Angelina Jolie Shops Toys ‘R’ Us For Tots

cook @ 05/21/2008 at 2:49 pm vicki,

Hi…good day to you and all of yours…hey, P-bootay’s b-day is 5/26…we’ll have to celebrate with her…haha

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awww - you are too sweet to remember my b-day. thanks - be here and I will bring the music.

anoble @ 05/21/2008 at 3:43 pm

Felinelilly @ 05/21/2008 at 3:32 pm

Hey girl, did I cross your eyes again? LOL you know, us musketeers need to stick together.
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LOL No that’s ok, they didn’t cross all the way, I just have blurry vision. You’ll have a reply before I leave today, I ran out of time this morning.

Oh my…that’s right. Anoble’s birthday is the day before Shi’s.

vickifromtexas @ 05/21/2008 at 3:52 pm
vic, send me an email to let me know - hopefully this little trip won’t turn into a big trip so should be back on later.

Felinelilly @ 05/21/2008 at 3:52 pm
LOL - I would send you my glasses but I like being able to read now.

Faye88 @ 05/21/2008 at 3:44 pm Hi Felinelilly - I can’t tell you how excited and happy I was when Kristi won. It was awesome!!! Jason did a great job too, so I was a bit worried.
Yesterday was incredible beginning with Angie & Brad in Cannes, and then ending it with Kristi’s win.
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LOL I knew she’d win it on Monday night. She just left the big boys in the dust, she was great. I was so happy that it came down to her and Jason, that’s what I was hoping for. You could tell he was genuinely happy for her, and I love the friendship that the three of them (Cristian included) had. They all respected each other’s talent and it was great to see the guys carrying her when she won. It was a great season, I can’t wait for September.

anoble @ 05/21/2008 at 3:51 pm cook @ 05/21/2008 at 2:49 pm vicki,

Hi…good day to you and all of yours…hey, P-bootay’s b-day is 5/26…we’ll have to celebrate with her…haha

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awww - you are too sweet to remember my b-day. thanks - be here and I will bring the music.
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LOL you’ll have to sing kareoke (sp) since one of us can’t see the videos.
Sing your heart out ok? If it starts raining it’s ok, we need it over here. LOL

Who would’ve thought they have toys r us in Cannes. Anyhoo, nice to see them, they both look good as usual. I don’t blame them for not bring any of the kids after that scene of total chaos the other day. I guess now is the countdown to the twins. Can’t wait to see them!

I love her shoes! just to have them!

#164 aka lurking..can you please find the applauding video link for clint and angie and post? thanks.

Also, to ‘lurking about’ who’s wondering why brad is gesturing to papz to cut it out filming in the toy store. Like he’s suddenly now just doing that..Brad has always had a lower tolerance depending on the circumstances, and he HAS done it before..when the family was eating in that family sphagetti place in Germany, when he and Angie would go out to dinner in Prague..and there are others times as well….I think he gets especially irked when it’s a family place like a toy store, and the papz end up ruining other peoples day/night as well. That’s when you’ll see Brad actually walk up to papz and TRY to reason with them, asking them to back off or negotiating.

He does this all the time.

I’m surprised a fan wouldn’t know.

No offense.

Hello, vicki. Gave you a big wave earlier. Hope everything’s ok.

Hello, Felinelilly. Nice to see you again. Hope you’re having a good day. It’s nice in OC. How about up north?

thanks jjb, for posting that link!

Brad, angie, clint
http://bp0.blogger.com/_XbeDUa1co-4/SDSH640bmQI/AAAAAAAAARU/GxW4uuTBUws/s1600-h/clint,+brad,+angie.jpg

Thanks to EVERYONE for the Changelings = Exchange absolutely smashing reviews! There will be no doubt something will be happening in the Oscar season. It is already the Nov. release, a huge sign Clint is going to go for it.

As for seeing this movie… the subject matter is too close to home. I don’t know if I can sit through it… I have 4 and 7 year olds and these kidnapping fear is every mother’s nightmare. It must have been so hard for Angelina to live through it, but as she said in the press interview, Clint seemed to be very kind and he knew very well how an actress, who is a loving mother, will have to go though with it. She said he was so focused that she didn’t have to be at that place of agony for any longer than necessary.

Angelina has been having such rich life as a person, woman, wife, and mother. She could relate to her roles at the deepest level drawing from her experiences. Life experiences make much better actors.

It reminds me a ‘wannabe actress’ albeit very rich media mogul, Oprah at Alexander interview. Eric Bana said his experience being a father makes him relate to his role as Hector, a father of an infant, much better. Oprah said sarcastically, “Oh, really?” as if she couldn’t believe that can be true. Oprah might have had a tragic youth, and is generous in charity, but as a person I see her as quite simple. Definitely not someone who can understand and express the complexity of human nature as an actress.

alia
this is for you
your madness
http://img43.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=92046_002_122_606lo.jpg

I can’t remember if this story has been posted or not, so to avoid CreditGate…sorry if it was posted before. I just don’t remember reading it.

This is a link to an article by online film critic Emmanuel Levy about how “Changeling” came together….

http://www.emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=9983

Eastwood on Changeling, his New Period Thriller Starring Angelina Jolie
Cannes Film Fest 2008–Clint Eastwood’s new period thriller, “The Changeling,” starring Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich, premieres in competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Fest.

The Setting

The Changeling is set in Los Angeles, in the late 1920s. The history of the city is marked by sensational tales of corruption, cover-ups and murder during the city’s formative years. From the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle rape and murder trial of a young starlet (Virginia Rappe) in 1921, and the kidnapping of the evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in 1926, to The Black Dahlia murder in 1947, scandal has long permeated the city and shone unfavorable light upon its political operatives.

But it was the little-remembered story of one working class woman’s struggle—amidst insurmountable odds—to find her missing son that would, 80 years later, forge a partnership between several of Hollywood’s most highly regarded filmmakers. The incredible tale of Christine Collins was one that almost vanished to obscurity before a former journalist stumbled upon her sensational, poignant story.

Within the subterranean halls of Los Angeles City Hall, the dusty archives of city business dating back almost 100 years are housed. Among these tens of thousands of pages of documents lies the public record of Christine Collins and the City Council welfare hearings from the late 1920s. They relate a patchwork tale of the disappearance of her 9-year-old son Walter and the corrupt machinations of the LAPD during and after the flawed investigation of the case.

Several years ago, screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski, a former journalist who has written for the L.A. Times, the Herald Examiner, and Time, stumbled across this astonishing story of a working-class woman who brought down a political machine. Straczynski knew he had a lead when a longtime contact phoned him up.

He recalls: “A source I had at City Hall called one day and said they were burning old records, and that there was something I should take a look at before they put it into the incinerator. So I zoomed down to City Hall, and they had a transcript of a City Council welfare hearing in the case of Christine Collins. I began reading the testimony and thought, ‘This can’t actually have happened. This has got to be a mistake.’ But it was enough for me to get hooked before the book went into the fire.”

Despotic Political Infrastructure

Los Angeles in 1928 was in the grips of a despotic political infrastructure, led by Mayor George E. Cryer and enforced by Police Chief James E. “Two Guns” Davis (often photographed in a gunslinger pose with his weapons) and his sanctioned gun squad that terrorized the city at will. That despotic rule began to unravel when Collins, a single mother raising a son in a working-class neighborhood in Los Angeles, reported her nine-year-old missing. Months of fruitless searching followed, and the police had nothing to show, save an onslaught of negative publicity and mounting public pressure to find a solid lead in the kidnapping.

When a boy claiming t be Walter was discovered in DeKalb, Illinois, Christine Collins, and all involved in the search, waited with bated breath. Letters and photos were exchanged, and the authorities believed the missing person’s case had been solved. Collins scrapped together the money to bring the boy home, and LAPD organized a very public photo-op reunion with the found child and anxious mother. Hoping to put a stop to the scrutiny surrounding their inability to solve this case (and others) and desperate for uplift from human-interest success to counter the string of corruption scandals, members of the department felt the reunion could spell public redemption for LAPD’s top brass.

The only problem was that the child who arrived home was not Walter. But despite her immediate and repeated declarations that the boy was not hers, Collins was rebuffed by Captain J. J. Jones, the officer in charge of the case. Christine was told, as recounted from the City Council hearing transcripts, to “try him for a couple of weeks.” Confused and disoriented, she agreed, and the case closed. Or did it?

Emotional Gravity

“There is an excitement for me when drawing from a true story,” remarks producer Brian Grazer. “I liked the subject matter, and found the culture surrounding this incident to be fascinating, and in some ways appalling, but it captivated me. The fact that it did happen gives the story so much more emotional gravity.

Knowing director-producer Clint Eastwood had a similar sensibility when it came to fact-based material, Grazer and partner Ron Howard called the filmmaker to discuss the script they had optioned.

Quick and Simple

Clint Eastwood recalls: “I took it with me on a trip to Berlin. On the way back on the plane, I read it and I liked it a lot. As soon as I got in, I called Brian and Ron and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do this.’ And they said, ‘Angelina Jolie liked the script and wants to do this. I said, ‘She’d be great. I like her work a lot. And that’s how it came about—very quick and simple.” Eastwood’s interest in the project piqued even more when he realized that “the truth was stranger than fiction.”

Approach as a Director

With more than 30 films to his directorial credit, Eastwood has mastered the economy of shooting and considered himself a director influenced by the choices he would make as an actor. He therefore limits rehearsals to achieve a more authentic feel in the performances and is not in favor of endless takes.

Eastwood explains: “Everything I do as a director is based upon what I prefer as an actor. It’s all a learning process over the years. No matter how you plan it, things happen that either work for you or against you. So there’s always the excitement of trying to make it work, of taking a little stack of paper and make it into a living thing.”

News Clippings in the Script

Eastwood’s longtime production partner, Rob Lorenz, was just as excited as others who had read Straczynski’s tale: “I was about 15 pages into the script, and I had to flip back to see if it was really a true story; it was so amazing to me. Straczynski’ had done something very clever. He stuck photocopies of news clippings every 15-20 pages in the script, just to remind you it was true. I was not only amazed it was all true, but astonished that I had never heard of the story before and nobody seemed familiar with it.”

Eastwood on Angelina Jolie

Eastwood and Lorenz agreed with the Imagine Entertainment team that the unbelievable events would make a captivating film as long as Angelina Jolie took the role of the working-class single mother who made it her life’s mission to find her boy. Eastwood remarks: “Angelina is unique. She reminds me a lot of the actresses from the Golden Age of movies in the 1940s: Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Susan Hayward. They were all very distinctive, and they all had a lot of presence. She’s a tremendous actress.”

Reluctant Jolie

Despite a riveting story and the high-caliber filmmaking team, Jolie was initially reluctant to tackle the role of a mother whose son is kidnapped. Understandably so, as she had recently finished a heartbreaking portrayal of Mariane Pearl in “A Mighty Heart,” the true story of the kidnapping and execution of journalist Daniel Pearl. However, she was willing to explore options and read the screenplay.

Exposing Corruption in Power

Straczynski’s interpretation of Christine’s tale changed her mind, as she reflects: “It’s an extraordinary story. I couldn’t stop reading it. When she faced a setback and would get back up, I’d think, ‘Good, you’re back up.’ Christine Collins is a woman whom I came to admire but, as an actor, there was a lot about the story I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to do a film about a child being kidnapped, because I think there’s something to bringing certain things into your environment, in your thoughts and in your world. But ultimately, it was her strength when faced with such odds that swayed me. I’m most fond of this story because of how it exposes corruption of those in power. It’s very timely; we still deal with that today.”