India has had enough of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

[SlimandSexxy]

This entire Brangelina brouhaha is beginning to get on my nerves, as it must be crawling up several other people's as well. Enough of this rubbish. If super-celebrities do not know how to behave in a foreign country, then they should stay home. Or face the music.

Residents of Pune's quiet and wooded Sindh Society have finally registered their protests for the inconvenience caused by the Brangelina Brigade.

Really, you two, this is hardly the way to conduct yourselves and insult locals. It's a case of truly terrible PR and whosoever your minders are, they ought to be pulled up and made to apologise.

Celebrities in the Brangelina league have a far bigger responsibility to discharge when it comes to their public behaviour. They are where they are, thanks to countless fans, who pay good money to watch their films and bestow an iconic status on them. Without their fans, they are nothing.

Which is why I think it's silly and shortsighted of Pitt-Jolie to have antagonised nearly everybody, with their petulance, and lack of cooperation.

Any other star-couple would have realised the consequences of negative publicity and been smart enough to manage the media in a more sensible way. What did these seasoned celebs do instead? Ducked and scowled while letting their burly bodyguards do all the dirty work.

Conversely, if only they had taken the trouble to hold just one civilised press conference right at the start of their stay, none of this would have happened. All those journos camping outside their hotel, would have got their quotes/soundbytes, and gone home happy.

My argument is, had Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie come to India on a private visit, they could definitely have demanded privacy a tall order, given their high profile and perhaps, got it. But here they are, shooting an international film in a crowded city. It's work, And any film thrives on the oxygen publicity provides. So do the careers of movie stars. Meeting the press, under these circumstances, becomes an integral and important part of a star's professional commitment.

But by manhandling photographers, threatening reporters, spitting abuse at TV crews, Brangelina's minders have disgraced themselves by displaying crass disregard for courtesy and basic good manners.

In terms of just numbers alone, our superstars are streets ahead of these two. Wherever they go in the world, these supremely successful men and women, from Amitabh Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan to Aishwarya Rai and Rani Mukherjee, invariably reach out to the people who have placed them on that lofty pedestal in the first place.

They fulfil their responsibilities as goodwill ambassadors for Bollywood, as well as for India, with grace and good humour. As do most of our cricketers who are similarly besieged by fawning admirers while touring. Are they under less pressure?

If they can cope with their stress levels, without cribbing and grant interviews without complaining, so can Brangelina. Now, with the helicopter incident in Jodhpur to deal with, I wonder what sort of damage control is being planned by them?

Or do they think it's not their problem? Stars who pass the buck onto their staff are nothing but cowards. After all, bodyguards take orders from their bosses.

The entourage accompanying them has been consistently aggressive and annoyingly provocative in their conduct. Can you imagine the reverse? If a Bollywood unit were to

try such stunts while shooting in say, Connecticut, authorities and enraged locals would send them packing, within minutes. It's only in India that we tolerate tantrums of pampered foreigners, who think nothing of insulting local sensibilities. My current slogan is: Brangelina Bhagao. Self-respect Bachao.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...32,curpg-2.cms

To respond to this writer's question, I would say their next PR move would be to buy an Indian baby....thoughts??

[Somerset]

Let's see, they've got a yellow kid, a black kid, a white kid...yes, a brown kid would go very nicely with the set.

[aabbcc]

India has had enough of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

I can totally relate to that statement.

[Nitelite]

Passage India rough for foreign filmmakers
Bharti Dubey
[ 23 Oct, 2006 0057hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

MUMBAI: Two road accidents, numerous fisticuffs and schedules gone awry. These jottings in the Brangelina tour diary of Pune's heat and dust say it all. Will the reel-life Mr and Mrs Smith ever return to India to shoot a film?

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt may have realised by now why veteran Hollywood director Oliver Stone didn't shoot his controversial movie 'Alexander' in India, despite his much-publicised reconnaissance trip.

They may even sympathise with the British crew who were not on talking terms with their Indian counterparts towards the completion of the Oscar-winner 'Gandhi' almost three decades back.

The truth is that Bollywood's countryside is different from Planet Hollywood. Here, postponements are nothing out of the ordinary and laptops are alien to film sets. In contrast, Hollywood teams stick to schedules and juggle their production needs with computers. Stone flew out the moment he hit Indian red tape.

Worst, say actors who have been part of western filmmaking, there is a tendency to make a quick buck from unsuspecting foreign crews.

When Hollywood actor Matt Damon and the 'Bourne Identity' crew came down for a shoot in Goa, they overshot the estimated budget by almost a double. Bollywood lore has it that room rates were overstated and so were local manpower costs.

Hollywood teams depend on desi line producers, who keep accounts on paper unlike their Hollwood counterparts. Richard Attenborough's 'Gandhi', too, had gone over budget.

Recalls a unit member of the film, "The total budget allotted that time was Rs 6.5 crore, but the amount was exhausted in making half the film." Thankfully, the government of the day backed the project and the film was completed.

In hindsight, the unit member feels the British crew didn't understand the Indian crew's way of functioning, leading to costs spiralling. "But there is no denying the tension between the British and Indians. More often than not, they didn't communicate with each other, which again affected the film," he insists.

Twenty-four years later, the storyline is the same. The Indian line producers are still not able to handle the budgets allotted to them. Not surprisingly then, the Hollywood production 'Marigold', which boasts of an Indian star, has gone over budget.

India's greatest defeat in this regard has been its failure to come up with efficient service providers a concept that has made countries like Thailand and South Korea a favourite with Hollywood. Service providers are literally people who hold the foreign crew's hand through local paperwork and jargon.

In the absence of such professionals, Hollywood crew depend on word-of-mouth recommendations. The reccomendations are not always apt. Says Udayshankar Pani, who has worked for 'Gandhi' and has been a line producer for many German films shot in India, "There are not enough service providers and Indian film schools don't treat production as a serious subject."

Gulshan Grover, who has worked in many Hollywood films, feels both sides are to be blamed for the communication gap. He says, "We have some of the most talented guys who are good at multi-tasking despite the poor infrastructure, but a few among us have the habit of getting more out of the dollar-spending guys.

The foreign crew, too, have to shoulder a bit of the blame. They treat us very badly and behave as if they are doing us a favour." German filmmakers like Michael Enke confess that though their companies are ready to invest in India, many are put off by their previous experiences.

Enke was helped by Pani for his film, but says that many other filmmakers are at the mercy of tour operators who double up as service providers. Hollywood's favourite locales Goa, Kerala, Ladakh and Rajasthan in fact, have many such tourist operators doubling as service providers and making a hash of the job.

Says Dilip Borkar, who has been a service provider for Indian and foreign film units for 15 years, "Most often these so-called service providers fleece the foreign producers who are ignorant about India. The stories float around and international film producers prefer not to return because of the negative stories."

But Arjun Bagga of Nora Films, who was the production manager for Omar Sharif's 'One Night With The King', refuses to take a dim view of things. He feels we need to start by clearly revealing the ground realities of our country.

"For instance, it takes four days to get equipment cleared from the customs. If the foreign crew is informed about this and organises itself accordingly, lot of heartburn will be avoided," Bagga adds.

source - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/article...975,curpg-1.cms - ironically from the same source as above.

[AgentOrange]

I'm sick of them, too. When are we gonna hear more from Jessica's lil sis, Trashley Simpson??

[aabbcc]

Trashley Simpson.

[mistify]

WHy do I even click on these threads ????? Help me stop!!!!!!

[Voodoo Child]

Yes why are these two the holy grail of thread clogging!

[MrsMarsters]

wish someone would merge all the psychotic rantings of anti maniston, and jolie threads together..seems like a really odd obession.

[ediebrooks]

That's not a bad idea. Is there any way this could be done?

[Elvira]

Why? No one is forced to click into a thread.
There are some other topics around here that keep coming up, the same thing going back and forth for pages and pages. I just don't bother with them.

[mistify]

^ I disagree there is something forcing us to click on them!!(HEHE)

[SlimandSexxy]

Why should they be merged....they are all different topics, even if about the same pair of asswipes. They shouldn't be merged, if they get the most responses, then so be it. I guess these two really piss us off, or some of us worship them enough to click into the threads. Its all in good fun.

Anyone looking forward to the flavor of love reunion tonite?? I hate to admit I watch the show, but they're too much of a trainwreck to miss.

[mistify]

Yes^^^ The preview looked juicy ........ SOmeone was chasing someone off the stage hehehe... Hope it was all the girls going to lay the smackdown on NY!!!

[Chilly Willy]

Originally Posted by mistify

^ I disagree there is something forcing us to click on them!!(HEHE)

It's that evil voice inside my head that whispers "drama, drama, go for it, go for it" whenever I see one of these threads. I'm helpless.