While last year's Newsweek Oscar director roundtable featured George Clooney's shocking reminder about the heavy-handed skeleton lurking in his sitcom-acting closet, this year's thespian-centric discussion contains the equally surprising admission that fans of Babel's Brad Pitt have the exotic dancing profession to thank (or to blame) for his career:
· According to Us Weekly, peripatetic Hollywood do-gooders Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have just moved into a fourth, "charity vacation" home in New Orleans, whose local hardships will help teach the couple's overprivileged baby-blob about the harsh realities of life.
· CAA Sports is expected to soon be eating babies on behalf of LeBron James and Allen Iverson.
· The makers of the Jack Bauer action figure learned the hard way not to trust their prototype to Keifer Sutherland, especially when he's planning a bender.
· Golden Globes viewers probably noticed that something wasn't quite right with the zombie pitchman the Redenbachers greedily reanimated to sell some popcorn.
· Who could possibly believe that someone in this town might become a little obnoxious when given some power?
In a post on On The Town, Var's new blog covering the industry party and events beat, a reporter describes an uncomfortable moment she shared with Brad Pitt at the premiere for God Grew Tired of Us, a documentary about the Sudanese civil war that Angelina Jolie's orphan-gathering companion executive produced:
We alerted you yesterday to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's charity work in Costa Rica, handing out presents to Colombian refugee children. But the flawless philanthropists have no monopoly on good deeds, as celebrities from every letter of the rigid Hollywood caste system came out to help those less needy. A round-up:
· Survivor host Jeff Probst and his girlfriend, former Survivor contestant Julie Berry, spent Christmas serving dinner to patrons of the Wayside Soup Kitchen in Portland, Maine. Just for fun, Probst suggested serving meals to four separate lines divided by race, an experiment soup kitchen officials quickly cancelled after a bearded man in the white line started shouting that the two individuals in the far shorter Asian line were receiving unfairly generous turkey portions. [Canada.com]
· In further New England celebrity charity news, Adam Sandler sent Stephanie and Kevin Hudon, two teenage siblings from New Hampshire suffering with cancer, a hard-to-find Playstation 3 and swag bag, in the hopes that the blowing away of virtual Nazis with high neuro-artificial-intelligence would temporarily take their minds off their troubles. [AP]
While you were desperately rifling through piles of Banana Republic wrapping tissue searching for the all-valuable gift receipt that would spare you from a fate of itchy sweater hell, year-round Christmas angel Angelina (it's right there in her first name!) Jolie and short-leashed civil partner Brad Pitt were once again focusing their energies on making the world a better place, one Colombian refugee baby at a time:
Because it's never too late to start your Oscar pool prognosticating—especially with the all-important Canadian take to factor in—we offer another year-end awards season round-up:
· The Toronto Film Critics Association chooses to give its big prize to the woman who still appears on much of their local, bird-covered currency, The Queen, with Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen (who plays Tony Blair) and screenwriter Peter Morgan also getting nods. Just to show they aren't entirely Commonwealth monarchist snobs, Sacha Baron Cohen wins best actor for his teabagging-related work in Borat. [Variety]
· The Chicago Film Critics Association Awards announced their nominees, with Babel leading the pack at nine (including one for Brad Pitt, bringing us one step closer to those magic words, "Oscar Winner Mr. Angelina Jolie"), with The Departed and The Queen pulling in six apiece. Little Miss Sunshine and United 93 round out the best picture category. [Chicago Tribune]
· What would happen if Oscar campaigning took a cue from politics and went negative? Probably full-page Variety ads reading, "It's simple: You're either a racist who approves of gay cowboy marriage, or you think Crash was this year's Best Picture. The choice is yours." [The Envelope]
As if Jennifer Aniston, the tabloids' Most Brittle Cover Girl, didn't have enough psychic pain to deal with following the end of her suspicious partnership with The Break-Up co-star and noted co-ed cuddle-bear Vince Vaughn, Us Weekly reports that the actress has been dealt a severe blow to her always tenuous emotional health (hey, read the glossies! She's one long-distance phone service commercial from a stay in the Fragile Stars Wing of Cedars Sinai) by the latest round of pictures of Shiloh Jolie Pitt, the genetically perfect offspring that ex-husband Brad Pitt should have put in her uterus, not that orphan-collecting homewrecker's. "Close pals" tell Us that Aniston has been so affected by the widely circulated images of Shiloh that "she collapses in a heap, clutching her womb like she's been stabbed if she so much as passes a baby stroller on the street," and has taken to "throwing baby dolls into a bonfire on the beach behind her place in Malibu. It's creepy, but she says it makes her feel better for a few hours." The friend, however, offers hope that Jen's heart is on the mend: "At least she's stopped watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith over and over again, for days at a time without eating or sleeping. That just wasn't healthy."
Fake writer Laura Albert, who wrote the books originally attributed to a male truck-stop hooker named JT Leroy, continues to light the fire of our righteous indignation. Albert, you'll recall, is unrepentant, using the whole 'it was a literary hoax, I'm playing with notions of gender and identity' thing as a copout. She also 'didn't do it for the money,' she claims in this recent interview, though there must be a considerable amount involved, considering that two of Leroy novels have had their film rights optioned. But perhaps most infuriatingly, Albert seems to completely misunderstand the process by which profile subjects are selected to be on the cover of Vanity Fair. Here, she's talking about how thrilled she's been to be featured on the cover of the Paris Review:
If you're the type to pick up the latest issue of People, pore over a two-page spread about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's latest, empty-handed orphan-acquisition trip through a developing nation, then hurl the magazine against the wall, frustrated that that couple is just being too damn choosy ("What was wrong with the kid with that adorable cowlick from the refugee shelter in Karachi?!" ) about the next addition to their multicultural brood, we urge you to take a deep breath and relax as Jolie herself once again reminds you about the complexity of intrafamilial race-matching:
The contested 'exclusivity' of the new shots of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's "natural-born" offspring (way to give Z and Mad even more issues, Daily News!) doesn't really interest us that much, but in case it interests you, here you have it: Hello! (a UK publication, natch) claimed that it had a World Exclusive, when in fact it only had US rights. People actually has US rights, which is why their ed in chief, Larry Hackett, was holding up the photos on the Today show yesterday. Neither publication really wanted the shots leaked all over the internet, but whatcha gonna do.
What does interest us is how the shots were sold to the publications by Trevor Nelson of the Endeavor Group. According to WWD, Nelson
· While you were gorging on turkey and stuffing, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie cruised Ho Chi Minh City on a scooter, continuing their tireless search for another adoptee to add to their family. Sadly, they came up short, but drowned their disappointment in some delicious Vietnamese food.
Will Arnett seems to have really thought this last meal thing through, so we'll assume that his failure to specify that the in-mouth sundae would be prepared by hookers was just an oversight.
Even though Alec Baldwin is baffled about why "a substantial number of brave men and women have signed up, for whatever reasons, to defend us," he nonetheless thanks them for their service.
· Carson Daly is proud that ex-fianc e Tara Reid is talking about her poor choices in plastic surgeons, happy to be rid of her.
Following the recent student/parent/ bodyguard/paparazzi stampede and pile-on at a Mumbai school used as a shooting location for A Mighty Heart (video of the terrifying, anarchic events available here), flawlessly bone-structured altruists Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have now found themselves in the unlikely position of having to defend themselves against some rare, bad press. Jolie has released a statement calling the allegation that one of her three bodyguards arrested in the melee called a parent a "bloody Indian" a "horrible rumor." But it's Brad Pitt, perhaps realizing the potential threat the impromptu and much talked about fight club could pose to their global good standing, who has taken the formidable step of going directly to the top with his damage control efforts, pleading their case to none other than Indian Oprah. From an Extra press release:
Competition was as stiff as ever for the title of People's Sexiest Man Alive this year—just ask also-rans "Patrick, Brad, Matt, Jamie," and the "199 MORE GUYS!" the magazine teases on its cover. But sorry, Monsieurs Swayze, Garrett, Stone, and Lee-Curtis, the 2006 bragging rights go to none other than Hollywood's silver-maned conscience, George Clooney.
While many people probably assume that Hollywood is a magical, environmentally friendly Utopia where actors pull up to the fully biodegradable green carpets at their movie premieres in vehicles specially retrofitted to produce all-rainbow emissions, a UCLA study has found that the entertainment industry trails only petroleum manufacturing in terms of disgorging unfiltered, New Ice Age-beckoning, Al-Gore-sterilizing evil into the air of Los Angeles:
As a registered nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, Defamer would never attempt to influence your voting decisions, but it's our duty to keep our readers informed about how some of Hollywood's most politically active celebrities are choosing to use their influence on this Election Day. With partner Angelina Jolie out of the country and distracted by her various refugee-related pursuits, Brad Pitt instead consulted with one of his most trusted political advisers, official Yes on 87 spokesbaby Suri Cruise, who quickly persuaded the environmentally minded actor to officially endorse the clean-energy proposition at a rally yesterday. We encourage our readers to clip out the attached image to supplement their sample ballots, as a quick glance at this visual voting guide should provide an instant reminder of where two of the entertainment industry's deepest thinkers stand on the issue.
According to a report in the Indian Financial Times, Al Qaeda is even more upset about the casting of Angelina Jolie in the role of Mariane Pearl than critics who think producers could've gone a little more "ethnic" with their choice, as terror threats to the actress and charity-tagalong Brad Pitt have been deemed credible enough to warrant increased security during her stay in the country to shoot A Mighty Heart:
The new issue of Wired chronicles the fitful journey of Darren Aronfosky's The Fountain from crazy, big-budget sci-fi epic with A-list talent to temporarily shelved project to the crazy, polarizing, smaller-budget sci-fi epic with talent-of-slightly-lesser-wattage that will eventually reach theaters in late November, a frequently emotional trip that entailed the painful separation of the director from his onetime washboard-stomached partner, Brad Pitt:
· It really wouldn't be Halloween weekend on Hollywood Boulevard without posted threats warning against the illegal use of silly string. The firing of automatic weapons, however, is acceptable when a critical part of one's costume. [pictured]
Whew. For a minute there, we were worried that we* were the only ones who noticed that Jeri Ryan has huge breasts.
The dog-bites-man of entertainment reporting: South Park offends someone.
You'd think that a room full of Marines would want to party with Jenna Jameson, but you'd be wrong.
· Brad and Angelina are treating India like their private helipad. Can't they buy themselves an orphan, quickly escape to America, and stop stirring up trouble?
· Pussycat Doll hopefuls seem to have that not-so-fresh feeling.
