In the life of anyone with a lot of free time on his hands and more money than brains, there comes a point when he looks into the sky and wonders what it all means.

In Hollywood, of course, there are treatments for these runaway feelings of introspection. You can do recreational drugs and avoid thinking for as long as possible. Or you can join one of those designer celebrity cult/religions and have someone else do your thinking for you. All you have to do is parrot what they say.

Another alternative, laudable as it is, is "make a difference," to find a cause and shine the full power of your celebrity on it -- as Brad Pitt did after he hooked up (literally or not) with his Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie. African AIDS and poverty is now his cause and hers.

Their crusade is now the official explanation for those paparazzi photos of "Brangelina" holed up in Africa -- a "getaway" that seemed to belie their denials of a romantic relationship that might have ended his marriage to Jennifer Aniston.

Those pictures fetched an enterprising photog a figure estimated to be between $500,000 and $750,000 U.S.

"It's an amazing fact, the bounty that's on my head and the lengths that these people go to get these shots and the amount of money that they're paying," he told Diane Sawyer sanctimoniously. "I can't help think what that money could have gone to."

Well, that's good, Brad. That's a start. You're thinking. Now think about what it means when high school dropouts like Tom Cruise or Russell Crowe get $30 million per movie in a country where the public education system has been decimated by tax cuts and war-funding to the point that school boards have actually closed. If you're taking notes, Alanis, that's ironic.

Perhaps, Brad, there's an inverse relationship in Hollywood between education and commercial viability, since you are in fact a college dropout (Journalism, U of Missouri) and only make $17.5 mil per film (with an estimated net worth of $100 mil, pending whatever Jennifer gets from the settlement).

Now think of what those figures would be if people didn't give a rat's anus about your love life and spent practically no time thinking about whether you'll be more successful in chaps as Jesse James in an upcoming Western than you were in skirt and sandals as Achilles in Troy. And imagine if they didn't watch loud entertainment shows like E! and E Talk and Entertainment Tonight where twinkies enthuse about such silly bullcrap as though they were on Ecstasy.

In fact, think of what it would mean to our entire entertainment-based economy if people spent more time thinking about the plight of Third World nations or whether the environment really is going into the crapper than they do about getting to the next level of Halo 2.

Okay, I know, your head's starting to hurt. But don't worry, none of that's going to happen. Especially not after Mr & Mrs. Smith -- a movie with zero recognition factor prior to the words "I want a divorce" -- grossed $51 million in its opening weekend. That's blockbuster business for a movie that was supposed to get crushed between Star Wars and War Of The Worlds.

In that context, those African photos were obviously worth every penny. The only lesson to be learned here is that Russell Crowe should have flung that phone at the hotel clerk the week BEFORE Cinderella Man opened, instead of after.

Yes, Brad, you are part of the machine -- the one that says "look at the shiny thing" to distract us from thinking critically about our institutions. It's the one that produces things by which we can amuse ourselves to debt -- updated gaming equipment and home entertainment systems with better graphics that you and your kids HAVE to have, cable and satellite TV and Internet, all because we're dying to see you and Angelina roll around in a rollicking black comedy and imagine you guys actually having sex.

You might be interested to know that the woman responsible for you making lottery money was a Canadian. Hamilton's own Florence Lawrence was "The Biograph Girl" and made pictures with D.W. Griffith at a time when actors weren't identified, for fear they would start to ask for more money. As interest in The Biograph Girl increased, enterprising Florence quit Biograph to start a company with Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle and became known by her name, the first movie star.

Bravo to her, and bravo to you, Brad, for every penny you've scored (although pardon me if I still respect paramedics more). But interestingly, those early studio founders were right about movie stars.

The studios eventually adapted by increasing the scale of everything to the point where we now have $200 million movies that are financially structured like a Canadian government sponsorship program, so that a billion dollars in box office is the break-even point if you're lucky.

Of course, back here on Earth, we get laid off, and money gets tight -- because in a global economy, the spigot is open wide on one end and squeezed on the other. And, eventually, as much as we'd love to, we can't afford to go to the movies anymore (or at least we're inclined to wait for the DVD).

So forgive me if I missed Mr. & Mrs. Smith. It's not that I don't care. Really.

Copyright © 2005, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.]