Tag: Natalie Portman

Thor Weekend Box Office Expected to Pound the Competition

Thor, the Marvel Studios movie take on the mythical god and comic book superhero staring Chris Hemsworth, is expected to pound the competition with its weekend box office take. Although Thor will probably not make it to the $86.2 million take from the debut of Fast Five last weekend, predictions are that it will bring home up to $70 million for Marvel Studios from the weekend box office.

Chris Hemsworth & Natalie Portman in 'Thor' - Marvel Studios

Of course, Thor does not have a lot of strong competition over the weekend besides Fast Five, now in its second week. The only two relatively large releases are both wedding comedies — Something Borrowed and Jumping the Broom. Neither is really likely to appeal that much to that big guy demographic. They are probably THRILLED to have an excuse to see Thor instead of having their girlfriends drag them to one of those sappy chick-flicks.

So far, Thor reviews have been decent on the whole, which is actually pretty high praise for a superhero movie. Still, it’s not exactly rocket science and it does also star Natalie Portman, who is one of Hollywood’s most wanted woman these days. Black Swan to No Strings Attached to  Thor, that girl certainly does pick the oddest movies…

Thor will undoubtably take the top spot at the weekend box office, followed by Fast Five at somewhere around $35 to $40 million. Something Borrowed and Jumping the Broom will battle it out, but we’re giving a slight edge to Something Borrowed. The G-Rated Rio will likely take the number five spot with its strong draw for the family with small kids crowd.

Another Portman body double speaks up

You have to wonder just how much of Natalie Portman‘s acting is actually hers.  First there was the body double from Black Swan who claimed that Natalie did almost none of the dancing she got so much praise for, and now a second double from the film Your Highness says that she was hired to strip down and dive into some water when Portman found the water too cold for her liking.

The double, Caroline Davis, admits that most of the scene in question features Portman’s body, but when it came to actually getting in the water, Portman drew the line and asked if someone else could be brought in to do it instead.

Fox Searchlight says Natalie Portman did her own dancing

Late last week, a dancer with the American Ballet Theatre claimed that she was the victim of a scam by Fox Searchlight, who were determined to tell whatever lies they had to tell to get an Oscar for Natalie Portman in Black Swan.

Sara Lane, who served as Portman’s body double, claims that Portman did less than 5% of the ballet dancing in the film, and that her face was digitally added to Lane’s body for most of the dance scenes.  Fox Searchlight says this claim is nonsense, and that Natalie did actually managed to learn how to dance like a professional in the 18 months she had to train for the role.  Lane says that’s simply impossible, that no one can dance like a pro after that short a training period.

Celebrities being hacked left and right

A ring of email hackers has decided to attack female celebrities, most notably actresses and gymnasts. Two Olympic gymnasts have had their private email accounts hacked, and actresses like Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Miley Cyrus have all had nude photos stolen from their inboxes.

Investigators with the FBI have been looking into the case, and apparently they claim to know who is heading up the hacking efforts, but they have not made any arrests yet.  No word on why – perhaps they’re waiting to catch the perpetrator in the act?  In any case, there may be more nude photos of female celebs in our future if this is left to continue for much longer.

Natalie Portman triumphs over John Galliano’s anti-semitism

Actress Natalie Portman, who recently got an endorsement deal to work with Christian Dior, got their chief designer John Galliano fired after a video surfaced of Galliano telling a young Jewish woman that she was ugly and that if only Hitler had been allowed to do his thing, all the woman’s ancestors would have been gassed, preventing her from ever existing.

Natalie, who is Jewish herself, was understandably infuriated by Galliano’s anti-semitism, and issued a statement saying that she would not be associated with Galliano in any way.  Dior made their choice: they got rid of Galliano, of course!  It’ll be interesting to see where this endorsement deal goes, though, now that Dior doesn’t have a chief designer anymore.

Oscar night: mostly predictable, one or two surprises

If you missed the Academy Awards last night, don’t worry: it went pretty much how you expected it to go.  The King’s Speech got the award for Best Picture, Natalie Portman won Best Actress, and Colin Firth took the Best Actor trophy.  So no shocks there.

What was surprising, however, was that The Social Network won so few awards, after early expectations that it would dominate the evening.  At least Christian Bale finally won something – that’s been long overdue.  Oh, and Justin Bieber showed up at various after-parties with Selena Gomez as his date, so I guess they’re finally owning up to being together.  As if we didn’t already know for months now!

Natalie Portman enjoying pregnancy, being the new Audrey Hepburn

Natalie Portman‘s life is going well right now – she’s engaged to be married to Benjamin Millepied, she’s pregnant with her first child, and she just won the Desert Palm Achievement award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.  Portman has said in interviews that her pregnancy got off to a rough start, but she’s feeling fine now and looking forward to the birth of her baby.

Jake Gyllenhaal had the honor of presenting Portman with her award, and in his presentation speech he called her “the Audrey Hepburn of our generation.”  Those are some pretty strong words, and I think it remains to be seen whether Portman will actually live up to them.  I like her, but I don’t think she’s quite up to Hepburn caliber just yet.