Pitt, Jolie weave web of fun intrigue

The most important thing about Doug Liman’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith is that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie truly do have great on-screen chemistry and their interaction keeps your attention on the film for almost the entire two hours that it’s unfolding (or unraveling, depending on your perspective).

Certainly, much of Simon Kinberg’s script seems either implausible or ridiculous, and the body count in this supposed “dark comedy” makes the average martial arts flick seem like a morning TV show. From the opening segment when Pitt plows through a trio of heavies and Jolie takes time out from dominatrix duty to casually snap a guy’s neck, this couple kills people with almost scary calm and precision.

John and Jane Smith are an ultra-bored suburban couple trying to keep their romance going while working as spies for different agencies. They’ve somehow been able to maintain a relationship and separate identities and agendas throughout the length of their marriage, which is a matter of much debate itself.

But then both Smith family members get instructions that have them going to some arcane location in the Southwest. When they arrive, it turns out that each one is the other’s target. Now they must decide whether to kill each other or remain together and possibly end up being killed by their employers.

The film also contains the obligatory chase scene and romantic encounters, plus some occasional interplay with cast members like Vince Vaughn and Kerry Washington to provide some change-of-pace scenery and conversation.

Still, the film totally rests on Pitt and Jolie, who do an effective job with rather meager tools. Comparisons to the great romantic comedy teams of the past are misguided because those duos were usually in much better written and conceived properties than this one. Indeed, it’s a tribute to this duo’s appeal as actors and willingness to stretch themselves that Mr. and Mrs. Smith rises beyond the level of either throwaway action vehicle or clichéd romantic yarn.

Sure, no one truly believes that these two are the cold-blooded killing machines that they portray, but the audience can accept the notion that they would stand by each other no matter what they later discovered. They root for them and finally cheer when it seems that they’ve at least persevered, if not triumphed. It may not make you fully accept the happenings in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but unless you hate the couple, you’ll probably enjoy them.
 By Ron Wynn

Event draws attention to needs of 17 million refugees worldwide

A global call for the safety and protection of 17 million refugees arose from Washington June 15, echoing with tribute to the courage of people who flee war, violence or discrimination in search of safety and hope for a better future.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) opened a five-day recognition of June 20's World Refugee Day with a Washington ceremony, bringing both diplomatic and cinematic star power to the event.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and film star Angelina Jolie shared a stage during a ceremony hosted by the National Geographic Society. Rice came to the event as chief diplomat for a nation that offers resettlement to more refugees each year than any other - 53,000 in 2004, and a projected 55,000 in 2005. Jolie serves as goodwill ambassador for UNHCR and, in that role, has traveled to remote areas in more than 15 nations, meeting and encouraging refugees and the people who assist them.

Rice said the United States has a "deep and abiding" commitment to the protection and assistance of refugees. "Communities across our country have opened their doors and their hearts to refugees helping them to begin new lives in safety and in freedom," she said.

The United States provided almost $700 million for overseas assistance to refugees and conflict victims in 2004. It provided additional hundreds of millions of dollars in global food aid, much of which flowed to refugees and displaced persons.

In recognition of World Refugee Day, Rice said the United States renews its pledge "to keep the hope of the world's refugees alive."

Jolie, who has represented the cause of refugees for almost four years, noted the more than 50,000 refugees resettled in the United States in 2004. "I'm certain among these 50,000, you'll also find some of the best and brightest of America's future," she said.

While acknowledging those success stories, Jolie also said, "There are 17 million whose futures are still uncertain. Refugee Day is the day we make sure they aren't forgotten."

In front of this crowd of almost 400 refugee activists and supporters, a movie star and a diplomat were not the most riveting figures on the National Geographic stage. The crowd offered its longest and loudest ovations to Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager who provided protection for more than 1,000 refugees during Rwanda's genocide in 1994. His story was the subject of the acclaimed 2004 film Hotel Rwanda.

As the crowd offered its tribute to Rusesabagina, so did the secretary of state. "Paul, you have shown us what true courage is in the face of evil," said Rice, speaking directly to Rusesabagina, who sat just steps from her across the stage. "When Rwanda sank into genocide, you, a hotel manager, found the courage to shelter over 1,200 refugees from certain death, putting your own life in great jeopardy. This story should give us all the courage to rise to the moral challenges that come our way."

UNHCR presented Rusesabagina with the World Refugee Day Humanitarian Award, jointly presented to Terry George, the director-producer of Hotel Rwanda.

Despite this admiration, Rusesabagina was humble about his role, calling himself not a hero but a husband and father who tried to do the right thing at a time when he was "absolutely certain" that he would not survive the 100 days of violence.

"The streets swam with blood. People [were] in despair, they had no food, no shelter. They were terrified, fearing for their lives, and the lives of their loved ones. The fortunate ones became refugees, because others were killed," Rusesabagina said.

Rusesabagina was one of the fortunate ones, who became a refugee in Belgium, a fate that was also cruel, he said, because "all your plans, goals and objectives vanished."

With those memories, Rusesabagina echoed Jolie in calling World Refugee Day a time to remember all those who suffer this plight whether in Sudan, Burundi, Somalia, or hundreds of other places.

"We need to give our fellow men and women hope. We need to reach out to them now so that we do not see a Hotel Darfur 10 years from now," Rusesabagina said.

LOS ANGELES The coupling of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" propelled the action-spy story to the top of the box office.
The assassin tale debuted with 51 (m) million dollars in ticket sales. It comes amid a tabloid fury of speculation that the two stars are romantically linked.

Last weekend's top film, "Madagascar," slipped to second place with 17 (m) million dollars. The last installment in the "Star Wars" saga was third, with a total so far of 332 (m) million dollars.

At number four is "The Longest Yard," followed by "Sharkboy and Lavagirl." The family action yarn opened in the fifth spot.

Speculations about Angelina Jolie being the cause of the split between Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt have apparently been confirmed, with Aniston reportedly confessing that cheating, not kids, was behind their breakup.

Aniston finally broke her silence on the love triangle to Leslie Bennetts, who will write up the interview for Vanity Fair.

According to the New York Post, Aniston reportedly told Bennetts, "she did want babies with Brad, and that starting a family wasn't the issue,"

"The issue was Brad cheated...and she is appalled by the 'family photos' coming out in W," a  source said. Brad and Angelina posed as husband and wife with kids in the upcoming monthly.

This week sees the release of the long-awaited Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie film 'Mr and Mrs Smith'.

Moviegoers on both sides of the Atlantic will be keen to see a film that has received non-stop hype in the press.

Unlike the summer's other main blockbuster, 'Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith', the film has not been hyped for bringing a sci-fi epic to closure after 28 years of waiting.
Nor is it being hyped because it has been made by the world's top director Steven Spielberg, like 'War of the Worlds'. Rather 'Mr and Mrs Smith' has garnered as much publicity for what has been happening off the screen as the action that takes place on it. The film's two stars, Pitt and Jolie, apparently sizzle with chemistry on screen and many have been left wondering if that chemistry spilled into their personal lives and possibly caused one of their marriages to end in divorce.

At the Los Angeles premiere of the movie the two stars kept a noticeable distance from each other, even while posing for photographers, after arriving in separate cars. However, their caution failed to deflect speculation about their relationship and the press pushed Pitt for the reasons behind his marital break-up. Pitt said: "There are still things that have to be answered." And indeed there are many questions still to be answered.

The rumour mill has been in full flow for months now. It started off as whispers coming from the set of the film late last year and gathered momentum in January 2005 when Pitt and former 'Friends' beauty Jennifer Aniston announced their four-year marriage was over. One newspaper alleged the couple's marriage imploded after Jennifer caught Brad and Angelina having phone sex with further fuel being added to the flames when photographs of 'The Fight Club' star and 29-year-old Jolie looking intimate surfaced later in the year.

The 'Tomb Raider' actress hit back angrily at the claims she had caused the break-up.

Jolie said: "I've been painted as the Wicked Witch of the West and a marriage wrecker. "But all I've been to Brad is a shoulder to cry on. Half the world believes we had an affair and I'm the one to blame for his split. The truth is I was there to help him through his pain. I would never sleep with a married man."

However, rumours persisted about the 41-year-old actor and his beautiful co-star, particularly after they shared a romantic break in Kenya last April where Pitt was pictured playing 'dad' to Jolie's three-year-old adopted son Maddox - even building sandcastles on an African beach as Angelina looked happily on.

An onlooker said: "They went to extreme lengths not to be spotted, hiring private jets, private villas and security. "But they seemed very relaxed once they were out on the beach with Maddox."

The alleged couple looked a match made in heaven to many observers, Brad has made no secret of his desire to start a family and Angelina had said she was looking for a father for Maddox.

Reports from their exclusive hotel told a story of nights that were far from relaxing - with rumours of noisy all-night romping.

One staff member said: "Worried guards grabbed weapons and banged furiously on the door with clubs to frighten the animal. All of a sudden it went quiet and Brad was heard saying 'Everything is cool, guys you can leave, we're okay".

And the impressed security staff believed the heartthrob actor may have downed a bizarre black-magic mixture, to improve his sexual prowess.

One source said at the time: "People here have loads of respect for men with sexual prowess who can keep their women satisfied. Miss Jolie got so excited, the guards thought maybe Mr Pitt was taking juju herbs to give him the strength of a lion"

At the end of April, the two were seen together on another exclusive African getaway, this time in Morocco. Where, despite disembarking separately from the plane to avoid waiting photographers, reports soon got back to the world's press.

An airport worker said: "They got off the plane separately as though they were ashamed. But you could see they are a couple in love."

The couple continued to publicly deny they were involved in any relationship but it was the makers of 'Mr and Mrs Smith' who then added to the growing speculation. Studio bosses publicly admitting they feared the movie's racy sex scenes would turn off Jennifer Aniston's legions of 'Friends' fans and cause the film to bomb at the box office.

Director Doug Liman revealed that producer Dave Matalon had warned him about an Aniston backlash, sayng: "I don't want to lose that audience of people who are huge Jennifer Aniston fans, who are going to hate Angelina Jolie if the scene's too sexy.

"People will go and see the sex scene and say 'Oh that's how Angie did it. She used her wiles to seduce him.'" In the end, makers decided not to cut the scenes and the Hollywood director, who previously produced hit movie 'The Bourne Identity', admitted that 29-year-old Angelina stunned the rest of the cast and crew with her shocking bedroom confessions and on-screen antics.

So what of the actual film? The 'Snatch' star and Jolie, who recently topped a FHM poll as sexiest woman on the planet certainly spark together. Their sexual tension has been commented on by almost all the critics. One describes them as 'lighting a 20-megaton cherry bomb' another claims 'their chemistry drives the film through the implausible plot.' Beyond mere sex the pair's sassy comedy delivery puts a lot of humour into what is basically an action film and it appears that the on-screen success will continue to drive the off-screen stories especially while the reasons for Brad and Jennifer's divorce remain a mystery.

Angelina Jolie is strong-minded not to disclose any information regarding her relationship with Brad Pitt.
 
Angelina Jolie will not disclose any information regarding her relationship with Brad Pitt, and neither should media.

Angelina Jolie, star of current blockbuster Mr and Mrs Smith, has issued a document which threatens journalists with legal action should they be nosy about her personal life.

According to Ananova.com, Angelina Jolie has issued a document to media personnel stating that should they ask personal questions they will be sued for an undisclosed amount.

The document reads: "Interviewer will not ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships. In the event Interviewer does ask Ms. Jolie any questions regarding her personal relationships, Ms. Jolie will have the right to immediately terminate the interview and leave."

Pitt and wife Jennifer Aniston announced their separation in January. Although Pitt, 41, has denied Jolie, 30, is the reason for the split and Jolie has said she's never had sex with Pitt, the A-listers have never fully explained the extent of their off-screen involvement.

Angelina Jolie declared in a press conference that she wants to quit movie business because she's bored of the film making process

Angelina Jolie declared in a press conference that she wants to quit movie business because she's bored of the film making process, especially by re-shoots of Mr and Mrs Smith.

"There's so much drama that comes with films - bickering with studios, directors fighting for their script. There's too much stuff about what product we need to get out to make this much money on that weekend.”

Angelina Jolie prefers spending time with her son, Maddox, traveling and to pursuing her work as an UN ambassador rather then making movies.

Angelina Jolie says: "I guess I just don't care as much as I used to. I'm happier doing other things. "There's not a lot of stuff that is exciting or fulfilling."

Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who are rumoured to be seeing each other, are once gain set to play husband-wife for a 60-page magazine spread.

The Mr. and Mrs. Smith duo has posed for a range of shots both wedded bliss as parents and the darker side of marriage for the July issue of W magazine.

The magazine's creative director Dennis Freedman said that the photographs impressed them so much that they decided to publish an unprecedented 60-page spread with just two pages of text, which was originally Pitt's idea.

"He approached us back in March with an idea and the idea was really to explore both sides - the dark and the light of an idealised American family," Femalefirst  quoted Freedman as saying.

Jolie not responsible for my break-up with Aniston: Brad Pitt

Hollywood star Brad Pitt has claimed that Angelina Jolie is not to be blamed for his break-up with Jennifer Aniston.

According to the Sun, when an interviewer asked Pitt - "Did Angelina Jolie break-up your marriage?" - he replied in negative.

The 'Troy' star also insisted that his marriage with the former 'Friends' star wasn't a failure and that he would always stay in touch with her.

"I don't see my time, certainly my marriage, as any kind of failure. It was an extraordinary time. It doesn't mean you lose the love, the love just changes shape," he said.

Pitt disgusted with Photo Payment

Actor Brad Pitt is reportedly disgusted to find out that his photographs with alleged girlfriend Angelina Jolie taken on the Kenyan Beach fetched over 500,000 pounds.

The actor feels that this money could have been better spent. In a candid interview with US news woman Diane Sawyer, Pitt even revealed that he would have set the shots himself had he known that he would get this kind of money.

"It's amazing, the bounty that is on my head and the lengths that these people go to to get these shots, and the amount of money that they're paying for these shots.It's something like  half  a million  dollars  or three quarter of a million dollars for the shots.I can't help but think what that money could have gone to. Hell, I would have set up the damn pictures myself", Contactmusic.com quoted Pitt as saying.
Asian News International
London, June 8, 2005 

Jumping off a high-rise while wearing black dominatrix gear and sky-high stiletto heels? It's all in a day's work for Angelina Jolie.

But navigating her way around a kitchen? That presented a bigger problem for the domestically challenged actress, who plays a bored assassin/housewife in the comedic thriller Mr. & Mrs. Smith. It opens Friday.

"Angie does not have the homemaker thing going," Akiva Goldsman, a producer on the movie, says with a laugh. "There's a scene where she kicks the oven door closed behind her. I showed her how to do that. She looked at me as though I had showed her that you could create gold out of thin air. The idea that you could kick an oven door closed was entirely alien to her."

It's vintage Jolie, who at 30 is nothing if not a comely cluster of contradictions.

The tattooed former wild child — who in her younger years battled an eating disorder and self-mutilation and later famously wore a necklace containing a drop of her then-husband Billy Bob Thornton's blood — has evolved into a vocal and hands-on celebrity goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Today, the smoldering beauty is equally at home visiting the displaced in eastern Jordan, hobnobbing with global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, or posing on the red carpet in a clingy Celine dress. She is now by all accounts the doting single mom of adopted son Maddox, 3, but acknowledges being a sexual woman who takes lovers when it suits her. And she has been branded a homewrecker in the tabloids for her did-they, didn't-they relationship with Brad Pitt, who plays her assassin husband in Smith. (Related gallery: The colorful life of Angelina Jolie)

Chances are Jolie (who did not respond to interview requests) won't care much what the public thinks. She's too busy living her life on her own terms. Which makes people all the more interested.

"She charts her own route, and audiences really appreciate it when you're not trying to copy someone who came before or trying to be somebody else," Smith director Doug Liman says. "She wants to take flying lessons, and boom, she's got her license. She makes no apologies. 'This is who I am. Take it or leave it.' "

It's notable that even though most of her movies have tanked both commercially and critically, Jolie is considered an A-lister in Hollywood. With the exception of 2001's Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, the Oscar winner has never carried a hit movie. Yet Jolie's persona is so super-sized, her looks so unique, that her films seem almost an afterthought.

"She is larger than life, but she can't help it," says David Edelstein, film critic at Slate and NPR's Fresh Air. "Even her name is mythic. She's a magnificently sexual creature, (seems) a little nuts and isn't afraid to let her roles consume her. She makes you rejoice in the artifice of acting."

Her personality and unwillingness to be just another bland, by-the-numbers Hollywood starlet are just what make Jolie so appealing.

"Women identify with her because she seems smart and independent and empowered," Smith screenwriter Simon Kinberg says. "Men are attracted to her because she happens to be incredibly beautiful. And playful."

Adds Variety's Mike Speier: "She's got the danger quality. She's not a goody-goody. Yes, she adopted a baby, but she's not on TRL telling kids not to do drugs."

Talk to anyone who knows Jolie and you'll hear nearly identical descriptions of their first impressions: Without the buffer of a personal publicist, Jolie looks you straight in the eye, shakes your hand and asks about you.

"She's not a cold or divisive person," says Estée Lauder makeup artist Paul Starr, who has worked on Jolie since 1998's Gia and features her in his upcoming book, Paul Starr on Beauty: Conversations with Thirty Celebrated Women. "She comes in without an entourage. She's extremely professional and shows up three minutes before the call time. She knows her job."

As for her relationship with Pitt during the shoot, all say it was "professional," too. The two leads have largely stayed mum while promoting the film, save to praise each other as actors.

Still, in an interview last April, Pitt lamented that his co-star was misunderstood. "I've never seen someone so misperceived in the press," he said. "Jolie's really a delightful human being, a dedicated mother and really quite normal. (She's) dedicated to her work with the U.N. There's actually a real lightness to her."

Jolie doesn't dwell on the scuttlebutt about her sex life.

"The press can say I'm dating whomever, they can say whatever about my films, and it doesn't hurt anybody," she says in the July issue of Marie Claire magazine in an interview March 28. "But misinterpret something that has to do with refugees, and it could affect them in a bad way."

In the same interview, Jolie quashes tales of an on-set fling with Pitt, who was then still with his wife, Jennifer Aniston, who has since filed for divorce. "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father (actor Jon Voight) cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive," she said. "I could not, could not, look at myself in the morning if I did that."

Today, Jolie lives with Maddox outside London rather than in the Tinseltown celebrity fishbowl. She remains estranged from her father, who said on television that she has "extreme problems." When she's not jetting to refugee camps, Jolie pilots planes, gets tattoos and socializes with whomever she chooses, even if it risks tabloid attention. (In May, she had dinner with her first husband, Jonny Lee Miller, and their photos showed up in the tabs.) But by most accounts, her free time is dedicated to her U.N. work and Maddox.

Kinberg calls Jolie a "very hands-on" mom. "He's always around, and she's always with him."

When Maddox asked for spiky hair while attending the Venice Film Festival with Jolie last autumn, she obliged, recalls Vicky Jenson, who directed Jolie in last year's animated hit Shark Tale. Maddox is "a barnacle attached to her shoulder. She's very loving with him. She encouraged him to say 'Hi' to people but didn't push him. He'd get shy and hide under her hair."

The twice-divorced Jolie, on the other hand, never appears bashful. There she goes, posing with Pitt on the cover of the July issue of W magazine even as rumors about them reach a fever pitch.

Fortunately for her, Jolie never reads the tabloids that follow her life and loves, says Smith's Goldsman, and in fact knows nothing about pop culture. Instead, "she's more interested in the kind of books we read in high school and college and then stopped reading."

Jolie sat around on the set and hung out with the cast and crew between takes. "She doesn't gossip, and she's weirdly culturally removed," Goldsman says. "She doesn't waste her energy on silliness. You'll never find common ground with her based on what's on TV or what's in the tabloids."

And there's nothing understated about Jolie's beauty, from the bodacious lips to the cat-like eyes and eye-poppingly curvy body. Jolie is one of the very few celebrities who looks as good in person, if not better, than in airbrushed magazine photos. When she is on the red carpet, Jolie appears regal, composed — and slightly bored.

"I don't think she realizes how genetically blessed she is," says Marie Claire editor Rebecca Shalam, who has known Jolie for four years and has watched her get dirty with Maddox in the park. "I don't think she's aware of the effect she has on men and women. She's thinking about getting aid to Ethiopia and not necessarily about, 'Oh, are they going to say I have a 26-inch waist or do I need liposuction?' "

As a result, Shalam says, "people are fascinated by her confidence, her independence, her total lack of pretension, her genuine desire to help people who aren't in position to help themselves."

Shannon Boyd, manager of the UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and Special Events Programs, has worked with Jolie for four years and calls her "very engaged" and "courageous." The actress is in contact with the U.N. on a nearly daily basis, and as soon as her schedule opens, is willing to go on another mission, he says. "We treat her as a colleague. She sleeps on colleagues' sofas, and if all we have is a spare floor, she does that. She gets her half-liter of water to go on a long jeep ride in 100-degree weather if that's what everyone else has."

In addition to her 20-plus missions, Jolie has donated substantial amounts of money to the organization and "has paid her own way since day one," says Boyd.

But she's no ponderous pontificator you dread sitting next to at a dinner party.

"For someone as dedicated to very serious things in the world, she has the ability to really laugh," Kinberg says. "Her sense of humor is mature, sophisticated. She understands irony and has wryness and doesn't take herself that seriously. When you're working with her, you don't feel like you're working with Kofi Annan."

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie arrived separately to the American premiere of their latest movie Mr & Mrs Smith. Pitt came for the Los Angeles showing looking fresh and relaxed, dressed casual. Jolie arrived some time later in a figure-hugging black leather number and posed for photographers.

In Prime Time Live interview with Diane Sawyer, last week, Brad Pitt denied all the rumors about him and Angelina, calling it "a good story".

Says Sawyer: "But that's painful too."
"Yeah, but, well, listen, let me speak from my experience," he says.
 "You know I've been in these tabloids for 14 years now. And at some point you just become a Zen master of it all."

He called the media focus on his personal life "misguided," and denied that he wanted children and Aniston didn't. "Ridiculous ... completely fabricated," the 41-year-old actor said.