ST Disney, Star Wars and the "Industry".

Black Swan was a terrible film. A weird mishmash of 3 different scripts that were all poor. TBH I thought Portman was rather 1 note in that anyway

 

Her career has taken weird turns. She did great work as a child star in Leon and Beautiful Girls, then she got stuck in the Padmé character as she became a woman, so after that we have this beautiful Hollywood A-list star that has a weird identity as a performer. On top of this she's a psychology major on Harvard. I think the roles she has chosen have increased this weird image of her career and her capacities as an actress.

I really think she could pull off a very good dramatic performance further in her career.

 

I agree that she was great in Leon (the Professional). I don't think she's ever been actually bad in any role, including Padme. Any shortcomings I can think of in the roles I've seen are probably the fault of the script more than her abilities. I also think she could do a very good dramatic performance at some point.

 

I'd blame the scripts she was getting if I saw a performance of hers that was noticeably better than the rest, but with the rare exception of Black Swan, I haven't; she can't possibly be getting nothing at all but bad scripts. At some point the blame has to fall on her.

 

Garden State is the only Portman film I've seen where I don't hear shades of Padme in her line deliveries.

 

I hate that movie like I hate herpes . . that bad.

 

GET OUT

 

I think Portman can be quite good when she gets to play realism. With anything stylistic she tends to fall flat though. She single-handedly ruined V for Vendetta for me, although that mostly had to do with being terribly miscast when they should have just used an English actress. Then again, if she hadn't been in that film the Wachowskis would have never made Cloud Atlas (she gave them the book on the set after they saw her reading it), which more than makes up for it to me.

 

Agree - I think she's almost too cerebral for some of the films she's in. She's definitely a fine actress but, a couple of films aside, she seems to have made some strange choices in the scripts she's chosen.

 

I agree. Portman is a naturally talented actor, but she lacks the ability to perform well without thorough direction. She tends to put in fine performances in films grounded in reality, but most of those films actually feature actor's directors with a history of working well with onscreen talent. I think her best mega-film (that I've seen) performance to date is Revenge of the Sith, where I think she gave a powerful, and thoroughly underrated performance. Roger Ebert actually was one of the few critics I saw who pointed out how admirable and vital her performance was to the success of that film. She was as good in that as she was terrible in AOTC. And, not surprisingly, ROTS had an onset couch.

But that's not to single out Portman per say. Actors come in all kinds. I've worked with plenty of actors who can shoot straight from the hip pretty independently, landing strong performances without the need for much explicit direction. Meanwhile I've stood alongside very fine actors who needed a lot more handholding to coax out their best, without which they'd crumble under the weight of responsibility.


I've seen neither V nor Cloud Atlas. The latter I am still kicking myself in the seat for missing on the big screen.

 

Funny, I kicked myself for watching it...

 

I know it isn't a film for everyone, but I thought it was a masterpiece. Of course I think that about everything the Wachowskis have done, so maybe I'm just weird like that.

 

Speed Racer included?

 

That's so cute: you thought that was a MOVIE?!

 

Those movies are only watchable with Mike/Joel and the bots.

 

Absolutely.

 

I hate all you haters. Portman has an Oscar and is a huge star, so many other people hate you and disagree with you just like I do. You should join the many who hate you by hating yourself also, just look in the mirror and despise the very existence of what you see.

OK, maybe that is overstating the case, but I love Nat. And NOT just because she is in one of the greatest sapphic scenes in movie history (and my personal favorite, even a lot of totally hetero women have told me they thought it was hot). I don't like all of her movies, but she is great.

Wait, but how would you know.. ummmm... never mind.

 

Stoklassa said it best: "If cancer were pretentious, it would be Garden State."

 

Could this be the first time anyone's ever stumped you, the man of a thousand quips?