Soloist Silenced Yet Again: AFI Fest is scrambling this morning after Paramount yanked The Soloist from the event's opening-night premiere slot — not a totally unforeseen move considering the film's recent bump to 2009, but one the festival and studio had both maintained would not happen so close to AFI's Oct. 23 bow. For now, anyhow, the studio's other awards-season dumpee Defiance is still on the fest slate for closing night. We actually wouldn't be shocked to see that film named the new opener and something like Frost/Nixon or Twilight moved into the closing-night spot, but who knows — festival reps are mum for now, saying only that the new selection will be announced later today. Call your shots. [AFI Fest]

A Manhattan judge handed down a 4 1/2-year sentence to Raffaello Follieri this afternoon on wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges. Anne Hathaway's ex-boyfriend is expected to serve his sentence at either Fort Dix or Otisville. (He'll have to cough up a $1,400 fine, too.) But he's really sorry: "I just hope that someday those who have been hurt by my actions will forgive me," he said to the judge through a translator. [People]

Microsoft says that Windows 7, the badly needed replacement for Windows Vista, the operating system so laughably bad it tried renaming it, is coming out in 2010. Officially. But Mary Jo Foley, the longtime Microsoft observer, thinks it's coming sooner — before the middle of next year, quite possibly. Foley has plenty of sources she talks to on the phone, but she does some of her best work piecing things together at her keyboard.First clue: Microsoft has said Windows 7 will ship before the next WinHEC event, a conference for PC makers who license Windows. Second clue: While Microsoft hasn't publicly announced a date for the next WinHEC, a New Orleans convention site lists it as happening next May — something Foley found not by dialing for dollops of information, but rather by Googling it.

We suppose there's nothing particularly shocking about seeing a professional underwear model—in this case, Miley Cyrus's 20-year-old tongue-interest, Justin Gaston—in his underwear. Still, that does little to diminish the thrill of witnessing him captured in his natural habitat—sheathed in close to nothing, save the name of a prominent fashion designer stretched along his hipbones in three-inch-high letters. The outstretched middle finger may say, "Screw the Disney star-making system!" but the tenderness with which he embraces Mile—hey, wait a second! That's not Miley! Whore! More scandalizing photos after the jump!

The battle over Bianca Jagger's rent-controlled apartment at 530 Park Avenue is finally over, and it looks like Mick Jagger's ex is going to have to start looking for another spread to call home. In an unanimous decision this morning, the Court of Appeals ruled that Jagger's 18th-floor apartment—where she paid $4,600-a-month in rent before her eviction in 2007—couldn't possibly be her "primary residence," because she's only in the U.S. on a tourist visa. Happy hunting! [NYDN]

We've been wondering when Second Life's users would start fleeing the virtual ghost town. It's happening! Online-only performance troupe, Second Front, is stepping out into the real world. The artsy avatars will join a live audience at Cameraworks from 5-8 p.m. for "Identity Theft Virtual," an interactive piece between two worlds. For even more kitsch, LOLArts is hosting an art auction. You can buy sometimes serious cat art in the name of reading from 7-9 p.m. On the peninsula, Tesla Motors may be hurting, but the Menlo Park showroom is still open for partying. TheFunded.com is hosting a sold out CEO-only event at Tesla from 6:30-9 p.m. (TheFunded.com's Adeo Ressi was new Tesla CEO Elon Musk's college roommate.) Didn't anoint yourself a founder until yesterday? Don't panic. There are still a few "reserve" tickets on sale for a cool $100. To hobnob like a Facebooker, head to their Palo Alto headquarters for "Facebook Tech Talk" from 6-8 p.m. The topic: chat. (Photo by pathfinderlinden)

After Regis confronted Whoopi Goldberg today about the inter-host fighting on The View, we had a feeling that our exclusive report about backstage tensions between Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck might be addressed on today's installment, and that both Behar and Hasselbeck would summarily dismiss the conflict as a load of Sheetzucacapoopoo. What we didn't expect was the weird, elusive way the hosts attempted to talk around the issue.Sure, Hasselbeck denied the story, but Goldberg then assured folks that the View co-hosts would never have personal fights in front of the audience, neatly skipping the fact that the blowup in question was said to happen backstage. Also less than forthcoming? A major Behar/Hasselbeck reconciliation. The closest the two came was when Behar tactfully said, "If she doesn't say the crazy things she says, how can I say the crazy things I say?" Then, after deriding the gossip about their feuding, Goldberg launched into gossip about other celebrities feuding. Nice segue, Sister Act!

In a briefing with journalists, Dell CEO confirmed the completion of his company's 8,500-people layoff. He was not demonstrably saddened, as is normal founder practice when discussing layoffs. But he did point out a recent IDC report showing Dell "outpacing" the rest of the PC industry. If Dell's falling stock price is any indication, the company might be outpacing everyone to the poorhouse. (Photo by eschipul)

Disney's back-ordered fleet of Brinks trucks had better arrive soon: High School Musical 3: Senior Year is tracking for a $38 million opening weekend, with Beverly Hills Chihuahua anticipating another $6 million in its fourth week of release. Those grosses would likely land the all-ages tandem together in the Top 5 at the box office — the first time two non-Pixar Disney titles have shared that space since 1994. Useless trivia? We think not — and we aren't alone.Nikki Finke has her own interesting read this morning, pointing to the even rarer phenomenon of a cable movie franchise so lucratively crossing over to the multiplex. Series are one thing, and rarely a lock themselves (Disney only had a Hannah Montana blockbuster at the ready because it brought cameras on tour with Miley Cyrus), but we'll buy lunch at the Grill for the first reader who can name a made-for-TV feature that spawned a theatrical No. 1. (Opposite another cash cow like Saw 5, no less.) And then s/he can buy us a life. We'll have more fearless predictions tomorrow in our Defamer Attractions column, but in the meantime, expect Disney to have greenlighted Camp Rock 3D: Escape of the Jonases for IMAX by the the time you finish reading this sentence.

Got layoffs? Don't spend hours crafting the perfect "Hard Times, Hard Choices" blog post for your leader. Here's how to hack the media to deliver your message:

There are more TV shows than ever devoted to the exploits of rich, privileged brats, reports the Times—even though the acquisitive, cosseted lifestyles of the likes of Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass are in stark contrast to what's going on in the wider world. But don't blame us, say TV execs, we're just giving the public what it wants, or more specifically, what the most important consumer group—tween girls—wants. It's 11 and 12 year old girls who are "the least psychologically affected by a wildly fluctuating stock market and grim headlines," says sociologist David Grazian, and they have more disposable income than "at any other time in our history." So now you know why every other commercial at the moment is for Clearasil—or indeed why names like Ashley Tisdale and Zac Ephron are as annoyingly familiar as Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

Elizabeth Spiers is doing a new thing! Spiers, the Gawker founding editor-turned-media mini-mogul and closely watched savant of the blog business, is already talking about her next project, which doesn't have financial backers yet. It's going to be an "online magazine" (translation: blog) aimed at women. Uh oh, does that mean she's taking on our sister Jezebel?

Oh happy day! 30 Rock, Tina Fey's funniest-show-on-TV backstage screwball fest, isn't scheduled to premiere until next week. But, because sometimes the internet is a wondrous and giving technodiety, the season opener is now available on Hulu! (Thank you New York Observer, for pointing this out to us!) Now some of you delayed-gratification crazies out there may want to wait until next week, but I say poo to that. If the bowl's in front of you, you gotta smoke it. So we've embedded the episode after the jump. Enjoy. Nick, I'm... um, taking lunch.

Lindsay Lohan has been busily reforging the career she whittled away during her extended stint as the Norte del Valle cartel's number one point-starlet—a plan which began, somewhat inauspiciously, with a six-episode arc on Ugly Betty, playing the title character's childhood menace. Now come reports that Lohan's set antics and an ongoing feud with Ugly star America Ferrera have reduced that number to four, and resulted in at least one unplanned flash of ginger from which the crew has yet to recover. Page Six reports:

Imeem is laying off a quarter of its 80-person staff, PaidContent reports. The music-centered social network has been more adept than many of its rivals at navigating the cutthroat music business. But one of its backers is Sequoia Capital, the ruthless VC firm which has ordered its portfolio companies to slash expenses. Imeem is also seeking to sell itself, with the help of investment bank Montgomery & Co. Imeem may be better than most digital-music startups — but it is still a digital-music startup, faced with fickle consumers, thin margins, and antagonistic partners in the record labels.

♦ Cuts have arrived at Hearst: Cathie Black (left) is "going floor by floor at the Hearst Tower to trim costs and staff positions." [WWD]
♦ Lloyd Grove talks to Tina Brown about her new site and the economic climate: "It's pretty scary. It's scary, scary, scary." [Portfolio]
♦ The New York Times Co. reported profits fell 51 percent for the quarter amid the drop in advertising sales. Traffic to the Times website, however, is up. [Bloomberg, AP, NYO]

"Feel the music... the music... the music... oh my God, your aura, it's purple! Your aura is purple! My hand feels so weird, look at my hand!" Ohai! Just rolling on Ecstasy. Would you like to see a snapshot of 99 differently-branded X pills? There's even an Apple one for the lifestyle fetishists. Also, Honda. (But what about GM? Oh, right, better not to brand a pill with an auto company whose stock is at its lowest level since 1950.) [Full array at Erowid via Kottke]

Have you heard the one about the ghost who haunts the Bowery Hotel and makes the elevators go haywire every night at 1 a.m.? We hadn't either. But that's what a vampire expert is telling people, and just in time for Halloween, too! [HotelChatter]

Gazillionaire Netscape founder Jim Clark is getting married for a fourth time — and the bride wore very little. Her name is Kristy Hinze, an Australian swimsuit model who has been dating Clark for some time. Hinze is 28, Clark is 64.Hinze, the host of Project Runway Australia, was first spotted on Clark's $100 million megayacht, the Athena, two years ago, while Clark was wrapping up a $125 million divorce settlement with ex-wife Nancy Rutter, a former Forbes reporter, PEHub notes. Small world: Hinze will be YouTube founder Chad Hurley's stepmother-in-law. He's married to Clark's daughter Kathy.

The line on Sarah Palin's $150,000 shopping spree is that it, uh, hurts her blue collar cred. It's not very "Joe the Plumber" to spend more than three times the median American household income on a month's worth of clothes from elitist high-end stores. The woman's Real American authenticity has been her best asset, but that huge number, those receipts, the stores, all of those shocked everyone. Because she still looks exactly the same! Which is why this story isn't as simple as it's been painted. She's not beer heiress Cindy McCain pretending to be a woman of the people (which Cindy has obviously never done)—Palin was handed a blank check to go shopping, and she shopped exactly like a typical upper-middle class suburban mom would've shopped. And all the criticisms of her shopping are actually elitist! Seriously! Always hilarious Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan wrote all about Sarah Palin's "exceptionally ordinary" style just last month.