The weekend kicked off with a mild rumbler and closed out with a sputter, as not even Lionsgate's completely stupid Punisher remake of a remake of a remake managed to connect with completely-stupid-movie-loving audiences. Still, things continued to bode well for indepe—we mean specialty films—with Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, and a number of other brain-fertilizing offerings continuing to show specialty legs. That said—buckle-up for a ride on the post-Thanksgiving Deja Vu Express, aka the Grove Trolley to Movie Hell:

For someone whose interview rider now includes stipulations like, "Three (3) bottles of Evian, one (1) bowl of peeled grapes, and absolutely no (0) questions about uicide-say," Owen Wilson couldn't have picked a better comeback vehicle that the innocuous dogcom Marley & Me. After all, what journalist could bluntly work in a query about wrist-slitting after asking tossing Wilson this softball: "Was there any specific moment when you realized you [and co-star Jennifer Aniston] had great chemistry?" Wait, did we ask what journalist? How about the one from the notoriously hard-nosed, er, USA Today, who tried nudging up to the elephant in the room in increasingly Wilson-unfriendly ways:

The culmination of our dedicated coverage of The Reader — from Rudin/Weinstein blow-ups to Oscar prognoses to its sexual audacity — arrived this weekend when director Stephen Daldry phoned Defamer HQ. "Sorry, I overslept," he said in his dignified brogue — a forgivable lapse under the circumstances, with his Kate Winslet film following his Billy Elliot stage adaptation by mere weeks on his late-'08 calendar. Nevertheless, we got him properly caffeinated and settled in for a rousing installment of Five Questions (plus one, just for appropriate awards-season breadth):

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 12/6 — I was at the Griddle on Sunset on Saturday morning and got seated next to FRED SAVAGE. He was sitting with a super-skinny girl who had two oversized pancakes on her plate while he was eating a tiny salad. Probably appropriately so, as he's packed on a few pounds since the days of kissing Winnie. Was talking super-loud about a new comedy project he's involved with and taking notes on a notepad. He seemed sweet. When he saw me eyeing the woman's pancakes, he said I should bypass my order and eat her leftovers instead. I passed. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

As hinted at two weeks ago and confirmed Sunday, director Catherine Hardwicke is done with the Twilight franchise, leaving a giant "Help Wanted" sign around the blockbuster's swoony, more wolfy sequel New Moon barely a year before its studio hopes to rush it into theaters. No problem, though — after a helpful consultation with Defamer HR, producers should be able to lock up a qualified helmer by the end of the business day.

· You've got to know that any time Seth MacFarlane is named the smartest man in TV, Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin get a reality show, the seventh walrus saxes, and that many heads roll at studios and media around the country, then Pop Culture Doomsday is upon us.
· Elisabeth Hasselbeck would like to apologize for her comments regarding Deepak Chopra; some of her best friends are in fact incense-burning self-help mystics from India.
· The Dark Knight destroyed X-Files' chances at the box office. Its work here is done.
· Doubt warmed up for awards season with its trailblazing "Fuck Off and Die" press tour, featuring a surly Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep. It could use some tinkering.
· If we could ask only one of our questions remaining for Britney Spears after viewing For the Record, we'd go with: "Holy pole-dancing Christ, your sister did WHAT???"
· It was close, but Keri Russell defeated Helen Mirren in this week's Battle of the Water-Frolic All-Stars.
· So The Reader is actually pretty good! Not nudity-award good or Porky's good, but just, you know... regular old good.
· Knight Rider may be but a memory, but don't worry: NBC will find new ways to be unwatchable.
· The long-awaited, star-studded anti-Prop 8 musical was great and everything, but we think it could benefited from just one more showstopping performer.
· Real Housewife NeNe may have some housing issues to explain, but at least she doesn't have pitchiness in her left saline implant.
· Rachel Getting Married is looking good for awards season; Frost/Nixon and Ricky Gervais, eh, not so much.
· That welt on our head? Oh, that's nothing — just where the new season of Lost went clubbing us with one marketing element after another.
· Quick! Someone! Anyone! Save Archie!

· There's just four more days until MTV premieres their latest bisexual dating show, A Double Shot at Love, starring the "Ikky Twins" Rikki and Vikki. In the sneak peek above, Vikki admits she's the twin with a dick.
· Throw something on Kanye's stage, you just might have inadvertently inspired his newest NSFW hit.
· Fox's The Secret Millionaire is caught in a phony phony-poor-person check-giveaway scheme.
· Boy George was found guilty of Norwegianhustlernapping today. As his punishment, he will be required to—slurrrrrrrrrrrrrrp. Slurrrrrp. Slrrrrr. Sl. Slll. Sl. OK, where were we? Oh right, Boy George's sentence. No word yet.
· "'It is a reverse Punk’d,' says Fox President of Alternative Entertainment Mike Darnell. “'Instead of the worst day of your life and then a joke at the end, this is the reverse. This is the best day of your life, and then we arrest you.'"
· Hey—McDonald's went with Sterling Cooper's campaign idea. WTG, Peggy Olson!
· Wow—that one uninjured dog sure must be hungry.
· Bronx Mowgli Wentz, ca. 2032.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button star Cate Blanchett was awarded with that most exclusive of all Hollywood decorations presented within spitting distance of a technicolor-wig store, the Walk of Fame star. There to share in the honor were producer Kathleen Kennedy, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull director Steven Spielberg, and begoateed Button director himself David Fincher, who in his prepared statement likened Blanchett's luminous beauty and staggering talent to "my second rimjob. My first wasn't so hot, but the second one, I was like, 'OK—I think I get it. Yeah—this is pretty awesome.' That's how I feel about Cate Blanchett. I just get it, and I think she's pretty awesome."

What a week! Lest we forget, Pop Culture Doomsday opened its gaping maw in Hollywood, and all we had to fend it off was the wit of our commenters. Now that we've managed to collect the survivors (currently receiving generous, Niacin-heavy recuperation at the Celebrity Centre), it's time to announce our five favorite ripostes, whose authors will each receive their own wholly unnecessary film remake. So who's set to star opposite Jaden Smith in a reboot of the Problem Child franchise, and who will be helming the Zac Efron starrer Say Anything? On to the winners:

Here's a Doomsday holdover for anyone who thinks today is going a little too conveniently well: Ryan Kavanaugh, the film financier whose Relativity Media interests intersect heavily with Universal, Sony and pretty much anyone else making films in Hollywood right now, will be arraigned next week on speeding and drunk driving charges dating back to October. His arrest was his second since 2006, when he previously sideswiped a Malibu police cruiser. And that would be a probation violation; do they allow development meetings in jail?

"'They call her the black widow. Every program she touches turns to death,' growled our source. 'She is on very thin ice.'" That was how Page Six described Universal Media Studio President Katherine Pope (pictured) last month in a suspiciously positioned item foisting blame for the network's disastrous string of recent offerings—shows like Bionic Woman, My Own Worst Enemy, Lipstick Librarians, and freshly squeezed lemon Knight Rider—on her fetchingly exposed shoulders. Nikki Finke accuses Silverman of having leaked the items himself ("that's one of the fringe benefits of his selling his Reveille to Elisabeth Murdoch and yachting with her this summer") in her analysis of today's shakeup that saw not just Pope's exit, but that of NBC Entertainment EVP Teri Weinberg, as well. (Weinberg was the D-girl Silverman brought over from Reveille who was later discovered in the compromising position technically referred to in the business as shtupping your showrunner. Because no one ever fucks anyone they work with in Hollywood—ever.)

Before he works his way up to the Hitchcockian classics, Michael Bay is determined to tackle some more lowbrow cinematic remakes, and so it is that we have this newly released full trailer for the upcoming Platinum Dunes re-do of Friday the 13th. Directed by Marcus Nispel, who also helmed the Bay-produced remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and apparently hasn't exhausted his "attractively lit stabbing" jollies yet), it's the tale of a murderous hockey player who suffers a six-game suspension for slandering Elisha Cuthbert, which leaves him plenty of time to slice and dice teenagers up at Camp Crystal Lake. And, in a loving homage to the original film's trailer, Nispel has made sure that every single "kill" is teased and tabulated on-screen. The clip, after the jump:

Plan B-List. Were the last words you said to your laid-off assistant as he carried a cardboard box of personal effects out the doors of your office for the very last time, "I cannot BELIEVE they cut $25 million from my budget! What the fuck is the world coming to? We're screwed!!!" Fret not: Your tentpole might not have collapsed just yet. Empire has a list of perfectly serviceable alternative to costly A-list stars—some even arguably less box-office-poisony than the originals! [Empire]

Our TiVo guilt has reached epic proportions and the DSM-IV was of little use in curing our shame, so we're going to spend the next 72 hours watching everything on the box, from a season of NCIS we've been deftly avoiding to a Meet the Press from May ("So, Ms. Bartiromo, where do you think the economy is headed this summer?"). There's only 19 shopping days left until Christmas/Kwanzaa and 16 until Hanukkah, so we'll do our shopping online and spend tonight watching holiday films featuring Full House alums.

Now that talk on a possible, long-gestating Ghostbusters sequel is heating up, MTV spoke to Sigourney Weaver about her potential involvement (when will someone call Peter MacNicol? We're dying over here!). Weaver admitted that she's supposed to call Bill Murray next week about the project, adding, “I would hope that my little [movie son] Oscar would be one of the Ghostbusters even if I’m not in it!” Careful, Sigourney — you're giving producers some Seth Rogen casting suggestions. Weaver also revealed that she's been talking to Ridley Scott about a potentially radical overhaul of the Alien franchise:

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 12/4 — I was cruising home and decided to stop off to check out some of the sales at the 3rd Street festival. A limo was parked outside of the clothing store Milk, and when I walked in to peruse the racks, a film crew had set up in the back near the dressing rooms. LUDACRIS was shooting some type of commercial, and the director kept telling him to walk in and out of the dressing room and act like "this is the best pair of jeans you've ever put on in your life! You look GREAT!" [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

Amid its Oprah-crowning and Miley-dragging, THR's new Power 100 list of the most powerful women in entertainment yields little turnover and few surprises. But when it does, at least it makes it count. Like naming Katherine Heigl the fifth highest-paid actress in Hollywood? Surprise!

Sad news: pivotal science fiction figure Forrest J Ackerman has passed away. Ackerman was a true renaissance man; he founded the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, discovered Ray Bradbury, and is widely credited with coining the term "sci-fi." He also owned an amazing Los Feliz house filled with memorabilia that became known as the Ackermansion, which he would let fans visit every Saturday:

· A Spanish version of SNL will premiere early in 2009, but not necessarily on a Saturday night. Fernando Jerez, programming director of Cuatro, said in a statement the sketch show is "going to be pretty much like the original version" and that the network "couldn't be more excited to host its first token Negro." [Variety]
· Barbara Walters's 10 Most Fascinating People of 2008 lifted ABC to a Thursday win. We were sure she was going to pick Obama for the top spot, but she threw everyone a curveball and chose a certain courageous and tenacious woman from the campaign trail instead. We couldn't agree more. [Variety]
· Joseph Fiennes and John Cho are close to starring in ABC's new Lost companion series Flash Forward, the tale of a worldwide two-minute blackout caused by watching ABC's last, snore-inducing Lost companion series, Life on Mars. [THR]

Attention Disney: If you're truly serious about positioning Wall-E as a Best Picture candidate, please send out these Wall-E bentos as a culinary For Your Consideration ad. Like, now. We're hungry, and we'll take two. Full-size after the jump: