Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your regular cheat sheet to what's new, noteworthy and/or doomed among the week's movie releases. Today we break down the hand-to-hand combat between a violence-prone bear and an equally vicious Israeli hairdresser, determine which also-ran will look on pitiably from the sidelines, suss an underdog for the multiplex-allergic among you, and review the best and brightest new DVD's. As always, our opinions are our own, but in keeping with the spirit of this week's Big Two, they are also reliable and brutally precise.
The birth of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins is, for celebrity tabloid editors and producers, like a presidential election night, the Superbowl and a moon landing all rolled into one, and the incredible pressure is destroying them one at a time. Bonnie Fuller was an early victim, losing all grip on reality at the end of March, when the magazine she then ran, Star, described a New Orleans wedding between the power couple that never took place. Then, earlier this month, Entertainment Tonight reported that Jolie had given birth to the twins in France, a story that was swiftly denied by reps for the couple and that is raising questions about the show's standards (apparently it was like the New Yorker of celebrity journalism). Now, Fuller's replacement at Star is also messing up the Brangelina story, cropping a month-old photo to make it look like Jolie "collapsed" in the south of France:
Angelina Jolie wasn’t kidding when she went on (and on) about über-husband, highbrow architect and sometimes-actor Brad Pitt’s obsession with home design in this month's Vanity Fair. As we noted on Tuesday, Jolie spent much of the VF cover story gushing about Pitt’s ability to design and teach her how to make the light look just right in all seasons (side note — are we the only ones who find this incredibly unsexy? Hell, it’s Brad Pitt. Nevermind). But on a recent jaunt to Switzerland, he dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on in an effort to furnish upcoming Chosen Two Perfection Facility with furniture that is high on style but low on comfort. From scratchy aluminum rugs to chairs that do not look suitable for any variety of chair sex (wild or otherwise), we took a closer look at Brad’s shopping spree after the jump.
It has been many, many moons since Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt broke it off, but that doesn't mean that Gwyneth is immune to the jealousy that Angelina Jolie and her multi-national brood of infants inspires. In the new issue of Harper’s Bazaar, Paltrow tells the mag that, “I may force myself to [get pregnant] one more time because the result is so worth it...And also my [late] dad said to me that his only regret in life was that he had only two children and he didn't have more." Though we doubt Coldplay frontman Chris Martin finds these loving words inspiring when it comes to slipping into the sheets with his hooker-heeled wife, Paltrow seems to feel the Apocalypse will officially begin if he doesn't. You see, she’s just the best mother in the whole world (aside from Dina Lohan, that is), and “owes it to humanity” to produce another spawn. Also? Her late father was reincarnated as her hair,and chopping it off made her go “...aaah!” An explanation, after the jump:
A couple days ago, the idea that OK! and People were offering $15 million for the first snaps of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins seemed crazy. Now comes word that bidding may be approaching the $22 million mark, with People the likely victor or loser, depending on how you view tabloids' rabid interest in the spawn of overrated celebrities. Remember when people were outraged over the $7 million People paid for Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's twins? Yeah, well, that was three months ago.
Welcome to Day 5 of Jolie WombWatch: We join you live as the world's downtrodden and miracle-needy—still frustrated over the lack of any measurable improvement since the last Chosen One graced our midst—sit glued to their ham radios, anxiously awaiting any verifiable updates on the official birth-status of Jolie-Pitt Chosen Children Numbers Two through Three. (The latest theory is that ET was right all along, and that the couple is covering up the delivery in order to score an exclusive payday with another publication. Conspiracy! Building 7! Runner 6074! Hill: Ego Only!) Meanwhile, Baby Truth is wheezing its tiny lungs out behind a full-on media-assault smokescreen. Most notably, Jolie graces the cover of the current Vanity Fair, where she describes all the dilletanteish qualities in Pitt that inspired her to break up his marriage:
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's unborn twins are worshiped by the entertainment press as a sort of double celebrity messiah. Bidding for exclusive first pictures has reportedly reached $15 million and is poised to rise further. So it was with no small measure of elation Friday that Entertainment Tonight delivered news that the twins had just been born in the south of France, a big scoop. But People and Us Weekly soon reported denials from reps for the couple. Brad Pitt attended a Grand Prix event across the border in Italy, which would be an odd decision for a new father. The celebrified Associated Press, which obtained a denial from Pitt's manager, asked, "Was Entertainment Tonight punk'd?" Maybe not. Maybe it is the victim of a MASSIVE ANGELINA JOLIE CONSPIRACY.
So how does a reliable wombsource like Entertainment Tonight get a story as important as Angelina Jolie's impending delivery so wrong, they become the laughingstock of the entire celebrity-birth-exclusives circuit? In the days since misreporting that Jolie had birthed twin girls named Isla and Amelie, the entire company has been subjected to a non-stop barrage of finger pointing and snickers. But how could they have made such a gaffe? Jossip explains how the disgraced celebrity news outlet was played by a savvy assistant impostor:
Pregnant and famous? Call your agent. Your breastesses are gonna be huge, and you're gonna wanna capture the blessed event for posterity before things go considerably... south. And if you happen to help Vanity Fair sell a few thousand more magazines while you're at it, well, that's showbiz. Jolie's breasts-and-hair shot for VF's July issue looks more like Maxim's style, but judge for yourself. Click to, uh, enlarge.
We know we threw your worlds for a loop this morning when we relayed ET's joyous news that noted orphan-collecting pregnancy-dabbler Angelina Jolie had delivered healthy twin girls, then cruelly swiped back the statement like a rattle from an abandoned French toddler. We've been patiently awaiting ET Online's retraction, but instead have gotten nothing but the above meltdown message for the past couple hours. Could their faulty reporting have caused a massive, Paramount Tabloid Syndicate grid failure? Or are they just closing shop until the intern instructed to, "Get me a fucking picture of those twins, I don't care if you have to set up a step-ladder and climb into Angelina's birthing canal!" returns with the smoking goods in hand? Developing. [ET Online]
No sooner had we endured the traffic overload at the Petit Trésor website long enough to order a pair of custom-bedazzled Isla and Amelie onesies for the proud parents, came shocking news over the Biological MaternityWatch transom suggesting the Chosen Twins were in fact still resting comfortably inside their mother. People.com debunks:
Big news! The first Morse code beeps heralding the arrival of two more biologically achieved additions to the Jolie-Pitt clan have landed in our Google Telegraph inbox. The joyous development comes almost two years to the day that the couple's first amorphous Chosen Blob was ushered into this world by a coterie of Namibian midwives. By contrast, genetically flawless Jolie-Pitt White Children Numbers 2 through 3 (names pending) were delivered in France, with all the First-World-medical-facility pampering that implies. More details as they come, including the all-important How Jennifer is Handling the News report, and whether or not it involves any huffily dispatched text messages demanding to know, "So r u in or out?? My body is a ticking biologicl wonderlnd!!"
In case you hadn’t heard, Europe is expensive. Coffee costs five bucks, the dollar is like a penny, and it takes a lot of money to look as cheap as Victoria Beckham. And apparently, having a kid over there will set you back about $10 million. That is, if you’re Angelina Jolie and you’re giving birth to the world’s most important children, The Chosen Two. According to Life & Style, Brad and Angie are set to push out their newest soccer team members in France, where they’ll spend up to $20 million dollars on “birthing costs,” including every new mom’s standard requirements like helicopters, villas on the Riviera, and a fleet of nine cars. The full breakdown on just how expensive it is to have a kid when you’re Brangelina, after the jump.
An Ecuadorian business called Xiomara Coronado Beauty Center is running this ad campaign, with a tagline that (according to Copyranter) translates to "Nobody will look younger than you." I guess the message here is, if you don't want to look like a sun-scarred celebutante, Xiomara Coronado Beauty Center is a place that you should consider patronizing. Or maybe they just like to show off their photo retouching skills. Either way: funny, yucky. Ecuador must have some very loose laws about fair use of celebrity images. After the jump, an equally horrible transmogrified version of Angelina Jolie:
