While we recently spent a session pondering some existential issues in the manner in which we've become accustomed, i.e., perched on the Porcelain Throne of Concentration while flipping through an issue of Entertainment Weekly, we were heartened to discover a fellow searcher in the most unlikely of places—a preview of summer blockbuster-hopeful The Island. We were as surprised as anyone to see fauxteur fashion plate Michael Bay pondering the big questions raised by his "philosophical" film:

· Identity theft happy fun time: A Time Warner security breach puts the personal info of 600,000 past and present employees at risk. The over-under on a massive class action lawsuit is two days, right about the time the first fake Ted Turner credit card is used to buy a 100-foot yacht. [Variety]
· Zach Braff, unafraid that potential co-star Amanda Peet has been tainted by her recent rom-co association with Ashton Kutcher, is in negotiations to star in the comedy Fast Track. Even better, it's for the brand-spanking-new WeinsteinCo, the new home of everyone's favorite employee-terrorizing brothers. [THR]
· Universal acquires the rights to memoir Around the World in 80 Dates and will produce with Reese Witherspoon, who will have first crack at starring in the movie version if she decides she'd finally like to stretch herself by starring in a romantic comedy. [Variety]
· DVD sales push studio profits up 9%, but if you're a writer, actor, or director reading this, lack of DVD sales threatens to bankrupt the entire entertainment industry—don't even think about getting a bigger share of residuals. [THR]
· Kingdom of Heaven writer William Monahan will attempt to construct a script for a Marco Polo movie in which it will not seem ridiculous that the explorer will be portrayed by Matt Damon. Good luck to you, sir. [Variety]

Predictably, yesterday's Craiglist post about the spunky agent's assistant who was willing to pass along a headshot in exchange for some oral services inspired a public response on the message board. After all, Hollywood's economy is subject to the "invisible hand" (or mouth, as the case may be) of market forces, and the supply of actors eager to open wide for a shot at big-time representation will always outstrip the demand of opportunistic assistants willing to leverage their position of influence. We can only imagine how many private pitches the ad received.

We had a feeling that the recent outbreak of freeway shootings was just God's funny little way of softening us up for an event far more chilling than a bunch of gangbangers randomly firing bullets at unsuspecting drivers: Carson Daly's Last Call is coming to LA for sweeps. After we got over the initial shock that Daly does, in fact, have his own television show (who knew?), we quickly formulated a plan for coping with his imminent arrival. It's time to finally speed along the inevitable, detonate explosives along a fault line, and set the city adrift in the Pacific. Fortuitously, the place where the explosives will have maximum impact and help us achieve optimal coastal separation is six inches below Ryan Seacrest's star on the Walk of Fame. See, we told you God was behind this.

Rush & Molloy report that the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes Unconvincing Handsy Lovers Tour of 2005 made a stop in Vegas, the Mecca of all sham relationships, where they did what every set of crazy-in-love partners with big summer movies rolling out in a few weeks do to legitimize their union—make out furiously and publicly at a show. Luckily, that's as far as it went, as Cruise wasn't able to follow through on his original Vegas plan: taking Holmes' maidenhead at the top of the Luxor, high above an assembled throng of publicist-approved wire service photographers.

Someone at Legoland California has created a plastic-brick tribute to those crazy Star Wars nerds who are encamped in front of the Chinese in increasingly futile hope that the theater will succumb to the enormous pressure exerted by their dork shantytown and show Revenge of the Sith. The diorama is an incredibly lifelike representation of the Hollywood Boulveard scene; every fifteen minutes or so, a homeless Lego man wanders into the camp, howls about how Darth Vader is controlling him with a brain implant, and then urinates on an unattended laptop.

· Page Six points out that Tom Cruise had a thrillingly contentious interview about Scientology with the German mag Spiegel. Where do those Page Sixers find stuff like that, anyway? They must have a subscription to a LOT of German magazines.
· The best thing about partying with hookers and strippers in Vegas is that no matter what unspeakable things you do with them, no one will believe them if they go to the press!
· TVGasm liveblogged Rosie O'Donnell's touching turn as a woman with mismatched sneakers and a bus pass.
· "Ms. Hilton may not come across as the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she is a Mensa-caliber genius at being a celebrity." The NYT looks at Paris, the industry.
· Mira Sorvino's boy-husband has a Little League temper tantrum. How cute!

· The Knitting Factory is hosting another benefit show for paralyzed musician Dax Pierson with Busdrive, Daedelus, Damno Aaron, One AM Radio, and Subtle. Down on the Strip, the Shout Out Louds play the Viper Room for the regular rock and roll reasons.
· Stage 2005, a weekly showcase for Slamdance winners, presents a reading of the period drama Claude with real! live! actors! at the Open Fist Theatre Company. The obligatory Q&A will follow the performance. [sixth item]
· Get really, really high (like really high) for the "Art in the Dark" blacklight art show at La La Land Gallery. Did we mention to get high? Can't remember.

With Andy Dick allegedly getting a time-out for Coachella, the festival was going to need another larger-than-life personality to keep things around the Indio concert grounds at an acceptable level of "going fucking crazy." Luckily, one fucking-crazy-making man was up to the challenge, even if he was sober after a well-publicized drying-out stint. Says a reader, "Pat O'Brien was at Coachella, seemingly a day out of rehab. He came over and talked to me and my friends about how 'fucking pissed' he was that he missed the Stereophonics. He even posed for a pic with me."

Hey, aspiring actors, are you looking for a high-powered agent to help kick-start your career and get out from behind that bar at the Standard? The answer to your problem couldn't be simpler: Blow an agent's assistant!

A Defamer operative snuck down into a slightly more expensive section of Dodger Stadium at yesterday's game to snap this pic of the back of season ticket holder Jason Bateman's head. (We did the heavy lifting and labeled it for your PrivacyWatching pleasure.)

PR Week
coaxes incredibly shy and softspoken LA Weekly columnist (and current unhealthy obsession of Fishbowl LA—that guy'll be dead before Friday) Nikki Finke into holding forth on that most fascinating species running loose in the Hollywood jungle, the entertainment publicist:

See? Anyone can make out for the benefit of photographers; it doesn't necessarily mean they're having sexual relations.

The above pic (click it for a bigger version), supposedly straight from the set of Paris Hilton's "too hot for TV" Carl's Jr commercial, is spreading around the internets courtesy of a do-gooder whom we're sure has absolutely no vested interest in promoting the fast-food chain or the press-whoring celebutante's attempts at burger-fellating semi-outrageousness. Some good might actually have come out of this, however. If you imagine that the angry fetus who threatens to rip out his mom's uterus in an earlier Carl's commercial is actually inside Paris, that ad campaign finally starts to make some sense.

· Overseas audiences make Americans look discerning for a change, as XXX tops foreign box office. We never want to hear another word about our cultural wasteland from someone with a foreign accent again. [Variety]
· MTV, buzzless and hurtling towards the upfronts, quietly prays for Newlyweds to end in a climactic murder-suicide. [THR]
· Regency and 20th Century Fox Television sign Malcolm in the Middle writer Alex Reid to a "rich" two-year development deal. (Full disclosure: As an intern, we made coffee for Reid on numerous occasions and were never once doused with our poorly-brewed Folgers, even if some grounds got into the pot.) [Variety]
· TheFamily Guy's re-debut does some nice ratings, but the crazy bitches from Wisteria Lane still have their way with Nielsen families. [THR]
· Director Todd "Far From Heaven" Haynes nabs Cate Blachett, Colin Farrell, Adrien Brody, Richard Gere, Julianne Moore, and Charlotte Gainsbourg for his "unconventional" Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There. [Variety]
· News your waiter can explain much more clearly than we can: Former AFTRA head Greg Hessinger starts today as CEO of SAG. [Variety]

Just in case you missed the NYT's coverage of the New Gay Mafia (the comedy cartel that currently has the studios' collective testes in a vise and who playfully gives them a tickle whenever they've got a new movie idea), Vince Vaughn is finally a bonafide, eight-figure stah:

It's your dime-a-dozen Hollywood story, really: The hotshot screenwriter whose scripts sell for absurd, record-setting money in the piles-of-blow-as-big-as-Richard-Donner 80s pens a couple of bombs, disappears for the better part of a decade to battle the demons of success and its attendant guilt (Why, Lord, must I be so gifted and successful and throw hooker-laden parties at my bitchin' mansion while others toil in obscurity and poverty? Why why why? Hey, Ernesto, there's a fucking leaf in the hottub that's not going to strain itself, OK?), and then reemerges for a big I'm-just-so-misunderstood newspaper profile on the eve of the premiere of his most undiluted creative work at an international film festival. Given the above, we knew exactly where yesterday's LAT profile of Lethal Weapon action-nihilist Shane Black was going. This passage, however, stood out:

If you think we've been relentlessly torturing you as we work out our personal issues with the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes situation, be glad you didn't run into us at a party this weekend. Watching a grown man collapse in a heap and cry after trying to explain all of the rational, publicity-driven motives behind the unholy pairing to drunk, uninterested friends is sad enough; when the friends decide the only way to silence you is to pelt your crumpled form with Solo cups half-full with cheap bear and cigarette butts, well, you learn to come to peace with things a little more quickly. Therapy takes many forms, and we're getting there. Slowly.

The numbers that give your Monday morning some meaning:

OK, the announcements and the virginity talk were one thing, but the kissing in public? Now you're just waving this ridiculous charade in our faces like an impotent flasher's floppy junk. Excuse us while we figure out a way to press our naked eyeballs onto the burners on the electric stove.
· Looks like Fox is trying to disappear Life on a Stick during sweeps and let it fade away into cancellation. We hope they're ready for the incredible LOAS fan backlash that's sure to come.
· Escandalo Des Lesbianas heats up: "I grabbed Salma's ass just to keep things moving, because everyone was a little slow. And, of course, the energy changed when I did that." Sure, it's out of context, but this is the only way to adequately conjure the hot lesbian action we crave on a Friday afternoon.
· "Oh, no. I didn’t feel any respect. Zero respect." Goldenfiddle interviews Gulager!