This is certainly Angelina Jolie’s week! She’s everywhere right now! She’s out promoting her new movie, ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’. She’s on the cover of Newsweek, she’s being interviewed by ABC News…you name it.

Here is part of her interview with ABC News. In the interview she opens up about her new movie (of course), adopting and home-schooling her children (amongst other things).

Why she wrote the script: “I was thinking and meditating on these international themes of violence against women, lack of intervention, and how human beings are changed and warped by war, and how some people come out stronger and some people are truly broken,” Jolie told “This Week” anchor Christiane Amanpour, who covered the Bosnian conflict in the 1990′s. “There’s no safe way to tackle these subject matters, but I think the important thing is to discuss them and tackle them. This is our generation’s war. … this was, you know, the worst genocide since World War II in Europe,” she said. “It was– ‘what were we all doing?’ And ‘did we do enough’ and ‘why do we not speak about this enough’ and ‘why I don’t know enough about this?’ And so I wanted to learn. I felt a responsibility to learn.”

How it felt to be behind the camera: The actress said it felt “bizarre” to play the role of the writer and the director, but added that it was “great not to be in front of the camera.” Jolie said “writing is the hardest because it feels the most exposed. When you’re an actress, you use somebody else’s words and you can always blame the director and the director can say the editor,” she said. “But the writer is the one that kind of sits alone in the room and writes what they think is important, funny, historical, topical.”

She doesn’t think the film will be a hit: “We did it because we felt this is a war that isn’t talked about enough,” Jolie said. “I know it’s a hard film to sit through, but it’s two hours to sit through something that’s very hard, and these people lived through it for many, many years, and it was many, many times worse than any reenactment could possibly be. And I feel like it’s a gift and a duty to sit through two hours of what they lived through.”

On home-schooling the kids: “I’m being very careful with their schooling, we’re home-schooling especially when it comes to history, to make sure it’s not one country’s point of view of their country,” Jolie said. “Because it has to be very balanced and they have to learn about their country so they can form their own conclusions.”

On adoptions: “I look at them and think what their birth parents must have gone through, what their birth grandparents would have done through, and so I feel connected to it,” Jolie said. “It’s a gift when you adopt a child from another country. This whole country enters your home.”

She and Brad disagree about the death penalty: “I won’t say whose side anyone is on, but it’s the one, the thing nobody brings up at dinner because nobody wants us to go off on each other,” she said. “But it’s fun. It’s a fun debate, you know? It’s a good– you want to be able to have — to respect each other’s views and to not be exactly– we’re not identical. We have– we have strong views.”

The future: “I don’t feel needed in a position of being an actor. I feel like I’m needed at home as a mom, and I’m hoping that I’ll find other things,” Jolie said. “I’d love to be able to write or direct or work on and produce more projects about issues dealing with situations that I feel passionate about.”

I was homeschooled for 5 years from third to eighth grade. I have nothing against homeschooling, and I completely respect my parent’s reasons for doing so, but in my opinion, textbooks are only half of the education process. I think it’s important for kids to develop healthy social skills, and it’s hard to get those when you’re homeschooled. Yes, you can keep your kids involved in groups – but I don’t think it’s the same.

And how about that death penalty topic. Who do you think is apposed to it – and who do you think is for it? I say Brad is pro-death penalty. Maybe it’s his super religious upbringing. I just see Angie being more laid back on this one.

Here are pictures of Angie out and about yesterday in NYC. She looks beautiful, in my opinion.

Photos: Fame, Source

Last night was the big premiere of Angelina Jolie’s new movie, ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’ in NYC. Her partner, Brad Pitt, came out to support her – as did Brad’s parents, Bill and Jane!

Brad looks so hot in these pictures!  Angelina looks beautiful in black separates. The skirt is Ralph Lauren, and the top is Joseph. In my opinion, she looks beautiful.

So many good pictures from the evening! Check them out below!

Photos: Fame

This morning has been full of Angelina Jolie, but that’s okay – because I could stare at pictures of her all day long. She’s insanely gorgeous. Here are some more pictures from Angie’s Newsweek interview and photo shoot. Read the article here!

She looks amazing!

A Croatian journalist by the name of James J. Braddock is suing Angelina Jolie, claiming she stole the idea behind her latest movie, ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’ from a book he wrote.

In legal documents filed in federal court obtained by Radar, Croatian journalist and author James J. Braddock (aka Josip J. Knezevic) says an article he wrote and published in 2007 is the basis for the film, which was written and directed by Jolie.

The film is a fictionalized account of an unlikely love story between a Serbian soldier and a Muslim woman during the Bosnian War. Brad Pitt was often on location when Angie was working, taking photographs of her at work.

As an example of the similarities between the story he published and the storyline of the film, the lawsuit states:

“The Subject Work’s main female character is subject to continuous abuse and rape by soldiers and officers in the camp. In addition to being raped continuously by soldiers and officers, she is forced to become a servant at the camp headquarters, a duty assumed by very few of the captives. The Motion Picture’s main female character is also subject to continuous rape by soldiers and officers in the camp and subsequently becomes a servant at camp headquarters.”

Braddock has also named GK Films, the L.A.-based production company which financed and is releasing the film, and several other entities.

He’s demanding a jury trial asking the court to award him damages.

In the Land of Blood and Honey opens December 23.

From what I’ve read it doesn’t seem this guy has much of a case. In a long rant on his website, he claims Angelina basically stole everything. He claims Angelina took his story and changed it to fit her needs. Doesn’t that mean it’s possible she came up with the idea for this story by researching many POW stories? Hardly sounds like his story is the only story like Angie’s.

Angelina and kids are currently in NYC – where ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’ will premiere later this week. She brought her kids out this weekend in NYC to see ‘The Muppets’. (Check out the pics below!)

In another Angelina-related article, Angie, 36, opened up about her relationship with Brad, 47, and how having six children is a bigger commitment than getting married…

“The kids asked me the other day and I asked them if it was just because they wanted to have a ‘big cake,’” Jolie says in an interview airing on Monday night’s Nightline on ABC.

“They see movies that have the people getting married in the movies or somebody’s, you know, the happily ever after. Shrek and Fiona are married.”

But the actress (whose screenwriting and directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey debuts later this month) and her man have a good rebuttal for the crew. (Maddox, 10, Pax, 8, Zahara, 6, Shiloh, 5, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 3.)

“We’ve explained to them that our commitment when we decided to start a family was the greatest commitment you could possibly have,” the superstar said. “Once you have six children, you’re. . . you’re committed.”

Motherhood has also changed Jolie’s perspective and drive as an actress.

“I don’t feel needed in a position of being an actor. I feel like I’m needed at home as a mom, and I’m hoping that I’ll find other things,” she admitted on Nightlight. “I’d love to be able to write or direct or work on and produce more projects about issues dealing with situations that I feel passionate about.”

Source, Source, Photos: INF

Angelina Jolie graces the cover of this week’s Newsweek Magazine. In the article, Angelina opens up about her humanitarian work, and her new movie which she wrote and directed.

Jolie‘s approach to her humanitarian work: “When I go somewhere, I am always willing to learn about it. I get briefings, I read books, I talk to people,” she said. “But mainly I try to go somewhere to bring awareness, to come home and pick up the phone and call someone and try to get something done.”

She brings the same approach to filmmaking: She told me that when it came to the technicalities of making a film, “I wasn’t afraid to ask the DP [director of photography]. And I listened to my cast, most of whom lived through the war. I listened to their stories and tried to incorporate it into the work.”

Lack of real-time awareness of the Bosnian War: How could a woman who was only 17 when the conflict in Bosnia erupted in April 1992 have so perfectly captured the horror of a war that focused largely on indiscriminate and brutal attacks on civilians? She is honest when she says, “At the time, I had no idea of the extent of the agony.” But her work as an ambassador to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees exposed her to the plight of the Bosnian civilians and how the aftermath lingers on. The women who were raped in the infamous eastern Bosnian “rape camps” are still suffering from the emotional and traumatic fallout; it was an especially sensitive point for her.

No offense: “The people felt as though the world had forgotten them,” Jolie said. “It was a time of great pain, and I wanted to depict how courageous people were—without offending anyone.” The Bosnians desperately wanted help, from anywhere, anyone—but no one came. Even now, too few people know what happened there. Perhaps it takes the star power of someone like Jolie to remind them of this incredibly complex, bloody conflict. “It was made to remind everybody of the war—but only a small group of people will really understand,” she admitted.

The film is partially improvised: “It was half script, half improvisation,” Jolie said of some of the scenes, and she relied heavily on local staff. “The white shirt that the leading character wears throughout,” she mused at one point. “It stayed white through the rape-camp scenes—and it bothered me. We kept talking about that white shirt.” She also shows characters longing for food, for contact with the outside world, for books, cinema, poetry—all the things that existed before the war.

Writing the script: These journeys gave Jolie the experience to write the script for In the Land of Blood and Honey, which took “about a month, then it went through a lot of revisions, Brad read it, people read it,” but the actual technicalities of directing must have been daunting.

Approaching filmmaking like a UNHCR mission: There is no red carpet in Libya or Sudan. She still packs her own flashlights, notebooks, and waterproof gear. She made Blood and Honey with $13 million and a lot of humility. She approached it the way she does her job for UNHCR, like a student. “When I go on a field mission, I get multiple briefings, including from the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations],” she said. “And I took a course on international law. So I did the same thing I did with missions. I studied.” For the film, she “read a lot of books about the war. I talked to a lot of people, I watched, I listened. I just wanted to tell the real story.” She repeated what she has said several times: “I wanted to be respectful of people.” If she did not know something, “I asked.”

About her kids: During dinner, she talked with love and passion of her family, how she is educating them in their own languages and cultures, how she loves to fly around the world but how hard it is to be separated from them when she is away. She talked of how someone “who never was a babysitter” knew how to take care of Maddox as a 27-year-old single mother. “I didn’t know whether to give one bottle or 30 bottles,” she says, laughing, of her son’s infant days. “I called my mother.”

Angelina on her mom: “Her goodness had a huge impact on me,” she said. “Sometimes I go into hotels now and bellboys ask me about her. My mother used to write them notes when their children were born or christened. She was just that sort of person—everyone loved her.”

Newsweek via Celebitchy

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt reunited their 8-year-old son Pax with his biological grandmother during a family adventure to Six Senses resort in Con Dao, South East Vietnam.

It was Pax’s first visit back to his homeland since his adoption in 2007

Pax Jolie-Pitt enjoyed the full day with his grandma Nhan Dung at the beachside resort. “It was a one day visit. Nhan was looking forward to it after Pax had lived so many years abroad,” says an insider.

Angelina recently revealed that all of her children are interested in learning about their countries. “They are all learning about each other’s cultures as well as being proud of their own. So it’s not like just the boys get to do the Asian thing. They all have their flags over their beds and their individual pride.”

She explained: “We have teachers who teach Cambodian and Vietnamese in our house and they know their flags, their music and quite a lot about their culture. We bring in as much as we can.”

Ange and Brad are doting parents to 10-year-old Maddox from Cambodia, 6-year-old Zahara from Ethiopia, and biological parents to 5-year-old Shiloh and 3-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.

Could this family be any more perfect?!

Source

Photo: Fame

Angelina Jolie is starting the promotional tour for her directorial debut, ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’. Angelina will be on Sunday’s 60 Minutes, and CBS just released a clip promoting the interview.

In the interview she reveals how she survived “heavier, darker times” before meeting Brad Pitt and having a family together. She admits that she’s lucky to be alive, considering what she put herself through, saying “I am very lucky. There are other artists and people that didn’t survive certain things.”

“People can imagine that I did the most dangerous, and I did the worst. . . for many reasons, I shouldn’t be here…You just. . . too many times where you came close to too many dangerous things, too many chances taken too, too far.”

While she confesses she’s still a bad girl, she says she now directs all that to Brad Pitt, her partner since 2005. “I’m still a bad girl,” Jolie insists. “I still have that side of me. . . it’s just in its place now. . . it belongs to Brad–or our adventures.”

In other Angelina news, The Mail is reporting that the Oscar-winner is starving herself on a mere 600 calories per day!

Angelina Jolie’s weight is said to hover around the 97lb mark – underweight for her 5ft 8in height. Regardless of her emaciated frame though, sources say Angelina rarely eats a full meal and frequently forgets to eat. According to Grazia magazine, Angelina survives on as little as 600 calories a day, which is the equivalent of two bowls of cereal with milk.

‘Angelina has been known to start her day with little more than a spoonful of coconut oil and a handful of cereal,’ a source told Grazia last week. ‘The worrying thing is that she is so busy, she often forgets to eat. Sometimes she’ll skip lunch altogether or will just grab a few almonds and some gummy bears while she’s on the go, or will have a protein-based shake rather than anything more substantial. Then dinner could be something like a lean steak and a glass of red wine.’

The Grazia source said: ‘What with her career, Brad and their six kids, Angelina has a lot on. Yes, stress plays a part. She is the type of person who drops weight when she’s stressed out. She simply loses her appetite and can survive on almost nothing. But a lot of people are worried that she is taking things too far and that she won’t have the strength to do all the things she wants to do if she doesn’t gain some weight. Everyone has been begging her to eat more and she is trying not to get any skinnier, but unfortunately she just doesn’t seem to be putting on any more weight.’

Ok, I know she’s skinny – but there’s NO WAY she’s 97lbs. She’s gotta be at least 5’9″, so with that height 97lbs would be a lot more shocking than she looks here. I agree she’s way too skinny, but 97lbs? I don’t think so.