Forsyth quits dance results show

Bruce Forsyth quits Strictly Come Dancing’s Sunday results show and is replaced by Claudia Winkleman.

Travolta extortion case dismissed

Charges against two people accused of trying to extort money from actor John Travolta, following the death of his son in the Bahamas, are dropped.

American Pie star gets probation

American Pie actor Chris Klein pleaded no contest to drink-driving following and will serve four years probation.

Bookie cuts Weller Mercury odds

The odds of Paul Weller winning the Mercury Prize are slashed after a bookmaker takes an “unprecedented” rush of bets backing him.

Girls Aloud star launches label

Girls Aloud star Nadine Coyle founds a new record label and will release her debut solo album, Insatiable, through Tesco supermarkets.

New Daybreak show debuts on ITV

The replacement for GMTV, hosted by former BBC presenters Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley, debuts on television.

ELO cellist killed by bale of hay

Former member of British rock group ELO, Mike Edwards, is killed in a freak accident when a hay bale rolls on to a Devon road and crushes his van.

Brit Awards to move to O2 Arena

The Brit Awards are to move to the O2 Arena in east London from Earl’s Court in the west of the city.

Blair cancels London book signing

Tony Blair cancels a planned book signing in London on Wednesday to prevent causing the police “a lot of hassle”.

Telluride Review: Black Swan

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It’s fitting that Darren Aronofsky had to struggle for years to get Black Swan made. A movie about a ballerina’s agonizing quest for perfection might seem a little hollow if it were effortlessly cranked out on the Hollywood assembly line; Black Swan, on the other hand, has the marks of a passion project. You can practically see the metaphorical blood oozing from Aronofsky’s swollen directorial feet.

Black Swan is a wholly engrossing, almost unbearably tense drama about a fairly mundane thing: backstage anxiety in the performing arts. Countless movies have addressed the same subject, but I feel safe in saying none have addressed it in quite this way. Aronofsky, working from a screenplay by Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz, shows a knack for combining genres in a most unsettling fashion. Here you’ll find psychological thrills, body horror, sexual awakening, symbolic self-discovery, hallucinatory trickery, and the terrifying calf muscles of ballet dancers, all in one movie.

Continue reading Telluride Review: Black Swan

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