Not that anyone should doubt the sincerity of Russell Crowe's Post-Concierge-Bashing Televised Redemption Tour, but now we're understanding the actor's impulse to launch into operatic soul-searching each time someone points a camera at him. Page Six reports that in addition to the previously-documented phone-tossing antics, Crowe also demonstrated his proficiency in the hurling of decorative ceramics and a flair for hard-boiled dialogue. Oh, and there's a video tape of the whole thing:

Salon.com's second installment of its four-part series on Scientology turns to the pseudo-science of book reviewing, as the online magazine utilizes suppressive critic Laura Miller's spurious lit-tech to impugn the literary merits of the Church's sacred tome: (Note: you may have to watch an ad to read the review.)

Logo, MTV's gay network, is just two days from its long-delayed launch. (Sadly, they haven't taken our unsolicited advice and renamed the net "Dickelodeon" in the year since they've announced the channel.) But the folks at Logo want you to know that if you're in search of the HLA of The L Word, the poppers-and-stalls action of QAF, or the one-dimensional, preening eunuchs of Will & Grace, you're going to have to take your greedy eyeballs elsewhere:

In an effort to assure the world that she did not suffer the same, heartbreaking fate as Kelly Perdew, the windowless indentured servant who preceded her as Apprentice winner, new Trump disciple Kendra Todd conducted an interview with the AP during her first day of hard labor at the Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor:

It's always nice to see our most beloved celebrities take a stand on something important to them. The TV judge/crusader is just trying to get her foot in the door in Sacramento; once the nail salons are cleaned up, she'll then turn her attention to achieving humane working conditions and a living wage for the illegal immigrant who caused her infected nail bed. First things first, people.

· We're not here to judge (or to wonder about whether the ad is real or not), we're just here to help supposed celebrities posting on Craigslist get anonymous blowjobs.
· Free Katie bumpersticker spotted!
· Steven Spielberg is so tired of Tom Cruise questions that he doesn't even mind comparing War of the Worlds to 9/11.
· TTFN: April Winchell reacts to her father's death.
· Finally, psychiatrists fight back: "It is irresponsible for Mr. Cruise to use his movie publicity tour to promote his own ideological views and deter people with mental illness from getting the care they need."

· Gen Art presents a sneak preview of Hustle & Flow, the heartwarming tale of a pimp who graduates from the slapping of his ho's to the dropping of rhymes, at the ArcLight. The twenty dollar ticket price gets you into an afterparty at Mood, where ho-slapping will almost certainly not be permitted.
· If you'd like to go a little lighter on the pimp-slapping, author Sam Brumbaugh reads from his first novel, Goodbye Goodness, at Book Soup.
· In addition to their duties showing off their extravagantly appointed lodgings on Cribs, Lil’ Jon and Juvenile sometimes perform music in a live setting. Tonight, they hit the House of Blues on the Strip.

The WOW Report thinks that these fortuitously positioned ads from the LAT Calendar section show Angelina Jolie shitting out the stars of Bewitched, but we think it's clear that Will Ferrell and Nicole Kidman are burrowing their way into Jolie's hindquarters. Just like that picture of the old lady and young girl, we suppose that everyone sees what they want to see.

Director Peter Jackson's trying to sue New Line Cinema all the way back to Middle Earth over money he claims he's been shorted by the studio's alleged lowball sale of the subsidiary rights of Lord of the Rings merchandise to Time Warner (New Line's corporate parent) companies. Amazingly enough, an anonymous New Line lawyer thinks Jackson's already raked in all the cash he's entitled to (shocking!), but then gives the "incredible filmmaker" the back of his hand in the NY Times:

OK, guys, we get the message: Brad's a super daddy stand-in, and your relationship consists of more than just the animalistic throwing together of your sexual reproductive organs. And it's nice that you're all outdoorsy with the cute sand-castles and the dirt-bike riding, but the tandem skydive was really overkill.

Today's LAT looks at how Hollywood's Big Slump has not been confined within America's borders, as some "major" overseas markets have declined at the box office "by as much as 14 percent." Is there a way to blame the Germans for any of this? Why, yes, there is!

· The Supreme Court bitch-slaps Grokster and file-sharing services back down to a lower court, ruling that the companies can be held liable for their users' acts of copyright infringement. Stay tuned for the press release in which MPAA pirate hunter emeritus Jack Valenti compares file-swapping to the trading of molested children on the Russian black market. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas XXXIV: The New Paramount relapses into its remaking ways, planning a new version of 1973's Donald-Sutherland-humping-Julie-Christie classic Don't Look Now. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas XXXV: Warner Bros. and Jennifer Garner to remake the 2004 Japanese hit Be With You. You know, after she pawns the baby off on stay-at-home partner Ben Affleck. [Variety]
· Well, at least it's not a remake: Fox plans to bring video game Max Payne to your local multiplex. [THR]
· Tomorrow's snubs today: Paul Giamatti's soon-to-be acclaimed voice-work in the animated Amazing Screw-On Head to go criminally overlooked. [Variety]

In discussing a story about Jack Nicholson's "rewriting" of a sex scene in The Departed to include a "prosthetic appendage" and the dusting of an actress's posterior with cocaine, we inadequately identified the appendage as a "dildo." These pictures from a Dutch magazine (and posted at Twitch) clearly demonstrate that the appendage might be more accurately described as a "strap-on." We apologize for our failure to fully recognize Mr. Nicholson's inventiveness and dedication to craft.

In the first of a four-part series about Scientology's sudden, Cruise-assisted visibility, Salon.com wonders (note—you may have to watch an ad to read the story) if the actor's recent talk-show antics, unconvincing red carpet tongue-wrestling sessions, and antipsychiatry zeal are tied to his likely ascension to the COS's highest echelons (i.e., where they tell you about the aliens and volcanos):

Paul "Tigger" Winchell and John "Piglet" Fiedler have died.

Another Monday morning, another week of dire "Hollywood's Box Office Slump" stories...

We've finally gotten around to watching the video of Tom Cruise tussling with Matt Lauer, and we know that this is going to surprise a lot of you, but Cruise's constant assertions about his superior knowledge of the history of psychiatry and its very, very devilish, pseudoscientific underpinnings has finally won us over. Repetition of the message really does work, and there is only one rational response to this incredible eye-opening: We're headed to the nearest hospital to beat the living shit out of anyone wearing a labcoat. Yes, some of these people may be involved in "legitimate" fields of medicine (Wait, are there any? We're not completely sure what we believe, we're still new at this), but we can't take the chance that they might have come into contact with a bottle of Ritalin (a street drug) at some point and carelessly assigned a reckless, completely arbitrarily determined dosage to a 5-year-old boy with too much pep. No, Cruise didn't specifically suggest this course of action, but we've always been really good about taking the initiative in these kinds of situations. And you know what else? We never found Brooke Shields to be particularly attractive, even before she started poisoning her body with devilpills.

Also: Drudge is gripped by Cruise vs. Lauer transcription-mania, but we much prefer this illustrated version, which we think places Suppressive Lauer's leading questions in the proper light.

Is it just us, or does it seem like CNN feels a little underwhelmed by this weekend's box office offerings? (Scroll down, the poll on bottom right of the CNN home page.) Unfortunately, the "None; I'd rather spend two hours poking myself in the scrotum with a barbecue fork while being fellated by a wild boar" option was scratched right before publication, which may have skewed the results in the home video industry's favor.

There is absolutely no reason that these box office predictions shouldn't be 100 percent accurate, if you throw out the fact that we're no good at this unless we're drunk. And, sadly, we are not drunk yet.

Join us as we raise our voices in joyous praise of this week's sponsors, whose unwavering support for all of our endeavors allows us to occasionally upgrade from Coors Light to Sam Adams Light. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and reach the kind of people who'd happily reallocate some of the income they'd normally burn for fun to your product or service, see this page.