In the film, Natalie Portman plays Nina, a young and delicate ballerina tapped to dance the dual leads in Swan Lake. She has the innocence to play the White Swan but is encouraged to explore her dark side by her demanding director (Vincent Cassel). With an overzealous stage parent of a mother (Barbara Hershey) and a pretty and talented newcomer challenging her for the role (Mila Kunis), doing so is hardly difficult for Nina, who it is established early is far from mentally stable to begin with. As the ballet’s opening approaches, though, Nina’s mind is overtaken by the darkness and, like the character she represents, she is overtaken by the Black Swan.

Portman, who has been the toast of awards season, is phenomenal in her best role outside of V for Vendetta. It’s no coincidence that someone so small and pretty would be selected for the White Swan, but it’s her descent into madness that demands attention. Hershey also shines in her own manic role, though the character is in need of back story. Kunis, all sex and danger, provides a great contrast to Portman.

Aronofsky’s direction, meanwhile, is both brilliant and maddening. His shaky-cam style refuses to let viewers settle into the movie, almost provoking them before the film’s more nightmarish scenes start to take over. His production team throws in some brilliant special effects work that enhances the terror. You scoff at Cassel’s character when he says he wants to reimagine and modernize Swan Lake, but when you realize that Aronofsky has done exactly that, you find yourself grateful for the effort.

**** of 5

Rogen is Britt Reid, a playboy newspaper heir who is more comfortable as a subject of gossip articles than the editor of news columns. But when his father dies and his mourning finds him hanging out in bad parts of the city, Reid rises from the depth of disinterest to try to infiltrate and eliminate the city’s crime syndicate. He teams with his father’s mechanic Kato (John Chou), a karate and weapons expert, to back him up.

The story – orphaned rich kid turns caped crusader – is good enough that it’s worked in other incarnations (cough Batman cough), so it’s a bit of a surprise that most of The Green Hornet falls flat. Rogen, who co-wrote the movie, relies on the flash of Kato’s karate and their souped-up car to distract from the lack of plot, which unfolds so abruptly and late into the movie that Christoph Waltz is left with little to do as the film’s unimpressive villain. Cameron Diaz is likewise wasted as a throwaway love interest and occasional advancer of the plot. The script does manage to save itself with some self-aware jokes, including a gag where the villain brings a gas mask to guard himself from the Hornet’s knockout gun and one of his conspirators asks why there weren’t more for the rest of the den of thieves.

In many ways, The Green Hornet comes out at just the right time: with the sheen worn off of Tron: Legacy and no significant blockbusters coming behind it, Hornet is the only popcorn movie available to moviegoers this awards season. But being able to keep your attention for a few hours is the least the movie can do, and aside from a good looking car here and a few laughs there, it can’t do much more than just that.

*** of 5

Personally, listening to The King is Dead does nothing to change my opinion of The Hazards of Love, which I adore and consider a brilliant, brave concept album. Instead, it makes me think of Tarkio, the band that Meloy helmed before moving to Portland and founding The Decemberists. With its country-fried rhythms and simultaneously rich and stripped-down production, The King is Dead is like a bottle of wine from Tarkio’s vineyard, conditioned for several years and released when its flavors are most robust.

The collection features the expansive vocabulary that has endeared Meloy to so many English majors, wrapped in infectious hooks that have you returning to songs like “Calamity Song” and “Don’t Carry it All” over and over again. Appropriately, the quieter moments of The King is Dead call to mind earlier Decemberist gems: not surprisingly, the honky tonk “All Arise!” feels like a more well-rounded version of “As I Rise,” the throwaway track at the end of Her Majesty the Decemberists. The strongest effort on the album is its lead single, “Down by the Water.” Where Meloy used female voices to haunt you in Hazards, he uses them to compliment him here. The song’s harmonica hook will suck you in immediately.

As you listen to The King is Dead, don’t fall into the trappings of trying to figure out where Meloy is steering the band this time and why he’s doing it. Just let yourself get taken for a ride; I promise you’ll enjoy it.

**** of 5

The film, which follows a young girl’s attempts to avenge her father’s death at the hands of an outlaw, earns every bit of praise it’s gotten to date. It is well paced, sparing the indulgences that I normally take issue with in the Coens’ movies. It smartly balances action, drama and comedy, inserting the latter at all the right times and never seeming to reach for a laugh. Jeff Bridges, who plays a fairly trite role – a gruff, drunken lawman with more than a foot on the wrong side of right – turns in a brilliant performance, complemented nicely by Matt Damon’s righteous Texas ranger, unfortunately not named Walker. The real star of the movie, though, is young Hailee Steinfeld, whose smart, measured performance displays more grit than either of the hardened hunters she accompanies.

Perhaps the only downfall to True Grit is its ending, which jumps many years forward to allow an elderly version of the young protagonist to wrap up loose ends. It’s an economical way to finish the movie and appropriate for the character, considering her almost dispassionate demeanor throughout the story, but I’d rather have spent five more minutes with the younger versions of the characters, of whom I had become fond over the preceding two hours. Even with this misstep, True Grit is a wonderous moviegoing experience that any fan of film should partake of before it is too late.

**** of 5

So, we’re going to try something new here: get back to updating with some level of frequency, but relish in brevity. You’ll get thoughtful reviews of the pop culture that I consume (not always guaranteed to be new releases; it’s too expensive to go to the multiplex anymore), just shorter. I’ll also be trying to expand the variety of my posts as I keep up with some of my New Year’s goals: to take a photo per week and read a book per month. Hopefully, that will keep me active enough to post.

Previously on the Race: teams experienced the poverty of Ghana but still tried to sell them designer sunglasses and cable TV, Connor and Jonathan continued annoying everyone by singing when nobody asked, and a birth mother and daughter were eliminated before we got a chance to know them and before they got a chance to know each other.

Welcome to Ghana. Home to DVR rescheduling because some unimportant AFC teams decided to make their games last longer than a Yankees/Red Sox game, this African country was the second pit stop….in a racearoundtheworld.

Team HSN depart first for Jamestown, a village not far from their current location, to search for Hakuna Matata Boxing Academy, a fact that gets them unnaturally excited. They know it’s probably real boxing and not Wii boxing, right?

The clue, a Roadblock, tells them they have a “rocky” road ahead, and I’m not going to capitalize or italicize “rocky,” because it’s the stupidest boxing pun in history. They have to learn to wrap their hands correctly and perform a number of workout tasks.

As we see a montage of the other teams leaving the starting mat, it strikes me as odd how much of a crowd has gathered to watch nine teams read the same clue over and over again. There must not be much to do in Ghana.

The tasks in the Roadblock aren’t too difficult and seem more like a “do this for X amount of time” task than “get this exactly right” task, so it’s largely FIFO, and Claire and Brooke quickly finish and move on to their next clue with only two other teams even at the Roadblock location.

As we watch some taxi action, Jonathan and Connor implore their cab driver to drive more quickly…in song. He’s amused, but I’m just hoping that the speed bag pulls a watermelon and smacks one of them in the face.

Is it just me or does every destination sound like an enemy in a Nintendo game? Dodawa District? Wasn’t that some kind of Zelda baddie?

As he “trains,” Kevin asks his “trainer” if he knows Muhammad. Because I’m sure every boxer is a close personal friend with Cassius Clay. I’d have asked him if he knew Glass Joe.

Nat and Kat, who I’d completely forgotten about, are lost and, despite getting a tip from two other teams, are hijacked by a stubborn cab driver. As the show goes to commercial, we’re left wondering if they’ll make it out of Africa. It’s only 15 minutes into the show, though, and I don’t imagine they’ll spend the rest of the episode going in the opposite direction. And, whaddya know, they get themselves turned around as soon as we come back from the break. Tense editing there, Race production team.

Despite leaving second, Connor and Jonathan arrive at the next stop first and start their task of delivering supplies to a school construction site. Upon completing it, they are assigned the task of correctly identifying countries on a map of Africa. I’m putting odds down at 5 to 7 that someone asks where Brazil is.

Hilariously and embarrassingly, and despite their Princeton education, it takes them several tries. Way to go, American education system. In the Detour option, they select a decoder/word search over a rolling wheel task, and they actually use reason and finish quickly. While other teams fail to read directions properly and are forced to carry the building supplies multiple times, Connor and Jonathan cruise to a first-place finish.

Back at the Detour, Brook and Claire start a domino chain of stupidity in which teams start circling groups of children and neglecting to see the HUMONGOUS DECODER KEY ON THE SIDE OF A BUILDING. I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but dear Lord these folks are challenged. Nick and Vicki need almost the entire map of Africa filled in before they figure out where Ghana is. Somebody never watched a kid try to complete the Africa map on Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego?

The stupidity of their opponents lets Gary and Mallory recover from the depth of the Race to second place. After quitting the decoder Detour, Chad and Stephanie encourage each other through the bike wheel option and finish in third place. He’s still a bit too intense, but they’ve nearly erased all my hatred for them. Well done.

As Nick and Vicki and Brook and Claire finish, Phil reveals that the teams will spend the next day in Ghana working to remodel the school that they just embarrassed themselves in. Bravo, Race.

Michael and Kevin have difficulties finishing the bike wheel task, largely because of Michael’s advanced age and the heat and physical exertion. They power through, though, which is incredibly inspirational, and between that, the school renovation, and the fact that they are spared by a non-Philimination leg (!!!), it’s a pretty good end to a maddening episode.

Next week: Arctic Circle! Dog Races! Mini Snowmobiles! And, hopefully, a football game that ends on time. Hey, everybody has a dream.

Using dual lawsuits against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) as a narrative device, The Social Network tells of the infancy of Facebook, which at the time was a way for Harvard students to stay connected to each other while still remaining exclusive.

In the movie’s present, Zuckerberg, a genius with questionable social skills, is facing challenges by his friend and cofounder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield, who will lead the upcoming Spider-man reboot) and the socially connected athlete twins who claim to have planted the seed that would grow into Facebook in Zuckerberg’s mind. They claim that he left them out of the loop when creating and growing the site and demand financial restitution. In its past, we see the site start, catch on, find the attention of Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), and grow into the behemoth that it is today.

The movie’s success owes a lot to the trio of Fincher, Sorkin and Eisenberg. Fincher leads the transitions between the kinetic flashbacks to Harvard and the stoic legal proceedings. Sorkin’s prose sparkles more than anything he’s written since the second season of The West Wing. It is quick, witty, and smart, rewarding those who pay attention and can keep up with the pace.

Eisenberg, meanwhile, has grown into an archetypal Sorkin actor. Once seen as little more than a poor man’s Michael Cera, he shines here. As Zuckerberg, he exudes an arrogance that lets you understand why everyone seems to hate him but maintains an innocence that, left out, would make it difficult to connect with the character. When Parker bursts onto the scene, ready to take Facebook and Zuckerberg to new heights while leaving Saverin behind, you see the guilt written all over Eisenberg’s face, but he lets Zuckerberg’s alienation-fueled ambition take the wheel.

Like other Sorkin projects, the film also shines because of its supporting cast. Timberlake is smooth, persuasive, cocky and energetic as Parker, an easy foil for the small-time Saverin. The singer has cut his comedic chops on Saturday Night Live, but this performance solidifies him as a viable actor. “Triple thread” doesn’t even begin to explain it anymore. Garfield provides emotional depth to what might otherwise seem like a slimy story. Perhaps the only weak link is Brenda Song, whose as Saverin’s loopy girlfriend seems more tacked on than anything else.

With a host of professionals at the top of their games, The Social Network is the absolute must-see movie of the year. Whether you care about Facebook or not, you’re going to find something to love about this movie.

***** of 5

Previously on the Race: tall people squished into Smart cars, Ivy Leaguers barely made it out of Boston, and Phil’s accent disappeared even more, making Kiwis around the world weep. Oh, and ambiguously asexual team Tony and Ron got kicked off despite arriving in London first. Them’s the breaks.

Welcome to London, England. Home to London Bridge, the Tower of London and, despite what Nick and Vicki tell you, totally not a country unto itself, this was the first Pit Stop….in a racearoundtheworld.

Jill and Thomas get the honors of the first destination mispronunciation of the season – Accra, Ghana – but guess correctly that it’s in Africa. Connor and Jonathan leave third but wait for Brook and Claire and Katie and Rachel, ignoring the entire point of getting places before other people. Teams trickle into the airport, there’s only one flight to Ghana, yadda yadda they all wind up there at the same time.

As they drive through Ghana, teams remark on the trash and general poverty of the area but mostly drive right past it. Way to go, America. And, instead of giving anything of substance to the poor people, Jonathan and Connor sing to their cab driver. Like the guy can afford earplugs.

Andie and Jenna’s jet-black hair frightens me.

The first challenge, a Roadblock, requires one team member to sell approximately five pairs of sunglasses. Brook is excited because of her home shopping network experience, but quickly resorts to giving away free kisses with every pair. The other teams are far less aggressive, and she and Claire leave the Roadblock ahead of anyone else.

The find the Detour – Tune In (set up a TV antenna) or Check Out (deliver a decorative coffin) – and choose the former. Chad and Stephanie (ugh) arrive second and do the same, and Katie and Rachel choose Check Out.

Back at the Roadblock, the number of locals who are screwing with the Racers is phenomenal. They’re forced to count pairs, chase sunglass thieves, and negotiate with cheapskates.

Installing antennae is a little more difficult than it seems, but not as difficult as navigating the streets of Ghana with a coffin in tow, and Brook and Claire finish first and head for the Pit Stop. Michael and Kevin, who arrived to the Detour in something like fifth, knock it out quickly and leave in third. Shortly thereafter, Brook and Claire arrive at the Pit Stop first fairly easily, despite some clever editing that made Katie and Rachel’s arrival seem closer.

Speaking of editing, we turn our attention back to Nat and Kat and Gary and Mallory, whose cab drivers are apparently not from Ghana and have no idea how to find the Detour. Once they find it, they allegedly finish quickly and leapfrog over several teams. Nat and Kat and Connor and Jonathan find the two NASCAR enthusiasts in all of Ghana and finish with sixth and seventh place, but perhaps more importantly, their lives in tact.

Andie and Jenna, the birth mom and daughter who only met in person while preparing for the Race, finish last due to some truly terrible sunglass selling skill and taxi luck, but they leave with heads held high and an amazing story. It’s getting a little dusty in here.

Next week: rhyming teams fight! Old people are old! More Africa!

You know, they say that first impressions are everything, and Chad starts the Race by telling the viewers that he’s going to propose to his girlfriend Stephanie while Racing. Good luck, pal. Hope it’s at the first pit stop as you’re getting eliminated. Connor and Jonanthon, meanwhile, tell us that they, as tenors, are the rebels of the singing world. As a tenor, I want nothing to do with these guys.

Before the teams start, Phil introduces the Express Pass, a “Get Out of the Task Free” card that is given to the first leg’s winner and can be used any time during the Race. This is a brilliant opportunity for strategy, and I hope our teams can rise to the occasion.

The teams drive to the airport in Smart cars, which is the exact point where I’d be eliminated, and angle for flights to London that are thirty minutes apart, which is great for the first three teams but largely inconsequential for the rest. There’s so much comedy in the race to the airport that I don’t know where to start. Ron and Tony know that they have to go south to get to the airport but don’t know where it is, and while I hope that means they wind up in Miami, they actually reach the airport first. Jonathon and Connor head west instead of east at some point and wind up on the wrong side of Boston. Maybe Will Hunting can help them out.

Upon arriving in England, some of the teams get mixed up with what side of the car to enter, but what’s worse is that Andie isn’t practiced in driving a manual transmission, perpetuating one of the biggest “no duh” frustrations with the Race: if you’re going to participate, figure out how to drive stick. They figure it out, though, and are on their way.

Doctors Nat and Kat are the first to arrive at the first destination: Stonehenge. They find a hint to the next stop, Eastnor Castle. Jill and Thomas, the doctors and But Wait, There’s More arrive there in a bunch and undertake the task of scaling the castle while being verbally and physically abused from above by people in Renaissance Faire outfits. Turnabout is fair play, I guess, and these period-dressed nerds are entitled to get some frustration out.

After scaling the wall the teams retrieve a flag and float/sink across a river in a tortoise-shell kind of craft. Meanwhile, Ron and Tony are finally arriving at Stonehenge after a bout of incompetent navigation. That’s fine, though, because more than a few other teams are having trouble finding the castle. Back at the river, Chad is having another meltdown, which spells nothing but success for their upcoming nuptials.

It turns out the roadblock is….jousting! Well, sort of. Teams ride with a jouster for a not-very-competitive round, then move on to try to knock suits of armor over with watermelon slingshots. Jill and Thomas are the most successful at this and stroll to the Pit Stop, where they earn first place and the Express Pass. Hope they save it for an extreme eating or needle in a haystack challenge.

Back at the Roadblock, Claire gets absolutely destroyed in the face by a watermelon, but she returns to the game, because she’s a hockey player. She nails the suit of armor, and she and Brooke are just barely beaten by Sheldon and Leonard for third place, but they are safely in fourth.

After the watermelon incident, the editors turn their attention back to a bunch of teams I’ve forgotten about, including Ron and Tony, who were the first to arrive at the airport in Boston and touted Tony’s M.B.A. education as a reason they’d win leg after leg. Shockingly, a business education does nothing for you when you’re racing around the world. Chad and Stephanie, who have completed their tasks, run around all of England and still can’t find the pit stop, and Nick and Vicki can’t find flags or boats.

These three teams make former Race contestant Such As look like a genius. In fact, none of them should finish. Phil hilariously calls Nick and Vicki on their stupidity by getting them to guess that they’re in the “country of London,” and they finish 10th, so there’s at least one more week of them. Ron and Tony are eliminated, and we’ll never get to see that mid-Race rendition of “Close Every Door.”

Next week: traffic! Pull carts! Ghana! Hopefully a shorter recap! God knows I’ll be tired after seeing The Social Network. Welcome back, everyone.

Team: Andie and Jenna
Relationship: Birth Mother and Biological Daughter
Team Nickname: I’m thinking….Team Warbucks? Little Orphan Annie?

From what I can gather, Andie gave Jenna up when she was born, and they just recently reconnected. As with all teams that use the Race as a platform to get to know each other, I’m sure this will be a wildly successful venture. For those of you whose browsers don’t support <sarcasm> tags, I predict that they’ll either be booted in the first three legs or go deep but annoy the hell out of each other and us.

Team: Brooke and Claire
Relationship: HSN Co-hosts, Friends
Team Nickname: Team But Wait, There’s More!

These two will do well if there’s plenty of “sell useless goods to uninterested locals” challenges. Brooke says that her pet peeve about Claire is that “she is really bossy and gets easily offended when I don’t listen to her advice.” If there weren’t so many infomercial jokes to make about them, we might be able to focus more on their inevitable meltdowns.

Team: Chad and Stephanie
Relationship: Dating
Team Nickname: Hell…I don’t care enough about these guys to come up with a nickname.

Attractive dating couple seeks adventure, minimal fame. Likes: airport drama, phony “alliances,” Yielding teams that did nothing to them. Dislikes: each other, probably.

Team: Connor and Jonanthon
Relationship: Friends, Princeton Classmates
Team Nickname: Sheldon and Leonard

Like the cowboys before them, I predict that these guys will have a blast running the Race together, and I hope they last as long. Connor’s goal is to “beat Phil Keoghan in a foot race.” If only all the contestants were this self aware.

Team: Gary and Mallory
Relationship: Father and Daugher
Team Nickname: Kentucky

She lists her occupation as “Miss Kentucky 2009,” which I’m not entirely sure qualifies as a job. I foresee a lot of cries of “Daddy!” Then again, she says if she could switch places with anyone it’d be Phil, so I have to give her some credit for taste.

Team: Jill and Thomas
Relationship: Dating
Team Nickname: Team Corporate Synergy

Jill’s life goal is to “have an Eat Pray Love experience in life,” convenient for someone on a show that airs on a network that once owned the studio that released the movie! CONSPIRACY? I THINK….probably not. I hope her dreams are flexible, because during the Race she’ll EAT unappetizing indigenous food, PRAY that her team doesn’t wind up with a lousy cab driver, and LOVE her boyfriend…until the first time he give her the wrong directions to West Dusseldorf.

Team: Katie and Rachel
Relationship: Friends, Beach Volleyball Partners
Team Nicknames: Fake Misty May and Fake Kerri Walsh

Cute blondes with athletic builds…I think I’ve found what team my uncle Ralph will be cheering for.

Team: Michael and Kevin
Relationship: Father and Son
Team Nickname: The Wu’s

I look forward to writing “Wu, Wu, Wu, Kevin Wu!” Michael lists reading as a favorite hobby, which is good, except, y’know, race. Hope all that sitting around has prepared him to run around the world.

P.S.: I know Kenny Wu kept his stick at his waist, but I’m still convinced that could have been called high sticking.

Team: Nat and Kat
Relationship: Friends, Doctors
Team Nickname: They don’t deserve one.

Good lord, they call themselves Nat and Kat. I need to find a friend whose name rhymes with Jeff. The best I can do is…another Jeff.

Team: Rick and Nicky
Relationship: Dating
Team Nickname: Team ‘At Least They Didn’t Rhyme Their Names’

They both cite communication as an issue. Clearly, they’ve never seen the Race, because after Johnathan and Victoria, any other communication issue seems easy.

Team: Ron and Tony
Relationship: Friends
Team Nickname: I like these guys too much to insult them.

Ron is a choreographer who has been in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” on Broadway. Tony is working on his doctorate. They may be my favorite team of all time.

So there you have it…the eleven teams we’ll grow to know, choose a few to love, and begrudgingly smile at when someone we hate wins.