The last thing we expected on our trip to the Arclight yesterday afternoon to catch a little Frost-on-Nixon action (who knew the most unlikely love story of awards season would be the smoldering, Burns/Smithers combustion going down between Kevin Bacon and Frank Langella? Sheesh—get a room, you two. And don't record it!) was to stumble upon Hermione Granger herself, aka Emma Watson, dressed up like something of a red carpet premierebot in high heels and a posterior-showcasing dress for the debut of The Tale of Despereaux.

Gambling is the future of the media! Newspapers aren't much good to anybody looking to make a buck off investing in their stock—but that doesn't mean that you can't make your newspaper fortune through sweet, sweet gambling, come on now seven seven seven baby need a new pair of shoes, yea! After the jump, we've listed the half-dozen most famous economically challenged papers in the country, along with our official odds for their long-term survival. Place your bets, and give 5% to the house:

That was quick. This morning, Merrill Lynch chief John Thain was lobbying for a $10 million bonus. By the early afternoon, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had sent off a letter denouncing the idea. Now CNBC is reporting that Thain has relented and has accepted his bonus-less fate. He's not the only one. CNBC also reports that Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack won't be getting one either.

Bored conservatives are up in arms over the new revision of the Oxford University Press' Junior Dictionary! The sun has finally set on the British Empire, now that "empire" is no longer listed in the Oxford University Press Junior Dictionary. Also cut: "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", and "monarch." You'll be disgusted to learn what words replaced those venerable old favorites.

When we overdose on celebrities and overindulge in gadgets, where's the vomitorium to hurl it up? Why, it's eBay, on whose shores the flotsam of every shipwrecked trend lands. Here's what was formerly hot in 2008:

Jimmy Fallon, the hangdog comedian from Saturday Night Live and Fever Pitch, will be taking over Conan O'Brien's late night spot sometime next year. (Hamilton is really excited about his house band!) The actual start date won't be until March probably, but in the meantime Mr. Fallon will be rolling out a series of 5-minute-long 'webisodes' (annoying modern slang for short things on the internet), starting tonight at 12:35 am, on NBC's website. It will be a great chance for the audience to figure out what they'll be getting with Jimmy, and a really great chance for Jimmy to fuck this whole thing up before he even makes it to air.

Nobody should have to die to stop a bad idea from becoming a reality in Hollywood. Nevertheless, it happens, as producer Frank Marshall alluded Sunday during the junket for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where a long-gestating sequel-of-a-sequel-of-a-sequel rumor was extinguished for good.

In the battle against global terror, ridiculously childish reverse psychology remains one of the most powerful weapons. It is used both by the enemy—al-Qaeda totally doesn't want you to reelect Bush, that would be terrible for them!—and, increasingly, by us. So five Guantanamo detainees have all confessed to plotting 9/11, but we totally aren't accepting their confessions, at all. Because that's just what they want.

It's not all bad news for the upper-end of Manhattan's residential real estate market. Hedge fund manager John Griffin, who once worked for Julian Robertson before founding Blue Ridge Capital, and his wife Amy, have paid $32.25 million for a 10th-floor spread at 1030 Fifth Avenue, where Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols are also residents. The apartment, which wasn't even officially on the market, was owned by private equity exec Richard Schmeelk and his wife Priscilla. [NYO]

♦ Alain Ducasse has tapped Pierre Schaedelin to be the executive chef of his much-maligned Benoit. [NYT]
♦ Michael Psilakis and Donatella Arpaia's Kefi re-opens tonight. [Eater]
♦ A few photos and the menu from Cyril Renaud's new Bar Breton. [GS]
♦ R&L, which was quickly shut down by the Department of Health after opening in the former Florent space in July, is reopening this week. [Eater]
♦ The best places to pick up coffee in the West Village. [NYM]
♦ Citysearch's top 10 bars and clubs of 2008. [CS]

Finally, some good news in a sea of gloom: A group of scientists and ethicists is now promoting the rights of people to pop performance-enhancing stimulants like Ritalin, Adderall and Provigil. Whereas now people who want to give themselves a bit more energy have to turn to Craiglist to find someone with "ski tickets," or have to go to the trouble of faking ADHD symptoms to a doctor, in the future the ability to improve "executive function" and memory should be easily available to all, they argue.

About 200 laid-off factory workers are all having a magical sit-in in a closed plant in Chicago, because 1933 just broke out. The Republic Windows and Doors employees, members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, have been occupying the window factory ever since management announced their abrupt, immediate layoffs, without pay, in violation of federal law. Republic Windows and Doors had their credit cut off by Bank of America, which just got a cool $25 billion from the Treasury, in order to help them, uh, unfreeze credit. But it's an old-fashioned labor/management standoff, with a big evil bank involed, and hey, Barack Obama came out in support of the workers this weekend. Maybe he will be a liberal!

John Krasinski is a true renaissance man: in addition to his work on The Office, he can count a Sundance directorial debut and a facility for Muppet arms to his credit. Still, one thing that may need a little more work is his incipient singing career, which he humbly debuted this past weekend in Los Angeles.

The weekend kicked off with a mild rumbler and closed out with a sputter, as not even Lionsgate's completely stupid Punisher remake of a remake of a remake managed to connect with completely-stupid-movie-loving audiences. Still, things continued to bode well for indepe—we mean specialty films—with Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, and a number of other brain-fertilizing offerings continuing to show specialty legs. That said—buckle-up for a ride on the post-Thanksgiving Deja Vu Express, aka the Grove Trolley to Movie Hell:

Just because we're in the midst of an apocalypse, people these days like to say, "Oh, the media is so negative. What about the good news?" Here's some good news: shut up. Times are bad, and if there's one thing the media loves, it's bad times, because bad times= lots of NEWS. Though the media does prefer bad times that don't involve media layoffs. Regardless, the important thing here is that bad news is not what you have to fear. Be scared when you start to see the good news. That's when you know the end is nigh.

Much has been written about the Plaza in recent weeks: Several people who purchased condos in the newly-renovated landmark have since sued the Plaza's owner, El-Ad, over various imperfections and unmet promises. Then there's the ill-timed "luxury mall" which recently opened in the building's basement, which features a store that sells cell phones for $310,000. If you've been having trouble keeping track of all the goings-on at the fabled building, here's a brief list of the Plaza's most notable moments from its debut in 1907 up to the present day.

For someone whose interview rider now includes stipulations like, "Three (3) bottles of Evian, one (1) bowl of peeled grapes, and absolutely no (0) questions about uicide-say," Owen Wilson couldn't have picked a better comeback vehicle that the innocuous dogcom Marley & Me. After all, what journalist could bluntly work in a query about wrist-slitting after asking tossing Wilson this softball: "Was there any specific moment when you realized you [and co-star Jennifer Aniston] had great chemistry?" Wait, did we ask what journalist? How about the one from the notoriously hard-nosed, er, USA Today, who tried nudging up to the elephant in the room in increasingly Wilson-unfriendly ways:

Art Basel Miami Beach, the super-chic Swiss-imported Important Art fair, still teeters along, the ruined economy denting its sales but not its woozy party atmosphere. ''All the sellers think it's 2007, and all the buyers think it's Miami Beach real estate," a dealer told the Miami Herald. So... even though nothing's actually getting sold (Herald reports that over half of the vendors have seen sales declines from last year), everyone is still pretending that artsy optimism is de rigeur. And they're getting some big help from mushy celebrities like Mary-Kate Olsen and the mostly-forgotten Pamela Anderson!

Wow, this beats even the douchey memos or subject-only e-mail missives we're used to receiving. Larry Gagosian, probably the richest gallerist in the world, sent this message to send to his staff in November: "If you would like to continue working for Gagosian I suggest you start to sell some art." The memo originally appeared on Flash Art Online, but now we can't find it—maybe because Gagosian is a big advertiser on that site?—and was also picked up by More Intelligent Life. The rest of the threatening memo—"If you are not willing to make that kind of commitment please let me know"—after the jump.

The culmination of our dedicated coverage of The Reader — from Rudin/Weinstein blow-ups to Oscar prognoses to its sexual audacity — arrived this weekend when director Stephen Daldry phoned Defamer HQ. "Sorry, I overslept," he said in his dignified brogue — a forgivable lapse under the circumstances, with his Kate Winslet film following his Billy Elliot stage adaptation by mere weeks on his late-'08 calendar. Nevertheless, we got him properly caffeinated and settled in for a rousing installment of Five Questions (plus one, just for appropriate awards-season breadth):