10 Wildly Overpraised Movies

What The Critics Said: “A tour de force, a work that fully lives up to its director’s ambitions.” (New York Magazine)

Black Swan might be a critically lauded, Oscar winning blockbuster but if you scratch the surface it’s really a Joe Ezsterhas movie with pretensions, the kind of tawdry story where every character has a way with innuendo, including a waiter who says, “Let me know if it’s juicy enough for you!”

Just like the world of (lap) dancing exposed in Showgirls, ballet is really all about sex, as is none-too-subtly shown when Vincent Cassel takes Natalie Portman for drinks, enquires if she’s a virgin and suggests she “live a little” by masturbating. Which, in one hilarious scene, she does – unaware mom’s asleep five feet away.

Eszterhas specializes in cod psychology, but even he’d draw the line at delineating characters by dressing one in black, one in white, and suggesting our heroine might’ve gone off the deep end by having the eyes of her paintings literally follow her around the room.

The movie’s apologists maintain that this is a skilful portrayal of the mental collapse of Portman’s character, but its approach to psychology is still as hokey as William Castle’s Straight Jacket (1964) where Joan Crawford’s released axe murderer develops a phobia of sharp objects.