Today's LAT has a great account of the tensions between Mr. and Mrs. Smith director Doug Liman, our new Hollywood hero, and virtually everyone who steps onto his sets. When Liman (Did we mention he's our new hero? He is.) isn't shooting mismatched "coverage" on a visual whim or driving crews into overtime so that he can play paintball, he's attempting feats of cinematic impossibility, like trying to extract a performance from a part Brad Pitt's body that can't be honed through crunches:

· All Hail Adam Sandler, Lord of Television: TBS/TNT and CBS fart out $27 million for the TV rights to The Longest Yard. [Variety]
· The two-hour finales of American Idol and Lost are huge ratings winners, proving that people will stay in and watch TV if you offer compelling content or pander to the nation's text-messaging-addled 15-year-olds. [THR]
· The Weinstein Co. finally reveals its release schedule, including the Tarantino-Rodriguez double-team Grind House, Sin City 2, and at least one effort to demonstrate their commitment to cynical, long-played-out, franchise crap, Scary Movie 4. [Variety]
· Filmmaker Ismail Merchant, still dead. [THR]
· Forced-out former Paramount co-pres Tom Jacobson finally makes peace with the Brad Grey regime, signing a first-look producing deal with the studio. But just so Jacobson remembers who's boss, his office on the lot will consist of a dog-bed in the corner of new president Gail Berman's office. [Variety]

Wherein we invite our readers to grab their pick-axes and hack away at the blind item rocks strewn along the dusty highways of humpy E! gossip taskmaster Ted Casablanca. This week, a special treat: Ted returns to Toothy Tile Country, the site of his greatest gossip triumphs. Boomerang your way through One Multimedia Blind Vice:

Page Six reports that the "Bel Air Burglar," the theif who may have been responsible for robbing Paris Hilton, Casey Johnson, and Frankie Muniz, has been brought to justice after making the critical mistake of ransacking the home of Girls Gone Wild titty-impresario Joe Francis:

There was only one good way to watch the final, interminable, two-hour American Idol karaoke contest last night: with TiVo fast-forward, those three little right-pointing arrows delivering an A Clockwork Orange-quality montage of Ryan Seacrest's mindless banter, Simon Cowell's military-stockade haircut, and Paula Abdul's pharmaceutical-powered gesticulations. Crackpots from the past singing off-key. B-listers' shit-eating grins beaming up from the audience. Hall and Oates' inexorable transformation into a lite-rock Siegfried and Roy. By the time TiVo delivered us to the climactic moment, our testicles had safely retracted into the body cavity, and all urges to rape and murder had melted away. The final moment was here.

· Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko (Laurel Canyon, Six Feet Under, The L Word) and artist Lisa Yuskavage will chat for a bit at tonight's latest Hammer Conversations event, then spend the rest of the evening fighting over who gets to answer audience questions directed to "Lisa."
· Author, rock star, and collector of small dogs Amy Tan will hold forth on all things Amy Tan at the Distinguished Speaker Series at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
· Music: Red Onions at the Smell; Goldie Lookin Chain at The Troubadour; CunninLynguists (groan) at the Knitting Factory.

An operative informs us that at last night's special preview of The Island, suited agent and studio exec-types were seen "falling to one knee and pulling in their arms and punching the ground and/or doing the two-handed arm grab with one another—all in imitation of Cruise on Oprah." You heard it here: Everyone's doing the Cruise! Engage your closest cubicle-mate in some two-handed wrestling, throw your arms in the air (pretending that you just don't care is optional) and yelp about the intensity of your feelings for each other, jump up and down on your boss's couch—hell, go fucking nuts and pin your assistant's hands behind her back and march her around the office like a grudging love-slave. You won't want to be left out of the new sensation Cruising across the Hollywood nation!

Yesterday, MTV posted a story about Dave Chappelle's quiet return to the country that drove him to crack crazy to intentions-checking (making it prehistoric in blog time, so please excuse us for finally getting around to reading it tattooed on the ass of a triceratops), but this is the first we're hearing about it:

In a commencement speech at Berkeley this weekend, actor Warren Beatty finally gave voice to liberal Hollywood's frustrations with California's action-star-cum-governor:

At the Hollywood premiere of The Longest Yard, Burt Reynolds draws co-star Cloris Leachman into a classic misdirection play, warmly embracing the actress for a moment before socking her in the breadbasket for asking why he doesn't work more often.

Yes, we know that Burt Reynolds slapped a dude for admitting he hadn't seen the original The Longest Yard. (You've probably already seen this elsewhere by now, but we keep getting e-mail about it, so there it is.) Here's our proposition: We will pay a ten dollar bounty (or "honorarium," if you want to get fancy or should a bounty prove illegal) to anyone who can induce Reynolds to kick them in the ass by telling him that Stroker Ace was easily his best work. Visual proof will be required, but hey: ten bucks.

Having blatantly ignored our exhortations to pay better attention to contemporary fashion and napalm the 80s out of his walk-in closet, hacky The Island director/amateur philosopher Michael Bay is once again forced to walk the sartorial plank of the Fauxteur Fashion Minute:

· Michelle "Who?" Monaghan signs on to star in Mission: Impossible 3 as Tom Cruise's love interest. Put on your tinfoil helmets, kids, we're going for a quick ride: Is it just us, or does she look a wee bit like Katie Holmes? (The brunette one in the pics, duh.) [THR]
· Half of the legendary, classy-movie producing duo Merchant & Ivory died suddenly in London today. Hint: It wasn't Ivory. Statements to follow. [THR]
· Sopranos creator David Chase admits to the New Yorker that he might be able to squeeze a seventh season out of his lovable mobsters—and, of course, many more millions out of HBO. [Variety]
· Fox takes the season's ratings title in the 18-49 demo, CBS dominates overall and those watching on the community TV in the nursing home, ABC makes a heroic comeback, and NBC...well, let's just say that Les Moonves has just messengered Jeff Zucker a tape of Deliverance with Zucker's face superimposed on Ned Beatty's squealing mug. [Variety]
· SAG/AFTRA members voting on strike against video game companies, which do not pay "residuals for the use of actors' voices, likeness and performance in video games." Also, they have shitty craft service. [THR]

When we first read in today's Rush & Molloy column that US Weekly reports in its new issue that Disney's paid a million bucks to make Lindsay Lohan's then-jiggletastic rack more family-friendly in Herbie: Fully Loaded through the magic of digital alteration, we thought that maybe someone had taken our Herbie previewer's joke about the necessity of downsizing and ran with it. But after comparing (click the above picture to see two side-by-side treatments) some stills of old shots from the Herbie set left laying around the internets and the new, official ones on Disney's movie site, the case can be made that the starlet has been digitally debazoomed. Were our spy's feelings on Lohan's chest indicative of other test screenings, prompting Disney to childproof her rack? We don't have time to find out, we're on our way to Church to see if our priest has any insight about where our life went so horribly awry.

The NY Observer's Transom column catches up with indie director John Sayles, who inadvertantly reveals an apparent security breach in a certain director's computer systems:

Not even testifying in a child molestation trial is enough to flip Jay Leno's "off" switch, as the gloriously bechinned talk show host cracked wise as a defense witness for Michael Jackson:

DailyCandy pauses from its usual mission of apprising the public of the best poodle-friendly boutique offering an edible pedicure while shopping for twice-worn couture to deliver its occasional "Lexicon" feature, in which the Candies pass along fake words (fauxlogisms, if we may be so bold) that no one has ever uttered:

Finally, some closure.

· We really hate doing this, but if we don't slap Page Six's wrist once in a while, they'll keep touching us in the naughty place without leaving five bucks on the nightstand: Where do you suppose the Sixies heard about the Patrick Whitesell wedding? At least sign our name to the card if you send them some napkin holders.
· By now you've certainly seen this (we didn't want to post an animated GIF and get blamed for anyone's seizures), but just in case: Do no attempt to pet the Cruise [via goldenfiddle]
· Dear Peter Mehlman: Crash was awful. Those people who talked through the whole movie did you a favor. Send them a fruitbasket. [via LAObserved]
·Hollywood Interrupted's Mark Ebner unearths the Norah Jones-Charlie Brown connection.

· Tuesday night music round-up: The Dears play the El Rey, then will be coptered to Cinespace for an after-party/CD release soiree; Le Rev at the Silverlake Lounge; Caribou at Spaceland.
· RES throws its monthly party/premiere/screening showcasing new music videos, short films and other visual arts goodness at the Egyptian. DJ Peanut Butter Wolf will be throwing down at the after-party.
· Writer Chuck "Fight Club, Numerous Other Best Sellers" Palahniuck will scribble signatures in his latest book, Haunted, at Borders in Santa Monica. We know of no after-party tied to this event.