Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Prepare For Funeral

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have begun preparations for Angelina's mother, Marcheline Bertrand, who passed away this past Saturday. The Sun UK reports that the couple had to abruptly leave New Orleans when Jolie received the news that her mother had taken a turn for the worse.

The Hollywood actress was spotted talking anxiously on her mobile phone at an arts centre in New Orleans on Friday, according to the British paper. She and boyfriend Brad Pitt immediately flew to LA. They arrived at around 4pm on Saturday and were at actress Marcheline's bedside until she died around 7.54pm.

Angelina and her mother were extremely close as she has been estranged from her father Jon Voight for years. A source said: "Angie was dreading this moment. She felt she had already lost her father - and now her mom too."

Angelina Jolie's Mother Dies

Angelina Jolie is in mourning after her mother Marcheline Bertrand lost her battle with cancer on Saturday.

The former actress died Saturday afternoon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

In a statement released by Angelina Jolie Sunday, the star revealed she, her partner Brad Pitt and brother James Haven were at the hospital when Bertrand, 55, passed away.

Bertrand, who was partly of native American descent, appeared in movies like 'Lookin' To Get Out' and 'The Man Who Loved Women,' but gave up her acting career to raise her kids as a single mom, after divorcing their father, actor Jon Voight, in 1978.

She always stayed on the fringes of Hollywood and produced the star-studded documentary 'Trudell' in 2005.

Angelina Jolie confirmed her mother was battling ovarian cancer last month, but confessed she expected her to win her fight with the disease.

In a TV interview with CNN talk show host Larry King, the actress revealed her mother was "doing good," adding, "She has fought for six years and she's a remarkable woman, she's very, very strong and her spirit remains unbroken."

Angelina Jolie Visits Vietnam

Angelina Jolie has taken time out from settling into her new home in New Orleans, Louisiana, to fly to Vietnam to promote economic development.

The actress traveled to the Asian country to attend a meeting on behalf of the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Project (MJP), a charity formed to aid her five-year-old son's native country of Cambodia.

According to MJP executive director Stephan Bognar, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met with officials from the International Finance Corporation's Mekong Private Sector Development Facility, a privately funded World Bank initiative that promotes economic development in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The star is particularly interested in a project to help subsistence farmers grow and sell bamboo, a business that Bognar says could increase their monthly income from $25 to $300. Bamboo crops also filter toxins from water and help stem soil erosion.

Angelina Jolie Hot's partner, Brad Pitt, was unable to make the trip and stayed with the couple's kids in New Orleans, where he is currently filming 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.'

Angelina Jolie spends over $700 for a shower

According to Star Magazine, Angelina Jolie and son Maddox Jolie-Brad Pitt rented a room at Santa Monica hotel, Shutters On the Beach, last Friday just to take a shower!

A source said, "Angelina Jolie said they only wanted the room for two hours — time enough for them both to take a shower. Angelina Jolie Pic was very sweet and seemed like a concerned mom. It was just very bizarre, when she and Brad own two houses here in Los Angeles, that she would need to spend that kind of money on a hotel room just so she and Maddox could shower."

Granted, it's a very nice bathroom, but that's one pricey shower! I hope they had a nice view! Rooms at the luxury hotel during this time start at $470 for a room without an ocean view and go all the way up to $1100 (for a presidential suite). They probably got a Full Ocean View King for $750.

New York Times reports on Atlas Shrugged Angelina Jolie Movie

Angelina Jolie to play Ayn Rand’s heroine, Dagny Taggart?

New York Times reports on Atlas Shrugged Angelina Jolie Hot

Betsy Speicher’s CyberNet reports on an article about the Atlas Shrugged movie project:

BACK in the 1970s Albert S. Ruddy, the producer of “ The Godfather,” first approached Ayn Rand to make a movie of her novel “Atlas Shrugged.” But Rand, who had fled the Soviet Union and gone on to inspire capitalists and egoists everywhere, worried aloud, apparently in all seriousness, that the Soviets might try to take over Paramount to block the project.

“
I told her, ‘The Russians aren’t that desperate to wreck your book,’ ” Mr. Ruddy recalled in a recent interview.

Rand’s paranoia, as Mr. Ruddy remembers it, seems laughable. But perhaps it was merely misplaced. For so many people have tried and failed to turn the book she considered her masterpiece into a movie that it could easily strike a suspicious person as evidence of a nefarious collectivist conspiracy. Or at least of Hollywood’s mediocrity.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Return to Vietnam

The golden couple of Hollywood, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, has returned to Vietnam. Maybe Angelina Jolie wants to adopt a child from the Tam Binh Orphan Children Centre in HCM City, which the couple visited at the end of last year.

The couple arrived in HCM City on January 19. This is the second trip of Mr and Mrs Smith to Vietnam. The first one was made in 2006, when the couple unexpectedly arrived in HCM City from Cambodia and visited the Tam Binh Orphan Children Centre.

Nguyen Cong Khanh, Deputy Head of the International Adoption Department under the Ministry of Justice, said that the department had not received an application for adopting from the Hollywood couple. Under Vietnam’s laws, if Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt want to sponsor a child, they will have to follow the set procedures for adopting, like any other foreigners. He said that it takes 3-4 months to complete the procedures, but in some cases, it takes two months only.

“It is likely that the couple has just mentioned an adoption with the Tam Binh Centre through an organisation,” M Khanh said.

Now, Mr and Mrs Smith have three children, including one from Cambodia and one from Ethiopia. Their natural daughter, Shiloh Nouvel, is now eight-months old. In November 2006, when visiting the Tam Binh Centre as tourists, the couple promised to come back soon and bring more gifts.

On January 16, 2007, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Hot attended the Gold Globe awards ceremony in Los Angeles in the US. The international press has reported that the star couple have moved to live in New Orleans, which was hit by Katrina hurricane in August 2005. The two stars have many times stated that they want to adopt many more children from many nations.

Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston: Explosive Secret Meeting?

Angelina Jolie is on record as wanting to meet with Brad Pitt's ex-wife Jennifer Aniston. Many celebrity observers believe that Angelina Jolie is a home wrecker, and Jolie likely doesn't take kindly to that assessment. However, her interview in Vogue basically describes a couple that were falling love on the set of Pitt and Jolie's blockbuster film Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Jennifer and Brad Pitt were still married at the time, so many thought that didn't really help her case. Now Star Magazine will report that the Brangelina/ Jen saga continues with a screaming headline 'Explosive Secret Meeting.'

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Does that mean that Jolie and Jennifer are set for a showdown? Or did they have it already and that's why Angelina Jolie Hot Pic was so detached on the red carpet at the Globes?

Star describes it this way. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie look happy and in love as they strolled down the red carpet on January 8 for the L.A. premiere for the new documentary on Sudan’s “Lost Boy”. Brad stopped for a moment to kiss a beaming Angelina Jolie on the head, the total opposite of the Brad who was seen in the spotlight with Jen.

The magazine reports, according to a source close to Aniston, Jen blames Angelina Jolie for her split with Brad and wonders exactly when the two really got together.

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As mentioned earlier Angelina Jolie told Vogue she would agree to meet with Jen, so finally Jen will get her chance to have it out with her home wrecker. Jen may be in for a rude awakening, a source tells Star "(Brad) had one foot out the door when they met –if it hadn’t been her it would have been another women…she realizes Brad and Jen had serious problems...(he) has even admitted it.”

So was it Angelina Jolie that took the initiative and helped pull Brad out the door during the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith? If a meeting ever takes place - would that even be discussed?

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Jen carries herself well in public; she was a hit at the People's Choice Awards. Angelina Jolie Pic is still being panned for her behavior at the Golden Globes. But Aniston has always stated that she has moved on, would she ever agree to meet with Angelina Jolie?

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt move to New Orleans

LOS ANGELES: Globe-trotting Hollywood couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have moved to New Orleans and plan to send their three children to school there, Us Weekly magazine has reported.

"
We love it there," Angelina Jolie was quoted as saying in confirming the move at the Golden Globe awards ceremony in Los Angeles. "The kids are going to go to school there. We're really looking forward to it."

Representatives for Brad Pitt, 43, and Angelina Jolie, 31, could not immediately be reached for comment.

But according to the story posted on the magazine's website, the couple's relocation to the flood-ravaged Louisiana city is at least partly in keeping with their off-screen devotion to various humanitarian causes around the world. They spent Christmas Day handing out presents to Colombian war refugees in Costa Rica.

According to Us Weekly, the movie star pair moved to the Big Easy on January 11 and have purchased a $US3.5 million, six-bed mansion in the city's French Quarter – the fourth house owned by the couple.

One diner at a Decatur Street restaurant told the magazine he saw Angelina Jolie quietly mixing with the locals the day after she and Brad Pitt moved to town.

Us Weekly cites unnamed sources as saying Angelina Jolie plans on keeping a low profile in her newly adopted home town, where Brad Pitt is currently on location shooting his latest film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

" Angelina Jolie's interested in befriending normal mums so she can do things with the kids," one source told the magazine, adding that the couple also hopes to raise awareness for the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast region.

"They think it is important to be there right now" and are already looking to get more involved in local charity work, the source said. According to Us Weekly, construction is set to start this month on 20 environment-friendly homes Pitt has jointly commissioned with the group Global Green USA.

Brad Pitt, currently starring in the globe-spanning drama Babel, and Angelina Jolie, an Oscar winner for her role in Girl, Interrupted, co-starred as married assassins hired to kill each other in the film Mr and Mrs Smith. According to Angelina Jolie, they began a romantic relationship after Brad Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston broke up in early 2005.

Angelina Jolie has said they have no plans to marry but are committed to raising their three children together.

Angelina Jolie adopted five-year-old son Maddox from Cambodia in 2002 and two-year-old daughter, Zahara, from Ethiopia, in 2005. Angelina Jolie gave birth last year in Namibia to her first biological child, a daughter fathered by Brad Pitt they named Shiloh.

Brad Pitt has also become the adoptive father of Maddox and Zahara.

Angelina Jolie Worried About a Jennifer Aniston & Brad Secret Meeting?

It is being called an Angelina Jolie nightmare. A published report claims that the sexy new mom is still concerned that the unmarried father of her children Brad Pitt may be ready to take a meeting with his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston. According to a report from the National Enquirer not even a family vacation at a tropical island could sooth Jolie's nerves.

Angelina Jolie Hot Pic Worried About a Jennifer Aniston & Brad Secret Meeting?

The dream vacation turned into a nightmare," an insider told the magazine.

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When Brad Pitt left India and flew to Los Angles to promote his critically acclaimed film 'Babel' a meeting with Jennifer was "in the back of Angelina's mind," the chatty insider continued. "Jennifer is the one thing about Brad that still gets under Angelina Jolie's skin."

Was that the reason Angelina Jolie spoke out in Vogue magazine and stated that she wished that she could meet with Jennifer?

Angelina Jolie briefly met Aniston on set of the action comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith but insisted in the interview, "It wasn't a proper meeting. We've, liked, passed each other and said, 'Hi.' Shook hands. But not a real sit-down meeting. That would be her decision and I would welcome it."

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Angelina Jolie has always insisted that she didn't bust up the golden couple. Very few celebrity watchers buy that, especially after Jolie's admission that the pair fell in love while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Is Angelina Jolie really that concerned that the tables could be turned?

Angelina Jolie Beau Brad Pitt Looks After Japanese Actress

Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi credits her "Babel" cast mates -- particularly Brad Pitt -- and director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for helping her through the storm of international attention that's been coming her way since the feature debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.

It was at Cannes, Angelina Jolie tells us by way of a translator, that Angelina Jolie saw the completed film for the first time, met the rest of the actors for the first time -- and walked the red carpet for the first time: "Everything at the Cannes Film Festival was completely new."

As the cameras flashed and the media called out, Angelina Jolie says she kept saying, "What's going on?" The rest of the "Babel" team looked after her, however, especially Pitt. "He was very concerned that Rinko didn't know what to do. He'd take her hand and tell her, 'Follow me,' and very much had that kind attitude," relates the translator.

Rinko, who plays the deaf teenager in the feature, says Angelina Jolie's been away from home now for nearly a year. Angelina Jolie is being besieged by designers and others wanting to outfit her as the awards season continues. As for how she feels about that, she says she "just has to be thankful. The whole experience has been this huge beautiful gift to her that she gets to share with Alejandro."

The actress Angelina Jolie, who has two new features soon to open back in Japan, was a year in the casting process for "Babel," never saw the full script of the multi-story film, and only saw her complete section shortly before filming it. She found that an "exciting" way to work, she says, adding that she was "stunned" by the final product. "She knew it was going to be amazing," paraphrases her translator, "but wasn't ready for how grand it was."

CRAIG FERGUSON BRACES FOR 'RISKY' LIVE SHOW

"The Late Late Show" host Craig Ferguson admits doing a live, post-Super Bowl show on CBS Feb. 4 will be "a little risky, but you only live once.

"The plan is this: I will leave Friday night after that night's show, fly to Miami, panic like crazy, do a show after the game and then rush back to do Monday night's show," says Ferguson, who'll open with a monologue about the big game, then go on to talk to players and football-crazed celebrities, including Billy Bob Thornton.

It's the latest piece of extra business for the Glasgow, Scotland-born actor/director/screenwriter, whose first novel, "Between the Bridge and the River," garnered acclaim last year -- and who also just launched his Green Mountain West production company and is developing series for yet-to-be-named young talents.

"I am developing shows already, working with a very good executive, Tracey Pakosta, who used to be a vice president at the WB," he says. "The environment at CBS with Les Moonves creates a lot of opportunities, and I think anyone would take advantage of that." Still, asked if he's a driven man, Ferguson says, "I think so, a little bit."

One place Ferguson has no ambitions, however, is the 11:30 timeslot currently occupied by David Letterman. He's already put his vote in for "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart to take over when Letterman steps down. "I think he's earned it. I think he's good at it. I'm happy in the timeslot I have," he explains. "You get away with a lot more at that time of night, believe me."

DOING HER BIT:

"What About Brian?" actress Krista Allen says the T-shirt line she started as a hobby has turned into a burgeoning hot business thanks to the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan wearing her tees, which feature "fun and kitschy phrases like 'You were never my boyfriend' and 'Don't be mad at me when I'm mad at you.'

"The clothing line is called 'Superexcellent by Krista Allen,' and two of my dearest longtime friends, Jon Lovitz and David Spade, both invested in the company," Angelina Jolie reports. Allen says the line is not just about making money. "It's put me in a position to bring awareness to a lot of different charities I'm involved with. It allows me to have a sense of social responsibility as an individual, and that's the way it should be. Being able to give back is really wonderful." Angelina Jolie explains, "All the profits go to help Invisible Children in Uganda. The rebels come into the camps at night and take these kids from 8 to 16 away from their families. They turn them into soldiers and make them kill their families. Many of the children have escaped and they're orphans. They're called 'night walkers' because they walk all night or sleep on top of each other in little basements so they don't get captured again. Invisible Children provides shelter and schools and clothing for them." Allen also has a line of shirts to benefit those affected by the genocide taking place in Darfur.

Angelina Jolie Slams Claims She Criticized Madonna

Angelina Jolie Hot Pictures has slammed claims she criticised pop star Madonna for adopting a child from Malawi and insists she was misquoted.

The Mr & Mrs Smith star made comments in a French magazine which appeared to be critical of the singer's efforts to adopt from the African nation where there are no clear legal procedures.

Angelina Jolie Hot Pictures explains, "The article included many falsehoods. I said many positive things that were omitted.
"I feel we must focus on the present and I encourage everyone to be supportive so that every child can adjust nicely to their new home."

Angelina Jolie was quoted in Gala magazine saying of Madonna's efforts to adopt one-year-old David Banda, "Madonna knew the situation in Malawi, where (David) was born. It's a country where there is no real legal framework for adoption. Personally I prefer to stay on the right side of the law. I would never take a child away from a place where adoption is illegal."

The actress Angelina Jolie and partner Brad Pitt have two adopted children, Maddox, five, and Zahara, two, and she claims she has sympathy for the singer, saying, "I have been horrified by the attacks she's been subjected to." (c) WENN

Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie named "Family of the Year"Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie named "Family of the Year"

BEIJING, Hollywood couple Angelina Jolie Hot and Brad Pitt may not be marrying each other anytime soon, but People magazine has named the duo and their three kids "Family of the Year."

The globe-trotting couple, who met on the set of their movie Mr and Mrs Smith, were awarded the accolade by the magazine.

Angelina, 31, also revealed to the magazine that she "is the disciplinarian" of the two when it comes to their children - Maddox, five, 23-month-old Zahara and Shiloh Nouvel, who was born in May.

"Brad Pitt can be, but if Z doesn't get the bottle from me, she'll quickly run to daddy," E Canada quoted her as saying.

Angelina Jolie also said that she and Brad Pitt, 43, are very proud parents.

"Somebody said to us recently that they were happy kids, and we talked about how much that meant to us to hear. And they're good kids. God knows how we managed to do that - but they're good kids," she said.

Asked which child ran the roost, the Tomb Raider star replied it was Zahara.

"I bet if you asked Brad Pitt, he'd say Zahara. Mad is very smart, but he's got a certain sense of calm. Zahara is possible the funniest person I've ever met in my life. So dramatic and creative, and loud and charming. Angelina Jolie's definitely the biggest personality in the house," she added.