Former Gawker hottie Benoit Denizet-Lewis is still riding the addiction train to literary success! The America Anonymous author and unveiler of Down Low culture is writing about his sex addiction, luckily for pervs like you:

In a timely, sort of surprising portent of things to come this awards season, the National Society of Film Critics chose the Israeli animated documentary Waltz With Bashir as its best picture of 2008.

· David E. Kelley has chosen Charity Wakefield to star in Legally Mad. The Actresses-Who-Look-Like-Michelle Pfeiffer Guild is up in arms over the choice of a brunette candidate who looks nothing like Michelle Pfeiffer. [THR]

A well-rested Bernie Madoff walked out of his apartment building for the first time in two weeks earlier today. The alleged scamster headed downtown for a bail hearing, accompanied by his attorney and a private investigator assigned to protect him. His lifestyle seems to have already been downgraded, alas—the car waiting for him was a four-door Ford Crown Victoria. But Bernie's fondness for shady behavior remains unaffected. Prosecutors ordered the bail hearing because they learned that Madoff mailed more than more than $1 million in jewelry to his sons on Christmas Eve. [FBN, NYP]

It appears that Ricky Gervais has taken Simon Pegg's weight-related criticism to heart, as the Oscars-eschewing star has begun slamming the overweight in the press, causing some controversy. And he's not taking it back!

Facebook, which claims its goal is to let users share their lives. has been accused of censoring posts about the fighting in Gaza. So much for Mark Zuckerberg's dreams of breaking down global barriers.

Bill Richardson was going to be our new commerce secretary, but now he's not going to be that thing, because of some ongoing investigation back in New Mexico.

The White House has released an awesome book called "Highlights of Accomplishment and Results" from "The Administration of President George W. Bush." Let's page through it!

It's the new year, otherwise known as the peak money-making time for anyone who purports to help people rid themselves of their holiday-acquired chub. As you know all too well, starvation regimens, exercise routines, juice fasts/cleanses, and full-body liposuction all involve an annoying degree of effort, money, or pain. (And you're probably also aware that diet pill pushers are liars.) But what else is left to sell to the eager and gullible public? How about the promise of permanent weight-loss simply by changing the way you think?

Subscribers to Britney Spears's official Twitter feed (yep—Brit's Twitterin'!) have grown accustomed to updates like "I love Japan! I think all the tiny cars are so cute!"

Just months after making Matt Lauer cry inside about his divorce, Meredith Vieira proclaims a tourist couple's 30-year marriage over on the Today show. Click to watch the mean lady who causes all divorce.

If you were thinking that author Daphne Merkin would have a good deal to say about the Bernie Madoff saga—and she must considering her brother is Ezra Merkin, the man who lost $1.8 billion of investor cash as part of the scheme—you're probably going to be disappointed by her piece on Tina Brown's website The Daily Beast. Merkin offers up few specifics about the events in question (or whether her own finances were affected), although you can probably take this as a thinly-veiled defense of her embattled brother:

1/2 — Dan Tana's. Friday night. CAMERON CROWE having dinner. That guy looks the same as he did when he [wrote] Fast Times. KEVIN CONNOLLY in the bar area alone, but looking like he was waiting for someone. And he was wearing a green Hanes-like short sleeved t-shirt. Seemed odd on such a chilly L.A. night. The End. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

To head off child-stalking paparazzi, the Obamas released three photos of their All-American kids getting ready for school today! They need a better photographer—but they still won't stop the PAPS. Click to go "AW."

[Sloppy singer Lily Allen vacationing in St. Bart's in a see-through something; maybe NSFW?; image via INF]

Reactions to Jett Travolta's death on Friday surged forth over the weekend, with paramedics, publicists, anti-Scientology advocates and the usual exploiters lending voices to the noise. We sort through it after the jump.

Did you see Synecdoche, New York? Was the Charlie Kaufman film weird and brilliant, or just too wannabe-weird and unfathomable? The New York Times' Manohla Dargis is heavily in the former camp. Like, heavily.

So you're looking to conserve cash now that you've been laid off from your job. You've even contemplated moving back in with your parents. A horribly depressing scenario? It doesn't have to be, says Page Six magazine, which reports that lots of twenty and thirty-something New Yorkers choose to shack up with their parents during career lulls, even glamorous social scenesters like Charlotte Ronson and Fabiola Beracasa. Both ladies, the mag points out, have since decamped to abodes of their own, although in Fabiola's case her move out of mom's Fifth Avenue penthouse probably had less to do with spreading her wings than another recessionary trend: the rising foreclosure rate.

Whats going on with Twitter? First Fox News gets hacked, then Britney Spears. Is no one safe from this epidemic?

The Holidays™ are over. We hope yours ended on a lighter note than ours did—curling up with a 60 Minutes story about a seven-year-old girl decapitated in the back of a limo by a drunk driver.