I've set the DVR but I don't know if I'll look in. I haven't seen any of the movies that are up for awards. (I've seen one or 2 of the TV things, but I've never cared about TV awards.)
I'm just not interested in sitting through movies these days. I find them boring and annoying. It's not the way I want to spend my time, and I don't believe the people of Hollywood have anything particularly interesting or useful to say to me. Yes, there is pure pleasure to be had... but in movies? Not so much.
Still, if you're watching, please feel free to hang out here. If something cool happens, I do have it recorded, and I'll go back and check it out.
ADDED: I'm not watching, but I did check out this slide show of the fashions. Angelina Jolie arrived as the Good Witch of Emerald City, Helena Bonham Carter came as an insane person, and most of the rest of them look like adults who, in the 1960s, looked like they belonged in the 50s.
In her new movie, Salt, she plays a character that was originally going to be played by Tom Cruise. Some changes to the script did need to be made: "For example, the male character had a child, and he knows he’ll be in danger much of the time. And we realized that, as a woman, if you knew your life was at risk, you’d never have a child." And:
The slender Angelina also had to modify the character's demeanor to convincingly play a tough, gun-slinging spy. "The physicality had to change too," she says. "I’m smaller than everybody, so how do I go up against a bunch of men without looking silly? How do I fight?"
She adds: "We made her meaner than a guy, and dirty. She uses the walls, the fact that she’s lighter and can throw herself around. It’s the Chihuahua up against the big dogs.”
The slender Angelina... she's a lot skinnier than she was when she played Lara Croft. Compare. I prefer the strong Lara Croft look, but I appreciate the attitude that Jolie seems to have even when she's too skinny.
1. There were several points in this movie where, if I didn't know it was a true story, I would have turned it off. It's incredibly melodramatic. But if it's true, it's not incredible. It's credible.
2. I loathe movies about children in danger, both because I don't enjoy seeing children suffer and because I don't want to watch an actress ham it up pretending to be a mother who is agonizing over her suffering child. But I shielded myself from knowing what the story was going to be because I was told — by my son Chris — that the movie contained the greatest acting performance of the last decade and once I decide I will see a movie, I avoid reading anything about the plot.
3. I'd never seen an Angelina Jolie movie before. Looking at the list of movies she's made, I can see why. Although she seems like the biggest movie star in the world, she hasn't made many movies, and they aren't very good. She's done genres that I don't much follow (anymore). For example, she did one of the voices in "Kung Fu Panda." When I think of "Kung Fu Panda," I think of the Joshua Ferris short story "The Dinner Party":
“They just got their dates wrong, is all,” he said, “and tomorrow, when they call, they’ll tell you how sorry they are. They had to turn their phones off during the late showing of ‘Kung Fu Panda’ or something.”
“So they went to see ‘Kung Fu Panda’ tonight,” she said.
“Or something like it.”
“And they turned their phones off so they wouldn’t ring during ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ ”
“Or,” he said. “Or.” He put his finger up. They were standing near the bedroom doorway. There was dim light coming from the dark room and he was suddenly irrationally afraid, as he had been as a child, that if anyone stepped inside, if she stepped inside, she would plummet to the center of the earth. He lowered his finger. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think they went to see ‘Kung Fu Panda.’ ”
One wouldn't see "Kung Fu Panda."
4. Jolie emotes. That's for sure. It's what's called for and she does it. She goes all out and does it. She's the female Jack Nicholson. And this movie has a good dose of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in it. Now, take your medication. Or we'll give you an electroshock treatment. "Changeling" also made me think about another great Jack Nicholson movie, "Chinatown." Lots of L.A., lots of corruption.
5. Did Jolie out-act Kate Winslet? Winslet won the Oscar that year — for "The Reader." "The Reader" is also a melodrama, but it presents itself in less of a melodramatic style. Although "The Reader" is set in the Holocaust, the character is fictional, and her story is presented in a more dignified Oscar-worthy vehicle.
6. Quite oddly, there is a scene in "Changeling" in which the main character is listening to the Oscars presentation on the radio and rooting for her favorite movie to win. The movie is "It Happened One Night," and Jolie's character expresses her fondness for Claudette Colbert, who won an Oscar for her role. "It Happened One Night" swept the top 5 categories at the Oscars, and it wasn't until "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" that another movie swept the Oscars. I wondered what Clint Eastwood thought he was saying to the Academy by putting that Oscars scene in "Changeling." I don't think he was kissing their ass trying to get Oscars. Maybe it was a way to say Oscars are amusement for the people and they don't really matter to me anymore. But it would be pretty funny for Jolie to win an Oscar for a role where we'd have a clip of her in character getting excited about an Oscar win. It would be cute. Maybe she got some votes from Academy members who liked that.
7. Like "The Reader," "Changeling" has a scene that depicts
a hanging and uses a closeup of the hanged person's dangling feet — or is it just the shoes on the floor in "The Reader"? I forget.
(Mouse over Highlight to reveal spoiler.)(I think that's the first time I've used HTML that way.)
8. If you like red lipstick, this is the ultimate red lipstick movie. You've got, first of all, Angelina Jolie's famous, immense lips, and then you've got red red lipstick — of the historically accurate matte texture. And it looks like it was put on amateurishly by the character.
9. You like cloche hats? You will see cloche hats. Angelina Jolie's character seems to require a cloche hat — and gloves. (I couldn't figure out how she avoided getting red lipstick all over her gloves.) This is the ultimate cloche hat movie. What does the cloche hat mean? It speaks of the character's vulnerability and need for armor, which makes it
especially painful for us to see her without its protection when she's thrown into the psycho hospital.
11. Jolie calls Clint Eastwood "very much the ideal man":
Maybe it's generational, but I think we could use more of it. People look up to him. He is absolutely who he is. He doesn't apologize to anybody. He has very, very strong, decisive opinions and is very gracious as a man, as a friend and somebody on set as a director, too.
She tags on the wifely niceness — "Brad knows that he's my ideal man" — but, reading that, I hear the emphasis on "my." Brad may be her ideal man, but Eastwood is the ideal man.
Oh! I went to 11. I thought it would be hard to get to 10. Ha. I guess I enjoyed that movie. Maybe I'll watch it again with somebody who hasn't seen it before. Back in the 80s, we used to love showing "The Terminator" to people who hadn't seen it yet. All the surprises would be new again. Last week, I was flipping channels and came to rest on "From Dusk to Dawn," which had just started. I'd seen it before, but Meade hadn't. Great vicarious fun for me.
[Jolie] managed the almost unheard-of task of turning the home-wrecker label into a wholesome, family-friendly triumph. There was little Maddox, who was growing up and clearly enjoying tossing footballs with his mother's new boyfriend. Jolie had managed to head off the scarlet letter by giving a boy an ideal masculine counterpoint....
[S]he took for her own pleasure the male seen as the most desired of the tribe, Brad Pitt, who is always ranked at the top of indexes of male beauty and virility. As for the constraints of social convention — ahem, he was still married? You can have a variety of feelings about this, but Jolie's evident disdain of that social constraint certainly, for better or worse, put her in the same self-entitled category as those men who have traditionally taken what they wanted and let the emotional chips fall where they may.
"Ideal masculine counterpoint"... you mean in terms of ideal "male beauty and virility"? A boy needs a role model... if he is to grow up to fit the traditional "self-entitled category" that we admire so much... at least in a woman... or whatever....
Jennifer Aniston has spoken for the first time about Brad Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie.
In an interview with the US Vogue, the former Friends star said, “What Angelina did was very uncool.”
Angelina recently admitted that she and Brad “fell in love” while making the movie Mr and Mrs Smith together in 2004 - at the time the Brad was married to Jen -despite previously claiming their romance only started after filming.
A source revealed, “This interview shows that Jennifer is no longer afraid of Angelina. It's hugely significant."
Jack Black let slip that Angelina Jolie is expecting twins. Speaking during a TV interview with Jolie to promote animated comedy Kung Fu Panda, Black remarked that the actress and partner Brad Pitt will "have as many as [the] Brady Bunch when you have these".
"It's confirmed?" asked Today Show interviewer Natalie Morales.
"Yeah, yeah, we've confirmed that already," Jolie said. "Well, Jack's just confirmed it actually." Angelina Jolie has revealed that she is considering giving birth to her twins in France.
The actress, at Cannes to promote Kung Fu Panda, said she "had not completely decided" where she would give birth but was "certainly thinking" about France.
Angelina Jolie reportedly refused to attend the New York premiere of George Clooney's latest film Michael Clayton, because she felt there was no reason why she should be there.
Jolie allegedly does not get on well with the actor, who is best friends with her partner Brad Pitt, because she is worried he could lead Brad astray from his duties as a father.
A source told Life and Style Weekly, "Angie is not particularly close to George, so she didn't see why she had to be there.
"She asked Brad if he minded going alone, but Brad says it wasn't really a question. And it was fine with him. Angie doesn't get along with any of Brad's friends. When they are back in Los Angeles she discourages him from going on boys' nights out."
Jolie and Pitt have three adopted children and one biological daughter together. ___________________________________________________________ Image Source
Angelina Jolie is stunned by her man-eating reputation, insisting she has only ever slept with four men. The actress claims she has only had sex with current partner Brad Pitt, former husbands Billy-Bob Thornton and Johnny Lee Miller and one other nameless man.
She told Britain's Cosmopolitan magazine, "It was never true. I had only slept with four men in my life - and I married two of them!"
"Brad and I would like to have more kids," Angelina Jolie told the Times in an interview to promote her latest film, A Mighty Heart. But is the actress expecting? She was spotted with a bump and in the pic next to it, it looks like she's trying to hide a possible bump.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Brangelina and daughter Shiloh, will be put on a .50 stamp cent in Australia.
The image used on the stamp will be the cover of New Idea magazine, reports TMZ.
In other Brangelina news, a pal says that Angelina "is really upset and has demanded that Brad cuts back on his work schedule," after Brad decided to cancel a family holiday due to work commitments.
According to the Daily Mail, this has fuelled rumours that the couple may split.
Angelina Jolie has been transformed into the mother of Grendel the monster, the father of all evil from Anglo-Saxon mythology, for the adult fantasy film Beowulf. Click Here For More>>>
UK Solo Artist of the Year: Amy Winehouse International Solo Artist of the Year:Beyonce Film Actress of the Year: Sienna Miller TV Personality of the Year: Charlotte Church Outstanding Contribution: Oscar-winner Dame Helen Mirren Inspiration Award for her humanitarian work: Angelina Jolie
