Ain't It Cool News fanboy oracle Harry Knowles refuses to post the Christian Bale rant, but goes on at some length today on why he chose to side with the mercurial action star.

Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, desperate to be the fanboy in Christian Bale's good graces, has posted a vehement defense of the actor's crazed on-set rant. It was the DP's fault!

1/2 — Monday night, I went to Via Veneto, a cozy and horribly overpriced little Italian place on Main Street in Santa Monica, there at the back table in the dark shadows...

It's not often that an actor's diva tirade is so seismically preposterous as to inspire an outpouring of sheer joy and responsive creativity from a deeply appreciative public. But that's precisely what Christian Bale's has done.

View hostess Sherri Shepherd has worked with Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, and Andy Dick, among others. So which of these gentlemen was she alluding to when she said she'd witnessed some Christian Bale-sized freakouts?

Attention, bloggers! Need just the right angry/confused/irritated picture of Christian Bale to complement your blog post/remix/sexual fantasy? Let Defamer do the work for you!

Now that we've done the Running Man to the Christian Bale Rant Heard 'Round the World, we have some questions about the man on the receiving end: Shane Hurlbut, the cinematographer on Terminator Salvation.

It's of a young Bale in Steven Spielberg's 1987 epic Empire of the Sun. He's singing to Japanese people. Look at how sweet and innocent he was! What changed? What made him so spoiled and mean in the years since? We may never know. It's a shame. Where has Cowboy Kelly gone?

Any audio as unfreakinbelievably fantastic as Christian Bale's Apocalyptic Meltdown is bound to get the remix treatment, and there's already several: Bale vs. Russell, Bale vs. Donut, and by far the greatest—the dance remix.

• Olivia Palermo and Whitney Port are "horrified" that MTV producers have been pressuring them to get into a physical fight at "work" for an upcoming episode on The City and they've even threatened to walk off the set if they're forced to participate. How principled! [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan "stomped around" and "caused chaos" after finding out she'd have to sit in economy on a flight home from Tampa on Saturday. (She also told a friend to "come and visit me back there in case I die.") Horrified flight attendants eventually found her a seat up front. [Fox News]
• Things seem to be heating up between Madonna and Jesus Luz. Also, she took the model to brunch at Macelleria on Sunday, so you know. [DM, NYDN]
• It looks like Julie Janklow's new paramour is none other than surfer Scott Murphy, who split with Marci Klein back in December. [P6, previously]

Responses to Christian Bale's meltdown varied widely: lust, sympathy, disgust, and even indifference. ("Please," one actor with a small part in Transformers told us. "That would have been a good day on the set.")

Often-angry American Psycho Batman Christian Bale has flipped out once again! This tape allegedly features his reaction to someone ruining a shot in Terminator Salvation. Thank god it wasn't something important.

Tales of tantrums can get exaggerated in the telling, but having now heard the audio, we can safely say Christian Bale's Terminator Salvation freakout on a DP who wandered into his shot is certifiably insane.

Publicist (and new mom) Lizzie Grubman turns 38 today. Dick Cheney turns 68. Christian Bale is 35. Gene Hackman is 79. Wilmer Valderrama turns 29. Vanessa Redgrave is 72. Phil Collins is turning 58. Theater impresarios Harold Prince and Bernard Gersten are 81 and 86, respectively. NHL star Chris Simon is 37. Singer/songwriter Josh Kelley is 29. Weekend birthdays—including that of Andre Balazs—after the jump.

A mysterious show known as the 2008 People's Choice Awards was broadcast Wednesday on CBS, selecting The Dark Knight, 27 Dresses, Will Smith, Reese Witherspoon and others among its many honorees.

The fake-trailer aesthetic harnessed so exquisitely in Tropic Thunder has been revived for Terminator Salvation, whose new teaser isn't a preview of an action film as much as it's bombastic, uncanny self-parody.

ET has been pumping its first look of Terminator: Salvation this Tuesday, to be presided over by none other than the world's most recognizably uni-named pop-spectacle-overseer himself, McG. (Eat his dust, Tarsem.) Today, however, we bring you the promo to the promo. It's as fitting an exclusive as we are likely to find for you on this, Pop Culture Doomsday: A fourth sequel to a picked-over Schwarzenegger franchise about a battle for human survival after a nuclear annihilation. Doesn't get any more apocalypto than that!

Depressing and sort of end-of-the-economy timely word comes today that Brett Easton Ellis' 1991 novel American Psycho—about a Wall Street banker in the 1980's who is a crazed serial killer in his spare time—is being made into a stage musical. You'll remember that the book was adapted into a movie starring Christian Bale back in 2000, and that it featured a looming score of various recognizable 80's tunes. This prompted producers to decide that, hey!, it could be a musical extravaganza! To that end, we hope they turn it into a Huey Lewis jukebox musical. Maybe Christian Bale could be in it! We already know he can sing and sort of dance. (Also, we feel forced to add: As if theatre ticket prices weren't killer enough!) Our favorite Huey clip is after the jump.

The W. news cycle is picking up again in advance of its Oct. 17 release date, and this time around no one even had to go to jail: A few days after Vanity Fair showcased a fresh family photo from the Shreveport set, a new, more irony-embracing TV spot is circulating online. View it after the jump, and tell us if Defamer's finely calibrated crystal ball didn't see the George W. Bush and Friends Variety Hour vibe coming a mile away. And if you still don't believe Oliver Stone had a laff riot in mind from the belated start, a new interview with GQ not only confirms it, but introduces a fantastic, regrettably retroactive casting rumor that would have elevated our expectations beyond W. simply backfiring in Democrats' faces next month:

Not content to be upstaged by a toilet-transforming usurper, Arnold Schwarzenegger recently hit up the set of Terminator: Salvation (above), sparking rumors that director McG will employ an unorthodox method to get the California governor's face into the movie. According to a tipster for Latino Review, the special FX-filled plan would require little of Schwarzenegger's time and give him a kickin' new body in return: