Pity the canine thespian, chasing her Tinseltown dreams. From the moment she excitedly pads off the bus from Anywhere, USA, she's at an immediate disadvantage to her biped peers; the system, quite frankly, is set up to effectively guarantee the success of people over animals: their lack of opposable thumbs, inability to stand upright for long periods of time, and California's stringent, discriminatory health codes make it impossible to compete with humans for the waitressing jobs that provide a steady income while waiting for a break. (And the time-honored casting couch method of career-fasttracking, the dirty little secret that's produced countless stars, is closed to her, as bestiality is frowned up in all but the most deviant of productions.) So this dog, desperate to improve her million-to-one odds of success to a number her less advanced brain can more readily comprehend, scrapes together enough of her savings to enroll in some classes at a prestigious training institute like Hollywood Paws, hoping that the combination of newly honed skills and the school's claimed industry connections will help smooth the path to stardom.

• Curumin, the Brazilian singer/producer, plays the guitar and drums to hip-hop and jazz beats. The more influences, the better. [flavorpill]
• The Film Forum shows Brazil, Terry Gilliam's 141-minute vision of the fucked-up dystopia of the future. We'd advise against smoking anything before seeing this one. [Paper]
• It's no secret that the other coast has been hogging the teen drama scene with Laguna Beach and The O.C. Now we've got The NYC, which comes complete with a puppy-obsessed overachieving virgin and a bitchy omni-dater who believes Keds are for losers. [The Pit]

Friday:
• Volver earns the prestigious title of "centerpiece" in the prestigious 19-day New York Film Festival. People, presumably those of prestige, flock to buy moderately-priced $40 admission tickets. [flavorpill]
• Slightly less prestigious but no less talented, the NYC Photobloggers Conglomerate or somesuch gathers tonight in Soho at the Apple Store. Rock geek out with your cock out. [NYCPhotobloggers]

• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah hit Central Park with Takka Takka, where they'll play for those rare bloggers who have enough money to buy the $32-plus-fees ticket. [Paper]
• Jewtopia authors Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson explain why the chosen folk rule the world. [NYM]
• Wired hosts a weekend-long festival of geek-friendly events. See how far they can take that Conde party budget. [flavorpill]

• Forest Whitaker and Gillian Anderson star in The Last King of Scotland, based on the regime of a former Ugandan dictator. Expect a lot of history buffs who happen to own all nine box sets of The X Files. [flavorpill]
• Some Rolling Stones and Kanye West fans trek to the depths of New Jersey for a once-in-a-lifetime concert. Others send hate mail asking why it wasn't at the Garden. [NYM]
• Veteran journalist Edward Kosner talks shit about Newsweek and reads from his memoir. [B&N]

This week's installment of the LAT's Scriptland feature, the paper's weekly attempt at chronicling the hopes, dreams, and fears of the industry's institutionally disrespected, keyboard-pounding underclass, shares the uplifting story of Things We Lost in the Fire, Soon To Be A DreamWorks SKG Motion Picture With Academy Award™ Winners Benicio Del Toro and Halle Berry screenwriter Alan Loeb, who heroically paddled away from a precarious position between the Scylla of gambling addiction and the Charybdis of a painful dumping by his agent to achieve industry "It Boy" status:

An incident at a Hollywood Starbucks early yesterday morning involving a naked man experiencing a violent hankering for some crumble cake is all the talk lately among employees and regulars:

• Last week Jim McGreevey hawked his memoir to desperate housewives on Oprah. This week he hawks his memoir to desperate college students at The New School. [Paper]
• Bloomingdales, Kenneth Cole and InStyle host a party for Model Student, Robin Hazelwood's account of her days as a Yale undergrad/couture model. A few lucky shoppers will receive a free, autographed copy of the book — just try to wait a couple weeks before selling it on eBay. [WUNYC]
• Once again, we defer to the descriptive insanity of flavorpill: "Kiahkeya Productions transforms Hiro Ballroom into a reverie of frenetic tribal dance." Seriously, what more do you need to know? BYO peyote. [flavorpill]

• While you were rocking the Aquanet or, if you're a bit younger, the snap bracelets, acclaimed Mexican director Alfonso Cuar n was busy directing his first film, S lo con Tu Pareja. Fifteen years later, the film, about a "yuppie and womanizer falsely diagnosed with AIDS," finally makes its American debut. [flavorpill]
• Continuing with the AIDS beat, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Parker Posey dance for charity at AmfAR Rocks, an AIDS research benefit. All in a day's work for the rich and semi-fabulous. [Paper]
• Republican Playbook author Andy Borowitz kicks of the third season of his eponymous show with fellow comedians Jimmy Carr, Dean Obedidallah and the Daily Show's John Oliver. Nothing about AIDS, at least to our knowledge. [NYM]

• Beneath Los Angeles [Franklin Ave.]

Friday:
• Michel Gondry finally puts you in a darkened room with Gael Garcia Bernal. Try not touch yourself while watching The Science of Sleep, which opens tonight. [flavorpill]
• Fake priests, Jews for Jesus and a man who claims to be Christ remind you of your sinful ways in The Gods of Times Square, Richard Sandler's 1999 documentary about your not-so-friendly neighborhood street preachers. [Paper]

• The well-meaning, good-hearted, trust-funded kids at Good magazine take a break from saving the planet in order to pound a few PBRs. Grandmaster Flash hits the turntables and everyone proceeds to party like its 1982. [flavorpill]
• Sex! (Orson Welles has three baby mamas.) Murder! (Someone mysteriously dies on set.) Politics! (We're not sure, but it probably involves Rosebud.) It's all happening at the North American premiere of Fade to Black at the MoMa. [Paper]
• Anderson Cooper teams up with Doctors Without Borders to discuss humanitarian efforts in Darfur, Lebanon and other vacation hotspots. He proceeds to warm the hearts of middle class New Yorkers who couldn't locate Darfur on a map, but love those blue eyes. [Cooper]

• Sex columnists such as Rachel Kramer Bussel, Laura Leu, and Jamye Waxman gather at Happy Ending to share dating mishaps that led to a not-so-happy ending. Comfort food is conveniently provided to make up for the lack of action. [Paper]
• Norwegian pop sensation Sondre Lerche performs a "genre-bending oeuvre" at the Maritime Hotel. Go for the music, stay because he's cute. [flavorpill]
• Mugshots of awkward social misfits are a lot like My Super Sweet Sixteen: slightly repulsive, but slightly reaffirming of your superiority. [NYM]

Fully embracing a recent mission to champion the unsung, trench-digging heroes of Hollywood kicked off by last week's introduction of their scribecentric Scriptland feature, the LAT today presents the first installment of Made-for-TV-Movie Directorville, which will explore the lives and work of the small-screen auteurs behind projects as wide-ranging as AMC's celebrated Broken Trail and less-appreciated masterpieces like Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?. The Times kicks off the new column by illustrating the MFTVM director's uphill battle for respect and recognition:

Joe Eszterhas—who at the peak of his powers in the 1990s single-handedly overturned the image of the meek Hollywood scribe by earning millions for his uncompromising tales of beaver-flashing, psychosexual intrigue—has finally addressed the film that many finger as his undoing. Showgirls was meant to be a titillating, sensational look at the cutthroat world of Las Vegas entertainment; instead, it ended up being one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies of all time, thanks in no small part to Eszterhas' powerful dramatic choices, such as the scene in which Nomi and Cristal discover they are united by their Doggy Chow-eating pasts. According to New York magazine, however, Eszterhas claims to have been in on the joke all along:

The makers of deceptively named new energy drink Cocaine insist that their product has been made 350 percent stronger than now-pussified jitter-beverage Red Bull by 280 milligrams of street-legal caffeine, not, as you might hope, by a secret, powdery ingredient imported by tied-off condom in the digestive tract of Colombian mules. Still, we assume that the company will do everything they can to fully leverage the power of their adorably controversial brand, from handing out free cans from crowded stalls of Hollywood clubs to paying millions of dollars to officially sponsor the next five years of Lindsay Lohan's life. Really, the marketing campaign writes itself.

Our right-coasted, left-brained sibling Gawker share an intimidating algorithm they found in the NYT that attempts to predict the percentage of likelihood of celebrity marriage success. (It's in their subscription-only TimesSelect section, once again demonstrating how higher learning is really the exclusive realm of those who can afford it.) The Sundem/Tierney Unified Celebrity Theory then spits out some deeply discouraging math, putting Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's chances of making a marriage work at a mere 10%. Based on Pitt's recent comments, however, we doubt such formulation will ever apply, at least until a Sundem/Tierney Celebrity Philanthropic Civil Partnership Theory is devised. Even bleaker are Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's prospects—0% chance of lasting to their wood-and-silverware, fifth anniversary—though due to the equations exclusion of procreative data, we can't say that number is completely accurate. Surely success rates are higher when you figure in such matrimonial bond-strengthening data as the B/d* factor.

• Nouvelle Vague is a lovely little French group that performs creative, interpretative covers of classic post-punk and new wave hits. Go and hear the Buzzcocks like never before. [flavorpill]
• The Who performs their greatest hits from the 60s and 70s for their loyal army of overzealous fans, plus that one kid that likes that song they used in Girl Next Door. [MSG]
• Aerosmith performs their greatest hits from the 70s and 80s for their loyal army of overzealous fans, plus that one kid who still thinks Alicia Silverstone hot. [NYM]

THR, Esq. reports that photographer Jodi Cobb is suing Geisha House, the Hollywood eatery owned by Big Brother All Stars winner/Jack Shack proprietor Mike "Boogie" Malin and B-list restaurateurs Ashton Kutcher and Wilmer Valderrama, for the establishment's alleged liberal, unpaid use of her geisha photography in their decor and marketing materials. Geisha House's management counters that they're not so much "stealing" her images as "knocking them off so they don't have to pay":

Banksy, Banksy, Banksy. We submitted, and checked out the show on Sunday, along with 25,000 others willing to weather the punishing sun in the easy-to-digest hipster-art equivalent of a Russian bread line. Inside, we were pleasantly surprised—aroused even—by the candy-colored eye-crack on display. (Watching a prank on YouTube just doesn't have the same effect as seeing actual, giant cockroaches shit all over the "Paris" CD cover.) And while we were secretly disappointed there was no gift store where we could pick up a "smooching Bobbies" hoodie on the way out, we weren't left completely souvenir-less, as we return over and over to your celebrity PrivacyWatch submissions to relive the happy memories of our day covered in sweat and jockeying for sight lines at the most overly publicized unpublicized event of the season.