· Warning, impossibly lame, scatological pun playing on similarity of "Sith" and "shit" ahead: Foreigners eat up Sith, as the movie rakes in $145 million in international release. [Variety]
· The New Paramount™ continues in its mission to spend, spend, spend in the quest to woo A-list actors, dropping $4 million for the rights to Robert Ludlum's book The Chancellor Manuscript for Leonardo DiCaprio. [THR]
· We've been ignoring Cannes, so here's the round-up: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne win the Pal D'Or, Jim Jarmusch the Grand Prix, and Tommy Lee Jones wins best actor. [Variety]
· The Desperate Housewives finale kicks ass, takes names, etc etc. Grey's Anatomy is similarly huge, despite failing to make a play on the similarity of "The Syph" and "Sith." [THR]
· The Ellen DeGeneres Show wins big at the Daytime Emmys, but judging from the ratings numbers, nobody cared. We blame the pantsuit. [Variety]

Such is the current state of Tom Cruise's relentless PR blitz that we're almost relieved that he's pausing from his non-stop, suspiciously effusive praise of partner Katie Holmes to prattle on about Scientology. On Access Hollywood this Thursday, Cruise will analyze, in highly scientific fashion, how the medical profession failed Brooke Shields during her post-partum depression:

Today's LAT finally figures out how überproducer Jerry Bruckheimer, whom after last week's upfronts eclipsed legends Aaron Spelling and Norman Lear by landing ten shows on primetime network schedules, has achieved such a staggering level of TV success in such a short amount of time: He gives amazing notes.

This Sunday's NYT was a treasure trove of retarded Hollywood riches (hopefully, we'll work our way through half of them in the course of the day). First up, a reporter draws the plum assignment of tailing screenwriter-with-fists-of-lead/director Paul Haggis and his macho buddies for "A Night Out With," recording their night of partying "like a rock star," i.e., mixing up pomegranate martinis, discussing cute eBay knickknacks, and retiring for a night cap of ice cream. Finally, after much slice-of-life scene-setting, the inevitable movie tie-in comes Crashing in, ten times subtler than anything in the film:

The Monday morning numbers, with a dash of further wattle-baiting:

· The LAT on the celebrity "pinata syndrome": Hey, where did we leave our blindfold and whooping stick?
· Daniel Radosh, coiner of the term "Lohanboobies," has had his fill of "accidentally" exposed, red-carpet areolas.
· Someone on Craiglist is not a fan of Nora Ephron.
· "#7 Don’t forget what happened to your mother in the last movie, or there will be extra exposition." To these "Lessons Learned from the Revenge of the Sith," we humbly add, "If you're able to perform somersaults and fight with four light-sabers at one time, you are able to stand up straight when carrying on a conversation." [via BoingBoing]
· Everyone should have their boss's image on a trucker hat.

Friday
· Nora closes this weekend at the Century City Playhouse. If you need some kind of pop culture orientation for why you might care, think of it of Desperate Housewives, but with one housewive and no gardener who keeps taking off his shirt.
· If you haven't been to the Star Wars thing yet, what are you waiting for? $50 million worth of people who (if they're like us) leave the theater shrugging, Eh, at least no Jar Jar, can't be wrong.
Saturday
· The Celebration Theatre throws its "Life is a Gamble, A Night at the Theatre Shouldn't Be" Vegas Night benefit. Free: Booze and the smell of card-table felt. $50 in advance and $75 at the door, RSVP by e-mailing celebrationthtr@earthlink.net or calling 323.957.1884.
· Music: Earlimart at the Troubadour; Prefuse 73 at The Knitting Factory; the KROQ Weenie Roast in Irvine, which should be total OC-style carnage.
Sunday
· William H. Macy reads the short story "Fatso" by Etgar Keret for "Breakups, Makeups, and Wakeups" at the Getty. We've seen The Cooler, which also means that we've seen Macy's testicles, so we feel something of an obligation to attend. Or at least to call attention to the event. Will that make the nightmares stop?
· The 26th Annual Venice Art Walk and Auction: because there are things do to by the beach besides shoot up and break bricks with your forehead to entertain tourists. (Also, it benefits the Venice Family Clinic.)

RIP, Henry Corden, voice of Fred Flintstone.

Air travel into and out of Los Angeles has never been more terrifying; once airborne, Chevy Chase roams the aisles, daring coach passengers to recognize him, and if you manage to land safely, Quentin Tarantino is there, waiting to kick some C-level game to you by the baggage claim. And if those potential perils don't scare you, you might spot a actress engaging in a seemingly ironic reading of an inappropriately topical script:

There's a hole in our heart where the upfronts used to be, but we know that come Fall, the pain will start to fade as the shows we've been teased with all week finally hit the schedule. Following up on our earlier post about the Fox upfront, a reader offers a defense of Peter Liguori and a preview of one of the network's more promising offerings:

Variety reports that Revenge of the Sith did $50 million in its first day of release, putting box office paddle to the green ass of the Shrek 2's single-day record ($44.8 mil). Sith further proved that Hayden Christensen's look of crippling constipation can trump even Keanu Reeve's monosyllabic flavor of colon-blockage, toppling The Matrix Reloaded's opening day record of $42.5 million. To celebrate this early victory, George Lucas announced he's clearing a 100-acre swath of the SkyWalker ranch, where his neck-wattle can roam free while devising its first post-Star Wars project.

Join us in slaughtering the fatted calf in celebration of this week's sponsors, without whom we wouldn't be able to write advertorial posts slyly doubling as plugs for our side-gig as an affordable money-for-sex option for the town's power brokers. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and instantly make waves in the Standard & Poors thingy, see this page.

Yes, the upfronts are over, the network schedules all announced, the advertisers' spilled seeds finally wiped away from the hungry mouths of the television executives eager to service them. By the time Fox got around to doing their little dance yesterday afternoon, it seems that everyone was burned out from the nonstop whore-and-pony show and ready to go home. An operative reports on the Fox presentation:

OK, now we can safely say that summer blockbuster season is finally here, ready to knock us down, turn our pockets inside-out, and disappear into the night. All hail summer!

· The still-unnamed Weinstein Co. gets funding from Goldman Sachs, who apparently found the coming years of physical and emotional abuse to be a good trade for a seat next to Gwyneth Paltrow at an Oscar party. [Variety]
· Revenge of the Sith takes in $16.5 million in just its first midnight showings, proving that not having to spend money on getting laid frees up capital for other nerd-intensive activities. [Variety]
· Warner Bros. leads studios with 32 shows on the network schedules, Fox is second with 25, and Paramount is right behind with 24. Apropos of nothing, CBS overlord Les Moonves releases a statement announcing that "Jeff Zucker is a little bitch." [THR]
· Topher Grace joins Thomas Haden Church as an undisclosed villain in Spider-Man 3. We're betting that Semiretarded Airplane Mechanic and Stuck In Puberty Boy will make worhty foes for the tubby wall-crawler. [Variety]
· Breaking! Gail Berman does something at The New Paramount™, though we can't be bothered to find out what it was. [THR]

Do you feel alienated from the crushing hype surrounding this weekend's release of the last Star Wars movie? Maybe you need a financial stake in the box office outcome to make you feel like you've got a piece of the action. Today's LAT notes that studio types are throwing some money in a hat, just to keep things interesting.

Finding a dearth of red carpets on which to grab his new ladylove by the neck and send his tongue drilling for uvula as photographers obligingly snap away, Tom Cruise is shifting the focus of his publicity campaign/relationship back to where it might gain more traction. He's now offering teaser-friendly soundbites celebrating the virtues of his new associate:

In a nod to a former life, in which we'd anxiously sit in front of the TV each Thursday night in our Trump Underoos and wonder how much force we'd need to exert in our lovemaking to muss the hair-helmet of henchwoman Carolyn Kepcher, we note that last night marked the coronation of the third Apprentice. And, finally, The Donald's glass ceiling is shattered, as contestant Kendra (even though we spent the evening with her, we had to look up the name this morning—in similar situations, we usually we just ask English to rifle through her purse while we try to hunt up the cab fare) will be assimilated into the Trump Organization. Was this a surprise? No, not really. Once Marissa Cooper stumbled in and shot aging cosmetics-slinger Tana to prevent her from beating Chino to death with a princess phone, much of the suspense was dissipated.

· The Spider Club hosts a casino night to benefit the education-related L.A.'s B.E.S.T. Please, people, it's for charity, so leave the eightballs at home tonight.
· More music alternatives to tonight's OC soundtrack: Sam Prekop (Sea and Cake) at the Troubadour; X at the Henry Fonda; The Dears at the Hollywood & Highland Center. (Free! You loves it.)
· Cinespace hosts a DVD release party/screening of The Flamings Lips' The Fearless Freaks with bearded genius frontman Wayne Coyne dropping some Q & A knowledge. We can't guarantee that their army of flashlight-wielding nutjobs in furry animal suits will attend.

Yes, NBC, we miss the old version of Lindsay Lohan, too, but putting last year's picture on your website to promote this weekend's SNL finale isn't going to magically restore that lustrous, auburn hair, those thirty pounds, or the much-lamented cup sizes that seem to have disappeared into, ahem, thin air. You know that you signed up for Lohan 2.0, so don't get all cute on us now. There's still time to make it up to us, though. If you strap some falsies on Horatio Sanz and have him threaten to crush the Ghost of Lohan Present between his prodigious hooters during the monologue, all will be forgiven in the ensuing hilarity.