Jake Gyllenhaal compliments Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman, for Miss Dior Cherie perfume ad.

Jake Gyllenhaal out for a jog in his Livestrong tracksuit in Hollywood on 8th January 2011

Jake Gyllenhaal out with Natalie Portman in NYC on 22nd May 2006

"Jake Gyllenhaal, who briefly dated Natalie in 2006, recently showered the “Black Swan” beauty with compliments — even comparing her to one of America’s most beloved film stars.
Jake Gyllenhaal with Natalie Portman at the 22nd Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival on 8th January 2011

“Natalie is the Audrey Hepburn of our generation,” Jake said on Saturday, before awarding the actress with the Desert Palm Achievement Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, according to People. “She is elegant, graceful, has amazing eyebrows … is talented, really short, funny, smart, dedicated, incredibly kind.”
“She’s a vegan, which makes it really frustrating when you’re picking a place to eat,” Jake laughed. “She’s also recently announced that she’s going to be a mom, and her child will probably need therapy after seeing ‘Black Swan’.As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, Natalie is feeling very “lucky” these days with a new fiancé, a stellar performance in “Black Swan”, which has sparked loads of award buzz and a baby on the way.
Natalie Portman & Ashton Kutcher ‘No Strings Attached’ Portraits

“The apocalypse is coming so, I figured, get it all in before 2011 is out,” Natalie joked with Access’ Shaun Robinson at a junket for her new film, “No Strings Attached”, on Friday of her exciting year. “I feel very lucky. It’s been a really, really lucky, lucky time.”
Source: www.accesshollywood.com

Jake Gyllenhaal honors Natalie Portman at the 22nd Annual Palm Springs Film Festival

Jake Gyllenhaal with Natalie Portman at the 22nd Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival January 8, 2011, in Los Angeles

Carey Mulligan with Jake Gyllenhaal

Natalie Portman was honored with the statue on stage by her ex (and Brothers co-star) Jake Gyllenhaal.
Natalie Portman (who is pregnant) wore Cartier Baby Trinity earrings and a dress designed by Vionnet Spring: Vionnet Spring 2011 dress

"While calling her elegant, graceful and "Audrey Hepburn of our generation", Jake Gyllenhaal dropped a couple of expletives in his tribute to Natalie Portman.
Portman is recipient of the Desert Palm Achievement award for actress at the Palm Springs International Film Festival's annual gala. Gyllenhaal claimed he first met her waiting in line at a "Star Wars" convention for her to sign his Queen Amidala doll. He said he hopes she wins the Academy Award for her performance in "Black Swan" so the doll's value will appreciate.
Portman made her entrance in a black miniskirt to the strains of "Swan Lake."
Natalie Portman with "Black Swan" director Darren Aronofsky

She described the honors she has received for "Black Swan" as "a cherry on the top" of making the film". Source: blogs.inlandsocal.com

Homer Hickam writes "The Dinosaur Hunter" novel for the Viagra generation

Jake Gyllenhaal and Laura Dern as Homer Hickam and Miss Riley in "October Sky" (1999)

"An interesting guy, Homer Hickam. The former NASA engineer scored big in 1998 with “Rocket Boys”, a memoir of his high school rocket club back in West Virginia in the 1950s. It hit No. 1 on The New York Times best-seller list and was adapted as a movie renamed “October Sky” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Laura Dern.Director Joe Johnston shooting "Jurassic Park III" (2001)

As if that weren't enough, Hickam also spent a decade or so vacationing in Montana, where he joined in dinosaur digs with “October Sky” director Joe Johnston and noted paleontologist Jack Horner.

That experience inspired Hickam to write another novel, “The Dinosaur Hunter,” about Montana's current and prehistoric inhabitants. It's very nearly as enthralling as its author's real-life story.
The narrator of “The Dinosaur Hunter” is Mike Wire, a burnt-out Los Angeles homicide detective who headed east to become a cowboy on a cattle ranch.
Jake Gyllenhaal arriving at LAX airport, on 7th January 2010

Before long, Mike is having to deal with shady Hollywood types, Russian mobsters, federal bureaucrats and homegrown Montana survivalists armed with surplus Soviet army ordnance.Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie Randall in Love and Other Drugs (2010)

In short, “The Dinosaur Hunter” is a classic boys' adventure yarn for boys of the Viagra generation". Source: www.starnewsonline.com

Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra and The Big Sleep, spatial gems

Ann Savage as Vera in "Detour" (1945)

“Of course the stumbling block for Europeans in America is, as they’re constantly reminded, the American failure to understand irony — as though it matters. First, this is probably not true; and out west, anyway, they don’t need it — they have space and they have gaze and horizon; they don’t need the artificial distance of irony. Real space and real emptiness make such conceits redundant. Irony and desert operate as polar extremes.” -Christopher Petit's film theory, in "Negative Space" documentary short (1999).

Humphrey Bogart with "High Sierra" director Raoul Walsh (1941)

"Whereas Walsh bends atmosphere, changes camera, singles out changes in viewpoint to give a deeper reaction to specific places, The Big Sleep ignores all the conventions of a ganster film to feast on meaningless business and witty asides. Walsh keeps re-establishing the same cabin retreat; Hawks, in another spatial gem, gives the spectator just enough to make the scene work. One of the fine moments in 1940's film is no longer than a blink: Bogart, as he crosses the street from one bookstore to another, looks up at a sign".Bogart as Roy Earle and Ida Lupino as Marie in "High Sierra" (1941)

"There is as much charm here as Walsh manages with fifteen different positioning setups between Lupino and Arthur Kennedy in a motel cabin. All the unbelievable events in The Big Sleep are tied together by miserable time jumps, but, within each skit, there is a logic of space, a great idea of personality, gesture, where each person is". -"Negative Space" by Manny Farber (1998)

"In this appreciation of Bogart 50 years after his death, American film critic Richard Schickel observes that of his cohort of male stars, which includes Astaire, Cagney, Tracy, Gable, Cooper, Grant, and Wayne, Bogart now glows the brightest. Projecting tough romanticism in sympathetic roles and evoking unsympathetic characters' demons without negating their humanity --think of Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place (Schickel's pick as Bogart's best performance)--he forged a masculine persona that continues to be the envy of men and irresistible to women. In his review of Bogart's life and career, British film critic George Perry points up Bogart's real personality--preferring privacy and nonactor friends, unwise in marriage until wedding Lauren Bacall, hard-drinking and smoking, impatient with fools and bullies, genuinely gentlemanly in his manners. While evaluating certain films differently (Perry is kinder to more of Bogart's lesser efforts), the two critics together make this a quite satisfying commemoration of a thus-far unforgettable figure".
-Ray Olson Source: www.booklistonline.com

Humphrey Bogart with wife Lauren Bacall and son Stephen in his Jaguar XK 120
Humphrey Bogart (with Lauren Bacall inside the Jaguar) leans to kiss his son Stephen