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Can a Bad Movie Kill Your Oscar Chances?

With the Oscar race heating up, a close race can be decided by a number of factors.

One of the closer races may be the Best Leading Actress race where Annette Benning and Natalie Portman will be battling it out.  Benning is a multiple nominee who has never won, but Portman turned in a career-best performance in Black Swan.  She was awarded the Golden Globe this Sunday, but Benning was as well for her turn in The Kids Are All Right, because the Globes split up Comedies and Dramas.


Still, the edge usually goes to the actress who takes home the Drama award, but in this case, something else may end up costing Portman her little gold man.

The Eddie Murphy factor.

That's right, Natalie Portman and the former SNL funnyman turned megastar turned...well, not-so-megastar may have something in common.

Both may fall victim to an ill-timed bad movie killing their chances at an Oscar.

When Murphy was nominated for Dreamgirls a few years back, he went into the race as the favorite.  Hollywood loves a comeback, and his performance was pure electricity.


Then Norbit came out.


What can be said about Norbit?


It was...


Perhaps one of the worst movies ever made.


And it probably cost Murphy his Oscar.

When voters are trying to figure out who to give the most prestigious award in film too, having billboards of yourself dressed in a fat suit probably won't help your case.

The situation was so unusual and sad that it even became a gag on the television show 30 Rock.

And now it may happen again, albeit to someone you wouldn't expect to see in a lowbrow movie.

Granted, No Strings Attached is no Norbit.  It just happens to be what looks like a lousy, cliched relationship movie starring Ashton Kutcher...and Natalie Portman.


Hey, you can't fault the girl for wanting to make some money.


You could argue that perhaps the film is decent, but if it was, there's a good chance the studios wouldn't be releasing it in January.


And you have to hand it them, they're probably thrilled to be able to capitalize on Portman's nomination to help legitimize the film, when in fact, the opposite may happen.


No Strings Attached may attach itself to Portman and drag her down with it.

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