A producer of Chicago—the swansong of Miramax's heyday, when the Weinsteins would throw enough blinding sequins, stars and money at audiences and Academy voters to distract them long enough to scoop up all the Oscars—is suing the studio for cheating him out of what he claims is $10 million in his share of the profits:

Yesterday, Two and a Half Men star Charlie Sheen appeared on the Alex Jones radio show to join "a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11." Even more surprising than discovering that anchoring CBS's Monday night sitcom lineup makes someone a "credible public figure" (Doogie, apparently, was too busy running lines about his magic shirt on the How I Met Your Mother set to share his thoughts) was Sheen's discussion of conspiracy theories about the terror attacks, recounted at InfoWars.com:

The Battle for Our Souls currently being waged between the forces of good and evil (South Park and Scientology, in no particular order) rages on: The show can impressively churn out a brand new, ripped-from-the-headlines adventure for Stan, Cartman and the gang in about a week, which gives them ample time to address Isaac Hayes' recent controversial departure from the series in Wednesday's season premiere.

A helpful reader who was in attendance at Saturday night's assistant beer pong tournament forwarded along this picture of the Universal team's much-discussed t-shirt. Just in case that fold is throwing you off, it does indeed say, "We're gonna fuck you in the ass," which is at best a very loose paraphrase of the dialogue that contributed to a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.

It should go without saying that there is no better or more reliable source for information on celebrity-related happenings in our Hollywood backyard than the British tabloid press, who gleefully re-export star-dirt to filth-craving American consumers. The Sun UK provides the obligatory biweekly report on the state of Jennifer Aniston's healing process, which if this report is to be believed, has finally advanced to the "selling Brad Pitt's old clothes" phase:

Genius idea of the day: Pre-pixelated clothes for reality TV casts. If that stuff is hot-tub safe, this guy's going to be a millionaire by the end of the week. [via TVGasm]
When you rent your mansion to Prince, how can you not know that he's going to paint the joint purple and trick it all out with all sorts of crazy shit? Carlos Boozer is lucky that the little guy didn't attach rockets to the house and launch it into space.
Paris Hilton has spent the last twenty-five years of her life trying to master conversational English, so imagine her frustration at the billionaire in her life insisting on nattering on in Greekish.
· Funny ha-ha or nightmare for his agent? Jon "Napoleon Dynamite" Heder tells the NY Times: "It's funny, but if you don't have a television and haven't seen me on a talk show or hosting "Saturday Night Live," I don't see why you wouldn't believe that I'm mentally disabled."
· We're sorry, but even on the slowest imaginable day, Pamela Anderson buying a condo in Vegas is not news—at least not unless she blew it and leaked the videotape on the internet.

E!'s new take on their recently inherited and slightly stale "spoiled, hateful fish-out-of-water" franchise The Simple Life places stars/mortal enemies Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton in Wife Swap-type domestic situations, on the assumption that hilarity will ensue from the inevitable baby-dropping to follow. The new format has already made some headlines thanks to an exchange between a stroller-pushing Richie and an 11-year-old boy playing basketball in his driveway:

Our first, brief report on Saturday night's assistant beer pong tourney has finally trickled in:

The Steven Spielberg-produced TNT miniseries Into the West continues to run into controversy regarding its treatment of Native American extras. First it was accused of having not provided shelter during a storm and denying them meals. Now, the production is being sued by the family of a young girl whose (shades of Vendetta) hair was cut off in order to make her look like a boy:

· Music round-up: Mystery Jets at the Troubadour; Sisters of Mercy and the Warlocks at House of Blues on Sunset; 5 O Clock Heroes and The Lashes at Spaceland.
· Stephen Farber's Reel Talk screening at the Wadsworth Theatre lures The Notorious Bettie Page director Mary Harron and star Gretchen Mol for an appearance following a showing of the movie.
· The monthly ResFest screening at the Egyptian has been bumped up from Tuesday to Monday, and tonight features new videos for Goldfrapp and Franz Ferdinand, some short films, their usual afterparty, and other assorted audio-visual goodness.

Perhaps the best thing about living in this amazing city of ours is that on an almost daily basis, we're introduced to some new abomination that may finally cause the earth beneath us to open up and mercifully swallow this silly place whole. We give you SkyBark, a space where you and your beloved canine sidekick can indulge your behind-the-velvet-rope lifestyles together. From the bar's introductory press release:

Someone really, really wants us all to know that within the hour, reclusive heiress Paris Hilton will be dining at Los Angeles' most super-secret celebrity hideout with a famous-type companion so terribly important that to know his identity ahead of time would blow your fucking minds:

FoxNews.com's Roger Friedman delves into that matter of Isaac Hayes' recent huffy exit from South Park, announced by a sanctimonious statement in which the singer decried: "Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored." If it seemed rash and uncharacteristic of a man who had proven himself more than pliable to over nine seasons of South Park outrageousness, the action becomes even more suspicious when you consider the circumstances that led up to it:

Yesterday's LAT story on the entertainment industry's "headset protocol" or "culture of listening" sought to give a taste of the widespread practice of using every sensitive phonecall as a training ground for the next generation of agents and executives to those readers who've never had the pleasure of a hot latte tossed into their face as punishment for a dropped call. In the article, one brave agency call-roller risked certain receiver-bludgeoning by an angry boss for talking to the press and offered a glimpse into the world of sanctioned eavesdropping:

The Pink Panther tops V for Vendetta at the UK box office, where moviegoers apparently preferred to watch Steve Martin destroy a beloved movie franchise to seeing a masked terrorist blow up Parliament. [Variety]
Weinstein Co. picks up the North American rights to the Beatrix Potter biopic Miss Potter, starring Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor and Emily Watson, giving Zellweger still another chance to show off the British accent she used in the Bridget Jones movies. [THR]
Damage control double-feature: Variety ponders the unfair judgment of Brad Grey's Paramount before any of his new regime's movies are released. [Variety] Twice. [Variety]
Still more hott pilot casting action: Catherine Bell and Gary Cole in CBS drama Company Town; Mercedes Ruehl in untitled CBS Paul Reiser comedy; Rena Sofer in ABC's Mr. Nice Guy; Kevin Hart joins CBS comedy The Weekend. [THR]
Fox resurrects King of the Hill for another year, a show they had long ago left for dead, while giving another two years to The Simpsons, a show that may still be cranking out fresh episodes long after all of our bones have turned to dust. [Variety]

Ever since Scary Hollywood Lawyer Terry Christensen was indicted in connection with the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, the entertainment industry has been waiting for the other, fancier shoe to drop: namely, the bringing of charges against Scarier Hollywood Lawyer Bert Fields, who had hired Pellicano in the past but denies knowing about any of the investigator's illegal eavesdropping activities in connection with his cases. Today's LAT reports that prosecutors and Fields' predictably high-powered defense team have engaged in "a difficult game of chicken" by agreeing to extend the deadline for the filing of charges, and that part of the new strategy may include offering Fields an emasculating-sounding "queen for a day" session, which, unfortunately, does not seem to include wearing a tiara while receiving a pedicure and mud mask treatment:

so noTORIous Tori Spelling's attempt at capitalizing on the joke that is her life by basically reenacting it, transposing it to VH1 and calling it a "scripted comedy" premieres early next month, but her auction-obsessed mother Candy has seen the first episode, and, according to Page Six, is less than pleased:

After big-budget action films that don't lose any coherence when poorly dubbed for foreign markets, Hollywood's second greatest export may be actors who expect that every luxury spa massage session end in orgasm. Over the weekend, the UK tabloids were in a tizzy over the "superstar" whose masseuse-harassing antics following a tournament at the legendary St. Andrews course nearly caused all of the British Isles to sink under the weight of giddy golf puns:

Like a field of sunflowers blooming just for you on this Monday morning, the weekend's box office numbers:

· Universal vice-chairman Marc Shmuger and Focus Features co-president David Linde squeeze their feet into Stacey Snider's vacated, pinchy shoes.
· The LAT and Page Six nearly tease us to completion with their agency merger coverage lapdance.
· When it comes to taking off her clothes, Sharon Stone's got huge brass balls; when it comes to Mideast peace, she's missing a few marbles.
· Paramount makes a cool $900 mil selling the DreamWorks library to now almost-a-billion-less-richer billionaire, George Soros.
· Scientology: 2, South Park: 0.
· Pellicano's wire-tapping web ensnares Brad Grey (Nikki Finke helps things along), and Nicole Kidman, who still finds new weekly reasons to regret ever having met Tom Cruise.
· We are proud to count Black and-White Clooney among us, but Clooneygate quickly takes him away. Then he claims he "feels abused." Not leaking spinal fluid abused, but, you know, abused all the same.
· New Welcome Back, Kotter, Ice Cube, to subject spouse to endless supply of bad jokes about his many wacky uncles and aunts.
· While we may have thought out loud that Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby looks like definite Will Ferrell shark-jumping territory, we never meant it literally.
· Oh Vin, we're almost willing to move to Europe if it meant a front row seat to your red carpet monkeyshines.
· Tom and Katie Digest: They may have already exchanged Scientological vows. The Anaheim Jumbotron broadcasts a nauseating PDA (because bigger means truer!), which answers the question of what happened to Katie at the Thank You For Smoking premiere.
· Jessica Simpson uses her years of Nick-tormenting experience to bring Washington to its knees.
· Seeing our first, tantalizing glimpse of Snakes on a Plane only makes us want it more.