Democrats must be particularly anxious today after eight years of Bush. Tim Robbins, actor-director, partner of Susan Sarandon, and a poster child of Hollywood liberalism, was edgier than normal as he waited to cast his vote this morning. Writes in a tipster, who sadly didn't have a cameraphone: "My friend is waiting to vote at the YMCA on 14th between 6th and 7th... Tim Robbins is making a scene, apparently yelling at some dude. And now the police were called and arrived about 10 minutes ago..." What was that all about?

We noted yesterday yet another shitstorm brewing behind (and in front of) the scenes of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, as a still shell-shocked Brooke Smith told EW.com about her character's abrupt dismissal from the series. She plays Dr. Erica Hahn—who, it's worth noting, replaced Isiah Washington's ejected character as head of cardiothorasic surgery—and who had recently embarked upon a McLesbiany relationship with Callie, played by Sara Ramirez. It began with a sweet kiss, but soon after the writers took it further, with dialogue about exploring "undiscovered country," and at least one postcoital monologue on the joys of ladyfruit harvesting (above). The relationship—what AfterEllen points out is the only depiction of a lesbian couple currently on primetime TV—was developing rapidly. Now Smith has been informed, in the vaguest terms, that her character won't be returning to Seattle Grace after this week's episode. She explains:

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Election Day Edition! 11/4 — Are we bragging about reality-TV "celebrities" we voted with? Because RAMI KASHOU from Project Runway is in line ahead of me. I'm at Logan Street Elementary in Echo Park. While my girlfriend gives him the benefit of the doubt, I suspect he showed up early in order to enjoy looks of vague recognition as the numerous voters walk by. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

An eagle-eyed political observer noticed a few uncanny similarities between First Lady hopeful Cindy McCain and those victimized blondes populating so much of Alfred Hitchcock's work. We can't say we disagree, though if the natural next step requires Mrs. McCain to race through the Arizona desert tonight with a few thousand stolen dollars from her husband's campaign, we'd urge her to skip the shower when she stops for a rest.

The Farrelly Brothers' long-delayed dream of a Three Stooges revival may yet come true at MGM, which announced Monday it had green-lit the project for a 2009 release. It's a stunning milestone correcting the project's inertia at Warner Brothers, where execs were said to have balked at the introduction of the brothers' trademark scrotum-zippering sight gags to the more conventional eye-gouging hallmarks of Larry, Moe and Curly's '30s-era shorts. But that was then, and this — despite the lingering questions of cast (Crowe as Moe?), storyline and whether or not MGM remembers how to produce films — is now.The Hollywood Reporter notes that Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson were among the names once circling the project, a nifty batshit tandem we hope remains viable so many years on. (We share another writer's disappointment that newly retired Joaquin Phoenix won't be around to join them.) Peter Farrelly told Variety, meanwhile, that American Idol-style auditions will be held to discover the next Curly, "the most physically gifted member of the trio," and scuttled rumors that Farrelly alum Jim Carrey would add 150 pounds in an Oscar-chasing Method binge as the stoutest Stooge. The trades offer conflicting details about the film's "plot" as it were: either three vignettes of 25-30 minutes apiece or four vignettes of 20 minutes apiece, with THR citing another contest commissioning briefer comedy shorts that would precede the main feature. MGM has production chief Cale Boyter overseeing what would be his first actual production since fleeing New Line last spring; the tentative Nov. 20, 2009 release date places The Three Stooges in theaters directly opposite Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. And according to Farrelly, the male-skewing ad campaign is already on:

· "Now you listen here, mister. You get your teeth out of my Sookie this instant, or there will be Hell to pay! OK then, don't say I didnt warn you!" · Eater LA has a list of all the local restaurants and businesses offering Election Night specials to anyone wearing a "I Voted!" sticker · Here's a gallery of spooks and ghouls spotted around town on Halloween. Next year we're definitely going as Shirtless Food Grilling Hunk! · EW.com reports one half of Grey's Anatomy's only gay couple, Dr. Erica Hahn (aka actress Brooke Smith), has been ordered removed from the series by ABC, who "'had issues' with...the explicit direction" her relationship was taking. · Assault and battery claims leveled against Keanu Reeves by an allegedly squished paparazzo have been tossed, but the photographer can still pursue a negligence claim.

Director Baz Luhrman's historical epic/romance/tourism ad Australia is set to premiere Nov. 19 in its home country before opening wide here Nov. 26. It has a press junket in LA scheduled in between. And as of this writing, it has Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and $130 million worth of Fox's Oscar hopes tied up in an unfinished bundle in Luhrmann's editing bay. No one has seen much more than a couple stirring trailers and, according to Anne Thompson, an unfinished print that screened without effects for a lucky Oprah Winfrey audience (none of whom, of course, were critics). So with less than three weeks before the studio expects to introduce it to the world, what's taking so long?Last month Luhrmann told The Age that he was expecting to hand the 170-minute film to Fox one reel at a time while he tightened "mechanics of storytelling." (The Kidman/Jackman romance, though? Totally believable!) Over the weekend, though, he vaguely hinted that the Nov. 19 date was just another porous deadline:

· To promote the new Indy 4 tie-in pizza at Papa John's: Veggie Lovers! · As research for his upcoming drama Organic, in which Ford plays a gruff macrobiotic dieter who rescues his kidnapped children with the money quote, "Not in my eco-friendly vegan cafe!" · That's isn't a peapod — it's a green, pustule-covered pointer finger.[Photo Credit: Flynet]

A reader sent Towleroad this snapshot of the sky above Warner Bros. in Burbank, probably the largest and most nausea-inducing "Yes on 8" sign yet erected in the ongoing, Mormon-underwritten campaign to strip gay Californians of their Constitutional right to marry. Luckily, God got one look at the message and blew it away:

When it was announced that Don Cheadle would be taking on Terrence Howard's role in Iron Man 2, a simple explanation of "financial differences" (as well as an inability to get the War Machine costume sufficiently baby-wiped) was all that was forthcoming from the filmmakers' side. Then, Howard spoke to NPR and compared the Marvel braintrust to a non-singing network of pimps, forcing the filmmaking team to take the gloves off. Now, in a discussion with EW, sources close to Marvel and director Jon Favreau leaked the real details behind Howard's firing, and they involve bad acting and one very surprising salary:

· Election Eve Music Round-Up: Weave! at the Echo, Lykke Li at the El Rey, Mado Diao, We Barbarians, and The Capshuns at The Troubadour. · Comics Brently Heilbron and Liz Feldman, with specials guests Janeane Garofalo, Jen Kirkman, Erin Foley and Seth Morris, perform what might be the last thing you ever laugh about again: It's Don't Fuck This Up Election Eve Show, at Tangier. · Sergio Leone's 1968 Once Upon a Time in the West screens at the Hammer Museum, with film preservation expert Barry Allen on hand to discuss the restoration of the spaghetti western classic.

You'll be sitting on your hands all night, bristling with excitement for Tuesday's big event: The launch of the new Blackberry Bold! Wait, no, it was something else, something with that black guy and all that hope and something about Tina Fey. (We haven't recovered from pumpkin-shaped jello shots.) WATCH Why I Ran [11 PM, Biography] - Fugitives who led cops on dangerous high-speed chases watch the news coverage for the first time and explain their side of the story. Tonight's episode features a man who robbed a gas station and led cops through Indianapolis after his wife and child left him. This show makes celebrity joyrides seem like driving test practice.

A hearty mazel tov goes out to Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick and new husband Erik Hyman, who married in a traditional Jewish ceremony over the weekend that also incorporated the naming of their month-old baby daughters. While every step of the weekend was carefully planned, no one could have foreseen the soul of Sean Hayes enveloping both bridegrooms during the simchat bat ritual, leading to a last-minute decision to ditch the settled-upon Rose and Evan in favor of two more residuals-friendly monikers that scored higher in key demos. View the slideshow here.

Though Casino Royale provided the James Bond franchise with a rebooted reservoir of goodwill, director Marc Forster says that the follow-up, Quantum of Solace, almost took things in a perilous, Mutt Williams-ish direction. Speaking to New York, Forster detailed how Bond producers clashed with screenwriter Paul Haggis when the Crash scripter wanted to add one considerably more kindergarten-friendly element to the film:

We look forward to that time less than 48 hours from now, when we can finally frame the entirety of the 2008 election season in our smudged rearview mirror and watch it shrink as we head toward the country's other essential round of cutthroat campaigning. But for all the misbegotten PSA's, infomercial filibusters and other punishing effluvia, we admit we'll miss the bits of election-related freakery that arrive with oxygen just in time to save us. And of course, the more unexpected, the better — like Ben Affleck bellowing about his cat after the jump.Or rather, Ben Affleck as Keith Olbermann bellowing about his cat, one of a scorching fistful of issues chafing at the imperious MSNBC pundit last week on Saturday Night Live. His outrage over Miss Precious Perfect's rejection from their Upper West Side co-op represents only the most insistent of his convictions, however, and in turn, only one delicious course of the scenery menu Affleck spent nearly nine-minutes devouring. If we didn't know any better, we'd think all this big-shot director really wants to do is act. And really, we couldn't blame him. [SNL] Click to view

You've now had several hours to absorb the news that Deanna Pappas and Jesse Csincsak will not spend the rest of eternity together in a state of cross-eyed lovers' bliss—the very thing they pledged to us, the passively interested Bachelorette viewer, during that live broadcast of After the Final Rose. Pappas said in a statement that she "slowly came to realize that we are two totally different people and it wasn't going to work out," but what was Jesse's side of the story?He tells Extra via webcam declaration that Pappas "told some of our business associates" of the breakup before telling him. "She came back to Colorado [after some time away] and told me, ‘I love you, but I’m not in love with you.’…I picked her up from the airport and she told me while I was getting her bags." If there was ever any question whether or not real feelings were involved, wait until you see a tearful and confused Csincsak apologizing to his thwarter "for whatever I did to make you not want to be with me.” Honestly, Jesse? Screw her. You can do way better—and will! On The Bachelor's Revenge: The Revenge-Seeking Bachelorette's Bachelor Bites Back!. Then you'll have your own six-week stab at rooting through a pile of ring-hungry hotties until you find the perfect one. (Of course, you'll have to wait your turn until that other dude she sent packing gets his.)

We've been vexed, terribly vexed by Joaquin Phoenix's slurred proclamation to Extra that he planned to give up acting to follow in the illustrious, thesp rock footsteps of The Bacon Brothers and 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. Was he seriously quitting the business, or was it all a ruse for some forlorn, Sundance Channel takeoff of Punk'd? Then, at the Saturday AFI Fest part for Che, Phoenix did what any actor ready to leave Hollywood would do: a full red carpet press tour, complete with the hastily scrawled words "Bye!" and "Good" on opposite knuckles (perhaps he takes his sentence structure cues from the backwards "B"-sporting Ashley Todd). Said Phoenix to the AP:

· Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are searching for financing and distribution partners for their Tintin series after Universal passed. Sony is said to be interested in splitting the costs, with one studio insider explaining "A $140 million movie about some French Belgian explorer dude with a mini-pompadour and little Wire Fox Terrier that no American kid has ever heard of? Where do we sign?" [THR] · Universal won a bidding war for video game Dante's Inferno, revolving around a "journey through the depths of hell" presumably separate from the one parents will experience taking their kids to see Dante's Inferno. [Variety] · McCain's appearance on SNL, an amazingly chipper performance considering Tina Fey was literally inches away from him tearing his running mate to shreds, brought the episode a 9.0 household rating/20 share. (And a seriously funny Keith Olbermann sendup from Ben Affleck. We give props where props are due.) [THR] After the jump: Jack Bauer's back, and he's more pro-torture than ever!· 24 will debut in a two-part premiere on January 11 and 12. [Variety] · The early release of Quantum of Solace overseas earned $38.6 million in countries like the U.K., France, and Sweden. [Variety] · Miramax picked up Keira Knightley and Eva Mendes drama Last Night for $4 million. [THR]

Bruno's Straight Man? A report this morning suggests Sacha Baron Cohen did not visit yesterday's Yes on 8 rally as the flamboyant firebrand Bruno, but rather as the comic's newer, closeted character Straight Dave. While that would no doubt explain his mall-refugee threads, confusion persists about the language barrier that would influence Straight Dave's placard to reject gay marriage "even zough zey're nice." And that is Bruno's Milan-crashing coiffure. Yes? No? Make your voice heard — the issues can wait. [Filmdrunk via Spout Blog]

Compared to its Tina Fey-scripted, Debbie Matenopolous-spoofing skits of yore, Saturday Night Live's parody of The View this week felt awfully underpopulated. On today's actual episode of the daytime chat show, the ladies speculated as to why SNL left out two-fifths of the show's hosts, leading Sherri Shepherd to conclude, "I think they ran out of blacks!"Of course, Shepherd's theory is only bolstered by the fact that SNL can't cover Michelle Obama unless Maya Rudolph's got a free weekend, but later in the show, head writer Seth Meyers came out to do some damage control. "Next time we do it...Sherri, you can come and play yourself," he offered. Is there no end to SNL's 30 Rock poaching? Somewhere, we imagine that an exhausted Tina Fey just muttered "Blergh" and collapsed into her Sabor de Soledad.