It's shockingly and disturbingly true that if you had to judge whether or not actress Natalie Portman could act based on the work she did in the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, then you might be forced to conclude she couldn't. Being perfectly honest, I thought she did fine, considering the weaknesses inherent in so much of the material. Whatever the case, she did show us her midriff in Attack of the Clones, and, for that, male fandom will always be happy.
Portman was born on this day in 1981.
Portman was born on this day in 1981.
BIRTHDAYS
I've said it before, and even today I stand by it: sci-fi comedies are not easy to accomplish. You need an absolute winning combination of ideas, emotion, and talent. Fortunately, Back to the Future excelled in all of those requirements, and much its success was do to the affable big-screen charm of its leading man: Michael J. Fox. Fox was born on this day in 1961.
Hollywood leading man Johnny Depp has struggled to capitalize on the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, so maybe he ought to stick with what he does best: pirates. 2014's Transcendence was a particularly brutal box office failure (on the heels of an equally curious debacle that was The Lone Ranger, which incidentally was incomprehensibly bad), but I suspect his future remains bright. Depp was born on this day in 1963.
Lovely lass Mae Whitman has certainly come a long way from playing the President's precocious daughter in Roland Emmerich's Independence Day (1996). She did a great comic turn on Fox TV's Arrested Development, and she continues to be one of the most sought after young actresses in demand today. Good for you, girl! Whitman was born on this day in 1988.
SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES
Being as old as I am, I've often found it difficult to impress upon younger viewers -- say today's youth -- what science fiction was like back in the day when the first episode of Star Wars set the movie industry on fire. Everyone -- and I do mean "everyone" -- wanted in on that action, even when that meant greenlighting G-rated films to bring in the masses. Case in point: Walt Disney's The Cat from Outer Space premiered theatrically on this day in 1978. And where's the reboot, Hollywood? Huh? Where's that reboot? Grumpy Cat's available.
I'll agree with most that it's hard to figure out what to make out of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, which premiered on this day theatrically back in 1989. Sure, the plot left audiences kinda/sorta scratching their head, but -- for all its blemishes -- Trek V has some of the best character moments (i.e. the campfire scene, Sybok discovering Spock's and Bones' respective 'pains,' etc.) in the entire film series.
Here's the plot summary from IMDB.com:
"Captain Kirk and his crew must deal with Mr. Spock's long-lost half-brother who hijacks the Enterprise for an obsessive search for God at the center of the galaxy."
Here's the plot summary from IMDB.com:
"Captain Kirk and his crew must deal with Mr. Spock's long-lost half-brother who hijacks the Enterprise for an obsessive search for God at the center of the galaxy."
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