There were a lot of celebrity guests at Kanye West’s opera Nebuchadnezzar the other night. Brad Pitt was there – which, now, isn’t a surprise, considering he was at one of Kanye’s Sunday Services a few months ago. Back then, the conversation was about how Brad and Kanye became friends in the first place. Now the conversation is about who Brad was at the opera with. It looks like he was joined by a group of people, including Nick Cave. And also Alia Shawkat. 

As you know, Brad and Alia’s “just friendship” made headlines all last week. And it’s not like they wouldn’t have known that they’re suddenly a heatscore. Didn’t seem like it bothered them. Alia sat a row behind Brad and he was talking with another woman beside him and, yes, it does seem like they are, indeed, “just friends”, which is why they’re not cloak-and-daggering their situation even though it’s been part of the pop culture conversation recently. That said, I go back to what I posted about this last week – when Brad Pitt is seen on (now) four separate occasions with a woman, typically we are immediately talking marriage and babies and the opposite happened where Alia is concerned: people bent over backwards to believe that they’re “just friends”. So the more interesting conversation here is the one about us and how we’ve been conditioned to see Brad Pitt, or the Brad Pitt analogs in our real lives, who he and they are suited for, and who’d be suited for him and them. 

In other Brad news, here he is a few days ago leaving another Once Upon a Time …in Hollywood screening. We’re getting closer and closer to the film critic announcements for their best films of the year and the various guild and board announcements for nominations, all of which can influence Oscar voting. Brad is currently considered the Best Supporting Actor frontrunner. At this point there’s no way he won’t be nominated. It’s whether or not he can sustain the momentum for the win that’s the question. Especially since he’s “not campaigning”.