Monday Morning Quarterback

By BOP Staff

January 24, 2011

Does anyone remember that I led a mediocre team to the NFC championship? Anyone?

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Max Braden: I would say Portman, too, for the short term, but I think a lot of that is due to her choice projects. Even though she's playing it loose with No Strings Attached, she doesn't come across as very approachable. Kutcher on the other hand seems unfocused but could pull out a longer career near the top if he turned his charm into something a little more serious.

Tim Briody: Easily Natalie Portman, although despite what she's got in the can and the Oscar nomination that's about to come her way, now that she's married and preggers there's always the chance she'll put family first. But anyway, did you know that her highest earning film minus the Star Wars prequels (until Black Swan passes it in a couple weeks) is Cold Mountain, something I didn't even know she was in? She's never been a draw, though that's largely due to the projects she's picked. I think the country is over Kelso and the bulk of No Strings Attached's opening goes to her credit. If she doesn't do the mom thing for a few years, look out.

Brett Beach: I feel that Kutcher is just as well known as of late for his camera ads as for his film career (and approaches the same level of endearment to me in one as in the other, which is to say not much) and unless he opts to stretch in a Butterfly Effect type role again, will either roll along in these types of parts or pursue something else. Portman is a once Oscar nominee about to become a twice Oscar nominee and branching out this year into - Star Wars prequels aside - some of the most accessibly commercial parts of her career. I don't see any way in which the next three years of her career don't trump his hands down unless a)she gives up acting entirely to be a full-time mother or b) he takes over as James Bond or some already iconic superhero.




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Side comment to Bruce: It was Beautiful Girls that first convinced me of her potential for greatness (the only Besson film I can truly get into is The Big Blue).

Michael Lynderey: I believe Portman is pretty much the biggest female movie star of the moment - but the whole premise is that these moments are fleeting. Heigl turns to Adams turns to Seyfried and, in these wintry months, over to Portman. She'll keep this idea going with Your Highness and Thor, but it's really difficult to see how she can one-up herself after that. I somehow suspect that she won't go into that Bullockian world of romantic comedies, even though she'd probably be welcome to it. Something more along a Meryl Streep-type career seems like a better match.

As for Kutcher, he's been a very solid draw - on a certain level and with the right type of film - since Just Married broke out almost eight years to the day. While he's still young, and he is, he can keep playing the prototypical Kutcher slacker role, probably for most of this decade, and play it will enough (at the box office, certainly). What comes beyond that is hard to gage. At the moment, it's not looking like he's getting into that really elite club of Damons and Pitts, but he's doing well.


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