Dakota Fanning is bigger than the Beatles. Are we overstating her current popularity? We are not. When Richard Gere abandons the Dalai Lama to follow young Fanning around, finding her rare combination of preadolescent gravitas and lack of oppressive moralizing refreshing, you will thank us for the advance notice. To wit: The LAT's Richard Rushfield, blogging from the Hollywood Film Festival, discovers that her devoted fans will stake out the ArcLight Cinema just on the chance that she'll make an appearance and grace them with her 'tween John Hancock:

The WSJ has updated its story on Shake-Me-Down Elmo and the Hole in the Boulevard Gang to include this amazing reader-submitted photo of the LAPD's dramatic Elmo/Mr. Incredible sting operation. These grisly, public beheadings are sure to serve as a powerful deterrent the next time Painfully Skinny Spider-Man and his toady, SpongeBob DirtyPants, think about helping themselves to a tourist's wallet.

After dozens of viewings of 1 Night in Paris, we never thought that a part of Paris Hilton's anatomy would ever again seem mysterious. We find ourselves saying this more often than we care to admit, but: We were so wrong.

· In a dramatic move that nonetheless fails to inspire us to care much about the story, SAG's new leadership fires its national executive director. [Variety]
· Generously disregarding the last decade of his career, Al Pacino's acting peers met at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to praise him and present him with the 2005 American Cinematheque Award. [THR]
· Disney becomes the first (and only) studio to embrace the magical anti-piracy DVD players offered free to Academy members. No worries if you've already sold yours for a ten-spot at a yard sale—Disney probably doesn't have any real Oscar contenders, anyway. [Variety]
· Mark-Paul "I Will Always Be Zach Morris To An Entire Generation Of TV Viewers, No Matter How Many Serious Dramas I Do" Gosselaar will join the cast of Commander in Chief. Look for The West Wing to hire Lisa Turtle as a sassy presidential aide in retaliation. (Come on, a Screech joke would've been twice as hacky.) [THR]
· A bloodcurdling "Bitch, no you di'int!" echoes through superflack Pat Kingsley's office as rival Leslee Dart steals away a cherished PMK publicist for her fledgling Dart Group. Slapping of grills and yanking of weaves to follow. [Variety]

Dakota Fanning is so hot right now that she possesses the impressive (and more than a little disturbing) ability to force gender-reassignment on a character if she's interested in a project:

The sidewalk in front of the Chinese Theater may seem like a Tinseltown paradise where delighted visitors cavort with shabby versions of their favorite movie characters, posing for no-strings-attached pictures with Batmen and Charlie Chaplins before returning to measuring their extremities against the Chinese's world-famous concrete monuments ("Mommy, Tom Cruise's hands are the same size as mine!"). But this is Hollywood, after all, and things are rarely as innocent as they appear. Concerned that many of these characters were shaking down tourists for tips, the LAPD called a Starving Superhero Summit to lay down the law, and when the super-behavior didn't improve, the cops went deep undercover:

We are embarrassed by Endeavor superagent Ari Emanuel's recent commitment to blogging. While we require an A-list death (or a particularly compelling paparazzi photograph of Britney Spears looking heavier than we might like) to work on the weekend, it takes little more than a burning desire to share a frustration to lure Emanuel to the keyboard on a Saturday:

Our introductions to these Monday morning box office numbers tend to be bleak, recognizing that no one likes to think about how much of the work week stretches ahead of us like a half-mile gauntlet populated by Satan's most talented tormentors, whose infernal mission is to drag us behind a chariot of hellfire....whatever. See, kinda dark. So let's instead envision the next five days as a prolonged nap in a basket full of warm laundry, snuggled up with some Care Bears, and, perhaps, a baby unicorn, whose downy horn-nub is so good at kneading out knotted muscles. We feel better about things already. This is gonna be such a great week, gang!

· There are still more than two days left in an eBay auction for Angelina Jolie's hairbrush, but if you've got $36,000 to burn and a potentially fatal aversion to delayed gratification, you can Buy It Now! [via A Socialite's Life]
· These video clips of Lindsay Lohan and Paris "Don't Call Me Mr. Hilton" Latsis entering Koi separately clearly indicate that the two tabloid-friendly stars will soon be involved in a relationship of a sexual nature.
· Likewise, these pictures of an inebriated-looking Zach Braff and Rachel Bilson partying in Canada obviously reveal that the two actors are carrying on an affair.
· An idea whose time has come: The Defense Against Celebrity Marriage Amendment.
· Sure, you can spend a couple of minutes playing Waxhoff online and have a few giggles. But for less than the cost of some appetizers at TGI Friday's, we bet you could get the real Hasselhoff to let you wax his chest. Not that he needs the money, he just loves his fans that much.

Friday
· Tonight's music: Jem at the Avalon; Sons & Daughters at Spaceland, Palo Alto and the Shore at the Roxy.
· Rock journalist and Rolling Stone editor Anthony DeCurtis will read and sign his latest book, In Other Words: Artists Talk About Life and Work, at Tower Records on Sunset. Chad Smith from Red Hot Chili Peppers will also be there, perhaps to prove to the skeptical that DeCurtis actually knows some rock stars.
· If it seems like we've been ignoring Fashion Week, it's because we don't care. Nonetheless, Fashion Week continues to exist with the LA Fashion Awards at the Orpheum Theater.
Saturday
· Care about these Saturday shows: Daniel Lanois with Tortoise at Avalon; Nada Surf at the El Rey.
· Halloween is so close we can taste it: The Art Deco Society of Los Angeles is giving guided walking tours of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
· And if cemeteries aren't a scary enough scene, Ashlee Simpson will curse the just-opened Virgin Megastore on Hollywood Blvd with a CD signing. Hurry over, that place will be out of business by Wednesday.
Sunday
· One arena music round-up: Foo Fighters and Weezer at the Long Beach Arena.
· Paul F. Thompkins, Brendon Small, and Hard N' Phirm (not their real names, we think) drop by (that sounds so casual, as if they aren't even going to perform, doesn't it?) the Sunday Comedy show at Room 5.

RIP Gordon "Porky" Lee.

Join us as we sacrifice our finest animal and run our greedy fingers through its entrails, hoping that our careful examination of the steamy guts helps us unlock the mysteries of this weekend's box office results:

Anyone can show up to a cocktail party and waste a good hour or so discussing Tom Cruise's waning popularity, but NY marketing and research firm Genius Insight has crunched the numbers:

It's time once again to take an oh-so-brief moment to recognize the important financial contributions of this week's sponsors, who help make possible the nonsense you see here on a daily basis. Our mutual love is real, unlike that sham-love of Nick and Jessica. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and expose your wares to a lustful mob of insatiable consumers, see this page.

· Sony pushes All the King's Men to next year's Oscar season, pretending that they'd have to rush the post-production process to make its original December 2005 release date. We always love that excuse. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Recycling Stephen King Edition: Warner Bros. will remake 1982's Creepshow. Remember all the cockroaches bursting through the guy's chest? Yeah, that probably won't be nearly as scary now that we're not eight years old.
· Paramount decides that it doesn't want to be DreamWorks' dirty little whore and have its heart broken when the studio eventually goes running back to Universal. [Variety]
· ABC follows up Wednesday's full season Commander in Chief order with a back-nine commitment for Invasion, hoping that the alien-attack drama will continue to lure in viewers (like us) too lazy to change the channel after Lost. [THR]
· Did we somehow miss the press release announcing that Mira Sorvino's officially giving up on her movie career? If starring opposite Stephen Dorff in a miniseries isn't a sign of total capitulation, we don't know what is. [Variety]

Even heavy with improbably conceived child and under the relentless questioning of Today's Maria Menounos, Katie Holmes demonstrates an impressive ability to stay on-message [bold ours]:

Is there a limit to Britney Spears' thirst for celebrity rags' sweet (and lucrative) attention? Page Six examines the new mother's alleged crisis of conscience over selling photos of her adorable widdle moneymaker:

With two stories hitting the wire this morning, the Potentially Dangerous Levels of Mercury in Seafood becomes the Instantly Hot Celebrity Cause. From the AP:

· Wow, now that you mention it, it kinda does look like Halle Berry has six toes. Once again, Berry establishes an almost unattainable ideal of physical perfection.
· The LAT's Richard Rushfield blogs the Hollywood Film Festival's premiere of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and discovers that no one should ever leave Val Kilmer and Robert Downey, Jr. in front of an audience without adult supervision.
· Trump: Martha Stewart is making my show bite the doily. Guess the salad-tossing experiment isn't working out quite as well as they'd hoped.
· When you get bored of watching Desperate Housewives on that tiny iPod screen, you can always look at naked chicks with lots of tattoos.
· Lindsay Lohan's a busy girl, what with the change of hair color and the 5 ayem trips to 7-11 to sit on the floor and read her bad press. Where does she find the energy?

· Carly Milne, editor of Naked Ambition, an anthology of essays by women in the porn industry, hosts a reading at Hustler Hollywood. You know what that means: Porn stars will be in attendance. Also, Dana Harris of Variety, Violet Blue of sister site Fleshbot, and many others. Semisecret afterparty location to be disclosed at the event...or so we hear.
· Music round-up: The Hold Steady and the Constantines at the Knitting Factory; The Gossip at the Troubadour; Go! Team at the El Rey; Gang of Four at Avalon.
· Dana Delany, James Ellroy, and Bruce Wagner team up for "In a Lonely Place," a "theatrical night of readings" at UCLA's Hammer Museum.