The digital deal of the day over at Amazon today is the Oscar-winning film Black Swan, which is available for rental for only $.99. The film, is directed by Darren Aronofsky, and stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis.

This deal is valid all this weekend through Sunday, June 12, 2011, until midnight PST. Once you activate the rental through the Amazon Instant Video service, you’ll have access to the movie for 24 hours. If you’re interested in purchasing the digital version, the cost is $14.99.

Also, if you’d like to own a physical copy of Black Swan, the Blu-ray is available for $21.99 while the DVD is $12.99. Both editions are part of Amazon’s “Buy This DVD and Watch it Instantly” program “” purchase the physical copy and you get the film as a FREE digital rental you can watch immediately while you watch for the DVD or Blu-ray purchase to be delivered.

Trying to figure out the themes that the 2010 year in cinema gave to us is not a hard task at all. If anything, this year’s best films had an irrepressible surge that impelled them all toward themes focusing on alienation, instability, conformity, and deception, all different routes that lead to the same destination: at an arrival of self-discovery.

Below are my picks for the Top 30 films of 2010, all of which, in one way or another, had characters that had to confront the danger that was permeating their existence, as a bullfighter bravely confronts an oncoming bull. This confrontational theme knew of no cinematic boundaries. It hit hard in Toy Story 3 and The Kids Are All Right just as hard as it did in Winter’s Bone and Black Swan. It did not matter if Andy had to confront college or if Nina had to pierce a deep wound into her own being just so an answer could be derived. All characters in all 30 films were just as much bothered with universal issues as they were with personal demons. King’s Speech demonstrates this as King George VI has to face WWII and his stammering issue. And the directors of these films did not revile such themes, as they satisfyingly indulged in them by creating unwelcoming atmosphere fostering trite and brutal themes and making them into something glowingly artistic.

Here are my picks for the best films of 2010:

Black Swan
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey
Release date: December 19, 2010

Combine the wonderful sounds of orchestral music with the delicate beauty and undulating movements of the ballerinas along with the indelible images that cinema provides for us and we get a truly ambitious film that is a mixture of poetry, sex, feverish dream, nightmares, and psychology. But most impressively it is an innovative fusion — of cinema and ballet — that has been rarely seen in the film medium. Here is one of the most complete films in recent memory. A film well in accord with what makes a film great, ingraining in its foundation a surplus of great performances, visionary direction, emotional music, and surprises emerging from a unique script that is not afraid to approach the unconventional.

And this unconventionality begins when Black Swan perverts all things good that usually have a tendency to comfort us, such as music, ballet, purity, motherhood, and desires. The film is, gloriously but disconcertingly, a catastrophic assault on all of these things, but more emphasis is shown on dethroning elegance from the world of ballet and perverting this world’s time-honored brilliance into something abhorrent. It is easy to accentuate gracefulness. Leave that for lesser talent. The task comes when one needs to find abhorrence in something already made beautiful and elevate it so that it drowns out beauty. Only then will one have fulfilled their duty as a visionary artist. Director Darren Aronofsky does just that by not wanting to embrace the easiness of replicating world class art (the ballet Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky). Instead he eradicates its original beauty and radiance, creating a film alteration of Swan Lake that is equally as stunning. Black Swan is an uncompromising masterpiece.

The first trailer for Darren Aronofsky‘s new movie, Black Swan, has been released online.

The film is a little difficult to wrap your brain around due to the fact that it’s about ballerinas, but of course, with Aronofsky involved it’s hard to deny your interest. And after you watch this trailer and see that there’s a whole hell of a lot more than ballet going on, you’ll be legitimately excited to see yourself some Black Swan.

The movie stars Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Vincent Castle. It tells the story of a talented ballerina who lives with her retired dancer mother who’s trying to win a highly coveted part in a new ballet, but finds herself up against some tough up-and-coming talent.

Be sure to click on over to the other side immediately to read the film’s synopsis and check out the great new trailer. Travel over to Apple for HD options.

It was almost a year ago that we found out that David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen were hoping to make a sequel to Eastern Promises — their gritty Russian crime movie that was released in 2007.

As it turns out, this was not an early April Fools joke and some more good news is here. Deadline Hollywood is reporting that producer Paul Webster is helping to bring the Focus Features sequel along, and that all parties hope to begin filming next winter based on the script from Steven Knight.