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A Ginormous Review Of CLOSER, Including Conversation With Mike Nichols!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Want to have some real fun with this piece? Try to read it all out loud in one very big breath. It’s like getting very very stoned, but cheaper!
It's Saturday night in New York. Let's go to the movies.
We'll start things with a yellow cab ride downtown from the Upper East Side, Carnegie Hill, Woody's neighborhood--a clear cold night after a night of hard rain here in New York, in Manhattan. I was going to take the train downtown but the MTA decided on its own that the No 6. train, the local, had to be worked on this weekend so all I got at the subway entrance was a wide red tape and get-a-ride -somewhere-else. So I caught a bus down Lexington Avenue to 86th Street to kill some of the cost, then caught a cab from there. We crossed through Central Park over to Columbus, headed downtown on Broadway at Lincoln Center and turned left onto 57th Street, headed for the DGA Theater at Seventh Avenue.
I was late. I was supposed to meet a friend F doesn't like for me to be late.
I went into the theater and find F said. "The brisket. Or the eggplant across the street. Trust me, it's good."
F looks at me. "There are just certain things I know. And things I know that I do NOT know."
We take our seats. Someone gets up and announces that S.S. will be interviewing M.N. after the viewing. F shoots me a look: I told you, didn’t I?
The lights go down, the film rolls, and onscreen we see Natalie Portman with red hair walking down a London street, and Jude Law walking towards her in the other direction, and they have a meet-cute and they fall in love and then…
Wait. Can’t write the review this way. This is all too important. First we need to talk. Yeah, us. We two. Lean in:
What do you expect is going to happen when you fall in love, anyway? Yeah, you in the cheap seats. What is it, exactly that you’re trying to get?
Is it an identity? Are you trying to make the other person a part of you? A part you can’t live without?
Fine. Then what if one of you changes your mind? Are you willing to wreck the other person on the chance that you might be a little happier with someone else?
What does that make you? An animal? A brute? A criminal? Insane?
What about the secret damage we do? When we tell each other the truth about it, about our real or imagined betrayals, do we make things worse? Does truth make us animals more than lies do? Are we cowards when we lie and heroes when we tell the truth, though hearts and lives and sanity be shattered?
What drives us to the truth about sexual faithfulness, anyway?
I WANT ANSWERS.
And your response, when you finally find your voice, might well be…
Why? What good do you think the answers will do you?
These questions rage at the heart of this film, and of the play they’re based on. Jude Law is an obit writer who’s put out a second-rate novel about his girlfriend, Natalie Portman, whom he met at her traffic accident. Julia Roberts is the photographer hired to take his picture for the book cover, with whom he immediately initiates an affair. Clive Owen is a doctor drawn into meeting Julia accidentally after a deceptive and perhaps mischievous chatroom encounter with Jude Law’s character. They form two couples and then swap partners and play musical chairs until one couple ends up together and one doesn’t. This film, however, takes place both above and below its story, with the deep rage and sense of entitlement to happiness that drives these characters, and the techniques that the director uses to bring this to dramatic play, a hit on both the West End and Broadway stage, to the screen.
The first remarkable thing about this film is it’s dialogue. It’s a playrights’s language: a tennis game, a barrage, a flood: it never ceases. These people ’t speak, they interrogate each other under a hot lamp in a dark room, drill down into each other’s hearts with every conversation and they are ruthless about it. Ruthlessness is a funny thing: when you’re falling in love with someone, it can help you discover yourself. It’s admirable, I guess. When you’re trying to protect something you’d prefer hidden, it can feel like a violation. It’s despicable, I guess. It all depends on the circumstances, doesn’t it? Closer is rather like a Frankenstein story, you can see these characters wanting to know too much about each other and you want to shout out and warn them back from the brink of madness, the want knowledge about each other’s essential beings that only the Gods should possess. But they won’t listen, or they can’t hear because of their quest for personal satisfaction.
But the words are all that are real to these characters: actions are just the things that the words report to their partners. Now, words are not a neutral medium: some words are the greatest gift you can give, and some words are vile and unforgiveable. These characters use both to get what they want. Jude Law and Julia Roberts are willing to cause their partners any pain, any pain at all, if only they can find a little more happiness with each other than with their partners. At least, they think they’re willing. Maybe they’re not—but they’re going to try it anyway, and they’ll use words to get what they want. Actions they’ll conceal, or delay: but not words. This is Woody Allen’s Manhattan with a roll of quarters packed into the glove.
You will notice there’s no music in the film. The movie doesn’t need it, the language completely fills the film’s auditory space. There are three exceptions:
very beginning, intro music
very end, outro music
And the third exception, the remarkable chatroom scene, which will surely be written and talked about at great length. It plays like the haircutting scene in The Rabbit of Seville. The music and action work like that. It’s key to the movie because it uses language in its purest form to create a relationship which is entirely illusory but has profound creative consequences. Keep that sentence in mind when you see it in the story, see how the actions caused by the deception make possible a real relationship (not the one you expect) and pay attention to how these people create romantic narratives for each other, then create narratives of betrayal to replace them. Their lives are at the mercy of these narratives, their hopes for love are crushed by them.
But enough about the language. Just keep in mind that the worst indictment in the movie is when Clive Owen hands out “You….WRITER!” to Jude Law.
Another remarkable thing about the story is the way it handles time. The scenes are in general a year apart (at least), and usually mark the beginning or end of a relationship phase. They are marked by a fade to a whiteout, then a fadein to the next scene. More on that when I get to Soderberg and Nichols talking at the end of this.
Space. The spaces are cleverly and knowingly handled, cinematographically speaking. We open in the streets of London in wide shots that take in many people, then take us through open public spaces: a park, a photographer’s studio, an aquarium, a photo exhibition. As the film progresses we retreat into private spaces, spaces filled with meaning by the couples that live in them, not by the objet within. But the climactic moments in the film take place in confined spaces, a clinical doctor’s office and a sterile hotel room, until the final shot is taken in the streets of New York. These shots are a perfect reflection of the kind of love this film is finely examining: the talk begins in a open and footloose manner, in the way lovers talk when they’re coming to know each other, and slowly telescopes to obsessive examination. (Except for Jude Law’s Dan, who is never “off”). In the way the director threats this obsession with the truth, the movie in certain scenes reminds me of nothing so much as Vertigo. See if the overhead shot in the strip club doesn’t make you think of the staircase shot (yeah, that one) in the Hitchcock film
Exactly.
On to the characters. There are four.
Dan. The casting in the film works to tell this story, and, if you read the gossips, you can’t help thinking about Jude Law leaving his wife (editor? girlfriend?) for a lithe young actress named after a color I’ve only seen with the words Burnt and Crayola attached to it (language is everything). Whether or not the films events resembles anything in his life doesn’t matter, that’s what resonates when you watch them occur. As Dan, the narcissistic, callow obituary writer, Jude Law gives a performance that rescues his reputation from the pointless Alfie remake. There’s a sort of cruelty in anyone as beautiful as he is, a sort of self-absorption that only a professional beauty can bring to the screen. It’s to the director’s credit that in this case that actors polished beauty neither redeems or excuses the character’s careless bed-jumping in the audience’s eyes. He’s an amoral monster, and by the end we’re all quite clear about it. Jude Law's character is a monster, in the way Vertigo’s Scotty is a monster, because his desire to know the truth knows no bounds (neither does his willingness to manipulate others with fictions) and will sacrifice anyone and everyone in its path. He doesn’t get that knowing sometimes juts increases the pain.
Alice. Natalie Portman comes to the screen to fulfill the promise of talent she’s been hinting at in her children’s performances, and she brings it off with passion and clarity. Her character has the beauty of a heart-breaker, but she has always had a sort of professional detachment about it, and this works for her in the character of Alice Ayers, whose beauty, when handed over to the callous, becomes simply a means for her survival. It’s become well known that she asked Mike Nichols to cut a nude scene from the movie, and I think she made the right choice, and Mike did the right thing by taking it out. Had it been left in, it would have turned part of the audience against her – another Hollywood actress using what she’s got to get what she’s gonna get. It would have been crass. In the film, her performance as a stripper is frank and lewd and sexual and cold, but it is not crass. The phrase “the moronic beauty of youth” is spoken by one character to describe her character and it fits—the character, not the actress. Alice’s own beauty does not protect her from the belief that another character’s beauty promises his goodness as well, and it’s her turn in line to learn. It’s not her fault she can’t recognize Dan’s basic nastiness: she’s young and she doesn’t yet know.
The other characters’s are not young, and this matters in the story.
Anna. Julia Roberts, like Cary Grant, really does one thing, and she does that very well indeed. She's no longer mystic pizza or pretty woman, she’s a 37- year old woman closing in on forty and she’s one of the most formidable and powerful women around in the most highly competitive industry in the world. Her character updates Diane Keaton character in Manhattan. There’s nothing attractive or fun or exciting about the fact that her character can’t make up her mind between two men. She’s a deeply manipulative, selfish character (like Jude Law, an artist), and is as vile in her own way as Jude Law is in his. In fact, the character reminds me of another character in Woody film, the Mia Farrow character in Husband’s and Wives, when we’re warned that she may seem like she never asks for anything, but in her passive aggressive way she always gets what she wants. You know that of all the characters in the film, she’ll end up safely moored at the end.
Larry. Clive Owen delivers the standout performance of the film. His character is Larry, a doctor, a little older than Dan, a little wiser and the sort of fellow who is quietly smarter than everyone around him. To quote the fictional president on West Wing, he sees the whole board and plays accordingly. As a man probably over forty, he knows what the stakes are, he knows what the cost will be if he loses and he plays to win. And, oh yes, he actually does love Anna, in the real, grounded sort of way. On the whole, you sympathize with his particular brand of ruthlessness, because unlike Dan and Anna, he doesn’t make the first move, he just refuses to let his life be bulldozed by the tunnel-visioned Jude Law and the confused selfishness of Anna. And Dan, ultimately, is his greatest challenge, a vortex of self-absorbed love-seeking that victimizes himself and Alice. To his credit, Owen doesn’t play Larry as yet another manipulative monster in a film surfeit with the type, but as a man who has the intelligence and patience to with a difficult human situation and to take the steps needed to correct it. If he doesn’t mind hurting Jude Law at the end, he recognizes that it’s not personal,. it’s a kind of justice due to be meted out in a situation that Jude Law’s Dan created. The older and wiser Clive Owen’s character knows the game is deep, the stakes are infinite and we must, if we wish to survive, take care. We hand our identities over to the beloved at our own risk. When we are fighting to preserve our relationship with them, we are fighting to save ourselves.
The story onscreen deals with these four characters in the way a ballet does, in a series of pas de deuxs, almost always with two people only. Even when they’re in the same space, as at the picture exhibition, they’re paired off. The effect is two fold: that you’re with someone and you can’t escape, and there’s that obligation to talk we all feel when there are only two of you there and it’s almost impossible to remain silent. And then there’s the unpleasant feeling the audience has: by never settling on a real protagonist, but rather coming up with different pairings each time, we feel that we hardly ever get enough time to spend with any one of them, and we’re annoyed when that scene is over all too soon.
This film has far more questions than answers, and you leave the theater understanding that real love comes only once the story-telling has stopped, once the narrative collapses and we are simply left with each other. When we, people, choose to stop inventing romances, which are entertainment, not love, and choose to let the stories stop, then we begin to live in real appreciation of the other person in the relationship; and when we choose to leave each other, to betray the fundamental agreement on our relationship and identity, the drama and the stories grind to a start again. Among many other things, this movie is about two people who realize the value of the what they have, and two people who don't. At the end of the film there's a Twilight Zone shot of a plaque on the wall that suggests that even what little knowledge of his girlfriend Jude Law thought he possessed was illusory and a lie. Which, if he had settled for it, may have been enough to make him happy.
What good would the answers have done him, anyway? What good did they finally do him?
Finally, a hint, not a spoiler: when you see the passport at the end of the film, remember that Clive Owen’s Larry demanded of Alice in the strip club THE TRUTH. And it may have turned out that she ultimately trusted Larry more than Dan, and gave it to him. That she didn’t love Larry and did love Dan is a sad report on the human condition: that in the romantic situation, the two have little to do with each other, and that mistrust may drive attraction.
MIKE AND STEVEN
The lights come up. Steven Soderberg and Mike Nichols take the stage. Attributed dialog is remembered not recorded, so it’s not perfectly accurate. But it’s damn close.
SODERBERG. Well, do you want to ask me any questions.
NICHOLS. Uh, sure. How was your trip?
SODERBERG. Fine, thanks.
They then talk about the play for a few minutes.
NICHOLS: I actually read the play before I saw it, then I saw it and I really liked it. I got together with the writer and talked to him. I said, you know, I’d really like to make the movie. And he said, well, you know, I’d like to make it myself. So I said, well, I understand that, it’s great material, best wishes and good luck. And I put it aside and forgot about it. And five years later, I still found myself thinking about it, and when we got in contact again I said, well, how’s it going with the movie. And with one thing and another, it hadn’t happened, so he said if you’re still interested, you know, I’d like you to do it.
SODERBERG: I was really interested in the way you handle time in the story.
NICHOLS: Time is so hard. You know in a book for the first nine pages or so you’re in one place, then the writer has to make a decision, jump a minute, an hour, a day, a year? What? And that choice informs the rest of the story.
SODERBERG: Your story works with beginnings and endings and has big spaces in the middle.
NICHOLS: Well, it’s the way we percieve time, I think, all squashed up. We remember the beginning and the end and the middle gets lost. Especially in a story, whereas true love is true love because it's finally NOT an interesting story, it's just a series of days that make up the middle...but it doesnt' make a good movie...
SODERBERG: You got such great performances from the characters. This is really an example of great casting. And good coverage.
NICHOLS: Do you cover a lot?
SODERBERG. I shoot everything I can think of? I feel like I still haven’t got enough to work with about a third of time.
NICHOLS. Hmm I don’t. I try to now, I have to have people remind me. I’m more like, oh, that’s perfect, that’s two shots, that’s enough, and then I get into the editing room and it wasn’t. That’s maybe half the time. But I’m still learning. SODERBERG. I know you rehearsed a lot. NICHOLS. Well, yes. You know, you hear actors about working with great directors and they always say the same thing: he didn’t tell me anything. And that’s why you rehearse. That’s when you take the time to give things names, you know, the things you’re doing: oh, we’re doing this, then this and then this, you give those names. And then when you get to the set you all know what you’re doing and you can let the actors live in the story, because we all know the story. You have to rehearse when you’re shooting out of sequence. SODERBERG: To get spontenaity… NICHOLS to get life. You know why you don’t tell an actor what to do on the set? Because then that’s what you get. They do what you told them to do, and nothing happens. SODERBERG: Now you changed the ending. It made the entire story different. NICHOLS: The ending was such a problem. We shot it the way the play ends first. You know, Alice goes back to New York and is killed and Dan brings Anna and Larry back to the garden and tells them about it. And Jude Law gave a wonderful performance. We shot it. And I looked at it and I just thought, this doesn’t make sense of the characters, it’s just wrong. And we showed it to people and I’m still thinking it’s not right. So I talked to the writer and he was so wonderful—it’s so important to have a writer who’s light on his feet—and he approved the idea I came up with, which was very nice of him. And I think it’s so much better. SODERBERG: When he sees the plaque. NICHOLS: And he (and at the same time, the audience) realizes that she never trusted him. And that she was right. To get her shot in New York, we had to borrow a camera, get set up on 47th Street, and find a basement to shoot the customs scene in, and, you know, get the people back. It was frantic. SODERBERG: Who do you think was the protagonist in the film? NICHOLS. Well I think, because of the ending, Alice becomes the film’s protagonist. If the film has one. You know, when I was making the film, I kept thinking, who’s going to want to see this, about these people. I mean, they’re awful. But that where the actors are so important. You know, Diane Keaton. One of the things I admired about her was that she always started out with characters who were—I mean, they were a real pain in the ass. They are annoying. But when she started there she could bring the audience a long way with her, into understanding and caring about the character. Isn’t Julia Roberts amazing in this? She’s just so alive in a scene you can just do ANYTHING and she’ll just be there in the moment, it gives you great freedom when you work with her. Clive Owen’s used that in the scene where he shouts out in a funny way I forGIVE you and he went into the scene determined to make her laugh and Julia was so mad at him and we thought, oh, we’ll toss that. But you know, it was great, and we kept it and that’s the shot we used. SODERBERG. Well, thanks. It’s the second time I’ve seen it and it was really great. NICHOLS. Thanks so much. Applause and the end. D-- and I get the brisket at Stage Deli, us and the tourists. We split a matzoh ball soup. They bring pickles but no slaw. End of night, end of story. Thanks to Mr. Sheldrake for this, his inaugural review. Excellent work, man.
"Moriarty" out.
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No Nat boobies?? NOOOO!
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Nov 14, 2004 10:21:34 PM CST
"Blah Blah Blah Blah," As the Reviewer Begins His 50,000 Word So
by hipcheck13
...why, oh why, does every doofus who reviews something for this site have a prelude the size of War and Peace before getting to the review?
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That was one of the weirdest reveiws I have ever read. I have a sneaking position that all the shit about his friend was made up. I need to go do some peyote now.
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Nov 14, 2004 10:57:58 PM CST
Nat's nudity, according to EW (yeah I read it, wanna make sumpin
by hung-wei lo
In the Holiday Movie Preview edition of Entertainment Weekly, they talk about her actually doing a full nude scene. But because "the director is like a father to me", he cut those scenes at Natalie's request. So unless they've been handed to her, I'd say we wait for the 2nd DVD release in 2005 (not the first one -- the first one is always barebones with just trailers and interactive menus). But wait for the 2nd one titled "Closer: Ultimate Natalie Commando Director's Cut Edition".
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....I read that she had a full frontal scene, and had that taken off the film, but that she still comes out topless in the film. I swear though, the only person's reviews Ill sit through are harry's , but anyone else who copies his style(and makes it worse) just plains sucks.
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I want boobies and I will not watch the movie until boobies are there.
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http://imdb.com/name/nm0000204/news
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there's only one reason anyone gives a jackalope's shit about this movie and it ain't clive owen's surprise performance
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Nov 14, 2004 11:36:46 PM CST
You fucking dunces. That was the best-written thing there's ever
by heywood jablomie
And who gives a fuck about Natalie Portman's stupid little tits?
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These are pics of her sunbathing snapped by the paparazzi.
http://www.robbscelebs.co.uk/index.htm
Look her up under her first name. -
Nov 15, 2004 1:11:16 AM CST
That was one of the best reviews to ever show up on this site
by fatboy_roberts
Thanks for posting it.
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I used to have this college friend who'd look at all the caffeine free, sugar-free
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But what is with the Soderberg interview? I do not understand some people's fascination with this director. He is perhaps the most pretentious man on the planet. He's made some good films, but nothing really great. (Not yet at least.) I feel he is highly overrated.
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The film is all about dialogue and character. The reviewer gave us dialogue and character. The dialogue of Steven and Mike, the dialogue of the reviewer and D., and the character of New York City. Although a bit long, it was still a good review. Maybe we need to find a few good "Dick and Jane" primary readers with topless shots of Mother calling Dick and Jane in for supper . . . See Dick go to the movie. See Dick run. Run Dick run. Run home fast. See Natalie Strip. Strip Natalie Strip. See big words. Run,run, run. Words too big. Run Dick run.
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Here's a good tip for would be reviewers. THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU!! No one gives a flying fuck how long it took you to get to the movie or who you went with (unless it was Uma Thurman and you can describe her tits) Also, your personal approach to movies in general is just more boring shit. We don't care. Maybe if you were Alfred Hitchcock it would be amusing, otherwise it just filler.
If I'm being rude is just that I've been reading reviews like this in the Village Voice for years and I've forever longed to write these immortal words GET TO THE FUCKING POINT, ALREADY. -
If you people would have just kept your drooling to a minimum, she might not have had a change of heart. Instead, every article, news story and, most of all, talkback are first and foremost about her perky little breasts. Mind you, this is a film with Jude Law, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts, three very well-respected actors. Plus, the director is nothing short of a legend. And yet, all the talk is about her orbs? Don't you think she might find that all a bit embarrassing? That she would be the one getting all the publicity? Yes, she did the nude scenes, but when she did, I doubt she realized the effect it (or should I say "they") would have on under-sexed Star Wars geeks everywhere. Once she saw what was happening, that it was overshadowing the film itself, she had the scene yanked. So, way to go, guys!
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WOW. What a detailed review for a movie that should have gone straight-to-video! Hey Mr Nichols, great idea cutting that Natalie Portman nude scene! Now NO ONE will go see this movie. You just lost several million dollars in fanboys paying to see this film JUST FOR THAT SCENE! Smart choice. Hope the movie tanks worse than Alfie.
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That was so great. Thank you. I am so looking forward to seeing "Closer", I wish it was already the 3rd, *g*. Anyway, I'll be there to see "Closer" on its first Friday and cannot wait for it. It sounds fantastic! :)
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Shouldn't this play on, like, ten? Since it has the same subject matter and style parameters (four characters, infidelity) as the quite recent and well-reviewed We Don't Live Here Anymore? Which had the very hot, nude and overtly sexual Naomi Watts instead of the covered up stripper Natalie Portman and glum, unromantic Julia Roberts. Maybe Natalie can do her thing at Disneyland. This will wind up with a PSA of around $10 its opening weekend. Does Sony think they have this year's Julia Roberts flick. Well, they do. Full Frontal II. The recent election confirmed what many of us knew -- there are around 35-40 people in this country who might appreciate a film with these moorings. The rest just want to see Seth Green hit Dax whatever-his-name-is in the ass with a pie, go to Nascar races and football games and die on the porch after one last unfiltered cigarette at age 47.
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She'll do a real nude scene when she's so old and decripit that no one will care. Portman seemed like she had so much potential when she made Leon, but frittered it away in Susan Sarandon movies and wooden star wars roles. Her talent and range as an actor are clearly overrated. With any luck, Keira Knightley will grant us a glimpse of the promised land and we can extrapolate what Portman might look like.
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You stupid, sexist, objectifing pigs. So what if Natalie Portman doesn't want to show her boobs? What incentive are you stupid fucks giving her? If she shows her tits because it's important to the character or the situation, you fuckwits are just going to jizz. Why should any young woman with even an iota of self-esteem surrender herself to that? It's creepy. Furthermore, if you want to see tits, allow me to remind you that you are on the INTERNET. you can see vast varieties of breasts: small, large, fake, real, whatever. If those women are comfortable serving as your silent, artificial, dream playthings, that's their prerogative. But if Natalie Portman (and I don't even like her that much as an actress) decides that her body is her own, and she can reveal it or cover it however she wants, that is completely her decision. Furthermore, about the person who said Holly Hunter's career was based on her showing her boobs in The Piano, I would like to direct you to a couple of movies: Broadcast News, where she gave one of the best film performances of the 1980s, and The Firm, where she was pretty good, and oscar nominated, without any nudity. I can't belive that in this day and age, with more women seeking higher education than men, and with women finally suceeding in all realms of professional life, that we have to put up with this shit. Is this just some way for stupid, obnoxious, insecure fucks to see us not as equals, but as sex objects or fuck holes? Personally, I applaud Natalie Portman's awareness that some guys don't respect her as a person or professional, just as a body and face, and that she refuses to surrender to that. That shows remarkable acumen for someone who otherwise makes such horrible decisions about her career. Finally, if you really want to see how Natalie Portman would look naked, use Photoshop to make a fake picture and whack off to that. The wisest words I ever heard from a guy were from my boyfriend who told me, "If I see a girl I'd like to see naked, instead of saying 'show me your boobs,' I say, 'Hi, my name's John. How are you doing?'" It worked for me. (Also, as a preemptive stike, I am not an unattractive, hairylegged, uberfeminist. I am a pretty girl, the same age as Natalie Portman, who has been accosted many times by strangers on the street to be told I look like: (among others) Catherine Zeta Jones, Audrey Tautou, Julia Roberts, and, yes, Natalie Portman. Or just by people who ask what magazine ad they saw me modeling in.)
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you pretentious jerk. wow, do you love yourself. i'm sure you look just like julia roberts AND catherine zeta jones AND natalie portman AND audrey tatou. eat shit, how's that for accosting you in the street? give me a break. did you ever think maybe you were being accosted in the street because you look like a hooker? maybe YOU think you look like the aforementioned ladies, but i'm willing to bet you're the only one. loser.
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Nov 15, 2004 4:55:11 PM CST
" frittered it away in Susan Sarandon movies and wooden star war
by minderbinder
I guess you didn't see Garden State? She also played Anne Frank on broadway, does that count as frittering away your career? Don't assume she sucks just because she gave lousy performances in a franchise in which virtually every other actor gave the worst performances of their careers as well.
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Broadcast News. Raising Arizona. Compared to both of those films, The Piano blows goats. Nudity did exactly squat for Hunter's career. That being said, if Portman hit the skids and started doing porn tomorrow, I'd pay it on OnDemand.
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i don't think i look like any of them. I have brown eyes and hair, with a turned up nose. people see those traits, and associate them with familiar faces with those features. And some people point it out. Vocabulary does not equal pretention. Mocking a woman for not showing her tits to the world does equal objectification and sexism.
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Gilda, you make a good point.I agree; it's her body and she can do what she wants. She's not exactly well-endowed, anyway (but I don't mind).
I think her voice and her face are what really make her sexy. She looks amazing in the trailer, even without nudity.
However, why the hell did she even shoot the scenes in the first place? It seems a bit hypocritical, IMHO. -
Beautifully written, analytical, and honest review! Well done!
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News flash: Women ARE objects. Another news flash: So are men. Every sex act is an objectification, regardless of what your feminist ideology [or your Leo Buscaglia books] might tell you. // Sometimes it's fun to take two absurdities and combine them, to see what you get. On the one hand, we are told that having too obvious a regard for the physical and visual qualities of other people indicates an unhealthly superficiality and an evil "objectification". On the other hand, at different times [and in different contexts] we are ALSO told that everyone is basically the same "on the inside", if we will just make the effort to "respect each others' differences". Hmmmm...color me confused, but if we're not supposed to notice the outside, and if everyone's insides are the same...doesn't that make all people essentially worthless and interchangeable? Oh well, maybe I just sometimes take touchy-feely gobbledegook too literally. Let's get back to discussing something important, like Natalie Portman's fun bags.
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personally, i'd like to screw the boobies AND screw the pooper
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When it comes to whether or not these scenes were shot, and considering Natalie's background with cinematic sexuality, I SERIOUSLY DOUBT SUCH SHOTS EVEN EXIST. That's right, until I see them, I don't think they even exist. I think it was all cock and bull just to sell the movie. Regardless, I'm still game to see this movie and a great and well-written review from the writer.
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reminds me when I first saw Sam Raimi's The Gift. a gift it was. but seriously there is something wrong when you read a thread about boobies and you have to see that Harry animation playing. thats probably what Phoebe Cates looks like now.
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when I last watched Leon(The Proffesional) I thought those scenes with a very young Nat were pretty racy, and having that Bjork song play in the background ("His wicked sense of humour, suggests exciting sex")
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Roberts is pallid and washed-out to the extreme in this film, and why anyone (least of all Law and Owens' characters) would choose her over the luminous Portman is beyond belief. Blanchett would have been great, not only because she's as gorgeous as Portman but because she can act rings around Roberts. This casting seems lopsided in the extreme.
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Nov 15, 2004 11:32:24 PM CST
Natalie has that big ugly mole on her face. No wonder guys
by cookylamoo
would rather look at her sweet little cupcakes than her flawed features. As for her acting, if she'd were any stiffer, she could have starred in "Team America".
As for Holly Hunter, the only reason she looked good in The Piano was because she was next to a naked Harvey Keitel. His dwarf body makes anyone look like Snow White. By the time she made "Crash", Holly's boobs looked like two overcooked bagels. -
Holy shit, I almost spit out my caffeine-free Diet Coke. Anyway, who gives a flying shit if some tools want to see Portman's fun bags. We've had to suffer for the past week, looking at Harry's rack. And it's not that people think her chest is the shit, it's just the satisfaction of seeing celeb's nude. It's a weird fantatic trait some people have. Personally, I hope she waits another 5-8 years. She still looks too young and I'm reminded of her role in The Professional (Leon for you asshead purists.)
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Natalie can do what she wants, but a stripper who never gets naked most likely won't seem very believable to an audience. In a movie like Pretty Woman you might be able to get away with it because its a fluffy romance story, but not in a serious relationship and sex based drama like Closer.
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The piano, Crash, Thirteen, Jesus' Son. Just off the top of My Head. She still Looks hot IMHO. She's in that select group of serious actresses with Kate Winslett and Jullianne Moore. Actresses that have no objection to losing the clothes. God lov'em!
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That would have been something. Roberts does not possesses acting skills and they should stop giving her work!
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for her to not show her tits cause of the fanboys than for her TO show em for the fanboys. the bottom line is is it important to her performance and to the film? i don't know cause i haven't seen it, but the point someone made about it being the role of a stripper (errrrr) does have some merit. people clamoring for nudity may be infantile but it's nothing new. shame on natalie portman and mike nichols if that's why they cut it.
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TROOF
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Nov 16, 2004 10:00:40 PM CST
Maybe Lucasfilm put some pressure on them to cut the Natalie's n
by excaliburffolkes
It wouldn't look very good for Lucas if the young female star of his kid friendly space saga appeared in the buff in another movie a few months before Star Wars Ep. 3 opens. Just a thought.
While were on the subject, though, I seem to remember Natalie claiming for years and years that she would never ever ever do a nude scene (or even topless) in any movie because she didn't want to be known as that kind of actress. I wonder what changed her mind. -
Nov 17, 2004 2:11:40 PM CST
Lucasfilm? They certainly haven't stopped Ewan from whipping ou
by minderbinder
I hear he even does bat mizvas.
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Nov 17, 2004 8:32:52 PM CST
I think all movie stars should have to sign a mandatory nudity c
by anlashok
which requires they do at least one nude scene during their career, it's the LEAST they could do for the wage slaves who propell them to fame, fortune and immortality.
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