Will Natalie Portman Survive The Oscar Curse?

Fresh off her Golden Globe win, mom-to-be Natalie Portman is sure to shine this Sunday night at the 83rd Academy Awards. Favored to win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Black Swan, all eyes will be on the gorgeous 29-year-old actress. How will she dress her baby bump? Will she walk the red carpet with fiancé Benjamin Millepied?

But what's to come in the weeks following Hollywood's biggest night? Will another couple succumb to the 'Oscar curse' this year? Should she win an Oscar, will Amy Adams and fiancé Darren Le Gallo stay together? Will Natalie and Benjamin beat the curse after the trophy?

Continue reading about the fabulous women who have won Oscars and have split with their significant others shortly after their big win.

Sandra Bullock and Jesse James

From Oscar to Split: 1 week
Just one week after Sandra Bullock won the Academy Award for her performance in The Blind Side last year, we were all blindsided by the news of an affair between Sandy B's hubby, Jesse James, and heavily tattooed mistress, Michelle “Bombshell” McGee.

Could we have predicted this split? Sure, the motorcycle tycoon seemed an unlikely match for America's Sweetheart, but could there have been another obvious indicator? Did we forget about the Oscar curse?

Kate Winslet and Sam Mendes

From Oscar to Split: 1 year
When Kate Winslet won Best Actress in 2009 for The Reader, Winslet thanked her "wonderful husband and two beautiful children who let me do what I love and who love me just the way that I am." Just days after the 2010 Academy Awards, the mom-of-two announced the end of her 6 1/2-year marriage to the Oscar-winning filmmaker.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck

From Oscar to Split: 2 months
When Gwyneth Paltrow won her Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Shakespeare in Love, she was reportedly in love with Ben Affleck. The couple split two months later.

Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe

From Oscar to Split: 11 months
When Hilary Swank won her second Best Actress Oscar in 2005 for her performance in Million Dollar Baby, Hilary said to Chad, "You are my everything." But by January, she had announced her separation from her husband of eight years, citing his "substance-abuse."

Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend

From Oscar to Split: 6 years
As Charlize Theron accepted her Oscar for Monster in 2004, she thanked her longtime love Stuart Townsend: "I have to thank my incredible partner in crime. You are one hell of a partner to have. Thank you for standing by me." The couple ended their nine-year relationship in January 2010.

Halle Berry and Eric Benet

From Oscar to Split: 7 months
In 2002, Halle Berry took home the Best Actress Oscar for Monster's Ball. The gorgeous actress star stood by her man when he went to rehab for sex addiction. But seven months later, Halle announced her separation from her husband of three years.

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe

From Oscar to Split: 7 months
Seven months after thanking her "wonderful husband" during her 2006 Best Actress acceptance speech for her performance in Walk the Line, Witherspoon filed for divorce from Phillippe and got joint custody of their two children, Ava and Deacon.

Julia Roberts and Benjamin Bratt

From Oscar to Split: 3 months
When Julia Roberts was awarded Best Actress for Erin Brockovich in 2001, she barely acknowledged her beau Benjamin Bratt in her speech. Just three months later, the couple of nearly four years called it quits.

Oscars Disqualify Clint Mansell's Score for 'Black Swan' & Others

While it does seem like quite an injustice, the ruling isn't all that surprising. Award Central is reporting that several motion picture scores have been disqualified from being considered for the Oscar for Best Original Score. In all cases, it's not a lack of quality, but rather an abundance of unoriginal music. The four films that will not be getting an Oscar love include Clint Mansell's haunting yet beautiful score for Black Swan, Carter Burwell's compositions for True Grit and the less prominent scores for both The Fighter and The Kids Are All Right. For details on why these scores have been disqualified from awards contention, keep reading below.

In the case of Black Swan and True Grit, they have both been excluded because they exist as "scores diluted by the use of tracked themes or other pre-existing music." Black Swan is adapted from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and no matter how much creativity and beauty his score brought to the film, it's simply not "original" enough. The same can be said for True Grit which apparently bases most of its music on 19th century hymns and is therefore not sufficiently "original" as well. On the other end of the spectrum, apparently The King's Speech, which raised concerns because of prominent unoriginal classical-music excerpts, has been deemed eligible for the awards.

Meanwhile, both The Kids Are All Right (also composed by Burwell) and The Fighter (composed by Michael Brook) have been disqualified as scores that are "diminished in impact by the predominant use of songs." Since both of the film use various songs that make up more of a soundtrack than the motion picture score, these films apparently don't have enough music composed specifically for the film to be considered for an Oscar.  With several Best Picture contenders' scores out of the running, it's open season for any other composers to get the award this year. Maybe Alexandre Desplat will get two nominations for both The King's Speech and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I.

The Dancers Weigh In on ‘Black Swan’

Natalie Portman in “Black Swan.”

Tis the season when the Bagger has to go to other people’s holiday parties. On Monday night, we stopped by the Fox Searchlight party at the Hudson Hotel, where Sam Rockwell, Juliette Lewis and Darren Aronofsky mingled among hordes of Oscar bloggers and other media people out for the free drinks and trays of cheese. 

Anyway, we made a beeline for the mustachioed Mr. Aronofsky, drinking a beer from the bottle by the bar. Now that his movie “Black Swan” has opened across the country – doing impressively well at the box office, even in a limited release – the dance world has had a chance to respond. Aside from a discussion about judging bodies in ballet, it is the hot topic this week.

Wendy Whelan, the veteran principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, whom Mr. Aronofsky initially approached for research, was a skeptic turned fan. In The Daily Beast, she praised Natalie Portman’s performance as Nina Sayers, a ballerina torn apart psychologically by the pressures of “Swan Lake.”

“Dancers learn to take on these subtle head-trips every day,” Ms. Whelan wrote. “Going to those depths is a unique part of our job as performing artists.” The movie made her reflect on her entire career, she said.

“I thought it was absolutely awesome,” Ashley Bouder, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet and prolific intermission Tweeter, wrote in The Huffington Post. But Ms. Bouder went on to acknowledge the pervasiveness of dance stereotypes – “the stage mom, the anorexic or bulimic, the other ballerina out to get your roles, the obsessive perfectionist, etc. They are all represented in this movie to an extreme level,” she wrote – and noted that the movie has “offended” some people.

In a blog post titled “Black Swan – Better Than I Thought, But…” Wendy Perron, the editor in chief of Dance Magazine, lists the convincing and unconvincing parts of the movie. Among the believable things: the perfectionism of the dancers and the little-girl voices in which they often speak.

“The artistic director Tom, who is supposedly choreographing his own version of Swan Lake, seems much more involved in mind games with his leading ladies than actually making a ballet,” she writes. “If he were really working on the choreography, he wouldn’t have time for those power trips.”

“I think it’s time for a dance movie with a happy ending,” Ms. Perron added. “Where a ballerina actually takes pleasure in performing. Where she stays psychologically on balance and enjoys camaraderie with her fellow dancers. Where she finds satisfaction in her career.”

At the Fox party, Mr. Aronofsky took the criticism from the dance world in stride. “It’s one story,”he said. “It’s Nina Sayers’ story, and ultimately, it’s not really about the dance world, it’s about ‘Swan Lake,’ ” Then he accused the Bagger of stirring up trouble. (Us? Never!)

“My feedback from dancers so far has been really positive,” he added. “I went to ‘The Nutcracker’ on Saturday with my son, and we went backstage, and there was Peter Martins and he came to say hi, and he said he hasn’t seen it, but we said, what are they saying, and he said, my dancers love it.”

For the record, the Bagger loved it, too. Even better: Mr. Aronofsky paid for his own tickets to “The Nutcracker.”