MATHILDA

I think I’ve written about my love for this film before, maybe a couple of times more than I should have, but it was the film that first introduced me to Natalie Portman for the first time, way back when I was a 14/15 year old, and Nat was not much younger than me… and aside from loving this film so much, and the performance that she gave in it, even though it happened to be her debut and she was only 12/13 years old at the time… I was in awe of her.

And then, years later, something unexpected happened when I was able to log on to the internet for the first time, and look up stuff that I always wanted to see… and she was there, she did exist after all (and mattered as much to a lot of other people as she did to me) and we were all there, all these great guys and girls who had come together to form this community where we could talk about almost everything under the sun, including-obviously, the beautiful Miss Hershlag…

What brought on this sudden burst of emotion you might ask: well, they just released this “special edition” of LEON: The Professional and I just finished seeing it today, and all the memories started flooding back to me… I mean, sure, there were always going to be movies like Heat and Good Will Hunting that would introduce me to actors like Matt and Al, but Natalie could really hold her own with any one of them… okay, maybe not Marlon from On the Waterfront, but then who can—right.

Anyway, I just finished seeing it right now, and you wanna know something—not two days ago did a guy who I knew from there (like almost 10 years ago) get in touch with me, and boy did that bring back a lot of feelings. We had fun, all of us over there, and I guess I’ll always have Nat to thank for that. (((I still think she should’ve won her Oscar for Leon, dammit, and not that other film in which all I saw her doing was ballet-ing all over the place… good Ballet, but, come on—just a best supporting actress Oscar for Leon would’ve been nice, or even a nomination—at least)))