And here we thought the future of the Smurfs franchise in America was merely an esoteric quarterly concern at Defamer — that the talk we'd heard a while back about some feature-length updating was mere Euro-rumor. But the impossible blue dream of about 350 emotionally stunted children of the '80s inched closer to reality Monday when Sony Pictures Animation announced it had acquired the domestic rights to develop a Smurfs movie at last.

Like a temple of dormant extraterrestrial beings that accidentally took up residence in a South American jungle, the Steven Spielberg-led DreamWorks braintrust has restlessly been awaiting the arrival of a mystical object that will restore their autonomous movie-making powers and release them from the confines of a production-temple deep buried beneath the Paramount lot. In this case, that mystical object is a cool billion:

There's no use denying that we have had more than a passing interest in reality dating shows for just about as long as we can remember. From watching to Roger Lodge wink his way through Blind Date to finding ourselves hooked into all of the Flavor of Love franchises to our guiltiest moment where we watched a marathon of Shipmates, we had thought we'd seen it all from the genre. But today’s news that King of Television Ryan Seacrest has enlisted Hills boy toy/master nobody Brody Jenner to star in Bromance has officially ruined our ever-weakening belief in these shows doing anything other than harm to our souls. The premise, the challenges, and the overall stench of this upcoming MTV series sounds like, quite possibly, the worst idea in the history of ideas:

·Chickflicks has secured $100 million to make "two to three pics annually," funds that before SATC might have been earmarked for a male-oriented "indie production shingle," like Burrrrrrp Studios or Scratch Myself Productions. [Variety]
· Continuing with the Dynasty metaphor we recently employed to fully illustrate the level of catty infighting going down between rival actor's unions SAG and AFTRA, SAG-Alexis has just pulled AFTRA-Krystle into the Carrington estate pool by her feathered hair, as "The Entire Industry"-Blake looked on helplessly. [Variety]
·A 23-year-old stuntman was killed, and six others injured, on the set of "China’s biggest movie of all time"—John Woo's The Battle of Red Cliff—prompting Sharon Stone to observe in a sing-song voice, "I'm not going to say the word, but this sure sounds to me a lot like bad HAW-haw..." [Variety]
·Get ready for Judge Al: Former New York senator Alfonse D'Amato is currently shooting a pilot for a small-claims court show here in L.A. for Twentieth Television. [THR]
·American Idol winner David Cook will put his trademarked, grungemo spin on the national anthem at Game 3 of the NBA Finals, while his friendly rival David Archuleta will continue his important work distributing jelly beans to the citizens of Care Bear Island. [Variety]

It's become clear that the one of the biggest trends of 2008 thus far is the emergence of lesbian chic. Girls can marry girls, starlets can publicly make out with their female roommates, and even though The L Word was canceled, its real-life L Word stars can still get it on with other lesbian cable stars. The two scissor-kick sisters in question? Well, one of our favorite indie actresses, Catherine Keener, has a little sister named Elizabeth, who starred in the Showtime series as Dawn Denbo. And while she's never publicly ‘fessed up to preferring ladies, those rumors have been an elephant in the collective lesbian community room for years. As for Keener's alleged makeout partner this past weekend, she's quite the opposite: she's loud and proud about being out. Details on Keener's game of tongue twister over the weekend, and who she played with, after the jump.

On last night's The Bachelorette, a visibly frazzled DeAnna Pappas—clearly crumbling beneath the pressures of having just five short weeks to adequately assess the high-grade man-cattle brought in for her personal studding services—had nothing short of a completely fake breakdown. We're still not entirely sure what brought it on—something about the discouragement of chef contestant Robert, doomed from the start for a demonstrated reluctance to taking off his shirt.

Psst! Reader! Yes, you — really quick, do us a favor: Watch the accompanying video to this item and tell us if you saw what we just saw. Granted, we (and pretty much everybody, as far as we know) have yet to view The Love Guru, so perhaps the black hole of comprehension herein is purely contextual. Or maybe it really is as simple as Mike Myers giving back another few years' worth of cultural goodwill as the title character, joining Jessica Alba and a hookah-hitting Verne Troyer in a sitar-heavy, almost scandalously unfunny take on Steve Miller's stoner anthem, "The Joker." Moreover, help us with another thing: Combined with the compounded misfires at the MTV Movie Awards, is Myers slyly usurping the likes of Neil Hamburger as anti-comedy's most powerful talent? Because we could get behind this, if so — except for the Indian guy playing banjo. There is absolutely no excusing Indian banjo players. [Paramount]

[Photo Credit: X17]

If you, like us, couldn't get enough of Celebrity Rehab—VH1's groundbreaking reality show born when it suddenly occurred to producers witnessing Brigitte Nielsen's umpteenth Strange Love blackout, "Hey—wait a second. Maybe we should get that woman some help...and film the entire thing!"—then you'll be thrilled to hear that the second batch of marginally famous in-patients are currently under Dr. Drew's care. Among this season's cast, the lovably problematic Jeff Conaway returns for another attempt at detox—and where Jeff goes, so too goes his demon-enabling succubus girlfriend Vicki. But there will be a whole slew of new faces, too, including—Higher-Power be with them—astonishingly sober life-coach, Gary Busey. From the press release:

Going AWOL might be worth the jail time if you're starting jury duty this week and must report to the federal courthouse today for an assignment — jury selection is underway for the trial of Ira Isaacs, the scat-animal-porn "shock-art" entrepreneur facing obscenity charges for distributing hit titles like Laurie's Toilet Show, Gang Bang Horse (Pony Sex Game) and Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7. That said, if today's latest fetish-beat dispatch in the LA Times is any indication, Isaacs' success suggests finding a jury of his peers might be easier than prosecutors originally thought:

Yesterday marked Lindsay Lohan's first day on the set of Labor Pains, her first paying film role since the abominable "stripper with dueling personas" fiasco that was I Know Who Killed Me. And while we can’t imagine that the prospect of actually working (not to mention faking on-screen love with male co-stars) was leaving Lohan with anything other than a frowny face, somebody on the set had a really good idea as to how to motivate her. As these pictures show, it took only three things to cheer the seemingly sober-these-days star up to levels not previously seen since the Mean Girls days — too bad each of the vices things in question (including the delivery woman) aren’t exactly good for her health.

Time Warner is in many ways a self-sustaining media ecosystem: Their intermittently functioning cable networks and motion pictures wing create celebrities and cultural trends, which then wind up on the covers of their top-tier glossies, migrate online via their internet porthole AOL, and eventually float amidst the other sewage runoff filtered by bad-seed web-holding, TMZ, at which point the entire cycle begins anew. The only pie Time Warner has yet to stick a chubby little finger into is the business of network TV, and recent rumors have indeed suggested that they were hungrily circling NBC Universal. Addressing a media conference yesterday, CEO Jeff Bewkes issued a standard non-denial denial:

The universe is piling on Warner Bros. today, with the studio bracing itself for its second straight summer misfire while the output from its recently euthanized offshoots New Line and Picturehouse achieved phenomenal successes in consecutive weeks. But NL's opening windfall for Sex and the City and Picturehouse's $27K-per-screen average last weekend for Mongol — the biggest art-house launch of the year to date — might not have anything on the 'House's toy-based, girly-girl follow-up, reports The NY Times:

Whoa. We all know the Tribune Company and its biggest paper, the LA Times, are in trouble. But this seems drastic even for them: the paper is considering a plan to fire the entire editorial staff of its Sunday magazine, and turn the whole operation over to the business side of the paper. It would no longer even be an editorial product. (Just try to imagine what would happen if the NYT Magazine did this). The newsroom is pissed, with LAT editor Russ Stanton reportedly asking the publisher to change the magazine's name if the plan goes through, so it doesn't tarnish the newsroom's credibility. Gee, we remember another LAT Sunday magazine scandal in 1999, back when these types of things actually provoked outrage rather than resignation:

We knew Paul Newman was ailing when he retired from acting last year, but the diagnosis only trickled out in the last day or so in reports suggesting the 83-year-old Oscar-winner (and former chain smoker) is suffering from terminal lung cancer. The Dish Rag picked up the story last night at the LA Times:

· Tyra dubs Carnie Wilson's tabloid-documented weight battles "Carnie Wilson's War," mainly because every paparazzi shot of her eating an ice cream cone also features Tom Hanks engaging in witty repartee from behind a highball glass. [Tyra Show]
· The Golden Girls (minus Estelle Getty) reunited last night for the TV Land Awards. You know which episode was on the other week that we had totally forgotten about? The one where Rose thinks she's HIV positive for 72 hours, and Sophia draws an "R" on her coffee mugs! [Mollygood]
· What Hollywood's Next A-list feature would be complete without James McAvoy's overexposed turtle-face? [EW.com]
·We've seen some sexist attacks on Sex and the City, but this clucking SATC slumber party takes the cake. That said, we watched it for way longer than was really necessary. [YTMND]
· The LAT visits the set of Bitch Slap, a C-movie production proudly keeping the Russ Meyer aesthetic alive. [Hollywood Backlot]
·2 Girls, 1 Cup, and 1 Birthday Cake that will probably yield a record amount of leftovers. (Caution: Contains convincing icing-simulated poo.) [flickr via B3TA]

When America was gripped by an outbreak of Brokeback Mountain spotted fever a few years ago—a rare condition characterized by an onset of involuntary gay-cowboy jokes and acute rose-stemming—more than a few of the afflicted (ourselves included) were visited by visions of high-kicking chorus-boys in a Brokeback musical. Now, reports Variety, our rhinestone-studded delusions are not only coming to pass, but they've even gone one gayer, with the commissioning of Brokeback—The Opera:

It's been 25 years since Terms Of Endearment arrived in the multiplexes of America, turning virtually everyone who saw it into an emotional basketcase. And while the film swept most of the major awards at the 1984 Academy Awards, there was one integral member of the cast who left the L.A. County Music Center that night less than thrilled. That person was Debra Winger, who was none too pleased that her co-star and arch rival Shirley MacLaine took home the coveted Best Actress Award. Not only were the two on-set rivals (one potentially tall tale had Winger farting in MacLaine's face), but MacLaine famously shouted "I deserve this!" when her name was called over Winger's that night.

Although it's probably safe to say that hipster DJ douche / heir to the Benihana fortune Steve Aoki* and Cobrasnake-girlfriend-cum-waify-ingenue Cory Kennedy* are both on the downside of their respective career trajectories, that doesn't mean that we're not thrilled as heck to have them walk us through this evening's To Do's. After all, if you're looking to spend your Monday night blowing rails and dancing your American Apparel'd ass off to the latest Crystal Castles remix while some curly haired dude with a really bad 'stache and a digital camera keeps trying to convince you to pop your top so he can take pseudo-artsy pictures of you and post them to the internet, well, we'd be hard-pressed to find two more qualified people in the entire city of Los Angeles to let you know where those kind of shenanigans are going down than these two. Enjoy!

We don’t know about you, but the most surprising thing about hearing Courteney Cox’s FX show Dirt is being canceled was learning that it was still on the air. Sure, we recall the industry anticipation about yet another Friend comeback, the mildly intriguing pilot in which a cokehead actress overdoses in a bathtub, and then there was all that hullabaloo about the big lesbian makeout scene between Cox and Jennifer Aniston. But after getting all excited and finally watching the lukewarm peck, we gave up on the patchy attempt at nailing the current clusterfuck that is tabloid journalism these days. But as Cox told TV Guide at a benefit last night, the gig is up for good. The good news? Courteney and second fiddle husband David Arquette are planning to “all kinds of stuff” with their jointly run and oddly named production company, Coquette. Just as soon as David unlocks the bathroom door in which he’s been violently weeping all weekend. [TV Guide]