· Mark off May 22, 2008 on your calendars, for that's the day that Indiana Jones 4: Short Round, I'm Really Getting Too Old For This Shit hits theaters. Warner Bros. blockbuster hopeful Speed Racer is also scheduled to open over that long Memorial Day weekend, but we bet the movie will be mysteriously stricken by "post-production problems" that force a move to a safer release date. [Variety]
· The publicists responsible for making sure that every Borat appearance was accompanied by a trashy throng of Kazakh prostisisters and death threats from the president of the constantly mocked Central Asian nation saw their hard work rewarded at yesterday's Flackies, the awards celebrating achievements in the promotional arts. [THR]
· Dakota Fanning makes a bold move to combat being typecast as a preteen rape victim, joining her sister Elle in portraying disabled twins in the drama Hurricane Mary. Look for the ambitious elder Fanning to muscle out her sister to better showcase her acting chops by playing both parts herself. [Variety]
· American Idol plunges from 33.1 million viewers on Tuesday to just 27.6 million on Wednesday, a slide that's temporarily reduced its level of domination of primetime competition from "utter destruction" to "a pretty rough ass-kicking." [THR]
· Borat boosts News Corp.'s studio division, but MyNetworkTV, barely beating public access bulletins about winter-weather school closures in most markets, has clearly shit the financial bed. [Variety]

We realize that it's customary to trumpet one's achievements by taking out full-page ads in Variety, but Comedy Central could be a little more careful about how it sucks up to the talent; while they're understandably proud about the early success of The Sarah Silverman Program, they shouldn't be so freely offering access to their proprietary methods to their rivals. Now that competing networks know the key ingredient in Silverman's secret chocolate sauce, soon everyone from Bravo to Lifetime will offer their own, inevitably inferior variations (FX will screw it up by attempting to explore how schizophrenia impacts a gruff proctologist's scat-obsession) on the formula, littering basic cable with shows in which female comics sing cute songs about blinding their mothers with various feces-encrusted implements.

Katherine Heigl's on-camera admonition of rage-prone Grey's Anatomy co-star Isaiah Washington backstage at the Golden Globes was the scold her 'round the world, and led directly to the actor checking himself into a career-salvaging stint in gayhab. The actress appeared on Good Morning America this morning, where she described a cautious optimism among her fellow cast members that things seem to be returning back to normal since Dr. McPlays-Well-With-Othersy returned:

Speaking at a media conference in NY, Rupert Murdoch was apparently so overcome by the rush of updating the press about the latest phases of News Corp.'s ruthless plans for global takeover (there's nothing quite like basking in the shocked gasps of an audience that's just been told that an army of MySpace predators has been dispatched to infiltrate the day care center at Viacom headquarters) that he let slip that Sacha Baron Cohen will return to Fox for a Borat sequel. The Financial Times reports that Murdoch claimed Cohen will regrow his mustache and don his famously unwashed suit once he's done shooting Bruno:

Eddie Murphy, according to today's LAT and various people not completely charmed by the actor's recent emergence from seclusion to humbly accept a handful of trinkets from various press organizations and professional guilds, might have a problem. While he's the frontrunner™ for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his eye-opening, "Hey, he can act!" turn in Dreamgirls, his peers in the Academy might pause as the quivering tips of their fountain pens approach his name on their ballots, have their minds flooded with unpleasant thoughts about the advisability of bestowing the single greatest honor in the history of human endeavor upon a man whose current project demands a Martin Lawrence-level of craft, and, after recovering from a prolonged vomiting fit brought on by thoughts of being asphyxiated by the disturbingly realistic, dimple-riddled ladyfolds of Murphy's Norbit costume, cast their votes for Djimon Hounsou.

[Video removed from CollegeHumor]

· Oh, Mel Gibson, you incorrigible prankster! You've inserted a single frame of a guy in a Where's Waldo suit splayed upon a pile of massacred Mayans in Apocalypto (at :02 in the above clip, for those having trouble finding it), kind of like the gag you pulled with the trailer! You so crazy!
· Well, there go all those fun Kim Kardashian golden shower jokes. A pity.
· John Waters dips into Nerve's mailbag.
· Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell were too big to share the VF Hollywood issue cover with the Stillers of the world, according to Nikki Finke.
· Viggo vs. Pedro!

· Celine Dion, the French Canadian chanteuse extraordinaire with seemingly insurmountable daddy issues, will be premiering a new song at the Oscars: "I Knew I Loved You," an Ennico Morricone composition with all new lyrics by Alan and Marilyn "Papa Can You Hear Me?" Bergman. [AP]
· Five time Grammy nominee James Blunt will be performing at Elton John's annual Oscar party at the Pacific Design Center. Whether that's an improvement or not over last year's entertainment, triple Grammy winner John Legend, we couldn't tell you, though it doesn't exactly surprise us that Elton's a real adult-contemporary Grammy whore. [ABCNews]
· Melissa Etheridge, nominated for An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need to Wake Up," compares the Oscars to the Grammys: "Being an Oscar nominee is a hundred times more intense. It's old school. They have rules—and they do things by the rules. The Grammys are more laid back." Translation: You're far less likely to stumble across a hastily scrawled sign reading, "DOIN SOME GROUPIES. DO NOT DISTURB" backstage at the Oscars. (But it's not out of the realm of possibility.) [LA Daily News]
· Bill Condon is putting together a Dreamgirls reunion performance, featuring Jennifer Hudson and "my Dreamgirls sisters," as she put it at Monday's luncheon. They'll start rehearsing just as soon as they can convince an increasingly unhinged Beyoncé to emerge from the bathroom in which she's been running a lipstick over her mouth while rocking back and forth and repeating, "You're still prettier, babygirl!" since last Thursday. [Orlando Sentinel]

Today, Variety.com unveiled Digital Variety, an "online reproduction" of the Daily Variety paper that allows computer-based users to simulate the excitement of "flipping pages," a luxury once reserved for those idling in the waiting areas of studios and agencies. While the new product lacks the one of most crucial features of the physical paper—an ability to be easily rolled into a glossy cudgel suitable for the bludgeoning of an incompetent assistant—DigiVar (Digiriety?) does finally allow those of us toiling in the ghettos of the blogoweb to have online access to the publication's many fine awards season ads, like the one reproduced here, taken out by Paramount publicists desperate to have the hard work that was largely ignored by Academy voters recognized in a wound-salving win at the Flackies.

According to an AP inquest into the State of Hollywood Gays, audiences have reacted to the news of recent celebrity outings with little more than a dismissive shrug—at least if their shows' fan boards are to be any indication, where announcements of the "OMG! George and Callie eloped!!! They are gonna have the cutest baybiez!!! :D"-variety are in no short supply. But despite America's casual attitude to the heterollusionist stars of their favorite programs, out actors still must contend with the final Gay Hollywood frontier: The casting director community, for whom decades of institutionalized self-hating have conditioned them to immediately redirect all Gays' headshots to the wire bin marked "Misc. florist/dog groomer/hairdresser parts":

· Music round-up: She Wants Revenge with Brazilian Girls at Avalon, The Lady Tigra at Spaceland; Stellastar and Monsters are Waiting at Troubadour.
· Last Comic Standing's Rich Voss and Chris Porter do CollegeHumor's weekly Wednesday night show at the Hollywood Improv. We're told you'll be let in for free if you shoot off an e-mail to guestlist[at]comedyjuice.com ahead of time.
· Bachelor-related ABC reality show recidivist Jen Schefft signs Better Single Than Sorry: A No-Regrets Guide to Loving Yourself & Never Settling at Vroman's. We feel empowered to forever give up on the idea of chasing ill-fated love on TV just by reading that title.

When we earlier pointed out today's NY Times story on Hollywood's field trip to Washington, we were so stricken with concern for the plight of the Oscar-nominated working man that we completely missed the illustrating photo of Paramount emperor Brad Grey demonstrating the table-hopping skills that recently have won him so many fans back in Los Angeles. While we obviously can't know what Grey was discussing with Patrick Leahy as he subtly boxed out Warner Bros. chairman Barry Meyer, we imagine that he assuring the senator that wouldn't be disappointed if his peers in Washington choose not to recognize the studios' anti-piracy agenda, as Grey expects to receive a producing credit on the runaway production issue that's the frontrunner to win Congress's approval.

Even though it seems that preternaturally talented rape-prevention spokesperson Dakota Fanning is maturing normally, her agents know all too well that the onset of puberty could still bring a career-crippling case of Osmentism, and are aggressively exploring all options for capitalizing upon their client's current high profile. At left, as pointed out by the Copyranter blog, Fanning turns up in the March issue of Elle as the fresh, pre-teen face of Marc Jacobs; at right, Team Fanning gets creative with a mass e-mail campaign jointly promoting hotly discussed Sundance entry Hounddog and some exciting penny-stock investing opportunities.

· Oscar rules might not be able to literally pit Leo vs. Leo like at the Globes, but that doesn't mean he can't face off against himself in the trades: Warner Bros. has been using a picture of the actor in their The Departed FYC ads extremely similar to the one they're using in their Blood Diamond Best Actor campaign. Will the confusion benefit everyone, or will Academy members, brainwashed by repetitive Leo conditioning, award DiCaprio every available Oscar, including Animated Short, Sound Design, and Best Picture? [The Carpetbagger]
· But how did it play in Leeds and Humberside? U.K.'s regional film journalists name Pan's Labyrinth their film of the year, with Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker picking up the top acting awards, and Abigail Breslin being named "newcomer of the year." [Variety]
· Everyone involved in the Oscars telecast showed up for the annual production meeting powwow, including 16-year gag-writing vet Bruce Vilanch, who bragged that he can bang out an entire show's worth of one-liners in a night, simply by transcribing the top two drawers of his novelty T-shirt collection. [AP]

• Inside The 'Lost' Writers Room [Defamer]

Perhaps there is no better illustration of the career-related problems currently plaguing Jim Carrey than the cover of Vanity Fair's Hollywood Issue. It features a dapper quartet consisting of Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Chris Rock and Jack Black, all actors who have managed, through a combination of talent and a reluctance to take improvisational leaks on set, to squeak by Carrey on their way to the top of the big screen funnyman heap. Radar now notes that the notoriously erratic comedian is shopping around a new project—a self-help guide entitled Be Ready to Be OK:

Unlike certain other fame-adjacent members of Paris Hilton's tardtourage who've recently had images of their naked form made available to the public, former Mischa Barton boyfriend Cisco Adler is philosophical about the notoriety that such an invasion of privacy brings. Reports the NY Observer:

· CBS's Les Moonves agrees to a skittish Harvey Weinstein's request for a last minute edit removing the word "terrifying" from a Hannibal Rising commercial, which Weinstein apparently feared would induce mass panic in potential ticket-buyers for his film. [Variety]
· Columbia Pictures is about to pick up the script You Don't Mess with Zohan, about a Mossad agent who fakes his death to become a hairdresser in NY, from Judd Apatow, Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler. Sandler, of course, will play the blow-dryer-wielding spy. [THR]
· Tommy Mottola and Biggest Loser producer David Broome are putting together a "grittier take" on the America's Next Top Model formula for TLC starring Petra Nemcova, in which eliminated models are force-fed cocaine until their weakened hearts explode instead of sent home. [Variety]
· Following American Idol's latest Nielsen-dominating performance, Fox's desperate competitors are seriously considering having Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell killed. [THR]
· Var produces some important service journalism for its Grammy-attending readers, warning that the closure of parking lots at the Staples center will likely result in huge traffic jams and the mass inconveniencing of limo passengers. Save yourself a headache by commissioning a helicopter for the night. [Variety]

To supplement the Survival Guide intended to get Lost fans up to speed on this season's intricately plotted story lines following the prolonged hiatus that finally ends tonight, ABC has just released this behind-the-scenes video clip of the show's writers' room, hoping that offering a glimpse into the hit series' creative process will make for a more fulfilling experience for its loyal viewers. As Lost's detail-obsessed producers are wont to hide clues in the show's promotional materials, we'd encourage everyone to pay close attention to the magical, top-hat-wearing turtle on the index card, which almost certainly will play a crucial role in unlocking all of the mysterious island's secrets over the course of the next 16 episodes.

Just in time for Valentine's day, Maxim Online brings us The Worst Love Scenes. "Worst" in this instance can mean anything from a lack of chemistry (as demonstrated by Jennifer Lopez's topping of a submissive, semi-comatose Ben Affleck in Gigli) to utter nausea-inducement (Rosie O'Donell's Nip/Tuck scene walks away with first place). But for our money, nothing ever quite comes close to approaching the too-perfect wrongness of the runner-up, the infamous James Spader-Rosanna Arquette scar fucking scene from David Cronenberg's Crash, where a pair of black fishnets and some staple sutures are all that stands in the way of the couple's ultimate expression of their extra-orificial passion.