Some measure of redemption for Britney Spears, whose disastrous VMAs performance was so universally derided that the one person on Earth willing to leap to her defense has become an international media superstar, may be just an uncomfortable, one-armed hug from Ryan Seacrest away. Us Weekly's website is reporting that Spears is "in negotiations" to put in an appearance at the Emmys on Sunday night, where she can apologize to millions of TV fans for her nationally televised attempted euthanasia of her enfeebled music career:

· NBC might be aborting the only new comedy it was planning to launch this year, its midseason adaptation of the British sitcom The IT Crowd—a potentially surprising development given that newly installed programming rock-star Ben Silverman's entire development philosophy involves the recycling of foreign hits for American eyeballs. [THR]
· At first, we misread the headline "Emmys party circuit heats up" as "Emmys circuit party heats up," a mistake that left us momentarily impressed by Variety's willingness to explore the awards season sexual subculture. Unfortunately, once we figured out our error, the actual story about the battle between ET/People and TV Guide to throw the best, thoroughly vanilla Emmy bash lost much of its sizzle. [Variety]
· Ricky Gervais plots his post-Extras career, taking the starring role in This Side of Truth, a comedy about the first liar in an all-truth world he co-wrote and will co-direct with partner Matt Robinson. [Variety]
· My So-Called Life and thirtysomething creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick are resurrecting Quarterlife, a pilot once killed by ABC, on MySpace, where it will hopefully be watched by millions of "creative twentysomethings" similar to its "constantly blogging" main character. We further expect some Flickring and Twittering to be integrated into its cutting-edge cyberplot. [THR]
· Lavishly golden-parachuted former Viacom execs Tom Freston and Jonathan Dolgen are pouring some of their severance cash into Michael Eisner's Veoh YouTube clone, having been told by hip financial advisors that "the kids love them some virals." [Variety]

· In case you haven't heard, Jon Stewart is going to host the Oscars again. Obligatory press release self-deprecation follows: "I'm thrilled to be asked to host the Academy Awards for the second time because, as they say, the third time's the charm." [Variety, THR]
· NBC greenlights a pilot for Rat Entertainment's cop drama Blue Blood, a project that will see the collision of irresistible party-boy force Brett Ratner with immovable rock-star object Ben Silverman, unleashing a wave of good-time energy that will likely reduce all of Hollywood to smoldering rubble. [Variety]
· The next time Hell's Kitchen star Gordon Ramsay sears his scrotum on a hot oven, it will be an Endeavor agent who holds the bowl of ice water into which he can dip his still-sizzling testes. [THR]
· Fight Club alter-egos Brad Pitt and Edward Norton reteam for Universal's State of Play, a feature adaptation of the British miniseries about a journalist's investigation into the murder of a congressman's girlfriend. We're unfamiliar with the source material, so we won't promise any scenes in which the duo strip off their shirts and stage a much-clamored-for FC rematch. [Variety]
· The Weinstein Company's $2-2.5 million purchase of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, ahem, reanimates the Toronto Fest market. [THR]

It seems that the Academy Awards' Ellen DeGeneres Era, one marked by frequent tuxedo changes and playful trips into the Kodak Theater audience for some daytime-talkshow-quality banter with nominees struggling to stay awake during the punishingly long telecast, is over, as it's been announced that 2006 host Jon Stewart has been reinstalled at the Oscar podium, allowing the comedian to forfeit his membership in Hollywood's shameful Chris Rock/David Letterman Memorial One-and-Done Club.

In these somber times, conventional wisdom states that the fashion for extravagant awards show gift bags has passed. Still, the impulse to pamper nominees lingers, living on in a circuit of illicit backroom gifting suites, where stars can indulge their most environmentally unfriendly swag urges to stack up on as many Louis Vuitton sable iPhone covers as their hands can carry. Even the stars's pets—spoiled in the past with everything from personal training sessions to therapy—are still trading in on the notoriety of their celebrated, poop-scooping owners:

· Because that weekend-house mortgage isn't going to pay itself, Don Cheadle signs on for the Emma Roberts vehicle Hotel for Dogs (plot more or less self-explanatory). [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Recycling Lightcycles Edition: Newly assigned Logan's Run director Joseph Kosinski is in "final negotiations to develop and direct" a new Tron movie from a top-secret idea by two Lost writers, a cutting-edge take rumored to involve Tron Guy's efforts to escape the YouTubes after being digitized into the viral video world by the evil Master Control Program. [THR]
· Fear of the looming labor apocalypse leads Roman Polanski to withdraw from his megabudgeted Pompeii project. [Variety]
· Cinea discontinues production of the magical, privacy-preventing DVD player that could play enchanted Oscar screeners issued by the MPAA's copyright-respecting wizards. [THR]
· Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson's Dreamgirls catfighting experience should come in handy on the set of the Sex and the City movie, where she'll play Carrie Bradshaw's assistant. [Variety]

Believe it or not, Andy Samberg accepting an award for a song about putting his engorged junk in a box wasn't the most controversial break from the tedium of this year's Creative Arts Emmys—a typically staid ceremony one commenter in attendance referred to as "a mind-numbing four and a half hour below-the-line awards show." That honor would go to Kathy Griffin's acceptance speech, and the Savior-sucking sentiments therein:

While our American audience can feel free to skip this post in lieu of ones favoring domestic gladiatorial work opportunities, we strongly felt the need to pass along this story to our Canadian readers—an editorial decision we reassure you was reached based entirely on its news merits alone, and not out of some deal made with their government to boost our Canadian content in exchange for an attractive array of bloggers' tax incentives.

There was perhaps no better moment in capturing the wildly divergent career paths taken by former Mickey Mouse Club co-stars and lovers Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears than this weekend, when Timberlake not only swept the same MTV trophy ceremony on which Spears hammered the last press-on nail into her comeback coffin, but also managed to score an Emmy award for a boner-joke parody song done as a lark for a Saturday Night Live guest-hosting stint:

· Ang Lee takes home the Golden Lion for Lust, Caution at the Venice Film fest, the movie you may remember as the recent victim of the MPAA's dreaded NC-17 rating because of its "graphic, artsy-fartsy depiction of fucking." [Variety]
· Gus Van Sant attaches Sean Penn and Matt Damon to his long-in-development biopic of openly gay politician Harvey Milk, with Penn playing Milk and Damon taking the role of his suddenly likable assassin. Tomorrow, competing Milk project director Bryan Singer will escalate the casting arms race by announcing he's got Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt "this close" to signing on to his Mayor of Castro Street adaptation. [THR]
· The Creative Arts Emmys are topped by—surprise!—HBO, with 15 statues. [Variety]
· NBC destroys its Sunday night Nielsen competition with the season debut of Sunday Night Football. [THR]
· In other unsurprising, awards-related news, Gil Cates will be back to produce the Oscars a record-breaking 14th time, which he promises "will be just as overlong and filled with inscrutable interpretive-dance numbers as my 2006 triumph." [Variety]

What is left to say when one of the most anticipated VMA performances in years bombs so badly, it causes Kid Rock and Tommy Lee to very nearly come to fisticuffs trying to one up each other trading "Yo Britney" jokes, while finally justifying Sean "Diddy" Combs's single, painfully confused facial expression? A round-up of what some of the world's (yes, the whole world was watching) critics thought about Britney Spears' comeback performance:

Having steadily risen the variety show emceeing ranks since he was plucked from relative obscurity by the immaculately manicured hand of Merv Griffin himself, it was really only a matter of time before American Idol host and E! red carpet munchkin Ryan Seacrest would be asked to preside over a major awards telecast. But until that day comes, he's more than happy to take on the Emmys. Talking to THR about the high-profile gig, Seacrest spoke of having to stretch past his copy-regurgitating comfort zone into the realm of jazz-hand-waving song and dance man:

A: Nab Carlos Mencia for the Creative Arts Emmys: "Carlos will keep everyone in the audience on the edge of his or her seat — especially the censor. We're thrilled to work with him." [AP]

We suspected strange things were afoot at the Circle K when Larry Birkhead awkwardly shuffled down the Teen Choice Awards red carpet. Somehow, we doubted girls of age 13-17 gleefully taped up posters of Anna Nicole's sperminator next to shots of Zac Efron's hair. Turns out our Spidey Sense was right—Birkhead had been nominated alongside such crackpot luminaries as Lindsay, Britney, and Sanjaya for a category that was abruptly scrapped when certain crazy bitches put on panties just so they could get them in a wad:

· The TV Academy continues cracking down on "the rampant proliferation of the producer credit" by capping comedy series Emmy nominations at 11 and drama nods at 10 for a second straight year. How bad had things gotten? "Business affairs execs and studios were giving people producing credits just because they could," says one nameless Academy official. This outrage ends now. [Variety]
· The Toronto Film Festival officially surrenders to Hollywood. [THR]
· We hate to do this after just one episode, but when the trades are throwing around words like "dismal" to describe a new show's ratings, the CancellationWatch must begin: Fox's Anchorwoman draws only 2.7 million viewers and a 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic, less than half of the numbers pulled by competition on NBC and CBS. [Variety]
· Buy your tickets now: Rosie O'Donnell will be opening the New York Comedy Festival. You won't want to miss what she's got planned for that giant photo Elizabeth Hasselbeck this time! [THR]
· In a much-clamored-for reunion of Shrek the Third castmates, Justin Timberlake is joining the cast of Mike-Myers-doing-a-funny-accent-comedy Love Guru. [Variety]

Harvey Weinstein, seasonal mounter of bloody, take-no-prisoners Oscar campaigns that leave scores of voters forever scarred by his onslaught, knows that it's never to early to start For Your Consideration pimping for his beloved talent. In a NY Times story about the strategically slow rollout of I'm Not There, the Bob Dylan biopic (trailer here for the curious) in which the musician is portrayed by no fewer than 700 different actors, Weinstein threatens suicide if his favorite Dylan isn't recognized by the Academy:

As much as we'd like to see our favorite celebrity marriages succeed, the sad truth is that the majority of romantic unions featuring one or more paparazzi-targets will end in crushing disappointment, as the two slowly come to realize that the disparity in their per-picture asking prices has wedged a permanent rift between them. Still, like so many other blatantly obvious yet unspoken Hollywood truths, that fact is never actually addressed. Instead, we get familiar clichés like "irreconcilable differences," and publicist mainstay, "the two remain great friends"—all of which makes the former Mr. Uma Thurman's candidness on the subject at a recently taped episode of Shootout all the more refreshing:

· Renee Zellweger will star with Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris in the western Appaloosa, which we hope will provide ample opportunity for a spunky, bonnet-rocking Zellweger to fire a shotgun and exclaim, "You git outta my town, ya hear?" in the direction of the movie's "renegade rancher" antagonist. We love it when she does period gritty. [Variety]
· Fox's apocalypse-quickening reality TV guru Mike Darnell consolidates his power within the network by signing a new multiyear deal, officially giving him more autonomy to launch unscripted programming without the interference of other executives who believe that shows like Are You Smarter Than This Recent Massive Head Trauma Victim? might push the envelope a little too far. [THR]
· New Line's Russell Schwartz is ankling as the studio's head of marketing. We just hope that his replacement demonstrates a similar level of vision that will allow future, groundbreaking online promotions involving the performance of virtual cunnilingus on their movie heroes' wives. [Variety]
· Local news icon Hal Fishman, KTLA's anchor of more than 30 years, dies at 75. [THR]
· AMPAS is banning the mailing of For Your Consideration film score and song CDs, decreeing that the music needs to be evaluated in the context of the movie. Composers and studio music execs have begun the process of formally expressing their outrage, possibly by the mass burning of FYC screenplays in protest of the "out of context" principle that might limit voter access to their work. [Variety]

· X-Men fans, take heart: Tsotsi's Gavin Hood, not X-Men 3: The Last Gasp of a Once Vital Franchise's Brett Ratner, has signed on to direct Wolverine. [Variety]
· It's official: NBC's Ben Silverman is the new Norman Lear. In producing two of the Emmy nominees for best comedy (The Office and Ugly Betty), Silverman has equalled a feat last acheived by his idol, who in 1973 earned sitcom nods for All in the Family and Maude. [THR]
· In other Emmy oddities, Fox's instantaneously premiered/canceled Drive makes history as the first-ever Primetime Emmy broadband nominee for a three-minute clip that streamed on Fox.com. [Variety]
· Upon learning of her Emmy nomination for her work on Brothers & Sisters, Sally Field was overwhelmed by a Meg-Ryan-in- When-Harry-Met-Sally-quality orgasm, a spasm of ecstasy so paralyzing she was unable to do her usual, "You like me, you really really like me!" schtick. [THR, THR]
· When John Travolta in drag and fake gay-married firefighters clash at the box office, no comedy fans will escape unscathed. [Variety]

While it's always nice to read Emmy nominee reactions, attempts at not coming across as too boastful can sometimes make for colorless quotes. Luckily, blogging Bravo executive Andy Cohen is never one to dampen his enthusiasm for anything him-related, and so we take you now to his report from the Bravo offices, where staffers are so ebullient over their nine nominations, they are offering free hand-jobs to all takers: