Judith Regan, book publisher to the stars, is packing up her galleys and moving from New York to Hollywood to reinvent herself as a multimedia concern. While this relocation will undoubtedly put her in closer proximity to potential ReganBooks authors (there's a pretty good chance one of her wealthy neighbors will one day off someone and need to tell their side of the story), Regan asserts that she's "not interested in moving to L.A. to do movie star books"; rather, she'll settle for nothing short of inciting a cultural revolution:

Following a not-at-all-near-death experience with an overzealous paparazzi at a Beverly Hills stoplight (the loud, scary noise that brakes emit when an automobile stops short was involved), Jennifer Lopez briefly got the writing bug:

· Coco Cox Arquette is plunged into baptismal waters; amazingly, she still stays crispy.
· Please, if we link to this story, don't e-mail us asking if it's true. OK? Here it is: Brad Pitt Establishes Angelina Jolie Rumors Hotline.
· The LAT makes sweet, sweet newspaper profile love to blogger/tech-goddess/alien being Xeni Jardin, whom we predict will one day disappear into the internet and become as ubiquitous to our web-browsing experience as Microsoft's paper clip is to office drones trying to format a business letter. We mean that in the best possible sense, of course.
· Today's top news headline probably written by a publicist: Cruz's New Roles Combine Beauty and Brains. (Mastery of English is optional, of course.)
· Ex-publicist: Jackson licked boy's head. We can't even bring ourselves to read this one.

· Hey, did you know that most movies nominated for a Best Picture Oscar don't actually win? We know! In a totally unrelated To Do item, the Great To Be Nominated screening series will show a different film each Monday night at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater for the next 18 weeks, showcasing Best Picture nominees that accumulated the most Academy Award nominations in all categories in a particular year, but did not ultimately win the big one. Got that? Tonight's entry is The Grapes of Wrath, the Okie-baiting masterpiece from 1940.
· Pulitzer-winning LAT automotive critic Dan Neil puts his award where his mouth is with a free lecture about design at UCLA’s Perloff Hall. Anyone can attend, not just the kids reaping the benefits of California's fine higher education system.
·The ninth annual City of Lights, City of Angels festival is a week of French film premieres at the DGA theater, right here in our own little city, with no intercontinental travel required...except in your mind. We heartily recommend you visit the festival's website, where a pinwheeling graphic is surely trying to activate some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion that will render you unable to resist the charms of French cinema.
· Garbage plays the Wiltern. Should you attend, expect Scottish rocker/pixie Shirley Manson to haunt your dreams forever.

This morning, we all heard about the local fourth-grader who scored an exclusive interview with Britney Spears for her school paper. Something was bugging us about this feel-good tibdit—how did this intrepid kid penetrate the defenses of Spears' hotel, then find the correct door under which to slip the interview request (assuming that the clever tyke didn't pose as a Red Bull delivery person and follow the Cheeto-crumb trail)? A Defamer operative reveals:

Any out-of-work actor can't just spend his last Carl's Jr. residual check on a superhero costume and stride up to the Chinese Theatre expecting to make beer money by posing for photos with tourists. Established Bizarro Crocodile Dundees, Supermen, and Caped Crusaders have already staked out their turf, and trying to horn in on the action has consequences. A reader reports on a trip to Hollywood Blvd this afternoon:

Wow, we'd heard rumors that Tobey Maguire had let himself go a little since shooting Spider-Man 2, but we say god-dayum. If anyone from Sony gets a look at this pic, we suspect Maguire will be conked over the head, thrown in the back of a white van, and wake up in a hospital set on the Culver City lot, where a feeding tube will help him lose those stubborn pounds. And if that doesn't work, maybe they should merely threaten to replace him with Jake Gyllenhaal again—that seemed to clear up his back problems last time.

Courtesy of an interview with the NY Daily News to promote her new film, Palindromes, we're proud to present the Ellen Barkin Guide to Acting:

· Details/rumors about the new-look, Weinstein-free, Disneyfied Miramax are leaking out: It will have an annual budget of $350 million, release only 6-10 films a year, get cut down to about 50 employees, keep its HQ in NY, and whoever gets to lead the studio will be Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook's bitch. Sounds like a party! [Variety]
· Kate Winslet is in talks to star in New Line's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel Little Children, and will play a suburban mom who boinks a stay-at-home dad. You know, like Desperate Housewives, but without the stars tearing out each other's hair between takes. [THR]
· The New Paramount™ takes a page from the Sherry Lansing recycling playbook, signing up Mummy/Van Helsing hack Steven Sommers to remake When Worlds Collide, the big-object-crashes-into-Earth classic that's already inspired asteroids-fucking-shit-up flicks like Deep Impact and Armageddon. But unlike the old, cheap Paramount guard, Brad Grey's team will throw a lot of money at the rehash. [Variety]
· UPN gives "ratings-challenged" Veronica Mars an early pick-up; ABC keeps Grey's Anatomy safe behind its Desperate Housewives lead-in, bumping the already-renewed Boston Legal into another timeslot that will inevitably lack the same ratings protection. [THR]
· DreamWorks enables Beyonce's acting ambitions, negotiating with her to star in the adaptation of Dreamgirls. [Variety]

Perhaps enraged at his fellow Apprentices' inability to competently market a new pizza or body wash, Apprentice finalist Chris Shelton was arrested Sunday morning for disorderly conduct at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa. Or maybe the Trump acolyte was turning in an improptu, horrible audition for a possible gig as a casino greeter, a logical next step in the career of a soon-to-be-fired reality show contestant. The Donald would certainly not approve of Shelton's apparent rage at the indignity of having to pay a $20 cover charge to enter the Hard Rock's bar; rather than throw a fit, Trump would teach them a lesson by buying the casino and quickly turning it into a money-losing venture.

With his will sufficiently weakened by the rigors of spewing 80-point news headlines for hours on end, Sploid co-editor (and one-time Defamer guest editor) Choire Sicha was persuaded to spend some quality time observing superflack/documentarian Dan Klores in the wild for the LAT. Now that the master spinner has turned his Dan Klores Communications into the go-to image rehabilitation factory for celebrities whose only other choice is the sweet release of a botched sleeping pill overdose, he's indulging his love of movies by directing docs like Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, and finds himself in the interesting position of having a publicist of his own:

Page Six brightens up our Monday morning with the heartwarming tale of 10-year-old Veronica You, who boldly marched up to Britney Spears' hotel and slipped an interview request under her door. [Ed.note—Don't worry about the noises you might have heard, Veronica. Sometimes, when a pop star and an unemployed background dancer love each other very, very much, they host a petting zoo in their hotel room.] And, much to the chagrin of more mainstream glossies like US Weekly or Star, the little go-getter scored an exclusive for the Hancock Park Elementary School's esteemed gossip rag:

Pity poor veteran sitcom showrunner Steve Levitan. Instead of embracing the fact that his Stacked's been designed entirely around Pamela Anderson's world-beating rack, Levitan forgets for a moment that the show's got a weak breast pun for a title and feels he must play up the show's intelligence in the NYT:

After another weekend of pretty spot-on projections, we're starting to worry that our newfound accuracy in prognostication is a sign that something bad's going to happen. But the good news, of course, is that God doesn't have to kill another Pulitzer Prize winner this week, a tragedy we promised would come to pass should our predictions be wanting.

· The Feh blog answers accusations that their infamous "Salma- Hayek-in-a-John-Kerry-mask- mopping-an-overflowed-toilet-at-Penelope-Cruz's house" photo is a fake with...a picture of Cruz brandishing a mop! Mopping is fun when you're doing it recreationally!
· Absolutely, positively do not click through and read this unless you're willing to have your mind blown by perhaps the scariest species of superfan on the planet, the Clay Aiken worshipper.
· Our favorite part of Ashlee Simpson's concert rider: the "ubiquitous deli platter with appropriate condiments." My God, Ash, how can you possible leave your condiment choices up to the discretion of the venue personnel? What if they've never heard of chipotle mayo? You're courting disaster!
· Not everyone thinks being humiliated by Ashton Kutcher's B-team is so much fun. Future Punk'd victims: If Kutcher isn't going to bother to show up himself to hug you in his big, strong arms and tell that you that everything's gonna be OK, don't sign the release form. [scroll down to "Punked by Proxy"]
· This is one of the most unintentionally hilarious headlines we've ever seen.

Friday
· Margaret Cho performs an intimate comedy show at the Wiltern. We haven't check in with her in a while. Is she still doing jokes about that sitcom she had?
· Noisy art-rockers Deerhoof begin their two night stand at the Echo. Oh, these whippersnappers are always giving us a headache with the loud rock-n-roll. Dadgummit.
Saturday
· We know you love yourselves some rummage sale. Throw in a charitable cause, and how are we going to stop you from blowing your entire paycheck on old stuff? Hollywood Heart's sale in Burbank helps finance the non-profit's education, arts, and recreation programs for at-risk youth, so go ahead, live a little.
· KXLU DJs are turning up at the opening/book release party of Veronqiue Vial's photo collection An American in Paris at Glu. Sweet Jesus, we feel so uncool even pondering the hipster orgy we'd love to pose our way through.
Sunday
· Kink N Drink at King King: Porn stars, charity, Ron Jeremy, getting people off crystal meth—you sort it out. But sounds good!
· Because the Lakers have let you down in profound ways and you need to lash out: Clippers forward Bobby Simmons will be at the Hollywood Sprint Store on Sunset Blvd (near Western), signing basketballs, kissing babies, and meeting fans.

The financial dart that Sony fired into the hindquarters of MGM's once-proud lion months ago has finally taken effect; the Japanese conglomerate can now officially bestride its sleeping feline form and pump away without fear of being bitten. After months of regulatory foofaraw, the acquisition of the studio is complete. Studio executives waiting to cash in their multimillion dollar severance packages and head off to exotic locales to "find themselves" are free to book their flights, while their assistants prepare for their unemployment filings and re-learn the joys of Ramen noodles. Let the layoffs begin. If you're interested in the details (we're not, frankly, Happy Hour is too close), the press release follows:

We've done pretty well with our predictions the last couple of weekends, so we're feeling a little bold. If this batch isn't accurate, God will take another Pulitzer Prize winner on Monday. Adjust your dead pools accordingly.

If gazing longingly at the scandalously bare feet of your favorite male celebrity is your idea of a great way to while away a lazy Friday afternoon, you might want to hit eBay. There's an auction lot of photos of barefoot actors whose once-innocent agreement to doff their shoes and socks for glossy magazine spreads has now provided fantasy fodder for the discriminating foot fetishist. Or the semi-discriminating foot fetishist—A-lister's tooties (Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, et al) are listed alongside those of such has-beens and lesser lights like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jesse Metcalfe. High-powered agents all over town should be enraged at the commingling of their big stars with the unwashed actorly classes—you know, once they're done furiously pulling off their socks and seeing how they measure up. Anyway, happy bidding!

Last night, MGM's proud lion opened its mouth and offered its last culinary roar on behalf of The Amityville Horror, the final movie the studio will release before being consumed by Sony. Our steadfast, steel-bellied Special Movie Premiere Food Critic was there to stare unblinkingly into the lion's mouth and critique its final party repast. His report follows: