Hi, I'm Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, and I'm here with a Slate Spoiler Special podcast on Black Swan, the new Darren Aronofsky movie starring Natalie Portman as a disturbed ballerina. With me today in the Slate studio is Emily Tuttle. Hello, Emily. Hi, Dana. And let's establish your cred for doing this special. You are a choreographer, a dance teacher. That's right. And I wanted to bring you to see this movie with me because I wanted to get an angle on, you know, the view of the dance world in the movie and the actual dancing in the movie.

And I wanted to do it with someone who I knew could discuss movies intelligently.

And so I'm very happy to have you here.

And it was really fun seeing the movie with you.

Yeah, it's something, you know.

It's quite a movie.

Well, usually we start these off.

Let me just tell you since you've never done a spoiler before, and also for people who've never heard one before, this is an untram essentially just talking about the movie as you would with a friend as you're walking down the block after seeing it. Now, I know because we did walk

down the block after seeing it, that I liked this movie a little more than you did. Yeah, I think

that's pretty accurate. I didn't dislike it. I think it's worth seeing. I wouldn't, I wouldn't

discourage anybody from seeing it. I also, I think the trailer is excellent, whatever that means.

It's true.

The trailer really, really draws you in.

If they give out awards for that, you know, this is that.

But I heard a lot about this movie coming in, probably going all the way back to this spring.

When they started, I don't know, they've been filming for God last over a year, I guess, in New York.

And there's been a lot of buzz about the movie as there is, like, any time there's a dance movie or, you know, what is it going to do?

What is it going to be?

So you mean dancers are talking about this movie?

Yeah.

Going back, you know, and because Natalie isn't, Natalie Portman is not a dancer.

Although she does have some background training, right?

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