T
his week: Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography by Andrew Morton, Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club comes to Las Vegas!, Spiritualist Church of Eternal Light, A Séance, Inception’s Tom Hardy, Movie Review: Going The Distance, and more…

“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” ~Eames (Tom Hardy) in Inception

Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography (Published by St. Martin’s Press). You would rue the day you heard that Andrew Morton wanted to do an unauthorized biography on you. Morton is so skilled at this genre, and so well known, that everyone talks to him! I was shocked how many people he spoke to about Angelina’s grandparents and parents.

Angelina Jolie has given Morton a fascinating subject to delve deeply into. The villainess of Angelina Jolie’s life is her beloved mother, Marcheline Bertrand (pictured), a beautiful aspiring actress who decided early on to marry a famous actor. While Angelina has had a contentious and ugly relationship with her father, Jon Voight, it was her mother, Morton affirms, who orchestrated her traumatic childhood through abandonment. Rejection made Angelina a rebel.

After Voight’s passionate affair led to divorce, Marcheline, destroyed and bitter, left Angelina alone with a rotating army of babysitters in an empty apartment on the fifth floor of an apartment building while living on the second floor with son James Haven.

The biography claims Marcheline didn’t accept the little girl back into her life until she was three, and says the episode left a deep psychological scar on Jolie. Marcheline couldn’t bear to look at Angie who strongly resembled her father. Angelina’s abandonment is at the core of everything she does. That is why she collects lovers and children.

But as Angelina’s career starting taking off, Marcheline became her manager and her closest confidante and strong maternal figure. Marcheline’s hatred for Jon Voight continued until the day she died. On her deathbed her last words were: “Don’t let Jon in here.”

“If God made anything better, He kept it for Himself.” I often hear this about heroin and Morton writes that Angelina’s favorite drug of choice has always been smoking heroin. He had lengthy conversations with Jolie’s New York drug dealer (who took the B&W photo shown here).

Morton claims that when Angelina—after she won the Best Supporting Actress award at the 2000 Academy Awards for “Girl, Interrupted”—infamously planted a wet, open-mouthed kiss on her brother and declared that she was “in love” with him, it effectively killed her brother’s dream of an acting career.

Summing up the book, Andrew Morton must have gotten his hands on Angelina’s diaries.

That Infamous Kiss. From IAmUndercover.com came this: “While America watched, stunned, reports began to circulate that she had been deliberately testing the waters for some time about going public with what she allegedly described as ‘consensual incest,’ which she believed Americans might accept because it was not in the same category as forced incest.

“Little did she know the storm that would erupt and the fierce backlash that would make her for a time the most reviled actor in Hollywood, especially after new details began to emerge about her relationship with James. First, some media reported that the Oscar kiss wasn’t the first or even the most graphic kiss that she had shared with her brother during the 2000 Awards season. At a previous awards ceremony, she had genuinely stuck her tongue down his throat, as opposed to the relatively demure kiss at the Oscar ceremony, which she later denied was of the French variety.” [ianundercover.com/2009/02/25/iuc-exclusive-angelina-history-month/]

When John and I attended the NBR Awards in January 1999, Russell Crowe won the National Board of Review’s Best Actor award for “The Insider” and Clint Eastwood was given the Career Achievement Award. The NBR Awards are a very private function dominated by A-list movie stars and the most dominant forerunner of the Academy Awards. No press or photographers are allowed at the dinner and awards ceremony. Angelina, covered up in a cloth coat and without fanfare, slipped in. I noticed her immediately since we were sitting at a front table. Angelina was not in movie star mode and was inconspicuous. Since, according to Morton, Angelina had an affair with Crowe, was she there to collect him for a rendezvous? Or did she meet up with Clint (her director on 2008 “The Changeling”) and his flirtatious, friendly wife, Dina Ruiz Eastwood?

Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club comes to Las Vegas! It will be the biggest strip club in the country with room for 600 dancers! Isn’t that ambitious! The approximately 70,000-square-foot, four-story mega-stripper empire is located on 5969 Dean Martin Drive.

We went to the VIP pre-opening on August 29.

You enter the world of strippers. It’s like visiting “Rekall” with Arnold Schwarzenegger and fake-vacationing on Mars.

The Hustler Hollywood Store is around 25,000 square feet filled with merchandise no self-respecting stripper-wannabe would do without. It rivals the Forum Shops at Caesars! The main first floor room of the strip club has multilevel banquette seating throughout and offers a view of the main stage from every direction. When you look up, a glass catwalk overhead has dancers strutting around.

It’s a sultan’s palace of pleasure.

On the second level, the DJ booth presides over the main stage between two exclusive VIP Grand Honey Suites reserved for Flynt and owner Jason Mohney. So we can expect Las Vegas sightings of Flynt. There are also more than 20 VIP suites on the second level, some of which have a direct views of the aerial catwalks or the main stage.

Other plans for the club include a multipurpose roof patio include a wedding chapel, hot tubs, cabanas, separate bar, nightlife events and more. Of course, patrons will be able to see the dancers inside the club. There will also be nail and hair stations for rent! What, no erotic movie screenings?

Spiritualist Church of Eternal Light. On August 22, we went to the 11 a.m. service at the Spiritualist Church of Eternal Light. After being warmly welcomed by Rev. Virginia Anderson (pictured), there was singing and prayers, a short lecture and a Spiritual Healing Service (I went in the back room for a spiritual healing), then there was a mediumship demonstration with several mediums giving messages to different people (Gladys sent me a message from The Other Side!). At 12:30, the service ended with holding hands and singing a song together. There were refreshments afterwards.

I was so impressed, I signed up for the September 11 séance! Spiritualist Church of Eternal Light, 3430 E. Tropicana Ave Suite 62, Las Vegas NV.

The Séance Details. Leo Borges and Rev. Virginia Anderson are facilitating the séance. Space is limited to only 20 people, so if you are interested in attending, you should contact Rev. Anderson immediately.

At the séance, one may be able to connect with Spirit in the next dimension, trance channeling and the phenomena of table tapping, concluding with spirit messages! I can’t wait! Donation is $20. To reserve a place (limited to only 20 seats) email Twoworldsii@cs.com and please enter SEANCE in subject line.

Hollywood newest heart-throb is either is Josh Kloss, the hot, hot, hot guy from Katy Perry’s fabulous video “Teenage Dreams” (pictured with Perry) or Tom Hardy from &;dquo;Inception.” Hardy’s meteoric rise (he’s going to be the star of “Mad Max: Fury Road” opposite Charlize Theron) has tabloids uncovering old interviews where he revealed he had a string of gay flings as a teenager. The 32-year-old Inception star, who is engaged to British actress Charlotte Riley, 28, and also has a two-year-old son with a former girlfriend.

But asked if he’d ever had any sexual relations with other men, the “Bronson” actor said: ‘As a boy? Of course I have. I’m an actor for ****’s sake. I’ve played with everything and everyone. I love the form and the physicality, but now that I’m in my thirties, it doesn’t do it for me. I’m done experimenting but there’s plenty of stuff in a relationship with another man, especially gay men, that I need in my life. A lot of gay men get my thing for shoes. I have definite feminine qualities and a lot of gay men are incredibly masculine.’

I first saw Hardy as the notoriously violent criminal Charles Bronson in “Bronson” (pictured). He was notoriously naked in that film. He also was in Guy Ritchie’s hit “Rock’n’Rolla.” He starred as gay gangster Handsome Bob, and had a crush on Scottish heart-throb Gerard Butler. In an interview with Now magazine, he added: ‘A lot of people say I seem masculine, but I don’t feel it.

‘I feel intrinsically feminine. I’d love to be one of the boys but I always felt a bit on the outside. Maybe my masculine qualities come from overcompensating because I’m not one of the boys.’ There are now full-frontal photos of Hardy all over the internet.

Do you think Hardy’s bold gay admissions will affect his career?

GOING THE DISTANCE. Barrymore goes from Grey Gardens to this mess. I wanted all the characters to die violent deaths.

I should say I hate rom-coms. The last great one was MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING. But the star didn’t get the guy! What a twist!

What was the pitch for this movie without a story? And why did star Drew Barrymore ignore the dailies that showed that the director of photography, Eric Steelberg, made her look 40? He certainly does not serve co-star Justin Long either. You keep wondering: why him?

We will get to the lousy screenplay by Geoff LaTulippe and horrible directing by Nanette Burstein later. Yes, even the clothes are terrible.

Erin (Barrymore) is a 31-year-old newspaper intern. She is spending six weeks in New York City before going back to complete her degree in San Francisco. Record company employee Garrett (Justin Long) is commitment-phobic. But when they met cute, they begin a causal romance. They fall in love and when Erin goes back to San Francisco, they begin a long-distance romance.

Erin tries to land a job in New York and Garrett tries in San Francisco. Unable to secure employment, they try calls, Skype, and texting to keep the romance going. It is that boring. They try and fail miserably at phone sex. Why not sex tapes?

Following the worn-out rom-com template, Erin’s family consists of her disapproving sister Corrine (Christina Applegate) and her bullied husband. Garrett has two best friends, Dan and Box (Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis), who are creepy, vulgar and stupid. Well, let me correct that last comment. Everyone in GOING THE DISTANCE uses vulgar language. This makes it “edgy”?

LaTulippe’s screenplay goes nowhere except a predictable ending. In this era of bawdy comedies, you would think LaTulippe would take some imaginative choices. How about having Erin fall in love with a death row inmate and becoming his wife? Now that’s a long distance relationship with a big drawback—no conjugal visits.

Director Nanette Burstein seems to have no interest in making either of her stars attractive and directs with an unsympathetic hand. You have to love your characters or we notice. If the director doesn’t like the characters, why should we?

The problem is Barrymore and Long. Barrymore is unable to appear on film without her characteristic facial tics and insufferable pronunciation. Only a strong director who keeps on top of Barrymore can course correct these career-damning limitations. Playing a 31-year-old who acts like a 21-year-old is not career-enhancing. Barrymore’s reported infatuation with Long (now an ex-boyfriend), does not translate on screen. What is so fabulous about Long that Barrymore thought he would be the perfect romantic co-star?

What would have been more interesting if they had put their real relationship on the screen. Sure, it would have been ugly, but think of how interesting it would have been?

As if to counter-balance Long’s appeal, his two friends are detestable. One of them is his roommate who insists on pooping with the bathroom door open.

GOING THE DISTANCE is another rom-com disaster coupled this month with Jennifer Aniston’s THE SWITCH. Doesn’t any agent know what to do with these women?