Friday
· Linkin Park sign From the Inside: Linkin Park’s Meteora (which we think is a book) at the Barnes & Noble at the Grove. Afterwards, perhaps they'll join their fans in a skinny-dipping session in the dancing waters of the Grove's fountain.
· The Hives, Sweden's nattily-dressed garage rock export, shake their skinny ties and patent leather shoes at the Wiltern.
Saturday
· KROQ front-loads its Almost Acoustic Christmas show with everyone's favorite indie (please, let's not quibble over labels, OK?) bands: Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, The Killers, Modest Mouse, and The Shins. Or skip the show and check out the after-party at Infusion with more bands and DJ sets.
·The 42nd Annual Marina Del Rey Holiday Boat Parade features boats with lights on them and fireworks exploding over the boats with the lights on them.
· Spend "A Night with Mark Ruffalo" at the Egyptian Theatre, with a Q & A between showings of We Don't Live Here Anymore and You Can Count on Me. In the words of Defamer's Intern Y, "Me-ow."
Sunday
· Day 2 of the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas promises to be louder than the first, with Green Day, Papa Roach, Sum 41, and that band put together from the spare parts of STP and GnR.
· Shop for unique holiday gifts at the Bazaar Bizarre, a crafts fair that fully harnesses the homophonic possibilities of its name.

Because it would be tragic to let the remainder of this rapidly expiring work week slip away without a nod to the latest in foot-related Britney Spears news: The British Sun reports that Spears' bare feet emitted a stench so potent that it sent passengers on a recent LA to NY flight clawing at the emergency doors, clamoring for the relief that only a catastrophic drop in cabin pressure could afford. Luckily, quick-thinking flight attendants convinced Spears to return the offending podia to smell-dampening footwear, avoiding an air travel catastrophe that certainly would've resulted in every American airport adding specially trained, toe-sniffing dogs and foot-washing equipment to their already onerous security procedures. Disaster averted!

If you were thinking about checking out Closer solely to see how much of Natalie Portman's naked body director Mike Nichols left in the film, but have balked because you've heard those scenes are constantly interrupted by pretentious nonsense like "acting" and "dialogue," the internet has again come to your rescue. Sister site Fleshbot does its best to save you the trip to the theater with some stills from the movie, as well as a link to this clever collection of all of Portman's semi-nude scenes set to a perky disco soundtrack. We're still scouring the web for a version of Clive Owen and Jude Law's climactic IMing scene set to "I Touch Myself," but the Portman stuff should hold us over for a while.

We'd like to thank this week's sponsors, whom we're pretty sure would promptly return our Centurion card should we "lose" it in a club's bathroom. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and reach the world's spend-happiest consumers in the right, sexy way, see our ad info page.

With the Sundance just around the corner, Defamer is committed to bringing together Hollywood's hottest behind-the-scenes players and sponsors seeking the kind of heat that only a presence at the industry's top independent film festival can provide. In an e-mail pitch to buzz-seeking brands looking to get in on Cinetic Media's celebrity-studded party, the consulting firm is touted as the "unseen hand" that "virtually 'owns' Sundance" by past clients' successes and the twelve films they're hawking this year. Get on board while you still can, in the "right, sexy way," as the e-mail so alluringly puts it. But please, let's not tell Robert Redford or Sundance head Geoff Gilmore, who might take exception to the idea that someone else owns Park City. The e-mail is after the jump.

We pull into the holiday home stretch with a fresh batch of our usual projections of questionable value. Why should anything be different because we're drinking egg nog stinking of rum?

· Switching to a strategy in which they will only try to court viewers who live within the Los Angeles city limits, Showtime fast-tracks the production of Two Blind Mikes, the story of Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz's love affair gone sour. Do the Showtime folks know something we don't about how The Hollywood Trial of the Century is going to turn out? [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Warner Bros. becomes the first studio to make over $2 billion internationally in one year. Apparently, Troy and Last Samurai play much better with overdubbing or subtitles. [THR]
· Nicole Kidman ditches the new The Producers movie, claiming she's way too busy to learn the songs and dance routines. [Variety]
· Snoop Dogg will star in and produce a Coach Snoop, a film about his experiences coaching his son's football team. Said Snoop, "But most importantly during the football season, if you aren't wearing a helmet, get the fuck away from me. Football first; everything else second." Well, everything else but weed. [THR]
· HBO claims their in-show product placements are all driven by story and add extra realism, instead of adding huge amounts of cash to the network. Right. Nothing's more real than stealth cash from advertisers. [THR]

Last night, a spy heroically (i.e., drunkenly) tapped out this brief account of Kathy Griffin's Christmas party. This strange menagerie of Hollywood's lesser lights immediately reminds us why Griffin's comedy show is called "The D-List." (We'll blame the booze for the spy's alphabetical upgrade of the attendees.)

Page Six ruins our breakfast by sneakily coining a rather unpleasant euphemism for Paris Hilton's genitalia:

The difference between Scientology poster-children Tom Cruise and John Travolta (besides about 100 pounds of head-bloat): When Cruise wants to make Battlefield:Earth, he gets Steven Spielberg to direct it.

· Lindsay Lohan, more than a little defensive: "AP: What is with people's obsession with your breasts? Lohan: God. I don't know. They're real though." Make sure you read the whole exchange, it's chock full of some real howlers.
· RIP Dimebag Darrell, nee Diamond Darrell. May you shred in Heaven, sweet cowboy from Hell.
· Tara Reid tears at her clothing and cries to the heavens, futilely begging for some relief from her crushing fame: "[The tabloids] will write anything they can and always in a derogatory way. You can't do anything about it." [second item]
· "This time, a sobbing Spears had to be carried out of the Hard Rock Hotel and ended up getting sick in the parking lot."

· Get into the spirit of the season with It’s a John Waters Christmas at UCLA's Royce Hall, featuring a pre-show meet and greet with the auteur himself. Hey, drag queens who eat feces are still more Christmas-y than anything the Scientologists can cook up.
· Join the worst-dressed Queer Eye makeover specialist (we're talking about Carson Kressley—oh the irony!) as he presents his new book, Off the Cuff, at the W Hotel. Fun fact you will only discover if you followed the link: He's a "nationally ranked equestrian," which explains the disturbing jodhpurs fetish.
· If the winter chill that's crippled the city doesn't scare you, check out the Downtown Artwalk. And by "chill" we mean "any temperatures below 60 degrees." Oh, west coast livin' has made us so very soft.

A couple of days after TVGasm blew the lid off the upcoming lesbian subplot for Mischa Barton's character on The O.C., wonderboy show creator Josh Schwartz explains the move in a Q & A on Out.com. And while we're talking gay entanglements, why aren't Seth and Ryan taking their relationship to the next level? Too easy:

An "insider" tells Page Six that the production of Memoirs of a Geisha has been slowed because they've hired any Asian actor they can get their hands on (whether or not they're Japanese like the story's characters), necessitating a small army of translators to get anything done. Naturally, the producers "laughed off" the insider's story, saying, "They all look alike anyway! Who cares if they can't understand each other?" OK, they didn't actually say that, but we've got a feeling that's their favorite on-set joke anytime something goes wrong (other than "Well, that's why Spielberg dumped this project!")

With the "psychopath" epithet tossed into the fray early in testimony at The Hollywood Trial of the Century, we knew that it wouldn't be long before someone laid the "cancer" metaphor at Michael Ovitz's feet. Today's testimony, however, contained a much more interesting image courtesy of a former Disney director:

The events that transpired at last night's DVD release party for Princess Diaries 2 may reveal that Vanessa Bryant still might be carrying around wounds that even a new, huge Lakers contract for hubby Kobe couldn't heal. Act out much, Mrs. Bryant?

· The O.C.'s Mischa Barton is in negotiations to star in Dino de Laurentiis period drama The Decameron, based on the 14th century literary classic that no one within a 300-mile radius of Los Angeles has ever heard of. [THR]
· Adam Sandler's proves his Happy Madison Productions exists solely to keep his underemployed friends in mortgage payments, producing Bench Warmers for Rob Schneider and David Spade. Make up your own idea for a logline, you'll probably get it in fewer than three tries. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· In a move we're sure has NOTHING to do with Pixar's Cars move, DreamWorks pushes Shrek 3 to 2007. Why not just hold it until the Apocalypse, Katzenberg? It's a great time for opening family fare. [THR]
· Wayne Brady and Frasier scribe Saldin Patterson set up a legal comedy at NBC. Suicide, cutting, and vomiting to follow this item. Not in that order. [THR]
· DreamWorks renews its deal with Ben Stiller's Red Hour production company, banking that it will get more DodgeBall than Duplex. [Variety]

Last night's Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas was a rollicking-yet-practical celebration of the recording industry, where artistic achievement is measured by the only important criterion: commercial success. No different than any other second-tier awards show, the event was littered with Hollywood's B- and C-listers, whose endearing antics are dutifully reported by one of our operatives:

The LAW's Nikki Finke devotes this week's column to some inside baseball at William Morris, where 40-and-50-something Young Turks are trying to inject some life into the dinosaur agency. Among the insurgents is CEO Jim Wiatt, whose rise from humble "son of a clothing magnate" to humble servant of Holylwood talent is mercifully condensed into a few lines:

The maxim "write what you know" is a double-edged sword: