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OK so a couple of weeks ago the nice people over at iVillage Canada contacted me and asked me if I would participate in one of their ‘I Want To Talk About…’ segments, and the topic was Canada’s Hottest Guys!  Um, ok!

Entertainment Tonight host Sangita Patel recorded her conversation starter where she gave her top 3 choices; Drake, Ryan Reynolds and Ryan Gosling.  All I had to do was film my response.  This proved a bit more difficult than I thought, especially given that the lighting on web cams isn’t always that forgiving!

Even though I agreed with Sangita’s choices there were just so many other men to consider.  I mean, sure, Ryan Gosling is super hot, but there’s just so many hot guys here it’s hard to narrow them down.  I mean there’s Sidney Crosby, Justin Bieber, Cory Monteith, Michael Buble, Josh Jackson, Stephen Amell and so on and so on and so on. When you really sit down to look at all the hot Canadian men it’s hard to pick just one, but I did.

It should come as no surprise to any of you that I picked Kevin Zegers as my Hottest Canadian Guy because he will be starring in this summer’s much anticipated movie The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.  If you’ve been reading here you know that I am totally obsessed with this book series and I cannot wait for the movie and Kevin looks really, really good in the trailers.   Try to forget he was the kid in those Air Bud movies, you’ll feel better:)

So have a look at the ‘I Want To Talk About: Canada’s Hottest Guys‘ segment and let us know who you think Canada’s Hottest Guy is.

Photo by FameFlynet

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So the first thing I thought of when I saw these pictures of Penelope Cruz this morning was that I totally forgot that she was pregnant again.  Then I got super happy because I think she and Javier Bardem are quite possibly the most perfect Hollywood couple ever.  Seriously.  But back to her pregnancy – shocking how some celebs are able to keep their private life private while others complain constantly about all the attention, isn’t it?  Maybe that’s why Halle Berry was so desperate to movie to Paris.  Anyway, I completely forgot  that she was pregnant and clearly pretty far along.

The second thing I thought of was the fact that she seems to be wearing skinny jeans.  And not just skinny jeans, but regular skinny jeans.  Like, not even maternity jeans. Dayum.  I know we really shouldn’t be focusing on the bodies of pregnant women but I am impressed here!  As best I can tell Penelope is about 8 months along here and she is still wearing jeans that I can’t even wear now.

Penélope, her brother (and ex of Eva Longoria) Eduardo and her husband Javier Bardem all arrived at hospital in Madrid where Penélope’s sister Mónica gave birth to a baby girl.  Seriously how awesome is it that Penélope and Mónica will have babies so close together?  And  Penélope was in the delivery room with her sister.  Also Mónica chose to get pregnant via artificial insemination because at the age of 36 and being single she feared that she wouldn’t be able to have children by the time she found the perfect partner.  Sounds like she has all the family support she needs!

Photos by GTRES/FAMEFLYNET PICTURES

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Angelina Jolie has revealed that she has recently undergone a double mastectomy after learning that was at 87% risk of developing breast cancer.  Angelina’s own mother, French actress Marcheline Bertrand, died of ovarian cancer at the age of 56 and Angelina didn’t want her 6 children to have to suffer through losing their own mother like she had.  As a result, the actress opted to have a preventative double mastectomy.  Here’s what Angelina wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times;

MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

We often speak of “Mommy’s mommy,” and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer andovarian cancer.

My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.

Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average.

Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.

On April 27, I finished the three months of medical procedures that the mastectomies involved. During that time I have been able to keep this private and to carry on with my work.

But I am writing about it now because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience. Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness. But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action.

My own process began on Feb. 2 with a procedure known as a “nipple delay,” which rules out disease in the breast ducts behind the nipple and draws extra blood flow to the area. This causes some pain and a lot of bruising, but it increases the chance of saving the nipple.

Two weeks later I had the major surgery, where the breast tissue is removed and temporary fillers are put in place. The operation can take eight hours. You wake up with drain tubes and expanders in your breasts. It does feel like a scene out of a science-fiction film. But days after surgery you can be back to a normal life.

Nine weeks later, the final surgery is completed with the reconstruction of the breasts with an implant. There have been many advances in this procedure in the last few years, and the results can be beautiful.

I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.

It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars and that’s it. Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can. On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.

I am fortunate to have a partner, Brad Pitt, who is so loving and supportive. So to anyone who has a wife or girlfriend going through this, know that you are a very important part of the transition. Brad was at the Pink Lotus Breast Center, where I was treated, for every minute of the surgeries. We managed to find moments to laugh together. We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has.

For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.

I acknowledge that there are many wonderful holistic doctors working on alternatives to surgery. My own regimen will be posted in due course on the Web site of the Pink Lotus Breast Center. I hope that this will be helpful to other women.

Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many women.

I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.

Angelina Jolie is an actress and director.

Some might think that a double mastectomy is excessive, especially since Jolie had yet to even be diagnosed with the disease, but I think it’s probably the bravest thing she could do, especially given that she works in an industry so consumed with the superficial.  One of my most memorable moments as a teenager was getting the phone call that my good friends mom had died of breast cancer.  I was 16.  Another of my friends has had to endure her mother battling the disease not once, but twice.  And my own father has also battled, and won, his fight with breast cancer.  In fact, because of that my sister even underwent genetic counselling to see if she was predisposed to the disease.  Fortunately, she wasn’t.  I haven’t done my genetic testing yet, but I will.  And I think that if I was at an 87% risk of developing it I would do exactly what Angelina did.

Angelina Jolie has made the bold and brave move to undergo a surgery that will no doubt save her life but will also ensure that she’s there to watch her 6 children grow up.   I am sure that there will be many who argue that she was no doubt able to do this because she has the funds to afford such surgeries and the reconstruction that goes with it, and that not every woman (especially in the United States) will  have that same luxury, and that’s true.  But the fact that she’s speaking up and creating awareness is just as important.

Photo by CHP/FAMEFLYNET PICTURES

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OK I know a lot of you are literally frothing at the mouth waiting for the new season of Arrested Development to air on Netflix and now they’ve released a trailer that really won’t help with that much.

I was not a die hard AD watcher – I’ve seen it and always thought it was funny but for some reason I never watched religiously.  I think it just happened to air during those years when all 4 of my kids were far too young and demanding to allow me to have any sort of dedicated television watching so I kind of missed all the fuss.  BUT, I do love Jason Bateman and Michael Cera as well as Netflix so I will be tuning in on May 26th to watch.

Check out the trailer below – it’s nice to see that it looks like it will be the same show everyone has loves.

Continue reading »]]> OK first things first – before I saw this trailer the other day I had never heard of Ender’s Game.  I had no idea that this movie is based on the book of the same name and I had no idea of all the hype around it.  That said, as soon as I saw the trailer I was intrigued.

Last night I did an appearance on HuffPost Live (I’ll embed the video below) and one of the movies we discussed was Ender’s Game.  In a nutshell, and summarized quite nicely by HuffPost Live producer Lucy, Ender’s Game is kinda where the Hogwarts kids go after they graduate.  Again, never read a Harry Potter book or seen a Harry Potter movie (yes, I’m being serious) so I don’t know if this is true but it looks like it might be.  In the movie, Earth has been attacked twice by ‘Buggers’ which are some weird kind of insect like alien species and are anticipating a third attack.   Earth’s plan to finally defeat the Buggers seems involve training an elite group of gifted kids in the art of warfare through some highly advanced video games.  Harrison Ford, Sir Ben Kingsley and Viola Davis star as the adults who are in charge of basically relying on these children to save the world.  Asa Butterfield stars as Ender Wiggins who seems to have mastered the games and is revealed as being some kind of tactical genius.  I do get a bit of a ‘Hunger Games’ feel from this trailer although I’m not sure why.  The movie also stars a bunch of other Academy Award Nominees and winners (honestly that part of the trailer gets to be a bit ridiculous) but I am intrigued.

I just went  and downloaded the book that this movie is based on and I’m going to try to read it soon so I can get an idea of what all the hype is about.  Check out the trailer below and let me know what you think.

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Warner Bros released the first teaser trailer for their upcoming space movie ‘Gravity’ yesterday.  The movie is set to finally come out in October after being pushed off it’s original release date of November 2012.

The movie stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as two astronauts who are on a mission repairing a satellite when something crashes into their space shuttle and sends them both floating in outer space.  My first thought, on seeing Clooney and Bullock in space suits was that the casting of this movie is terrible.  In fact before Bullock both Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman were offered the role and before Clooney Robert Downey Jr was attached.  The first clip we see of both Clooney and Bullock just doesn’t seem authentic to  me, but then everthing changes.

I don’t know if it’s how director Alfonso Cuaron cut this trailer watching this trailer gave me anxiety – which is probably the best thing that can happen while watching 90 seconds of a movie.  I’m still not sure I love the casting but I am anxious to see more.  Check out the trailer below.

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Yes I realize I have a Zac Efron problem, so you don’t need to remind me.  I’m totally good with it though so you should be too,and if you also have a Zac Efron problem then you’re welcome.

Zac is currently on set shooting his new frat boy movie Townies and pics keep coming from the set of him acting all frat boy like, like the picture above.  You’ll notice the dumbbell in his hand.   Again this isn’t helping my Zac Efron problem one bit.  Today I actually searched the photo agency specifically to make sure I didn’t miss any new pics.  And don’t tell me you wouldn’t have chosen the exact same picture to make the lead pic in this post too.  Because I know you would.

My mind was blown a bit earlier today when I discovered that it wasn’t actually Zac singing in The High School Musical movies!!! DID YOU KNOW THAT?! I honestly just assumed it was him singing but it was some guy from Canada named Drew Deeley.  How did I not know that?

Anyway I needed these pictures today.

Photos by FameFlynet

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OK first of all I absolutely love Anne Hathaway as a blonde!  Of all the celebs who did different and daring hair for the Met Gala this is by far my fave.

And I love love love Anne’s Valentino gown so much. The actress, who has been accused of being too prim and proper in the past, wore a daring sheer black embellished gown with cutouts on either side of her chest and feathered cuffs on the sleeves.

Anne has the regalness to carry this look off and it looks simply stunning!  Who was your best dressed of the night?

Photos by FameFlynet

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I love this dress, I really do.  Blake Lively is gorgeous and can wear anything and that’s why I can forgive her for not going too stereotypically punk in this Gucci Première strapless gown with a dramatic feathered skirt.

Blake is the face of Gucci Première and she wore this dress perfectly.  I think she could have gone a bit more adventurous with her hair but she still looks amazing. Too bad her hunky husband wasn’t there on her arm!

Photos by Diane Cohen/FameFlynet

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Nicki Minaj bored in blue at last night’s Met Gala.  The singer wore a basic Tommy Hilfiger gown with cutouts that reminded me of when we used to tuck our shirts through the neck and pull them through.  I used to do that as a kid all the time – back when my stomach was flat:)

I don’t like this look much at all and especially not for Nicki, who has worn much more adventurous looks in her time.  I do like the hair but find it more pretty than punk.  What do you think?

Photos by Diane Cohen/FameFlynet