· Variety leads with the story, "Will 'Code' erode?," which asks how X-Men: The Last Stand will fare at the box office this weekend opposite the still strong Da Vinci Code. Leading us to wonder out loud, "Does the mere posing of a question really qualify as a news story?" Or, for that matter, a lame trade round-up joke? [Variety]
· NBC's program-grid shell game has their competitors snickering behind their scrawny, fourth place ass. But it could well be they who laughs last, when Super Deal or No Deal, featuring a stadium of 1000 models holding briefcases containing amounts from $.01 to $1,000,000,000, devours the Thursday 6 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. time slot. [Variety]
· Canadian networks divvy up this year's American TV offerings, then frantically futz with their schedules in an adorable attempt at mimicking the habits of their neighbor to the south. [Variety]
· Morgan Freeman is close to signing on to Gone, Baby, Gone, Ben Affleck's directorial debut from a script he wrote, answering the age old question, "How many motorcycles does it take to get Morgan Freeman to star in your big comeback vehicle?" [THR]
· Les Moonves tells shareholders that CBS has gotten off to "a terrific start" since its divorce from Viacom, a less than subtle dig at rival Tom Freston. And somewhere in Heaven, the legend goes, the Angel of Corporate Honcho Harmony yelps in pain as a clump of wing feathers is instantly torn off. [THR]

Glinty-eyed imparter of Hollywood movie wisdom Morgan Freeman is seeking to raise funds to erect a monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington D.C. Celebrity pals Brad Pitt and Laurence Fishburne have each donated a motorcycle for a charity auction, while noted hog enthusiast Ben Affleck is selling two. From the auction website:

Ben Affleck's been a movie star long enough to fully understand movie premiere etiquette. For example, if he's somehow obligated to show his face at an opening because of unavoidable political reasons (i.e., his new Miramax boss's first film is screening), he knows that no one will even notice that he snuck out before the movie began if he leaves behind some photographic evidence of his presence:

With everyone on High Hoax Alert in the wake of the James Frey/JT Leroy scandals, the credibility of Rupert Murray's documentary Unknown White Male, about a friend of the director who suddenly developed amnesia, is being questioned. [Variety]
12-time Saturday Night Live host Alec Baldwin is in "final negotiations" to star with Tina Fey in her untitled behind-the-scenes-at-an-SNL-like-show pilot for NBC, which is obviously planning an all-behind-the-scenes-at-an-SNL-like-show programming block, having already ordered 13 episodes of Aaron Sorkin's behind-the-scenes-at-an-SNL-like-show series, Studio 60. [THR]
Gone Baby Gone writer/director Ben Affleck hooks up brother Casey with a role, ensuring that the family will continue to have at least one actor working in Hollywood. [Variety]
2.1 million watch Dick Cheney's post attorney-hunting interview on Fox News, prompting the right-wing news organization to plan a series of sweeps specials in which powerful Republicans shoot people in the face. [THR]
· It's official: the new Bond girl is Eva Green (tip to horny guys: go rent The Dreamers right now, she may never spend 30 percent of a movie naked again), sparing Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen from having to go through with the sex change operation necessary to play both roles convincingly. [Variety]

Stay-at-home dad Ben Affleck was apparently too busy with diaper-changing responsibilities to make the trip to Santa Barbara for the festival premiere of a film he's in, and Page Six reports that his director realizes that ass-kissing is mandatory only if your fading star actually shows his face at the screening:

· Tom Freston unveils the new Viacom for investors, which will adhere to a "two-pronged approach" of domestic niches and international expansion. Other prongs left unmentioned: fucking CBS Corp. employees out of everything they can, and laying off enough of their own Paramount workforce to start a studio of their own. [Variety]
· The always resourceful Universal finds a way to turn Curious George into a simian whore, placing products throughout the incorrigible monkey's animated movie. [THR]
· Six Oscar nominations (and a clever in-store display that hisses racial epithets at nearby shoppers) trick unwitting consumers into a Crash DVD purchase, causing video sales of the movie to jump 150%. The Constant Gardener and Cinderella Man DVDs also received boosts from Academy Awards nods. [Variety]
· Director Catherine Hardwicke is in negotiations to direct a movie about the life of the Virgin Mary before the birth of Christ for New Line. Please, God, let them skip the interactive sex games for this one. [THR]
· Affleck's career gets temporary stay of execution: Ben Affleck is finally successful in begging movie-star buddy Matt Damon to do another movie with him, as Touchstone makes a deal for a film starring the pair as real-life lawyers who exonerated a death row inmate. [Variety]

With an utter lack of recent cinematic material to scrutinize, we turn once again to Ben Affleck's offscreen life for inspiration. Fortunately, the paparazzi seem to be even more obsessed with the mundane reality of the onetime Daredevil's day-to-day existence than we are, capturing the peppy stay-at-home dad's errands with regularity. Here, the part-time actor gasses up the car in Brentwood while clutching a bottle of a health supplement called Muscle Milk, no doubt preparing his body for a rigorous workout pushing his newborn's stroller up the punishing inclines of his favorite Starbucks' handicap-access ramp.

Superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer knows a movie star when he sees one: he's at ease in front of the camera, has an elusive magnetism, and, most importantly of all, has a set of teeth so huge, ivory, and gleaming that they'd make Mr. Ed faint dead away from jealousy. As for the first two qualities, well, you're either born with them or you're selling used Toyotas in Cerritos. But the third? Yeah, Uncle Jerry can help you out with that:

In his wanderings, the Defamer Real Estate Correspondent inadvertently came across a property formerly owned by the first Bennifer incarnation (for those of you who suffered blunt head trauma around January of 2004, we're referencing the tabloid-friendly partnership of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez). In filing his report, he transports us back to a more innocent time, a time when two overexposed stars were on top of the world, unencumbered by flagging movie careers, more successful (Affleck) or creepy (Lopez) spouses, and the demands of new parenthood (Affleck only). Says our expert on ostentatious property:

A kind stranger reaches out a helping hand across the LAT Classifieds to Ben Affleck, whose recent movie career (zero 2005 releases, 2004 output of Surviving Christmas and Jersey Girl), hoping perhaps to save the actor from further bad career choices and a life hawking body spray in Argentina:

We recently posted a reader's blow-by-blow plot analysis of an Argentinian men's fragrance ad starring Ben Affleck, locally oversaturated movie star and director of Violet-burping, hitting the streets of Buenos Aires with a babe-tallying clicker. Today, a helpful reader points us to the ad itself, which is available for online viewing (simply click on the TV icon to "mira el comercial.")

New father and househusband Ben Affleck always seems to have a number of quiet side-projects cooking: uncompensated celebrity Starbucks endorser, unauthorized likeness model, and according to a reader spending some time outside the country, South American fragrance-advocate:

• We've no idea if this is even halfway accurate or not, but the picture at right is circulating the internets as that of recent celebrity spawn Violet Affleck. If it turns out that this is just a civilian baby, we don't care: we just wuv the cutesy-poo baby cuddle-bug. Crap, now our ovaries are twitching... [Violet Ann Affleck]
• Bad news for fans of the Cartoon Network — no, not that Cartoon Network, but the one that delivered pot to your door. Seems your delivery dude got busted. [Newsday]
• Downtown auteur love dies another death, as the rich-hipster romance of director Spike Jonze and Yeah Yeah Yeah's lead freak Karen O. ends in a miserable implosion. [Productshop NYC]
• Available at the CNN store in the Time Warner Center, it's the CNN Holy Cross Necklace. Get it for a Fox News fan you love. [Encyclopedia Hanasiana]
• Okay, fine: Here are the Jennifer Aniston topless photos. We found her GQ side-boob shot to be far more flattering. [Save Manny]
• Rapper Foxy Brown is almost completely deaf. Frankly, we always assumed most hardcore rappers were. [Starpulse]

No wonder Us Weekly was first with news of the Bennifer Garfleck baby. Apparently the constant pressure for celeb scoops has forced Janice Min's staff to develop clairvoyance.

Yeah, we know, the Starbucks-endorsed Hollywood couple of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner had their baby girl yesterday. We just didn't care, really: a new life born into the pantheon of celebrity offspring? Bah. They had to induce labor — yawn!

Us Weekly has just reported that Jennifer Garner has given birth, an announcement that required no fewer than five exclamation points to adequately communicate the giddy joy of new motherhood:

NY Daily News JV gossip Lloyd Grove hears that underemployed celebrity couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's much-photographed love affair with Starbucks™ brand caffeinated beverages might have a sinister, product placement component. Luckily, entertainingly grumpy superflack Ken Sunshine was available to deny Grove's report, even slipping in a public bitchslap of the paparazzi obsessed with Affleck's eggnog latte jones:

· "Schuth has said he fantasized about being married to 'Alias' star Jennifer Garner. At his sentencing, he said: 'I apologize to Jennifer Garner and her pool boy Ben Affleck for involving them in my fantasies.'" Amazingly, this is the least troubling part of the story.
· Michael Eisner showed his impeccable instincts by hating Johnny Depp's soused, Keith Richards-flavored performance in Pirates of the Caribbean . As it turns out, Eisner's fears were unfounded, and Depp did not ruin the film.
· Wanna see a turntable covered in blow? Of course you do.
· Pamela Anderson is shocked—shocked!—that the producers of Stacked, a sitcom with a title that puns on her prodigious, man-made rack, would dress her in clothes that showcase said factory-installed mams. Shocked!
· Jessica Simpson is photographed sans wedding ring, sans Lachey-unit, but with some other guy at a movie. These are all signs of a completely healthy, not at all maintained-solely-for-appearances union.

Apropos of nothing but a desire to ease into Friday morning without too much thought or effort, Towelroad has a bunch of screen grabs of an "Easter egg" from the Pearl Harbor DVD, where noted prankster and all-around good time guy Ben Affleck and onetime It-boy heartthrob Josh Hartnett reenact Affleck's famous "animal crackers" scene from Armageddon. Another secret DVD goodie features a montage of Affleck precariously dangling his genitals behind director Michael Bay's head, only letting his manhood drop on the fauxteur's shoulder at the precise moments he calls "action!" A furious Bay, victimized by Affleck's junk over and over again, finally threatens to cast the actor in every movie he ever makes as revenge—a threat, obviously, that he didn't have to balls to follow through on.

Even if Garner wasn't acting when she let it slip on national television that she's having a girl, this wasn't nearly as big an oopsie as getting "inadvertently" knocked up by Ben Affleck. Sometime during the fourth hour of labor, the actress will "accidentally" punch her husband in the genitals for convincing her that the pull-out method is an effective form of birth control.