Natalie Portman: Can she act or not?

I apologize for the superficiality of this post, but I need to escape reality.

There have been some posts here about poor, even wretched, performances by highly regarded actors, and her name came up.

I have two sisters who think her performance in Mike Nichols film CLOSER was superb beyond words, and I think it was decent. I think her performance in THE PROFESSIONAL was excellent.

What I wrote the other night, to the best of my ability to recall, is that she is basically terrible in the Star Wars trilogy, other than perhaps a handful of scenes in REVENGE OF THE SITH.

She is young, and it is too soon, I think, to make any grand assertions about whether she is great, good or awful, but my point, my conclusion, is not that Natalie Portman cannot act, but that George Lucas cannot direct.

Look at his films. He is a terrible director. They are technically brilliant, but they are not ever notable for the acting.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI was a fluke.

Look at the performance of Harrison Ford in RETURN OF THE JEDI. It is the worst performance in the history of science fiction films.

To paraphrase some co-writers of mine who ran a website about film criticism, Lucas is fascinated by his toys to the exclusion of consideration for his actors. And that is why the robots deliver better performances than the living human beings.

I'm not saying this is good or bad; I'm just proffering it as my opinion.

Genius, Innovator? Yes.

Director? Horrible.

..and there is some debate as to who actually directed AG - some would argue Copppola did most of the heavy lifting. That aside, the reason the Original Star Wars and American Graffiti worked was neither the directing nor the writing, but the production and the casting.

Portman can act, but she's down on the ability list of American actresses in her generation. Hillary Swank, Anne Hathaway, and Amy Adams can all act rings around her, IMHO.

the actress I think is horrid is Halle Berry the idea that she got an Oscar still infuriates me.

Whoopee Goldberg deserved an Oscar for the Color Purple and for her performance in Corrina Corrina, but Halle gets it for that awful performance she gave?

Heck, I thought she was awful playing Dorothy Dandridge, it was a wonder Dorothy didn't wake up from the grave and thrash her.

Portman's best performance was in Leon: The Professional. Since then, she seems incapable of inhabiting her roles.

Lucas is a marvelous visual storyteller who would have been ideally suited for the Silent Era, as he admits he's the "King of the Cornball Dialogue."

All he has is a good story.

I've always thought Lucas was overrated as a director.

You've been warned.

The *NERVE* of some people...

I think he almost killed her career. V for Vendetta proved she can act in Sci Fi.

Such utterly lame dialogue. Direction? Utter SHITE.

There was a rumor that went around in, about 30 years ago...
a rumor that Lucas didn't write those scripts, that he stole them
from someone else and put his name on them.

I dismissed it at the time as just another urban legend.
But after seeing episodes I, II, and III, it's become clear to me
that Lucas doesn't have a fucking CLUE as to why episode IV was so great.

And that old rumor seems completely plausible to me these days.
Looks like some of the scripts weren't completely finished,
and Lucas sure as hell never finished them.
The dialogue just screams "first draft" to me.

:scared:

:thumbsup:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376541/

Director:Mike Nichols

Writers (WGA): Patrick Marber (play)
Patrick Marber (screenplay)


Smart-but-ineffectual journalist Dan "We use euphemisms!" cant decide between his girlfriend, loving-but-clingy waitress Alice, or his lover cold-but-intellectual photographer Anna. Anna herself cant decide between Dan and honest-but-thuggish "You're bloody gorgeous!" doctor Larry. The film, as Tarantino might put it, puts the four leading characters in a box and then takes them apart.

but that's not saying much.

That said, I still love Natalie and her performances in The Professional and V for Vendetta.

She'll kick your ass

http://www.hulu.com/watch/1404/saturday-night-live-snl-digital-short-natalie-raps

she seems to have only two modes: the normal mode and the natalie portman crying mode.

is that he hates actors. He would populate an entire movie with CGI characters if he could get away with it.

I have fond memories of seeing the first Star Wars as a kid and it wasn't until I saw the "enhanced re-release" in theaters years later that it hit me that Lucas appears to know fuck-all about how people actually talk. I read somewhere that during filming Lucas was getting on Harrison Ford's back about his performance and Ford told him, "George, you can write this shit, but you sure can't say it."

Nor does he have good instincts: he loved Jar-Jar, was surprised Darth Maul was so successful, and cut teh very, very interesting and important arc from "Sith" about Padme's role as a foundeing member of teh Resistance (it's in the novel).

It's probably a cliché to use a phrase like "cringe-inducing," but the scenes between Christiansen and Portman were just painful to watch. It was another one of those "Who the hell talks like that?!?" moments.

As for Jar-Jar and Darth Maul, it pissed me off that Lucas created one of the most badass-looking villains in the Star Wars films and then gave him so little screen time while beating us over the head with Jar-Jar every chance he got.

I think Lucas is one of those directors who needs to be told, "Just because you can do a thing doesn't necessarily mean you should do it."

Many "actors" are actually living off their incredible charisma. The first time I saw Portman was the wonderful film, "Beautiful Girls." She was around fourteen and had a luminous quality about her. It's not simply being good-looking; those types are a dime a dozen. No, it is magic. You can talk about people like Julia Roberts and Jack Nicholson, who are basically known for their personalities or auras. A real actor disappears into roles. When you see Nicholson in a film, he is playing up that Jack personality. Meryl Streep: ACTOR. Daniel Day-Lewis: ACTOR.

Though not the best actress of her generation, she is a very good actress.

She's more than just a pretty actress. Her role as Padme is not considered her best, and I liked her in that role.

She kicked ass in the Professional. She was very good in V for Vendetta and The Other Boleyn Girl. She's made a string of total stinkers like Anywhere But Here and Where the Heart Is.

I think she went through a long phase where she was being managed badly but she's picking better scripts now that she's matured a bit.