Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt told Larry King that he didn't understand the public's interest in his life with Angelina Jolie and their children, though he would allow that his is an "interesting family. It's not your usual family." [Us Weekly]

Tricia Walsh-Smith, who you might remember from the Youtube tirade she directed at former husband Philip Smith, has posted a new video in honor of her ex's promotion to chairman of the Shubert Organazation. The clip is called "I'm Going Bonkers" and features a dominatrix costume. [Cityfile]

West 27th Street's Pink Elephant may be on its last legs. [Down By The Hipster]  read more »

Today, The New York Times' Brooks Barnes offered a hard-hitting A1 investigative report on how Angelina Jolie manipulates the press, especially how she uses access to her family to further her own agenda.

Writes Mr. Barnes:

Shifting the focus is one of Ms. Jolie’s best maneuvers, magazine editors and publicity executives say. When she became romantically involved with Mr. Pitt, for instance, she faced a public relations crisis — being portrayed in the tabloid press as a predator who stole Mr. Pitt from his wife, Jennifer Aniston.

This time, it was Ms. Jolie’s charity work that helped turn the story. Long interested in international humanitarian work, Ms. Jolie appeared in Pakistan, where she visited camps housing Afghan refugees, and even met with President Pervez Musharraf. Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt made a subsequent trip to Kashmir to bring attention to earthquake victims.

In a conspiracy like this, you build from the outer edges and you go step by step...  read more »

Volkswagen has provided the Jolie-Pitts with 20 vehicles for their stay in Berlin. That's 2.5 cars for every member of their family. [NYDN]

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen may be fighting about the possibility of getting matching breast implants. It seems that Ashley wants to "look more voluptuous" and told Mary-Kate "that she wanted her to get one at the same time so that it wouldn't be glaringly obvious that Ashley had work done." For her part, "horrified' Mary-Kate is "into that flat look and thinks clothes look better with less cleavage, so she'd rather be smaller and more stylish." [Star]

Graydon Carter modestly declined artist Edward Sorel's offer to paint him on the wall of the Waverly Inn alongside Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Walt Whitman. [R&M, sixth item]  read more »

If you have a Google News Alert set-up for Brad Pitt, today was a busy day for you. The star, currently filming Inglourious Basterds as he gets ready to mount an Oscar run with his performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, will reportedly team up with Warner Brothers to produce and potentially star in an updated version of Homer's classic The Odyssey, that will take Odysseus... into space! Yeah, you read that right. Don't worry though; it totally won't be a remake of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. Err, maybe. The hope is that George Miller, he of Mad Max and Babe fame, will direct.  read more »

Is it too early to start a backlash against Quentin Tarantino's new movie Inglourious Basterds (intentionally spelled wildly incorrectly), which has just begun principle photography? Maybe "backlash" is too strong a word, since we're pretty excited to see the latest film from Mr. Tarantino, especially since Basterds has been knocking around inside his giant head since Pulp Fiction. It's just, well, we were expecting more.

No, not from the script, which is reportedly as bananas as we had hoped: Basterds deals with Nazis, Jewish soldiers, revenge, cinema, double crosses, the scalping of baddies and the take down of the entire Third Reich. Awesome. It's just... remember when Mr. Tarantino wanted his WWII epic to star Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone? Because we do.  read more »

Scandal-causing CBS correspondent Lara Logan might be in even more trouble; she allegedly (and illegally!) brought home a couple of pre-invasion portraits of Saddam Hussein from Iraq and displayed them in her office. [P6]  

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and their half-dozen children caused a traffic jam outside their hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Said someone on the scene: "Angelina undoubtedly has more foreign-policy knowledge than Sarah Palin...No wonder people don't know where to direct their attention."  [The Scoop]

Madonna and Alex Rodriguez, who caused a stir by denying their relationship this summer, had a "secret dinner" at Dos Caminos. [P6]  read more »

While September might be a slow month for movie releases, it's one of the best times of the year to see prestige trailers. The latest? David Fincher's take on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, staring Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton and, of course, Brad Pitt, in the titular role as a man who ages backwards.

We loved the teaser trailer that ran in front of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull over the summer, which used the "Aquarium" movement of Camille Saint-Saens' Le Carnaval des Animaux to such haunting effect.  read more »

An up-and-coming writer named Brad Pitt has a piece on Vanity Fair's Web site in which he nominates Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, to the magazine's "Hall of Fame." (Not, it should be noted, to the magazine's Best-Dressed List: International Hall of Fame.)

Mr. Pitt offers this bit of press criticism in citing Mr. Roth for the list:

At the heart of the group's effectiveness: meticulous field research, which creates an incontrovertible record of human-rights crimes, coupled with hardheaded advocacy. As The Village Voice noted, this is where the real investigative journalism of our times is getting done.

In October 2006, Mr. Pitt wrote Esquire's cover story about the drug war, green building, and the ultimate diaper-rash cream.

This morning, we learned that Brad Pitt donated $100,000 to fight a ballot initiave to overturn California's legalization of same sex marriage. In a statement to reporters, Pitt explained why he was supporting the cause:

Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8.

Moving words, Brad, but we celebrity aficionados know there's much more to this move than the open-minded actor's compassion or humanity or whatever.  read more »

Scarlett Johansson has reportedly let Woody Allen's adoration go to her head. [P6]

Like everyone, Lindsay Lohan has an opinion on Sarah Palin; Ms. Lohan is not too fond of the vice-presidential candidate's sponsorship of a conference to "convert" gay people. [Celebrity Myspace] 

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have donated $2 million to the Global Health Committee to provide care for children with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Ethiopia. [People] 

Artist Richard Prince may or may not have purchased a jet. [P6]   read more »

Burn After Reading
Running time 96 minutes
Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton

Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading, from their own screenplay, strikes me as one of the most willfully awful movies I’ve ever seen. What makes it even worse is that every one of the “name” performances—George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, and Tilda Swinton—seem determined to best each other in projecting the idiocy of their caricatured middle-aged losers. Yet the early scenes are not intended for middle-aged audiences, but, rather, for teenage viewers and listeners who can be expected to howl with laughter at every gratuitous use of the F and S four-letter words.  read more »

Vanity Fair has come out with its list of 100 most powerful influentials, most of which—since they've already been covered by various lists in Time (the Time 100), Forbes (celebs and richest Americans) and elsewhere—come as no surprise.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and Google boys Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt are all in the top 10, followed closely behind by David Geffen, Bill Clinton and billionaire Ronald Perelman.

But there do appear to be some changes from last year's list. Some powerful names have sunk or even disappeared to make room for names in fashion and entertainment.  read more »

We here at the Culture Czar happen to be big fans of Variety and particularly of reviewer Todd McCarthy. Many times we’ll read his reviews, nod along, and even make mmmhmmm noises at our desk. Which was why we were shocked (shocked!) to see his review of the Coen brothers new film Burn After Reading, which opened the Venice Film Festival last night:

"After their triumphant dramatic success with 'No Country for Old Men,' the Coen brothers revert to sophomoric snarky mode in 'Burn After Reading.' A dark goofball comedy about assorted doofuses in Washington, D.C., only some of whom work for the government, the short, snappy picture tries to mate sex farce with a satire of a paranoid political thriller, with arch and ungainly results.  read more »

OMG could George Clooney and Brad Pitt please stop being so charming/funny/arch whatever they are? At a Venice Film Festival press conference today promoting the new Coen brothers movie Burn After Reading, the irrepressible duo found themselves answering the same questions we swear they did last year, or at some other press thing.

Reporter to Brad Pitt: Will Clooney ever settle down?

Clooney to reporter: ''I am so surprised to hear that question. That is honestly the first time I have been asked that...I am getting married and having a child today.''

Pitt then told Clooney that he could share his own six-child brood, since he'd "have two more by next year.  read more »

Brad Pitt personally photographed Angelina Jolie and their children for the November cover of W magazine at the Chateau Miraval in the South of France last week. [FWD]

Karl Lagerfeld has also decided to become a photographer. [Times UK]

Some shops on Park Avenue are not pleased with New York City's idea to block off whole stretches of major streets this summer to traffic. [NY Times]

Nolita boutique Seize sur Vingt is coming to the Plaza. [WWD]

Clavin Klein has added online shopping to its website, and will design certain pieces to be sold online only. [WWD]

In case you're looking for a boutique in New York where you can booze it up while you shop, Page Six Magazine has compiled a list. [Page Six Mag]

Roseanne Barr has a blog! And, as Page Six has reported, she’s using it to attack Angelina Jolie for failing to officially endorse Barack Obama’s candidacy. In open letter to the mother of—six now, right?--yesterday, Ms. Barr writes:

...Miss jolie says she likes mccain too and hasn't decided who to endorse....huh? Aren't you supposed to be somewhat enlightened, or do you not know that the african daughter you hold in every picture had parents who suffered and died because of the republican party's worldwide economic assault on africa over the last few decades since reagan? whaaaa...??????!!!! (for that matter, the thai and cambodian sons you are photo'd with weekly too who's pictures you sell to raise money to help the poor? Their families are victims of America's right wing military incursions too…Now go back to making your movies about women who love to handle big guns that shoot hundreds of people to death.

 read more »

Oi gevald! It's official: Brad Pitt will play one of Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards in the director's "spaghetti western." Mr. Pitt will star as Lt. Aldo Raine, a Southern beau who leads a band of Jewish rebels to fight the Nazis in German-occupied France.

A source familiar with the script told Reuters that Mr. Pitt will play a Samuel L. Jacksonin Pulp Fiction-type outlaw character who says things like "we're gonna be doing one thing, and one thing only, and that's killing Nazis." Work that scowl, Brad!

The Weinsteins are banking on Inglorious Bastards returning them to box office glory. They plan to start shooting Oct. 13 and hope to have it finished for the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson is the latest celeb to attach her name to an eco-friendly hotel in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. In June, Ms. Anderson visited Abu Dhabi with the Make a Wish Foundation and reportedly "fell in love" with the emirate, prompting her to partner with the royal family on what she described as an "environmentally friendly" hotel.

Whether the PETA spokeswoman will be as vocal about workers' rights as she has been about animals' in the past is still unclear, but so far none of the celebs who've done licensing deals in the Gulf have been vocal about the chronic mistreatment of construction workers there.  read more »

Mary-Kate Olsen may speak with federal investigators regarding the January death of Heath Ledger, whom she was allegedly dating at the time, though she's reportedly requesting immunity from prosecution if she does. [NY Post]

The first photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins Knox and Vivienne have been published by People magazine. [People]

The photos sold for over $14 million; the money will go to charity. [AP]  read more »

The ever charitable Jolie-Pitts, who went as far as installing a magical shield across the windows of Ms. Jolie's hospital room in France, decided to bestow the privilege of covering the birth of their babies to one particular publication according to AP. 

It wasn't In Touch, which reported on Saturday that two girls were born to the couple. And it wasn't OK! magazine or Us Weekly or the slew of other tabloids that elbowed each other to the finish line of breaking the news, reporting false names and times of birth in the process. 

No, it was a local French daily newspaper titled Nice-Matin, with a circulation of 280,000.  read more »

At last the Jolie-Pitt twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, entered the world on Saturday night via a Ceserian section at the Lenval hospital in the South of France. Giving a press conference shortly after the birth, Dr. Michel Sussman told reporters:
"It was an epidural, so [Angelina] was awake and speaking and laughing. They were happy. [Brad] was my assistant! He was perfectly calm, totally determined, very pleased to be at the birth of his children, very moved and very emotional." [Us Weekly]

An official photo of the precious twins is estimated to fetch between $15 and $20 million. [NY Daily News]

Meanwhile, Brad Pitt is reportedly going right back to work, meeting with Quentin Tarantino in France today about starring in Inglorious Bastards, a World War II movie inspired by spaghetti westerns. [P6]  read more »

The Lenval hospital in Nice where Angelina Jolie is preparing to birth the golden twins has reportedly covered the windows of her room with a "special material" that cameras cannot see through.

"It is impossible to see into Mr. Brad Pitt and Mrs. Angelina Jolie's room. So any pictures released are either posed fakes set up by paparazzi or they are pictures of other patients," the hospital said. "We hope this is clearly understood out of respect for all patients in this clinic. This is not Mr. Brad Pitt or Mrs. Angelina Jolie on them. The room is clearly different and their windows are covered to prevent such photos."

So quit making non-famous pregnant French women anxious with your obnoxious telephoto lenses and flashes, OK?

Unnamed sources are telling New York Magazine's culture blog Vulture that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are trying to sell a movie version of that New York Times City section piece, "This Strange Thing Called Prom" by Brooke Hauser.

The piece is about Brooklyn International High School's first-ever prom and how students from Liberia, Haiti, China and Tibet--unlike their Upper East Side private school counterparts--try to figure out what it is exactly and how to tackle dates, dresses, hair, and etiquette.

The sources tell Vulture that the couple, under the auspices of their Plan B entertainment company, have brought the option personally to Paramount. 

"Plan B's such development hell right now," sniped one unnamed insider to Vulture, "maybe Maddox and the twins can star in it."

As the world’s best-known celebrity/activist power couple, Brangelina has forced paparazzi lenses to capture humanitarian crises worldwide, raising public awareness about issues like the plight of Iraqi refugees and AIDS in Africa.

Now that Mr. Pitt is working as a design consultant on an 800-room, “American-themed,” green hotel in Dubai, the 44-year-old actor may put the spotlight on the chronic exploitation of the estimated 700,000 workers powering the construction boom in the most real-estate-crazy of the United Arab Emirates.  read more »

As we wait for the blessed children to leave Angelina Jolie's womb, she can't seem to stop oversharing about her and Brad Pitt's life together. In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, she offers yet another interview in which she gushes about their home life. (For those keeping up, she is also on the July cover of Vanity Fair.)

As usual, highlights after the jump!

   read more »

First, Entertainment Weekly reported that twins were born on Sunday to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

Lending authenticity to the report were details, like their names (Isla Marcheline and Amelie Jane) and the little detail that they were born at a "Catholic clinic" somewhere in the Aix-en-Provence region of France.  read more »

It seems everyone is deserting the cities for open fields and fresh rural air. Tom Brokaw raises and sells bison off of his ranch in Montana and yesterday we learned that Jack White and wife, supermodel Karen Elson are enjoying their weeping willows in Nashville, where Ms. Elson will soon open a vintage store. How quaint!  read more »

Angelina Jolie is pregnant, according to a source close to the 32-year-old actress and her partner, Brad Pitt. Whether or not she is expecting twins, as some rumors have suggested, was apparently not confirmed by the insider, who contacted Us.  read more »

Our intrepid political reporter Jason Horowitz is following Rudy Giuliani around Florida this week. On Rudy's press plane, the legendary actor Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy, Deliverance), a supporter who is traveling with the presidential hopeful today, took a break from such topics as Franklin D. Roosevelt, the nature of the media and the normal guyness of Mr.  read more »

A work by Banksy, the faceless London artist who has entangled the city’s residents in a high-brow game of Cat and Mouse, just sold on eBay for nearly $400,000.

Buying the piece—one of the artist's typical graffiti numbers, this one depicts an artist in an old-fashioned getup putting the finishing touches on the word “BANKSY”—may prove to be the easy part. The work adorns a wall on Portobello Road in London’s bohemian-chic Notting Hill neighborhood.

“I am selling the wall because I can't really justify owning a piece of art worth as much as it is,” said Luti Fagbenle, the owner of the property on which the graffiti is sprayed. He also said that the artist had set up scaffolding in front of the wall on a busy Sunday morning, so he could complete the work without being seen.

“A few hours later the scaffolding went down. And there it was,” Mr. Fagbenle added.

After it was initially offered for £208,100, the piece attracted 69 bids in total. Whoever purchased the painting will reportedly be responsible for replacing the wall if removing the work is part of their plan. The enigmatic artist has collected a coterie of famous fans. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt picked up a Banksy painting in 2006 for some £200,000.  read more »

This week, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ate more fast food with their family while on vacation in Mr. Pitt’s childhood hometown of Springfield, Missouri. It seems they’ve moved on from McDonalds, KFC and convenience stores—at least for the moment—this time getting some slices at Arris’ Pizza.

The pizza joint’s kitchen manager told Perez Hilton that the other restaurant patrons left the family pretty much alone while they dined. And Lisa Pitt, the wife of the actor’s brother, Doug, confirmed reports of the pleasant, low-key nature of Springfield residents whenever the Pitt-Jolie clan comes to town. “We went to the movies last year when they came and people were just so cool. Even when we go shopping,” she told local reporters.  read more »

On Christmas, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie drove their brood in a Nissan minivan to McDonalds for tasty eats. But yesterday, New Year’s Eve, the 44-year-old charitable actor had traded in his soccer-mom whip for a more rugged set of wheels.

Mr. Pitt was photographed tooling around the Big Easy with Pax Thien Jolie, 4. The pair were burning rubber on something called an E-Z GO ST 4X4 Honda Powered Utility Cart—an army green, combat-ready vehicle that would have made a nice federal-funded addition to the city 28 months ago. The Burn After Reading star didn’t let the little tyke go hungry, though; he made sure to swing by an area convenient store for snacks before heading back to the ranch. It appears as if the father-son team were driving on city roadways, but no stink has yet been raised of Mr. Pitt’s Britney Spears-style grasp on Pax. Then again, it did happen last year.

A bevy of big-time stars spent the holidays basking under the sun in exclusive locales, but not Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Instead of jetting to Martinique or Bali for Christmas, the celebrity couple and their family fa-la-la’d with the Colonel and Ronald McDonald.

On Christmas day, Mr. Pitt, who just turned 44, and Ms. Jolie, 32, drove in a white Nissan minivan to a New Orleans McDonald’s drive-thru, where they picked up a couple Happy Meals. (After a much-publicized stint shacking up at the tony Waldorf Towers in New York, the famous fam relocated to the Big Easy, where they're working on building a sustainable housing development in the city's 9th Ward.)

On Boxing Day, there was no foie-gras relapse or beef-Wellington withdrawal. After seeing The Water Horse at the local AMC Palace Theater, the Jolie-Pitts headed to Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Brad Pitt sat down last night with Charlie Rose. Wearing a flannel newsboy-style cap, the actor gabbed about everything from his fortunate lifestyle to his various charity projects. But when the topic of conversation landed on the four children Mr. Pitt, 44, rears with Angelina Jolie, 32, things turned slightly bizarre.  read more »

Angelina Jolie’s fame as an actress may have been eclipsed by her notoriety as a humanitarian. An organization of Filipino farmers has just sent out the alarm asking for help from the 32-year-old actress, who has recently relocated to New Orleans with Brad Pitt in order to oversee construction of “green” housing in the city’s wounded 9th Ward. The leftist agricultural group, called Kilusang Magbubukid Pilipinas, petitioned the United Nations High Commissioner to dispatch Ms. Jolie to their country, where, they hope, she can survey, react and draw attention to the dire living conditions suffered by hundreds of refugees displaced by the decades-long plague of insurgencies. Willy Marbella, the leader of the farmers’ alliance, told reporters that the Mighty Heart star can help the group rid the countryside of guerillas.

Since the 1960s, some two million Filipinos have been displaced and more than160,000 have been killed by the violent clashes among the nation’s army, communist fighters and Muslim insurgents.

The curious aptitude of Ms. Jolie’s project titles, too, labors on. She just finished shooting Wanted, a film directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Add to that her other forthcoming efforts, Kung-Fu Panda and Atlas Shrugged, and one could almost compose a fitting haiku from IMDB alone—one that very nearly conveys Ms. Jolie’s ever-expanding role on the world’s political stage.

Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt think stripping for the camera—any camera—is poor form. But Keira Knightley sure doesn’t seem to mind. For Interview’s December/January issue, the Atonement star says sayonara to her fashionable frippery. (Never mind that she looks like actress Famke Janssen’s evil, thigh-clamping character in GoldenEye on the cover; at least the poor thing doesn’t have Tom Ford chewing on her ear.) But, hey—that’s okay! Human beings are deeper, more complex than just a two-dimensional photo or a clip of their bosoms-n-bums. “People are many different things at once,” Ms. Knightley told the floppy pub. “We can be complete wankers one minute and totally fantastic the next.”

Next! At just 22 years old, Ms. Knightley—who must by now have more magazine covers under her, um, garter than Cindy—thinks of her present self as enjoying a “Hollywood-glamour phase.” Gone are the days, the actress said, of her “girl next door” persona, and thank God for that! “I think it’s wonderful to have those aesthetic fantasies [of Hollywood-glamour]. Those films pretend that you can wake up in the morning with bright red lipstick and perfect false eyelashes and hair,” she said, seemingly forgetting about people like the singer Eve, who needn't pretend at all. “I have always loved being transported to another time and place, and I love to be carried away in a fantasy.” Yup, that is pretty fun.

Those who want to be hauled off to Lala Land by Ms. Knightley, can take a trip to director Joe Wright’s Atonement, which opens on Friday.

On Tuesday, Nov. 13, Bill Pitt, father of Brad, arrived at the sporting-goods store Exercise & Rehab Equipment, in Springfield, Mo.  read more »