Several critics have given Darren Aranofsky’s Black Swan the same sort of ecstatic praise that they bestowed on his The Wrestler two years ago. The film opened the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday (to a standing ovation), where The Wrestler won the coveted Golden Lion award when it premiered there in 2008. “Every film festival benefits hugely from a strong opening film, and they don’t come much stronger than Black Swan,” critic David Gritten wrote in the London Daily Telegraph. But Roderick Conway Morris commented in the New York Times, “The movie is billed as a psychological thriller but the psychology is as monochrome as the settings and characterization. … And the climax of the film is as inevitable as it is implausible.” Todd McCarthy, the former Variety critic, gave the film a mixed review on Indiewire.com, remarking, “As a sensory experience for the eyes and ears, Black Swan provides bountiful stimulation. … But when the script by Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz, based on the latter’s story, struggles to carve out a real-world parallel to the life-and-death struggle depicted in the dance story, it goes over the top in something approaching grand guignol fashion.” Nevertheless, the performances of Natalie Portman and Winona Ryder, have received virtually unanimous praise, with several already predicting Oscar nods for each.

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The video clip below shows extracts from the movie and the interview with Natalie where she shares her thoughts on the films she makes.

“With everything I do I want to learn something new. And part of that, too, is never being a snob. I never want to try and just make like, arty, intellectual films, I love those, of course, as experiences, but I also love big, more traditional entertainment type movies. And that’s always trying different things and always challenging myself is definitely my aspiration.”

During the 67th Venice Film Festival today, Natalie attended the Hollywood Foreign Press Cocktail Party! Only four pictures have surfaced so far but I’m sure more will become available soon, check them out in the gallery.

Natalie is featured in the latest issue of Total Film (October 2010). There is a spread for the movie Black Swan, and an article/interview with Natalie about her upcoming movies. Check out the scans!

Welcome back to Adoring Natalie Portman! After many changes of ownership and a lot of downtime the site is finally back online and in the hands of some very dedicated webmasters! Since leaving the site Sarika and I have watched it carefully and when Maria adopted the site and gave us the chance us to get back on board we jumped at it! Celyn has also joined us at the helm so you can count on many good updates coming your way!

As you can see, the gallery and main site both have new layouts, the content and pictures have all been updated too! We really hope you like the new changes, please leave any feedback in the comments and spread the word! A big thanks goes out to Lucile of Lie Awake Inc, for this gorgeous layout.