There has been a sighting of the Empress, and her lady-in-waiting Shiloh. This morning, Angelina took her two oldest girls to a Paris aquarium, which sounds like a really fun way to spend a morning. Maybe it’s just me – I love aquariums. Sigh… anyway, the most notable thing about these photos, beyond the obligatory Empress Zahara worship, is that Shiloh is rocking her new zebra-print boots.

On Sunday, People Magazine had a story about Brad and Angelina taking the girls shopping, and the zebra-print boots were mentioned. I was under the impression is was some kind of Christmas-shopping excursion. Maybe it was, and maybe Brad and Angelina are the kind of parents who let their kids have their Christmas presents early. Or maybe Shiloh pitched a fit when she was told that she would have to wait to wear her snazzy zebra boots, and Angelina relented. I guess this means that story about Shiloh getting medieval knight costumes for herself and Knox is probably true as well.

Photos courtesy of Bauer-Griffin.

Johnny Depp is Vanity Fair’s January cover boy – all to promote The Tourist, which opens in a few weeks. I was slightly surprised to see Depp cover VF again – it feels like he just had a cover… but I guess that was last year? Yeah. So the photo shoot is by Annie Leibovitz and the interview is conducted by Patti Smith. Depp talks about everything, really – he covers working with Angelina (including a comparison to Elizabeth Taylor!), to Captain Jack being gay, to feeling like he should have been born in a different era. Here are VF’s excerpts:

“Meeting her and getting to know her was a real pleasant surprise,” Johnny Depp tells rock legend Patti Smith, writing for Vanity Fair, of working with Angelina Jolie on their upcoming film, The Tourist. “You don’t know what she might be like—if she has any sense of humor at all. I was so pleased to find that she is incredibly normal, and has a wonderfully kind of dark, perverse sense of humor.”

Depp tells Smith of the challenges he and his co-star faced with constant media scrutiny on set. “Poor thing, dogged by paparazzi, her and her husband, Brad…all their kids,” Depp says of Angelina and her famous brood. “There are times when you see how ridiculous is this life, how ludicrous it is, you know, leaving your house every morning and being followed by paparazzi.”

Depp tells Smith about the difficulties that arose while filming together—having to be discreet to avoid unwarranted speculation—which included “having to hide, sometimes not even being able to talk to each other in public because someone will take a photograph and it will be misconstrued and turned into some other sh-t.”

Depp compares Angelina to another famous leading lady. “I’ve had the honor and the pleasure and gift of having known Elizabeth Taylor for a number of years,” he says. “You know, you sit down with her, she slings hash, she sits there and cusses like a sailor, and she’s hilarious. Angie’s got the same kind of thing, you know, the same approach.”

On the set of the upcoming installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, Smith asks Depp what it’s like to play the iconic role of Captain Jack Sparrow. “Somebody once asked [Hunter S. Thompson], “What is the sound of one hand clapping, Hunter?,” and he smacked him. Captain Jack was kind of like that for me, an opening up of this part of yourself,” Depp says. “There is a little Bugs Bunny in all of us.”

“They couldn’t stand him. They just couldn’t stand him,” Depp says of Disney’s reaction to his controversial interpretation of Sparrow. “I think it was Michael Eisner, the head of Disney at the time, who was quoted as saying, ‘He’s ruining the movie.’ Depp reveals to Smith, however, that he remained unfazed by the studio’s hysteria. “Upper-echelon Disney-ites, going, What’s wrong with him? Is he, you know, like some kind of weird simpleton? Is he drunk? By the way, is he gay?… And so I actually told this woman who was the Disney-ite… ‘But didn’t you know that all my characters are gay?’ Which really made her nervous.”

Depp tells Smith why his role of a mathematician in The Tourist appealed to him: “I was always fascinated by people who are considered completely normal, because I find them the weirdest of all.”

Of the complications of having played so many eccentric roles in his career, he says, “They’re all still there, which on some level can’t be the healthiest thing in the world…. I always picture it as this chest of drawers in your body—Ed Wood is in one, the Hatter is in another, Scissorhands is in another…. They’re still very close to the surface.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Depp talks to Smith about their shared fondness for the Monkees’ 60s pop hit “Daydream Believer”; the music career he almost had (“Going into acting was an odd deviation from a particular road that I was on in my late teens, early 20s, because I had no desire, no interest, really, in it at all. I was a musician and I was a guitarist, and that’s what I wanted to do”); being born in the wrong time (“I really believe that, at a certain point, if you’re born in ’60-something or whatever, you got ripped off—you know what I mean? I always felt like I was meant to have been born in another era, another time”); and what he’d still like to accomplish: “[Marlon Brando said,] Why don’t you just take a year and go and study Shakespeare, or go and study Hamlet. Go and work on Hamlet and play that part. Play that part before you’re too old…. So what he was trying to tell me was: play that f-cking part, man. Play that part before you’re too long in the tooth. Play it. And I would like to. I’d really, really like to.”

[From Vanity Fair]

Sigh… Johnny. Love him. It’s interesting that Johnny acknowledges that he and Angelina had to be wary of being photographed together, just to avoid tabloid craziness. Could there have actually been something to the stories about Vanessa Paradis trying to get Depp to withdraw from the film? Eh… I doubt it.

VF photos courtesy of VF online (there‘s a gallery of new and old images).

Here are some additional photos from last night’s Paris Megamind premiere (I covered the first photos last night). I also found out what designers Brad and Angelina were wearing – Brad’s baggy leather pants are Julius Sheep (?) and Angelina’s outfit (including the old lady harem pants with an old-school zippered taper) was L’Agence.

In other Jolie news, these Bosnian women’s groups are really out for Jolie blood – a group has issued yet another public statement about how awful it is that Angelina is making a movie about something that she’s not making a movie about in reality. The Women Victims of War (an association for Bosnian rape victims) sent out this statement:

“Angelina Jolie’s ignorant attitude towards victims says enough about the scenario and gives us the right to continue having doubts about it.”

“We have insisted to meet Angelina Jolie since we don’t want to be wrongly presented in the world . . . Our voices are worthwhile and we should have got much more respect.”

“Angelina made a big mistake. We feel that she did not act like a real UNHCR ambassador and we believe that she has no more credibility to remain the ambassador.”

[WVW Statement via HuffPo]

Jesus Christ. She’s not making a movie about rape! I’ll admit, I’m not jazzed about this movie whatsoever (I’m still a card-carrying Brangeloonie, chill out), but my ambivalence is mostly about my desire to see Angelina do better work as an actress – she directed (and wrote) this film instead of signing on to Gravity for a more than $20 million paycheck. This Bosnian story seems like it’s going to be boring, and probably dripping in sanctimony, considering Angelina considers her work as a writer/director “the voice” of the Bosnian people. Protest that, haters. Don’t go on and on and on about a piece of propaganda that was reported and denied by everyone involved in the project, and by the Bosnian government, who got to read the script. I think Angelina can tend towards to the sanctimonious, but I really, really doubt she’s so dumb (or “ignorant”) as to make a film glorifying rape or rapists. And to question her as a goodwill ambassador based on a piece of propaganda? How about this: I don’t this group has the credibility to accurately advocate for rape victims.

Photos courtesy of WENN & Fame.

Forget Javier Bardem, THESE photos are just what the doctor ordered. Tonight, today (Monday), Brad Pitt and Angelina walked the red carpet together for the French premiere of Megamind. I wish I could even describe in English how amusing these photos are. These are not just “Oooh, they’re walking a red carpet!” kind of exciting. Brad is wearing LEATHER PANTS. This bitch is turning 47 years old in a few weeks, and he’s rocking leather pants, for the love of God. Meanwhile, my girl Angelina is still rocking her old lady styles, like she’s Blanche Devereaux. I think the pants are velvet and tapered! She’s just so supremely unstylish, bless her heart.

According to Us Weekly, Brad and Angelina “were more affectionate than ever! Not only did they pose for photos together, they held hands, greeted fans and shared a smooch for all to see.” Now you know!

Sidenote: Do you think Brad is actually wearing an old pair of Angelina’s leather pants? Discuss.

UPDATE: I just added some more photos that came in!

Well, it looks like the Jolie-Pitts flew from Budapest to Paris over the American holiday, and they spent their time shopping and celebrating. Us Weekly reports that last night, Brad, Angelina and the four oldest kids went on a boat ride to celebrate Pax’s seventh birthday. Even though I like the idea of a boat birthday party, and I’m sure Paris is really beautiful at this time of year, and at night, I have to think all of the Jolie-Pitts were freezing their nads off. Especially Angie!

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie took Pax for a Parisian cruise Sunday evening to celebrate his seventh birthday.

Sibs Maddox, 9, Zahara, 5, and Shiloh, 4, also joined them for the ride down the River Seine. On the boat: Cake and some birthday balloons.

Pitt, 46, was spotted filming the kids on his video camera, while Jolie, 35 (in a beige trench coat) was seen pointing out notable sights during the ride.

The gang spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Paris, where Jolie is promoting her new Johnny Depp thriller The Tourist.

They will soon have another reason to celebrate: Pitt turns 47 Dec. 18.

[From Us Weekly]

I wonder if The Tourist’s promotional tour is going to start in Paris? Do you think Angelina and Johnny Depp will be doing their press junket there? That’s pretty sweet – I imagine many of the Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood journalists will be thrilled to go to Paris for the junket. But this thought just occurred to me – Ryan Seacrest and his “girlfriend” are in Paris right now too. La Seacrest and the Jolie-Pitts are mortal enemies, you see. Could Seacrest make a move to get some kind of Paris exclusive?

Here are more pics from the birthday party… the quality isn’t that great, I apologize.

Header photo courtesy of Bauer-Griffin. Additional photos courtesy of Fame.

I don’t know if PopEater’s gossip guy got it right, and Angelina Jolie refuses to allow her family to celebrate Thanksgiving, but the Family Jolie-Pitt did spend the holiday doing somewhat unconventional things. First, Us Weekly reports that the kids spend Thanksgiving on the beach… I don’t know where, as in, what country, but Us Weekly claims the kids went with nannies rather than their parents (one photo here). Additionally, People Magazine reports that Angelina and Brad flew in to Paris with the kids either on Friday or Saturday, and spent part of Saturday shopping for the girls. Empress Zahara approves of black suede boots! Shiloh approves of zebra prints and medieval knight costumes. Take notes.

On the first day of Christmas, my sisters gave to me … a large plastic alligator?

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie took daughters Zahara and Shiloh holiday shopping in Paris Saturday and it looks like they’ll be able to check quite a few things of their gift list, including pants, pajamas, gloves, sweaters, boots, stuffed animals, knights’ costumes (complete with tunics, swords and shields) and one large green plastic alligator, according to staff at the Bonpoint boutique on rue de Tournon near the Luxembourg Gardens.

“Angelina was great,” an onlooker tells PEOPLE. “She’s patient, and a very hands-on mother, making certain everything fits.”

Pitt was “very agreeable, absolutely polite and excellent with the girls” as well, a store employee says.

In town to promote film projects – Pitt’s Megamind and Jolie’s The Tourist – the couple squeezed in more than an hour of shopping with Zahara, 5, and Shiloh, 4, at the celeb-friendly boutique, where Salma Hayek, Jessica Alba and Michelle Obama have visited.

“[Shiloh] wanted pants and picked out a pair of zebra-patterned boots,” a clerk says of Saturday’s stop.

Zahara, the employee says, chose “black suede boots and a ‘Duchess’ dress.”

The Bonpoint store contains one fun feature which the girls enjoyed: an entire room that holds a child-sized farmhouse with several levels, meandering passages and see-through walls. Both girls played inside, according to a witness, while a laughing Jolie took pictures of her daughters.

Helping Shiloh try on a medieval knight’s tunic, Pitt watched while she playfully waved around a wooden sword and shield. After deciding on both the costume and its accessories, Shiloh told the shop assistant that she wanted two complete sets. “‘One is for me,’ she explained,” the clerk tells PEOPLE. “‘The other is for my brother, Pax.’ ”

Pax may get his presents before the holidays – he turns 7 on Nov. 29.

And the large plastic alligator Shiloh selected at the last minute? “That’s good for Knox,” she told the sales staff.

[From People]

I love the image of Shiloh and the Empress working out their Christmas shopping lists beforehand. Shiloh’s list probably consisted of “COSTUMES!!!” Meanwhile, I get the feeling that Zahara’s list was probably more practical. The Empress was probably like “Maddox needs a scarf. And an iPad.”

Older photos courtesy of WENN & Fame.

I tend to think this story has the whiff of bullcrap, but whatever. According to PopEater’s gossip guy Rob Shuter, Angelina Jolie hates Thanksgiving. She hates it because she’s a friend to the Native Americans, and she thinks celebrating Thanksgiving would be a celebration of the systematic genocide of Native American peoples. Which… I mean, I understand that point of view if we’re just talking about history and stuff, and whether or not we should teach children the revisionist history of the first Thanksgiving and the plight of the Native Americans. But as a modern tradition, it’s come to mean something really nice, and I honestly don’t see Angelina refusing to let her family celebrate.

While everyone is preparing to give thanks tomorrow, one of America’s most famous families, the Jolie-Pitts, have decided to sit this Thanksgiving out.

“Angelina Jolie hates this holiday and wants no part in rewriting history like so many other Americans,” a friend of the actress tells me. “To celebrate what the white settlers did to the native Indians, the domination of one culture over another, just isn’t her style. She definitely doesn’t want to teach her multi-cultural family how to celebrate a story of murder.”

Angelina has been filming her directorial debut, about a Serbian man and Bosnian woman who fall in love during the Bosnian War. Angie, always extremely sensitive to the suffering throughout the world, is filming in English and the native languages.

“Angelina gets so grossed out by Thanksgiving that she has made sure her family will not be in America this year on Thursday,” an insider tells me.

And although Brad Pitt recently told ‘EXTRA,’ “We’ll whip up a turkey somewhere,” he certainly hasn’t shared that plan with Angelina. A family friend tells me, “If Brad wants turkey, he will have to cook it himself. For Angie, it will be another day when America tries to rewrite history.”

[From PopEater]

I love the line “If Brad wants turkey, he will have to cook it himself.” OH SCANDAL. You know Brad will just try to deep-fry that sh-t and he’ll end up burning down the chateau. Just as the pilgrims intended!

Back to the discussion on revisionist history, I’d just like to tell a story from my own perspective. When I was very young – like, elementary school – my grade had to use this very dated Virginia history book that was full of all of these crazy lies and half-truths about slavery and the tragic history of original Virginia settlements (crazy sh-t went down in Jamestown, for real). Even at my young age, I knew it was crap. The lesson: kids aren’t stupid. They can comprehend that the revisionist story of Thanksgiving is crap, while also being taught that it’s a modern tradition we should embrace. Give these kids some credit! Empress Zahara demands some ham.

Photos courtesy of Fame.

Angelina Jolie is still hearing some grumbling and mumbling after she pulled out of filming in Bosnia. It seems that Jolie could deny, deny, deny, but some Bosnian groups still believed that her film was about a rape victim falling in love with her rapist. Jolie announced last week that although the Bosnian government had given her permission to film there, she was going to complete her film in Hungary, and likely send a second unit to Bosnia for a few days to get some exterior shots. Her announcement came on the heels of yet another rape-victim advocacy group protesting the film, this time in an open letter, so it seemed like the two events were related, and that Angelina really just didn’t want to deal with various groups of people who wouldn’t give up the belief – despite repeated denials – that the subject matter is about rape. Anyway, Angelina is trying to scrounge up some good press from the film shoot, so she granted an interview to a Hungarian media outlet. Here’s most of the piece:

You live in the fast lane starring in movies, raising kids, and running around the world as a great humanitarian. Why and when did you find the time to write this script?
Actually, like nine-ten months ago I got the flu and had to keep some distance for a few days from my kids not to get them sick. So I was sitting in another part of the house and had been reading and felt like I should just start writing. But I didn’t have the Final Draft program, so I had to go space, space, space… And the first draft of it looked really funny. Everything was zigzag, it didn’t line up. It was a very funny, unprofessional looking piece. Then, for weeks, I left the script on my desk.

What gave you the idea for the story?
I’ve had a lot of frustration with how long it takes to intervene or understand what’s happening within a conflict and for the world to give assistance to these people in need, and get the right information out to the international community. I’ve met with so many people over the years, and in some way this story could take place in any country. The essence of it is we meet people on the eve of the war and we see what their lives could have been. We meet them as young people, and it’s a lot of hope and wonderful lives that come out from Yugoslavia. They’re an extraordinarily unique people. And then the war begins in Bosnia and it’s how even people who try to hold on to their humanity as long as they can are effected, it is about living inside war and witnessing the death of your friends and family, and what that eventually does to people and how it takes its toll on them. And it started for me with just that thought that if there’s a way to intervene even in one year what damage has been done … But for four years, five years? Look at Darfur now! Things go on for so long without proper assistance and intervention.

The conflict in Yugoslavia had a long pre-history and has had a long-lasting history after the war was over.
It’s true. I had to learn so much. Because it started out with a simple story and I knew I had to get a great education in this part of the world in order to complete it. A lot of it came from the research I’ve done. I watched documentaries and films, I met with experts, but in the end I cast local people and they all sat with me and told me their stories and walked me through what they did during the war, how they survived the war and what their families went through. So they helped me complete the story. There are people from all parts and all sides of the conflict in the film and they all talked to me about how they felt. So we tried to make it kind of a collective voice.

The little you’ve shared so passionately about the film so far was that you don’t want to make a political statement and this is a movie about people. But sometimes you must take political sides.
Well, there isn’t an intended political statement. My goal was try to talk to people from all sides of the situation and allow them to have a voice. Allow them to have to go through what they went through and express it whether it be extreme cruelty or the loss of humanity or the extreme sense of hope or the beauty, whatever it was. I think if you represent something right, it’s not your view. It is their view. It’s a combination of views from different sides. And they are all stating what they believe in and they’re all making their arguments and the characters are all going through different things and they’re all doing different things and in the end they’re all being affected. If there’s a political statement it’s that hopefully people will watch it and say where was I when this was happening? How did I not know ? Why did I not do anything? Why did my country not do more? Why did it take so long? And next time when this happens what can we do to prevent? You would like to believe it couldn’t happen today. But I think there’s something about this time in history especially because it happened so recently that reminds everybody that it does happen today. We haven’t learned to deal with these issues, decades after World War Two. Hopefully it will also be a beautiful story where you get to know some of the people of the former Yugoslavia.

Why do you keep referring to Yugoslavia, a country that doesn’t exist anymore?
Because when I asked all these people in this film what’s your nationality or where you’re from even in the casting tapes, they’d say I was born in Yugoslavia. Now I’m something somebody tells me I am, but I was born Yugoslavian. Now a lot of them on paper are one thing or another or some even have to check “other” on forms because their parents are from different backgrounds. So now they’re Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, but then and at birth they were Yugoslavian.

How did you make sure of historical and political accuracy?
I was never intentionally trying to make something political. I was always trying to make it human. And so I tried to stay as close to real human stories that I knew had happened and I talked to people that really went through it and let these artists really express their true stories. And so in that there was truth. The more you dig in the more you find. This region is very complex, and there’re many opinions. There’re very passionate opinions on all sides for different ways of handling all the different scenes. But there were certain things that everybody agreed on. And in the end there was nothing in the script that any one actor said “you can’t have or this doesn’t make sense”. So I let them say what felt right or what felt wrong and then we’d investigate different elements of the story to see if we can find different research on one element or one scene, and I tried to talk to as many people as I could and get a kind of a general sense. But at the same time I had to remember that we’re not making a documentary, and I couldn’t possibly cover this war. I can tell a piece of this war and I can tell a story that I think is worth telling and hopefully within it there’re many voices represented and I hope it will make people talk and discuss this war and these situations again, and remember the people that went through this. But I tried to also remember how to give characters and a dramatic story, and try to tell a story that would also be engaging for people whose focus isn’t politics. Because they don’t necessarily follow this kind of stuff in the news, or they wouldn’t necessarily want to see a political or a foreign film, but we hope they will be open to our film. Which is why we say it’s “a love story”, only it’s a different kind of love story.

How did you raise the budget?
I gave the script to Graham King whom I did The Tourist with, and he said he’d support the project, and Brad and I also put our money in. We had a big talk about doing it with local people and no names. It had to be that way. And it got to a point where I almost couldn’t not do it! I didn’t want to be a director, it somehow just fell so into place. I had one day when I realized it all fell into place and I had that panic moment of oh my god… what am I doing? I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never done this. I don’t know what I’m getting into and getting myself into. And it’s not a simple story and it’s a sensitive story, and it’s the people’s history and the cast is from this area, and I want to make sure I do right by them. I had trouble sleeping for a little while. But it’s been the greatest film experience.

And then… you showed up in Budapest!
They came to me and said it’s great to shoot in Budapest. The crew came and they scouted and they said “you wouldn’t believe Raleigh Studios! It’s extraordinary. You wouldn’t believe the local crews. You wouldn’t believe the locations. We don’t have to fly everybody in, there’s a whole bunch of pros there.”

The internet has been abuzz with you going, then not going to Bosnia to shoot parts of the film. What`s the latest?
We’re trying to make a film about not one particular person or group because that’s not the voice of the people. We’re going to Bosnia, yes. Anybody telling a story about somebody else’s history has to respect their sensitivities that they can never understand and they have to be extremely respectful and extremely careful. And I know here everybody on this crew is coming from the right place and their heart is in the right place and wanting to do a good thing and wanting to do what all the people feel comfortable with. If you’ve really lived through something it’s just so personal to you that there’s never anything enough to do or say the right thing. I have so much love for this part of the world, and I’ve got to know this cast from all over Yugoslavia and they’ve all become dear friends of mine and they’ve taught me so much.

How is it to be director now that the panic is gone?
Actually, from the very first day I’ve loved it more than I’ve ever loved acting. I’ve always loved being an actor but there’s something about being a director where you really get to know the crew and the actors so much more. You really become part of the team. Actors kind of stay in their scenes and their characters and they`re in their moments and they stay together quite often. But as a director… to really be able get to know everyone, the camera department, the grips, the electrics, the sound, the set designers and working closely with them…

How much do you need to know about technical stuff?
Technically I’m extremely lucky to have Dean Semler with me. Everybody knows him not just as an extremely talented DP but also just as a very helpful, gracious man. So any time I’m confused about something I can always lean over and ask him to explain it to me and he does it with such care and never making me feel I don’t know something but seems happy to help me learn. And I got some technical books. We laughed because I had a last minute pile next to my bed of different ways to shoot scenes, and I tried to do a crash course. And I tried to pull out images, reference images and light images, I did a lot of that to try to explain not just with words on the page but also with images to the crew what I was looking for. And we had a lot of research material that helped.

Is the film going to be black and white or color?
It’s shot in color but it could transfer to black and white. We haven’t decided that. I can show you… we put a series of pictures together in black and white and it was beautiful. But the important thing I want to make sure that we make a film for people who just want to go to the movies to watch a love story. To not be put off by anything that seems too heavy So we want to walk that fine line to make it accessible to everybody because it`s important for as many people to see it.

Are you shooting it in English or, in all fairness, in one or more languages of the former Yugoslavia?
We actually shot a full version in their native language and we shot a full version in English. We shot two complete films. I was only able to do it because the actors were so fluent in English so they were willing to work hard and do the scenes in two languages.

And which language will be your choice for distribution?
We talked to the distributors about it and they might just offer every country an option. So if they want it in the native language they can have it. That’s the plan. But we certainly have done it for the people in the area.

When are you going to release it?
I don’t know. I have lots of people giving me lots of opinions. I just want to do it right. I have to go back and edit both versions at the same time in Los Angeles, because Brad`s working there, so we’ll be in LA. And if it hopefully turns out well and people respond to it…we’ll see. But of course I want to pay respect to the area and the cast and the people, so I am listening to them and where they want it released. I still just hope to put a good film together.

[From Vasarnapi Hirek]

Um… she shot the whole thing in English, and then she shot the whole thing in the “native language”. Wait, what is the native language? Let me look it up. According to Google, the most common and widely spoken language is called Serbo-Croatian, otherwise known as Serbo-Croat, otherwise known as Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian (BSC). I learned something today. I learned that Angelina Jolie uses up a lot of damn film because she can’t make the call for what language she wants to shoot her film in. Whatever happened to dubbing? Whatever happened to subtitles? You know she just made TWO different films.

Also – look, you know I love her, but my girl has moments where she’s terribly affected and grandiose. I rolled my eyes when she answered the question about filming in Bosnia with “We’re trying to make a film about not one particular person or group because that’s not the voice of the people.” Angelina, HUSH. You are not the voice of the people, and your film is not the voice of the people! Even if it was, that’s not for you to say, mmkay?

Over the weekend, Celebuzz had one of the advanced “first look” clips from The Tourist, the Angelina Jolie-Johnny Depp film coming out in just a few weeks. I didn’t find this clip very exciting at all – I think this is Depp and Jolie’s first scene together in the film, their “meet-cute” (I’m sorry, The Holiday was on over the weekend). The whole thing is rather boring, and Jolie’s accent work… oh, God. I mean… I hope this film does well, and I think it will, but someone has to just sit Jolie down and tell her to stop with the hokey accents. And I liked her Marianne Pearl accent! But this fakey English-lite bullcrap has to stop. Take it away, haters:

‘The Tourist’ Exclusive Clip

Trailer Park Movies | Myspace Video

In other Jolie news… there’s still some residual drama about Angelina pulling out of the film shoot in Bosnia. Other stuff…Josh Whedon is still working on getting The Avengers script done, and he told Entertainment Weekly that he based his Wonder Woman on Angelina Jolie: “For me, Wonder Woman was basically Angelina Jolie. She spends a lot of time flying around. She works in a lot of different countries. She’s very global. And she’s appalled by the way people treat each other.” He also said that he based his Wonder Woman character on Jolie because she was “what he imagined a real Amazonian goddess would be like.” Cute. One last piece of news: on Saturday, Angelina and Brad donated $150,000 to the SOS Children’s Villages in America. Jolie has long been a financial and moral supporter of the SOS Children’s Village program, both domestically and abroad. She and Brad donated the money in honor of National Adoption Day:

The Jolie-Pitt Foundation today announced a donation of $150,000 to SOS Children’s Villages – USA. The donation is given in recognition of National Adoption Day, which celebrates adoptive families and highlights the needs of the over 100,000 children still waiting for adoptive families in the United States. SOS Children’s Villages play a vital role in the healing and stabilization of foster care children, and constitute a critical step along the way to family reunification or adoption for many children.

SOS Children’s Villages provides loving, stable homes to children around the world whose biological families cannot properly care for them. Founded over 60 years ago, SOS operates over 500 Villages in 130 countries including Illinois and Florida in the US. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation donation will provide the supplemental long-term financial support needed for a family of four foster children in an SOS Village in the US.

Dr. Heather Paul, CEO of SOS Children’s Villages – USA expressed her gratitude for the on-going support from Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt: “I am truly thankful that Angelina and Brad understand the power of family – the kind of stable family that SOS holds as an essential part of healthy child development. Together, Angelina and Brad have been eye-witnesses to the great work of SOS in Ethiopia, Jordan, a Darfur refugee camp in Chad, and Haiti. Angelina and Brad know that children’s need for a family is universal.”
In the US, SOS Children’s Villages is a haven for a foster child, a haven from the storm of multiple placements, abuse or neglect. SOS puts foster children back together again with their brothers and sisters, and strengthens them for a bright future – a future that can include reunification with a biological parent, adoption, or success as an independent adult.

Through this donation, The Jolie-Pitt Foundation will provide support to an SOS foster care family for a number of years. This long-term approach is crucial to transforming a child who has suffered years of abuse – healing cannot happen overnight.

SOS Children’s Villages in the US have achieved impressive results. Less than 50% of foster care children in the US complete high school, while SOS youth have a completion rate of almost 100%. Over 300 foster children now call SOS home in Illinois and Florida, including many groups of biological brothers and sisters.

SOS Children’s Villages operates under these core principles:

Siblings should grow up together in a family-based environment.
Children should be re-unified with their biological family whenever possible.
Foster care children should never “age-out” of the system. Post-high school support is critical to a young adult’s long-term success.

SOS Children’s Villages in the US receive public support for the basic needs of their foster children. The additional services needed to transform a child’s life are provided by private donors. The $150,000 donation from The Jolie-Pitt Foundation will fund numerous services such as full-time, professionally trained caregivers, counseling, intensive support toward family reunification, vocational training or college preparation.

[From PR Newswire]

To read more about the SOS Children’s Villages, or to donate, go here.

Header: courtesy of WENN.

OK! Magazine got an exclusive interview with Joe Simpson, post-engagement. I have to admit something – whenever I think about Jessica’s engagement these days, I always get a wave of happiness thinking about how she was c—kblocked by Kate Middleton. After Jess tried to steal Nick Lachey’s thunder, Jess had her own thunder stolen! Instant karma. Anyway, Papa Joe Simpson is trying to get some attention for his beloved daughter (Ashlee doesn’t count!) and so he’s given a shockingly delusional interview. Well… most of it is his normal BS, but then he utters this line: “She is an example of a woman who had overcome obstacles and moved forward. If there’s one woman that Jessica and I are looking at — and where I want Jessica to be — it is Angelina Jolie.” Yes. Jessica Simpson is modeling herself after Angelina. In what way now?

Just after Jessica Simpson announced her engagement to Eric Johnson, her dad, Joe Simpson, sat down with Daphne Barak for his first-ever in-depth interview for this week’s issue of OK!. The stage dad opens up about Jessica’s future, business and weight and even confronts those nasty control freak rumors.

Daphne, who knows Joe well, says he is overwhelmed with fatherly pride. “I am so happy!” Jessica exclaimed to her father, who tells OK!, “I’m very happy for Jessica.”

Joe also added, “May they have a lifetime of joy and happiness.”

Jessica and Eric’s engagement isn’t the only thing the Simpson’s are celebrating though. “Jessica does not have to work anymore,” Joe reveals. Her businesses with be making a turnover of $700 million by the end of this year!

With everything going so well for the Simpson family, Joe must have seen it as the opportune time to let his guard down and finally open up to the public.

Joe on being the misconception of him as a control freak: “We let the girls [Jessica and sister Ashlee Simpson-Wentz] know we are here for them no matter what. They suffered so much in front of the world that I would not imagine it is possible unless each time it happened, we were there to take care of t hem. I am so happy my daughters want to spend time with us. This is one thing people who judge me don’t understand.”

Joe on the secret to The Jessica Simpson Collection’s huge success: “We always knew Jessica is Midwest America. Some people, when they move to Hollywood, they change. They buy different clothes, have different budgets. We never forget where we are from, where Jessica is from. And that is the clothes and accessories we are producing.”

Joe on Jessica’s weight: “I have nothing to do with Jessica’s weight. Jessica has been working since she was 12. She was told how to look perfect. How many people can look perfect all the time? I think she’s an all-American girl. She is sending a message to the world that it is okay to be normal; it is okay to indulge. Her message is: “Let me be normal! Everyone else gets to do it.”

Joe on what he wishes for Jessica: “She is an example of a woman who had overcome obstacles and moved forward. If there is one woman that Jessica and I are looking at — and where I want Jessica to be — it is Angelina Jolie.”

[From OK! Magazine]

New game: how Angelina and Farty McDumbAsABoxOfHair are different. Angelina has a thriving film career, while Jessica couldn’t pay someone to put her in a movie these days. Angelina is not managed by her freaky, trainwreck father. Angelina doesn’t make international headlines for wearing God-awful mom-jeans at a chili cook-off. Angelina also has never farted so loudly in a business meeting that her mom had to yell at her. Of course, that last one is pending. If Angelina was a gasbag, don’t you think the tabloids would have pounced on it by now?

In all honesty though… it’s completely dumb to use Angelina as a model – Jessica isn’t going to be an actress anymore, and her biggest success is as the face of a clothing brand, and as a former reality star and singer. You know who Papa Joe should use as a model? Dolly Parton. For real.