· Ellen DeGeneres will step into George Burns' pants to play God in a "hip and modern" remake of Oh, God. We've disappointed only because we've always pictured God as more of a lipstick lesbian. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Jerry Bruckheimer steps outside Les Moonves' snuggly cocoon (Bruck has six series on CBS in the fall) to do a series for NBC, set in the Pentagon. [THR]
· NBC's ratings for the Athens Olympics are up 9 percent from the Sydney games, which was widely considered a disaster. Way to slightly improve, Jeff Zucker! [THR]
· Malibu's Most Wanted director John Whitesell will try to prevent the random, "dehydrated" gunplay of Martin Lawrence as he steps behind the camera for Big Momma's House 2.
· The Sopranos' Terence Winter will write an update of The Warriors, absolutely the best movie ever made featuring gangs that wear rollerskates or dress like baseball players. [THR]

From the Teutonic Gossip Synchronicity Department: A reader sends blogger A Fly On The Wall a (supposedly authentic) picture of Bruce Willis dancing in a gay, German disco. Says Fly, "And I don't think this means Bruce is secretly a friend of Dorothy. I've heard a variety of gossip over the years involving Bruce and women. Nothing about Bruce and men." Amen. Sometimes an action star just needs to go topless and do the "Lean Back" without people making assumptions.

Rooftop Report points us to a German website's pictures of Britney Spears' barefoot exit from a public bathroom in Santa Barbara. Usually, automatic translation tools are sufficient (read: completely hilarious) to get the gist of the foreign coverage of our most prized pop-star exports. This time, we thought it necessary to enlist the official Defamer German translator to truly appreciate a different perspective on Britney's latest paparazzi pictures. Has there ever been a more ruthlessly efficient assessment of Brit's antics than this German writer's turn of phrase "mercilessly unhygenic"? We're willing to bet that our little white trash princess also failed to execute a "H flichkeiterr ten."*"H flichkeitsp len"** Translation is after the jump.

Once again, the NYT uses Entourage as an entry point to Go Behind the Scenes in Hollywood (who knew HBO was so educational?). In yesterday's NYT, Warren St, John's hagiography anoints celebrity business managers as the industry's unsung do-gooders, trailing after their newly-monied clients, burning up Bentley leases and slapping $35,000 watches out of their profligate charge's greedy little fingers. But a money manager who's dealt extensively with Hollywood's bottom-line minding saints writes in to tell us that the business managers have no reason to curb an actor's money-burning tendencies:

Enjoy the numbers from this weekend's thoroughly lackluster box office slate.

The Hilton sisters certainly put their skinny, publicity-mongering stamp on the quickly-expiring week. It started with news that Nicky had married some nerd in Vegas, saw the safe return of Paris' prodigal lapdog, and ended with her posters winding up for auction on eBay . As the pre-game drink special at the Short Stop beckons, we officially close "Hilton Week" with a thought by a reader, writing in (fittingly) from Paris:

—Allow Good Plastic Surgery to ignite yet another Lindsay Lohan controversy. Really, we felt that those were in such short supply lately.
—Separated at birth: Motormouth auteur Quentin Tarantino and Richard Kiel, legendary Bond nemesis "Jaws."
—Another noteworthy Missed Connection from Craigslist: "I grabbed your boobs on Sunset. - m4w - 24"
—Remembering Rick James, the best way we know how.
—LAist on The Grove's snuffing out of the Beverly Connection. Where will we catch a second-rate movie after a leisurely shopping trip to Sports Chalet?

The newly-appointed Defamer correspondent on Profoundly Evil Mutations In Already Nauseating Fashion Trends gives us a ten-day warning about the impending fashion doom that are Mukluk boots. Think Ugg boots but worse in every conceivable way: hairier, uglier, and nonsensically adorned with pom poms. With this ten-day lead, there might be enough time to stop them, but we fear we're already too late. Let's just pray that the menace can be contained to Beverly Hills, where a strategic tear-gassing of Rodeo Drive might keep the fashion-damaged to a minimum.

We'd like to take a minute to acknowledge the brave work of this week's sponsors, without whom we'd be scouring the Hollywood Hills, fruitlessly searching for a certain chihuahua that's already been found. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer, see this page.

Friday
1. Reap the rewards of your front-running fandom and buy a scalped ticket in the third inning to see the Dodgers play the Atlanta Braves: It's Don Drysdale Bobblehead Night at Chavez Ravine!
2. Go to bed early and rest up for Sunset Junction.
Saturday
3. Hipsters, leather boys, indie rockers, carnies, local businesses, thrift-store fashion victims, more carnies, and the odd, lost Westsider come together for the two-day, 24th Annual Sunset Junction Street Fair. Eat carnival-booth-quality food, drink beer in the sun, and take in the extensive bill of musical acts. Performing: The Donnas, X, Ben Kweller, Har Mar Superstar, Camper Van Beethoven, Ima Robot, and more.
Sunday
4. Wash, rinse, repeat #3 at 1/2 speed for the second day of the festival. You might want to call in sick on Monday to fully recover from two straight days of boozing, music, and carnival rides.

LA.comfidential's hipster-bating Laurie Pike critiques scenester/local lite-rock icon Pete Yorn's seduction techniques after a model describes his estimable "moves" (which are largely irrelevant in the L.A. dating pool due to his relative celebrity):

Hummer, the company that produces the Los Angeles area's most accurate indicator of male genital-inadequacy, is lending the powerful brand identification of its oversized SUVs to a men's cologne.

Because the summer box office season is now officially over—this time we really mean it!—and the studios are opening three mediocre movies just for the the hell of it, projections are going to be a crapshoot. In the past, we've urged you to take these predictions to the bank; today, we recommend you try to sell them to the slow kid in front of the 7-11 who spends his day smashing a soda can with a jagged rock.

· Dakota Fanning earns another precocious child role as Kurt Russell's daughter in the DreamWorks project Dreamer. Time is of the essence: She's got to cram in as many of these parts as possible before she deteriorates into that weird space between "child actor" and "jailbait." [THR]
· Oh, now we understand why Brandy is taking Scientology classes. She's signing up for a Fox sitcom, and when it's canceled after five episode, she's going to need the inner strength that only a thorough brainwashing can provide.[THR]
· Sign on for as many indie projects as you like, Piper Perabo, you will always be that awkward Coyote Ugly girl to us, timidly stepping onto the bar for the first time, waiting to unleash your disappointingly PG-rated, drink-slinging tart. [THR]
· Chris "Malcolm's in the Middle's Brother" Masterson is trying to pile up a life's worth of indie film cred this summer. Who does he think he is, Zach Braff? [THR]
· Fox to re-adapt F. Scott Fitzgerald novel Tender is the Night, will pay seven figures if script makes it to production. Though the studio already produced a film version in 1962, the rights had reverted back to the Fitzgerald estate. We can't wait until Fox does the inevitable cafeteria tie in, "F. Scott's Liquid Lunch."[Variety, sub. req'd.]

Commerce Friday continues as yet another celebrity curio finds its way to the internet for sale. The last time we saw Chris Noth, he was floating in the Dead Sea. Now the actor's LA-based, former couch can float right into your living home for a mere $300, if lipstick-red furniture doesn't violently clash with your living room's color scheme. We imagine that Noth kept the spinning, tiger-print, disco-playing waterbed (i.e., "where the magic happens," in the parlance of Cribs) for himself.

It seemed deliciously inevitable that Paris Hilton's poster-board plea for the safe return of pet/daughter Tinkerbell would wind up on eBay. What took so long? Let the bidding begin to marvel at Paris' design skills; savor the subtle invocation of ransom-note iconography in her her all-caps typeface and criminally mangled, repeat-felon-level grammar. Of course, caveat eBay emptor—anyone could have slapped up this image and claimed to be "driving through the Hollywood Hills" to find the poster. Even Nicky, who is probably looking for ways to avoid a naked Todd Meister.

It's been 24 hours since we reported the crazy, unverifiable rumor that pop-star/white trash icon Britney Spears was dragging curiously fertile fiancé Kevin Federline up to Santa Barbara for a secret wedding. That theory was summarily poo-pooed by a tipster, who suggested that Britney's deeply Method role as a skank bride in her latest video might have led to the confusion. Up to speed? Good. Yeah, looks like it didn't actually "happen," but isn't she already quickie-married in our hearts?

—He was playing coy, but now Tom Cruise is outed...as a Democrat. This, of course, obviates the need for any Log Cabin Republican jokes. [via Cinemocracy]
—Dear HBO: Please explain to us why a show about a family of bounty hunters would be better than one about "an undercover investigator from the New York State Liquor Authority who infiltrated two [illegal sex] parties described [as] a wild bacchanal of unsafe sex among random partners dressed in leather costumes that exposed their private parts"?
—For reasons that we don't quite understand, the guys at TVGasm want to fix one of the Big Brother 5 competitions. Screwing with a reality show sounds like a good enough cause to us!
—Come on, everyone's doing the Lynndie! It's easy! You bring over the naked prisoner pile, we'll make sure there are enough finger-guns to go around. It'll be very! [via Boing Boing]
—Somewhere, fading MPAA head Jack Valenti has upturned his bowl of tapioca pudding and is muttering something about the evil victory of copyright-raping pirates.

Given the banality of Ted Casablanca's ass-play/drug-free blind item, we didn't expect that anyone would actually write in with their guesses—if our readers wanted to hear from bitchy spouses, they'd dig up the backyard—but you surprised us. We promise never to underestimate your thirst for blind items or Ted's purple, Geneva Convention violating prose again.

1. Do we even need to tell you which candidate is benefiting from tonight's screening of Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb benefit screening at Hollywood Forever?
2. Is this a little more subtle? Attend John Powers’ (NPR Fresh Air) reading at Book Soup tonight at 7 p.m. to promote his book Sore Winners (And the Rest of Us) in George Bush's America.
3. Earthdance: United Beats of Peace with Dan the Automator, (a.k.a. Handsome Boy Modeling School, a.k.a. member of the Gorillaz) perform at House of Blues. Go and figure out which persona is showing up to spin for your ecstasy-dropping pleasure. Um, ecstasy-dropping for peace!
4. Politicis, schmolitics, here's something even Republicans can get behind while the liberals are watching a movie in a cemetary: free food and drinks while you shop at the Melrose Heights Summer Block Party. [Scroll down to view flyer.]