I would have much preferred another appearance of red lips and teased hair, honestly. I HATE what Angelina Jolie is wearing for The Tourist’s Madrid photo call. Perhaps Jolie is only sexing it up for the premieres, though, and she’s trying to look “average” and “not sexy” for the photo calls with Johnny Depp. Once again, they’re standing next to each other, but in these photos, they both look over it completely. It’s not even like “oh, they’re trying to not look interested in each other, because of The Gossip.” This is like “if I have to look at your stupid dong sheath hankie one more time, I’m going to shoot you in the face.”

But anyway, let’s get to the fashion – Jolie is wearing black (sailor?!?) pants, a simple black top, and this absolutely HIDEOUS fuzzy elbow-length sweater, in a ghastly shade of buttery blah. Dear Angelina: WEAR A MOTHERTRUCKING JEWEL TONE. Oh, and the bangs trauma? Eh. It’s not as bad as it’s been before, but it’s still not good. This blah, greasy hair might be the worst of the European tour.

You know what’s super-disappointing? Angelina usually wins when she’s doing business-casual gear. That’s her strength, not evening or cocktail. This outfit just sucks.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Do you ever have a moment of sheer, unadulterated joy when you see a completely new photo of a celebrity you enjoy? That’s what just happened to me when I gazed upon these new photos of Angelina Jolie at today’s Berlin premiere of The Tourist. The bitch is wearing a black velvet dress… with built-in gloves. FABULOUS BITCH. Angelina is TOTALLY ‘80s. It’s ridiculous. All of her style references are from watching Dynasty as a tween, and she’s never moved on from that point. God, I love her. Brad doesn’t look too bad, though – he actually looks really hot, in my opinion. Do you think he had some fun with those gloves before they left for the red carpet? I do. Mm… velvet dong tug. Maybe that’s why Angelina’s hair looks like she’s just spent the past hour getting nailed, you know?

By the way, when asked about her Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical, La Jolie said that the acknowledgment was an honor and: “we were laughing because it’s the first time that I’ve been in the comedic category so it’s new for me.”

And here’s Johnny. I don’t hate the suit or anything, but I have no idea what that thing is hanging down on his side. Is that his dong sheath? Pleasepleaseplease let it be a dong sheath. As for Johnny and his two GG noms, he said that he is “very touched by the double nomination.”

More photos.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Ha! Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie are in Germany today for a photo call for The Tourist. Fresh off their dual lead actor Golden Globe nominations!! All of you people bitching about it – La Jolie laughs at you. Also – this the first time we have access to photos of Johnny and Angelina standing NEXT to each other. They did so very briefly at the NYC premiere of The Tourist, but hardly anyone got photos of it. So this is nice, seeing their body language. Maybe some studio exec was all “This movie is bombing, we need to sex it up! Johnny, why don’t you touch her during a photo call?” Anything, please, I’ll take it. What’s interesting is that their body language isn’t reading “sexy” – they just seem to be comfortable with each other, and to like each other as friendly acquaintances – which is pretty much their chemistry in The Tourist.

I like Angelina’s hair for the photo call too – do you think she flat-ironed it?

One last thing – The Tourist’s director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is a giant. Just FYI.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Well, The Tourist “bombed” this weekend, and now everyone is scrambling to assign blame. Despite having two of the biggest stars in the planet, The Tourist only made $17 million domestically this weekend, coming in second after The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Narnia’s number one box office was weak too – only making $24.5, when many experts were hoping for at least $30 to $40 million for the opening weekend.

So what was the problem? Was it the weather? There were huge blizzards throughout the country over the weekend, and most people stayed home. Was it the hideous reviews? Most critics mocked The Tourist as stupid and boring, and Depp and Jolie were accused of having zero chemistry. Was it The Chelsea Handler Factor? Too much bad publicity surrounding Angelina? Or was Depp’s understated – read uncharacteristically boring – performance to blame? Eh. As I said in my review, I think the biggest problems with the film were an uneven tone (Is it a light Hitchcock-esque film? Is it action/drama?) and unmet expectations. The way the film was being promoted, I think people thought it was going to be super-sexy, and Depp and Jolie would be nailing each other in various Venice beckdrops. That’s not what the film was though – instead of something super-sexy, the love story was just kind of sweet and silly.

Or maybe it was just released at the wrong time – this is the time when most filmgoers want to watch their Oscar-bait films. Perhaps The Tourist would have benefited from it’s original release date, which I believe was supposed to be in February or March. I don’t really know. But I’m admit, this isn’t good for Jolie supporters. Our girl was in a box office “disappointment”. Will the film make money? Sure – when it gets a wide release in Europe and Asia, it will make money. Depp and Jolie are two of the few celebrities with large followings overseas. But it’s still bad news for Team Jolie (and Team Depp).

By the way, instead of going on some European or Asian publicity tour, Angelina is already in the south of France, with her family at their home. This morning she was grocery shopping. Interesting…

Okay, so this is just my review of The Tourist – if you want to read the bad reviews, and there are totally SO MANY bad reviews, go here to Rotten Tomatoes, where The Tourist is holding at 20%. From the looks of the reviews, you’d think that Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie had made Ishtar 2: Kingdom of the Crystal Dong. But I went to see The Tourist last night, and I have a confession: it really wasn’t that bad. In fact, I rather enjoyed it.

Is it because I’m a Brangeloonie? Sure. I’m positive that my card-carrying membership to Empress Zahara’s Queendom had something to do with my general warmth towards the film. But if something sucks hard, I hope you have enough faith in me to call it as I see it. Here’s an example: when I saw Salt earlier this year, it disappointed me. I thought it was a waste of many talented people, I thought the script issues were atrocious, and I thought the plot holes were ridiculous. I don’t really want to see Salt again – but I would watch The Tourist again tomorrow.

So why the bad reviews? I think it’s because there is a problem with “tone”. The film isn’t some serious movie, and it’s totally not the best work any of the actors or the director has ever done or will ever do. It was like the film didn’t know whether it was a quirky little Hitchcock Lite suspense/dramedy or whether it should just be full-on action/drama.

And yes, there were other problems too: the music was sketchy, and detracted from several key scenes. Angelina’s hair was a rat’s nest for the last half of film, and it was totally distracting. Also, her costumes: she can wear the hell out of a suit or a slim-cut dress, but the evening clothes were tragic. For a major part of the film, she’s wearing a ghastly Gone With the Wind ball gown – in another part, she’s wearing a lumpy satin dress that makes her abdomen look like a tree trunk. Poor girl has never had much of a defined waist, and this dress was the wrong choice for her body type. As for Depp – his come-and-go facial hair was distracting. As was Jolie’s come-and-go accent.

What was good? Depp and Jolie gave understated, solid performances. Once again, not the best work from either of them, but they weren’t bad either. They didn’t have a lot of sexual chemistry, but their little love story was sweet, and the two characters seemed to affectionately like each other, rather than be all hot and bothered for each other. There were no sex scenes – there didn’t need to be. This was Depp as his most “normal” – no garish costumes or makeup to hide behind. It was nice. Refreshing, even. It was also refreshing to see Jolie play a character where her default position isn’t on “kick his ass”. Her character gets out of situations realistically, like a smaller woman without a death wish would, rather than some strident action heroine, bustin’ a cap in every bitch trying to mess with her. I also liked that she was playing “beautiful” – every man who comes into contact with her stops to check her out. Angelina doesn’t play that part very often.

My favorite part of the film? Paul Bettany. He was AMAZING. If you feel like seeing a fun, silly little movie and you’re trying to decide, let Paul Bettany’s scene-stealing performance be the deciding factor. Every scene with him popped. He was funny, he was sexy, he was dashing, and he was a total wisecracking, know-it-all a–hole. He was the perfect foil, the perfect character actor, the perfect sidekick.

There was also some decent character work done by the underutilized Timothy Dalton and Rufus Sewell, and a cameo by Raoul Bova. The “villain” was played by long-time character actor Steven Berkoff, who, if you’re in anything like me, is known solely for his role as Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop. Of course, I’ve seen Beverly Hills Cop about a million times, so during all of Berkoff’s scenes, I was flashing back to his dialogue with Eddie Murphy.

All in all, I’d give the film a B-minus. If you want to see something silly, sweet and a bit cheesy, and Paul Bettany looking fine in a suit, you should see this.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Early this year, Fox News ran a piece about how Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis have horrible personal hygiene. Apparently, Depp rarely bathes, and there’s a significant odor problem. If I had to guess, I think Depp probably isn’t obsessed with being clean and smelling good, but that he’s not completely gross or anything. Also, he used to be a smoker, and there are lots of odor and hygiene issues that come along with that – like what happens to your mouth. And your breath. Johnny claims he doesn’t smoke anymore, though, so maybe the complaints about hygiene are just about bathing and such. So it’s not shocking to me to read a story about Angelina Jolie asking (“ordering”) Depp to bring on the Listerine and the breath-mints for their makeout scenes:

Angelina Jolie thinks Johnny Depp’s hot, hot, hot – but his smelly cigarette breath is not, not, NOT! Chain-smoker Depp admitted to pals that while they were filming The Tourist, Jolie made him chug-a-lug Listerine AND pop breath mints before all romantic scenes.

“I hate it, but I wanted to keep her happy,” said Depp, groaning that Jolie, who hates smoking and won’t allow it in front of her kids, even insisted he munch mints when he dined socially with her and Brad Pitt.

[From The National Enquirer, print edition]

Eh. Is this the worst they can do? Some completely possible scenario in which one A-List star doesn’t want to kiss her cigarette-tasting costar? I think it’s just good manners and professionalism to use the breath mints. For argument’s sake, let’s say that Depp has quit smoking for good (even though I could swear I just saw him with a cigarette recently) – why would Angelina have a problem with his breath then? Garlic-breath? Cheese-breath? Wine-breath?

Also, re: Angelina hating smoking – I really think she must “allow” Brad to smoke, just not when he’s around the kids. He never did quit!

Photos courtesy of Fame.

Access Hollywood has a red carpet interview with Johnny Depp at The Tourist premiere, and he says some really interesting, thoughtful things as we’ve come to expect from him. One thing I learned, and a trait that I share with Johnny, is that he doesn’t like to talk on the phone at all and prefers using the Internet. It could be due to the fact that he’s a world class star and values his personal time with his family, but there may be another reason. Like Johnny, I also live in a foreign country and it’s a bitch to talk on the phone when you’re not confident in your language skills. I’ve had phone conversations in German of course but it’s not a simple prospect for me. As a result I don’t like using the phone and it’s even hard for me when I’m visiting the states. It’s like I’ve lost my phone mojo.

Depp also talked glowingly about his fans, calling them his “employers” and explained that his Pirates teeth are still in because he just finished filming. He’s been asked about those teeth before while on this press tour.

On why he spends so much time with fans at the premiere
They’ve come here for a reason. If I’m some sliver of a part of that reason, I’d like to go out there and say ‘thank you.’ They’re the employers, you know.

On how long he’ll keep his pirates teeth
Just until I can find a dentist to rip them out, essentially. They sort of have to be yeah, yanked out… we just literally finished like, you know, last week.

Why he doesn’t have a phone
We have Internet and stuff like that because I think that’s the safest form, well, most interesting form of communication. I just don’t like phones. I just don’t like them… being reachable all the time… You’d have to you know to just buzz me on the Internet or something [to get ahold of me]”

[From Access Hollywood]

You can watch the video of Johnny’s interview on Access Hollywood. I know some people have soured on him based on his stance on the Roman Polanski debacle, but he still strikes me as one of the most genuine, decent people in Hollywood.

Oh and MTV’s brilliant celebrity interviewer, Josh Horowitz, has a series of interviews with Johnny that you can watch on MTV’s site. Johnny is asked how he feels about no longer being the sexiest man alive, and he deadpans “I feel emasculated, I feel beaten down like some pathetic harp seal.” He also confirms a previous assertion that he’ll do a 21 Jump Street cameo if it’s offered, and says that Angelina Jolie’s humor is often ‘scatological.’ With that many kids, no wonder she’s got her mind on poop.

Here’s Johnny outside the Late Show yesterday and at The Tourist premiere. Credit: Dan Jackman/WENN.com

And now for Part II of our coverage of last night’s premiere of The Tourist. I had been hoping that all of Jolie’s hot male costars would show up for the premiere, and indeed, most of them did. Johnny Depp, the lead jointly with Jolie, flew solo for the event – God knows where Vanessa Paradis was. I’m pretty sure Depp is still filming the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film in London, so this was likely just a day trip for him – that’s all he could be spared. It looks like that Jack Sparrow eye makeup is really hard to wash off, right? Yeah… I think Depp looks kind of mangy here, but I will allow the possibility that his hair and styling looks so bad because this was a hurried trip.

Interesting side note: the two leads, Depp and Jolie, did not pose for photos together on the red carpet. At all. No chummy-but-professional awkward arms-on-back pose, no kissy-face for the cameras. It’s weird.

Anyway, you know who I just can’t get enough of? Paul Bettany. He’s grown out his hair and… DAMN, this man is FINE. Paul plays the government dude trying to track Angelina Jolie’s character, I think. It’s the kind of supporting part Paul usually gets, but now that he’s stirring up my lady bits, I’m hoping he takes another stab at lead roles. He’s really, really handsome here. Oh, and his beautiful wife Jennifer Connelly looks good too – she’s wearing Balenciaga. Eh on the dress, but she looks good – she’s gained some weight after looking painfully thin for a while.

I know you bitches like Rufus Sewell… we get a lot of requests for him for HGF. I think he often comes across as rather smarmy, but yes, he is an attractive man. He looks really good here too.

And Brooke Shields, for some reason. She’s not in the movie, I guess she just wanted to see it.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis are one of those celebrity couples who are famously not married. They’ve been together for way longer than I even remember – 12 years? Is that right? Johnny and Vanessa have both talked about not being married in the past, and with both of them, you can just tell that for them, it’s just about the love. They are in the midst of a love affair, or, in Vanessa’s words, “the mutual training of two kindred rebel spirits” – and the legalities and accoutrements of establishing the relationship have somehow escaped them. When Depp was interviewed by Extra for The Tourist, he once again got the marriage question, only this time he had a new answer: he doesn’t want to marry Vanessa because he loves her maiden name. Cue the chorus of “AW”.

Actor Johnny Depp opened up to “Extra” on why he hasn’t married his girlfriend of 12 years, Vanessa Paradis, and what the couple and their two children have planned for the holidays.

“I never found myself needing that piece of paper,” Depp said as to why he and Paradis haven’t tied the knot. “Marriage is really from soul to soul, heart to heart. You don’t need somebody to say, okay you’re married… If Vanessa wanted to get hitched, why not… But the thing is, I’d be so scared of ruining her last name. She’s got such a good last name.”

The actor and Paradis have two children; Lily-Rose Melody, 11, and John Christopher, 8, who will all be spending the holidays at home relaxing.

“Sleeping, sleeping and playing with a lot of toys with my son,” Depp revealed about his holiday plans. “Hanging out with the kiddies.”

Currently co-starring with Angelina Jolie in “The Tourist,” Depp said he was “pleasantly surprised” to find out how normal she is. “She’s just a regular gal… with a perverse sense of humor. She’s got a vivid and energetic sense of humor. She doesn’t mind traveling to the dark or to the very weird.”

With two of the biggest stars in Hollywood in the same movie, the paparazzi were all over them while they filmed in Venice. Says Depp, “It was like wallpaper. There were so many. I’ve never seen that many in my life. You’d leave your hotel to get in a boat to go to work and the question was, ‘how many today?’”

[From Extra]

Not to play devil’s advocate, but if they ever do get married, Vanessa doesn’t HAVE to take his name. She doesn’t even have to hyphenate either. She can be Paradis forever (and just Mrs. Depp in the bedroom).

Here’s the video of Depp’s Extra interview. There’s an interesting little part with Johnny talking about Brad Pitt.

Header courtesy of WENN.

Much like the barrage of Angelina Jolie interviews, there are lots of new Johnny Depp interviews, all for The Tourist. Unfortunately, there aren’t really any new photos of him floating around, so we have to make due with some older pics, and some stills from The Tourist. Once again, Pop Sugar has some of the most extensive interview slices, and Johnny is cracking me up with some of his answers. He talks about how he can’t grow a full beard, so basically he had to wear a stunt beard glued to his face. But the funniest part is when he’s talking about the pajamas:

In terms of where you are at in your career as a global movie star, what makes you choose a project?
Johnny Depp: I never think of myself on those terms as a “huge global movie star,” so I can’t help but smile because it just doesn’t register as me. It still feels like I’m doing the same bits, just trying something different each time, exploring something new. It’s important to keep challenging myself and try to come up with some new face every now and again. Many years ago Marlon Brando asked me, “How many films do you do per year, kid?” I said, “I dunno, maybe three.” He said, “Too much. We only have so many faces in our pockets.” And I went, you know, that’s really true, but I feel like I still got a few faces left.

Many of your most famous characters have tons of elaborate costumes and makeup. What did you bring to your character Frank?
JD: The story, the script, and the character dictate where you’re going to go. I imagine someone I may have known in the past that reminds me of a character. [The Tourist's] Frank has this heavily groomed beard, which I by the way can’t grow so was all glued on. It’s a perfectly landscaped beard, which came from a guy I knew years ago and I was always fascinated with, because it looked like something in a jar. I couldn’t believe someone could actually treat [a beard] so pristinely.

In The Tourist there’s a scene where you’re in pajamas; how did that come to be?
JD: I wanted footie pajamas with little bunny ears, but [the director] wouldn’t go for it. Initially he was supposed to be either in a towel or his underpants, but there was something about a grown man in pajamas that you’d pull out of Leave It to Beaver’s dad’s drawer. The imagery, juxtaposed with the background of Venice, I just thought there was something really funny about it.

The canal scenes are intense. Did you go in the dirty water or was that left to the stunt men?
JD: All that stuff — doing the stunts, being yanked down a Venice canal in a boat, being handcuffed to the railing — was way secondary to the immense fear that I had of going into “the drink.” The stunt guys who did have to go into [the canal] were on serious antibiotics like weeks beforehand. I remember being cuffed to that railing and getting ready to take off and saying to myself, you’re going in . . . you’re going into this water. Luckily, I didn’t, but it was pretty close a couple of times.

Did you have any actual tourist experiences while shooting in Venice?
JD: My tourist times were between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. That was the only time that I could really wander and have a look around, because there’s virtually no one on the streets at that point. Everywhere you look is kind of a visual poem; I was amazed — these wonderful facades, clotheslines with people’s laundry, and little signs on churches “bread for the poor.” It’s a beautiful, magical place. That’s the Venice I like to see as opposed to going into the gondola and putting a flower in my teeth. I like the nighttime Venice, the quiet Venice, when it feels like the ghosts are around.

What sort of artistic freedom do you look for in roles? Was it always that way?
JD: Is there something in there outside the author’s intent that I can add that is maybe a little bit different, that is coming from the outside and is not done to death. Is there something I can add to make it interesting? I’ve always had that, it’s probably a bad habit. I remember doing Platoon back in ’86 with Oliver Stone. I was rewriting my dialogue, which is probably why he mostly cut me out of the film. I suppose Cry Baby was the first character I felt good about. With Edward Scissorhands, nobody really knew what I was going to do; even Tim [Burton], bless him, was a little nervous initially with my take on it, but it all worked out. I guess it probably comes from being locked into television for years and the parameters were so rigid there was no room for movement. There was no room to grow so I swore to myself after that I wouldn’t do that again. If I had to go back to construction, that’s OK, I was pretty good at that. Pumping gas, I can do that too.

Paris is home to you now. What makes you love the city so much?
JD: Everything. The literary history in Paris has been and always will be a fascination for me. The books that were written here, art history, paintings, painters who wandered these streets, great poets — it’s just always been magical for me and I’ve always oddly felt more at home here than anywhere else in the world. I suppose just to be surrounded by all this art, and all this incredible work that people have done over the years. You can feel. It’s still there, you still feel all those real writers. It’s very inspiring.

Your character in this movie is not Johnny Depp cool; how did you figure out what you wanted to do with this character?
JD: The idea was to make him really the everyman of the movie, the math teacher who doesn’t have particular highs or particular lows in his life and has a slight amount of OCD in his weird routines. [I wanted to] take this normal guy and put him in these high-stakes situations that were less than normal. The electronic cigarette was the device that would ring the alarm that he’s in panic mode.

The director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck said you added the humor to the film; what is the story behind that?
JD: I thought, if you took this guy and put him in these situations, especially if he’s going to stick around, he has to recognize the level of absurdity in what he’s going through. Also, if I see a gag coming around the corner, I snatch it up. I can’t help myself. You spend 90 percent of the time when you’re working trying to make your costar laugh, and I guess some of it’s in the film.

What was it like meeting and working with Angelina?
She’s a real treat to get into the ring with. She’s a lot of fun and funny! She’s deeply committed to the work, has a great approach and is very smart. She also has a very very absurd and perverse sense of humor. We met, oddly, right before we did this, which was just weird because we have a lot of mutual friends, acquaintances, and people we’ve worked with. When we sat down together, it was kind of instant. We got each other. Within minutes we were yakking about our kids, the perils of parenthood and all that fun stuff.

Do you hope to have the chance to work with her again?
Boy, I certainly would like to think so. I hope so. If she’ll have me again, I’d be more than happy. She’s a good girl. I have a lot of respect for her. In the face of all that she, Brad, and the kids have to deal with, being globally under the microscope every second of the day, she’s grounded. She’s as cool, normal and low key [a woman] as you’d want to meet. She doesn’t take it all that seriously. She is a wonderful mommy, a great mommy, which you’ve gotta take your hat off to as well. And she’s out there trying to do things in the world, to help. She’s impressive. She’s a force.

[From Pop Sugar (two stories)]

Depp also talked more about Angelina when he was interviewed for Entertainment Tonight (the video is here). Depp describes Jolie as “a very normal girl” and that “Angelina’s life with Brad and the kids has been kind of overly shockingly documented and what I was pleasantly surprised by is she’s not really fazed by it. She’s a very normal girl and she’s very, very smart and very thoughtful, very kind. The two main things: This woman who has become this wonderful mother — she’s a fantastic mother — and very funny as well; good sense of humor.” He also talks a little about how he and Angelina brought their kids together, and how Jack Depp played videogames with Pax.

Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.