Hollywood's Christmas Morning is finally here, the time when eager Oscar hopefuls rise at an obscenely early hour, rush downstairs in their footie pajamas, and hope to find the previous year's good career behavior validated with lovingly wrapped awards nominations left under the Academy's gilded tree; those deemed good enough for recognition spend the day fielding phone calls from the media, who ask difficult questions about how it feels to be on the receiving end of the golden shower of adoration offered by one's peers (invariably, it feels good! And it's an honor just to be nominated!), while the snubbed quickly retreat back up the stairs to their bedrooms, where they self-medicate their soul-crushing disappointment by swallowing handfuls of prescription painkillers, sobbing through their publicist's assurances that they're still so very, very pretty, and that in this day of the YouTubes, no one watches the Oscars anyway.

· This is what it looks like when Kiefer Sutherland watches Valencia get nuked.
· Unsurprisingly, the paparazzi aren't respecting Lindsay Lohan's privacy during her stint in rehab.
· Ken Levine, one of the "unemployed" writers Aaron Sorkin pilloried following that now-infamous LAT piece, offers what he really thinks of Sorkin.
· These Worth1000 Photoshop contest images of a variety of male stars remade into women are the stuff of nightmares. Bad, bed-wetting ones.

According to E! Online's "Watch With" Kristin Veitch, ABC may be following through on its pledge to take the Isaiah Washington situation "very seriously" by prejudicially shitcanning the slur-repeating actor from Grey's Anatomy without the benefit of a tear-soaked farewell episode dramatizing his sudden departure from the hospital:

In what will surely go down as a black day for members of Hollywood's scenewhore elite who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law, Joe Francis—the world's foremost titty-flashing co-ed talent scout—has received a harsher community service sentence for failing to properly document his subjects' ages than his lawyers had bargained for:

While last year's Newsweek Oscar director roundtable featured George Clooney's shocking reminder about the heavy-handed skeleton lurking in his sitcom-acting closet, this year's thespian-centric discussion contains the equally surprising admission that fans of Babel's Brad Pitt have the exotic dancing profession to thank (or to blame) for his career:

· Music round-up: The Broken West at Spaceland (for free); The Idylists with The Rolling Blackouts at Safari Sam's; Pity Party at Silverlake Lounge (also free).
· Proud nerd-comedians Patton Oswalt, Doug Benson, and Brian Posehn screen clips from their favorite aliens n' raygun flicks at the UCB Theatre's fairly self-explanatory Patton, Doug and Brian's Sci-Fi Movie Nerd Show.
· Christopher Moore signs and reads from You Suck: A Love Story at Borders in Westwood, described as "Cross Mad About You with Dracula. Throw in Bridget Jones Diary and a hint of American Psycho. Add some Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a little Mel Brooks." We're sure they mean that Mad About You stuff in the best way possible.

Defamer is committed to making its readers aware of exciting opportunities to gain valuable exposure by working with Hollywood's most talented filmmakers on their highest-profile projects, and so we pass along this Craiglist ad trolling for fresh-faced talent for an upcoming gig:

Paris Hilton, whose spotless track record and meticulously managed public persona came tumbling down around her when she received a DUI in September, has entered a plea of no contest in her drunk-driving case:

Showing a renewed commitment to journalistic fairness in the aftermath of Aaron Sorkin's shocking exposure of their anti-Sorkin agenda last week, in which the Studio 60 showrunner decried the paper's unacceptable reliance on negative quotes from "disgruntled" individuals whose level of entertainment industry success falls far short of his criteria for having a valid opinion, the LAT today offers equal time to those who have self-published positive words about Studio 60 on the internets:

· The 3,300 members of the Producers Guild of America surprised just about everyone by giving its top honor to Little Miss Sunshine, the little Sundance acquisition that could. With the PGA predicting the Best Picture Oscar 11 out of the past 17 years, a Crash-style upset for Sunshine isn't beyond the realm of possibility—nor is the requisite musical number, featuring interpretive dancers pirouetting on the roof of a VW bus as Sufjan Stevens strums "Chicago" on an acoustic guitar. [Variety]
· The GLAAD Media Awards nominated Little Miss Sunshine, The Night Listener, Running With Scissors, V for Vendetta, and Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby for outstanding film in wide release. Ricky Bobby made the list presumably for the maturity with which the comedy portrayed the relationship between Sacha Baron Cohen's French Grand Prix champion and his poodle-trainer lover, played by Andy Richter. Despite its enthusiastic gay pride parade sequences and the great strides it made in humanizing the experiences of rubber-fist-dildo enthusiasts, Cohen's other effort this year, Borat, was egregiously overlooked. [THR]
· On the eve of the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nominations announcement, Cohen admitted to a WGA Q&A audience that Borat, whose production notes originally read "there was no script," actually was the work of four writers, with up to 80% of the final film was comprised of scenes they "set out to accomplish." Still, all the studio saw was a five-page outline, not the secret, 60-page detailed master bible the filmmakers were working from. [The Envelope]

· Columbia Pictures and David Koepp, writer of the first Spider-Man's script, have begun the process of trying to agree upon on the presumably huge number that would bring him back to do the screenplay for Spidey 4. [Variety]
· Foreign moviegoers' love affair with Ben Stiller shows no sign of slowing down, with Night at the Museum topping the international box office yet again with $14.4. million. [THR]
· At the TCAs, Peter Liguori says networks are feeling the "chilling effect" of FCC indecency rulings, and that the "regrettably restrictive" climate they've created could stand in the way of his dream of one day hearing House call one of his medical underlings a "a total fucking incompetent." [Variety]
· HBO picks up the Lily Tomlin drama 12 Miles of Bad Road to series, and orders 40 (!) more episodes of the Gabriel Byrne therapy comedy In Treatment, bringing its commitment to the show to 45 half-hours. [THR]
· A high-level Italian court rules that the unauthorized downloading of copyrighted movies and music isn't a crime if the downloader doesn't profit from it, prompting the MPAA to announce its intentions to lobby Congress to immediately invade Italy before it becomes a safe haven for the pirate menace that threatens to bring down Hollywood. [Variety]

According to the Reporter, after winning an all-night, $4 million bidding war for the rights to John Cusack's Grace is Gone at Sundance, a resurgent Harvey Weinstein pounded his chest and issued forth this barbaric, dealmaking yawp, serving notice to the industry that Weinstein Co.'s misplaced groove has been reacquired:

Members of the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation have set for themselves one of the most difficult tasks imaginable: Every year, they sift through piles of detritus in an attempt at narrowing an overly crowded field down to a few outstanding instances of big-screen turkeydom. They then bestow among the most deserving of these cinematic poo-gems show business's most uncoveted honor, the Razzie. Leading the nominations this year with seven nominations is Sharon Stone's universally panned return to the icepicks-and-exposed-beaver terrain that first put her on the map, Basic Instinct 2. Tied for most noms, including Worst Picture and Worst Remake/Rip-Off, was the Wayans brothers' Little Man:

In an attempt to refute widespread speculation that her recent spate of alternately incomprehensible/slurry/ fidgety/nap-riddled promotional appearances were caused by a pre-interview regimen of washing down a joint compound bucket brimming with a medley of prescription painkillers with an entire bottle of grain alcohol, embattled American Idol judge Paula Abdul insisted to the media gathered at Saturday's TCA press tour event that any suspicious mental impairment on her part is due entirely to her own naturally imbalanced neurochemicals:

We think Sartre said it best: "Hell is other people; also, Monday mornings." As you embark on yet another seemingly endless work week, distract yourselves from your existential dread with the box office numbers:

· The One with the Anus: Our Golden Globes breakdown. Ugly Maria. The Piv and America's Next To Next Top Model. Helen Mirren's first DP Globes.
· The Adventures of Isaiah Washington's Big, Stupid Mouth.
· CAA's new Century City Death Star.
· Anyone who doesn't like Studio 60 is just bitter because they're poor.
· Despite Paula Abdul's completely incoherent explanation for her previous black out, American Idol still rules. But for how long, wonders Kevin Reilly.
· One pill makes you bigger, and one pill makes you small, but blow and vodka Red Bulls just put you in rehab.
· Jake Gyllenhaal fully conscious of which side of his bread is buttered. (The gay side.)
· Lost's network notes meetings last year usually started with, "We felt this episode had too much Michelle Rodriguez still alive in it..."
· Once again: Donald Trump's name is garish gold letters.
· Anna Nicole Smith now looking at a formal inquest, and a possible cover-up.

· The cover of the new Los Angeles is really doing nothing but super-sizing our filthy Helen Mirren fry-dropping fantasies.

· "Lindsay Goes to Rehab" is already the prohibitive favorite to take home Defamer's Song of the Year prize.

· Fun quiz time: What clothing company sponsored this blog post on what Lohan was wearing right before she checked into rehab?

· Finally, an explanation on why Paris Hilton's eye does that thing. Not the totally vacant stare thing, the drooping thing.

· In last night's liveblog, the Horny Manatee is confronted with a fetish she can't satisfy.

This week's TCA press tour events have already provided us with so many memorable moments, from ABC's Steve McPherson's enthusiasm for bumping off Michelle Rodriguez to NBC's Kevin Reilly's mental coping strategies for dealing with his Idol problem to Aaron Sorkin's disdain for the opinions of the unemployed, that to add still more to the already lengthy highlight reel feels greedy. But a panel earlier today for The CW's The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search For the Next Doll, the fledgling network's attempt to empower a new generation of feminists to nurture their inner, "Don't Cha"-inspired freaks on national television, easily cracks our crowded TCA best-of list, as frustrated executive producer McG (you know him better as the visionary behind the Charlie's Angels films) eagerly debated the assembled critics on the up-with-skanks virtues of his forthcoming series. Reports the Critical Eye blog:

Friday
· Music round-up: Cold War Kids at the Silverlake Lounge; Reverend Horton Heat at the House of Blues; Subtle & Pigeon John at the Troubadour.
· Allow French filmmakers Vincent Gérard and Cédric Laty to take you on a documentary journey with William Eggleston, the father of color photography, at the Getty.
Saturday
· Get on the bus with "Mike the Poet" for a magical tour of the city that you hardly pay attention to as you lose precious minutes of your life sitting in traffic on the freeway.
· More music: E.A.R. at the Silverlake Lounge; Carina Round at the Hotel Café; Gabriel and Dresden do Giant at the Vanguard.
· It's your latest chance to compete to be the filthiest-minded comedy mind in the house at the UCB Theatre, with the return of the Dirtiest Sketch in LA contest.
Sunday
· David Lynch and Donovan team up for an evening of movie discussion, TM book-plugging, and music at the Kodak Theater.

No need to panic, Hanks/Roberts fans and Universal executives! The above-the-title talent wasn't even on set when that anonymous special effects assistant was critically injured, greatly reducing the chance of the bodily harm seemingly threatened in the above headline supplied by the website of Toledo's News Leader. To their credit, they seem to have run the rest of the AP wire report unaltered, refraining from trying to create an additional hook for the story of the tragically injured assistant by combining it with the recent news that Hanks is currently the second most popular movie star in America and Roberts one of its richest famous ladies.