To some, the top tier of Hollywood society means getting through the velvet rope at The Kress without a hassle, but after hanging with the crustiest of the upper crust at the opening weekend festivities of Los Angeles Opera — in which we took in Howard Shore's The Fly and Woody Allen's interpretation of Gianni Schicchi — Defamer has seen the light. Yes, there’s another level of society out there that's upholstered in rich mahogany and fine Corinthian leather, and I infiltrated it for you. So if you want to find out how the people who dress like Uncle Pennybags from Monopoly get down, strap on that cummerbund and let's begin.I’m no opera buff, but I heard that David Cronenberg was directing an opera version of The Fly and I wanted to go. When I saw that decent tickets were like $250 each, I decided to pretend I was a journalist and get in for free. This worked shockingly well. Not only did I get orchestra seats to The Fly, but also tickets to Il Trittico (a Puccini trilogy directed by William Friedkin and Woody Allen) as well as an invitation to the opening weekend black tie gala. In other words, my ass got hooked up.

Robert De Niro has been picking up work where he can — a speaking engagement here, a morning-show gig there — so we were more than little surprised last week when we heard he'd backed out of the thriller Edge of Darkness, currently shooting in Boston. That's not the De Niro who jumped to ostensibly greener pastures at Endeavor a while back, and it's definitely not the consummate professional whom producers brought aboard to make alpha-male magic with Mel Gibson and director Martin Campbell. But a report today out of Massachusetts offers no fewer than four scenarios making the rounds — chief among them being a sort of fantastically Kubrickesque golf-course torture:

Click to viewBoomp3.com Apparently the stress stemming from the eagerly anticipated release of The Women has really taken its toll on star Meg Ryan. Ryan uses her over active sweat glands as a way to gauge the public’s interest in her films. Ryan said, “Right before When Harry Met Sally came out, I was sweating buckets. Literally buckets. So, these little wet marks appear to be a sign of good thing to come.” [Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

In keeping with this site's insatiable need to know, our ongoing questions about Tyler Perry — that Emperor of All Black Media who's most handsomely paid to wear a dress — got the best of us today as his new film The Family That Preys opens in theaters. Far more than our previous subjects of Defamer Answers, Perry is a man whose mythology is both cultivated and oddly removed from his fame; having earned a combined $250 million in less than four years, his audience does his speaking for him. Is he gay? It doesn't matter; TBS just bought 100 episodes of House of Payne. Why do critics hate him? It doesn't matter; Madea's Family Reunion opened at number one. Well, enough — it matters to us. Follow the jump and learn along with us as we figure out who the hell this guy is who needs 300 people to run his operation and has Oprah admittedly reaching for her Excedrin.I. KNOW YOUR TYLER Emmitt R. Perry Jr. was born Sept. 14, 1969, to Maxine and Emmitt Perry Sr. He later adopted the name Tyler to distance himself from his father, who he's claimed abused him verbally and physically while growing up in New Orleans. He dropped out of school at 16 and but later acquired his GED, eventually heading off to Atlanta in 1992 — right around the time he followed an Oprah Winfrey Show guest's advice to hash out one's emotional turmoil on paper. Perry produced his first play, the forgiveness-themed musical I Know I've Been Changed, in 1998 with $12,000 saved from selling used cars, construction work and other odd jobs. He drew 30 people to a 1,200-seat theater on opening night and, according to USA Today, was homeless within a week. After a more assiduous grassroots push, he staged it again later that year at Atlanta's House of Blues, where it was a hit. Perry and the show traveled from there, with another nine plays following before the touring shows ended in 2006. He and his father reconciled (Perry reportedly brings Emmitt Sr. onstage at some shows); he continues to maintain homes in Atlanta and Los Angeles. II. KNOW HIS CANON Essentially, Tyler Perry is the John Hughes of what's still known as the "chitlin' circuit": A moody, funny, staggeringly prolific writer/producer/director best known for rocking floral prints and an Adam's apple as no-nonsense grandmother Mabel "Madea" Simmons. It's minstrelsy and it's melodrama — dinner table close-ups of fried chicken and sweet potatoes, drawn-out taxonomies of hos — yet ironically postmodern and not entirely unfunny: He also does the upstanding black male (lawyers, husbands, etc.) and Madea's ornery brother Joe, occasionally in the same scene and with a kind of modulated conviction that makes us wonder why he's not in more of other people's films (J.J. Abrams apparently thought the same thing, casting Perry as the Starfleet Academy Chief in his upcoming reboot of Star Trek). Perry's world is one where moments of heart-rending candor end in earnest confessions like, "I love you... I got it so bad for you I go to the grocery store and buy you feminine products, I swear." Or where, in Meet the Browns, a romantic rib-joint rendezvous between Angela Bassett and Rick Fox is broken up when her friend races in to say her otherwise heroic teenage son was gunned down in a drug deal. (One guess as to whether or not he survives.) Still, as high moral dudgeon goes, the last 40 minutes of Diary of a Mad Black Woman are half Bergman and half church revival. Indignance is just, as long as it's just temporary. If Perry takes any shortcuts, it's in the reconstitution of most of his plays as films — plays he's also distributed as "recorded live" DVD's since 2002. His original screenplays, including last year's Daddy's Little Girls and The Family That Preys (opening today), push similar themes of spirituality, responsibility, forgiveness and family through the prism of urban melodrama. And all of it — along with his TBS hit House of Payne and his bestselling Madea tome Never Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings — is some of the most consistently profitable work being produced today. We'll get to that. III. KNOW HIS ACCOLADES Perry won two BET Comedy Awards out of the gate for Diary of a Mad Black Woman and has since been a near-perennial annual NAACP Image Award, Black Movie Award, and Black Reel Award nominee. Yet he loathes the 'Mainstream,' a reviled crossbreed of critics and journalists who have long sniffed at the quality and reach of his work. "I don't read stuff about me Good or Bad because most of the time it's wrong and negative and because most of these 'Mainstream' folks don't get it," Perry wrote April 22 on his Web site's message board. "So, what's the point?" And that was in response to positive piece. To this day, despite all the forgiveness his characters encourage and broker among each other, he forbids advance screenings of his films for the press. IV. KNOW HIS STYLE Unremarkable mall-chic, the kind of thing that happens when the personal shopper you hired on Craigslist gets loose with $2,000 at Rochester Big & Tall.

In a world where everything old is new again, the latest cultural relic to get its return to the spotlight is that staple of 80's cheese: the exercise instructional video. First resurrected by noted Americana anthropologist Heidi Montag, the fitness tape is set to receive its most high-profile update yet, says Marie Claire. Filling Jane Fonda's leotard this time will be none other than Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow, who will share the secrets of how to attain a body worth baring in the pages of GQ and gams that could transfix even the most jaded talk show host:

It was just last week that Microsoft unveiled their new advertisement featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates hanging out in a shoe store. Shockingly, you rubes failed to comprehend what this had to do with computers and PCs remained firmly on store shelves. Well, perhaps this latest opus will change all that. In today’s installment Bill and Jerry deign to hang out with regular people in the suburbs. It may be a little less weird than their previous outing, but it’s certainly longer—in fact, it’s a whopping four and a half minutes! We’ve excerpted a choice 30-second cut, but you can watch the entire thing here. If this baby doesn’t get you to put down that Mac and climb aboard the Vista train, nothing will. [YouTube]

While we concede that Project Runway is a good-to-great show (even if you include this current supes boring season), isn't it a bit troubling that it's utterly failed in its mission to produce a great designer? You never see anyone sporting a Jay McCarroll outfit or a Chloe Dao handbag, do you? Perhaps the show is better at creating personalities than people who can actually cut the mustard in the fashion industry. At least that seemed to be the case until everyone’s favorite gay mullet-headed pixie unleashed his Spring 2009 collection on an unsuspecting New York City. That’s right, Christian Siriano just had a runway show and people cannot stop raving.Using a predominantly gray color scheme, Christian wowed the crowd with his ruffled, flowing masterpieces. They looked similar to his work on P.R., but even more mature and wearable. It wouldn’t be surprising to see women all over the world donning his duds. But then again, I’m just a straight dude who knows nothing about fashion. So, what did the experts have to say about it? Runway judge Nina Garcia chimed in: “Not everybody at his age could pull this together so effortlessly. I am blown away and proud and excited and happy—I feel like a doting mother." “It was very classy and beautiful," Hedi Klum teutonically intoned. But there could be no more ringing of an endorsement than the one from Tim Gunn, who said of Christian, “He really is the next great American fashion designer." High praise, indeed. Shocking as it seems, maybe something good can come out of reality TV once in a while. Maybe. [Photo Credit: Getty Images]

Why, it seems like just the other day that 90210 had us asking, "Who's the father of Kelly Taylor's towheaded love child?" It was a question we didn't expect to be solved until producers had milked every drop from the guessing game — either that, or until they could finally lure back Jason Priestly for a hirsute, highly-paid cameo. However, according to People, the 90210 team plans to unveil the child's paternity even without a guest spot locked up, and they're planning to do it soon — real soon:

Clearly exhausted from their earlier morning-show rendezvous with Brian Williams, Righteous Kill co-stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino last night indulged David Letterman with one final on-camera tryst before returning to the anonymity of their respective solo careers. And what a fitting send-off, with the pair teaming up on the "Top 10 Reasons I Like Being an Actor" — a droll bit of thanksgiving that still won't make us forget Heat, but may yet be proven our lone cultural reward for tolerating the existence of Righteous Kill at all. See what kind of magic is possible when less than 12 producers are involved? Next time, guys, next time. [CBS]

There are some tastes that go great together: chocolate and peanut butter, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. There are even some tastes that go great together that don’t involve peanut butter, and one of them might just be Paris Hilton and Ryan Seacrest! Yes, America’s least favorite heiress and most sexually ambiguous reality host are combining their joint powers of suckage to create a brand new scripted television series.Details are super sketchy at this point. We don’t know what the show will be about, we don’t know who will be in it, we don’t know what network it will be on. We just know that it’s coming and we felt it was our civic duty to alert you to this troubling fact. Break out that plastic sheeting and cover your windows, stock up on canned goods and fresh water, build yourself a panic room. When two forces as powerful as Seacrest and Hilton form an alliance, there’s no telling how catastrophic the consequences will be. Of course, the show could also be wicked boring and fade into obscurity. Either way, consider yourself warned!

After a long history of exclusively dating poseurs and paparazzi, comeback-adjacent singer Britney Spears may be taking on her biggest romantic challenge yet: Russell Brand. Though their first meeting at a VMAs commercial went poorly, with Spears recoiling from the comedian and calling him "Russell Brown," the Daily Mail reports that the two hooked up this week (noting, in their helpfully British way, that Brand is "an ex-drug and sex addict"):

Click to viewBoomp3.com Evidence that even the famous are feeling the sting of the current economic crunch was displayed when Grey’s Anatomy star Katherine Heigl was spotted holding a dollar bill in Los Feliz yesterday. Heigl is interested in refurnishing her home, but she has to stick to her budget. Heigl said, “I feel like that kid in front of the ice cream truck just yelling, ‘What can I get for such and such’. Nobody has been that helpful so far. Just a lot of eye rolling and comments about how I should save it for the valet.” That said, Heigl’s strict budgeting has not affected the necessities. Heigl added, “We’re going to get the biggest HDTV they have at Best Buy. Maybe we’ll be able to write that off as a business expense since I have to see how I look in Hi-Def and all. I heard that I shouldn’t have anything to worry about.” [Photo Credit: X17] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Mention Keira Knightley's name to us, and two things come immediately to mind: Atonement, and a startlingly precipitous clavicle. For years, Knightley has been fending off rumors about her bony physique, though now, the squatting star believes she's hit upon a plan that will silence her critics once and for all:

Click to viewBoomp3.com It must’ve been a case of déjà vu for actor Jonah Hill as a photographer sneaked up on him again while jogging in Hollywood. However, this time around, the photographer did not tempt Hill with cupcakes or other delicious treats. Instead, the photographer was more interested in Hill’s beard and simply asked, “What’s the deal with the beard, dude?” Hill explained that he was growing the beard because he’s going to do a guest spot on Deadliest Catch as well as to make a stab at credibility. Hill said, “Philip Seymour Hoffman has a really nice beard growing there. He’s pretty well respected. Maybe, if I had one of those things, I’d be able to do more dramatic work. Something intense or maybe a part as Nick Nolte’s crazy long lost son.” [Photo Credit: Splash Pics] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your weekly guide to peaks, valleys and pratfalls among the latest new movies in theaters. And finally, after consecutive weekends when we thought God had up and abandoned us with the feral makers of College and Disaster Movie, we have some real films to write about. So read on for our typically expert preview of what's what at the box office, including Coen surprises, Alan Ball atrocities, potential ladyfights, timely new DVD's and one melodrama to rule them all. As always, our opinions are our own; you simply can't fake this kind of refinement, taste and acuity. WHAT'S NEW: So Burn After Reading is good — more admirable than likable, really, with the Coen brothers returning to their parched well of overmatched dolts in possession of objects way beyond their ken. This time it's Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand attempting to blackmail a CIA analyst (a bracingly potty-mouthed John Malkovich) whose "memoirs" they've found lying on their gym's floor; Tilda Swinton and George Clooney join in as awkward archetypes of paranoia and aloof, striving America. If we sound glib, that's Burn for you — a plot- and style-allergic screwball comedy that succeeds primarily as an almost-clean break (even Pitt's character is ultimately a red herring) from two decades of recycled Coen tropes.Alas, it's 20 years too late for some moviegoers, whose Coen aversion will keep Burn and its high-octane ensemble around $16 million for the weekend. That might be enough to surpass the De Niro/Pacino miscarriage Righteous Kill for second place overall, but we don't think anybody will overtake The Family That Preys — or, excuse us, Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys. The distinction matters, too: Even with 1,000 fewer screens than Kill, the dude is a box-office witch with a cult following and increasing crossover juice (Kathy Bates!) that'll push Family to $19.5 million in three days. Not that we've seen it — Perry doesn't avail his films to the press — but it's still fascinating stuff; we'll have more on him here later in the day. Also opening: The chatty, mostly misleadingly titled Young People Fucking; Takashi Miike's acid-trip spaghetti Eastern Sukiyaki Western Django; the flashback-y Jewish family drama A Secret; the enviro-alarmist doc FLOW: For Love of Water; and Matthew McConaughey's shirtless adventure Surfer, Dude. THE BIG LOSER: Here and elsewhere, we've made little secret of our disdain for Towelhead, Alan Ball's thoroughly revolting, exploitive, amateurish, illiterate and borderline retarded sketch of molesty, multi-ethnic suburban ennui. It's not worth getting into again — that's what Google's for — but look at it this way: Warner Independent Pictures didn't fold because it couldn't compete; it was poisoned. If you pay money to see this movie, you could be next.

· Now playing: The new trailer for Changeling, your official 2008 vintage Angelina Jolie Oscar Bait™ [YouTube] · For every dollar Nicole Kidman made in 2007, her films made a dollar. You don't need a calculator to guess what that makes her. [Forbes] · This should make Terry Giiliam happy: Warner Bros. plans a January Dark Knight rerelease to coincide with Oscar nominations. [Reuters] · Would Rose McGowan make a better IRA car bomber or executioner? If this was 1971, according to her we might have found out by now. [BBC] · If Jon Favreau had his way, Iron Man 2 would be in 3-D. Whoa! Hold it there, big fella — has anyone consulted Justin Theroux about this? [Collider]

Though 9 to 5: The Musical recently opened at the Ahmanson here in Los Angeles, the first public performance wasn't exactly glitch-free. At one point, two automated set pieces got stuck, prompting an impromptu curtain to come down for thirty minutes while technicians fixed the problem. Sound like a disaster? Not quite, since Dolly Parton herself leapt from her set to entertain the crowd, singing impromptu versions of "9 to 5" and "I Will Always Love You." Of the latter song, she cracked, "OK, so I don't sound as good as Whitney, but I make more money off that song than she does." Dolly, you'll make even more money off 9 to 5: The Musical if you can promise a shutdown like that every night. Clip above. [WoW Report]

The return of millions of American kids to school over the last week has left us more than a little nostalgic for our own youth, particularly those great "Thirsty Thursday" parties that left our dorm rooms a weekend-greasing whirlwind of empty 40 bottles and other people's lost belongings. Today, join Molls and Ed for a visit back to those halcyon years when the beer was cold, anything was possible, and education was the last thing on any of our minds. It's almost enough to make us forget there are actually other things to do in this town; for your convenience, some of those are after the jump, too.· Tricky at the House of Blues · Jenny Lewis at Spaceland · Bouncers at the Lost Studio Theater · The Offering Table at the Pacific Asia Museum

The Assistant's Guide to Casual Sex: You know we're Team Sparks all the way, so the endgame in mind today at Stuff Hollywood Assistants Like won't get much practical play around the office. Nevertheless, for a better Hollywood, help the author(s) refine their one-night-stand etiquette where you can. "DON'T become a frequent flier in a group of friends," we're told. "Industry folks might be able to 'forget' that Sienna Miller has never had a box office hit, but they will never forget all the people they've heard you screwed." And when those examples overlap? Forget about it. [SHAL]

Click to viewBoomp3.com Normally, a crippling fear of spilling her drink order consumes Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo on her daily Starbucks run. Instead, the baristas must’ve assumed that when she used the name, “Ellen” it was a fake name and that her real name is Renee, as in Renee Zelllweger. Pompeo tried to laugh off the case of mistaken identity, but it really got to her. Pompeo confessed, “We’re both awesome and blonde, but that’s it. That’s where the similarities end. We’re nothing alike. Two completely different people.” [Photo Credit: Flynet] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.