As you may remember, Angelina Jolie and her father, Jon Voight, quietly put aside their differences several years ago. There has never been a super-happy photo op of the two embracing or anything – I personally think that one of Angelina’s prerequisites for allowing her father back into her life must have been “we’re doing this all on the downlow.” Still, over the past few years, Jon has been spotted around Angelina and her family (he even made a trip to Venice while she was filming The Tourist), and Jon has confirmed their ongoing relationship in interview after interview. I partly think it’s nice that Angelina has let her dad back into her life on her terms, but I’m also waiting for the other batsh-t crazy shoe to drop. We can debate whether or not Angelina is insane, but can we all agree that IF she is insane, she got it from her father? Anyway, Jon has given yet another interview about his daughter:

He has spent nearly a decade bitterly and publicly estranged from his daughter Angelina Jolie – but now Hollywood star Jon Voight has revealed they have reconciled after he was struck by an emotional epiphany.

The Oscar-winner has spoken for the first time of how he changed his attitude ‘in a moment’, and now lives for his family.

The 72-year-old fell out with Jolie in 2002 when he accused her of having ‘serious mental problems’, while Jolie, 37, had criticised him for having an affair behind her mother’s back.

Father and daughter had their first tentative meeting in Venice last year after Jolie’s husband, Brad Pitt, acted as go-between.

Now Voight says the feud is over and he feels very close to his grandchildren, three biological and three adopted.

Speaking from Los Angeles, he said his change of heart came in an instant.

He said: “I suddenly saw things differently and everything shifted. That one moment changed my whole life. It gave me back my daughter and my family. Being reunited with my Angie is very precious to me. I adore my grandchildren, they are my great love. It makes me so emotional and grateful.”

“When my daughter sees me with them she says she sees another energy in me which takes over. I’m always laughing and completely happy when I’m with them. It makes Angie so happy too, as you can imagine.”

[From The Mail]

Well, that’s nice. I guess. Jon gets to spend some time with his grandkids (probably on Angelina’s terms, once again) and he gets to talk about her and the kids in the press, because that’s his favorite thing to do. Throughout the years, the tabloids have always suggested that Brad was the one pushing for Angelina to reconcile with Jon, and that Brad was the one who arranged this reunion we now have. I’ve always been doubtful of that though – I think Brad is really close with his family, and he probably doesn’t understand how Angelina and Jon could have been so estranged for years, but I don’t see him pushing the issue…? I don’t know.

Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.

For whatever reason — and I’m thinking that Paramount must have paid handsomely for this service in light of the impending release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon — GQ has published a so-called complete “oral history” of Michael Bay. Kaiser already covered the Megan Fox stuff, but GQ has finally presented its audience with the entire eight-page almanac, which is positively epic in its sweeping vision of douchetasticness and purports to “reveal the secret genius behind a true Hollywood visionary.”

Within this article, more than sixty people chime in to lend their support to “the most underappreciated man in show business.” Included in this ass-kissing plethora are fellow directors, producers, actors, and Bay’s mommy, all of whom are engaged in a quasi-heroic effort to both mythologize and humanize Bay. Here are a few highlights:

On Bay’s Directing “Style”

Ben Affleck: I think Michael is actually an auteur in the true sense of the word. Every movie he makes reflects his personal creative vision. You may like it, you may not–but those movies are him without compromise. There’s something to be said for sticking to your guns.

Steven Spielberg: He has the best eye for multiple levels of pure visual adrenaline.

John Turturro: He likes blowing things up

George Lucas: Michael’s films are immediately identifiable.

Ehren Kruger (screenwriter): He’s like this cross between General Patton and Willy Wonka. He’s in command of a massive army, all in the effort to create the ultimate Everlasting Gobstopper.

Michael Bay: I’m, like, a true American.

A true American, really? That’s not even worth arguing over, so now let’s travel back to Bay’s (not so) humble beginnings:

On Bay’s Early Work Directing Music Videos:
Bay: This guy called me in from Capitol Records–he was a hard-ass marine, kinda scary in the meeting. He said, “If you can wrap this Donny Osmond video up for $165,000…” Meanwhile, I’m like two weeks out of school. The most I’ve ever spent is $5,000. I ended up getting paid $500. But I got to make my first thing.

Harriet Bay: I remember going out to watch him shoot it. It was in the Mojave desert, and there’s like 200 people. It’s this big deal. It was so exotic. It was the first time he got to use a helicopter. And he whispers in my ear, “Mom, can you believe I’m getting paid to do this?”

Fuller: The first time I saw Michael on a bigger set, he was doing a video, and there was the hottest blonde girl I’ve ever seen in my life, and she’s got a wind machine on her. She’s dancing, she looks hot, she’s wearing a short skirt. He’s shooting her from a low angle. And he looked at a few of us, and there was this look in his eyes, like he had reached nirvana. It was childlike wonderment.

Scott Gardenhour (producer): There was no question Michael would go on to do other things, and that they wouldn’t be small.

Bay: I had gotten movie offers and turned them down. I took my time. They sent me Saving Private Ryan, but I wouldn’t have known what to do with it.

Oh man, can you imagine what a sh-tstorm Saving Private Ryan would have been with Bay at the helm? Perish the thought.

On Why He Was The Go-To Director For Transformers

Adam Goodman (President, Paramount): Transformers are essentially cars that change into robots, and who better at shooting cars than Michael Bay?

Spielberg: I couldn’t think of a better director to turn a truck into a robot and make us believe it was really happening.

Bay: I thought it was a dumb idea.

Josh Duhamel: Michael poked his head [into a meeting] to say hello and started telling me about his next project, a movie called Transformers. And I go “Transformers? Like the cartoon from the ’80s?” and he’s like “Yeah, yeah,” and he’s all excited about it. And I was thinking, This is the worst idea ever.

Alex Kurtzman (screenwriter): It’s about a boy who’s really obsessed with getting a car. That’s when we saw Michael’s eyes light up like he was a 12-year-old again.

Shia LaBeouf: When I met Mike, I was a seventeen-year-old boy. He was my f&*#king god.

Finally, let us not forget that Bay is not just a directing machine but also flesh and blood.

On Michael Bay, Ladies Man

LaBeouf: I’ve only seen Mike with two women in the six years that I’ve known him. He wants a family and has the heart for it.

Roger Barton (editor): My wife tries to limit my outings with him.

Jon Voight: He has his girlfriends, all of that stuff. He’s an active guy with his gals.

Bay: Well, it was only two [blonds]. But that was two in a row. Normally I don’t go out with blonds.

Harriet Bay: I said, “Oh, Michael, I guess you’re going to be like Warren Beatty. He didn’t get married until he was fifty.” So Michael feels he’s got three more years to go.

Bay: It’s about finding a wife. I’ve had a lot of great girlfriends.

White: I just can’t see him with somebody over 35.

Bay: I’m a serious guy, but I don’t take myself so seriously. Some people are so serious. The persona comes from…I’m a frank guy.

John Malkovich: You know, it’s an incredible amount of pressure. And sure, somebody could say “He’s a junkie for that,” or “He likes the authority,” but I always think, God, that must be so lonely.

Shia LaBeouf: Mike is a vulnerable guy. He’s the guy who laughs at a joke, then asks you why it’s funny.

Scarlett Johansson: I ran into him leaving a party once and asked him if I could be the Easy-Bake Oven Transformer. He looked at me in all seriousness and said, “There isn’t one.”

[From GQ]

The article then goes on for several more miles of unbelievable buttkissing from all angles. While this may seem like a lot of excerpting, believe me when I say that it doesn’t even scratch the surface. If you have the stomach for it (not to mention an excess of free time), the rest of the article will figuratively “blow” your mind in its blatant disregard for any reality outside of explosions and slo-mo running sequences. There is, however, an interesting tidbit about why Bay feels that he really made Will Smith the movie star that he is today because of Bad Boys. While that may or may not be true, one thing is for certain: Michael Bay really is King of the Dipsh-ts. And he might very well be the guy with the pretty blonde dangling from his arm, but there’s no question to the fact that she was paid to be there.

Photos courtesy of Fame Pictures

*NOTE: James Haven’s cowboy hat makes my life.

I’ve been avoiding this story all morning. I’m just putting that out there. It sometimes feels like Jon Voight gives an interview about his daughter once a week. And it’s always completely random. Like, “Jon Voight thinks Angelina Jolie should learn how to roast a chicken” or “Jon Voight thinks Fax Cannes Jolie-Pitt would be better suited for world domination, as opposed to Empress Shakira.” Those are just examples. I can’t help it, I think the dude is crazy, and if conservatives want to hold him up as some great example of a sane, Republican, Hollywood player, I think they’re only hurting themselves.

Anyway, Jon is in Israel. With Mike Huckabee, who I kind of like, and think would make a better Republican presidential nominee than any other potential contender. Jon and Mike are in Israel for some seemingly random purpose… the way Jon describes it, the whole thing sounds like a vague pro-Israel photo-op. While he was there, Jon talked about Angelina once again:

Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight says he hopes his daughter Angelina Jolie will join him soon on a visit to the Jewish state. A longtime Israel supporter, Voight is visiting the country with likely U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

Voight was for years estranged from Jolie. He said on Tuesday his celebrity daughter was well aware of his “affection for Israel and the Jewish people,” but that he doesn’t know where she stands on Israel.

Jolie serves as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations.

Voight told The Associated Press he would “love to see” Jolie at his side “coming on a visit to Israel.”

He said: “That would be a nice thing before I go.”

The 72-year-old Voight starred in such movies as “Midnight Cowboy,” “Deliverance” and “Coming Home.”

[From Huffington Post]

“That would be a nice thing before I go.” My mother pulls that crap with me: “I’d like to see Princess Diana’s grave before I die. HINT.” So… Jon is trying to pull a “Before I Die” guilt trip on Angelina… in the press! Empress Zahara is unamused. She asked for a trip to The Wailing Wall for her 6th birthday, and she didn’t get.

One last thing – when Angelina wore that green Versace to the Golden Globes, Jon made yet another statement: “Angelina looks stunning. She rarely wears color but tonight, tonight is her best ever in my opinion!” Jon Voight needs a gig on Fashion Police. OMG! Best idea ever.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Y’all can just pack it up, because Passive-Aggressive Crazy has chimed in. Jon Voight gave an “exclusive” interview to Us Weekly about the tabloid topic of the year, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt dressing like a boy. Now, since Angelina publicly allowed her father back into her life and the lives of the kids, Jon hasn’t been able to shut up. He’s been giving “exclusive” interviews all over the place, so the only thing surprising about this is that Us Weekly seems to be the first to ask Jon about Shiloh’s Montenegro Style. To his credit, Jon doesn’t throw Angelina under the bus, and he basically reiterates what Angelina has said – that Shiloh is her own person, making her own style choices, and she chooses to dress like a Euro hipster.

Seems everyone has something to say about 4-year-old Shiloh Jolie-Pitt’s style. What does grandpa Jon Voight think?

“Shiloh’s an amazing person,” he told UsMagazine.com Sunday at a gala honoring film producer Avi Arad in Los Angeles. “I look at the way she dresses and she has a style! And she’s only 4-years old! I’m going, ‘What!?’”

Echoing previous remarks made by Angelina Jolie, Voight, 71, told Us, “Shiloh chooses everything she wears, so she’s an amazing person. The press, they’re going to make a lot of stuff about it, but she’s incredible.”

Jolie recently described Shiloh as having “Montenegro style” — a phrase that baffled many fashion experts — because she prefers to wear “tracksuits.” “Shiloh’s hysterically funny, one of the goofiest, most playful people you’ll ever meet,” she said. “….Goofy and verbal, the early signs of a performer.”

Jolie, 35, recently scoffed at reports that she chooses Shiloh’s clothes for her.

“I think she is fascinating,” she told Reuters, “the choices she is making.”

[From Us Weekly]

Good for him. I guess Jon really could have made it worse, but he defended his granddaughter from the plague of douchey tabloid stories. Once again, I’m not sure why it matters how a four-year-old dresses, but people are still up in arms about it, and apparently, the whole situation is completely Angelina’s fault. Whatever.

Header: Shiloh on Feb. 16, 2010. Credit: Fame.

Us Weekly’s cover story this week is old-school Jolie-Pitt-Aniston uncool Bermuda Triangle bullsh-t, with a newish twist: apparently, Us Weekly is excerpting from Andrew Morton’s Angelina book. Previously, Morton is the one who claims that Angelina homewrecked Ethan Hawke’s marriage to Uma Thurman, and she also supposedly seduced Lenny Kravitz back in the 1990s, and Ralph Fiennes sometime before Brad. Oh, and Andrew Morton is also going to tell us about all of the VOODOO that she does so well. In this week’s book excerpts, Morton alleged that after Jon Voight left Angelina’s mom Marcheline Bertrand for another woman, Marcheline fell apart and “abandoned” Angelina to looked after by nannies:

Angelina Jolie’s teenage years and young adulthood were marred by erratic behavior: drug-use, self-cutting and a volatile love life.

And Andrew Morton’s juicy new tell-all Angelina: An Unauthorized Biography — excerpted exclusively in the new Us Weekly — argues that it all began with a traumatic event in the star’s infancy. According to former babysitter Krisann Morel, Jolie’s late mother Marcheline Bertrand virtually abandoned her baby daughter after a painful 1976 split from husband Jon Voight.

Morel claims that, for two years, Bertrand sequestered Jolie in a separate apartment in her building, where the young girl was cared for by a revolving staff.

Now 35 and a mother to six kids she shares with love Brad Pitt, Jolie has publicly declared her devotion to Bertrand, who passed away in January 2007 of cancer. But Morton writes that Jolie was permanently scarred by this early abandonment — leading her to self-destructive acts and a “come here, now go away” personality.

For more exclusive revelations from Morton’s new biography — how Angelina seduced Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke and others, whether she and Brad will ever wed, how Brad’s mid-life crisis contributed to his split with Jen Aniston and more — pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, out now.

[From Us Weekly]

Wait, Leonardo DiCaprio?!? Leo and Angie… did it happen? They’re the same age, they came up through Hollywood around the same time… it could have happened, but I don’t see Leo as her type, really. She likes them older, generally. Anyway, about the Marcheline stuff: um… sure. I’ll buy that Marcheline was devastated, but I don’t buy that she “abandoned” Angelina (and older son James Haven) for TWO YEARS. That’s kind of insane, even for the 1970s. And if it was true, don’t you think Jon Voight would have thrown that out in Angelina’s face when they were fighting all those years? Wasn’t Jon the one doing the abandoning? Speaking of Jon, he is the reason I’ve always suspected Angelina had her self-destructive phase. Jon and his insanity. Ugh. Well, Jon is back in her life, and he can’t shut up about it either:

Jon Voight was in proud-papa mode Monday at daughter Angelina Jolie’s Salt premiere in Hollywood. Soon, though, the Oscar-winning actor, 71, will be shipping out to Texas for the new TV show Lonestar, but he says the distance won’t put a damper on the relationship he’s building with his daughter and grandkids.

“It’s hard for me to be away from my grandkids, yes, but I’ll stay in touch with them,” Voight told PEOPLE at a screening of show’s pilot episode at the Paley Center in Los Angeles. “Thank god we have this technology, and you know, we use all of it.”

Specifically, Voight means Skype – and he plans to use it to chat with Jolie, Brad Pitt and their kids. “We’re just setting it up now,” the actor says. “Anyway, I love being in touch with the family.”

As for Jolie, with whom he had a famously fraught relationship, watching her in action in Salt was thrilling for Voight, who thought she elevated the action flick into something more gripping.

“Her work is terrific,” he says. “And Angie, for some reason, has this emotional capacity to make every piece of this really authentic, ’cause it’s really unreal stuff that they’re doing. But that’s the genre and she gives … another energy to it. She’s very, very good. It’s not like a novelty. She’s really doing it.”

One thing he admires about his daughter on screen: her versatility. “She’s a really talented person with a very wide range and lots of interests,” Voight says.

“It’s interesting to talk to her about why she made the decision to this movie … She was nursing two babies at the time that she decided to do this role.”

[From People]

You know, if Angelina wants her dad back in her life, so be it. But I still think the man is totally crazy, an emotional blackmailer, and – just my opinion – a man who is still on a destructive and self-destructive path. I find it creepy the way he talks about her and the children, and the way that he runs and gives a bunch of interviews every time he and Angelina see each other. It seems like he’s not only trying to really force the connection, but he’s trying to make sure that everyone sees him force the connection. Just my opinion, whatever.

Angelina & Brad on July 19, 2010. Archival images of Marcheline & Jon. All photos courtesy of Bauer-Griffin.

Over the weekend, the world was shocked (shocked!) to see Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt hanging out in Venice with Angelina’s dad, Jon Voight. Voight and Jolie had been estranged for nearly eight years, although Angelina had claimed in a few interviews over the past few years that she and her dad were working on their issues. It seemed that we had photographic evidence that the hatchet was buried, or whatever, and those of us (me) who have been wary of Voight for a while simply decided to bide our time, waiting for him to f-ck up again. What’s that? Oh, yes. You see, Jon Voight loves to talk about his daughter and her life, even doing so when they were estranged. Voight loves to talk about everything, honestly, and the man is kind of crazy (something about apples falling from trees, et cetera).

So Voight is back in the US, and of course he’s talking. But he made a valiant effort to keep from weeping hysterically on camera, or announcing dramatically that Brangelina will adopt any minute, or sputtering out something about “Shakira”. When paparazzi approached him at LAX, he only said that the trip was “wonderful” and saying something about “everything Brad does is terrific.” Then Grandpa Voight muttered “I don’t want to talk about it so much.” Damn. Empress Zahara must have been like “Keep your crazy in check, Gramps.” However, you can’t tamp down Voight’s need to talk about his fragile reunion with his daughter! He gave an exclusive interview to Us Weekly on Wednesday, and he played it out like a maestro:

They are family! In an exclusive phone interview from Venice, Italy, Jon Voight raved to UsMagazine.com about his “holiday” with his daughter Angelina Jolie, her partner Brad Pitt and their six children.

“It’s nice to have something that’s positive!” Voight, 71, told Us of getting together Sunday in Venice with his once-estranged daughter. He says their boat ride down the ancient city’s Grand Canal was “lovely…the weather wasn’t so bad for the journey. It’s a very beautiful trip. A lot of fun.”

And among his half-dozen grandkids, one blonde, blue-eyed beauty stood out: “I have baby pictures that are very resembling of Shiloh,” he noted. “I don’t know about all the resemblances, but obviously there are some because of the genes.” (Shiloh, 3, is Jolie and Pitt’s first biological child; her siblings are Maddox, 8, Pax, 6, Zahara, 5, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 19 months.)

The actor would love to pay a repeat visit to Venice during the brood’s stay there (Jolie, 34, is shooting The Tourist). “I love the possibility of spending time with the family. It’s a very beautiful thing.”

Oh yeah: and Jolie and Pitt are doing fine, yes? “Exactly right,” Voight assured Us, poo-pooing recent split rumors. “Of course they are! You can see!”

[From Us Weekly]

I wasn’t sure about the “baby pictures” reference. Is he saying that when he was a baby, he looked just like Shiloh? Or is he talking about baby photos of Angelina? I think he’s talking about his own baby photos. Which is weird, because I think Shiloh looks so much like Brad. Although Brad looks sort of like Jon Voight. So around we go…

E! News also had an interesting little behind-the-scenes look at what it took to get Angelina and Jon in the same room together. The Voight stuff isn’t that interesting, but there’s some cool stuff about James Haven, Angelina’s brother. I had been wondering what James was up to lately – it turns out he’s born-again and studying to be a minister! Oh, James. I heart your crazy ass too!

Being partners with Brad Pitt sure does have its advantages. We just never thought his mediation skills would be one of them. But it turns out the actor is more than just a pretty-faced Basterd, and we have his powers of persuasion to thank for Brangelina’s most recent European vacation photo op, last weekend’s reunion of Angelina Jolie and her formerly estranged father, Jon Voight.

Between Pitt and Angelina’s brother, James Haven, the frosty relationship has thawed considerably. Here’s how their Venetian meet-up went down:

Everyone (who follows these sorts of things) knows that things first went south between father and daughter (and son) during Jolie’s Tomb Raider days, when Billy Bob Thornton’s throat couldn’t appear on a red carpet without Jolie’s tongue firmly rammed down it.

A source close to the actress tells E! News that Papa Voight didn’t take too kindly to the PDAs, even writing a letter to his daughter telling her how “disgusting” her behavior was. The then made the media rounds suggesting his daughter needed an intervention. That also led to Haven to sever ties with Voight and align himself with his sister.

Eventually, however, Voight tried to make amends, mailing Jolie a gold necklace as a peace offering—that she promptly returned to sender.

Then, roughly a year ago, Haven became a born-again Christian and began training as a minister, at which point he successfully resumed and maintained contact with his father. Haven soon tried to get his sister to follow his lead by making nice with their dad, though she routinely rebuffed his olive-branch advances.

Enter Pitt. The insider tells E! News that Pitt thought Voight “deserved a second chance and so he stepped in.”

It apparently did the trick, as it was Jolie who invited her father out to Venice last week.

“The visit actually went really well, and Angie’s thrilled he got on really well with all her kids. She’s grown up a lot, and forgiving Jon is a huge step,” the source says.

The well-photographed trip marked the first time Voight had met with all six of his grandchildren. And not a moment too soon. We were beginning to worry he’d never meet Shakira Zahara.

[From E! News]

If that’s the way it went down, good for them. I wonder why James didn’t come for a visit too? He was probably studying. I also wonder if Angelina truly did all of this “rebuffing” of all of Voight’s efforts. That’s pretty hardcore, to send back jewelry from your dad. You can keep the jewelry and still not talk to your father, you know, Angelina!

Jon and Angelina in Venice on February 21, 2010. Credit: INFphoto.com. Vintage James Haven at the ‘Mighty Heart‘ premiere in NY on June 13, 2007. Angelina in Paris on February 24, 2010. Credit: WENN.

Well, this is surprising. It looks like Grandpa Jon Voight was invited to Venice to spend some time with the Jolie-Pitt family. Voight and his daughter Angelina have long been estranged since 2002 (when he publicly questioned her mental health just a few months after she adopted Maddox). Although… Angelina has said in a few interviews over the past two years that she and her dad are trying to work on their stuff privately. I didn’t really believe her – I thought she was just basically saying “I’ll speak to him when he’s burning in hell” but apparently they really were talking. At least enough for Jon to show up in Venice and spend time on a public outing with the kids.

Unfortunately, the photo agency we have access to (INF) doesn’t have the money shot of Angelina with her dad in the same frame, which you can see here. But we do have photos of Jon with Brad and Zahara, in which Jon is looking pretty pleased with himself, and pretty pleased that there are cameras around. I can’t help it, I still the guy is batsh-t insane, and at the very least, a very emotionally abusive man.

You can also see Empress Zahara, Shiloh (I think) and Pax in these photos. The Empress seems to be giving Grandpa Vought a “WTF?” look which I think sums up the situation. But she also looks very happy – thrilled even – to be back on the water. The Empress is seriously loving Venice… that must be where she plans to launch her benevolent but all-powerful queendom.

Angelina, Brad, Jon Voight and the kids in Venice on February 21, 2010. Credit: INFphoto.com.

Brad Pitt left the south of France yesterday to go on some kind of charitable/sightseeing trip to Spain. Brad visited the urban renewal site designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer in Aviles, in northern Spain (see photos here). He took a formal tour of the project with several architects, and the Alives mayor gave some nice quotes about Brad’s visit to the press:

Brad Pitt, who is taking part in a project to rebuild Hurricane Katrina-scarred New Orleans, toured the site where the Oscar Niemyer Cultural Centre, Aviles mayor Pilar Varela said. He went round with a group of architects on Sunday.

“He is interested in supporting the project, the cultural as well as the architectural aspects,” Varela told reporters.

The building is being erected in a port area in what was the centre of the city’s steel industry in the 1950s before it fell into decline.

It will feature an auditorium, a sight-seeing tower, an exhibition centre and a large outdoor square that will serve as a venue for cultural activities when it opens in 2010.

Local officials hope it will revive Aviles the way the opening of the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim museum helped transform the Basque city of Bilbao from a rusty industrial backwater into a cultural capital over a decade ago.

Pitt was especially interested in the aspects of the project aimed at boosting environmental sustainability, said Varela.

“This is why Brad Pitt has came to visit the site,” she said, adding it was too soon to say how the star of Quentin Tarantino’s latest release, “Inglourious Basterds”, would participate in the project.

Pitt’s “Make It Right Project” calls for 150 homes to be built in the area of New Orleans where levees broke, and floodwater pushed homes from their foundations, when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.

Niemeyer’s most famous works include Brazil’s futuristic capital city Brasilia and his flying saucer-shaped museum in Niteroi, just across the bay from Rio de Janeiro.

[From AFP]

Meanwhile, the tabloids are still ringing the bell for a Brangelina split, of course. On Friday, we covered In Touch Weekly’s version, and I just read Star Magazine’s version, which is strikingly similar. A lot of stuff based on Brad saying “the greater the love, the greater the loss” – which seems to be the siren call of split stories. A family insider told Star Magazine, “Brad told Angelina point-blank that love is not forever. Brad said he knows that they will always be connected because of the children but that he isn’t sure that things will work between them in the long run.” Star’s source also claims Angelina is “desperate” to work on their relationship, and that she’s persuaded Brad to start over. The article goes on to say that their French estate is a good place for them to reconnect (difficult if Brad is in Spain, but whatever), and from what their neighbors hear, “they are not shouting or arguing.” Nosy neighbors, eh?

Also, I finally read the full text of last week’s OK! Magazine cover story about Brad “sleeping on the couch” in France because he and Angelina are fighting all the time. There are a few more interesting pieces of information that weren’t included in the online version. One of Brad and Angelina’s recurring fights seems to be about her father, Jon Voight. I’ve read before that Brad has been pushing Angelina to reconnect with her dad, but in most of Angelina’s recent interviews, she hedges on the question of whether she and her dad really talk, or if they check in with each other, that sort of stuff.

OK!’s source claims, “Brad risked alienating Angie by insisting she let go of old resentments and get back on speaking terms with Jon… Brad wants his kids to know their grandfather and bond with him.” After making some half-hearted efforts, Angelina has “vowed to make good on her mom’s dying wish that Jon make amends” for the $180,000 worth of back child support owed to Marcheline Bertrand. For Angelina, it’s “the principle that matters.” The part about the back child support is true- it was in Marcheline’s will. And I don’t blame Angelina for standing on principle about it, either. That’s a lot of money to owe in back child support.

What I don’t buy is that Brad is trying to push Angelina into any kind of relationship with Jon Voight. That man just gets crazier and crazier, and I think that even Brad realizes that just because he has a close relationship with his parents, doesn’t mean everyone should and can. Voight’s latest controversy was his appearance on Mike Huckabee’s Fox News show over the weekend. I don’t even want to quote him, he’s so f-cking delusional. Just watch the crazy eyes and tell me if you would let him around your children.

Brad Pitt is shown at the NY premiere of The Time Traveler’s Wife on 8/12/09. Credit: CWNY/Fame Pictures

It seems like Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight only makes news these days when he’s speaking out on his very conservative views, or when he’s talking about his daughter, Angelina Jolie. Voight attended the Los Angeles premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and he either got some questions about the “similarities” between Megan Fox and Angelina, or he just decided to talk about them. First of all – Voight isn’t in the film. He was in the first Transformers, but he’s not in the sequel. So maybe he just wanted to see the movie… but then why is doing interviews on the red carpet?

Back to the comparisons… so, in Voight’s mind, Angelina and Megan are similar because “they are both very beautiful women, and they are both sexy gals.” Voight added that both Megan and Angelina are “both in action pictures now”… uh, come again? What action film does Angelina have coming out? At least he’s not mangling the names of his grandkids (does everone remember Zahara as “Shakira”?). Michael Bay sees similarities between Megan and Angelina too. But Bay goes old-school, and references Angelina’s appearance in a Meatloaf music video. Classic:

Angelina Jolie’s dad sees the similarities between his daughter and Megan Fox.

“Well, they are both very beautiful women, and they are both sexy gals, you know,” Jon Voight told Usmagazine.com at the L.A. premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Monday.

“And they’re both in action pictures now,” he went on. Jolie’s thriller Salt hits theaters next summer.

Still, Voight thinks “everybody is unique. We are all so different from one another that we can’t be compared — but they are very attractive girls.”

Fox, 23, and Jolie, 34, have a similar career trajectory, according to the action flick’s director, Michael Bay.

“The truth is I gave Angelina her first job on a music video. It was a Meat Loaf video, years back [1994's "Rock 'n' Roll Dreams Come Through"],” Bay told Us. “That was her very first job. And I gave Megan Fox her very first job.”

Fox — who told Us she’s “never met” the mom of six — has insisted she’s nothing like Jolie.

“Because I have tattoos and dark hair and I was in an action movie? That’s as far as the similarities extend,” she said earlier this month. “I’m not the next anyone.”

[From US Weekly]

Instead of yelling and screaming about how Megan is nothing more than an extremely budget version of Angelina (just in looks), and how Megan loves when her name is mentioned alongside Angelina’s name, and how I really think Jon Voight is a senile bastard who should be kept away from the press, I’m just going to change the subject.

CB loves the human lie detector “Eyes for Lies” that she’s referenced on other posts. “Eyes for Lies” specializes in determining a person’s true intentions/emotions from their facial expressions, tics, tone of voice, eye movements, etc. CB recently sent in the post of Angelina’s interview with Anderson Cooper, and Eyes for Lies had some insight on Angelina’s intentions regarding her humanitarian work: “From this interview, you can’t read too much into Angelina’s relationship with Brad. There isn’t enough said to draw any conclusions. Angelina, however, seems to express a lot of compassion and caring for the refugees. She is a highly compassionate woman who picks up on the emotions of other people. When she looks at other people, she feels their emotions and is moved to action to help those less fortunate than herself. There is no doubt about it, her motivation is true and sincere.”

I guess I’m bringing up the “Eyes for Lies” assessment because I think in the long run, Megan will never be like Angelina – Megan isn’t smart enough, she doesn’t have the compassion or the emotional intelligence. Just because they’re both superficially “sexy gals” doesn’t mean Megan is fit to sit at the same table as Angelina.

Photo credit: WENN.com

Monday night, the Republican party held its first major fundraiser since Obama took office. Before the fundraiser, most of the media was concentrating on the back-and-forth of whether Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin were going to give the keynote speech (Palin first cancelled, then tried to reassert her speaking privileges, only to be denied). Even the initial post-fundraiser reports just focused on the Gingrich-Palin aspect of the night, and what exactly did the $14.5 million raised mean for the party. After that media cycle died out, people started focusing one of the men who hosted the fundraiser – none other than Jon Voight.

Voight got a certain degree of added fame during last year’s primary and general election. First, he whole-heartedly supported Rudy Giuliani. When Giuliani crashed and burned, Voight quickly came out for John McCain (“an amazing guy”) and later, Sarah Palin (“a beautiful choice”). He also wrote a particularly… interesting Washington Times editorial last summer called “My Concerns for America” in which he basically claimed that Obama was winning because he was brainwashing all of the young people.

So, skip ahead a few months into the Obama presidency, and what have we got? Jon Voight, hosting one of the most important Republican events of the year. His speech was a doozy too! He managed to hit all of the hot button issues – Marxism, Israel, and ‘the false prophet’ Barack Obama:

…Democrats fulfilled their mission to paint President Bush as a warmonger and once they were able to reach all the youth, in the colleges and on the internet, with this lie, painting him as the evil one, never giving him credit for keeping our country safe. Once they established that, it would be easy to bring in The One, as Oprah Winfrey crowned him.

…It’s no wonder that the Russian newspaper Pravda, the former house organ for the former Soviet Communist regime, has said the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath-taking speed.

…I think Obama has no idea that Israel was built on the blood and sweat of the Jewish people… He could not possibly understand this or he would know that the Jewish people are tried time and time again to give the Palestinians land and bring a peaceful solution. But every attempt, every attempt, was returned with violence. As far as I’m concerned, their only agenda is to wipe Israel off the Earth. And he reprimands the Israeli people, Obama. Like he’s a professor and they’re the school children….(Snip)..So how worried [about Iran] are we supposed to be now? Was I hearing things when he said that Iran might have the right to nuclear power? Are we supposed to be sitting and waiting, watching for the possibility of a new Holocaust? Who’s going to take the responsibility to keep Ameri — Israel safe?

…We and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” said Voight. “And let’s give thanks to all the great people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, William Bennett, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Dennis Miller, Dick Morris, Ann …Coulter, John Kasich, Michael Steele, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Thomas Sowell, Victor Davis Hanson, Shelby Steele, Charles Krauthammer, Michelle Malkin, Fred Barnes and so many others.”

…Let’s give thanks to them for not giving up and staying the course, to bring an end to this false prophet Obama.”

[From Jon Voight’s Republican fundraiser speech]

As you can imagine, people on both sides of the aisle sat up and took notice. Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart fell all over himself praising Voight as “a great patriot and wonderful friend.” Meanwhile, a blogger on DailyKos is claiming that Voight’s words of “bring an end to this false prophet” equal a call for assassination. Meh – I don’t really think either is true, but there you go. What I find interesting about Voight’s politics today is that he really adheres to this image I have of the aging, ex-hippie boomer who now subscribes to a terrifying, apocalyptic vision of the world. It makes me wonder if this is all really about politics, or if it’s all one bad flashback.