Black Swan

*** FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS Directed by: Will Gluck Written by: Will Gluck, David A. Newman, Harley Peyton, Keith Merryman Starring: Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Richard Jenkins At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs Running time: 109 minutes Rated: R (sexual content and language) "Friends With Benefits" is a mainstream metrosexual romantic comedy, and that sounds as if it shouldn't work at all. That it works like a charm - that it mostly keeps its manic energy in check, and that it plays to chick-flick formulas without ever...

A man charged with stalking Mila Kunis pleaded not guilty Friday to two felony charges and was denied a request to leave jail without having to post bail. Stuart Lynn Dunn hung his head so he could not be seen or filmed throughout most of his arraignment hearing. He entered his plea through a public defender and was told to appear in court for another hearing on May 31. Dunn, 27, was charged Thursday with stalking the "Black Swan" and "That '70s Show" actress and violating a restraining order that was issued in February after he was arrested for breaking into a vacant condo owned by...

A dancer’s body has been described as an instrument of beauty, sculpture in motion, heaven’s architecture. Martha Graham said dance is the body’s song. In the popular imagination, a ballerina is the picture of grace, beauty, elegance, and alignment. So leave it to the director of “Requiem for a Dream’’ and “The Wrestler’’ to turn that body into a temple of doom — complete with inky feathers, a bull’s grunt, and webbed feet. To be fair, the mind in question is no pleasure garden, either.

"Death is looking at me/ from the towers of Córdoba. " Those lines from Federico García Lorca could be the epigraph to "Rosa, metal y ceniza," the show from Cordoban bailaora Olga Pericet that concluded World Music/CRASHarts' weekend Flamenco Festival Sunday at the Cutler Majestic Theatre. Pericet has explained her title - "Rose, Metal and Ash" - as a journey from femininity to strength and rhythm, and then finally renewal and transformation. But this was a show that didn't readily give up its secrets.

A man charged with stalking Mila Kunis pleaded not guilty Friday to two felony charges and was denied a request to leave jail without having to post bail. Stuart Lynn Dunn hung his head so he could not be seen or filmed throughout most of his arraignment hearing. He entered his plea through a public defender and was told to appear in court for another hearing on May 31. Dunn, 27, was charged Thursday with stalking the "Black Swan" and "That '70s Show" actress and violating a restraining order that was issued in February after he was arrested for breaking into a vacant condo owned by...

"Death is looking at me/ from the towers of Córdoba. " Those lines from Federico García Lorca could be the epigraph to "Rosa, metal y ceniza," the show from Cordoban bailaora Olga Pericet that concluded World Music/CRASHarts' weekend Flamenco Festival Sunday at the Cutler Majestic Theatre. Pericet has explained her title - "Rose, Metal and Ash" - as a journey from femininity to strength and rhythm, and then finally renewal and transformation. But this was a show that didn't readily give up its secrets.

Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, who play husband and wife in an upcoming film, have taken the roles to heart. Robin Baun of Slate PR, which represents Craig, said Saturday that the actor and Weisz have married. She did not offer any details. The British actors had been quietly dating. The wedding previously was reported by the British newspaper News of the World. Craig is the latest James Bond and will star in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’’ Weisz won an Academy Award for “The Constant Gardener’’ and starred in “The Mummy.’’ The pair...

BLACK SWAN . (Comcast Movies: All Movies) Natalie Portman speeds around Darren Aronofsky’s commercially daring freak-out in a state of corseted frenzy. She tries to save her starring role in “Swan Lake’’ from the company’s sexy new dancer (Mila Kunis). The film really works as a study of artistic obsession, as a psychological horror-thriller. The dancer’s paranoia and narcissism overtake her. Is she dreaming or displacing? Aronofsky is very good playing the ambiguity.

New releases Black Swan Natalie Portman speeds around Darren Aronofsky’s commercially daring freak-out in a state of corseted frenzy. She tries to save her starring role in “Swan Lake’’ from the company’s sexy new dancer (Mila Kunis). The film really works as a study of artistic obsession, as a psychological horror-thriller. The dancer’s paranoia and narcissism overtake her. Is she dreaming or displacing? Aronofsky is very good playing the ambiguity.

We might have been guilty of romantic-comedy profiling on this one, but going into “No Strings Attached,’’ we had to wonder: What’s Natalie Portman doing in a booty call confection with Ashton Kutcher? This is how you follow up “Black Swan’’? It was nearly as curious to see her signing on for a genre entry directed by Ivan Reitman (“Ghostbusters’’), who’s got a career’s worth of comedy cred, sure, but not thanks to meet-cute stuff (see “Legal Eagles,’’ “Six Days Seven Nights’’)

FAST FOOD NATION ★★★★ (Comcast Movies: Free Movies) In dramatizing Eric Schlosser's muckraking bestseller, Richard Linklater has made a big, angry movie that will leave audiences spent. On the surface it's about the horrors and hypocrisy that go into making our hamburgers, but at its heart it's a piercing look at the absence of options in a capitalist system. The cast includes Catalina Sandino Moreno, Wilmer Valderrama, and Greg Kinnear as a corporate executive for a fictional chain.

*** FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS Directed by: Will Gluck Written by: Will Gluck, David A. Newman, Harley Peyton, Keith Merryman Starring: Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Richard Jenkins At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs Running time: 109 minutes Rated: R (sexual content and language) "Friends With Benefits" is a mainstream metrosexual romantic comedy, and that sounds as if it shouldn't work at all. That it works like a charm - that it mostly keeps its manic energy in check, and that it plays to chick-flick formulas without ever...

Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, who play husband and wife in an upcoming film, have taken the roles to heart. Robin Baun of Slate PR, which represents Craig, said Saturday that the actor and Weisz have married. She did not offer any details. The British actors had been quietly dating. The wedding previously was reported by the British newspaper News of the World. Craig is the latest James Bond and will star in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’’ Weisz won an Academy Award for “The Constant Gardener’’ and starred in “The Mummy.’’ The...

What do the Egyptian revolution and the financial crisis have in common? Writing in the May / June issue of Foreign Affairs , Nassim Nicholas Taleb (of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan ) and Mark Blyth (a political economist at Brown) argue that "the critical issues in both cases is the artificial suppression of volatility -- the ups and downs of life -- in the name of stability. " In markets and in politics, our governments go to great lengths to ensure a smooth ride for everyone.

We've turned a real cultural corner when Reese Witherspoon is more vulgar than Jim Carrey. But there we were at the MTV Movie Awards last night, far around the corner. On the one hand, the show was a fiasco. As a broadcast event, it has alway been both a mess and up against the NBA Finals, but it was often conducted with an air of excitement and suspense, even when it was prerecorded. The Movie Awards rebuffed the Oscar's seriousness. Decorum was frowned upon. A degree of wit was not. Last night was an afterparty at the badly art-directed house of a friend whose parents are out...

We might have been guilty of romantic-comedy profiling on this one, but going into “No Strings Attached,’’ we had to wonder: What’s Natalie Portman doing in a booty call confection with Ashton Kutcher? This is how you follow up “Black Swan’’? It was nearly as curious to see her signing on for a genre entry directed by Ivan Reitman (“Ghostbusters’’), who’s got a career’s worth of comedy cred, sure, but not thanks to meet-cute stuff (see “Legal Eagles,’’ “Six Days Seven Nights’’)

Previously released Black Swan Natalie Portman speeds around Darren Aronofsky’s commercially daring freak-out in a state of corseted frenzy. She tries to save her starring role in “Swan Lake’’ from the company’s sexy new dancer (Mila Kunis). The film really works as a study of artistic obsession, as a psychological horror-thriller. The dancer’s paranoia and narcissism overtake her. Is she dreaming or displacing? Aronofsky is very good playing the ambiguity.