My mother, Pat, grew up during the dustbowl depression and to say her family was poor would be an understatement. Still, you wouldn’t know it hearing her talk about it. Her family played games, sang songs, recited poetry and my mom had an exceptional teacher who lit her up when it came to learning.

My mom was the only one in her family to graduate from college and she put herself through school working in the cafeteria. She went on to lead a very adventurous and she would say exceptional life.

Growing up in West Virginia, I witnessed a different kind of poverty — a more difficult kind of poverty. It was a more dyed-in-the-wool, resigned-to-helplessness that permeated the forgotten communities in the mountains.

It was thinking about this gap between my mother’s hopeful, forward-looking childhood and the quiet acceptance I saw in kids a town or two away from mine that led me to my work with Save The Children’s U.S. Programs. (more…)

Older siblings often want to help with baby names, but their choices sometimes aren’t the most desirable.

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck are learning this as they prepare for their third child — and are getting an avalanche of suggestions for names from daughters Violet, 6, and Seraphina, 3.

“Our girls are working on names. At first they were definitely Disney. It was like, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse Affleck,” the Butter star, 39, said Wednesday on The Tonight Show.

“And then they’ve moved on. Then it was Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Smee.”

With those character names not really cutting it, the girls moved on to other strategies.

“They’re coming up with lists, and coming in and saying, ‘Let’s have a baby-naming contest! Let’s have a baby-naming poll!’” says Garner. “They ask everyone, cause they just want to know. But we’re not telling.”

Garner knows the sex of the baby, but declined to reveal it on the show. Asked if her husband wants a boy, Garner — who has said she wants a third girl — said she actually didn’t know.

“I would have thought so. At first I think I really thought so,” she said. “And then he kind of said, ‘Well, we have girls. We know how to do girls. My girls love me. I’m the big guy in the house.’ So, now I’m not sure.”

Source: http://celebritybabies.people.com/

I recently sat down with Jennifer Garner to talk about holiday traditions, as well as her favorite cause, Save the Children. Her passionate support for this organization is fueled by her deep concern for children. Jennifer talked about how much she feels for the mothers that Save the Children supports, aware of how overwhelmed they are with so few resources for addressing their children’s basic needs, but the universal longing to ensure their children are happy and well.

Our conversation about the demands of motherhood moved into one about preparing for the holidays. Jennifer still carries the poise of a dancer — she was a ballerina for many years, before shifting into acting and it’s easy to imagine her having the picture-perfect holiday table. But as the mother of two (with a third baby on the way) she confessed to having loosened her approach to the holidays by recognizing her limits.

Like all working moms, it’s easy to push to get things just right for family gatherings, but Jennifer acknowledged that she now lets people contribute to the big holiday meal rather than trying to do it all herself. (more…)

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Jennifer Garner treated her newest role with a great deal of “respect”.

Jennifer portrays Midwestern housewife Laura Picker in upcoming satire Butter. The film follows Laura as she goes on a campaign to reclaim her husband’s title as the Iowa town’s butter-carving champion.

Jennifer was intent on poking fun at the situation in good spirits, without disrespecting anyone’s standpoints.

“I don’t know if I would want to watch [Butter] with a politician, but I would like to watch it in Iowa and see if they are still friends with me after because we made it with such respect,” Jennifer told Pop Tarts. “And I come from a small town, so I just want to make sure that they enjoy it and have as much fun with it as we intend for them to have.”

Jennifer relished the butter-carving experience she gained while filming this movie. She now has a new appreciation for the dairy product.

“I love movies where you’re immersed in a world you know nothing about and you see that they’re universal. I was all for butter-carving,” she said. “I used butter in the icing for a cake today so no [not sick of it yet!] I go through a lot of butter.”

Butter will be released in US cinemas on March 16 2012.

Source: http://www.film-news.co.uk

Jennifer Garner is avoiding maternity clothes for her red carpet appearances, though not exactly by choice. “[My stylist] Rachel Zoe is so determined to not put me in maternity clothes,” the actress told InStyle.com the AFI Fest’s screening of Butter in Los Angeles this weekend. “I think because she was so little when she was pregnant, she didn’t wear them.” So, while Garner wore an off-the-runway Lanvin dress to the event, she also sees maternity wear in her future. “I have four months to go. Sooner or later, she is going to have to put me in a maternity dress. Eventually that is going to happen, but so far she has gotten her way.”

Source: http://news.instyle.com/

The entertainment industry turned out in full-force tonight in support of the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s (MPTF) “Reel Stories, Real Lives,” a unique evening of powerful readings which told the stories of industry members and their families who have benefitted from MPTF’s services over the years. The event, held at Milk Studios, was hosted by Robert Downey Jr. and featured performances put together by renowned Hollywood actors, actresses, writers and directors who have been touched by the generosity the MPTF has been able to inspire within the industry. Hollywood’s best and brightest were asked to support the organization’s commitment to the entertainment industry and get involved.

The event honored The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Generation Class of 2011: Top 35 Under 35, a select group of up-and-comers in the business. MPTF will partner with this group to continue the tradition of giving back to ‘take care of our own.’ The Next Generation recipients are chosen based on their proven success in developing and initiating projects, their reputation among their peers and the potential others see in them to rise to the top. The list has included Stacey Snider, Mike De Luca, Ari Emanuel, Amy Baer, Ben Silverman, Sue Naegle, Donna Langley and Kevin Huvane — the very people who are now running the industry. Among those included on this year’s list are: Armie Hammer, actor in “J. Edgar”; Adepero Oduye, actress in “Pariah”; Elizabeth Olsen, actress in “Martha Marcy May Marlene”; Dee Rees, writer-director of “Pariah”; Lauren Abrahams, director of production at Columbia Pictures; and Dana Archer, EVP at DDA PR. (more…)

Austin Film Festival (AFF) kicked off the week-long film appreciation festival this year with “Butter,” written by Jason Micalleff and starring Jennifer Garner and Ty Burrell. A fantastic pick for opening night, the laugh-out-loud comedy also acts as a political satire, making subtle comments and jabs at our country’s current political figures.

The film centers around a very strange hobby: butter carving. Bob Pickler (Burrell) is Iowa’s reigning butter carving champion, and he has been for the past 15 years. But when it comes time for him to pass on the butter carving torch, his stepford wife, Laura Pickler (Garner), steps up to keep the crown in the family.

Laura, who has been studying her husband’s butter carving skills for years, thinks she’s got this competition in the bag. Then out of the blue, Destiny, a shy, young black foster girl with no last name, steps into the ring.

The competition soon transforms into a circus, with the uptight, status-obsessed Laura; Brooke Swinkowski (Olivia Wilde), a vengeful, money-hungry stripper, who has it out for Laura; and Carol-Ann Stevenson, a crazy cat lady who’s oblivious to the world and yet drops some of the funniest lines in the film.

The only sane competitor is the 10-year-old Destiny, who has never carved a block butter in her life yet has an untapped skill for it.

At first Micalleff, who wrote “Butter” during the 2008 presidential election, jokingly denied any sort of political satire in the film.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said during the Q&A after the screening of “Butter” at AFF. “It’s just a movie about butter carving.”

After a bit of prying though from the audience, Micalleff admitted that Laura Pickler may parody a certain former Alaskan governor and Destiny may parody a 2008 Democratic presidential candidate. However, Micalleff said the movie is less about parodying particular people and more about how our country’s political figures have become a form of entertainment rather than the serious leaders they should be.

With its star-studded cast and solid-gold humor, “Butter” is perfect for political enthusiasts or just the everyday person looking for a good laugh.

Source: http://www.hilltopviewsonline.com/

Butter, a quirky comedy starring Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Olivia Wilde, and Hugh Jackman that premieres next week at the Toronto International Film Festival, was always destined to garner attention — it’s a high-profile movie about competitive butter carving!

But the film is about to spark a whole lot more conversation. According to director Jim Field Smith (She’s Out of My League), Butter is not just an offbeat tale, but a political satire of the 2008 Democratic presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

“There are two stories really,” explained Smith to EW over the phone in August. “There’s the story that is the outward plot of the movie, which is of a very ambitious Midwestern housewife [Laura Pickler, played by Jennifer Garner] whose husband [Bob Pickler, Ty Burrell] has been the butter carving champion for 15 years.” Basically, when Mr. Pickler is asked to stop competing by a committee at the Iowa State Fair, so as to give some new blood a chance at winning, Laura is offended. Smith says, “She genuinely believes that her husband is a rock star and she is the glamorous wife. So, when he’s asked to retire, she perceives that as, ‘Well, they’re pushing us out of the way, and they can’t do this to us,’ so she decides that she’s going to enter the competition herself.”

With no prior experience in butter carving at all, Mrs. Pickler decides that she’s going to take the sculpting tools into her own hands. “She enters the competition, and when she goes to sign up, she finds herself signing up at the same time as this 10 year-old black orphan girl [Destiny, played by Yara Shahidi], who is prodigiously talented,” the director explains. Destiny and Laura quickly become intense butter-carving rivals.

“When you start to peel away the layers of the movie, you realize that there’s a lot of political metaphor to the movie,” continues Smith. “Bill Clinton was this much-loved president, who maybe was not so discreet with his sexual love, and Hillary stood in the shadows very quietly supporting him. After his two terms were up, there was a sense of Hillary saying, ‘My turn now.’

“And then, the year she runs for president, Barack Obama, this young upstart, comes along, and there’s a sense of Hillary being like, ‘Really?’ That was very much the metaphor that Jason Micallef was aiming for when he wrote the script originally. Obviously, there’s some fairly unsubtle links to the fact that the movie is set in Iowa.” (For those of you who avoid politics, the Iowa State Fair, where Butter actually filmed for one week during 2010, has become a major political stomping ground for presidential hopefuls seeking support in the Iowa caucuses.)

Smith was quick to add that the film is not any sort of angry, pointed satire, and that even without any focus on the political subtext, Butter functions as a goofy comedy. Well, color us intrigued!

Source: http://insidemovies.ew.com/

Jennifer Garner’s latest visit to Charleston was billed as a red-carpet gala but included something far more personal.

She and her actor-husband, Ben Affleck, had their younger daughter christened at the East End church that watched her grow up.

Garner, who was raised in Charleston, visited over the weekend to attend a Saturday night benefit for the theater program that helped her blossom into the actress she is today. (more…)

Jennifer Garner has endeared herself to American audiences in shows like Felicity and Alias, and movies like 13 Going on 30 and Juno. But for the past three and half years, Garner has been working with Save the Children, a non-profit group that works to better the lives of children living in poverty in the U.S. and abroad. Through her work, Garner — mother to daughters Violet and Seraphina — is attempting to address a startling reality: One in four children grow up in poverty in the rural U.S.

After visiting D.C. earlier this month to stump for early childhood education and improved access to child care, Garner made a pit stop in New York to represent Save the Children and link up with Frigidaire in its efforts to teach kids about fresh foods. (more…)