· According to Us Weekly, peripatetic Hollywood do-gooders Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have just moved into a fourth, "charity vacation" home in New Orleans, whose local hardships will help teach the couple's overprivileged baby-blob about the harsh realities of life.
· CAA Sports is expected to soon be eating babies on behalf of LeBron James and Allen Iverson.
· The makers of the Jack Bauer action figure learned the hard way not to trust their prototype to Keifer Sutherland, especially when he's planning a bender.
· Golden Globes viewers probably noticed that something wasn't quite right with the zombie pitchman the Redenbachers greedily reanimated to sell some popcorn.
· Who could possibly believe that someone in this town might become a little obnoxious when given some power?

As of today, CAA has relocated to its intimidating new Century City headquarters (pictured above; we've Photoshopped out the ominously swirling, lightning-belching hellcloud the firm's partners had installed in the sky directly above the structure to remind the entire city of where the seat of industry evil is located, because we don't want to scare the children), finally forsaking the lesser agency chop-shops that clot Beverly Hills. And just one day into CAA's tenancy, longtime residents of the once-sleepy community are already watching their quaint little neighborhood be overrun by the pushy, Armani-attired hordes who will soon control The CC; we pass along the lament of one anonymous, dispirited local that was shared with us:

We're not exactly sure how we got on his e-mail distribution list, but a Wall Street lawyer who once appeared on the short-lived ABC attractive-people-screwing-on-the-beach reality series One Ocean View has announced his intentions to throw away everything he's worked so hard for to chase his crazy Hollywood dream of toiling soullessly in the bowels of a Wilshire Boulevard office building:

Normally, any development in an According to Jim cast member's love-life short of a Belushi-related murder-suicide wouldn't rate a mention, but taken with yesterday's news that Hilary Swank is finally owning up to her relationship with a member of the ten-percent-taking caste, we think we're seeing the beginnings of a troubling trend; should an actress form an emotional attachment to someone she should merely be screwing for the career benefits, she should keep that shameful fact to herself, and not further erode the accepted social order by trumpeting her misguided, taboo-defying love to the press.

Inspired by the wild success of the Sun Valley retreat, where billionaire media moguls gather each year to talk shop, paw at up-and-comers whose ideas they think will some day further enrich them, and hunt humans for sport with semi-automatic rifles in their downtime (an ill-advised, all-crossbow expedition resulted in too few fatalities to be fun), the William Morris agency has gathered over three hundred of its best foot soldiers in Palm Springs this week for some corporate bonding. The LAT reports on how WMA staffers will occupy their time in between restorative seaweed wraps:

A concerned operative just sent word that ICM's motion picture agents have been called into an emergency meeting, the purpose of which was unknown to our informant. (Layoffs? Unexpected shortage at the baby buffet? Emergency recall of those cute little clocks everyone got for Christmas because their mechanical innards are carcinogenic?) But another source tells us that the meeting was to announce that motion picture head Robert Newman (rep of Francis Ford Coppolla, Jonathan Demme, and a bunch of other high-profile directors, according to Studio System) has been poached by Endeavor, but that's all we've heard. Developing...

Shortly after we offered a tip of the Santa hat to last season's agency Grinch for improving upon the cheap, Santee-Alley-quality electronics it handed out in 2005 by upgrading to Apple gift cards, we received this report of the comparative lump of coal dropped in the stockings of CAA's wrong-coasted staffers:

As part of our continuing efforts to publicly celebrate the generous and chastise the miserly during this industry holiday gifting season, we pass along two more reports of what agencies are giving to employees and lower-ranking business associates this year. A reader lets us know that evil agenting monolith CAA has significantly improved upon last December's feeble offering:

Our latest holiday gift report comes from an ICM staffer who considerately provided us with this brief review and photo of the company's small (estimated retail value: $3.95) token of appreciation for its employees, which doubles as a subtle reminder that as long as one is part of the ICM family, all of one's time belongs to the agency:

The industry gifting season seems to finally be upon us, as we've received a couple of reports that UTA's present to assistants lucky enough to regularly handle the agency's calls have arrived; unfortunately, they seem to have squandered an opportunity for gift-giving creativity, falling back on last year's Wonka-inspired Lucky Bar (pictured—feel free to send in a picture of this year's version for comparison purposes), perhaps hoping to clear out some boxes of spare chocolate they had left over from Christmas '05. Says a reader:

Just one day after news surfaced that evil agenting monolith CAA has lost high-profile client Kate Hudson to rival Endeavor, Var reports that the Hugh Grant has decided that he no longer requires the agency's help in procuring the kinds of stammering-friendly roles for which he's known, choosing to have his legal representation assume all of the baby-gobbling responsibilities related to the advancement of his career:

Normally, we expect stories involving an A-lister's unexpected signing by a rival agency to follow a predictable script: a CAA client-acquisition specialist strikes the targeted talent on the back of the head with a blunt instrument as they wait at the valet stand of their soon-to-be former agency, roughly deposits them in the back seat of a black Escalade, then circles Beverly Hills until the still-groggy victim can be convinced that if their current representation truly loved them, they never would have been left unattended while they tried to retrieve their car. After a brief vomiting spell induced by the blunt force trauma finally subsides, a new member of the CAA family is invariably born.

· Following in the footsteps of fellow sickly A-lister Jim Carrey, M. Night Shyamalan shitcans his longtime rep at UTA, succumbing to CAA's promises to lovingly suckle him back to health with the career-restorative milk flowing from its pair of demon teats. Details are sure to follow, but we're sure that the sudden dumping occurred at the end of a meeting in which the twist-happy director deceived his former agency into believing he would remain with them forever, no matter how cold his career had become. [Variety]
· AOL is close to poaching NBC TV Group president Randy Falco. Feel free to be utterly titillated or completely uninterested by this executive-shuffling development. [THR]
Variety eulogizes the VHS tape. You will weep openly for the obsolete format that once brought you so much joy, then smash your tape-rewinder in agony over the loss. [Variety]
Astounding numbers of people continue to be interested in Dancing with the Stars, which scores 26.7 million viewers with its last performance show. Additonally, the premiere of William Shatner's gameshow, Show Me the Money, proves decidedly less shat-tastic than its exuberantly shat-punning ads promised. [THR]
The Weinstein Company signs an exclusive four-year video rental deal with Blockbuster, cruelly withholding titles like Bobby and School for Scoundrels from the world's crap-craving Netflix queues. [Variety]

This week's NY Observer profiles the founders of Fortress Entertainment, the company behind the upcoming Terrence Howard film Pride, using the twentysomething showbiz aspirants to illustrate the industry's recent infestation by producers looking for projects upon which to lavish hedge-fund cash. Of course, not everyone in town is particularly excited by the prospect of this new kind of player gaining influence in Hollywood:

In industry known for its blind adherence to its centuries-old caste system, there is perhaps no group more woefully disenfranchised than its Armani-clad, blood-extracting agent underclass. (See? There we go reinforcing the kind of systemic bias keeping them down.) Sure, they get their ten percent of the hard work of the creative types who actually "make" the movies, but what they really want is respect, the one aftermarket option they can't buy for their BMWs, no matter how effectively they sweet-talk their dealer. The Envelope calls attention to their struggle to finally gain the awards season voice that the Motion Picture Academy has cruelly denied them for so long:

The Farrelly Brothers, Hollywood's go-to guys for jokes about the handicapped, team up with Reveille (you know them better as the people who brought you Americanized versions of The Office and Ugly Betty) to adapt I'm With Stupid for NBC, the story of a guy who moves into his wheelchair-bound pal's home for the disabled. [Variety]
Trade Paper Redesign Mania! About a week after Variety got some cosmetic work done, THR unveils its own facelift. Don't worry, we're pretty sure that terrifying image of Rupert Murdoch is just tied to their top story, not a permanent fixture on their homepage. [THR]
· William Morris, always immune to the agenting fads that sweep up their younger, hipper rivals, are eschewing the currently hot relocation destination of Century City to kick it old-school in Beverly Hills, building a new headquarters just two blocks from their current office. [Variety]
Fox's World Series ratings rebound from a Saturday disaster to a respectable Sunday night number, raising hopes that this won't be the lowest-rated Series in history. [THR]
A NY judge orders to trial a case that claims that the idea for the Michael Bay disaster The Island was appropriated from Parts: The Clonus Horror, in which a clone escapes from the secret colony where he was being grown for spare parts. The highlight: DreamWorks' claim that the plaintiffs are "not entitled to any damages because 'The Island' wasn't profitable," an argument that seems to say it's OK to steal if the movie a studio eventually makes is shitty enough to bomb. [Variety]

Despite some inside information on the exact spot where Jim Carrey likes his ego stroked, Endeavor recently lost out on luring the disillusioned star away from UTA to hated agenting monolith CAA. But according to the LA Weekly's Nikki Finke, Ari's Kids have struck back by prying loose a CAA partner's daughter:

From the overflowing Nobody Knows Anything file: NBC is finding that all of their promotion of Studio 60 hasn't yet bought a hit, while lesser-hyped Heroes is getting the results that Aaron Sorkin is being paid untold millions to deliver. [Variety]
Rachael Ray scores the best opening week syndicated ratings since Dr. Phil, ushering in a new, perkier era of midday talk show evil. [THR]
In Russia, Kazakh period epic Nomad may face off against Borat for control of the "screen image" of the recently prank-besieged Central Asian nation. If Fox actually releases the Borat movie over there, the nomads aren't going to stand a chance against Sacha Baron Cohen's merciless, culture-ravaging onslaught. [Variety]
Dancing with the Stars crushes first-hour timeslot rival Friday Night Lights, which NBC will probably soon move from Tuesday night to Fridays to alleviate viewer confusion over its currently misleading title. [THR]
Kanye West is returning to William Morris after a brief, unsatisfying fling with CAA. Say it with us now: "CAA doesn't care about black people." [Variety]

Superstar-in-turnaround Jim Carrey, whom you undoubtedly remember recently had two high-profile projects shelved because of studios' reasonable fears of the budget overruns associated with the daily filming of two-hour improvisations centered on shiny props with which the actor might become fascinated, has left his latest project (along with co-star Cameron Diaz and director Gabriele Muccino, to be fair), A Little Game Without Consequence, just about two weeks before the planned start of filming. Variety writes the film's likely obituary, citing the usual "creative differences" as the cause of death:

When Jack Nicholson absentmindedly fished out a strap-on from the bowl of sex toys by his door on his way to The Departed set with a vague idea he might be able to incorporate it into that day's performance, he never could have imagined that the prosthetic appendage would eventually become the hottest supporting performer in town. The much-hyped sexual aid has again found its way into the gossip sheets, with Rush & Molloy drilling the actor about future projects he might share with his up-and-coming co-star: