Brad Pitt Holds the Fort Down

69 | things to do | - I know, there are so many good things to do down here in San Diego, and I like hanging out in the Gaslamp District, they have some really nice restaurants ; and I like Balboa Park, we would do the drive to Vegas every once in a while, to tell you the truth I am not really a beach person

92 | Alexanderina | 10/23/06 3:28 PM | Flag Comment
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Hey Alex: Me not a beach person either. Give me a nice pool. Can’t stand sand in places that they should not be in.
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#96. Hey Clin: Two huge egos on one stage??? My goodness we’re going to hear explosions coming out of Chicago.

Maybe the fainting part was in the script. I mean if I heard that kind of news when I am pregnant or not I would faint. There goes my love and father of my soon-to-be child.

98 | bamzs 4-ever | 10/23/06 3:43 PM | Flag Comment
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Hey Bamzs 4-ever: You may be onto something here. I mean, the movie is about a wife not knowing her husband is a spy, I think. Could be, could be. We’ll just have to go and see the movie and see if there’s a fainting scene.

Maria, do I have to wait that long for an answer? Can’t anybody find out?

Oops, ignore “myself” in that paragraph I forgot to delete it.

The Power of Babel
Unraveling the fragile threads that connect us
By RICHARD SCHICKEL
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Sunday, Oct. 22, 2006
In Morocco a little peasant boy aims a rifle, newly acquired by his father, at a tourist bus and grievously wounds a woman dozing by one of its windows. In Tokyo an adolescent girl, puzzled and angry over her mother’s suicide (and a deaf-mute as well), bedevils her father and at the same time blatantly asserts her confused but flaming sexual needs. In San Diego a Mexican woman tends two Anglo children she deeply loves while their parents are on holiday, but when her own son needs her, she puts her charges in jeopardy. Unable to find someone to replace her, she takes them along to her son’s wedding with near calamitous results.

Babel is Babel indeed. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga are essentially up to the same trick they used brilliantly in Amores Perros, less so in 21 Grams–interweaving multiple stories about disparate individuals and eventually revealing their hidden connections. Since the characters are, in the present instance, operating on a global scale, some viewers will find Babel excitingly far-ranging. Others may find it merely far-fetched. Some will see the casting of Cate Blanchett as the wounded tourist and Brad Pitt as her husband as evidence that it aspires to be a major motion picture. Others will note the anonymity of the other players and see it as a lengthy, overambitious art-house entry. Those of us who think González Iñárritu is one of the movies’ larger youngish talents will perhaps be inclined to cut him a good deal of slack.

It is not important how, or even if, his three intercut stories become linked. Each of them is, in itself, a powerful tale of fairly ordinary people taken gently down innocent-seeming roads only to find themselves, at the end, in desperate and life-threatening circumstances.

The kid with the gun is playful and innocent; he is not trying to cause an international incident. The sex-crazed Japanese girl is a recognizably troubled adolescent, quite unaware of the largely hormonal firestorm raging within her. The Mexican au pair is a kindly and responsible woman, caught in conflict between the needs of her beloved charges and the call of a central event in her family’s life. Her crisis is the more powerful for the way it takes her, unaware of the gathering threat, to the brink of madness and death. It is a measure of González Iñárritu’s humanity that his protagonists are not all victims of their bad decisions. It is a measure of his potent skills as a director that he hammers home his melodrama with relentless ferocity.

The actors–including his two big stars–are all wonderfully real, seemingly as surprised by the depths and dangers of their circumstances and emotions as we are. Babel is a movie that leaves you feeling limp and wrung out, but mysteriously moved by its vivid human encounters with the hot, tightly wired, chancy and coincidental world, ever capable of terrorizing us when we least expect it.

105 | Maria | He was a journalist

106 | QQQQ | 10/23/06 3:56 PM | Flag Comment
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Hey 4Q: I thought he was a spy for something — silly me! Thanks for the info.

Hey Real Deals! Have to leave in a few — taking Computer home. It’s been seen by our Tech Medical staff and it’s been given the OK to go home. You all take care and I’ll be talkin’ at yas tomorrow! Good sleeping and dreaming of BP!!! Oh, let’s be fair here — for those ladies who love the ladies, then dreaming of Angie — then again, I’d turn for Angie — OH! HECK — YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!!! HA! HA!

Our books are written, Alex. The pages turn and if we’re destined to be with someone then it’s just the way it is. As Ramses said to Pharoh — ‘So it was written, so it shall be told’. How’s work today?

74 | Maria |
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I totally agree Maria, Brad and Angie were destined to be together, and I always say that it was written in the stars, but written in the book is even better.

Work is good but busy as always, so I took a quick trip to the mall with a friend to keep my sanity intact :)

76 | guli | - You welcome :)

#96: Oprah will welcome Madonna, I bet you. Anything for good ratings is our Oprah…plus it’s Madonna who will owe her after all this is over. Miz O will be her usual patronizing self but she will also try to come across as full of empathy for the plight of the children. Maybe she’ll even gain some donations for her Angel network.

Sorry to be so cynical but there you have it.

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Talking about Babel, Ebert and Roeper are supposed to review it on their next show. Ebert might not be there but they had this guy from NY Times in his place. Incidentally, they both liked the Break Up on DVD but they only mentioned VV and Jon Favreau as the likeable characters…no mention of the X.

63 | Not So - Wow! How much did Angie make… just curious?

Yes, he did make that much off of MMS. His deal was either 20 million or 20% of the gross of all things Smith which entails the total box office, dvd/vhs sales/rentals and tv deal.