· Columbia Pictures and Michael Mann rush to get their own project about fatally poisoned ex-KGB agent Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko (this one based on the as-yet-unpublished Death of a Dissident book co-authored by Litvinenko's widow) into the development pipeline after losing a precious few days of lead time to rival Warner Bros. and Johnny Depp, who announced their own poisoned-spy project based on the as-yet-unpublished Sasha's Story on Friday. [Variety]
· NBC takes one step closer to its bold plan of having the Today Show stretch from the wee hours of the morning directly into its primetime offerings, adding a fourth hour to the gabfest. [THR]
· Working Title heads Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner happily hand over another seven years of their lives to Universal. [Variety]
· PBS locks up superstar Ken Burns with an exclusive contract running until 2022, preventing their prized documentary nerd from being tempted by the siren call of Discovery or the History Channel. [THR]
· Without an overseas Stomp the Yard release to capture foreign moviegoers' hearts, Night at the Museum dominates the international box office for a third straight weekend, earning $19.1 million. [Variety]

Newsweek got its hands on the crucial "confession" chapter of If I Did It, the kiboshed publishing fiasco that allegedly contained O.J. Simpson's answer to the $880,000 question of how he might have executed the murders of his ex-wife and her friend Ronald Goldman. (Not obtained were the heavily padded book's other, less controversial chapters, such as "Quick n' Easy Dinners for the Bachelor Dad," and "Lower Your Handicap the O.J. Way!") Newsweek reporter Mark Miller, who covered the original trial, summarizes O.J.'s account:

Let it never be said that Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't know where his gay-icon bread is buttered: to kick off his SNL hosting gig this past weekend, the dreamy-eyed triple-threat deftly offered an air-kiss to fans of his legendary cowboy-bottom turn in Brokeback Mountain, then got down to the dirty business of winning back the hearts of any fans that may have been momentarily captured by Jennifer Hudson's moving™ rendition of that Dreamgirls song. Right about now, a half-dozen male Golden Globes nominees are frantically calling their writer friends (sadly, even Borat himself probably can't pull off the gag now, as much as we wanted to see it), begging them for new victory speech bits, knowing that their hilariously off-key thunder has been stolen by last year's most high-profile Globes snubbee. On the bright side, now we probably don't have to see Forest Whitaker whip off a breakaway tuxedo and bound into the audience to lovingly serenade double-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio with a show tune.

As you sit at your desk wondering whether your forced attendance on a federal holiday is somehow actionable, enjoy the weekend box office numbers:

· Gail Berman gets the boot, as Brad Grey ascends to ultimate Paramount power.
· A new batch of soccer-playing, "Wannabe"-singing celebutards injects itself into a saturated market.
· A week of awards season round-ups.
· The Paula Abdul Trainwreck Express has left the station.
· An agreement with the IRS means the end of Golden Globes gift bags.
· Malibu burns, and takes with it the house that Thighmaster built.
· The Walk of Fame gets Swank'd, and a reader gets swag'd.
· James Cameron's first movie since Titanic has the same title as M. Night Shyamalan's next project.
· We will all think back to this as the Golden Era of Donald Vs. Rosie.
· Lindsay Lohan's Liver 2.0 is bigger, faster, stronger than before.
· Dance for us, children of the rich and famous, dance!
· Angelina Jolie still hasn't completely bonded with her white blob.
· The end of the Piven-Cusack affair?
· Mr. Blackwell weighs in.
· ICM doesn't require its agent trainees have reality-show-starring experience, but it helps.

· The Soup proposes yet another way that FX can introduce a little more lightheartedness into dreary tabloid drama Dirt.
· Paula Abdul's flack blames her slurry, wildly gesticulating morning show performance on a cocktail of exhaustion and technical difficulties.
· Soon-to-be L.A. resident David Beckham consulted BFF Tom Cruise before agreeing to take $250 million from our local soccer club; once Cruise assured his pal that he'd still have plenty of money left over after he paid Los Angeles' mandatory 30-percent Celebrity Centre tax, Beckham was ready to sign his contract and start making his moving plans.
· Survivor is making further strides in diversifying its cast, choosing only 10 Californians for its upcoming Fiji Islands installment, as compared to the 13 they signed up for the Race Wars season.
· L.A. finally gets its own mystery stench a few days after New York's goes out of style. Typical.
· Our gloryhole-inspecting siblings over at Fleshbot have spent the week porning it up at the AVN Expo in Vegas.

Back on Wednesday, we showed you a video that demonstrated the publicist-stopping power of Taser's new personal security device. Late this afternoon, a Defamer operative reports on yet another practical Hollywood application of the technology:

Michael Jackson has racked up a considerable bill at Beverly Hills' famous Mickey Fine pharmacy over the years—over $100,000, and that doesn't even include high-end embalming fluid costs. Tired of having Jackson respond to their repeated requests to pay his tab with a faint, high-pitched, "Oh, I'm sorry. My checkbook's in the car. Ill be right back!" moments before the ticka-ticka sound of high heels carried him out the door and away in a speeding limo, the pharmacy is now suing Jackson for monies owed:

Friday
· Cold War Kids at the Silverlake Lounge; the Hotel Cafe celebrates its sixth anniversary with Cary Brothers and a cast of thousands; the BellRays at Safari Sam's.
· LACMA screens commercials from 2006's British Television Advertising Awards. While sitting through a bunch of American commercials would probably be annoying, there's something slightly exotic about watching ones from across the pond. Slightly. [via flavorpill]
· Zach "Pervy Jesus" Galifianakis and friends gather at Largo.
Saturday
· Old 97s frontman Rhett Miller does a solo show at the Troubadour; Girl Talk at the Echo; Great Northern at the Little Radio Warehouse.
· Author Cissy Wechter signs Sex & the 60s, about how she put the sex back in sexagenarian after finding herself widowed late in life, at Book Soup. Yeah, we're not really proud of that one, but the SexagenarianBack joke was too clumsy to work in.
Sunday
· The New Beverly does a monosyllabically titled double feature with Hair and Fame.
· NYT film critic Manohla Dargis and architectural critic Nicolai Ouroussoff join up in a Hammer Conversation about how L.A. is portrayed in film, media, and architecture.

When it rains Paula Abdul-style good fortune, it pours, as Bravo has announced today that everyone's favorite barbiturate-impeded American Idol panelist will now be starring in her own reality series, Hey Paula!, named for the phrase shouted out at the star repeatedly during the project's initial pitch meetings to prevent her from blacking out completely:

When NBC's censors approved the following lyrics to air on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, sung by a new character called the "homophobic country-western singer," they couldn't possibly have anticipated any kind of outrage from Christian groups who think that television is nothing but a Godless, flickering hellbox that beams the will of Mephistopheles directly into America's living rooms: "Oh I love you Jesus/But only as a friend./ You touched my heart but I hope/ That's where the touchin' ends. You're always lookin' over me/ When I need a higher power./ But you better look at somethin' else/ When I'm in the shower." But before the singing cowboy's final note had stopped ringing, an organization called Life Decision International was already cc'ing NBC executives on a press release decrying the show's musical reference to an unacceptably pervy Jesus:

UPDATE: Want another one? Go here. There was apparently a whole via-satellite junket full of uncomfortable moments!

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you say Frodo Baggins become reacquainted with that pesky ring he thought he'd melted, and in the Virgin Atlantic first class cabin, of all places.

Don't believe our overprotective publicist's tight-lipped "no comments" or outright lies: we're so fucking in love with this week's sponsors that we don't care if Life & Style publishes those pictures of us frolicking on the beach with them. If you'd like to hawk your high-quality wares on Defamer, see this page.

· DreamWorks marketing guru Terry Press is leaving longtime partner Jeffrey Katzenberg after more than a decade of service to start her own company. But don't worry, she's still handling a variety of upcoming DW projects, ensuring that their ambitious Shrek the Third campaign, in which every child buying a Shrek-promoting Happy Meal will be painted bright green at the time of purchase, doesn't have to be overseen by a lesser visionary. [Variety]
· More Viacom corporate upheaval fun! MTV Networks president/COO Michael Wolf resigns after 15 months at the company. [THR]
· Sacha Baron Cohen's recent, insufficiently snuggly, out-of-character interviews make Var chieftain Peter Bart note that while he's clearly a "gifted satirist," he's a little too uncomfortable with the media when robbed of his protective, stinky grey suit. [Variety]
· The Brits love them some monarchs and intimidatingly muscled super-spies, with The Queen landing 10 BAFTA nominations and Casino Royale nabbing nine. [THR]
· A profanity- and Bada-Bing-titty-free Sopranos bow scores A&E the highest-rated off-network premiere in the history! of! cable! Self-congratulatory, full-page ad in the trades featuring James Gandolfini chomping on a cigar while being serviced by a stripper to follow. [Variety]

In our ongoing attempt to give you new and exciting ways to interact with this Intertubes Blogsite and fritter away even more of your employer's valuable time, we are happy to invite you, the reader who always believed that the whispers the voice inside your head distracts you with as you try to roll calls would make a catchy t-shirt slogan, to provide (and/or vote on! See? Interactive!) the idea for the next high-quality Defamer garment to be sold in the Gawker Shop. Here's how it works: The creative-minded can submit their slogans in the form found after the jump (after submitting, you'll be whisked off to the live, Digg-style voting), while the impatient and judgmental can jump directly to the voting page to celebrate the inspired or euthanize the feeble. And while we recognize that you are undoubtedly brimming with sloganeering genius, we prefer you not drain your reserves too quickly, and so limit you to a single submission every half-hour. Get to work, before the Lindsay Lohan-related idea you had is rendered obsolete by a newer and more suspicious emergency surgery.

Today's LAT "Cause Celebre" column, which covers the hottest do-gooding trends that you'll soon see your favorite starlet promote in the pages of Us Weekly with a Kitson-bought t-shirt bearing a slogan like TEAM ANTI-GENOCIDE, profiles International Crisis Group senior adviser John Prendergast, Hollywood's go-to guy for Africa-related issues. Sadly, when Prendergast returns home from a trip to L.A., he finds that his peers in Washington openly sniff at the unpleasant scent of Show Business he carries back with him:

• Paula Abdul - What is she smokin'??? [YouTube via The Evil Beet]

Since we know that most Oscar voters (at least the ones who don't delegate their responsibilities to their undocumented domestics) are probably scrambling to squeeze in some last minute DVD screeners before their nominations ballots are due tomorrow afternoon, we thought we'd help them more efficiently utilize their precious time by pointing them to these three moments from Sienna Miller's Factory Girl performance, tied together thematically by the actress's unselfconscious nudity, which potentially could free harried Academy members from having to watch the entire film. While the third clip, featuring a strung-out, naked Miller showing off her acting chops is the clear Oscar contender of the group, we prefer the one of her love scene with Hayden Christensen, in which the unshowy, Skinemax-inspired editing truly spotlights her generosity as a performer. Take some time to watch these highlights before hastily filling out those ballots with easy choices like Helen Mirren's nevernude queen; it's what Harvey Weinstein would want you to do.

· Above, Microsoft escalates its all-in-one mobile device arms race with Apple with its unexpected announcement of the ZunePhone. [via BoingBoing]
· Ben Greenman presents fragments from Rosie! The Musical.
· Obese feline's food-snatching racket is foiled by a too-snug doggie door.
· Jennifer Aniston's possibly surgically bazoomed rack is the only thing worth talking about at the People's Choice Awards.
· Flee the city now, while there's still time: it might get cold this weekend.
· Hilary Swank is inspiring a whole new generation of high school dropouts.
· The unflushability of Donald Trump's The Art of the Comeback is a serious design flaw.