With awards season now safely behind them, Twentieth Century Fox apparently feels relieved the burden of having to treat Black Swan (out this week on DVD and Blu-ray) solely as a work of cinematic genius. Granted, the new DVD release continues to take the film seriously, but an "interactive" midnight screening in four cities this weekend -- approved, but not organized, by the studio -- suggests that the film may get a second theatrical life as the new Showgirls. Hint: It involves drag queens.
The fact that they've registered the website IWasPerfect.com already indicates a devilish sense of humor on someone's part at Fox, but the site itself takes things further by promoting midnight screenings on April 2 in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco. (RSVP now!)
And what, pray, do they mean by "interactive"? Well, the invitation to "Come as your favorite swan queen and join your fellow prima ballerinas" suggests a Rocky Horror/Mommie Dearest type of midnight movie event, replete with call-backs to the screen and the waving about of props. Encouraging this sort of behavior will be drag queen hosts in each city: the hilarious Drew Droege will be co-hosting the L.A. event in character as "Chloe Sevigny," New York gets Manila Luzon from RuPaul's Drag Race, San Francisco legend Heklina will emcee in the city by the bay, and Chicago gets Latina bombshell Frieda Laye (best known as one-third of "Chico's Angels").
So yeah, not exactly the sort of screenings Fox was setting up for Academy and Hollywood Foreign Press members. But given how very Showgirls-y Black Swan often is -- when Natalie Portman visits Winona Ryder in the hospital, I leaned over to my partner and whispered, in my best Gina Gershon accent, "My law-yuh got me a REAL nahce settlement!" -- it's pretty brilliant that the studio is ready to milk one of its high-toned critical faves as a newly-minted camp classic.