@James:

I've loved Natalie Wood ever since I was a little boy back in the '80s -- she happens to be a favorite of mine and even after all these years of her being dead, I still think she was one of the most gracious and most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen -- talented too. It's a damn shame she had to die so frigging young and so tragically too. Her death still remains a mystery to this very day, but the point is, one of her greatest performances came in "Splendor in the Grass" (her GREATEST, by the way, is either "Love with the Proper Stranger" with Steve McQueen or "Marjorie Morningstar" with Gene Kelly) with a young and never more charming Warren Beatty. I remember that bathtub scene very well. In fact, it still lingers in my mind, because of the intensity of the scene itself. I always had a feeling Wood was naked during that scene, but that controversial BASTARD Elia Kazan (may he NOT rest in peace) sure was clever in keeping all the good parts out of the camera's naked eye. How and why did he ever do it and to Wood of all people? If we haven't been able to see any naked scenes from that movie yet -- it's the twenty-first century after all, then we may NEVER see them as long as the film remains in existence. It's sad, yes, but it may very well hold true for future generations as well.

This was 1961, so we must remember that this was a time when sexuality and nudity was repressed onscreen. In other words, it wasn't allowed to be shown. Hell, we barely got any foul language in films. It wasn't until about four, five years later when films broke barriers and censors started arriving and films had the freedom to be anything they wanted. They could have swearing, sex that could be shown on camera and yes, even the NUDITY.

The first film out of the gate was '67s "Midnight Cowboy" with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. Do you remember THAT one? It became the first and thus far ONLY X-rated mainstream Hollywood film to be not only flooded with controversy, but to actually showcase such graphic sexual content, nudity and shocking violence for its time -- WAY ahead of its time too.

As far as "Closer" and Natalie Portman are concerned, yeah, I've been saying the same exact thing ever since the movies release in '04 -- Mike Nichols filmed nude scenes of Portman, but she later opted to have them removed and destroyed. I think Nichols removed 'em, of course, because we never see them in the finished film, except for Portman's accidental nip slip, but in all actuality, Nichols kept those scenes for himself and no doubt masturbates to 'em on a regular basis. In a way, we're kind of hoping somebody will find those deleted scenes somewhere in Nichols's vault and leak them to the Internet for our viewing pleasure.

Keep on researching though Dr. Butts. That's what I do too. God, the World Wide Web, isn't it a glorious thing?