come a loooong way from her squeaky start on “That ’70s Show.” Her turn as a free ‘n’ easy West Coast dancer new to the Big Apple serves as the perfect foil to Portman’s pristine Nina. And what would an Aronofsky film be without a creepy, overbearing mother figure? This time the role goes to the underused Barbara Hershey (I guess her stock dropped in Hollywood after playing Mary Magdalene in The Last Temptation of Christ.)

We also get some amazing glimpses of Winona Ryder as an aged-out ballerina charting her own path to ruination. Through her role, as well as Portman’s, we see the dancers as thoroughbred horses, with a very finite amount of time to express their sole reason for existing. Let’s just say that ending up in dog food is probably a better fate than what befalls Ryder’s character.

Half the “fun” of the movie is watching Nina go nutso. Aronofsky serves up grim voyeurism as Portman begins to merge with her metaphorical “twin,” whose characteristics she is simultaneously drawn towards and repulsed by. I found myself rooting for Nina throughout, but nevertheless reveling as she comes undone.

Leaving the theater, I decided to see if I couldn’t get a new turn-of-phrase into circulation in tribute to Portman’s performance. I call it “dancing the black swan.” You know, for when someone goes a little bit around the bend for one reason or another — unemployment, divorce, a death in the family, etc. Here’s a sample conversation in which one could use the phrase:

“How ya been, Dave?”

“Well, pretty good at the moment, but I was dancing the black swan for a little while there after I got my walking papers from the factory. Things are OK now, though.”

Please feel free to use it!

The film is shot in the same style as The Blair Witch Project — a movie assembled from handheld footage supposedly captured by the characters themselves. In this case, it’s a camera purchased for the sole purpose of documenting a purported haunting.

The story follows a young couple, Katie and Micah, who have that “star-crossed lovers” aura of a newfound romance destined for trouble. Katie moves into Micah’s house and almost immediately her secret rears its ugly head. For her entire life, Katie has been followed by what she assumes is a ghost. This revelation sparks Micah’s curiosity, he buys the camera and smuggles in a Ouija Board to attempt communication. A psychic enters the story and tells the couple that this is not a typical ghost, but rather a horrific haunting in the form of a negative entity: a beast that never existed in human form upon the Earth (i.e.: a demon). He begs Micah to stop filming and not to use the Ouija Board.

As the film progresses, Katie begs Micah to stop taunting the entity with the camera and Ouija Board. Micah offers an empty promise and continues on with business as usual. The  “activity” in Paranormal Activity subsequently intensifies due to Micah’s negligence and inability to heed the psychic’s advice. He turns blame on Katie who didn’t tell him what he was getting into when he asked her to move in. She in turn blames Micah for making the situation worse through his stubborn male posturing.

The metaphor is obvious. “Paranormal Activity” is the story of a decaying romance — some unavoidable thing that cripples relationships, the unspoken or hidden aspects of our pasts that we carry with us. It’s the story that we have all lived in one way or another. Romance cannot last forever and sometimes forces beyond our control impact our relationships in ways we could never foresee or forestall.

To me that’s what it is anyway.

Although I found the film to be rather disappointing, it made me reflect on my years as a paranormal investigator. I learned a lot about people during those years, about how we think, the attention we crave, and how we deal with the realities of life.

During one event with the TAPS team, I met a woman from Upstate New York who felt that her home was haunted. She told me of things moving on their own, shadows seen around the home and footsteps. I asked her if she was scared and she replied no. The woman believed that it was her grandfather, who had recently passed, that was haunting her home. Throughout her tale, she began to cry hysterically — fearing that her grandfather was not “crossing over to the other side” and “couldn’t let go of his living world.”

This woman was clearly grieving. She feared the safety of her grandfather; her own spiritual/paranormal belief system caused her to think he would spend eternity in the secular world, looking over his family. She wanted him to cross over. But I questioned who in this situation was having a difficult time gaining closure.

I told her there was a simple solution: when she is comfortable, alone in the home and begins to feel the presence of her grandfather, to have a conversation with him as if he was alive. Sit down with him and inform him that she will be OK, that she appreciates all he has done for her and all that he continues to do for her, but it is time to move on to the next stage. I told her to tell him that her life would continue on, and similarly his would do the same. Tell him he needs to let go and that she will see him again. It was time for both of them to move on.

Three weeks later I called her and asked her how things were going. She replied that she took my advice, sat down and told her grandfather exactly what I said, and the activity has stopped.

Now, almost two years later, there has been no activity within the home.  It is quiet and secure.

Whenever someone talks to me of possible paranormal activity, I usually respond with “Who do you think is haunting your home?” The response is typically a family member. Some of us hang on to those who have left this realm for too long, and we create the paranormal as an expression of our loss — it is a need to keep those we love around just a little while longer. The human grieving process is in many ways as mysterious as the paranormal, and the power of the human brain to house or heal emotional pain cannot effectively be quantified.

And if my good friend and former client in New York sat down at the kitchen table and talked to nobody, does it really matter? Perhaps she needed to hear herself say those words more than the deceased.