The casting (and cosmetic skin-darkening) of Angelina Jolie as the mixed-race Marianne Pearl in the upcoming A Mighty Heart, about the life and death of journalist Daniel Pearl, is reportedly drawing some criticism.

“I had assumed that the days when white actors took on the roles of black people had long passed away… There are mixed-race or black actresses who could have done a damn good job in this role,” says the blogger at BlackLooks.org, continuing that “what is taking place here is an act of arrogance and whitewashing by people who think that because they are super-rich they can be anything they want.”

What does the actual Marianne Pearl think of all this? “I’m delighted Angelina Jolie will be playing my role. I deeply admire her work.”

Honestly, what’s retarded to me about all this is that the BlackLooks.org blogger wrote this stuff in mid-July. Personally, I agree with very little of what she says, but why is it surfacing in mid-October? Is it because now we have photos from the set of Angie with dark skin (which appears to be perfectly tastefully done)? Are we vamping up the publicity process for the movie via a single blogger whose opinion, voiced briefly nearly three months ago, is being twisted to represent that of the entire African American community? Did no one else actually visit BlackLooks.org to read the blogger’s comments in context?

• Brad and Angelina are forced to exercise amongst the unwashed masses, despite their earnest pleas to be spared such indignity.
• Just what Kelly Ripa needs: another television show.

• I bet Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson have really deep pillow talk. “I know many consider Thus Spoke Zarathustra to be Nietzsche’s most important work, Jess, but I’ve personally always felt it to be Ecce Homo, with it’s ultimate emphasis on transvaluation.” “I concur, Dane. So very heartily.”
• Sigourney Weaver injures her knee on a trampoline while filming a movie. “You have to learn what not to do with your knees,” says the actress, ostensibly to Lindsay Lohan.

• People in this country seem to think it would be a good thing if Lindsay Lohan moved to London. Such thinking belies a tacit ignorance of the economic underpinnings of our nation. A drastic shift in the supply/demand curve of the blow industry impacts all of us.
• Cameron Diaz filed a police report accusing a photog of assault with a deadly weapon.
• Angelina and Brad continue their tireless quest to buy our forgiveness, donating $1M each to the Global Action for Children and Doctors Without Borders. It’s really pathetic, you know, behaving as though a vast improvement in quality of life for thousands of third-world children in any way makes up for the broken heart of one first-world Jennifer Aniston. You two sicken me.
• Someone went Wild On…Brooke Burke. Check out pics of her preggers. And, for the record, I tried very hard to think of something more current to pun on than an E! series she wrapped four years ago, but that’s really all there is for her.
• No, silly, Chris Klein did not impregnant Katie Holmes. An alien did.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still mad at Brad Pitt. When he walked out on Jennifer Aniston, I felt like he took all my fairytale-marriage-to-Brad-Pitt dreams along with him. You’d think they would have evaporated when he married Jennifer Aniston, and, consequently, not me, but somehow they persisted still. Like I could have my fairytale marriage to Brad Pitt through Rachel Green. I soaked up every minute of our power-couple union. What kind of person operates in such a distorted, delusional reality? I’ll tell you: it’s the same kind of person who writes a celebrity gossip blog.

So when he left us for that whorecake of a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador (that’s not even a real ambassador, I’ll have you know), I was pissed. It was totally uncool. I felt jilted, betrayed. I was mad at him.

Then he shows up on the cover of Esquire looking ridiculously hot and broody, and what does he say about his relationship with Captain Whorebreath?

“Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able.”

And when you set aside the fact that Brad Pitt just boldly advocated polygamy and child brides to a well-respected men’s publication, it’s really a very nice sentiment, and I may take his photo off my dartboard, just for this week.

• After his little traffic mishap on July 20, the LA County District attorney will charge Haley Joel Osment with a DUI. I’m sure the young Mr. Osment knows how to get through this; after all, he spent most of last month being charged by the media with driving a 1995 Saturn.
• Outted Jew-hater Mel Gibson has been sentenced for his DUI arrest earlier this month. He got 3 years probation and 5 AA meetings a week for the next 4 1/2 months, with 3 meetings a week for the rest of the year after that. He also must pay fines totalling $1300, which is about .00043% of what Passion of the Christ netted him personally. The Life Ring blog notes that the U.S. media tend to tiptoe around AA and other 12-step programs, but Britain’s Telegraph tells it like it is: Mel Gibson is even a nutcase about AA, demanding spur-of-the-moment Big Book discussions immediately before a take on the set of Braveheart. So — who’s down to stalk some Melibu AA meetings? I’ll drive!
• That Owen Wilson knows a good publicity train when he sees one. He hopped on board and he’s grabbing a coal shovel, threatening to sue anyone who suggests he might have a role in the demise of the Kate Hudson/Strange Bearded Man alliance.
• Brangelina are moving to Los Feliz, ostensibly because no one in Los Angeles can agree on how to pronounce it, let alone remember where it is.

I’d like to begin by issuing an apology to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. In a post last month, I was unnecessarily harsh to the couple, ranting and raving about how insane, fame-whorish, and bad-parenty it was for them to allow a wax likeness of their two-month-old child to be photographed for money.

Compared to Britney Spears, Pitt & Jolie are the Cleavers. (Is there actually anyone alive today who ever watched Leave it to Beaver? Why do we still say things like that? I have no idea who the Cleavers are and you don’t either.)

Ms. Spears said an assortment of very retarded and childhood-ruining things while in the presence of People magazine’s writing staff, and I’d like to summarize the highlights. While Brad and Angelina waited until their baby had a good solid two months of footing in this world before demonstrating publicly that she’s nothing more than a long-term PR stunt, Britney formally announces she didn’t really want her baby while it’s still in utero. “It just kind of happened,” said Britney, by which she means “I meant to to take my birth control, ya’ll, but I was too damn stoned, you know? Oh-muh-gahd. Fee?”

It’s also nice to see that Britney’s in touch with the real reason she wanted to get knocked up in the first place: “It makes me feel needed and wanted,” she says, “so I like it.”

It’s so clear now: when international superstardom, worldwide adoration, mountains of cold hard cash and a steady diet of bong hits and McDonalds just won’t heal that empty ache within, you know you’re ready to be a mom.