· Music round-up: Seneca Hawk at the Troubadour; Shapes and Sizes at Spaceland; Redman with Ghostface Killah at House of Blues; and yet another chance to see Guns N' Roses and Very Special Guest Sebastian Bach at the Gibson Amphitheatre.
The New Beverly pairs infamous Rubik's Cube trickster Michel Gondry's The Science Of Sleep with Spike Jonze's Adaptation for a double-feature.
· Photographer David LaChappelle signs his new book, LaChapelle, Heaven to Hell, at Taschen. Naked photos of famous people are involved, so we're sure many of you will be interested. [via Flavorpill]

We pass along the above Fox.com promotional clip for 24's upcoming premiere not only because the idea of Santa Claus using CTU resources to infiltrate a chimney-free stronghold is certainly cute enough to waste two minutes of an already useless pre-holiday workday on, but to point out its missed opportunity to appeal to the series' hardcore fans: When the little girl opens that present in the final frames, it really should've contained the freshly severed head of a terrorist (a double-agent elf who sold him out as part of a convoluted plan to divert a toy shipment to the Middle East?) that Santa had to kill to ensure the completion of his Yuletide mission. Still, not a bad effort.

While the above Los Angeles house looks like any other tackily adorned local shrine to all that is commercial about Christmas, it, like a chimney in which the charred remains of an ill-fated burglar dressed as St. Nick are discovered only after an unlucky family returns from an end-of-year vacation, holds a dark holiday secret: it was decorated by Jewish people. Today's NY Times looks at the cultural strife being caused by one defiant woman's decision to erect life-sized Santa Clauses, inflatable Christmas polar bears, and hosts of wire-frame angels in a largely Orthodox Hancock Park Adjacent neighborhood:

After last year's suggestive Oscar poster design featuring a photograph of a faceless male double-gripping his waist-level trophy, the Academy has gone the less open-to- Freudian-interpretation route of covering this year's design in memorable quotes from nominees dating back to 1935. Much fun can be had trying to divine from which films and characters the quotes derive, but for those too lazy to put in the effort, ComingSoon.net has already done most of the work for you. We've snuck one ringer in, however, just for kicks—see if you can find it.

In a guest column looking back at the Year in Comedy for MTV News, producing/writing/directing Comedy Mafia kingpin Judd Apatow digressively mentions a recent incident that had him pining for the simpler, less stab-happy days of his Talledega Nights location shoot in Charlotte:

Because it's never too late to start your Oscar pool prognosticating—especially with the all-important Canadian take to factor in—we offer another year-end awards season round-up:
· The Toronto Film Critics Association chooses to give its big prize to the woman who still appears on much of their local, bird-covered currency, The Queen, with Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen (who plays Tony Blair) and screenwriter Peter Morgan also getting nods. Just to show they aren't entirely Commonwealth monarchist snobs, Sacha Baron Cohen wins best actor for his teabagging-related work in Borat. [Variety]
· The Chicago Film Critics Association Awards announced their nominees, with Babel leading the pack at nine (including one for Brad Pitt, bringing us one step closer to those magic words, "Oscar Winner Mr. Angelina Jolie"), with The Departed and The Queen pulling in six apiece. Little Miss Sunshine and United 93 round out the best picture category. [Chicago Tribune]
· What would happen if Oscar campaigning took a cue from politics and went negative? Probably full-page Variety ads reading, "It's simple: You're either a racist who approves of gay cowboy marriage, or you think Crash was this year's Best Picture. The choice is yours." [The Envelope]

Paramount/Dreamworks' "roadshow" opening of Dreamgirls was a big success, but will it translate to strong numbers as the film expands to 800 screens, when the studios will need to attract audiences outside of the Gays who jumped at the chance to pay $25 a ticket for a preview during the limited run? [Variety]
Who will star in CBS's untitled legal drama pilot as a quirky, sassy public defender who, despite her quirk and sass, has been hardened by her efforts to make it in a man's world? If you guessed the quirky-n-sassy-yet-hardened Janeane Garofalo, give yourself five dollars. [THR]
Awards Screeners Shocker! The DGA does-repeat, DOES! We know!—allow screeners to be sent out to its members! In a reversal of an apparently nonexistent ban on FYC DVDs, the Guild clarifies its policy on the matter (details too boring to repeat here), leading to much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair from awards campaigners angry they weren't informed earlier. [Variety]
...And DreamWorks is the first studio to exploit the DGA's new/old policy on screeners for the purpose of pimping Dreamgirls' Bill Condon. See above re: teeth-gnashing and hair-tearing. [THR]
Either it's just a weird typo, or the Reporter was so taken aback that NCIS was the most watched show of the week in primetime that it took eleven question marks to express its disbelief. [THR]

None of us will ever really know what exactly went down behind the razorwire-and- chocolate-frosting-fortified walls of Camp Cupcake, but whatever it was, it appears to have melted the ice sculpture known as Martha Stewart into a woman of almost human-like coloring and behavior. Whether standing up to a bullying Donald Trump and his hair, aloofly fending off Borat's amorous advances on The Tonight Show, or, most recently, holding her own against Sirius co-jock Howard Stern and his probing questions about sex behind bars, Martha 2.0 is all about letting us in. Take, for example, her candid insights from that same Stern interview about why things never worked out with crush-object Sir Anthony Hopkins:

We hardly need to tell you where to obtain your coke: Ever since the passage of the Los Angeles Cocaine Legalization Act of 2004, Hollywood's preferred social lubricant has been readily available at every Starbucks, Ralphs, and CostCo (at deep bulk discounts) in the city. However, we recognize that sometimes you'd like a little company when blowing rails, for while cutting up a couple of lines by yourself and settling in for a night of The Jeffersons reruns has its own rewards, there's really no substitute for crowding into a bathroom stall and enjoying the unique camaraderie of communing with strangers over a shared eight-ball. For those nights when you're craving some companionship, we point you to Gridskipper's guide to the local bars where you might find a new friend with whom to shovel some snow with a tiny spoon. An excerpt:

As if Jennifer Aniston, the tabloids' Most Brittle Cover Girl, didn't have enough psychic pain to deal with following the end of her suspicious partnership with The Break-Up co-star and noted co-ed cuddle-bear Vince Vaughn, Us Weekly reports that the actress has been dealt a severe blow to her always tenuous emotional health (hey, read the glossies! She's one long-distance phone service commercial from a stay in the Fragile Stars Wing of Cedars Sinai) by the latest round of pictures of Shiloh Jolie Pitt, the genetically perfect offspring that ex-husband Brad Pitt should have put in her uterus, not that orphan-collecting homewrecker's. "Close pals" tell Us that Aniston has been so affected by the widely circulated images of Shiloh that "she collapses in a heap, clutching her womb like she's been stabbed if she so much as passes a baby stroller on the street," and has taken to "throwing baby dolls into a bonfire on the beach behind her place in Malibu. It's creepy, but she says it makes her feel better for a few hours." The friend, however, offers hope that Jen's heart is on the mend: "At least she's stopped watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith over and over again, for days at a time without eating or sleeping. That just wasn't healthy."

With only a couple of days left before the Christmas break to try and induce another wave of premature panic over the theoretical labor Armageddon looming next November when the Writers Guild's contract with the studios expires, executives within the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers are again whispering anonymous warnings about the de facto work stoppage the WGA will force them to inflict on the industry if they don't come to their senses and start negotiating right now. The sabers rattle anew in today's Var story on the "fresh, infectious case of strike-itus" supposedly gripping the town:

· We tried and we tried (we swear!), but in the end, we just couldn't make ourselves give a shit about the Miss USA situation. Even a little. We will, however, run this large picture of the semidisgraced Tara Conner getting theatrically weepy at press conference announcing The Donald has temporarily exiled her to rehab until she learns to party in a manner more becoming a Trump-owned pageant winner.
TMZ EXCLUSIVE 'AMERICAN IDOL' SHOCKER! Prospective Contestants To Be Brought To Hollywood, Made To Sing Songs By Established Musical Acts!
15 grams of coke? Tawny Kitaen really didn't fuck around with her drug abuse.
Year-End ListMania! 10 TV Shows That Failed! 10 Celebrity Videos That Went Viral!
x17 Online has some striking before and after pics of Paris Hilton running the alcohol/chemical-abuse gauntlet at Teddy's. Couldn't she pull herself together a little bit for the cabbie?

It's difficult to believe, but not so long ago, when a First Family of Hollywood convened to exchange early Christmas presents, the spectacle of, say, Jane Fonda gifting brother Peter with lambskin racing gloves over dinner at Chasen's would go largely unreported. Today, however, with the proliferation of the interwebs, you (yes, you!) now have the power to transform such private moments into joyous happenings in the public sphere. In other words, thanks to a brave footsoldier of the information revolution like Mad Megan's blog, we can now share with you what Jake Gyllenhaal got from his parents for Christmas his birthday*:

During this holiday season, Defamer is committed to giving a voice to readers wishing to blow the whistle on the mirth-killing party practices of their employers, whose exclusionary invitation policies, Scroogey alcohol-consumption-throttling mechanisms, or other generalized Grinchery threaten to make staffers forget what end-of-year events are all about: getting drunk enough to forget the pain of the past 12 months (and, hopefully, to have an ill-advised, spiked-eggnog-fueled tryst with a co-worker in a darkened hallway). An anonymous AMPAS worker files this report about the Academy's upcoming Christmas bash:

· Music round-up: Lemon Sun at the Echo; OK Go and Rocket at Safari Sam's; Ileen Goldsmith at Spaceland; Guns N' Roses (with special guest Sebastian Bach, should Axl not be enough for you) at Gibson Amphitheatre.
· Greg "Proop Dogg" Proops presents his Non-Denominational Seasonal Festivity Special at Largo, with guests John C. Reilly, Fiona Apple, and Jon Brion.
· The Geffen Playhouse hosts "Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants," a show in which the magician and David Mamet Repertory Player performs a variety of astounding tricks with a deck of cards (i.e., the aforementioned 52 assistants). Especially popular is the act's finale [spoiler alert], where Jay demonstrates his legendary accuracy with a thrown playing card by cleanly circumcising an adult male with a hurled Ace of Spades at ten paces.

When last we saw Brian Atene, the internet's best-loved, rejected Full Metal Jacket open-auditioner, he had suddenly resurfaced within the YouTubes to prove to the world that the twenty-plus years that had passed since the recording of his inspired try-out tape had done little to blunt his unhinged flair for the dramatic. Atene has returned once again, this time to offer a cheery, Beneath the Planet of the Apes-inspired holiday wish for the eradication of mankind, an ecumenical season's greeting that applies whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa. As we are wont to say upon the presentation of a video clip: Enjoy. Also: Death to all humans.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so send in all your holiday shopping and partying sightings. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you saw Axl Rose shopping at the Calabasas Gelson's, where the produce is green and the checkout girls pretty.

The aborted O.J. Simpson If I Did It confessional book and TV special has already claimed the livelihood and reputation of publisher Judith Regan—who may or may not have hubristically blamed her downfall on the machinations of a secret society of dreidle-spinning ill-wishers—but that brings little comfort to the victims' families; particularly Fred Goldman, who watched in disbelief as Simpson told interviewers he'd already spent whatever blood money he'd made from the deal, yet has seen none of the $38 million awarded to him in the civil ruling over his son's wrongful death. Goldman filed suit against Simpson today, and, according to the court papers posted by The Smoking Gun, he's coming for News Corp. next:

While Sylvester Stallone's efforts on behalf of Rocky Balboa have so far been mostly comprised of guilting potential audience members into seeing his movie by asking them to give an old, broken down action star a second chance at success in a youth-obsessed Hollywood, he's now taking his pandering in a new and potentially lucrative direction. Writes an operative, who for reasons unknown to us was watching The 700 Club earlier today:

Like the family Golden Retriever plopping your favorite pair of slippers by your feet, we bring you yet another year-end critics' list round-up:
· We like The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association's style: No confusing nomination procedures rewarding regular and "Texan" film—just a straightforward list of winners. United 93 takes another best film honor, as United Airlines executives start to feel more and more conflicted over the scads of free integrated branding they'll probably enjoy at this year's Oscars ceremony. Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Martin Scorsese round out the big categories. [Variety]
· The AP reviewers list their top 10 films of 2006: The Queen, United 93, and Little Miss Sunshine make both lists, while Snakes on a Plane makes neither. Luckily, Stephen King compiles his own list for Entertainment Weekly, so the movie that you either wanted to see, or for the most part didn't, doesn't come away completely empty-handed. [AP, EW]
· The Queen's director Stephen Frears, writer Peter Morgan, producer Andy Harries and star Helen Mirren have all been invited by the real Queen's secretary for lunch at Buckingham Palace, where they'll either be subjected to Her Majesty's glowing words for their honest yet humanizing depiction of the monarch during a time of national crisis, or never be heard from again. [Time Out]