Brad Pitt said something yesterday night we here at FDL have known for a long time:

I think it’s safe to say that the drug war is nonsensical. It’s a backwards, inept strategy.

The actor surprised audience members at a screening of Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In. Jarecki and his groundbreaking film about the United States’ flawed, ineffective drug policy were featured on FDL’s Movie Night last week.

Pitt introduced Jarecki and the film, jokingly using 12-Step lingo as he stepped on stage:

Hi, everybody. I’m Brad Pitt. And I’m a drug addict,

then stating:

Actually, my drug days have long passed, but it’s certainly true that I could land in any city and any state and get you anything you wanted. Just give me 24 hours, and I’ll know where to find it. And yet we still talk about the drug war as if it’s a success.

Before the screening, Pitt and Jarecki discussed the actor’s involvement with The Wrap:

The two men talked about the failures of the war on drugs, and about Jarecki’s contention – which Pitt originally said was “too liberal even for me” – that the criminal approach to drugs was being used to keep poor and minority communities down.

“We talked about those in poverty, and what he thought was the biggest stumbling block and the biggest thing holding them down,” Pitt said. “And certainly I had my own questions about the drug war.”

“There might be something else in play here, like we witnessed with Katrina.”

Exactly. And that something else is sadly racism and loathing for the poor. Pitt asked:

We have biggest penal system in the world, we have the most people incarcerated. And out of that 2.3 million, how many are for non-violent crimes?..Half. Something’s wrong.

Yes it is.

You read FDL’s liveblogging of Prop 8 trial, now see the play!

“8″ Dustin Lance Black’s play about the Proposition 8 California Supreme Court trial directed by Rob Reiner will feature Brad Pitt as Judge Walker, George Clooney as David Boies and Martin Sheen as Theodore B. Olson, and will be livestreamed on YouTube from its reading at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles.The ticketed performance is a benefit for Americans for Equal Rights. AFER was responsible for putting together the plaintiffs’ team of  Boies and Olsen, the renowned attorneys who  faced-off in Bush v. Gore.

As Karen Ocamb points out in LGBTPOV/Frontiers:

With the 9^th Circuit’s decision not to release the District Court tapes of the Perry v Brown trial – after which Judge Vaughn Walker declared Prop 8 unconstitutional – this becomes a critical vehicle to get the word out about what actually happened during the trial, apart from the spin from Protect Marriage

From AFER’s press release:

The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact are pleased to announce the addition of Golden Globe-winner and Academy and Emmy Award-nominee Brad Pitt to the cast of the West Coast premiere reading of the play “8.” The reading is an unprecedented account of the Federal District Court trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), the case filed by AFER to overturn Proposition 8, which stripped gay and lesbian Californians of the fundamental freedom to marry.

AFER and Broadway Impact are also pleased to announce that the performance will be streamed live on YouTube, beginning at 7:45 p.m. PST.  A pre-show will begin on YouTube at 7:30 p.m. PST.  Rob Reiner, director of Saturday’s performance, recorded a video explaining the reading of the play and inviting people to watch the live stream.  The live stream of the West Coast premiere reading of “8” and Rob Reiner’s video can both be viewed at www.youtube.com/AmericanEqualRights….

Not on Our Watch, a international advocacy and humanitarian assistance non-profit founded by Don Cheadle, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, David Pressman and Jerry Weintraub has made a $1 million grant to Partners In Health (PIH), which

presently has relief efforts underway providing emergency medical care for the wounded, and is addressing the critical shortage of hospitals and care centers destroyed during the disaster.

Madonna also donated $250,000 to PIH.

Brad Pitt was set to star in the English political thriller State of Play, based on the award winning British television series. But the actor and director realized something wasn’t right. Like, oh, maybe the journalist Cal McAffrey–Pitt’s part–always feels less-than around politician Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck), and is secretly in love with Collins’ wife. Brad Pitt less-than? Brad Pitt not getting the girl? Both unthinkable, especially because, as director/writer Kevin Macdonald told the Guardian UK:

The journalist has receded into himself in some way, he’s unable to have stable relationships with women, he’s obsessed with work and lives in a weird, messy place piled high with papers and books. He’s a slightly closed off, schlumpy kind of person.

So, Macdonald went to Russell Crowe, who is familiar with playing disturbed, damaged characters. Crowe said yes, and State of Play got made. And it’s been updated to reflect the changing times, with a feisty young blogger and a newspaper facing shrinking circulation as a political scandal breaks.

Along with being able to open a movie with decent box office, Crowe also brought something else to the film:

Russell thinks that almost all journalists act out of self-interest and that most journalism is deliberately misleading and inaccurate. That newspapers and journalists act from their own agenda. Which obviously partly comes from his experience of journalism and having his life reflected in newspapers.

Um, ouch.