[Natalie Portman on the red carpet at Cannes yesterday; image via AP]

• An LA band called Lustra called out Miley Cyrus by name for a song that sounds way, way too much like one of their songs. But it turns out Cyrus doesn't write any of her own songs, so now the band kind of looks like a bunch of assholes. [P6]

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

[Photo Credit: Flynet]

"Smart" celebrities who "care" about things love microcredit, the most buzzed-about poverty-ending economic fad since eating the poor. Mohammed Yunus, the guy who invented it, won a Nobel Peace Prize! And Harvard-educated Natalie Portman works tirelessly to promote the idea that small loans to impoverished people will lead to an entrepreneurial spirit that will lift everyone out of poverty. The only problem with "microcredit" is that it's actually loan-sharking, and it's destroying the lives of the people it's meant to help. France24 actually did some journalism and talked to recipients of the micro-loans instead of just taking the word of noble economists as gospel. Watch as collectors from Grameen Bank, the gigantic bank that largely runs the microcredit scheme, advise villagers to sell their children! Now, instead of just being broke, Bangladeshi villagers are deep in debt and killing themselves to escape their creditors. Finally, they are living the American Dream. So. Watch that clip here or just click through to see Natalie Portman babble at those ladies on The View about all the good work she's doing.

Natalie Portman attempted to repair her relationship with the canine community yesterday afternoon in New York City. After a mini-marathon of The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan (and at the behest of her hippie boyfriend, Devendra Banhart), Portman got back out there with her new puppy. Portman flinched slightly each time the dog went to the bathroom, but over time, Portman started to relax.

Our love of a good celebrity-falling-down picture is well-documented, but today we bring you something far more precious: A celebrity-being-peed-upon-by-a-dog photo. It's the fabled unicorn of the Embarrassing Celebrity Accidents on Film Realm. Pictured, a passing Toto speaks for the entire Star Wars male fan base with his frank assessment of Natalie Portman's new bearded, bejeweled, patchouli-infused boyfriend, Devendra Banhart. (Click photo for the full-sized picture.)

• Natalie Portman was with her hippie boyfriend in a park when she got peed on by a dog. There's a picture and everything! Happy Tuesday! [Post]

So, Natalie Portman has signed on to play Cathy in a new Wuthering Heights film. Whether or not you think the casting really works (I'm not sure I do, but I hate that book so don't really care), you've got to credit Natalie and her agents for her consistently smart choices. She's bounced between prestige and popcorn, period and modern, crafting a resume with depth and diversity that should be (if it's not already) the envy of her peers. Her direct competition (and S&M friend) Scarlett Johansson is still a bit unproven in the whole "talent" department, so Natalie needn't worry there. And sure Reese Witherspoon (maybe in a slightly older age group) has that Oscar, but her glossy period effort Vanity Fair totally bombed. Gwyneth Paltrow (again, a bit older) went too period and too British (moving to London and whatnot) and is now stuck playing the girl secretary role in Ironman.

Reports today confirm that Natalie Portman will join would-be sexy nurse Scarlett Johansson as a first-time director in the short-film compilation New York, I Love You. First known as the movie where that Hasidic dude walked out on co-star Portman, then better known as the one where contributing director Anthony Minghella hand-picked replacement Shekhar Kapur before he died, NYILY is finding its latest momentum as the film featuring everyone from Brett Ratner to Orlando Bloom to Cloris Leachman pimping out for the city tourism board. "NYC & Co., the official marketing and tourism organization for the City of New York, is fully behind the pic, throwing its weight into sponsorship deals," writes Variety's Dade Hayes. "A major airline is in final talks to help ferry talent to and from the city and promote the film on its aircraft, for example." The producers, however, cite an "explicit auteur approach" that will keep the art front-and-center, promising Johansson the latitude to fire a maximum of 10 PA's as she learns to flex her megalomaniacal muscle behind the camera. [Variety]

When we first saw pictures of Natalie Portman walking through New York with her new boyfriend, we initially thought Nat had started volunteering at her local homeless shelter, acting as a mentor for one lucky (and possibly blind) hobo. But then they made out. So who is this caveman-esque guy and what on earth is Natalie thinking? While at first glance folksy singer Devendra Banhart hardly looks like a pretty boy, we found some far more flattering shots of Natalie's new arm candy with his guitar from years ago. And even if Devendra's put on a pound or two since they were taken, we still had to do a double take and make sure we weren't looking at photos of Jim Morrison himself. Judge for yourself after the jump.

We have disappointing news, as Abraham Karpen (the adorable mensch plucked out of Hasidic anonymity and cast opposite Natalie Portman—one of the most famous, talented, and beautiful Jewesses on the planet!) has been ordered to stop filming on a segment of New York, I Love You by Hasidic elders who clearly want to ruin his LIFE FOREVER!!! (*Sound of scampering down a hallway and a bedroom door slamming shut.*) [ABC News]

Abe Karpen is a Hasidic Jewish hunk who was supposed to star in New York I Love You with Natalie Portman. He had to drop out of the film after being threatened by members of his community. Due to his strict religious beliefs, Karpen refrained from holding Portman's hand during filming, but he still freaked out all of his Hasidic homies.

We're a fan of all of Natalie Portman's film work, but it's her strides in the shortform variety that have particularly astounded us lately. Just six months after she at long last unveiled both Boleyn girls—along with the rest of her—in Wes Anderson's Hotel Chevalier, comes another drastic about-face for the consummate actress and Star Wars-geek spankbait-object. In a sequence in New York, I Love You, an anthology of love stories set in Manhattan (including one directed by shameless romantic Brett Ratner), the Israeli-American actress bundles up to play a Hasidic woman—albeit notably unencumbered by one of those tricky-to-maneuver, five-seat strollers. Could the dashing young mensch to her right be searching for just the right moment to pop the question, and get a little under-the-chupah action going? Those smiles say yes.

The visual shortcut for celebs-in-philanthropy is Natalie Portman looking fresh-faced in a t-shirt — at least in Sunday's NYT Magazine article, "The Celebrity Solution." As PR man Howard Bragman puts it, "You can't just get $20 million a picture, you've got to serve turkeys to the poor, too." Our favorite part is the faux-naivete Portman adopts when explaining that her celebrity facilitates getting pet cause a meeting on Capitol Hill:

• Singer Britney Spears, said to be worth around $50 million, has become steadily more sane since her father was placed in control of her finances and other affairs several weeks ago. She parted ways with hanger-on ex-paparazzo Adnan Ghalib and earned the right to see her children more often. Apparently her father is compensated at $2,500 per week for his oversight, and the many tabloids that make money off Spears insanity are incredulous. So is comedian Rosie O'Donnell, who wrote in her Web Q&A forum that Spears' dad's high pay has become "the problem." Apparently these people have never priced rehab, or done some simple math on the scale of Spears' image problem.

Earlier today, I claimed that Natalie Portman, who both went to Harvard and is attractive, must be a cyborg because as a rule, women can be dumb and hot or smart and busted. But there is one exception: the hypocritical. By their very nature, hypocrites can embody any contradiction they want. They're that powerful. So even though the Natalie Portman of the present doesn't wear leather, the Natalie Portman of the past did. In Attack of The Clones she wore what she described as a "leather-and-lace outfit." So either her stance on animal cruelty has evolved over the past six years (a likely story!), or she's a liar. Either way, she can't be trusted and must be destroyed to protect the resistance. [via Deceiver]

It's tough out there in Hollywood for smart hot chicks. In fact, it's tough out there for smart hot chicks everywhere, because everyone assumes that they're dumb. Women can only be smart or hot, not both. But Natalie Portman went to Harvard and she's attractive, so the only possible conclusion we can draw is that she's a cyborg sent from the future to destroy us. In this month's Elle she talks about smart things, like why Hillary Clinton matters to women (because she's also a woman!) and why ambitious chicks get hated on. In the attached video, she explains that women can still look good, and not all crunchy and gross, in animal-friendly clothing. In like five years, she's totally going to adopt some Cambodian refugee babies, and then usher in the robot apocalypse.

Hottie boombalottie Natalie Portman would maybe like to become a politician when she is "too ugly for Hollywood." Which she says will happen by the time she's 36. Good luck, regular women! [Showbiz Spy]

· Somebody call Doc Brown, this is 1.21 jigga-WHATs of unabashed awesomeness. Keep your eyes peeled for the homey with the prosthetic leg; he puts Mucca to shame. [College Humor via AOTS]
· During the course of our day, we read a lot of truly shitty op-ed pieces. It's part of the job, we don't like to complain. While we normally shield these sorts of works from your eyes, we would like to share one of the more egregiously awful pieces we've read in eons with you now. Its title? "How utterly cool is Natalie Portman?" Barf. [MSNBC]
· "We've seen comebacks happen over and over again in the entertainment industry, whether it's John Travolta, the Spice Girls, or fictitious characters such as Indiana Jones or Rambo. Now it's Mr. T's time." So true. We pity the fools who don't read Mr. T's graphic novel! [Mohawk Media]
· We have to be honest, once we hit the 90-second mark in this video and realized that it's 22 minutes long, we stopped watching. That said, many tips have hit the Defamer inbox today telling us it's funny. So, there you go. Democracy in action. [Funny Or Die]
· And finally, we close the day with a bit of good news. The Elliott Smith wall on Sunset in Silver Lake has, thankfully, been untagged and restored to its pristine beauty. A tip of the cap to our friends at LAist. [LAist]