Bulimic People
Ahh, bulimia and dancing movies. They go together like bulimia and gymnastics made-for-TV movies. Center Stage's Maureen would do anything it takes to be the perfect ballerina, including throwing up bowling alley pizza in the bowling alley and eating only iceberg lettuce for lunch. Black Swan's Nina Sayers has similar food issues (and she looks at beautiful pink grocery store cakes like they're edible tarantulas), but she takes it a step further and throws up after nearly every hallucination, whether she's eaten or not.

Mothers: The Worst!
Both Maureen and Nina's mothers were dancers who didn't make it for one reason or another and are now living through their daughters' successes by controlling their every move and really letting them know how much they resent them. On a trivial note, both mothers are also obsessed with their daughters' companies' front offices. Maureen's mother works in hers -- and seems to never leave it, except to supervise her daughter's lunch choices in the cafeteria -- and Nina's mother mentions talking to some secretary named Susan about 15 times in Black Swan. She talks about this Susan person almost as much as she barges in on her daughter in the bathroom, which is like every other scene.

Mean Company Directors
Center Stage's Jonathan tells ballerinas they're fat and sleeps with other people's girlfriends. Black Swan's Thomas is very French and quite gropey about it, particularly if your alternate personality starts hooking up with him behind your back.

Swan Lake
Black Swan's Swan Lake connection is obvious, but Center Stage referenced it as well. After Jonathan told Jody that her technique sucked and the other girls tried to brush technique off as less important than "heart" or something ridiculous, Maureen bitchily joked "Try dancing Swan Lake without [technique]!" And at the end, when Eva replaces Maureen in the final workshop, it's Swan Lake that she's dancing. Sure, it's the most well-known ballet to laymen, but still, worth pointing out.

The Bad Girl Whose Wild Ways Make Her an Unlikely Brilliant Dancer
Center Stage had Eva (played by a pre-Avatar -- but, more importantly, pre-Crossroads -- Zoe Saldana), the outspoken Latina who chewed gum in class and had the balls to only pull 3/4 of her hair back for rehearsals (major ballet offense), but was a brilliant dancer due to her non-conformist attitude really allowing her to dance "from the heart" (yes, that again). Black Swan's bad girl is Lily (Mila Kunis), who wears leather, says things like "Lighten up!" and pushes ecstasy on mentally unbalanced bunheads, but who ends up being just dangerous enough to be the perfect alternate to the goody-goody lead in Swan Lake.

A Wild Night Out
Elite dancers are under a lot of pressure. Naturally, at a certain point they're going to want to go out and blow off some steam (unless you're Maureen or Nina, in which case you'll have to be dragged out). In Center Stage's case, this results in margaritas with judgmental Jersey girls and salsa dancing with cougars. In Black Swan, it starts with a few narcotic-infused drinks and some casual conversations with single gents, and ends with blackout memory loss and a complete psychotic break.

The Seasoned Principal Everyone Tiptoes Around
Black Swan's is better, so I'll start with her. Winona Ryder's Beth Macintyre is a jilted dancer forced out of the company after years of service, so she releases the crazy and gets drunk at the company party, verbally attacks the new principal, then walks out into oncoming traffic and ends up with a broken everything, just to spite Thomas. Center Stage's Kathleen Donahue just kind of marries Jonathan and rolls her eyes at everybody a lot. Somehow, she's still the toast of the town, however.

Honorable Mention: Spontaneous Costume Transformations
In Black Swan's epic final scene, Nina spins around the stage as her arms increasingly transform into giant black wings that she unfurls like a massive, heaving, crazy, beautiful bird at the end of her performance. And hey, Center Stage had that one part where Jody's costume peeled off in pieces to transform a red leotard underneath. Same idea, just a difference in execution, really.

Anything I missed? Leave it in the comments, then see our list of Natalie Portman's best and worst roles!

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