Jennifer Aniston has been voted the celebrity most trusted to look after pets while their owners are on holiday. US animal website PawNation.com asked people which star they would be happy to let care for their cats, dogs, birds, rodents and reptiles while they were away from home. An overwhelming 70 per cent of respondents named Aniston the most suitable candidate, followed by fellow animal lovers Pamela Anderson, Nicole Richie and Mickey Rourke. The 40-year-old actress often speaks about her devotion to her dog Norman, a corgi-terrier cross-breed. She recently said: “There’s no dog like him. He’s just a person in a furry outfit. I don’t even know how to describe him. He’s a wise old man who could, with a look, with one stare, crush me. He’s a laser light beaming into my soul.” Jennifer loves Norman so much, she reportedly splashes out $250 a week on massage, Reiki and acupuncture treatments for the ageing canine. The survey also revealed that 49 per cent of pet lovers think pet weddings are “ridiculous”, while 66 per cent spend more than $50 on their pets a month. Earlier this week, Angelina Jolie – who is now in a long-term relationship with Jennifer’s ex-husband Brad Pitt - was named the Most Powerful Celebrity by Forbes magazine.

It’s always interesting on the day after a grueling, never-ending awards season to see so many bloggers jumping right back into the fray with lists of contenders for next year’s Oscar race. Gimme a break, or at least a weekend, before we have to get back into it. Anyway, who knows what’s really gonna happen next year when the most celebrated movie of this year didn’t even have a distributor putting it in the game until an announcement on Aug. 28!!! That was when it was revealed that Fox Searchlight would release “Slumdog Millionaire” in North America. A few days later, it played for the first time in Telluride, and it was off to the races. What turned out to be another best picture nominee, “The Reader” (which was still shooting as late as August), didn’t even announce it was going to compete in this year’s race until Sept. 29 (and then to great controversy)! But back to “Slumdog’s” Telluride debut. I was at that screening. You could feel the excitement and the sense of discovery. Until then, the movie was almost surely going straight to DVD, in the U.S. at least. Warner Bros., which produced it, no longer had an indie division to release it and didn’t want to be bothered. As I have written here, I first heard the name “Slumdog Millionaire” at an L.A. Film Festival party in June in a casual conversation with Bob Berney, the indie-savvy president of the soon-to-be-defunct Picturehouse (another division shut down by Warners). He told me he had seen this remarkable film and wanted to help on the release, although even Bob didn’t really see its awards potential at that point. File it under: You just never know. Instead of handing it to Berney, though, Warners gave it to Searchlight (retaining a 50% financial interest) and Fox execs have been gloating ever since. The combination of a great but different kind of movie and an inventive, smart distributor made the difference between blockbuster movie or Blockbuster rental. As Fox co-chair Jim Gianopulos told me at Sunday night’s “Slumdog” celebration, “You gotta love Hollywood.” That initial “Slumdog” Telluride screening and final Oscar victory party were just two of a number of highlights for me this season. There were many more: — Seeing Woody Allen’s “Vicky Christina Barcelona” at its first press screening last May in Cannes was thrilling, not only because it was a masterful comic comeback for Woody but also because I was able to witness and immediately note an Oscar-winning performance by Penelope Cruz. Being blown away by the first finished print of Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon” back on April 17 at Leonard Maltin’s USC class. The session was accompanied by an hourlong Q&A with Howard for 500 students, who seemed to love the movie despite its being about events that happened before they were even born. Another highlight happened in the heat of last season on Dec. 5, 2007, when director Christopher Nolan hosted an Imax press preview of the first six minutes of “The Dark Knight,” and we all got a taste of the extraordinary originality of Heath Ledger’s Joker. Moderating those Q&A and tribute sessions with the likes of Mickey Rourke, David Fincher, Meryl Streep, Leo and Kate, Christopher Nolan, Angelina Jolie and so many others was another great highlight for me. And, as always, watching the awards season progress and the fortunes of movies rise and fall is fascinating stuff. Looking back now, maybe it was a sign that “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the movie I thought certainly could — and deserved to — go all the way to best picture, had to shut down 20 minutes into a disastrous first press and industry screening at the DGA due to digital projection problems. The “Button” team recovered nicely with a good-natured reception in the lobby and successful screenings later in the week, but the jinx was on. It did get three well-deserved Oscars (makeup, visual effects, art direction), but being runner-up to a little-known British picture shot partially in the Hindi language was not part of the master plan. You can’t always predict how these things are gonna go. So again, how can we possibly predict with any sense of confidence where next year will take us? I guess Oscar junkies must have their fun. But with the industry and independent film distribution in the doldrums, it’s entirely possible that there’s another “Slumdog” out there just waiting to be discovered and released in time for next year’s awards season. I can remember no other time when there were so many good, independently made films that can’t seem to get arrested. Lasse Halstrom’s remarkably beautiful and touching new film, “Hachiko: A Dog’s Story,” with Richard Gere and Joan Allen, is still looking to lock in domestic distribution in an industry wary of taking on anything that doesn’t have a marketing hook. “Strength and Honour,” from debuting writer-director Mark Mahon, is a kind of Irish “Rocky” with a wonderful lead performance by Michael Madsen and a great track record at the film festivals where it has appeared, but it still can’t find someone willing to take a chance on it. Although hard-nosed critics aren’t likely to go for the film’s sentiment, I had the opportunity to show it to my UCLA Sneak Preview class a few weeks ago, and the response was astounding. This same group had seen “Slumdog Millionaire” in the fall session and they seemed equally pleased by this feel-good crowd-pleaser. Unless someone can see the potential for such films as “Hachiko” and the “Strength and Honour” and so many other mid-range movies with the potential to touch an audience the way “Slumdog” has, these films will just wind up in the same bargain DVD bins where “Slumdog” was headed until the movie gods intervened. With hope, next season will provide its share of Cinderella stories and fun stuff to write about. This awards cycle, which I have been chronicling in “Notes on a Season” since Cannes last May, has certainly not disappointed. It was fitting that it all ended Sunday night with an Oscar ceremony that was one for the ages — a beautifully produced show by Bill Condon and Laurence Mark that captured everything we still love about movies and the Academy Awards. Those bloggers, columnists and critics out there who were panning it before it was even over have had to run back into their holes and take cover from the vociferous reaction, in and out of the industry, to their ill-conceived attack. “I don’t get the criticism,” one longtime academy member told me Monday. “This was an amazing show. You could just feel it in waves as it went along. Those guys [Condon and Mark], they are really good.” I’m told the academy itself was fielding numerous calls complaining about the complainers — but, hey, everyone is entitled to an opinion even if it was formed before the show made it to the air. You can’t please everyone, but with this production the Academy got back on track — and the 13% increase in ratings was the cherry on top. Here’s hoping this team returns next year. Clearly, the public still has a jones on for the Oscars when they are produced with smarts and style. As for “Notes,” this is it for awhile, at least until we have a whole new batch of real, not imagined, contenders to riff on. Until then, as Queen Latifah so poignantly crooned Sunday night, “I’ll be seeing you.”

After enjoying an intimate dinner with 60, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie enjoyed a late date night last Wednesday in Cannes. The duo made a low-key entrance at the after party for Pitt’s film Inglourious Basterds at Baoli Beach, where they both sipped drinks (a Baileys for him, vodka for her), chatted with cast members and engaged in some PDA until past 1 a.m. “Towards the end of the evening they sat together, his hand on her leg,” a source tells PEOPLE, adding that at one point Pitt had his arm wrapped around Jolie as they laughed and whispered into each other’s ears. When they weren’t side by side, Pitt made the rounds at the Belstaff-sponsored party, greeting several guests during the couple’s two-hour stay. Meanwhile Jolie, who earlier in the evening made a fashionable appearance at the film’s premiere, remained seated and nibbled on strawberries while chatting with Eli Roth, Pitt’s Basterds costar, who danced on the deejay stand, much to the couple’s amusement.

The dancer-turned-actress Jennifer Morrison made her film debut in the movie “Intersection.” She has also starred in “Urban legends Final Cut” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” but she currently has a role on the Fox drama “House.” The actress was born August 19, 1979, in Chicago and has dated co-star Jesses Spencer. An actress who first earned her critical laurels (and reeled in a substantial television fanbase) as Dr. Alison Cameron on the blockbuster medical drama House (2004), Jennifer Morrison grew up well outside the realm of Hollywood, in a middle-class family in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois. As a preteen and teenager, Morrison entered showbusiness via modeling, appearing in innumerable print campaigns and gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated for Kids at one point; after wrapping up high school, she attended Loyola University as a theater major (reportedly graduating in only three years) and subsequently trained with the legendary Steppenwolf theatrical ensemble, onetime home to such stars as John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, and Glenne Headly. From there, Hollywood fame was merely a short leap away; by the time of her Loyola graduation, Morrison had already officially debuted onscreen, with a small part as the daughter of Richard Gere and Sharon Stone in the psychological drama Intersection (1994) and a more significant role as a missing girl who psychically haunts Kevin Bacon in the supernatural thriller Stir of Echoes (1999). Morrison signed for her first lead with a role that many felt unworthy of her talents and intelligence: that of Amy Mayfield, a young film student who gets in way over her head amid a thesis project on urban legends, in John Ottman’s slasher outing Urban Legends: The Final Cut (2000). Subsequent projects included Michael Davis’s teen-oriented romantic comedy 100 Women (2002), Casey La Scala’s teen comedy Grind (2003), and — as something of a nadir — the critically despised holiday gross-out fest Surviving Christmas (2004), in which she played Ben Affleck’s snotty girlfriend. As indicated, House represented Morrison’s breakthrough and the role that finally brought her public attention. The long-running Fox drama told of Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), a diagnostician with an astounding degree of medical knowledge and an absolute dearth of social skills. As Dr. Cameron (an immunologist with a not-so-secret crush on the physician), Morrison brought a much-needed dose of warmth and vulnerability to the series. Morrison subsequently made headlines in 2007, when she was tapped to appear as Winona Kirk, James T. Kirk’s mother, in J.J. Abrams’s much-anticipated 11th installment of the Star Trek series.

Loading up on her household needs, Vanessa Hudgens was spotted out on a shopping trip in Toluca Lake on Thursday afternoon (May 7). Looking her usual cute self, the Disney damsel picked up some flowers and some water at her local Ralphs supermarket. Appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show earlier in the day, Miss Hudgens chatted about her upcoming movie, “Bandslam”. She tells, “It’s so much fun. She’s a lot darker and introverted. Sa5m, the 5 is silent. I actually come out with a Flying V. I get to rock out on the guitar. I learned how to play for the part. Unfortunately though, the song I do in the movie is still the only song I know how to play.” Also talking about her appearance at the Academy Awards a few months back, Nessa said, “I was so frightened. I was so scared because you’re getting ready and everything seems normal and great, it’s just another awards show. Then you get there and you see the statues and I’m like, ‘Am I really here?’ Getting ready for the show, backstage, I’m freaking myself out because I’m wearing high heels and I don’t want to go out and go tripping down the stairs in front of Brad [Pitt] and Angelina [Jolie], half naked with a leotard and a top hat. It’s frightening and it’s not a situation you want to be put in. But it was still great and the most rewarding thing.”

Take your pick and let us know below. Who is your favorite and why.
Alyssa Milano, Amanda Bynes, Angelina Jolie, AnnaLynne McCord, Anne Hathaway, April Bowlby, Ashley Tisdale, Britney Spears, Brooke Burke , Carmen Electra, Carrie Underwood, Catherine Bell, Charlize Theron, Christina Aguilera, Eva Larue,
Eva Longoria, Fergie, Gina Gershon, Hayden Panettiere, Heather Locklear, Heidi Montag, Helen Flanagan, Hilary Duff, Jane Krakowski,
Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Tilly, Jessica Alba, Jessica Beil, Jessica Simpson, Joanna Levesque, Julianne Hough,
Kaley Cuoco, Kate Beckinsale, Katharine McPhee, Katherine Heigl, Kelly Brook, Kim Kardashian, Kirsten Dunst, Kristen Bell, Kristin Cavallari, Kristin Chenoweth, Lindsay Lohan, Lisa Rinna, Lucy Pinder, Mariah Carey, Marisa Tomei, Megan Fox, Miley Cyrus, Minka Kelly,
Miranda Kerr, Monica Bellucci, Nadine Coyle, Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, Paula Abdul, Raquel Welch, Rose McGowan, Salma Hayek,
Sarah Palin, Scarlett Johansson, Shauna Sands, Shawn Johnson, Summer Glau, Tara Reid, Tina Fey, Tricia Helfer, Aishwarya Rai,
Ali Larter, Angelina Jolie, Cheryl Ladd, Christina Applegate, Courtney Thorne Smith, Danica Patrick, Farrah Fawcett, Gina Gershon,
Jaclyn Smith, Jaime Pressly, Jami Gertz, Jane Seymour, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Morrison, Jennifer Tilly, Jessica Alba,
Joanna Garcia, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Kari Byron, Katie Couric, Lisa Rinna, Marin Hinkle, Michelle Ryan, Minka Kelly, Penelope Cruz ,
Salma Hayek, Valerie Bertinelli.

Any other suggestions? Let us know!