· For the moviegoer impatient to devour the new holiday releases, a pair of midnight screenings at the ArcLight: Phantom of the Opera (a possible Oscar contender!) and Meet the Fockers (has a cat that can flush a toilet!). Ah, to be in two places at the same time!
· Jailbait-y indie-pop stars The Like are like, totally at the Viper Room. Despite our lame attempt at airhead whimsy, they are not Valley girls from 1984. They are, however, totally awesome.
· Choreographer Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker is described as "a visual feast for all the senses," which sounds like it will be endlessly entertaining to the stoned.

A spy catches motormouth auteur Quentin Tarantino kicking some cross-country-style game at LAX:

Whether you blame fallout from the Ovitz trial, new corporate crackdowns on irresponsible spending, or Tom Cruise's wishes to further enrich the Church of Scientology, holiday swag levels are down (and bitching about reduced gift-giving is up in direct proportion). Whatever the reason, no one in Hollywood wants to admit to getting cheap as Christmas approaches. Notes Variety:

This The Apprentice-parodying holiday card from management/production company Benderspink displays both the highly-attuned comic sensibility and red-hot trendspotting savvy that allowed the firm to shepherd cinematic delights like American Pie 2, American Wedding, and The Butterfly Effect into movie theaters. Next up: a feature-length adaptation of this card starring Seann William Scott as J.C. Spink (center, Trump wig) and Jason Biggs as Chris Bender (dressed as Raj, we think). You can click the image to see a larger version.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are sent in by our readers. Send yours to tips@defamer.com and ensure that Teri Hatcher feels bad the other Housewives are dining without her.

· Morris Chestnut will star in the NBC pilot Dante, which "revolves around the life and family of a football superstar who has an extra-large sense of entitlement and often is out of touch with reality," and seemingly based on a character from a Budweiser commercial. If they wanted to steal from beer commercials, why can't we have 22 minutes of those two chicks catfighting in bikinis? Or those "Wassssup?" guys. We kinda miss them. [THR]
· Chicago film critics lay down in front of the Sideways steamroller. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Disney settles with the SEC for failing to disclose the "lucrative relationships" that the company had with relatives of board members. Oopsies! Were they supposed to let shareholders know they were hiring family members? [THR]
· Showtime euthanizes Dead Like Me after two seasons, but signs up a TV version of Barbershop. We think it's so adorable that Showtime keeps trying to make its own shows, but they should probably stick with their winning formula of hot gays and lesbians. [Variety]
· CBS quite logically selects the Irish Jonathan Rhys-Meyers to play Irish folk music icon Elvis Presley in a miniseries. [Variety]

At last, photographic evidence that Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan survived Sunday's assault at the Beverly Hills T-Mobile store. Not pictured: The broken bodies of the paparazzi crushed by Hilton's Bentley as the two starlets escaped, the "ugly" Hilary Swank waiting to tear out Hilton's weave in revenge for publicly disrespecting her.

The media may be lauding Kevin Bacon as a hero for his very, very brave [career suicide! why must he always take the dark roles?! tearing of hair and clothes, etc etc] decision to play a child molester in The Woodsman, but the set of a pedophile flick is still a total drag:

Before you snarf your office party egg nog all over the front of your red shirt in shock that Britney Spears' holiday card to her fans is [Ed .note—We can't believe we're going to say this.] classy, know this: Below the frame of the picture, the couple is naked from the waist down, standing barefoot in a filthy public restroom, and buried up to their knees in Cheetos. You can only see it if you peel off the green "Happy Holidays" sticker.

· Joel Stein's column this week is about Martha Stewart, or Susan Lyne, or about how Martha Stewart fired him... OK, we're not exactly sure what it's about, but shit, is there anyone who hasn't fired this guy? [reg. req'd.]
· "After the Ovitz Trial: Ushering in a New Era of Humility in Hollywood": Somehow, Michael Eisner driving his own rental car to the airport is a sign of a "new era of humility" in Hollywood. [reg. req'd.]
· From Bardot to Macpherson to Lohan...it's all very clear now, thanks to Gawker.
· C-list celebrity autographs make the perfect stocking stuffer.

· Despair ye all who refuse to rock here: Turbonegro plays at the House of Blues with the Eagles of Death Metal.
· There's definitely some kind of disconnect between Los Angeles and ice skating, but what the hell—strap on the skates and remember what your ass feels like after two hours of falling down.
· Director Antoine Fuqua and producer Jerry Bruckheimer will do the requisite Q & A session following a screening of the director's cut of King Arthur at the ArcLight. We offer a five dollar reward to anyone who asks Bruckheimer exactly how he fought his impulse to make a horse covered in armor explode.

You don't get to be the supreme leader of the world's leading, just-right-of-Stalin media conglomerate by squandering an opportunity to rally the troops during what would otherwise be five wasted minutes spilling saccharine, candy-cane sentiment into a dictophone . Rupert Murdoch pauses during this busy holiday season to steel the Fox troops for next year's challenges:

We'd expected as much, but Citysearch makes it official: A night with a rubbery chili dog is just as satisfying as one with Ashton Kutcher's pals and their overpriced sushi.

In what is easily our most brain-melting PrivacyWatch entry to date, a reader presents an incredible account of a very special day at the T-Mobile store in Beverly Hills. Honestly, we don't know where to start: Paris Hilton's dissing of Hilary Swank? The sudden rash of celebrity Sidekick thefts? Just about the only thing that didn't happen was Catherine Zeta Jones parachuting in to save the day by frying the paparazzi throng with laser beams from her eyes.

Scarlett Johansson's escorting of Derek Jeter to last week's Microsoft party at Geisha House had the tabloids atwitter with possible breaking canoodling news, but one of our readers has already spotted her back with her homeless-chic snuggle-buddy:

Harvey Weinstein used his platform at Miramax's 25th anniversary function on Thursday to bitch about Disney and crow about his possible post-Mouse future:

Our fourth edition of Hollywood Holiday Cards features America's favorite family in all of their Yuletide splendor. Yes, it's been a rough year for the Hilton clan, but we're not going to rehash the sordid details of the myriad embarrassments visited upon Rick and Kathy by their sex-tape-doggystylin', N-bomb-droppin', quickie-Vegas-marryin' daughters.

· Both THR and Variety break down the "changing of the guard" at William Morris. Other terms used to describe the changes: shake-up, culture war, overhaul. Sadly, neither paper went for "bloodletting" or "board room massacre." [THR, Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind halts the Sideways juggernaut by being named best picture by the D.C. film critics. We may have to abandon our persecution complex if movies we loved continue to win awards.
· Writers' assistant Larry Reitzer lives the dream, selling a pilot script to ABC. Naturally, his boss of four years is cut in on the deal. [THR]
· Warner Bros. options the movie rights to a short story about a guy who uses math equations to make his girlfriend commit. You heard it here first: Nerds are going to be huge in '05. [Variety]
· The second season Apprentice finale comes nowhere near the ratings numbers of the first, but does well enough to ensure that the Donald will be boring us with two- and three-hour specials in the future. [THR]

If suing copyright-disrespecting scofflaws back into the Betamax era isn't going to solve the problem of movie piracy, the studios (no doubt operating from the MPAA's pamphlet How to Use the Major Media to Get the Public to Feel Our Pain) are going to try a different tactic: spinning tales of poetic justice.

A producer is suing megastars/former Pussy Posse cowboys Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguie for blocking the distribution of a film they did in 1995: