Showing posts with label Washington Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington Post. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

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Wednesday, February 5, 2020









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Or it might have something to do with our own psyches. For some deep-seated reason, people cling to the idea of Brad Pitt as they think they know him — or, though it’s impossible to know what goes on behind closed doors, as they want to know him: the strikingly attractive, humble Missouri native who just happened to become a superstar and has made serious mistakes but is trying to change. Maybe we just yearn for simpler times, and in our minds, that time is represented by a tanned and sculpted Pitt at his peak, named People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” not once, but twice.
“It has been so surreal — it’s like there’s this nostalgia for some kind of perceived stability from the 1990s when everything made sense,” said Christopher Schaberg, who co-edited a collection of essays that analyzed Pitt. “I think there’s a really deep and weird expression of longing here. . . . We forget this is Hollywood, this is a celebrity, this is a lot of makeup and camera work. There’s a really weird urge to express authenticity around Brad Pitt.”
Schaberg, an English professor at Loyola University New Orleans, remembers when he brought up a potential book about Pitt. He was half-joking, but his colleagues loved the idea: "Deconstructing Brad Pitt" was released in 2014, co-edited by Robert Bennett.
“One of the things that’s always intrigued me is the way we want to see him as this idealized white male figure, but so many of his roles are self-destructive,” Schaberg said. But whether he’s actually destructive in “Fight Club” or falling into a serial killer’s trap in “Se7en” or playing a breezy criminal in “Ocean’s 11,” it doesn’t matter. Even if it’s the Hollywood machine shaping a narrative with magazine covers and talk show appearances, “Brad Pitt is just a safe, neutral icon to kind of rally around right now.”
Not too long ago, that didn’t seem as if it would be the case. Pitt and Jolie’s sudden breakup in the fall of 2016 dominated the news cycle as reports emerged about an alleged altercation between Pitt and one of their children on the family’s plane. The Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services was called, and Pitt was cleared after an investigation. But the situation devolved into warring stories about Pitt’s alcohol issues, child custody and financial battles as Pitt and Jolie worked through their divorce, which reportedly still is not finalized.
Pitt essentially went into hiding until the following spring, when he sat for a GQ cover story to promote Netflix’s “War Machine.” He opened up about how his drinking became a problem; the pain of divorce and the call to child services; and how jarring it was for his kids to “suddenly have their family ripped apart.”
“It wasn’t the easiest conversation to go into, but he was willing to,” said author and journalist Michael Paterniti, who wrote the story. Pitt also revealed that before he got sober, he hadn’t gone a day since college where he didn’t drink or smoke.
“He felt like he had to explain himself,” Paterniti said. “It was his way of acknowledging that his behavior was not commensurate with who he wanted to be as a person.” Pitt agreed to speak candidly about any topic for a lengthy Q&A, and there was no publicist in the room. “It felt like he had to reset the conversation around himself.”
Although Paterniti remembers some critics “didn’t buy into it,” the quotes were picked up by hundreds of publications and websites, which had a generally positive tone. Paterniti theorizes that the simple act of Pitt appearing to be candid continues to draw people to him; he has now opened up in multiple interviews about his sobriety or attending Alcoholics Anonymous. There’s something enticing about that level of honesty, Paterniti said, especially from someone who “happens to be Brad Pitt.”
As Pitt strolls merrily along to his likely first Oscar win (this is his fourth acting nomination), his many acceptance speeches have also reminded the public: Brad Pitt is funny.
At the Golden Globes, he said, “I wanted to bring my mom but I couldn’t, because any woman I stand next to, they say I’m dating.” He declared he would put his SAG trophy in his Tinder profile. At the National Board of Review gala, he explained his goals were “to be happy, stay healthy, not get into a financial situation where I have to do ‘Ocean’s 14.’ ” At the BAFTAs, co-star Margot Robbie read a speech in his absence that said he would name his trophy “Harry” because “he is really excited about bringing it back to the States with him.” (In the audience, Prince William and Duchess Catherine cracked up.)
Leslie Bennetts, a longtime Vanity Fair journalist who authored the famous Aniston profile post-divorce in which the actress proclaimed Pitt had a “sensitivity chip” missing, said Pitt’s knack for humor, self-deprecation and candidness has played a key role in how he has shaped his perception in the past several years, especially after his split with Jolie.
“That could have been a career-ending image if it gained traction, especially in the current climate — but instead, whether it’s a genuine reflection of his real personality or handling this in a smarter way than most men, he’s defused the whole thing,” Bennetts said. “He has done something that is very rare with men in public life, which is own his mistakes. Fully. He’s said, ‘I had things to deal with and I dealt with them.’”
Bennetts vividly recalls the overwhelming interest in the Pitt-Aniston split, and wasn’t surprised by the extreme reaction to the SAG Awards photos of the two exes sharing a nice moment backstage. The images led to a deluge of headlines, generally along the theme of “Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt’s Hug at the 2020 SAG Awards Is the Only Thing That Matters” (E! Online published that one). The response, Bennetts said, proved the “incredible persistence of our sort of fairy tale fantasies that are as simple-minded as those of a typical rom-com.”
Ultimately, it goes back to why these celebrity stories hit a nerve: People see themselves in them. They want to believe that a couple who seemed like soul mates can reunite even after a devastating breakup. They want to believe that Pitt, despite the wealth and fame and scandals, is just a nice guy from the Midwest who has never forgotten his roots. And even if people had issues with Pitt’s past behavior, they believe in his redemption.
“Brad has handled this awards season masterfully,” said Kate Coyne, People magazine’s editorial director of entertainment. “Even if you haven’t seen the movie, but you heard him make these ongoing jokes about Tinder profiles and his much-remarked upon personal life — he’s been funny, he’s been charming. You look at him and go, ‘That is a movie star.’”

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Monday, September 16, 2019


For his WaPo NASA event today he was a veritable walking David Yurman catalogue:

8 bracelets: 
Woven red nylon with black onyx
DY Fortune Heirloom link in 18K
Red tiger's eye
Black onyx
bike chain
Shipwreck Chain
Spiritual Beads Skull in 18K 
Faceted Beads in Labradorite

The Petrvs Bee Signet ring -- which together with the thin gold chain necklace were the only pieces of jewelry he did not take off for the GQ photo shoot. 

Four gold necklaces.  The thin gold chain was identified in GQ as being from Tiffany and remained tucked under his shirt in all his photos.  The rest of the chains may be from Tiffany and/or Yurman.


From late 2016 until June 2018 he did not wear any jewelry.
On May 30, 2018, Judge Ouderkirk signed the Order with the Summer Schedule running from June til August designed to force the children to open up to Brad.
He started wearing a gold necklace after the start of the Summer effort in June, 2018.
He started wearing a bike chain bracelet sporadically starting in October, 2018 while filming OUATIH.
The Judgement on Custody and Visitation was filed in November, 2018.
He started wearing a 2nd gold necklace in December, 2018.
The Judgement on status was filed in April, 2019.
Angelina arrived in Paris on July 7, 2019 and it was announced at a press con for Mon Guerlain Intense that she and Guerlain were working on a bee conservation program in Cambodia. This was also the 1st time she wore a ring on her left hand.
Brad was first seen wearing a large silver Petrvs signet bee ring during OUATIH press promo that started July 11, 2019.
During OUATIH's L.A. premiere on July 22,  he was seen wearing a gold Petrvs signet bee ring, 3 necklaces with the addition of Yurman's Skull Station Necklace in Labradorite, and at least 3 bracelets --  woven red nylon with black onyx and 8 beads, small fluted chain bracelet, and another chain.
From his appearance in Mexico on August 12 onward he has worn the same gold Petrvs signet bee ring on his right ring finger.  It was also the first time he was seen wearing 6 bracelets which included the red nylon and the bike chain bracelet which he had not worn for several months.
From mid til late August, 2019 he was seen with the same 6 bracelets, 3 necklaces and bee ring
When he appeared in Venice for Ad Astra on August 29, he had 4 necklaces having added a 3rd gold chain.  He was still wearing the same 6 bracelets.
Some time before he left for Tokyo on Sept. 11, 2019 he started wearing 7 bracelets with the addition of the woven army green nylon with black onyx and 8 gold beads.
On Sept. 16, 2019 he was wearing 8 bracelets -- he replaced the green nylon with 2 new: the Shipwreck Chain and the Black onyx beads.  Four gold chains -- replacing the Skull Station Necklace in Labradorite with another gold chain.  And the same gold Petrvs signet bee ring.

Judging by his jewelry, he made a lot of progress by July, 2019 and made more progress in September.

At the conclusion of his conversation with @AstroHague at the ISS Brad said, "Thank you very much.  I can't wait to brag to my kids."










And 4 necklaces.








Brad Pitt has a great laugh: a sort of staccato, slow-rolling ah-huh-huh-huh that makes you think of surfers and cowboys and movie stars. He uses it more than once to excellent effect as Cliff Booth, the laconic stuntman-cum-sidekick who stumbles into the dark heart of the Manson family in Quentin Tarantino’s showbiz Babylon Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and not at all in the lonely-astronaut epic Ad Astra (out Sept. 20), though it often punctuates his conversation with EW about both those roles.

To say that one of the world’s most beloved and best-known celebrities is having a moment 30-plus years into his career feels, at this point, pretty much indisputable. But don’t call it a comeback, or a Brad-aissance; several times over the course of a friendly, sometimes philosophical interview he’ll insist that his only goal is “putting stories out into the world” — which in 2019 means not just starring in a pair of films that may well end up dominating the coming awards season but also continuing to head up Plan B Entertainment, the boutique production company responsible for a vanguard slate of films, including Vice, Moonlight, Beautiful Boy, and 12 Years a Slave.

That laugh comes tumbling out again when he’s asked to find the thread between Hollywood’s Cliff, a sort of beach-boy Lebowski with a singular gift for sudden violence, and Ad Astra’s Maj. Roy McBride, an almost pathologically contained spaceman on a solo mission to Mars. “Well, Cliff is by far a much easier way to live, and certainly I would say what we’re all striving for,” he says, chuckling. “But to get to Cliff’s peace of mind and acceptance in the day, you’d probably have to go through Roy’s dilemma to get there.”

Pitt quickly grows more serious, though, on the subject of Roy’s arc in Astra — an emotional journey that often finds the major struggling to maintain his NASA-trained composure even as the fate of both his family and the free world (and, the movie heavily implies, his soul, too) hangs in the balance. “Toxic masculinity, that may be a little harsh as a term? But certainly we’re questioning what is masculinity,” he muses. “Having grown up in an era where we are taught to be stoic, taught to be capable, not to show weakness, never be disrespected — that works for the pioneer spirit, I guess, on the plain when you’re trying to make your claim. But it’s also very limiting, because it doesn’t embrace the whole human being.”

And while he admits to having no special affinity for space movies (“Um no, not specifically. I mean, when I was a kid my dad took me to see Alien, and that’s still everything”), Astra did get him pondering the mysteries of the universe, as it were: “In all our concepts and constructs of how we understand life to work, there are powers there that we cannot even begin to understand,” he marvels. “Powers that can bend time, and gravitational forces that could crush a planet. And just that we ourselves are made from dying stars — I find that really awe-inspiring, just because of how much we don’t know and yet how connected we are to it.”

Astra director James Gray (The Lost City of Z), who has known Pitt for more than two decades, tells EW that though he didn’t pen the script for his longtime friend — “I never actually write projects with actors in mind, because you’re always disappointed when they don’t do it” — he did end up getting exactly the performance he hoped for: “In some ways, because he’s a star, Brad’s acting is underrated. To control a performance and still convey the ideas and the emotions necessary for the film I think is as difficult as anything, really. To be kind of showy — and by the way I’m not saying this about him in Quentin’s movie, which I think is wonderful — but sometimes a showy performance can lead us in a very obvious series of choices. But he understood it completely, this character who lives so much in his own head.”

Heady isolation isn’t so much an option in Pitt’s other day job as the cofounder and CEO of Plan B, which often involves developing and championing the kinds of films that fall far outside his own lived experience. “It’s certainly not by design,” he says of the company’s particular track record with black auteurs like Ava DuVernay and Steve McQueen. “Myself and my partners Jeremy [Kleiner] and Dede [Gardner] have an extreme belief in equality and this want for justice in an unjust world, and I think we naturally are kind of guided that way. We were trying to get Selma made for years, and it wasn’t until 12 Years did what it did that it suddenly opened the door for all of these others.”

“Certainly when we started,” he goes on, “it was at a time when we saw that the studios just weren’t taking that kind of gamble on more complex mid-range budgeted films. “[And] I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to contribute to the zeitgeist…. But you know for every one that gets made, there’s another 10, so it takes a fight for all of them. And I can’t tell you how many talented, talented people there are still struggling to to be able to tell their story, the one that moved them. That’s where we were able to apply our muscle in a way that I never even expected when we started.”

In fact since its 2001 founding, the company has already racked up three Best Picture wins (for The Departed, 12 Years a Slave, and Moonlight). But the thrice-nominated actor promises he’s not interested in gunning for personal gold, despite the growing buzz on Astra and Hollywood. “Oh, man. I’m gonna abstain,” he says of campaigning for either role (though his generous recent press schedule may belie that). “I mean, you never know, and it’s really nice when your number comes up. But the goal is for the film to land, to speak to someone whether it’s now or a decade from now. I find chasing it actually a disservice to the purity of your telling a story, and a shackling thing to focus on.”

He’s less circumspect when it comes to another, less expected career avenue: the world of prestige television, where A-list peers like Nicole Kidman and Matthew McConaughey have already blazed a trail. “Could I see it? Absolutely,” he says. “What I love about TV is that you get to spend more time with the characters. You have to let go of so many scenes in order to fit into the ‘film’ container, as far as running time and how it plays, and with a series, being able to break it up, you can expand so much more. I’m especially drawn to the comedies that are able to do that. That might just be romantic of me, I may have to go with the times, so we’ll see. We’ll see where it all lands, but that’s certainly of interest.”

In the meantime there’s more than enough to keep him occupied, between promoting his current projects and tending to a production slate that this year already includes Astra and the Sundance sensation The Last Black Man in San Francisco (which EW named the best film of 2019 so far this past June), as well as the upcoming TimothĂ©e Chalamet drama The King and Moonlight director Barry Jenkins’ Underground Railroad series for Amazon. So does that mean there could be some truth to a recent viral magazine quote that implied he’d soon be done with big-screen acting?
“I was just saying that it’s really a younger man’s game,” he insists. “Not that there aren’t still parts and interesting things to do. As I get older and transition does its thing, the great thing about producing is you still get to be part of what I love most, which is storytelling. Or maybe it’s just me, maybe I’ve just seen my interests broadening or shifting into other things. But no. No!” — one last, long ah-huh-huh-huh — “It’s not a claim of retirement.”

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

DC 4 - Dinner and After Party

Brad And Angelina Do Restaurant Week at Charlie Palmer Steak

In town to promote Angie’s new film, the couple opts for a three-course meal deal.
By Jessica Voelker

The discount diners. Photograph by Erik Eucke.
The discount diners. Photograph by Erik Eucke.


Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may be among the wealthiest couples in Hollywood, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know a good dining deal when they see one. In Washington last night to promote Angie’s new film, In the Land of Blood and Honey, the couple and their coterie had dinner at Charlie Palmer Steak DC, where, according to a restaurant rep, both stars opted for chef Matt Hill’s Restaurant Week menu. They “started with a chopped salad. Brad had the sirloin, and Angelina had the chicken. He had a chocolate pavĂ©, and she had no dessert.”

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie FĂȘte Her Film in D.C. – with Obama's Staff!

Wednesday January 11, 2012 01:30 PM EST

Following the Washington, D.C., premiere of her new film, In the Land of Blood and Honey, Angelina Jolie joined partner Brad Pitt for a celebratory dinner at Charlie Palmer Steak.

The couple – joined by 12 others, including President Obama's senior advisor Valerie Jarrett – opted for Palmer's $35.12 prix fixe Restaurant Week menu, and started with chopped salads of romaine, endive, goat cheese, bacon, cranberry and red wine vinegar. For entrĂ©es, Pitt chose the coulotte steak with sweet potato purĂ©e and braised greens, while Jolie savored the roasted chicken breast with buttered new potatoes and marjoram jus. Pitt, who was recently injured during a fall, indulged in the dark chocolate pavĂ© with milk chocolate ice cream for dessert, while Jolie passed on the sweets.

According to an onlooker, the party of 14 stayed at the restaurant for two hours, and was "extremely pleasant and gracious to both fans and the staff."

– Helin Jung and Sandra Sobieraj Westfall 


YEAS & NAYS

People, Politics, and Power


Sightings: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt do D.C. Restaurant Week

By: Nikki Schwab and Katy Adams | 01/11/12 1:46 PM
Examiner Staff Writer | Follow on Twitter @NikkiSchwab
Charlie Palmer Steak's Executive Chef Matt Hill (left) poses with Brad Pitt (Courtesy photo).
Charlie Palmer Steak's Executive Chef Matt Hill (left) poses with Brad Pitt (Courtesy photo).
Before Angelina Jolie's premiere of "In the Land of Blood and Honey" Tuesday night at the Holocaust Museum, she and partner Brad Pitt ventured over to Charlie Palmer Steak on Capitol Hill. We're told they were joined by a group in a private room and ordered off the restaurant week menu. The Hollywood power couple tried the smoked pork shoulder, gnocchi delicata squash, diver sea scallops, celery root mousseline, sherry shallot jus, baby arugula, and also the grilled sirloin steak with sweet potato puree and braised greens. To drink, they chose a pinot noir and merlot from Washington State. "They both were so kind and even more beautiful in person," our spy reports.

In addition, the couple visited with President Obama in the Oval Office Wednesday.


Mr. & Mrs. Smith go to Washington (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie)



Robert E Thompson

“We closed the press line several minutes ago,” the woman seated behind the desk said in a terse, exasperated  manner, “The red carpet already started a while ago.” I was standing inside the Holocaust Museum – an expansive high-ceilinged building whose cold, steel-and-brick industrial interior seemed to emulate the dark nature of it’s subject matter – for the DC premiere of Writer and Director Angelina Jolie‘s equally oppressive and violently gruesome (or so the reviews say) movie about the Bosnian War “In the Land of Blood and Honey.” It was a fitting venue for such a film.

“But I’m on the list. Your boss put me on the list and there are people waiting for me inside.  Here’s my credentials.” She looked at me with what could almost be described as pleasure and said “I’m sorry sir but rules are rules.” She didn’t even bat an eyelid after my sob story about being late because I was watching my newborn daughter. I wanted to tell her she deserved a raise because she enjoyed her job way too much.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Fine, I’ll just use the restroom and be on my way.” The loo was the last thing on my mind as I turned the corner out of sight of the Ice Queen, and in a suit and tie with a press ID dangling from my neck easily made my way past the elderly woman in the security uniform. “Pardon me ma’am, can you point me in the direction of the press line?” She pointed up toward a massive staircase and I thanked her.

It was a fruitless endeavor; as I neared the top I could see the show was over. Photographers were starting to pack up their gear as starstruck reporters chatted excitedly with one another, having just basked in the glow of Hollywood stardom and arguably the World’s most famous couple. Realizing there was nothing left to do I started back down the stairs and noticed the doors to the amphitheater. Walking with a purpose past the girl standing there I emerged into the brightly lit space to the sound of a dull roar as Washington’s power elite chatted with one another. Curious as to who was attending I walked to one side and peered down at the sea of people.

The only people I had time to recognize were the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney with his wife and the Mayor of DC Vincent Gray – sitting quietly by himself – before the security guard standing nearby started looking suspiciously at me and I decided it was time to beat a hasty retreat. I had called it a night and was halfway to Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant at the Newseum to meet a friend for a drink when my phone beeped with a text from a reliable source.Brangelina just walked into Charlie Palmer.

 

I guess they decided not to stay for the show, I thought. I was already headed in the direction of the restaurant so I drove to the ritzy steakhouse at the base of Capitol Hill and to my surprise found a parking spot near the front - Looks like my luck is changing, maybe I should get a scratch-off tonight – almost directly behind a conspicuous grey SUV and a guy with a dark suit and large build standing in front of it. After walking past him toward the restaurant door I noticed the Secret Service pin on his lapel. Somebody from the administration must be here, I thought. Maybe POTUS?

I went in to give the place a once-over and to actually use the facilities this time. When I came out I noticed a small band of paparazzi and autograph collectors had gathered outside the front door. The word is out. I sidled up to the bar and ordered a drink. About thirty minutes later people started filing down from the private party upstairs and gathered near the front. After settling my tab I went outside and as I turned around I noticed Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the President, walking out behind me. After she climbed into the gray SUV and it sped off I realized that’s why Secret Service had been there. No Obama-rama tonight.

A rather slight, bald man with the bone structure of an eastern European came out and lit a cigarette and I asked him how the party was, guessing correctly that he had been upstairs with the VIP’s. We chatted for a moment about the crisp air when suddenly the photographers started flashing and I looked up to see the power couple standing just inside. It wasn’t until I got home and saw the trailer for “In the Land of Blood and Honey” that I realized the bald guy I had chatted with was Goran Kostic, Jolie’s leading man in the movie.

Chaos ensued as soon as the doors opened. Jolie was the first one out and took the brunt from the autographers as they thrust pens and pictures out for her to sign as shocked bystanders screamed and fumbled for their phones. I was surprised at how petite they both looked and even more surprised at seeing Brad Pitt, with a nearly white beard and long stringy hair hobbling out with a cane and a limp – he looked almost ill. When the flashing bulbs seemed to rush up on their subjects, it was Jolie who stood between them and her injured husband almost as if she were protecting him. After seeing SALT, I wouldn’t mess with it.

I attempted to fire off a few questions but as with everyone else they weren’t having it. To their credit, they smiled and apologized for their bruskness but said they were “in a hurry.” As soon as the doors shut I saw the media entourage break like the Redskins and sprint in every direction for their cars. Instinctively I jumped in mine and pulled out behind their SUV as it peeled off. I got about half a block before I came to my senses. I’m not paparazzi and I disagree with many of their techniques. One thing you don’t do is take pictures of people while they’re eating, the other is follow people in high speed chases.

Princess Diana’s smashed car flashed through my mind as I counted at least six vehicles merge on and then surround the SUV before finally lining up in a pseudo-caravan, speeding down – the thankfully mostly empty – Pennsylvania Avenue with reckless abandon.

So, happy the night wasn’t a total loss and feeling repaid for having missed the red carpet event I watched the sharks  and their prey disappear around a corner and called it quits. Several minutes later my phone beeped again.

They’re staying at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown.








Angelina Jolie at the afterparty for the premiere of “In The Land of Blood and Honey” at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on Tuesday. (Kris Connor/Film District) 
 
It was nearly midnight, we hadn’t eaten dinner, and we were desperate to get off of these shoes. But were we allowed to leave the party before the movie stars depart?

This usually isn’t a problem. The bigger the star, the briefer their cameo at the soirĂ©e. Many guests didn’t even really expect Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to show up at the elite after-party for her red-carpet premiere at the Holocaust Museum Tuesday night — yet they not only showed up, they shut it down.


Jolie meets Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Kris Connor/Film District)

Even as the room slowly emptied to meet those 5 a.m. Beltway alarms, Jolie lingered with a glass of red wine, face glowing, happy to talk talk talk about her new movie, “In the Land of Blood and Honey.” (“In the Balkans,” she was explaining to an unfamous man, “it’s rude to say, “What’s your background?’”)

Yes, a red-carpet premiere at the Holocaust Museum — no literal carpet, but a roped-off “arrivals” ceremony for paparazzi — and if it’s hard to wrap your head around, well, it’s the kind of thing that happens when Angelina comes to town. For her directorial debut, the actress/globetrotting humanitarian picked a weighty topic — the Bosnian War — and is rolling it out in highbrow style. An NYC debut was hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations (she’s a member); in Washington, she packed the screening room with policy wonks, diplomats and White House staffers. (Also: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Chris Dodd, Tim Shriver, Susan Eisenhower, Jack DeGioia.)

After solemn opening remarks from museum director Sara Jane Bloomfield and Tom Carver of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (the former war correspondent vouched that Jolie’s movie “does smell and feel like the real thing”), the star took the stage in a pale gold frock. She read earnestly from notes, hailing her Bosnian cast as if they were a cause (“to make this film they came together across ethnic lines”), and told the audience she looked forward “to hearing your reactions.”

And then, of course, she bailed, as stars always do during the screening — off to Charlie Palmer for dinner with Brad and Valerie Jarrett. (On Wednesday, the A-listers paid a visit to the White House to see President Obama.)

When she returned for the afterparty: Total Angemania! The pedigreed crowd pressed in around her — desperate to have a word with her or a photo with her, or just watch her talk. Pitt (looking like an old British rock star: long hair, scruff, three-piece suit, walking stick for the ACL he bruised on a skiing trip with the kids) moved to the far side of his room, breaking off his own smaller mob, letting it be her night.

We crowded in alongside foreign-policy pundit Steven Clemons, waiting in line as C. Boyden Gray had his moment with the star. “I loved it!” Clemons said of the movie, with some surprise. “I thought it would be a vanity project.”

Jolie kept her coat on like she was headed for the door — but didn’t. An hour later, as the crowd thinned, she was still there, holding court with some NGO types about her recent Charlie Rose interview. “I love Charlie,” she said, though “he’s interviewing you and you can’t tell if he’s seen the movie!” She moved on to Jay Carney and Claire Shipman, talking about getting the kids together on the next trip to D.C.


Goran Kostic (Kris Connor/Film District) 
 
Nearby stood one of her stars, Goran Kostic,. Is it always this crazy when you go somewhere with Angelina Jolie?

“This is nice and cultured and organized,” he told us. “At other stops you just get washed away by people.”




Brad Pitt with guests at Tuesday’s premiere. (Kris Connor /Film District) 
 

Jolie with guests at Tuesday’s premiere. (Kris Connor/Film District ) 

 

Inside Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s Movie Premiere Party

The stars hosted a party to premiere Jolie’s new movie, “In the Land of Blood and Honey.”


Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie at last night's screening for "In The Land of Blood and Honey" at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Photo by Erik Eucke.

 It’s 10:30 PM, and for the next hour or more two of the most famous movie stars in the world make themselves utterly available to every guest, every camera, every dopey accolade, inquiry, and comment. At one point Jolie is surrounded by such a thick swarm of men (and a few women) that only the top of her head appears above the pinstriped shoulders of her admirers. Boyden Gray inches his way to her and then hovers. Georgetown University president Jack DeGioia poses for a picture, thoughtfully including his wife. Jolie smiles, smiles, smiles, pulling people in, taking their hands with one of hers, cradling in the other what appears to be a glass of red wine.

On the other side of the well-stocked bar—Maker’s Mark, Grey Goose, Tanqueray—Brad Pitt comes and goes and returns again. We think maybe a smoke break is involved, and who can blame him? The man is hobbled, walking with a cane, which he demurely explains is the result of a snow mishap with his daughter. He doesn’t say which one (there are three, at last count).

For a moment he is practically alone, and so we approach, first to commend him for Moneyball and then to ask if our eyes were seeing clearly and we’d actually spotted him in Jolie’s film. Pitt lights up, a big smile. “Yes, that was me,” he says. “You noticed. I got killed. I worked it for all I could. I went down twice. I wanted more blood, but no, the director. . . .” He slaps me five for recognizing his so-far secret 15 seconds on screen. And then he drifts off, because maybe he doesn’t want to criticize the director for not allowing him to spill more blood. Maybe there are limits to how much of her lover’s fictional death Jolie wanted to enact on film. Brad shot? Too awful to think about.

Pitt seems comfortable and happy to be at the party. Like almost every movie star, he’s slighter of build, not so tall, yet still oozing good looks and Midwestern charm. He’s polite. He listens to questions and replies with thoughtful answers and his own questions, not blank stares. He actually engages in conversation. He’s curious about the people he is meeting. Jolie, too, is slight. As a pair they are fine-boned, porcelain, smaller in scale as physical specimens—even her landmark lips look normal in person.

This being a Washington crowd, no one acts really stupid around them. In fact, the bodyguards stay at a distance, even though they look like they’re enacting a scene from a Secret Service movie. One young woman keeps yammering something about People.com, but Pitt ignores her. He’s more focused on another person with a cane, an older woman, whom he pulls close and poses with, side by side, cane by cane, beaming.



Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn stand nearby, talking with a friend. White House spokesman Jay Carney and his wife, Claire Shipman, lean against a brick wall, probably making the most of precious time together. Former Bush Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and his wife, Meryl, give mini reviews of the film. He calls it “important.” But is it entertaining? She says, “Well, it’s not Avatar.”

When the house lights go up, there is polite applause and then we all stand up to leave the auditorium. One man says to his companion, “Phew, that was rough.” Others around him nod, eager to get to the relief of the after-party. Gaiety, even in, of all places, the Holocaust Museum.

Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg pulls on a blue scarf and slips out a side door, missing the party. But most stay late and wait for a moment with Jolie and Pitt. Other faces at the premiere: DC mayor Vincent Gray (alone, staying for the whole film but not the party); assistant attorney general Lanny Breuer, Motion Picture Association chief Chris Dodd, AOL founder Jack Davies, Susan Eisenhower, Timothy Shriver, George and Trish Vradenburg, chief of protocol Capricia Marshall, director of national intelligence Jim Clapper; proliferation expert Joe Cirincione; Kennedy insider Caroline Croft; socialites Willie and Finlay Lewis; media types Frank Sesno of George Washington University’s school of communication, and Martha Raddatz of ABC News.

When she welcomed the invited audience before the film ran, standing alone at a podium, almost nervous in her delivery, Jolie flattered all with her own accolade: “You are the ideal audience.”

Nick Summers

Photo: My girlfriend’s dad meeting Angelina Jolie in DC. Supplied caption: “You can see she really loves his...
 
My girlfriend’s dad meeting Angelina Jolie in DC. Supplied caption: “You can see she really loves his ideas on EPA reforms”
My girlfriend’s dad meeting Angelina Jolie in DC. Supplied caption: “You can see she really loves his ideas on EPA reforms”


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Monday, December 12, 2011

Washington Post - Opinion



We are coming up on bad times. Nationalism is surging throughout Europe. In the Arab world, spring is suddenly winter and the sects, the tribes, the clans, the religious, the very religious and the military are taking a step back, eyeing one another for the coming rumble. Now comes a strong and wholly gripping film by Angelina Jolie about the 1990s’ ugly war in Bosnia. I do not know if it’s about what has passed or what is coming. I fear the latter.


The film is called “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” and it’s something of a pity that it does not star Jolie but was instead directed and written by her. (Those who think pretty equals dumb will be sorely disappointed by this movie.) The actors speak only Serbo-Croatian (with English subtitles), and the movie stars local actors. The audience for this movie hardly exists.

And yet it is only partially about Bosnians. It is also about us, we Americans who are in every scene, occasionally mentioned or quoted but hovering always, stage right or stage left, as Bosnian women are raped, kept as slaves and then raped again. The young and the pretty, a moment earlier the most fortunate of women, suddenly run out of luck. The crooked finger of the rapist beckons.

The men are hardly spared. About 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males of all ages were massacred at Srebrenica. This was done not in the 1940s by Germans, but in 1995 by Serbs, witnessed on the spot and confirmed miles up by spy satellites — telltale trenches, pools of men suddenly gone — and most of us did . . . nothing.

So there I am, stage left, if you will, having been to Bosnia and the Pentagon, and convinced as a result that this is a war to be avoided. And there, stage right, if you will, is the first Bush administration, composed of foreign policy realists, and James Baker, the secretary of state, who makes a cameo: “We got no dog in this fight,” he is quoted as saying. Women are being raped and men are being slaughtered and most of us go about our business. We were — we remain — accomplices by omission.

The atrocities of the Bosnian war were not revealed — shockingly, surprisingly and all of that — with the cease-fire. They were known at the time. But there were news reports, allegations that were denied, of course. The victims had no names and no faces and did not have lovers or children, as they do in Jolie’s movie, and were not rousted from their homes at gunpoint and sifted by sex for another’s pleasure or for death. They were treated as foreign policy challenges, topics for pro/con TV debates about the role of the United States, the United Nations, the residue of World War II, the inevitable consequence of the collapse of communism and wars without exit strategies: Do Not Enter, No Way Out.

Jolie’s film is unavoidably one-sided. The Bosnian Serbs are the heavies, but the implosion of Yugoslavia was a complex event. Serbs were evil, but the Muslims and the Croats had blood on their hands as well. Movies cannot be about truth, because truth is complex and perplexing and — dammit — changes over time. But as in life, the Serbian commander, a fictional representation of the real Ratko Mladic, is the chief villain of this film. Mladic commanded at Srebrenica. He gets his cinematic due.

In September 1995, NATO finally bombed the war to an end and within a couple of tough months Richard Holbrooke forged a peace agreement. It turned out that the United States, along with NATO, could make a difference — and with relatively little effort. No boots went on the ground. The operation was conducted from the sky.

We cannot be the world’s policeman, I know. Still, the world needs a policeman and who can it be if not the United States? We have to pick our moments, but where we can intervene, as we did successfully in Libya, we must — not alone, surely not alone, but in concert with others. Where you can do something, you must do something.

Some bad days are coming. Maybe history doesn’t repeat itself, but human nature does. Contracting economies mean expanding hatreds. This is no time to mindlessly cut the Pentagon budget. This is no time to turn inward. Angelina Jolie made her movie to express frustration with the international community’s apathy and incompetence in Bosnia. She has succeeded. We did have a dog in that fight — not self-interest, but self-respect.

cohenr@washpost.com
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Monday, May 2, 2011

Death of Osama bin Laden: Phone call pointed U.S. to compound — and to ‘the pacer’

Anjum Naveed/ The Associated Press - A Pakistani vendor sells traditional sweets close to the perimeter of the walled compound where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

By Bob Woodward, Published: May 6

It seemed an innocuous, catch-up phone call. Last year Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the pseudonym for a Pakistani known to U.S. intelligence as the main courier for Osama bin Laden, took a call from an old friend.

Where have you been? inquired the friend. We’ve missed you. What’s going on in your life? And what are you doing now?

Kuwaiti’s response was vague but heavy with portent: “I’m back with the people I was with before.”

There was a pause, as if the friend knew that Kuwaiti’s words meant he had returned to bin Laden’s inner circle, and was perhaps at the side of the al-Qaeda leader himself.

The friend replied, “May God facilitate.”

When U.S. intelligence officials learned of this exchange, they knew they had reached a key moment in their decade-long search for al-Qaeda’s founder. The call led them to the unusual, high-walled compound in Abbottabad, a city 35 miles north of Pakistan’s capital.

“This is where you start the movie about the hunt for bin Laden,” said one U.S. official briefed on the intelligence-gathering leading up to the raid on the compound early Monday.

The exchange and several other pieces of information, other officials said, gave President Obama the confidence to launch a politically risky mission to capture or kill bin Laden, a decision he took despite dissension among his key national security advisers and varying estimates of the likelihood that bin Laden was in the compound. The officials would speak about the collection of intelligence and White House decision making only on the condition that they not be named.

U.S. intelligence agencies had been searching for Kuwaiti for at least four years; the call with the friend gave them the number of the courier’s cellphone. Using a vast number of human and technical sources, they tracked Kuwaiti to the compound.

The main three-story building, which had no telephone lines or Internet service, was impenetrable to eavesdropping technology deployed by the National Security Agency.

U.S. officials were stunned to realize that whenever Kuwaiti or others left the compound to make a call, they drove some 90 minutes away before even placing a battery in a cellphone. Turning on the phone made it susceptible to the kind of electronic surveillance that the residents of the compound clearly wished to avoid.

As intelligence officials scrutinized images of the compound, they saw that a man emerged most days to stroll the grounds of the courtyard for an hour or two. The man walked back and forth, day after day, and soon analysts began calling him “the pacer.” The imagery never provided a clear view of his face.

Intelligence officials were reluctant to bring in other means of technical or human surveillance that might offer a positive identification but would risk detection by those in the compound. The pacer never left the compound. His routine suggested he was not just a shut-in but almost a prisoner.

Was the pacer bin Laden? A decoy? A hoax? A setup?

Bin Laden was at least 6-foot-4, and the pacer seemed to have the gait of a tall man. The White House asked the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which provides and analyzes satellite imagery, to determine the pacer’s height. The agency said the man’s height was somewhere between 5-foot-8 and 6-foot-8, according to one official.

Another official said the agency provided a narrower range for the pacer’s height, but the estimate was still of limited reliability because of the lack of information about the size of the building’s windows or the thickness of the compound’s walls, which would have served as reference points.

In one White House meeting, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told Obama and other top national security officials that the general rule in gathering intelligence was to keep going until a target such as the Abbottabad compound ran dry.

Panetta said that point had been reached, arguing that those tracking the compound were seeing the pacer nearly every day but could not conclude with certainty that it was bin Laden, officials said. Panetta noted that there was no signals intelligence available and contended that it was too risky to send in a human spy or move any closer with electronic devices.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the agency established a safe house in Abbottabad for a small team that monitored the compound in the months leading up to the raid.

The decision

Obama and his advisers debated the options, officials said. One option was to fire a missile from a Predator or Reaper aerial drone. Such a strike would be low-risk, but if the result was a direct hit, the pacer might be vaporized and officials would never be certain they had killed bin Laden. If the drone attack missed, as had happened in attacks on high-value targets, bin Laden or whoever was living in the compound would flee and the United States would have to start the hunt from scratch.

Panetta designated Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, who had headed the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for nearly three years, to devise a boots-on-the ground plan for the special forces that became known as “the McRaven option.”

McRaven had increased the intensity of Special Operations raids, especially in Afghanistan. During his first two years as head of JSOC, the “jackpot rate” — when the strikes got their intended target — jumped from 35 percent to more than 80 percent.

His decision to assign the operation to the Navy SEALs, a Special Operations unit with extensive experience in raids on high-value targets, was critical. SEALs have a tradition of moving in and out fast, often killing everyone they encounter at a target site. Most members of the SEAL team in the bin Laden raid had been deployed to war zones a dozen or more times.

A “pattern of life” study of the compound by intelligence agencies showed that about a dozen women and children periodically frequented it.

Specific orders were issued to the SEALs not to shoot the women or children unless they were clearly threatening or had weapons. (During the mission, one woman was killed and a wife of bin Laden was shot in the leg.) Bin Laden was to be captured, one official said, if he “conspicuously surrendered.”

The longer such raids take, the greater the risk to the SEALs. One senior official said the general philosophy of the SEALs is: “If you see it, shoot it. It is a house full of bad guys.”

Several assessments concluded there was a 60 to 80 percent chance that bin Laden was in the compound. Michael Leiter, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, was much more conservative. During one White House meeting, he put the probability at about 40 percent.

When a participant suggested that was a low chance of success, Leiter said, “Yes, but what we’ve got is 38 percent better than we have ever had before.”


The assault

Officials said Obama’s national security advisers were not unanimous in recommending he go ahead with the McRaven option. The president approved the raid at 8:20 a.m. Friday.

During the assault, one of the Black Hawk helicopters stalled, but the pilot was able to land safely. The hard landing, which disabled the helicopter, forced the SEALs to abandon a plan to have one team rope down from a Blackhawk and come into the main building from the roof. Instead, both teams assaulted the compound from the ground.

The White House initially said bin Laden was shot and killed because he was engaged in a firefight and resisted. Later, White House press secretary Jay Carney said bin Laden was not armed, but Carney insisted he resisted in some form. He and others have declined to specify the exact nature of his alleged resistance, though there reportedly were weapons in the room where bin Laden was killed.

A senior Special Operations official said that SEALs would avoid providing more details about the raid, to prevent the disclosure of methods central to their success. The individuals who took part in the raid, the official said, would not grant interviews and had signed nondisclosure agreements about their classified work.

“They are interested in closing ranks and getting on with business,” he said.

SEALs scooped up dozens of thumb drives and several computer hard drives that are now being scrutinized for information about al-Qaeda, especially an address, location or cellphone number for Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second in command.

But officials said the delicate process of sifting this intelligence bonanza is made more challenging because of worries that using the wrong passwords could trigger a pre-planned erasure of digital information.

In the White House Situation Room on Sunday night, the president and his national security team watched a soundless video feed of the raid.

When bin Laden’s corpse was laid out, one of the Navy SEALs was asked to stretch out next to it to compare heights. The SEAL was 6 feet tall. The body was several inches taller.

After the information was relayed to Obama, he turned to his advisers and said: “We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure?”

Evelyn M. Duffy contributed to this report.





Source: The White House Photostream

From Badass News

By Devin Faraci | May 2, 2011

Last night the New York Times did something that shows the amazing power of a well-tuned newsroom; in the course of a few hours they completely changed the prepared front page to reflect the death of Osama bin Laden (see the side by side different page ones above). And they didn’t do it by just collecting the work of others; dozens of journalists busted their asses to do good, in-depth, contextualized, informational reporting. Which sites like The Huffington Post will just steal for themselves.

This is why we need real journalism in the world. Collecting stories off Twitter can be interesting or funny (I did it last night with The Rock), but it’s not reporting. It costs money to do real reporting, where journalists speak to sources, visit locations, do investigations, and that’s why I’m happy to support the New York Times with my money.


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