Fussy Eye: A return to "Gratuitous Goddess Power"

Angelina has lost a fair amount of weight since she posed for the November 2004 Esquire cover to the point that a few film critics have complained that it affects her believability in action roles and can be distracting even in a glamour piece like The Tourist. She initially attributed the weight loss to her grief over her Mom's death in 2007 but since a couple of years have already passed, her persistently thin frame is more likely due to the demands of caring for her large brood. Questions about her weight had become a touchy subject for her but she recently appreared to have finally gained a few pounds and displayed a more lush figure that this time around was not due to pregnancy.

People Mag said she and Brad are finally catching their breath after having a succession of kids and the reduced stress and load has obviously been beneficial to her. But as her kids have grown older and easier to care for, she has piled on a daunting work load with her directorial debut, the launch of her new jewelry collection, promoting KF Panda 2 and prepping for

Cleopatra, traveling on distant humanitarian missions, and will soon be appearing in a new LV ad campaign-- and these are just the items that are publicly known. She recently brought over key members of her Bosnian Love Story cast and crew to Los Angeles and there were tell tale signs that she had been working long hours in photos taken during the opening night of God of Carnage -- although she looked fine when she posed a day later for the KF P 2 International Press Day and more importantly, seems to have held on to the extra pounds.

Angelina is easily one of the great beauties of all time and she is perhaps at her peak now so here's hoping we will no longer see the sunken cheeks (Salt) and spindly arms (The Tourist) that were a bit distracting. Although Tomb Raider is a fanboy favorite (see below), she went on a special diet and exercise regimen for the iconic Lara Croft video game silhouette and it will take a similar effort to get her back to that frame. But her normal weight circa Taking Lives or Mr. and Mrs. Smith looks more flattering on her and she's closer to it now than at any time since she and Brad started building their family together.

April Showers: Angelina's Power Cleanse

Friday, April 22, 2011 at 11:00PM

Kurt here again. How do you like your Angelina Jolie? Hacking the Gibson under the name of Acid Burn? Wailing about her lost son in a cloche hat? Wooing the Hollywood Foreign Press opposite Johnny Depp in Venice? Please. You like her kicking ass, and with respect to fans of Wanted, she's really never done it better than in Tomb Raider, the underrated video game adap that houses what we can probably call her signature performance.

All of 24 when she shot the movie, Angie wasn't yet Salt skeletal, and still had some of those Gia curves to flaunt. She gets her chance when director Simon West shoots her in a post-training shower scene, where she washes off the sweat worked up from emptying clips into a killer robot.

I love this scene because it's so freaking gratuitous. West might argue that he included it to help humanize Lara Croft (tomb raiders need showers, too!), but we all know it has the same objective as a Maxim cover shoot. And who's arguing, anyway?

I'm still of the mind that Angie is the most perfectly put together female on the globe, and this scene might just mark the peak of that perfectly-put-togetherness.

The highlight of the fleshy excess is when Angie does a wicked hair flip that no sane person, tomb raider or otherwise, would do without a camera watching. But, again, we have no complaints.

After her shoot shower, Miss Lara scoffs at a frilly sun dress offered to her by her butler and keeps a-strutting toward the bedroom. She tosses off her towel, leading to a half-boob shot that I imagine plenty of horny folks replayed a lot more times than I did to get this screen grab.