Just a couple of days ago, we celebrated George Clooney's brave coming out to the blogosphere, in which the actor used Arianna Huffington's lefty cocktail party to proclaim himself a proud liberal. There's only one problem with Clooney's very public breaching of his blog-cherry: Sure, he said those things that wound up on the Huffngton Post, but to other, MSM sources, and never wrote a blog entry for Arianna. The LAT's Styles & Scenes blog lands the scoop:

Perpetually embattled heir to the James Bond title, Daniel Craig, has had everything from his virility to his lack of eyebrows challenged since filming started on the series' next installment mostly at the hands of archenemy CraigNotBond.com. But just when things couldn't get any more absurd in one of cinema's most overblown and thoroughly entertaining fanboy uprisings, another bizarre chapter unfolds. In what has to be a first, James Bond's dad has come to his son's defense:

Ever since Tom Cruise decided to demote publisister Le Anne DeVette and hire a flack who won't let the star chew through his restraints and seek out the first television camera ready to capture his latest manic thoughts on his suspicious relationship or distaste for psychiatry, the frequently unreliable tabloid press has been our main conduit for Cruise-related news. Today's Rush & Molloy column cites a National Enquirer report claiming that in early July, Cruise and Scientology war-bride-to-be Katie Holmes tied the knot while at sea, miles away from where anyone could hear her scream:

There's something about movie premieres in early March that really makes Vin Diesel blossom. Last year, he was the excitedly-pointing-at-waterfowl life of the party at The Pacifier's bow, and at last night's NY celebration of Find Me Guilty's imminent release (pictured above), Diesel generously distributed the embarrassment of facial expression riches he so stingily withholds while the movie cameras roll.

· Seriously, though? Angelina is hot and all, but we're just not gonna trust her to fly our plane. Those two are really asking for trouble.
Now this is a new one: Somebody famous having their *own* rack signed? Pamela Anderson's always been an innovator.
We completely forgot it was Steak and BJ Day. Make sure your loved one observes this important holiday.
Federline's career path seems inevitable: First the stripper pole, then turning tricks on Santa Monica Blvd.
· Lastly, to recap for anyone who won't be bothered to scroll down a little bit, Will Ferrell is still not dead.

Still smelling of rose water and cardamom from his Journey of a Lifetime, Jeremy Piven has perhaps gotten a little spoiled by India's "all the girls you can bag in an hour for 5000 Rupees" policy. A quick meeting with the Entourage producers and one Craigslist posting later, and suddenly a "female models"-only mass casting opportunity is born:

Things have been eerily quiet on the Andy Dick front as of late (is he finally feeling his age since turning 40?), but Salon reports that Dick seems to be in classic, head-humping form down in Austin at the South by Southwest film festival, where he's showcasing his latest masterwork:

· BRMC (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club) with special guests Elefant and The Morning After Girls at the Henry Fonda (again); Rancid at the Echo (again!); Hard-Fi does an in-store at Tower Records in Sherman Oaks; the Bo Dukes at the Cat Club.
· Ladies Night at the Central Library: ALOUD brings together Louise Steinman, Karen Stabiner, and Heather King for Father, Daughter, Self: Three Women Search for Identity, Relationship, Meaning.
· It's An Evening With Sally Field (subtitle: On The Aerodynamics of Flying Nuns) at the Museum of TV and Radio, where you can get finally get the actress to tie up all the Gidget loose ends that have been keeping you awake at night for decades.

Macaulay Culkin's much maligned first novel, Junior, hasn't exactly turned the literary establishment onto its ear, but according to an eyewitness report sent into our New York-hardened sister site, Gawker, a recent reading at Barnes Noble brought out a large, motley crew of fanatics in the truest sense of the word. ("A deaf woman who brought up a blown up picture of him...left in tears and hugged a security staffer.") Perhaps this explains how Culkin may have managed to crack the top 5,000 of Amazon's bestseller chart, who helpfully suggest it be paired with Margo Jefferson's 160-page rumination on all things Neverlandian, On Michael Jackson.

Just in case you ever wonder about which stars move tabloid product and which ones paparazzi probably wouldn't cross the street to photograph if they were on fire, today's pair of wedding-related announcements speak volumes: ET Online notes that bonafide (if US Weekly neglected) star Jack Black eloped with girlfriend Tanya Haden, a union that took the celebrity-industrial complex about two weeks (says our source) to notice. Meanwhile, you will probably not be able to go within fifty feet of a supermarket checkout line without knowing every detail about the engagement ring fifth-string Desperate Housewife Nicolette Sheridan's received from Unfrozen Caveman Soft Rock Balladeer Michael Bolton. We're going to guess that the Muzak royalties for "I Want To Know What Love Is" "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You" could provide for a rock big enough to topple Teri Hatcher when she tries it on for size on the DH set.

A group of British celebrities are submitting themselves to a reality series called Alive: Back to the Andes that forces them to recreate the events following the 1972 plane crash that was the basis for the movie Alive:

The UK Telegraph recently asked four ostensibly representative Hollywood citizens (a director, a screenwriter, a wannabe, and a producer) to keep one-day diaries of their lives. In an absolute stroke of genius, they wrangled noted fauxteur and man-about-town Brett Ratner for the piece, whose day (a "busy" one, admittedly) plays like a name-dropping, starfucking version of the It's A Small World ride at Disneyland, a kingdom only slightly less magical than Ratner's. Some selections from his diary follow:

Some internet prankster seems to be spreading around a link to this fake (and, quite frankly, very poorly written) press release claiming that Will Ferrell has died in a paragliding accident, apparently trying to stir up some buzz for a hoax:

When it comes to NBC Universal's cable stepchildren, the Bravo and Sci Fi channels both have a firm grasp on their own identities: the flamboyant gay one, and the self-empowered geek, respectively. Then there's USA Network, which has no idea what it is or where it's supposed to fit in; it's sort of the TV equivalent of that one chick in your high school who came back from summer vacation every year with a new look goth, new wave, ska, raver, whatever yet was never capable of upgrading her perpetually invisible, unpopular status.

Hollywood Out of Ideas, Part LXVII: As if news that Ice Cube is going to remake Welcome Back, Kotter wasn't troubling enough, try this on for size: J. Lo, Luke Wilson, John Travolta and Shirley MacLaine are all in various stages of the offer/negotiations process for a movie version of Dallas, with Travolta trying to pour his fifteen-gallon head into JR Ewing's ten-gallon hat. Someone please burn down this place immediately (Hollywood or Dallas, whatever works best). [Variety]
Universal vice chairman Marc Shmuger in in talks to take over the departed (for DreamWorks, not dead) Stacey Snider's job at the studio. Though he's silent on the matter, we assume he's not at all interested in taking Gail Berman's gig at Paramount. [THR]
But what I really want to do is create immersive, movie-inspired experiences for giant casinos: Director James Cameron will "executive produce" the iPort theme park for a Singapore gambling concern. [Variety]
The ratings numbers from Sunday night are in, and it appears that Desperate Housewives took a Nielsen baseball bat to the knees of HBO's The Sopranos. Not that you can really compare premium cable apples to network oranges, especially when our beloved mobsters come out looking not as good as we'd like, but there you have it. [THR]
The conservative watchdog kooks at the protest-happy American Family Association had no troubling following Las Vegas' move to Friday nights, urging its members to carpetbomb the FCC with more than 100,000 complaints about a strip club scene. [Variety]

The dry, cracked riverbed of Hollywood inspiration has once again turned to the seemingly bottomless well of beloved sitcoms for creative irrigation: We can now look forward to our fond memories of Welcome Back, Kotter being irreparably soiled on its journey to the big screen, Variety reports, with the no-brainer casting of gangsta-rapper-turned-beloved-star- of-forgettable-family-comedies Ice Cube producing and starring:

With close-ups of full penetration still probably years away from their primetime television debut, producers are forced to linger closer to the darker side of the eros-thanatos continuum to keep their audiences properly scandalized. Somewhat embarrassingly, both the NY and LA Times (apparently spurred by the sudden deaths of 24 characters in the last two episodes) chose today to run their "Death is the new black" stories. From the NYT:

Last night's Daily Show had video of Sharon Stone's recent Middle East peace press conference with Simon Peres in Israel (yes, from the same trip one where she said she "would kiss just about anybody" for peace). Refreshingly, however, Stone refrained from making the event all about her and her upcoming return to graying-beaver-flashing form in Basic Instinct 2. OK, maybe not so much, as this partial transcript our her typically batshit ramblings reveal:

Director/activist/protoliberal Rob Reiner is being pilloried for allegedly misusing $23 million in public funds to buy TV ads promoting preschool in California, Reiner's passion project; according to the LAT, he's now finding politics to be even more brutal than the notoriously harsh skullfuck-and-leave-you-for-dead-after-a-bad-opening-weekend world of Hollywood:

· Sean Connery's pretty active for an old dude, not even letting a little tumor removal stop him from suing a country club for about half a million bucks.
Philosopher-queen Lindsay Lohan on coitus: "Sleeping around is not something that interests me, but the act of love is an amazing thing, It's groovy. You've gotta have some fun and let those emotions out." And should those emotions need to come out in a bathroom stall at Mood, so be it.
If you think we're bent out of shape about Crash, wait until you read what Brokeback source material author Annie Proulx has to say about the film's robbery. Warning: Bile may actually shoot out of your monitor and stain your work clothes.
Colombia's ambassador to the United States isn't too thrilled with anti-cocaine crusader Bruce Willis' invasion plan.
· Maureen Stapleton may have passed, but she'll always be Johnny Dangerously's mom to us.