I’ve always wondered why Natalie Portman was such a geek icon, but the final transformation in this video clarifies all.
(via BoingBoing)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I’ve always wondered why Natalie Portman was such a geek icon, but the final transformation in this video clarifies all.
(via BoingBoing)
well that’s 4 mins 58 secs of my life i’m not getting back.
What the heck was that? Needed to be a bigger octopus. That one looked like lunch. Well, Now it looks like I won’t finish the coffee until 26 minutes past t0. That would be t=5*N+1 where N=5, which is prime.
At the end I had exactly the same thought as Kryth.
hehe… wait for it… about 7 seconds before the end.
Is this some sort of Bollywood rip-off / remake?
That is delightfully bizarre. :-)
Wow, that was, um, interesting. But I can see why you were excited PZ! I am sure that Natalie choose to turn into an octopus just for you.
What struck me most forcefully (one track mind) is the spectacular blending of human culture this represents. Notice how comfortably we accept, how easily we understand, the symbols and icons of Indian culture? Fantastic, there may be hope for humanity yet.
The bit at the end was wierd though, a beastly outrage against universal human decency!:-P Humanity for the Humans! Down with …. this kind of thing!
Careful now.
The only thing I understand for certain about this video is that I am not in the target demographic.
I did laugh a lot, though.
Wait… what? Who spiked my coffee with LSD?
To be honest, I’ve always found Natalie Portman to be a bit irritating. Maybe that’ll change now she’s an octopus.
Bizarre, but not unfathomable. I’m curious as to who’s brainchild this was…and how the hell they got ms. portman involved.
So…PZ…are you familiar with Genki Genki?
She’s beginning to remind me of Winona Ryder, And that’s never a good thing.
Zeno:
I think you’ve come up with the politest way imaginable to say “WTF?”
I must confess, I don’t understand the meaning of the “slow-moving-vehicle” triangle on his forehead at the end. Perhaps the goddess is about to turn him into an Amish buggy?
Natalie was a recent guest judge on Project Runway. For someone who started her own fashion line, albeit shoes-only, she had a lot of trouble articulating her thoughts on the contestants’ work. I was surprised, and disappointed. Perhaps she needs a script for more than the movies she’s in.
Bah?
“Natalie Portman achieves new levels of hotness”
No she hasn’t.
Oh you mean “hot” as in fire… oh… ok.
Phro #12, the guy’s her boyfriend. The things people do for love, eh?
Wait, wait, wait…
That guy in the beginning had his knife stuck down the front of his loincloth (eek!) and then *licked* it when he pulled it out?
Something is dreadfully wrong here!
The video mentions Enochian levels and the alphabet of desire? I think Portmans boyfriend bungled his understanding of Hinduism and injected some Chaos Magick in its stead?
Anyway, wonderfully trippy.
I always thought that started with her in the Star Wars movies …
Umm,,, why are those Indians doing a music video in Spanish?
Oh – yeah – she’s dating a Venezuelan Folk Singer and ended up in his video… I found it entertaining to watch…once. Here’s a blurb on the video:
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/celeb/articles/2008/07/23/20080723portman.html
I always figured that she was a geek icon because she has a finite Erdos number.
Stick to the science talkin’ stuff.
Unless there is some sort of relevance of the crown of Devendra Bernhardt’s pubes to the trajectory of human evolution.
Chancelikley@24: That’s what I thought too. (Her and Danica McKellar. Danica’s is lower.)
Also, I agree that octopus needs to be a lot bigger.
Yeah, I found it kind of bad the man-on-octopus stuff just doesn’t work for me. Sorry. ;^)
“I’ve always wondered why Natalie Portman was such a geek icon”
She’s published in a peer reviewed journal (doi:10.1006/nimg.2002.1170). As a result of this she has a defined Erdös number, and is therefore one of the few people with an Erdös-Bacon number.
Well, if you liked that you’ll surely like this Orangina ad.
Did my laughing uproariously throughout the vid constitute a hate crime against a particular brand of religion (some meshuga gemisch of Hinduism with tremendous erotic overtones?)
The captions were flashed too fast, but I got this hilarious bit: Crush this crippled crow into mashed potatoes. I could be imagining this, but I swear they started to dance the Mashed Potatoes at that point.
Anyways, the Royal Contender is some hot dude.
I am by nature an extremely polite person.
And as for PZ’s comment about Portman’s “new levels of hotness”, I’m sure he doesn’t mean either her beauty or her self-immolating fire. He means turning into an octopus.
Hey, isn’t that PZ at 3:56 ?
Ok.
Natalie Portman was in “The Professional” with Gary Oldman.
Gary Oldman was in “Hannibal” with Anthony Hopkins.
Anthony Hopkins was in “The Road to Wellville” with Matthew Broderick.
Matthew Broderick was in “Ferris Bueler’s Day Off” with Ben Stein.
Ben Stein was in “Expelled” with PZ.
(That took me 16 minutes.)
#22
I think you mean: Why are those Americans pretending to be Indians doing a music video in Spanish?
I don’t know about you all, but I found it difficult to read the captions and look at Natalie at the same time. Damn she is beautiful!
Wow, that’s a bit much for a hungover brain to process on one cup of coffee. I need a beer now to cancel that mind fuck. Thanks. :)
No idea why she’s a geek icon? She has an Erdos-Bacon number!
Catchy tune. Funny, you can’t kiss other people in Bollywood but you can kiss an octopus. I hope they don’t take human and animal sexual relations any further.
Hey PZ,
I don’t know why everyone is being so negative about this (and yes, Phro at 12, I know what Genki genki is ;).
But one question; did you write the script for this little show by any chance??…..
Erdös number of 4! W00t! Thanks, Eric Lander!
*ahem*
/geek
Actually…
P.Z. Myers was in _Expelled_ with Ben Stein.
Ben Stein was in _Osmosis Jones_ with Bill Murray.
Bill Murray was in _The Darjeeling Limited_ with Natalie Portman.
Therefore, P.Z. is only three degrees separated from a cepholopod.
I didnt care to see the dudes bush!!
Very good, Christopher!
Now, do we express that fact as:
“PZ has a Portman number of 3”
or as:
“Natalie Portman has a PZ number of 3”?
Even Hotter.
Did you catch the name of the piece? “Carmensita.” “Carmen.”
Okay, I’ll admit I enjoyed the hell out of that, but that could be the newborn-induced sleep deprivation talking. Why, though, didn’t they edit out the footage of the prince dropping the octopus?
Xander: Is she dying?
Buffy: I think she’s singing.
Xander: To a telephone in Hindi. Now that’s entertainment!
Xander: Why is she singing?
Willow: She’s sad because her lover gave her twelve gold coins, but then the wizard cut open the bag of salt, and now the dancing minions have nowhere to put their big maypole… fish thing.
Xander: Uh-huh. Why is she singing?
Buffy: Her lover? I thought that was her chiropractor.
Willow: Because of that thing he did with her feet? No, that was personal.
Xander: Is she dying?
Buffy: I think she’s singing.
Xander: To a telephone in Hindi. Now that’s entertainment!
Xander: Why is she singing?
Willow: She’s sad because her lover gave her twelve gold coins, but then the wizard cut open the bag of salt, and now the dancing minions have nowhere to put their big maypole… fish thing.
Xander: Uh-huh. Why is she singing?
Buffy: Her lover? I thought that was her chiropractor.
Willow: Because of that thing he did with her feet? No, that was personal.
Sorry about the double post. The first said it timed out.
“Carmencita” (diminutive form of “Carmen”) is misspelled. It’s a common misspelling, but a misspelling anyway.
Just chimed in to say that.
That’s a funny sendup of Bollywood musicals. Have you actually sat through one? They deserve a good mocking.
I wonder when the wingnuts will start railing against “Bollywood values”. How will they manage to blame the Jews?
Andrés Diplotti,
Love “Molecular Snobbery.”
Ever see Ghost World? In the intro, Thora Birch dances to Mohammed Rafi’s Jaan Pehechaan ho.
Okay, we’ve got a Hollywood style musical, sung in Spanish, loosely based on Carmen, and it has an octopus. That has got to be the single weirdest parody ever, and if it’s not a parody then someone needs to lay off the acid.
Ooops, that should say Bollywood not Hollywood. Do not always trust Firefox spell check.
I didnt care to see the dudes bush!!
Posted by: Rog | August 2, 2008 11:43 AM
_______
Your concern is noted and it is stupid.
(That Royal Contender is just yummy).
Portman became a geek icon with “The Professional”. Her acting was phenomenal for a 12yo. Then she was MomSkywalker for the Star Wars set…her scenes with Hayden are among the worst I’ve ever seen…and I have watched Ed Wood’s flicks. “V for Vendetta” made use of her considerable notoriety.
Essentially she has been in films that were hits with the fanboy base. Try not to learn of her disgust and dismissive attitude towards the fans that have made her wealthy and employed. Snotty doesn’t begin to describe her.
Watched her on ‘Runway’. She looks good on camera and can repeat a script. Forming thoughts are what the studious kids did. Why in Dagon’s Name would you assume she has the brains of an undergrad?
SC @51
Why, thank you.
I loved this video. I don’t think her boyfriend ‘bungled’ anything, though. It’s clear that the Enochian talk and whatnot was all meant as a very silly joke and not meant to be taken as a serious depiction of genuine occultism. The whole thing is a great joke and yes, Natalie Portman is an uber-babe and her smarts only make her sexier.
#8 Brian
You are sentenced to view one entire Bollywood Musical non-stop for that outburst of optimism.
In a MOVIE Theatre /menacingVoice
I lament that we do not have Dr. Fry on this thread so he can enlighten us as to what species of snake are shot from the forehead.
As far as hot, the blue chick from Star Trek, and Natalie Portman in the same video is good enough for me. I think she’s a classic beauty when not in a Lucas production.
It’s also a great characiture of the intended target —-Bollywood.
I don’t know, I never saw the attraction to Natalie Portman at all. She’s sure the hell not good looking, she really can’t act and judging by this music video, her decision-making skills in choosing roles is questionable at best.
Oh wait, these are geeks we’re talking about. She’s got tits, that’s all that counts.
haha, I just figured out what the Erdos-Bacon number means. Laughed my ass off, that’s hilarious.
from wiki
So much for that love affair or pretense of intellectualism, Apparently she thinks as well as she dances.
Hey Natalie, you have hips, you’re supposed to move them a little.
Didn’t anyone notice? PZ is actually in the video, at 3:55-3:56.
Can anyone confirm the buzz that she is a co-author of an optics paper under her real name?
I saw that in Parade, that paragon of truth and beauty.
Oh, admit it everyone, that was a cool song. Well, the drawn-out coda was a bit of a problem, but that guitar lick was the shizzle.
“She’s sure the hell not good looking”
Yes, what a total cow she is. (?)
I’m remembering my freshman year in college now, and being in someone’s room while they and a bunch of others were flipping through some celebrity photo web site and grumbling at most of the photos. I suggested clicking on Uma Thurman (an object of some desire for me at that time), and they roundly dismissed her pictures, too. Many of the shots were not the most flattering to their subjects, but the level of jadedness toward them was still pretty amusing. I was thinking, “You guys will never meet any girls as attractive as any of these starlets and you know it.” Has our culture desensitized us toward human beauty?
Portman was Dershowitz’s student when she was hired as his reasearch assistant. She’s also know to appopse many of his views, something she shares with close friend Susan Sarandon. She doesn’t have anything aaginst the Palestinians (hell she works for one of the most famous Palestinians), she’s hardly a Zionist.
Yes, she co-authored such a paper under her real name, a paper that has been cited in literally dozens of other published papers. She won several science whathaveyous when she was in high school and she, if I recall correctly, was skipped ahead either in jr high or high school. She’s not a genius, but she’s not brain dead. I don’t know what it is about famous people going to good schools that brings out the petty b*tch in people, but it’s lame. Especially when they get some of their info off IMDb.
I do not like Devendra Banhart. He’s a little too weird for my taste.
#64 (see also #28)
Baird AA, Kagan J, Gaudette T, Walz KA, Hershlag N, Boas DA. “Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy.” Neuroimage 16:1120-1125, 2002.
It’s his rebellious beard. There’s nothing quite like a rebellious beard for driving girls wild.
That was pretty awesome. I too am puzzled as to why so many are so negative towards it. I can see it not being one’s “cup of tea” but I cannot imagine how it could really bother anyone.
As for Portman’s iconic status, I would guess that its because despite the fact that she is a pretty woman, I think she is also not intimidatingly so for that particular type. She’s doesn’t have the vibe of the sort of statuesque knockout that they might be a little scared to talk to. The fact that she was a key player in one of the big sci-fi epics also doesn’t hurt I guess.
a 6
1 O O, o o eue e i you ae
o iiie e i you a.
2 e eiu o e, O, o I a ai;
O O, ea e, o y oe ae i aoy.
3 y ou i i aui.
o o, O O, o o?
4 u, O O, a eie e;
ae e eaue o you uaii oe.
5 o oe eee you e e i ea.
o aie you o e ae
6 I a o ou o oai;
a i o I oo y e i eei
a e y ou i ea.
7 y eye o ea i oo;
ey ai eaue o a y oe.
8 Aay o e, a you o o ei,
o e O a ea y eei.
9 e O a ea y y o ey;
e O ae y aye.
10 A y eeie i e aae a iaye;
ey i u a i ue iae.
[Jack is banned and deserves deconsonanting]
More like new levels of “notness.”
This “parody” fell completely flat for me. It relied too much on the cheapness of the originals it parodied and instead didn’t so much as parody old Bollywood videos but, rather, just made a worse one of their own. Not really funny or enjoyable to watch.
As to Portman, I did sort of enjoy her ribald rap on SNL:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1404/saturday-night-live-snl-digital-short-natalie-raps
I can’t believe I watched that whole thing… But it was mildly fascinating.
Who’s the cephalopod expert around here? Did she turn into a squid or an octopus?
Was that PZ in the front left at 3:56?
Well, I for one didn’t need any cephalopodical transmogrification to convinced me of Portman’s hotness, but the ensuing discussion of Erdos-Bacon numbers led me to some fascinating Googling. Not only do both Portman and Danica McKellar (and BTW, y’all can have Winnie Cooper; I’ll take Elsie Snuffin any day) have finite (and low!) E-B numbers, but also Mayim Bialik! Who knew Blossom was such a scholar?
Jack, whats with the psalms? this is the second one posted here kind of left field or am I missing something?
That song in the video is a pastiche of the chord progressions and arpeggios of “riders on the storm” AND “L.A. Woman” And “Light my Fire”
The guy kinda looks like Jim Morrison too
Andrès @ 49:
It’s a play on Sita.
I loved it in a salad way.
Psalm 23.5
And yea, though I shall walk through
the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
I shall fear no evil.
For I am the evilest son of a bitch
In the valley.
Or something like that. You’ll have to ask Jack for a proper rendition.
PZ you need to get out more!
Peculiarity is its own greatness! If it’s good enough for PBF, its good enough for me!
What in the living beejeesus was that?!?!?!?
C’mon. It’s joyous music that doesn’t take itself seriously.
my two favourites:
I loved it. And I’m one of them middle aged guys working on being a boring old fart.
But then, I grew up in London, where I was greatly influenced by Indian culture (and oh…the food!). And I spent much of my life in Spanish cultures, too – European as well as Central/South American.
Now I’m not one to put anything up as an idol or worship such (I guess that puts me on the right blog, somehow), but Natalie Portman has always been the exception, ever since “Leon.”
So once again it’s a “just…wow” situation as far as she’s concerned. On the other hand…that’s her boyfriend? Good Lord!* If she was that desperate all she had to do was call me – I may be older, but experience counts (as does less prominent pubic hair).
Andy
*figure of speech :)
Only the Enochian Ninth Circuit (the most liberal Enochian Circuit) would allow Natalie Portman to make a video with a nine-headed Ron Jeremy.
First thing Eric Idle said at the Hollywood Bowl last night: Welcome to the Bollywood Hole! My favorite part was when he told the people in the very front to fuck off.
#32, #63, and #72: What do they have in common?
Fame for acting, modeling, politicking, etc will fuck with your ego. As for her not liking her fan base, neither did Sir Alec Guinness. He hated Star Wars, Star Wars fans, and being known overwhelmingly for his part in such a shitty (in his eyes) series.
That said, she is physically beautiful. Also, there was a documentary not so long ago where she traveled to Africa with her mother to visit a gorilla sanctuary was very well done. She came across as nothing more horrific than a young woman who wanted to do something for her mom (the trip) and publicize conservation/ preservation projects.
Truly surreal.
She’s got tits, that’s all that counts.
That’s debatable… but I have always liked women with a little, how you say… OOMPH. You know you’ve been working in the Bronx for a long time when you wish your girlfriend’s butt were just a little bit bigger. Ms. Portman certainly has delicate, well-molded features, but I found the other women in the video (esp. Kali, resplendent in blue) to be more alluring.
I think most of her Geek cred was due to being in “Leon/The Professional”, a movie which struck a nerve with the “perv demographic”. Hell, there was even a “Countdown to Legality” website up for a while.
Lastly, watching this video, I could only think that Ms. Portman’s career would have been better served if she had appeared in Turkish Star Wars Episodes I-III, rather than Lucas’ knockoffs.
Well, ok.
At the end, when Natalie goes all octi on us, the Hairy Dude picks her up and then promptly…DROPS HER!
Then a quick edit and H.D. has her safely in hand. What a tool. And, at 0:42 we have the following inspired narration:
“…and bathed in the milk of their sacred teat.”
Now, who could argue with that?
HaHaHaHaHa!, that’s gr…wait, what?
Best alternative Star Wars Ending EVAR in 33 seconds
“At the end, when Natalie goes all octi on us, the Hairy Dude picks her up and then promptly…DROPS HER!
Then a quick edit and H.D. has her safely in hand. What a tool.”
“Why, though, didn’t they edit out the footage of the prince dropping the octopus?”
Because it was a joke? You know, funny? Laughter?
“Yes, she co-authored such a paper under her real name”
That’s a shame, that she had to change her name to get into acting. I mean, Shia LeBeouf can use his real name, why not Natalie Hershlag?
She’s a nice Jewish girl whose Mom and Aunt both grew up in Cincinnati with me. Her grandparents and my parents were friends and they were a very nice family.
We (the kids)all went to a nice public college prep. school and eventually ended up in show biz. after college so Natalie is just following along being much more successful than we ever were! Good for her.
That’s how they’ll blame it on the Jews #50 and since I’m here there must be some degree of separation between me and PZ but it’s way to complicated for me.
Okay THAT was freakin weird… but funny! I love the music. Downloaded an MP3 of it from Amazon for 99 cents.
And now I am performing the cosmic dance of creation and destruction. If I transform into a demon avatar, I’ll try not to eat my own head.
The Sanskrit(?) title says ‘Kama Sutram’.
It’s loosely based on Ramayana, the story of Rama, Sita and Ravana.
The Cosmic Dance belongs to Siva and the villain should have 10 heads, not nine. Oh well.
From what little I know of Bollywood, this one is pretty much spot on.
Well I was happily pleased once the music and singing started, in that it was at least an octave lower than anything coming out of Bollywood. It’s like they want to pierce my eardrums with that high-pitched squawking.