Just when you thought Angelina Jolie has settled down with uber hunk Brad Pitt and Baby Shiloh, her craving for more orphans to fill her mansions in the different continents isn’t really over.

Jolie is now in Vietnam to pick up her latest adoptee. Her travel involves attenting an adoption ceremony (is it a holy thing in Vietnam?) and acquire passport for the boy, who I believe is 3 years old. Making Shiloh still the official ‘baby’ of the family.

The sob story of the boy began when he was abandoned by his parents in a hospital when still an infant.

Since he was discovered he has been living at the Tam Binh orphanage and search for the birth parents were unsuccessful. Of course, they already dumped the kid why would they want to be found?

Any way if all goes as planned, Jolie will be bringing her new bundle of joy home over the weekend, where her three other kids Maddox, Zahara, and Shiloh will all be waiting in confusion as to why mommy wants to build her own private refugee camp.

But hey, at least there’s one more less hungry mouth to feed for the rest of us who can only afford to dole out a few bucks for charities.

United Colors of Benetton would probably want this family in one of their…

Eveyone’s betting on Martin Scorsese to finally get ultimate recognition as Best Director for his 2007 Oscar nominated film, The Departed.

And any one you ask is 99.9% sure that Marty will bring home the cake this year. His new prodigy, Leonardo DiCaprio calls it a joke that he hasn’t won Oscar Best Director. “Dreamgirls” director Bill Condon agrees saying, “It’s long, long overdue. It’s crazy he doesn’t have lots of them already.”

Yeah, he can say that. He’s not even nominated and his movie was left out in the Best Picture race.

Let’s look at the odds, shall we. Bodog gives Scorsese 1-8 chance against another close favorite Clint Eastwood for Letter From Iwo Jima at 4-1.

Babel director Alejandro González Iñárritu is at far third with 12-1. Other contenders Stephen Frears (The Queen) and Paul Greengrass (United 93) got 14-1 and 17-1 respectively.

So from the look of it Scorsese is really the frontrunner.

Besides, the entire cinema watchers population agree that it’s f@#*$ing time to give the guy his due. This is his sixth nomination and if he loses again, he’ll hold the record of most nmonations for Best Director without winning it.

The worst thing is if there’s any other filmmaker who doesn’t deserve such a disappointment, it’s definitely Scorsese.

The guy’s a genius. He’s given us some of the…

Yeah, yeah. Britney Spears fled rehab again and Anna Nicole Smith remains dead and unburied.

No new big scoops grabbing our attention lately. Although these tabloid concoctions will take a backseat for at least a day when the 2007 Oscar Awards airs on Sunday.

Expect host Ellen Degeneres to don a tuxedo while freshly-botoxed stars line up the red carpet answering the most philosopical question of all: Who are you wearing?

Of course Oscar predictions and odds are flying and bettors are putting their money on the obvious choices, Helen Mirren for Best Actress and Forrest Whitaker for Best Actor. For Best Movie? That’s where the award-giving body keeps us guessing.

I think it’s a heads-up battle between Babel and The Departed. Giving the statue to Clint Eastwood for Letters From Iwo Jima will make it really official that there’s a clear favoritism here!

I mean what’s so great about a…

Sinead O’Connor just called and she wants her, uhm, baldness back from Britney Spears.

Oh my, has the poptart diva finally cracked? It’s all over the blogospere and even on CNN that Brit went nuts in a salon and shaved her head bald helself. Yes, herself. That’s after the salon owner refused to do it.

The madness didn’t end there. Brit next paraded her new do, or the lack of it, in a tattoo place and inked not one but two tattoos on her hip and wrist. When dudes there asked her why the new look? She just said, “I don’t want anyone touching me. I’m tired of everybody touching me!”

All these after hearing of checking in at a rehab and failing to finish her program, losing her assistant of nine years, Felicia Culotta, and losing her new boyfriend before losing her good-for-nothing husband.

And you thought Lindsay Lohan is on the verge of a breakdown. Turns out doing time in Wonderland isn’t so bad at all.

A day later, her manager and publicist still couldn’t be reached for comments. They’re probably locked up in a broiler room somewhere shooting ideas on how to make all of it go away. I am personally watching how they spin this story into something like: ‘Oh Brit just wanted to go for a new look, y’all!’ or ‘She’s really going for the shock factor!’

So what’s really going on inside that bald head…

His gambling empire in Macau, that is, that has slipped largely since Las Vegas casino-hotel moguls decided to invade his land.

On Sunday, Stanley Ho opened his new Grand Lisboa casino. The new structure is reputed to compete with all those Vegas style casinos that are fast mushrooming in Macau, particularly in the Cotai-Macau gambling district.

You see, this 85-year-old billionaire had monopoly of casino gambling on the island, and the whole of Asia on the larger scale. Because Macau is the singlemost place in Asia where gambling is legal, in all sense of the word.

He built 17 casinos that has become stodgy, smoky and with very bad service. No one really complained much because Asian gamblers had nowhere else to go in the region. Until 2002 that is when the Chinese government opened its doors to other private casino investors, like Steve Wynn and the Sands’ Sheldon Adelson.

Naturally, the humongous casinos overshadowed Ho’s mini-empire. Prompting him to build his new Grand Lisboa casino. And it is posed to reclaim the international gambling community’s attention.

The $384 million 52-story building has a 430-room hotel that opens later this year — has a round base that looks like a giant Faberge egg covered in lights the flash red, green and gold. The design of its tower was inspired by the long plumes of a Brazilian showgirl’s headdress. The lobby is decorated with 580,000 Swarovski crystals, gold plated leaves and crystal balls.

Plus the five-floor casino was decorated with…

Much as we don’t want to talk about Anna Nicole Smith post-mortem, we can’t help but notice how the media is making a field holiday over this tragedy.

Of course, that’s to be expected.

Former model and Playboy Playmate, failed movie star, Reality TV star and tabloid favorite, Anna Nicole, was pronounced dead Thursday after being taken to a Florida hospital after being found unconscious in her hotel room.

The Florida Seminoles, the police i mean not the state college football team, reported that after collapsing, Ms. Smith’s personal nurse called the hotel operator, who then called 911, at 1:38 p.m. Law enforcement and paramedics responded to a call for medical assistance at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel, he said, at 1:45 p.m. A bodyguard had administered C.P.R. before paramedics took the scene.

She died shortly after reaching the hospital.

Up to this point, scouring to many media reports, no one has ever mentioned the jackpot word “overdose”.

Which is funny because that’s very first thing the came to everyone’s mind upon hearing the news.

So what? Now the nosy showbiz community is being careful and politically correct waiting for final statement from the doctors before reporting this? After the downright mockery they have showered this lowly Texas girl? A lot of hypociritical chips implanted there, don’t you think.

People around her attest that Anna Nicole wanted to be like ’60s icon, Marilyn Monroe. And she emulated her ’til death, apparently…

And that’s about what to look forward to at this year’s Grammy Awards.

Frankly, I almost stopped watching the show when OutKast’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, or as I call it ‘Hey Yeah’, won Record of the Year in 2004. I mean what has the music world turn into when an incomprehensible mesh up of horrifying tunes even get a nomination, and worst of all win?

Ever wonder why U2 keeps raking in those awards when they release an album? Because they’re the only ones who make sense! Well, aside from a handful of artists who refuse to leave their old school brand of music.

I truly rejoiced when Greenday grabbed last year’s Record of the Year award from Mariah Carey, Kanye West and Gwen Stefani for Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

And most performances are so bland even American Idol contestants can do better. Maybe they watch the Grammys and think: “What the f@#k is Simon beating our ass for when these so-called stars suck big-time?!”

Well anyway, the 2007 Grammy Awards to be held at the Los Angeles Staples Center on Feb. 11, will have old-time music lovers rummaging through their closet for their tight-ass leather pants.

I’m pretty sure Eminem’s following don’t have a hell of an idea who The Police is. Or they only know Sting as that dude who sings weird songs and practice tantric yoga.

But i gotta hand it to the Grammys. Coz…

We don’t want to think that Jennifer Hudson’s short stint in the limelight has gotten into her head.

The Golden Globes and SAG Best Suppoerting Actress winner, and now one of favorite nominees to win the Oscar, recently blurted in a magazine interview that American Idol was ‘abusive’ and a ‘mental torture’.

Well, no doubt Simon Cowell was trained in Dark Ages School of Mental Torture, still I don’t think he could have been that bad at telling you that if you want to be a star, you have to be gifted with fortitude and high emotional IQ.

If you’re like me who only watch the AI audition episodes, you’d realize that it’s not only a talent show it also a stamp of approval on your psychological framework.

Back to new cover girl Ms. Hudson, she told Essence Magazine “On American Idol, you go through this mental thing; you’ve got to get yourself back together. You’ve been abused, misled and brainwashed to believe whatever they want you to think.”

Hudson was the 6th finalist to be voted off American Idol during season three. On stage, she often seemed angry about the criticism she received from the judges. Sixth, huh? No wonder I don’t really remember her.

But her feisty comment has taken a backlash, a way to remind Ms. Hudson, maybe, that after the…

And so we now sit back and wait for the Oscar Awards.

With the Golden Globes and Screen Actors’ Guild already done with their choices for the top acting honors, and yeah they’re the same set of people — Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy, Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker — are we waiting for the Oscars just to get it over with?

I mean every online sportsbook Oscar odds are now favoring these four to take home the golden statuette, so will we slouch on our couch for three or so hours just waiting for the result that we already know.

At last year’s Globes, all major acting winners for were mirrored by the Oscars: Rachel Weiss (Best Supporting Actress), George Clooney (Best Supporting Actor), Reese Witherspoon (Best Actress), and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Best Actor).

The SAG got 3 out of 4, Paul Giamatti stole the Actor from George.

The only battle left come the Oscars, it seems, is on the Best Picture Category. Remember last year when all gay equality hopes were shattered when Crash outwon Brokeback Mountain? This year, however, the battlefield is levelled as no film can claim to be a clear winner. All nominated films have equal chances of…

While we were so pleased that Oscar statuette owners Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts were not hurt when a special effects crew was critically injured, it turned out the two humongous starts weren’t even there when the accident happened.

So what the heck was the headline ‘Accident At Tom Hanks/ Julia Roberts Movie Set, Both Stars OK’ for?!

Talk about sensetionalized overselling. I can imagine the print with big bold EXTRA! EXTRA! on the papers then right beneath it in tiny 8-point typesetting: By the way, the two stars were not on set at the time of the incident…

This time another Oscar winning actress made sure she’s the rightful center of the story. Nicole Kidman was taken to a hospital after the Jaguar she was in crashed early Thursday during downtown shooting of the science fiction thriller “The Invasion.”

And she has evidence to prove it actually happened as it was caught on tape that is now fast invading blogs and entertainment news sites. Yes including the ever reliable YouTube.

Sure the accident didn’t look too bad. But producers had to make sure they whisked Kidman and the stuntman driver to hospital for full cavity tests.

The scene in question involved Kidman’s character attempting to escape zombies or aliens which have attached themselves to the hood of the car. According to unreliable OJ sources, things got out of hand when the actress and her driver drew inspiration for Kidman’s many escape stints from ex-husband Tom Cruise and his band of Scientology alien-worshipers.

Apparently the memories remain so vivid in…