The news may seem somewhat anticlimactic after word surfaced last week that Tom Cruise was talking to longtime friend and occasional impersonator Ben Stiller about bolstering Cruise Industries' comedy brand (which had languished since the actor's slapstick turn as a hapless hitman unable to kill a single cab driver in Collateral) by teaming up on the kind of buddy picture for which Stiller is well known, but today the trades are ablaze with word that the two actors will indeed join forces for Fox's Hardy Men.

· Dune's Feyd-Rautha, the band leader from the Dennis Miller Show, and an unnamed drummer have announced their intentions to embark upon a worldwide tour as a musical act. This "super group," as it were, will travel under the name of The Police. Should be interesting.
· Someone needs to option this sentence immediately: "No one disputes that an on-duty Irvine police officer got an erection and ejaculated on a motorist during an early-morning traffic stop in Laguna Beach." We're thinking Paramount Vantage could really do something with material this gritty. Or, to go a different direction, maybe it's more of a Farrelly brothers thing. [via BoingBoing]
· Keeping track of the Danielynne Smith paternity sweepstakes is so much easier in photo gallery form.
· Let us join the list of those pleased that Sarah Silverman's show is already getting a pick-up for a second season. Who didn't instantly fall in love with her big, orange, and gay neighbors?
· Fred Goldman's lawyer vows to "burrow to the center of the earth" to find out where O.J. Simpson's movie residuals are going. Surely, somewhere near our planet's molten core lies a secret cache containing Simpson's Naked Gun 33 1/3 riches.

It's late in the day, so our resistance to superannuated, frequently beturtlenecked producer Robert Evans' trademarked hypnotic, question-and-answer cadence ("Am I lulling you into a trance-like state right now with the sound of my voice? You bet. Is there anything you can do to stop me? Think again, Trixie. Now do me a favor. Hit that button next to the waterbed that says "The Perfect Storm" and get ready to be capsized by a tidal wave of love, baby.") is dangerously low, but in watching this video clip pimping his in-progress second memoir, we think Evans just admitted that he nearly consented to marry Val Kilmer. Would he have married good ol' Val in the sexual sense? No way, Mary. The Kid ain't no fruitcake, even for a capital-s Star like Mr. Kilmer.

Much has been made of a photo revealing Anna Nicole Smith's final refrigerator contents—in particular a Costco-sized bottle of methadone and several cans of Slim-Fast meal replacement shakes. (The French's Worcestershire Sauce and spray-on butter sitting in the door were for some reason ignored, despite well-documented evidence that suggests they cause hearts to instantly explode when ingested together.) [CORRECTION: A representative from Reckitt Benckiser, the parent company of the French's brand of quality, heart-safe condiments, wrote in with this correction: " There is no such documented evidence." We regret this error, and promise that all future—and wholly inaccurate!—jokes involving Worcestershire sauce will be made at the expense of Lea & Perrins.] TrimSpa CEO Alex Goen—who hasn't been this fidgety since an interviewer called to find out who won that Viper in the Million Dollar Makeover Challenge—recently talked to Court TV about the mysterious death of their public face, Anna Nicole Smith:

To date, we've found the marketing push for the upcoming Jim Carrey vehicle The Number 23 somewhat inscrutable, with the few commercials we've seen leading us to blindly guess that the film is some kind of thriller/documentary hybrid detailing how the mysterious reappearance of the accursed, titular number in Carrey's life is somehow to blame for his recent career deceleration. Slate's Kim Masters now reports that the campaign has taken a new and annoying turn by peppering media types with e-mails noting the supposedly heebeejee-inducing reoccurrence of [actual number deleted for concerns that reading it here again could plunge you into depths of madness] in actual news items:

If you are one of millions of Americans who suffer from mid-afternoon anxiety attacks over an issue that remains frustratingly out of your control—"How's David Arquette's career going?"—we have wonderful news: According to an AP wire report (dateline: whatever press release they copied the information from), Arquette only appears to be expanding his show business resume, thanks to the helping hands of the more successful women in his life:

· Music round-up: Great Northern at Spaceland, The Shys at Silverlake Lounge; The Strokes' Albert Hammond Jr. and Incubus at the Wiltern
· Aloud at Central Library presents Michael B. Oren for "Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present," in which the author of Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East looks back at 230 years of happy-go-lucky U.S. relations with the region.
· The Redcat hosts The Celestial Library, a program of films by avant-garde filmmaker and installation artist Jeanette Liotta, described as "an ode to the void, the stars in their courses, and the shifting earth below." We feel a little more cultured just reading that. [via LA Weekly]

While virtually our only memory of last night's Grammys telecast involves Justin Timberlake face-fucking a handheld video camera in an attempt to translate his performance into a more YouTube-ready format, an operative who was in attendance jogs our memory about a blink-and-you-missed-it Paris Hilton appearance we'd forgotten about, offering a look at how her two seconds of screen time was made possible:

Both The New Yorker and the LAT are online with stories about a recent meeting between the torture-happy producers of 24, military officials, and actual interrogators organized by the Prime Time Torture Project of advocacy group Human Rights First, in which the show's writers were politely asked to consider (they're anti-torture, so no defibrillator paddles, bamboo shoots, or knotted ropes suitable for repeatedly striking a truculent story editor in the genitals while sitting naked upon a bottomless chair were used) more accurately depicting the use of physical coercion in intelligence gathering on their hit series. From the LAT:

· The WGA awards Michael Arnd's Little Miss Sunshine screenplay their top award, as much for its quirky tragicomic dialogue as for the deftness with which it handled such highly plausible scenarios as Steve Carell, in a scene that gives added meaning to the term "convenience store," running into his former grad student at a Kwik-E-Mart in the middle of nowhere. The Departed took best adapted screenplay. [Variety]
· Helen Mirren snagged the BAFTA for best actress, Forest Whitaker best actor, and The Queen the year's best picture. Alan Arkin, sans fat-suit roles to siphon some of the acclaim, walks away with best supporting, as does Jennifer Hudson, who now officially shits bigger than Simon Cowell. [The Envelope]
· Clint Eastwood thinks Martin Scorsese has a good chance of winning the Oscar because "there is a lot of sympathy for him," but that he "always feel sorry for the others, because...they've worked very hard on their projects, too. I don't think any two people should be singled out." Five, on the other hand, are fine for singling out. [Reuters]
· The Visual Effects Society Awards (the Effexies?) gave Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest six prizes, including the two biggest. The ILM website has a ridiculously cool interactive demonstration of how they did it. [Variety, BoingBoing]
· Cars, Pixar's dark vision of an autopian future in which human beings are bred in subterranean farms and mulched for fuel, grabbed the top Annie award, but DreamWorks' Flushed Away, about the delighful rats who crawl out of toilets while you're going about your business, wins most Annies overall. [AnnieAwards.com]

While last Valentine's Day for Ralph Fiennes was spent rather unromantically separating from his longtime spouse after she discovered he was taking non-singing vocal lessons from a Romanian chanteuse, one year later, the caddish actor and his wandering loins find him embroiled in the sort of "sex scandal" that gets you nothing but a round of high-fives from the crew:

· Want to read more about the Dixie Chicks' big night at the Grammys? Of course you do. [Variety, THR]
·Reese Witherspoon unexpectedly ditches Endeavor (her home for just a year) for CAA after being promised that if she signed with the evil agenting monolith, the committed mother's young children would never be featured as lunch specials at their new headquarters. Rumors that the agency's pitch also included an ominous pledge to "take care" of ex-husband Ryan Phillippe should he ever "become a problem" are unconfirmed. [Variety]
· The Grammys recover nicely from last year's humiliating buggering at the hands of American Idol, as seeking refuge on an Idol-free Sunday night leads to an 18 percent boost over 2006's all-time low ratings. [THR]
· MTV Networks announces a "sweeping round" of layoffs in a variety of divisions, with the death toll expected to reach 250 staff positions. Happy Monday! [Variety]
· In today's WTF? casting news (but really, doesn't each new Cage gig announcement elicit that kind of reaction?), Nicholas Cage is attached to star in Disney's live-action adaptation of The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Luckily, he'll play the sorcerer, not an off-puttingly intense dancing broom. [THR]

If you're legitimately interested in last night's Grammys, we'd usher you over to our record-store clerk cousins at Idolator, who liveblogged every Justin-Timberlake-making-love-to-a-lipstick-cam moment. Meanwhile, we'll apportion our typical amount of interest in the proceedings, while breathing a sigh of relief in the knowledge that if the Oscars were to excellence in movies what the Grammys are to music, Ron Howard would be looking at an inevitable Da Vinci Code win. The night belonged to the Dixie Chicks, who won record and song of the year for "Not Ready to Make Nice," their country-lite flip-off to former fans who called for various CD- and witch-burnings in recent years, and Carrie Underwood, whose wins offered further evidence of Simon Cowell's unequalled nose for sniffing out a great rack-voice combo:

Today's NY Times updates us on the progress of the ongoing legal feud between producer Bob Yari, the Crash producer suing the Academy for denying him the opportunity to take the stage after the film's Best Picture win last year and bask in his share of the heavy-handed racism fable's Oscar glory by emotionally declaring, "Tonight, I won't need to drive my SUV into the side of a van full of illegal Chinese immigrants just to feel something," and the whole fucking system trying to keep renegade, studio-eschewing producers like him down, sharing with the world excerpts from an e-mail exchange between Yari's camp and a defiant Bruce Davis, executive director of AMPAS, who says that Yari can pry his next Governors Ball invite from his cold, dead hands:

· Don't fault CNN's Jack Cafferty for asking a seemingly snippy question of the network's Master of Mysteriously Deceased Celebrities Ceremonies Wolf Blitzer. Given the staggering pace of the updates following her death, the answer to "Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead, Wolf?" easily could have been, "Actually, Jack, we're hearing that she may have been revived by a voodoo priest and is currently fleeing for the Bahamas on a stolen yacht." [YouTube]
· Having failed thus far to obtain Anna Nicole's autopsied stomach from an insider at the Broward County medical examiner's office, TMZ momentarily settles for posting pictures of Smith's refrigerator in the Bahamas (contents: Methadone, Slim-Fast, yogurt, just like your fridge at home) and of her snuggling with the Bahamian immigration minister, which we're sure is just part of the naturalization process down there. [TMZ, TMZ]
· Cause of death rumors update: MNSBC's Rita Cosby cites the potentially lethal combination of too many pills and too many breast surgeries. [NY Daily News]
· An ET/The Insider crew coaxes tears from lawyer/husband-like companion/Danielynn paternity hopeful Howard K. Stern, while on a plane—had they waited for him to land, Access Hollywood might have scooped them for "first celebrity TV newsmagazine to make Hollywood's most suspicious baby-daddy weep" bragging rights. [YouTube]

Boing Boing points out Oscartorrents, a tracker of Oscar nominee BitTorrents from the folks at The Pirate Bay. Leech all the ostensibly Oscar-worthy fare you want, then judge for yourself (voting enabled). Will Oscartorrents strike a conciliatory note with movie studios? Not exactly: "Face it: your membrane has burst, and it wasn't us who burst it. Your precious bodily fluids are escaping." Juicy!

Rouse yourself from your Monday morning nap long enough to take a quick tour of the weekend's box office numbers:

· We're exhausted from grief and non-stop updates, but for those still catching up: The unabridged Anna Nicole Smith, 1967-2007.
· Jeff Zucker, the Peacock King.
· We were concerned Ryan O'Neal had overreacted, but that was before we learned about the unconscious son leashed up like a pitbull.
· Tyra Banks is a Fatty Pig Fatty.
· Hollywood for ugly people delights to a visit paid them by Hollywood for not-ugly people.
· Nothing compares 2 Prince's demonschlong.
· Daniel Baldwin's an arraignment day no-show.
· Kim Kardashian barely had a day to enjoy her new celebrity sex tape star status before Anna Nicole stole her thunder.
· Century City eatery La Cachette (translation: the hideaway) has seen a sizable bump in business since CAA babyvores moved to the neighborhood.
· Lost Writers' Room Sketch vs. Lost Writers' Room Sketch: You be the judge. (Though we're more partial to the one with witches and magical top-hat-wearing turtles.)
· Maybe the reason they're unemployed isn't that they're gay. Maybe it's just because they're actors.
· Find the Oscar in this picture. Hint: Check between the folds!
· Rupert Murdoch gets a little carried away with Boratmania.
· Diaper astronaut story's first stumble on the way to the small, basic cable screen.

· Please, we beg of you, don't watch the above piece of Mirrenporn with your speakers turned up if you work somewhere that's touchy about explicit lyrics.
· Lost film lost to airport X-ray damage. The Hanso Foundation is clearly behind this. Or, perhaps, the wily magic turtle in the top hat.
· The head of the Cartoon Network takes the fall for the Mooninite not-bomb incident. He really should've tried stonewalling with hair talk.
· Samples of the (disappointingly golden shower-free) Kim Kardashian sex tape have dribbled into the semicelebrity pornosphere.

· Virgie Arthur, Anna Nicole's mom and strong proponent of the "I think she had too many drugs" theory of death, arrived in the Bahamas today to explore all her "options" (translation: ask Bahamian authorities what, exactly, they know about this Howard K. Stern creep) with respect to her impending custody battle over Dannielynn. [TMZ, Extra]
· TMZ has saved us all the trouble of having to draft our own flow charts to figure out how much, if any, of J. Howard Marshall's billions might be coming Dannielynn's way. [TMZ]
· An L.A. judge rejected Larry Birkhead's request of an emergency DNA test on Anna Nicole's remains. His attorney claimed this was to prevent a "bait and switch" during paternity testing, but we suspect it has something to do with cloning another Anna Nicole. [Reuters]
· Speaking of Larry Birkhead, his website has a poetic tribute to her passing, in which we learn he called her his "sweet potato." [LarryBirkhead.net]
· TrimSpa is so beside themselves, they can barely eat. [TrimSpa]
· The AP provides a handy compendium of the legal messes she left behind. [AP]
· But what about the final, Z-movie performance? Illegal Aliens director David Giancola is "shell-shocked" at the news. Citizens of Johnstown, NY: We'd call ahead to see if that sneak preview at the mall is still happening. [ABCNews]
· Surprisingly, this unearthed 2004 photograph reveals that Marilyn Monroe held a fascination with the doomed, ditzy blonde bombshell. [EOnline]
· In a touching tribute to their future celebrity pupil, Anna Nicole's former high school teachers "vaguely recall the unspectacular student." [Reuters]
· Goodbye, Mexia's yellow rose...[YouTube]