Angelina Jolie.
Johnny Depp.
The trailer below for The Tourist needs no other introduction.
Proceed to watch.
Photp Courtesy of UNHCR/J. Tanner |
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie is in Pakistan today, highlighting the suffering of millions of flood victims and the need for continuing aid for the displaced.
In a PSA video released August 31, Jolie pleads: “One-fifth of Pakistan is under water… and the threat of disease now looms for 20 million affected people. This is not just a humanitarian crisis, it is an economic and social catastrophe. UNHCR is on the ground. The more support we can give, the greater number of tents, food, clean water and medicine will get to the people in need.”
Jolie is travelling today in Pakistan as the personal envoy of UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “It’s clear this crisis is far from over,” Jolie said. “People have lost everything: their homes, their belongings, their crops and cattle, and their livelihoods. Long after the cameras have gone, people will be struggling to rebuild their lives.”
ALYSSA MILANO ALSO APPEALS FOR FUNDS FOR PAKISTAN FLOOD VICTIMS
“They are still rebuilding infrastructure from the earthquake of 2005. They continue to have large numbers of IDPs as a result of the conflict in the north, and host 1.7 million Afghan refugees who still need care and refuge as conflict continues in their homeland. And now, of course, the recent flooding and its aftermath already affecting millions and the looming threat of disease,” Jolie continued.
UNHCR has delivered help to almost 750,000 people, but continued flooding in many areas of southern Pakistan is creating new challenges for relief efforts in what has already become one of the most complex humanitarian crises of recent times.
Angelina Jolie – Salt Premiere |
Is there anything Angelina Jolie can’t do?
Oscar-winning actress, “Citizen of the World” award-winning humanitarian, and mother of six will no longer be the only titles which would accurately describe Jolie.
Add the title “movie director” to the mix as Jolie will be making her feature film directorial debut shortly for a love story set during the 1990’s Bosnian war. The film will focus on a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman who meet on the eve of the war and the effect the war will have on their relationship.
Based on an original screenplay written by Jolie herself, the actors will be solely comprised of various ethnicities from the region of the former Yugoslavia. “The film is a love story, not a political statement,” Jolie said, “I would like to involve as many local people as possible and learn as much as I can.”
Jolie will produce the film alongside GK Films’ Academy Award-winning producer, Graham King, and King’s business partner, Tim Headington.
Well. What can I say, but you go girl.
Do not walk, or worse, stop to read reviews, but run instead to the nearest movie theater and watch Salt.
I say don’t read the reviews because a lot of what the movie critics say may deter you from seeing what is truly not only an exciting summer movie but a movie which will surely pave the way for other female actresses to play similar lead action hero roles in the future.
The critics may be right in saying that the plot (like a thousand other action movies before it) has plenty of holes and is filled with one unrealistic chase scene after another. And, they may raise a valid point that a movie about post-cold war Russian villains may be decades too stale.
But, what these critics fail to do is give credit where credit is due. And that is: Angelina Jolie delivers an Oscar-worthy portrayal of CIA Agent, Salt, who may or may not be a Russian spy. You never really know until the end as Jolie keeps you guessing with every twist, turn, kick, shot, explosion, jump, chase, injury, and ass whooping, regardless of whether she is the one giving or receiving the whooping.
Yep, I used the “O” word. I don’t particularly care much for Ms. Jolie generally speaking which makes me even more certain that she deserves the award. I loved Salt because Jolie made me believe that a 110 pound woman can whip the crap out of 100 men, each two to three times her weight. Actually, she did better than that. She made me forget she is female. I just saw Jolie as a tough-as-nails ass-kicker.
Jolie as Salt had me on the edge-of-my seat nervous. She sent my heart racing the entire time. She made me laugh; she made me cheer; she made me angry. She had me confused as hell as to who she really is. But, best of all, by the end of the movie, she made me find myself holding in my breath for a few seconds and crying a bit because I realized what Jolie has really accomplished with this role.
Jolie has undeniably pulled off a first in history: She more than capably held her own as an action hero lead, a character which was originally written with a man in mind (Tom Cruise). I dare to even say that Salt with Jolie as the lead may fare better at the Box Office than Salt with Cruise would have fared. Why? Without Jolie, Salt would be just another ordinary action-packed movie. Fun, but ordinary. But Jolie adds a few extra layers to the character which Tom may or may not have been able to deliver as well.
At pertinent times, Jolie certainly possesses the requisite coldness and bravado that Tom would have brought to the character. But, when necessary, Jolie also infuses heart, a sense of alluring mystery, charming vulnerability, and woman-scorned vengeance into Salt which makes us fall helplessly in love with that character yet tremendously fear her at the same time. I am not sure Tom or most men could pull that alluring mystery and vulnerability off as well. And what do they say? “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Jolie surely proves that theory correct with her portrayal of Agent Salt.
Call me sexist. Maybe I am. But I loved this movie mostly because a woman was the lead; and because a woman filled the theater to full capacity and had the audience cheering at times and gasping for air at others just like or possibly even better than the Tom Cuises, Matt Damons and Brad Pitts of the world have in the past. Jolie made me a believer. And I know she will make a believer out of movie executives when Salt brings in the ticket sales. And all future female action leads owe Jolie a big thank you for being such a mysterious, vulnerable, charming, money-making, ass-kicking machine.
Did you know that originally Tom Cruise was going to play Angelina Jolie’s part on the action-thriller, Salt?
That probably is the first time a woman has won an action role created with a man in mind. That’s how kick-ass Angelina is.
Kick-ass yet glamorous that is.
Angelina arrived at the Salt premiere last night, held at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater, hand in hand with the just-as-beautiful-and-glamorous-and-recently-clean-shaven-thank-God Brad Pitt.
Jolie was dressed in black strapless beaded cocktail minidress from Emporio Armani and sported Ferragamo shoes.
Salt is set for nationwide release July 23, 2010. For my review of Salt, click here.
Salt director Phillip Noyce told E! what he thought of changing the already penned male lead to female. “Well, Tom [Cruise] was never signed, but he was really thinking about it. We needed a start date, so we needed an actor. Amy Pascal, head of Sony Pictures, said ‘Let’s send it to Angelina.’ It seemed for a moment to be an outrageous idea! Then I thought about it and realized it only had pluses.”
Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told E!:
“It’s true that Amy Pascal had joked to [Angelina] about her being a Bond Girl one day and Angelina really said, ‘No I don’t want to be a Bond Girl. I want to be Bond.’ When it didn’t work out with Tom, this seemed like the movie to give her that shot. They’ve been talking about this notion for a while.”
Some photos courtesy of our field reporter and favorite comedian, Elham Jazzab.