The stripper that doesn’t strip

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It seems Closer, the play, is getting the cobwebs brushed off and is coming back to the stage. In this reporting of the news from the Dallas Observer, they say the following about Natalie:


Natalie Portman is smart. You gotta give her that. She went to Harvard, got straight A’s, etc. But sometimes that chick confuses me. For instance, in the movie Closer (2004), she played a petite stripper who, get this, didn’t strip. No nudity whatsoever. But then in Wes Anderson’s 2007 short film Hotel Chevalier, in which Portman played a petite girl in a hotel room, she did strip. Nudity was everywhere. Where’s the logic in that? I guess even a bona fide Harvard education doesn’t help much in conundrums involving nudity.


This is a complaint that comes up every now and then and it drives me nuts every time. Playing a stripper that doesn’t strip would admittedly be pretty ridiculous, but I don’t know what version other people are watching because on my DVD the character DOES strip for Clive. What people really mean is that WE don’t get to see “the goods” and if you feel that way, fine, but then just say that.
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Here come the sharks

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This report of Natalie and Sean Penn having dinner (along with 3 other people) was like throwing chum into the sea. That article was pretty subtle about their accusation. But Star Magazine doesn’t do subtle.

“They went to a bank of elevators that only goes to the spa or to private rooms,” an eyewitness tells Star. “They came back about 45 minutes later, and that’s when I saw them making out.”

“There’s a door outside of the hotel’s Tower Bar that has a bridge to the terrace, so it’s semi-private,” the eyewitness explains. “I used that path to get to the restroom, and when I came back, I had to go through some curtains – and that’s when I interrupted Sean and Natalie! When they saw me, they were startled and quickly composed themselves.”


While I can’t say it didn’t happen (I wasn’t there. I was playing ping pong with Dustin Lance Black.) I think Star’s reputation is as flimsy as it gets. The original report was probably closer to what really happened.
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