Black Swan opened the Venice Film Festival yesterday and the reviews have been largely positive. Even when they’re not positive, they’re not total sh-t either, and the critics who love it, really really do love it, some even going so far as to call Black Swan Darren Aronofsky’s first masterpiece, with his leading lady, Natalie Portman, delivering what many agree to be the finest, most nuanced, most impressive performance of her career. Seriously, they’re all jizzing over her, even the ones who didn’t like the film.

You know what that means: she’s now, early in the game – very early – in the race for Oscar with momentum currently on her side. But then again, no one wants to peak too early. And of course with early hype comes early backlash. It happened with Up in the Air and even Precious last year. This award business is such a f-cking bitch.

As for Natalie, many remarked that she was even more intense than she is usually for this premiere, that she seemed to want it badly, that she knows this could be a watershed moment for her professionally and as such seemed decidedly relieved when the reception was ultimately flattering – Portman’s ambition may not be as obvious as others but it’s there, and she will go for it when she has to...though I wonder if she’s wondering about the wisdom of starring in a romantic comedy formerly called Friends with Benefits now called No Strings with Ashton Kutcher with the same premise as another romantic comedy featuring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis.

Ivan Reitman is directing Natalie’s version and the two of them could certainly balance out Ashton’s sh-t. Hopefully. But No Strings is due out January 21, 2011...

And at that time of year, in this kind of cutthroat Oscar environment, no one wants a Norbit.

As for her dress last night – it was red, it was Rodarte (in keeping with the design theme from the film), and I liked it OK though it’s certainly not as edgy or as interesting as some of the costuming in Black Swan. Some of you have mentioned that her shoes are ass. And they are. But I learned a while back that the reason her shoes are ALWAYS ass is because she won’t wear non-vegan ones, so she’s limited, you see, and therefore it’s hard to bust her style when she’s only working with a quarter of a deck.


Photos from Ludwig/Daigoron/Splashnewsonline.com and Pascal Le Segretain/ALBERTO PIZZOLI/Gettyimages.com