· Music round-up: The Album Leaf at the Knitting Factory; A Static Lullaby at the Troubadour; Spoon (not that anyone asked, but one of the best bands around) at the Wiltern.
· Mark and Michael Polish, the twin writer/director team responsible for Twin Falls Idaho and the refreshingly twin-less Northfork, do a read-and-sign at Vroman's for their new book, The Declaration of Independent Filmmaking.
· If you're absolutely dying to get a look at Harry Potter's wand a few hours before everyone else, you can shell out for a special advance fundraising screening of Goblet of Fire at the AMC Burbank 16. But please, for the love of all that is good and holy, don't bring a broom or squiggle a scar onto your forehead.

Last night, 11,000 or so friends, colleagues, and free alcohol aficionados with no interest in the internets lodged themselves inside Arianna Huffington's Brentwood compound for a party hosted by The Huffington Post and Lloyd Braun and Scott Moore of Yahoo!. The occasion? Gawker Media's unholy union with our new syndication masters and the HuffPo's West Coast payback for partying with Michael Stipe in Nick Denton's NY pleasuredome. We know that you could care less about our little preamble and only want to see some pictures of drunk people, so photographic evidence of the event (courtesy of gracious shutterbug Elizabeth Daniels) that's responsible for today's anemic posting schedule follows after the jump:

At the X-Box 360 launch party last night, a Defamer operative mingled among the usual crowd drawn out by the promise of free, shiny things: a pop star dating above his station, an ex-Friend with time on his hands, and a Hilton Posse (almost always comprised of at least one sister, one flack, one Greek, and one D-list male pretending to be engaged to a Posse member to boost his US Weekly and Page Six appearances), and a Carmen Electra. Sadly, not every celeb who made the "Look at how much famous people like to play video games!" photo-op got to take home the prize:

· Attorneys General in 32 states sign a letter asking studios to add anti-smoking message to DVD and video releases in which smoking is shown, hoping to prevent teens from looking really, really cool in the breezeway between Geography and Home Ec. [Variety]
· Will Ferrell, Jon Heder, Will Arnett and Amy Poehler are in talks to star in an ice skating comedy Blades of Glory for DreamWorks. But THR stresses that while these are serious talks, money and scheduling could deprive the public the joy of Ferrell and Heder playing figure-skating archrivals who are forced to become pairs partners. [Variety]
· Putting up your own money is the new putting up someone else's money: Producer Bobby Newmyer gambles his kids' education fund on financing Mo'Nique vehicle Phat Girlz, but Fox Searchlight picks up distribution rights, assuring that Newmyer will not be murdered by community college educated offspring. [Variety]
· Lost producers will shoot 20 mini-episodes of further show content for mobile phones, allowing viewers the exciting, cutting-edge opportunity to be very confused while squinting at a one-inch screen. [THR]
· Walden Media and New Line try to trick us into thinking Hollywood's not out of ideas by making a modern, 3-D version of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. [Variety]

Late yesterday, when we were mercifully free of our online shackles, news that Brittany Murphy had been dumped by both agency ICM and management company Brillstein-Grey hit our inbox. (How many more hours of waterboarding will it take for us to finally learn to never, ever leave the computer?) Radar Online has the story, hearing from a source that she was dumped for the vague-but-foreboding "personal reasons":

Attention former MTV's The Real World stars: there are career options for you besides Downtown Standard rooftop bartender, although you may have to create your own opportunities. Here's something to inspire you: a Craigslist ad casting a hot, new indie project starring one of your ex-roommates!

· Wednesday night music: The Shore at Spaceland, Moving Units at Avalon, and Ben Lee at the Troubadour.
· Author Gore Vidal, Howard Dean campaign architect Joe Trippi, broadcast journalist Tom Fenton and others discuss Independent Media: What's Wrong with Television News at the Hammer Museum. Based on the subject matter, plan on staying awhile.
· Robert Greenwald's new doc Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price screens at the Venice Center for Justice and the Arts. Meanwhile, the Wal-Mart of docs, March of the Penguins, continues its slow, waddling trample of any that stand in its way.

An eagle-eyed operative just sent in this Tony Hale (seal-attack victim Buster on the almost all but certainly, positively canceled Arrested Development) spotting at the Fox Studio Store :

Because we at Defamer are dedicated to fostering high-level discussion about topics such as Paris Hilton's doomed monkey, Endeavor superagent Ari Emanuel's winning smile, or the quality of buffet cuisine served at movie premieres, we've decided to embrace the "internets revolution" and roll out Defamer Comments. Effective approximately right now, Defamer readers will be able to attach their thoughts, prayers, and dreams to every post on the site.

Tonight's South Park, a Tom Cruise-Scientology ridiculing episode called "Trapped in the Closet," is proving itself to be somewhat of a PR logistics problem for Viacom:

The founders of Twisted Pictures took a big chance in pouring their own money into financing the first Saw movie, a gamble they won, and won big. But unlike other Hollywood speculators who strike it rich by falling ass-backwards into a leprechaun's pot and then claim that their asses are equipped with finely calibrated gold-detectors, they're staying humble about their success:

· Sensing a chance to finally behead momentarily weakened New Year's Eve immortal Dick Clark, Fox recruits Regis Philbin to host a competing ball-dropping special to ring in 2006. [Variety]
· The Agent Dance, Dump The Sharks Edition: Gary Oldman flees CAA to cozy up with ICM. [THR]
· Disney crosses the international box office billion-dollar mark, making them the third studio (along with Fox and Warner Bros.) to do so this year. Please join us in celebrating the further enrichment of faceless multimedia conglomerates! Huzzah! [Variety]
· Penguins still red-hot, tragicomic bear-wranglers not so much: The Academy shortlists a record 15 documentaries for nomination, including March of the Penguins, but not Grizzly Man. [Variety]
· Because nothing says gravitas like the words "From the star of The Waterboy and the creative force behind The Mind of the Married Man," we can't imagine anyone else collaborating on a 9/11 drama but Adam Sandler and Mike Binder. [Variety]

We at Defamer realize that it's often quite difficult for successful TV writers to find suitably exotic arm candy while spending their best years locked up in a sitcom writers' room, that virtual hermetically sealed sausage chamber jam-packed with white dudes making dead baby jokes while waiting for the Nerf ball to finally come their way. We spotlight this anonymous message in a Craigslist bottle in hopes that we can help one lonely guy find someone sufficiently "presentable" to drag along to industry events, hopefully saving him some money on the extortionist prices levied by top-shelf escort services:

Sure, Hollywood is a business, but that doesn't mean feelings don't sometimes get in the way. Take for instance the recent lawsuit filed by management company The Firm against former client Orlando Bloom:

Page Kennedy, the Desperate Housewives actor suddenly and publicly shitcanned last week for the cryptic reason of "improper conduct," offers up a new, non-junk-dangling-related explanation for his abrupt dismissal:

With the American Music Awards right around the corner, we had some Anna Nicole Smith on the mind. One year after her unforgettable Kanye West introduction, would we still "like her body?" Did "freakin' geeenius" Kanye ever get around to making her "beautiful dueeet"? We want updates! Luckily, Page Six has the latest:

· You know what? If Paris Hilton does indeed have a monkey named Baby Luv, the poor little guy would be dead in a week from the diet of Snickers and blow. The folks from PETA should stake out Kitson and throw concrete bananas at her until she turns the pet over to the zoo.
· Bill O'Reilly and George Clooney continue their irrepressible flirting through the press. Someone should cast those guys in an art film about forbidden cowboy love and get it over with.
· The MPAA submits pirated DVDs in the dangerous street drug sweepstakes.
· Have fun going Zapruder on this clip of Mischa Barton's blurry, primetime nipple slip.
· This should teach that Brando character a posthumous lesson about being such a Grumpy Gus!

Sweetfaced Chris Klein, who just two posts ago was mingling among movie premiere commonfolk with a weird-looking Suzanne Somers lookalike on his arm, on the surface comes across like the world's WASPiest mensch. Not so, it would appear, as an interview with Elle has revealed Katie Holmes' ex to be nothing short of a boorish, despicable cad!

· The Greg Proops Chat Show runs roughshod over Largo, with Rhett Miller of the Old 97s and little known comedian Janeanne Garafalo joining in the talk show mayhem. Furniture will be broken, friendships made, and bar tabs abused.
· Tuesday night music: Patti Smith at the Troubadour; The 88 at Amoeba, all free-like; Liz Phair at the House of Blues at Anaheim. If you're waiting for us to say something pervy about Liz Phair, keep waiting. Something about Anaheim kills our libido.
· The American Cinematheque throws a Stranger Than Paradise and Broken Flowers double feature in honor of Jim Jarmusch at the Egyptian. Bill Murray and Jarmusch will Q and A you within an inch of your life between films.

Passing along mass e-mails usually isn't our cup of tea, because a) when it turns out that the story that starts out "My friend's best friend works at Universal and he told him that Steve Guttenberg just drowned in Pauly Shore's hot tub" are always disappointingly inaccurate, and b) everyone sees them a hundred times anyway. But media whore sister site Gawker's posted a doozy, involving Lindsay Lohan, a guy with the convenient name "Jason Lewis," and a series of late-night cellphone communications that's currently making the inbox rounds. It's amusing even if it turns out to be more the product of someone's cubicle ennui than Lohan's desire to party with the Sex and the City guy.