What did we learn about our favorite celebrities this week? Glad you asked!
· Katie Holmes: She got sheared (next up, tannis root?) and, when it comes to meals, she's half a person.
· George Clooney: He's a late night charmer (possibly in more ways than one) but fussy when it comes to being credited.
· Jessica Simpson: She was hospitalized for having too much sex (allegedly).
· David Letterman: Doesn't mind giving audiences his sloppy seconds.
· Harvey Levin: Was an idealistic young rabble rouser and a foul-mouthed C-Word dropper.
· Dan Waters: He proved the old maxim that writers are best heard and not seen.
· Lara Flynn Boyle: Her jowls are melting (and not in a good way).
· Jennifer Aniston: She taught us that the best way to assure that your roles don't begin drying up is to form your own production company. Also, is possibly schtupping Orlando Bloom.
· Diablo Cody: Isn't just a screenwriter, she's also a songwriter!
· Ben Stiller: Is vain enough to dye his hair.
· Brangelina: Had difficulty containing the hostilities between their multicultural brood.
· The Real World Cast: They're all older but by no means wiser.
· Katherine Heigl: Wants a baby whether or not her "rocker" hubby Joshua is ready, thinks gay men want her. Also, not opposed to wearing hideous jackets in public.

Anyone else have one of those crazy uncles who keeps heading to the hair salon for "touch-ups" just to avoid going gray? Well, Ben Stiller has officially become one of those crazy uncles who has hit the Just For Men bottle a bit too hard. Apparently unsatisfied with letting nature take its course, Stiller inexplicably showed up at last night's premiere of The Ruins with a fresh new dye job. After the jump, we track the metamorphosis of his locks from early strays to full on gray to, of course, his new back to black-ish look.

Oh, now we get it: That Polo Lounge power summit last week between Tom Cruise and Sumner Redstone was not the prodigal-son mea culpa we thought it was, smoothing the waters on which Cruise would coast back into the safe harbor of Redstone's reeling Viacom flagship. Rather, it was just a quick bite to catch up about Katie, Suri, Laurie and maybe for Cruise to apologize in advance for his scathing, fat-suited cameo as a depraved studio boss in Tropic Thunder:

You'd be forgiven if a visit to Tropic Thunder's website—where the trailer premiered today—led you to believe the movie featured billed stars STILLER and BLACK DOWNEY, as the preview ballsily features a good deal of Robert Downey Jr.'s white-Method-actor in blackface (and muttering stereotypical, The Jefferson's-theme-inspired dialogue in blackvoice). That said, there's lots to enjoy here, including the movie star archetypes that inhabit this Platoon-set-turned-real scenario—particularly Stiller's "Action Guy," whose previous roles required him to deliver catchphrase, "Who left the fridge open?" while BabyBjörning two tiny pandas.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often—the fate of the universe relies upon it! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you noticed Dennis Rodman manhandling a minor at Koi.

Unlike other, more culturally acceptable Hollywood race-swapping depictions—say, Rob Schneider's exciting work in the ugly-Asian-caricature arts, or even the Wayans brothers' attempt to slip into the alabaster skin of two chihuahua-toting cruise line heiresses—blackface steadfastly remains as reviled and controversial as ever. Which brings us, courtesy EW.com, to this first glimpse of Ben Stiller's "epic action comedy" Tropic Thunder—a movie he first conceived of as a young extra on the set of Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. (Why does that one detail suggest what we might be looking at here is Stiller's own Heaven's Gate?) In it, Robert Downey Jr. plays an actor so committed to craft, he becomes African American:

With preview scorecards rating his upcoming turn as a Hitler-hunting WWII war hero as "simply darling," and "eye-patch adorable! When and where can I get my kids a plush Col. Claus von Stauffenberg doll?" Tom Cruise has decided to take another drastic turn with his scrupulously managed big screen persona. A photo snapped on the set of Ben Stiller's superstar-cameo-packed Tropic Thunder reveals the actor has finally rid himself of his distracting Nazi bangs and SS uniform, replaced by a bald wig, prosthetic chest-fur collar, and a strap-on belly. (It bears mentioning that the latter is a mere enhancement, as his own doughy physique suggests one too many trips to Valkyrie's sauerbraten-and-strüdel-heavy cräft services table).

As we await the announcement of the theme of the WGA's next picketing event (we're hoping a petting zoo is involved, or at least a parade of more cute dogs in sweaters bearing protest slogans), here's the obligatory morning round-up of strike-related news.

· Universal is pushing the release of George Clooney's Leatherheads from December to April, so that Clooney can "incorporate additional footage and honor previous commitments," hoping that the extra four months will be more than enough time for the director/star to fix all the things they can't publicly admit they don't like about the film. [Variety]
· 30 Rock's season premiere Jerry Seinfeld stunt-cameo pays off, as the show set its series record for 18-49 viewers. CBS, however, won the night over ABC behind CSI and Survivor. [THR]
· Fox makes a series commitment to spooky, X-Files-ish, Twilight Zone-y J.J. Abrams show Fringe, which he plans to kick off with a $10 million, two-hour pilot. [Variety]
· About $20 million worth of people who were entertained by There's Something About Mary are expected to turn out to be disappointed by the Farrelly brothers' reunion with Ben Stiller in The Heartbreak Kid. [THR]
· Warner Bros. shells out $2 million for the bachelor party spec script Hangover (logline: Dude, Where's My Groom?), which they hope director Todd Phillips can crank out before the strike that may or may not be on its way. [Variety]

• Just when you thought nothing to do with the failed marriage of Two and A Half Men star Charlie Sheen and softcore somebody Denise Richards could ever, ever be interesting! ""Go cry to your bald mom, you [bleeping] loser," he emailed her once. Her mom is undergoing chemo. [Page Six]
  

At the height of Owen Wilson's very public personal crisis, Courtney Love uncharacteristically offered up her own, highly opinionated views on the topic—suicide and hard drugs being two subjects that run, pun only partially intended, deeply in her veins. Suspecting she knew exactly who and what led Wilson to his act of desperation, the singer told Us magazine that the culprit was Steve Coogan: A far bigger star in the U.K. than in the U.S., Coogan gained fame overseas for his TV portrayal of dim-bulbed newsman Alan Partridge. (In this clip, he fittingly admits he has no idea who Kurt Cobain is, and is baffled over why he might have taken his own life.) Coogan and Love had a brief affair, which was rumored to have caused a pregnancy, but that thankfully produced no illegitimate children—between Love's body dysmorphia and Coogan's English dental genes, the kid never stood a chance.

· After a decade in existence, DreamWorks is tantalizingly close to crossing the $1 billion box office mark for the first time. You know what that means: three-day weekend for everyone in the Paramount family! [Variety]
· Continuing the tradition of casting attractive female co-stars with questionable acting abilities he established in his Austin Powers films, Mike Myers has added Jessica Alba to the talent roster of his big-screen comeback, The Love Guru. [THR]
· Ben Stiller and his Red Hour Films will stay in the DreamWorks family for at least three more years, and to show how happy the studio was to renew their deal, they sent over one of their favorite creative executives for Stiller to do with as he pleases. [Variety]
· The NLRB rules that studios can't press WGA members into webisode slave-labor. Expect the studios to continue to refuse to pay for the new-media content and force PAs and writers' assistants to write the clips on their lunch breaks. [THR]
· TNT renews Saving Grace, USA reorders Burn Notice, and Lifetime picks up a second season of Army Wives. And there is still not a damn thing to watch on network TV this summer. [Variety]

· Critic-proof director/producer Brian Robbins takes on Jailhouse Rock, a film based on the real-life story of an American Idol-like signing competition (the "Inmate Idle Singing Con-Test") that took place in an Arizona jail, for Disney. While it's probably too soon to think about casting, it's hard not to imagine Robbins throwing some orange jumpsuits on his Wild Hogs dream team and letting them loose on renditions of "Summer Lovin'" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights." Projected opening weekend gross: $42 million. [Variety]
· Ben Stiller, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Paulie Walnuts, Bobby Baccala, Alicia Keys,and Sheryl Crow are among those who've signed up for Elmo's Christmas Countdown, a one-hour Muppets holiday special in which the famous will help the ticklish star count down the days to Jesus's birth. [THR]
· HBO renews Big Love for a third, 12-episode season, which should be completed well in advance of a possible strike. In other HBO news, John from Cincinnati still makes no fucking sense. [Variety]
· Fox wins another uneventful, creatively barren, rerun-heavy summer Monday night behind Hell's Kitchen and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? [THR]
· ABC greenlights Here Come the Newlyweds, a reality competition series in which six newly married couples fight to the death (or at least to the divorce) over a steadily increasing cash prize. [Variety]

· Watch out, Hollywood, because here comes Mitch Albom: Adam Sandler has acquired the rights to feature-writing debut (an untitled baseball comedy, if you must know) of the Five People You Meet On One More Tuesday With Morrie author, whose treacly bestsellers have been previously adapted into housewife-narcotizing TV movies. [Variety]
· In today's strangest casting pairing, Jude Law and Forest Whitaker will star in Universal's "futuristic adventure thriller" Repossession Mambo. [Variety]
· In other buddy-casting news, Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson and Nick "The Unkillable Aging Thoroughbred" Nolte have signed on to star in the Ben Stiller-directed comedy Tropic Thunder, which should create an amusing "before and after" Hollywood tableau the first time the actors share a two-shot. [Variety]
· Pirated copies of Michael Moore's Sicko proliferated on the YouTubes over the weekend, two weeks before the docimentary's opening. [THR]
· Today in writers' strike saber-rattling: The WGA West has warned its members to ignore the same old bullshit that studios are likely to spew as negotiations for a new labor agreement begin next month, such as claims that they are losing money in this terribly unprofitable entertainment business." Charges of counterbullshit by the studios include the accusation that the union is "out of touch with fast-changing showbiz realities." [Variety]

· CBS announces that Survivor's fifteenth (!) edition (tentative title: Survivor: Human Rights Violations) will shoot in China, which hopes that hosting an American reality TV series that's overstayed its welcome for ten seasons will somehow get people excited about the 2008 Beijing Olympics. [Variety]
· Mr. & Mrs. Smith writer Simon Kinberg has been brought on to overhaul the Ben Stiller/Tom Cruise project Hardy Men, hoping that the scribe will figure out a way to finally harness the duo's incredible comedic chemistry in a feature-length setting. [THR]
· AOL announces a slate of new, TV-style programming, offerings that are expected to immediately draw more viewers than the majority of NBC's primetime schedule. [Variety]
· Nearly 26 million Americans witnessed Simon Cowell do that thing with his eyes that has everyone so upset today, [THR]
· We'll have to check on this, but we think this story about the pitch (Inland Saints) Paramount bought for The Number 23 director Joel Schumacher, may have identified a totally new cinematic genre: "the supernatural urban drama." [Variety]

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you saw Val Kilmer imparting some surfer wisdom to his son at a Santa Monica surf shop.

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in like you mean it. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the most recent time you spotted Tony Hale purchasing a DVD of his own work:

· But how did yesterday's 416 point stock market bed-shitting affect the faceless multimedia corporations behind your favorite entertainment products, you ask? Disney was hit the hardest with a 6% fall, followed by Time Warner at 4%, and 2-4% drops by News Corp., CBS, Viacom, and Sony. [Variety]
· Kelsey Grammer's Grammnet Productions throws away a 15-year relationship with Paramount for a one-year fling with 20th Century Fox TV's younger, hotter piece of studio ass. [THR]
· Fox's Fifth Graders Humiliating Morons draws a depressingly huge 26.6 million viewers in its American Idol-boosted premiere. Realizing that the series' initial numbers might be a little inflated by its lead-in, the network hopes to continue to hold that audience's interest by adding an element to Fifth Grader in which the show's precocious ten-year-olds kick its contestants in the genitals after each incorrect answer. [Variety]
· Oscar winner Alan Arkin will join Little Miss Sunshine co-star Steve Carell underneath the Cone of Silence in Warner Bros. Get Smart movie adaptation. [THR]
· Robert Downey Jr. signs on to play "Kirk Lazarus, the greatest actor of his generation and a four-time Oscar winner" in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, but there's no mention if that's the role that Tom Cruise was reportedly hoping to land to extend his buddy time with Stiller past Hardy Boys. We'd hate for Downey to get blacklisted at Cruise's United Artists for stealing a role away from the new mogul. [THR]

• Hedge fund managers. They love themselves—because they must. [PJE Los Angeles]
  

The news may seem somewhat anticlimactic after word surfaced last week that Tom Cruise was talking to longtime friend and occasional impersonator Ben Stiller about bolstering Cruise Industries' comedy brand (which had languished since the actor's slapstick turn as a hapless hitman unable to kill a single cab driver in Collateral) by teaming up on the kind of buddy picture for which Stiller is well known, but today the trades are ablaze with word that the two actors will indeed join forces for Fox's Hardy Men.