Gavin Newsom, the shiny-haired mayor of San Francisco who's running for governor of California, told Bill Maher Friday night that things won't be that bad if newspapers die. We'll still have blogs!

Don't get us wrong: We despise the arrogant and overpaid financiers responsible for this economic mess. They, not taxpayers, should pay for their incompetence. But banker hatred is starting to get worrisomely extreme.

Barack isn't the only one with a reason to celebrate today. Georgina Bloomberg, the daughter of New York's mayor, turns 26. Real estate developer Kent Swig is 48. Newsweek editor and CNN fixture Fareed Zakaria is turning 45. Famed cardiologist Valentin Fuster is 66. The Office's Rainn Wilson is turning 43. Bill Maher is 53. Director David Lynch is 63. James Denton is turning 46. Lorenzo Lamas is 51. Buzz Aldrin is turning 79. And Melissa Rivers, the daughter of Joan Rivers, is 41 today.

The lauded, mishandled film Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired saw its high Oscar hopes perish Monday when the Academy announced its shortlist of candidates for this year's Best Documentary Feature prize. It joined other conspicuous snubs including the year's top-grossing doc Religulous and the follow-up doc from last year's winner Alex Gibney. But there's a bit of extra sting afflicting Wanted and Desired, which compellingly challenged Polanski's 1978 rape conviction and eventual exile in Paris and was a Sundance darling before HBO acquired it for broadcast last summer. As you might recall, that could have gone better — both then and now.The network's attempt to qualify the film for Oscar consideration — by burying it for a week in the farthest reaches of L.A. and Manhattan — denied it the "true release" Academy voters are fond of; a later theatrical run grossed less than $60,000 and hastened its fade from Oscar consideration. Religulous pulled the same stunt prior to premiering at Toronto in September; it fared better with Lionsgate behind it, earning $12.5 million since its release Oct. 1. But that's about all the gold it'll get. On the bright side, Werner Herzog is a step closer to his first Oscar nomination; the Bavarian maverick was shortlisted for his quirky Antarctic adventure Encounters at the End of the World. Any fan of his jilted 2005 classic Grizzly Man will agree justice delayed remains justice denied, but every bit helps. He'll face old pal and '04 winner Errol Morris, whose Iraq doc Standard Operating Procedure was shortlisted as well and whose vying against Herzog for an Oscar is itself the surreal, cerebral stuff of a feature-length doc in the making. Or at least we hope so; those guys film everything.

Arianna Huffington's thick Greek accent is usually a social asset. It adds spice to a televised panel discussion, and on the party circuit encourages a conversation partner to lean in intimately to understand the former socialite's words. But give the internet publisher her own hourlong TV show, as with her guest-hosting stint tonight on the Rachel Maddow Show, and the accent becomes a liability, like a single seasoning taking over a dish. "You can't understand a word she says and she even makes my cat get irritated," one tipster wrote 20 minutes into the program.

The longer-than-anyone-expected-or-even-thought-remotely-possible reign of Ben Stein's anti-evolution screed Expelled: No Intelligence Required atop the year's documentary box office is nearing its end, we hear. And naturally, it's the heathens knocking it down: After outlasting withering reviews and a desperate legal broadside by Yoko Ono, Expelled's $7.6 million gross is expected to succumb this weekend to Bill Maher's godless hit Religulous — itself a $7 million earner in two weeks of release. But while Expelled may lose the ticket battle, is it still the winner in the culture war?You could make an argument either way (and believe us — people are), but Lionsgate never left much doubt that it would obtain the top-doc spot sooner or later. Yet while it's never been on more than half as many screens as Expelled — 568 to 1,062 — Religulous had the compounded advantages of a Toronto Film Fest launch, Maher tearing up Sherri Shepherd and anyone who would sit still for him on national TV, aggressive, conspicuous marketing, and a furtive NYC/LA residency to help qualify for its forthcoming Oscar nod. In the end, all that topping Expelled means this weekend is that Lionsgate's $3 million diatribe might break even earlier than expected. Expelled's budget was about the same, but stunned observers by finishing in the top 10 its opening weekend with little more than a grassroots push by the marketers who brought you The Passion of the Christ and other Christian-themed hits. Among them, Kirk Cameron's Fireproof carried the baton into fall with $17.2 million in less than three weeks. All due respect to Maher and Co., but that might be the long-term business to be in during bleak industry patches like this. Just avoid chihuahuas — you can't lose.

Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your weekly guide to everything new, thrilling and thoroughly unnecessary at the movies. And we've got plenty of each to go around today as seven films are opening or expanding on 1,000 or more screens, a pair of Oscar-chasing indies open small and a legion of talking dogs threaten to overtake the box office. You can't say we didn't warn you. So read on for our picks, poxes and DVD alternatives for those of you too overwhelmed to face the multiplex. We feel your pain. As always, our opinions are our own, but with unfailing taste and accuracy like this, why argue?WHAT'S NEW: This is the week we've been waiting for since May, when Disney ignored our urgent plea to immediately release Beverly Hills Chihuahua from its high-camp captivity. And now that it's here, we're kind of over it; blame it on last month's chihuahua-only sneak preview. Not like the sadists at Disney need us: BHC is this week's only new family release and will do business accordingly, setting up for around $32.3 million over the three-day. The Michael Cera/Kat Dennings effort Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist will ride teens and the date crowd to about $17 million, which still won't be enough to overtake Eagle Eye for second place. Nothing else will break $10 million; Greg Kinnear's windshield-wiper biopic (!) Flash of Genius is on too few screens, Julianne Moore's dodgy drama Blindness will fall victim to the angry blind lobby, and Ed Harris's expanding Western Appaloosa couldn't find traction when it was on 1,000 screens, let alone 2,000. Most of the remaining release slate looks like a gang of orphans hassling tourists for change: Jia Zhangke's acclaimed Still Life; the timely, revealing political doc Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, Rutger Hauer's psychological love-triangle drama Mentor; Obscene, the story of Grove Press publisher Barney Rosset; the Muslim stand-up concert film Allah Made Me Funny, and the Iraq-vet basket case drama The Violent Kind. THE BIG LOSER: MGM's hard-luck streak looks likely to continue with How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the adaptation of Toby Young's thinly-veiled bestseller about his misadventures in the Conde Nast empire. It won't fail for lack of trying — at least not with a cast including Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Megan Fox and Jeff Bridges rocking his best Graydon Carter impression — and a month ago, in less-congested times, this may have even had some multiplex leverage. But in this glut, with the reviews it's receiving and audience awareness less than half of what it needs to be, expect a $3 million opening and quick dispatch to DVD. Where, in fairness, the Fox connection will more than make up for it stillbirth at the box office.

After Bill Maher sat down with TV Guide last month to rip into Sherri Shepherd's religious beliefs, we figured his days of guesting on The View had been put firmly behind him. Imagine our surprise, then, when some crafty producer booked Maher for a slot on today's View to promote his new (to the world outside Claremont) film, the controversial, religion-debunking Religulous. Would sparks fly?Lord, yes. Things came to a head at the end of Maher's segment, when Shepherd asked the skeptical Maher whether he had ever spoken with God. Needless to say, he had not, and when Shepherd replied that she had, Maher recommended a stint in Bellevue. As Whoopi Goldberg hurriedly threw the show to commercial, a grinning Elisabeth Hasselbeck clearly exulted in the fact that for once, she wasn't the controversial one. Who needs a "cooling off" now, eh, Babs?

Borat helmsman Larry Charles says he intends to "destroy" organized religion with his newest flick, Religulous, starring Bill Maher. "I don't think 'debunk" is the right word,' he says. "I want to destroy more than debunk, just destroy the whole system." Maher chimed in: "I was raised a Catholic. But by the time I became an adult, scientific thought and rational evidence led me to believe otherwise. You know, when I was a kid and got a cavity I had mercury drilled into my teeth. Then, when I got older, they drilled it out-you can do the same with religion." Such mavericks! The fact that it's a Borat-style "documentary" in which dumbasses are strung up by their own words has dumbasses everywhere complaining even before it hits theaters.

Part of getting in shape for our epic Emmy liveblog this Sunday involves gritting it out through even the toughest conditioning regimens. Today is our equivalent of the Alps stage of the Tour De France: Like the shameless cultural terrorist he is, halfwit Gold Derby gadfly Tom O'Neil videotaped his recent ambush of Real Time host Bill Maher, a 20-time Emmy loser who stands to notch No. 21 this weekend when he faces The Daily Show in the Variety category. (O'Neil notes 19 in the video, but Maher added another at last weekend's Creative Arts ceremony.) Observe after the jump how gracefully Maher handles his inquisitor's googly-eyed ineptitude before finally indulging a variation on the ageless "Who wants one of those ugly-ass trophies anyway" defense. Clearly he has bigger prizes in mind; we'll witness history Sunday either way. Join us! [Gold Derby]

Pope-hating straight talker Bill Maher is seriously considering putting some money in failing Washington Mutual now that they're offering free blow jobs with every account. Click to watch the sadly plausible series of fake ads that get worse and worse until we're all broke and can't afford a blow job anyhow.

While promoting his new documentary Religulous (the hit of Claremont, CA!), the politically incorrect Bill Maher sat down with TV Guide for its upcoming August 25 issue. After discussing the religion-bashing doc, talk turned to The View (because when doesn't it?), and Maher was asked for his opinion on notorious flat-earther Sherri Shepherd. His response earned him a round of playground high-fives and "oh snaps":

The forthcoming Bill Maher/Larry Charles satirical doc Religulous has been on Lionsgate's release calendar for what seems like forever; we remember seeing teaser posters for it at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, where it was recently announced as a world premiere this year. Confusing! But not as confusing as the revelation that you and yours can see the film this week in one of those increasingly en vogue "Oscar dump runs" in LA and New York. The tactic mirrors that of HBO, which last spring sneaked Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired into two theaters to qualify for Oscar consideration — except that Religulous actually has an Oct. 3 release date in the States. So what gives, and where can you see it? Find out after the jump.Academy rules dictate that documentaries must screen for at least one week in Los Angeles County and Manhattan before the qualifying deadline of August 31. Thus, if you're up for a schlep out to the Laemmle Claremont 5 or, in NYC, the Coliseum Quad in Washington Heights, you can be the among the first to see Maher and Charles torment the Christian Right and other supposed fanatics. The early run is especially unusual in the context of Toronto, where the "premiere" classification is generally sacrosanct for distributed films of this size and budget. But hey — it is just Claremont, and most observers seem to agree that major papers won't run reviews the way they did for Polanski, potentially undercutting the unveiling up North. That said, we're happy to air your opinions below if you've got the much shorter journey in you in the days ahead. We think we can wait for October.

Talk show host, funny cynic, health freak, and kind of a huge prick Bill Maher has a documentary on religious zealots in America coming out called, er, Religulous. I know, he says "No" just to say "No" and his schtick is kind of retarded, but this movie actually looks good to me. And since the trailer just came out, here it is.

The Mohammad cartoons, the purposefully extra-offensive South Park episodes, and Bill Maher: not funny. Also, if you ignore them, they can't hurt you! SO WHY DON'T PEOPLE EVER IGNORE THEM? Bill Maher said something OUTRAGEOUS about the Pope, and the Catholic church. The outrageous thing he said is argurably true, if inelegantly put. Specifically, he called the Pope a Nazi, which he very briefly was when he was a little boy, and he called the Catholic Church a "child-abusing cult," which, if you have a broad-enough definition of cult, is basically what they are. Anyway—the American Life League has launched a website calling for Maher to be fired from his little HBO show. Ok guys! Jesus, you're getting all worked up about Bill Maher? There is a rich history of virulent anti-Catholicism in this great nation, but it pretty much ended once we all decided the Irish were allowed to be White. Attacking the Pope is no more "hate speech" than calling George W. Bush a war criminal. But: confidential to Bill M: you're taking on the Pope? You got nothing better to do with your time? He's not that bad! Seriously, as Popes go, he's one of the least damaging ever.

Not being well tuned in to the Catholic outrage circuit, we missed the big controversy this week over Bill Maher calling the Pope the head of a "child-abusing religious cult," and saying "he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats." That sounds fairly accurate, no? Not to Catholic League president and perpetually outraged man Bill Donohue, who demanded an apology on behalf of all Catholics worldwide who care about trivial things. And now Donohue says that he's been assured that Maher plans to apologize tonight for "falsely accusing the pope of once being a Nazi." Because in fact the Pope was just "conscripted into a German Youth organization (from which he fled as soon as he could)." Is Bill Maher now expected to be nuanced when it comes to the objects of his hate? Doesn't really sound like him. If you're reading this, Mr. Maher, and I know you are: just shout "Jesus loved whores!" at the end of your apology, to maintain your cred. The clip of his original Pope rant, after the jump.

[Bill Maher is stopped by security guards at LAX, Jan 3; image via Bauer-Griffin]

Defamer PartyWatcher Ann and photographer Maggie Serrano checked into Hollywood Hellhouse this weekend, a tour of the depraved we first took three years ago and have now returned to, in the hopes that its horrific depictions of drug use, homosexual intercourse, and botched abortions might eventually begin to nudge us towards the path of the righteous. (Sadly, we appear to just keep doing what it is we're doing, albeit getting progressively drunker.) In its latest incarnation, ensconced in an abandoned Acapulco restaurant on La Cienega that only recently hosted the far cheerier Father-Daughter Purity Ball, Bill Maher good-naturedly donned some devil horns for an impromptu photo-op in the post-Hellhouse Youth Center. The entire photo gallery is here.

Hey, you know what? Bill Maher would make an awesome high school principal! (A mouthy, obscene and lecherous one, but still.) During Friday's live broadcast of his HBO show, "Real Time With Bill Maher," (a show responsible for revealing the comedic political genius of regular guest Ben Affleck—no, seriously), Maher took care of business when his crack security team proved not to be. Maher tried to make light of a heckling 9/11 conspiracy theorist working the room: Chris Matthews, Joel Stein and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson sat quietly by. (Who knew Matthews was such a pussy? Stein, yeah, but Matthews?) Heckler #1 got tossed by Maher but still had some friends in the audience—Maher's best line came when he got back to the stage to yet more shouting. "I'll kick your ass outta here too! Hey! This isn't the Iowa caucus, okay? it's not a debate, it's a debate between us; you're in the audience. Audience comes from the Latin, to listen."

· Winning a record $370 million lottery emboldens Steven Colbert to finally tell semi-mummified Viacom overlord Sumner Redstone what he thinks of him. Unfortunately for Colbert, Redstone doesn't realize this was all done in character for his show, and has already dispatched a goon to stab him in the kidneys while the actor uses the urinal at his office.
· Yet another person is suing Mark Burnett for having the same unoriginal idea for a televised talent competition, this time involving Rock Star.
· This is what would happen if you ran Bill Maher through a computer aging simulation.
· Even Henry Kissinger is trying to get into Angelina Jolie's pants.
· It's a well known fact that Jesus Tortillas are the most delicious kind. [via Eater LA]
· We're number three! We're number three!