Morning

Just a couple important pieces of news that couldn’t wait for tonight.

AICN has a very long and detailed review of Closer, which also has an interview with Mike Nichols. Be warned though, there are spoilers.

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.

And we finally have the Elle article, thanks to Roger F. It’s quite an interesting read if I do say so myself.
One
Two
Three

Seeya later.