The Insider's Marc Malkin contributes to the Year of Incremental Updates About Lindsay Lohan's Health, reporting that she was released this morning from the Suspicious Severe Asthma Attack Unit of the Miami hospital where she spent three days and is on her way back to NY. However, not everyone is passive about the starlet's continuing recovery. Gambling site BetUS.com is offering to foot the bill for a luxurious, head-clearing stay in Costa Rica. Says their press release:

Today's SAG award nominations offer yet another suggestive nudge to any waffling Academy members who still aren't sure if they should check off the "gay cowboy movie in all categories" box at the top of their Oscar ballots. Brokeback Mountain, a heartbreaking story of doomed cowboy love, or, alternately, a hilarious comedy about the lengths women will go to to delude themselves into thinking they aren't married to a gay guy, took four nominations, including best actor for Heath Ledger and best cast.

After the unexpected success of the initial run of Dancing With the Stars this summer, the producers knew they would have to up the ante for the sophomore edition, and what better way than reviving a long-gone Beatle with a Weekend at Bernie's 2-inspired voodoo curse, a hex which forces the enchanted to waltz in the presence of music?

Perhaps the most delicious thing about the first days of a new year is the sense of wonder and discovery that accompanies every "first" presented to our reborn self. Imagine, if you will, our childlike, wide-eyed reaction (not totally dissimilar to a four-year-old learning the effects of biting a hot burner on the stovetop) to the first Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes relationship news of 2006, which took a pokey five days to reach the world. According to Life & Style, Cruise and Holmes may (always a pretty big "may") have put their marriage plans on hold after a botched make-good session with Katie's family over the holidays:

The Envelope's Oscar Beat blog is reporting that Jon Stewart is the Academy's Chosen One, and that an announcement heralding The Daily Show host's appointment as emcee of Hollywood's Most Self-Important Night will likely follow tomorrow. Stewart's selection was reportedly arrived at following a marathon sit-down between high-level Gay and Jewish Mafias officials in a secure basement conference room at David Geffen's Malibu compound; the fabulous faction stubbornly threw its support behind movie star/respected song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman for the gig, but after a personal audition by Jackman featuring a musical Brokeback Mountain parody fell flat, the Velvets finally acquiesced and gave their approval to the safer choice of the universally loved Stewart.

After getting "hundreds" of complaints about NBC's Book of Daniel, in which the pill-poppingest Episcopal holy man in primetime navigates a complicated world with the help of a Cool Jesus only he can see, a station in Terre Haute, IN, has decided not to show the series' premiere on Friday. Reports Broadcasting & Cable:

· Obscure sled-making documentary Citizen Kane screens at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Note: There will be no post-show Q&A with the filmmaker.
· If the Hilton sisters were your guardian angels, you'd probably be better off taking a bath with the curling iron. The Dead Heiresses, performing tonight at the UCB Theatre, profess to be worse than even Paris and Nicky.
· If you haven't already claimed a barstool at your favorite watering hole in anticipation of the Rose Bowl's 5 pm kickoff, in which the local heroes of UCLA take on Texas (Just checking to see if you're still paying attention! Relax, we know it's USC), you might as well just get drunk at home. Like us.

Not even the will of a party promoter desperate to make sure that paying customers could ring in the New Year in suitably starfucking fashion on the Paramount Lot is a match for Mother Nature, who obviously decided she's not as big a Jessica Alba fan as she once thought. The organizers of the aborted Gridlock 2006 New Year's Eve throwdown have circulated pictures of the damage to their stage and an apology to disappointed patrons (excerpted below):

The Best Week Ever blog keeps the momentum of Lindsay Lohan's last two days lurching forward with some pictures (we've helpfully "enhanced" one with our forensic tools above)* of a delivery to Lohan's hospital room. Just so you know what you're supposedly looking at:

Since the upsetting announcement earlier today that Crash was recognized in the Writers Guild nominations for best original screenplay, we've been driving around the city with our car windows rolled up, weeping openly and looking to induce an accident just so we could finally connect with another Angeleno. (Preferably with a motorist of a different race to test our unfair preconceptions of minority groups.) Amazingly, we were unable to form a fender-bending union with a fellow searcher, but now the good news: A reader with WGA membership offers a possible, comforting explanation for Crash's recognition by fellow scribes:

Normally, news from Sunday (even from across the Atlantic) feels positively ancient by midweek (blame the internets), but since we're still desperately clinging to the holiday spirit, join us in spiking that final glass of probably-still-good eggnog and gather around the crackling fire to hear the incredible tale of Drunken Kiefer Sutherland Vs. That Fucking Christmas Tree, as told by the always-reliable folks at the British Sunday Mirror:

· The Producers Guild goes indie/specialty with its best film awards nominations, rounding up Brokeback, Capote, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Walk the Line. Did any of them actually see Crash? [Variety]
· And here come the Writers Guild nominations for best original screenplay: Cinderella Man, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. We think our feelings about one of these nominees are clear by now, so we'll avoid beating that dead hor...oh, fuck it. Crash? Really now? [THR]
· Ted Koppel signs a Seacrestian (yeah, we went there) multi-year deal to produce documentaries and "town meetings" for The Discovery Channel, leaving jilted lover HBO to wistfully smell the helmet-shaped indentation on the pillow from their last romantic rendezvous. [Variety]
· ABC wins the Tuesday night ratings war with its coverage of the Orange Bowl, or as Variety likes to call it, the Fiesta Bowl. [THR, Variety]
· Warner Bros. and Fox celebrate winning 2005's box office, while DreamWorks and Sony cross their fingers for a less disastrous '06. [Variety]

We naively hoped that we might be able to sneak through the first couple of days of 2006 without having to mention Paris Hilton, but that silly dream has already been dashed. While we couldn't be more bored (trust us, we tried) with the slander and libel suit brought against Hilton by some actress she allegedly planted a false story about in Page Six, we nonetheless find the way she manipulated both her publicist and the tabloid kind of fascinating:

No matter how many times the commercials and one-sheets promised us that a motley crew of tuxedo-clad casino burglars were teaming up for a final job, we knew that the Ocean's gang would find another way to get together for another "last" score. Reports Variety:

Now that Howard Stern has forsaken us for satellite radio, Adam Carolla has ascended the King of All Media's morning commute throne, hoping to keep local listeners from defecting to the world of $13 dollar a month subscriptions. We listened, sort of, to the maiden broadcast yesterday, and only vaguely remember the comforting presence of Carolla life-partner/TV host Jimmy Kimmel. Luckily, someone from the LAT took notes, otherwise we may have never registered that the show eased the audience into the post-Stern era with some familiar attention to personal hygiene of the most personal variety:

Yesterday's news that Lindsay Lohan was recovering in Miami from a "severe asthma attack" couldn't have been better timed to coincide with today's release of a Vanity Fair story in which America's Most Suspiciously Hospitalized Sweetheart makes some shocking—shocking!—revelations: she used drugs "a little," suffered from the much more PR-friendly bulimia last year during her much-photographed "skinny phase," and that SNL's Lorne Michaels, no stranger to self-destructive talent, staged some sort of intervention after Lohan hosted his show dangerously underneath her former fighting weight.. As for her completely inconsequential dalliance with unspecified drugs, she says "I've gotten that out of my system," a statement that at first seems to indicate a newfound maturity, but on closer inspection, reveals a distressing dismissal of the crucial role played by the world-class "exhaustion technicians" of Cedars Sinai.

· If Harrison Ford can avoid breaking a hip, we might yet get to see him play Indy one more time: "Yeah, sometimes I find myself getting into stunt pads and preparing to roll down a flight of stairs and wrestle some 26-year-old stunt man across the floor and think, 'What the [bleep] am I doing?' But, you know, it feels so good to do it, so I'll only stop when it really hurts."
· If this report about Britney Spears wanting to have another baby to strengthen her marriage is true (and that's a pretty big "if"), then we clearly haven't given her enough credit for knowing what she's doing with her life.
· Yes, now that you bring it up, we have been curious about what's been going on with Fred Savage's acting career!
· As it turns out, maybe Nellie McKay wasn't just screwing around when she went off on Sony a month ago.
· We had no idea that there were still any Planet Hollywoods, anywhere, but apparently the one in Toronto is shutting down for good.

Apologies to anyone who may have already been obsessively tracking the auction of this absolutely breathtaking "Double Oscar" statue commemorating the fine gay cowboy performances of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, but we felt an obligation to take a moment to bask in its golden glory. Like the traditional Oscar, the Brokeback Mountain version has no conspicuously jutting male genitalia, but in a vast evolutionary leap over the Academy's iconic award, this one actually plays the soundtrack from the movie. (Warning: so does the auction page. Loudly. Or at least something that sort of sounds like the soundtrack.) And should Ledger's more celebrated, mumbly turn win him some hardware, this much improved prototype would remind the actor that he couldn't have made it to the podium without the love and support of his co-star.

· One band Tuesday night music round-up: Wolf Parade at the El Rey.
· If you're looking to do something cultural following whatever destruction you wreaked opon yourself on New Year's Eve, the Skirball hosts "From Haven to Home," an exhibit commemorating 350 years of Jewish life in America.
· Get your fill of samurai flicks at the NuArt Theatre, where Sword of Doom and Kill! are paired for a double feature. Not on the bill: Tom Cruise abomination The Last Samurai.

According to People, among Lindsay Lohan's New Year's resolutions is a pledge to make 2006 every bit as chock-full of tabloid-friendly action and dubious, publicist-scripted excuses for abrupt hospitalizations as her record-setting 2005: