Tuneful Tuesday Travel - begin in 1994 NYC, recede to 1948 Casablanca, fast forward to this summer

As promised, here's another Natalie Portman movie clip; this one is set to music by a brilliant youtuber named VictoriaVenom. It's Leon the Professional with Sting's Shape of My Heart. Portman was 13 when she made this film.





She gave a funny little interview with Letterman while promoting it. There are several clips from that here and here and here and here. It's in 4 parts. She is delightful. It's fun to contrast that appearance with this more recent one, ten years later in 2004, for Garden State.

Okay, so now you have probably gotten your fill of Natalie Portman for the day. If not, you're going to have to go elsewhere on the interweb for a fix.

I really like Jean Reno. I'd assumed he was French after seeing him in The Pink Panther. In Léon, he plays an Italian immigrant. But it turns out that IMDB reports he is Spanish:

Born in Casablanca, Morocco, to Spanish parents (from Andalusia) who moved to North Africa to escape the fascist regime of Francisco Franco ("El Caudillo"), Jean Reno settled in France at 17.

In case you're wondering, Casablanca, the beloved classic with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, was filmed just six years before Reno was born. Casablanca was filmed entirely on the Warners lot except for one scene in which L.A. Municipal Airport stood in for Casablanca airport. Oh well. That's the magic of Hollywood for you.

What's funny is that Wikipedia calls him a French actor despite noting his Spanish parentage. His birth name was Don Juan Moreno y Herrera Jiménez. Other fun Wikipedia factoids:

On July 29, 2006, the actor married model and actress Zofia Borucka, 35, at the city hall of Baux-de-Provence in southern France. The French President (at the time, only a Presidential candidate) Nicolas Sarkozy was his best man. (Reno endorsed Sarkozy for the 2007 French Presidential Elections.

I'll bet you were wondering if I'd write a politics-free post two days in a row.

Obviously not. But if you watched all the Portman clips, you already knew that.

This summer, Professor X and I are taking the Amazing Children to New York City. We are looking forward to a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Statue of Liberty, Zabar's Deli, the Natural History Museum, the UN, and Ellis Island. We're hoping to score some discounted play tickets the day of performance. Beyond those activities, I am wide open to all your suggestions. I figure we'll look for an apartment rental service similar to the one we used in Paris. But I'm a little freaked about all the notes on Tripadvisor warning of apartment rental scams... Ack! If you have a recommendation, let me know.