Anomalous Material has a list of Natalie’s 6 best performances. I was thinking about how I would make a couple changes and in doing so had an idea for a poll. Instead of asking what your favourite performance is, I just want to know which performance of those 6 is the LEAST deserving of being there.
As for that poll about Thor’s ending, a small majority liked the sound of that alternate ending more than the one we got in the film. Results are after the jump.
Hesher, which opens in limited theatres (40 screens) today, has received very mixed reviews wherever it’s played, and now with the official release it seems that hasn’t changed much at all. Below are a few reviews highlighting the good, the bad and the in-between.
– Film Freak Central cough up a very positive 3 and a half stars.
The film culls numerous laughs from a psychopath who’s a comically inappropriate role model, but more than that, it offers a furious refutation of the popular portrayal of the Other as magical restorers of faith. (Similarly, T.J. is so enamoured of faraway crush Nicole (a heartbreaking Natalie Portman)–whose name is barely mentioned in the film–that he’s unable to see her as an adult struggling to get by.)
– Peter Travers is also on board with 3 stars.
As the film’s co-producer, Portman shows a bracing kinship with the indie spirit. So what if Hesher flies off its wobbly handles — it keeps springing funny and touching surprises. The performances are aces. Wilson makes Dad’s emergence a subtle marvel. And even when the script edges Gordon-Levitt into Hallmark sentiment, you can’t take your eyes off him.
And now for the pain…
Edge found a new taped interview on the subject of Thor. That stuff is...well, we've heard it a million times before. Most interesting was her last answer, where she expresses…
Natalie was spotted out heading to breakfast at Cafe Magador in Manhattan's East Village Tuesday morning. Candids courtesy of Just Jared.
Let's kick off the day with a new batch of mini updates. Did you know that mini updates are the 3rd greatest producer of oxygen, behind phytoplankton and trees? Fact!…
Rachel found this gorgeous photo of a costume fitting on Black Swan, and I don’t think she’s used it yet…so I’m going to steal it. Suck on that, Rachel!
Accompanying that, we have an interview with Natalie for the DVD launch in the UK. A lot of the quotes have been seen before but there’s some good new stuff (to me at least) in there as well.
On why working so hard the last couple years was partly a mistake:
It’s been a very strange time in the film industry where things fall apart. This film only had its financing for real only two weeks after we started shooting. It was always going to happen, then kept falling apart. Shooting was delayed four or five times. Films rarely come together. I committed to things that I really liked, but none of which were really solid, except for Thor. Thor was the only one that was really happening, and then everything happened. Every film got financed. So I ended up doing four films in a row – and this was the second. It…won’t happen again!
Just two tidbits today but they're goodies. - First up, my man crush Joseph Gordon-Levitt, has some really nice things to say about Natalie in this new Huffington Post piece.…
I've got a few different Hesher related news items and I thought I might as well put them all together in one update. Hesher opens in limited release this Friday.…