· Viacom agrees to a $3.5 million buggering over outstanding indecency fines, which doesn't include the world of pain the FCC has yet to rain down over the Janet Jackson incident. To show his gratitude for the "settlement," Viacom co-president/future galactic emperor Les Moonves plans on leaving a severed breast left in FCC chairman Michael Powell's bed. And that's just for starters. [THR]
· The MPAA upholds the NC-17 rating on Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education because "they're just not into the gay sex thing." [THR]
· Robert Downey Jr. joins Tim Allen in the Shaggy Dog remake. We'll all understand if Downey falls off the wagon to get through this one. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Universal writes the names of all of its 2005 films on little pieces of paper, throws them up in the air, then reschedules their release dates according to where they land on a calendar on the floor. [Variety]
· Former Academy member Carmine Caridi fined $600K for pirating movie screeners. In addition to the severe financial penalty, the judge left open the possibility that MPAA pirate-hunter-at-large Jack Valenti can beat the bottom of Caridi's feet with bamboo sticks until he calls Valenti his "copyright daddy." [Variety]

Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood's job-slashingest studio head, used the occasion of being named an honorary Commander of the British Empire to bitch about his negotiations with Disney to stay with Miramax:

In today's LAT piece on "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About How a Movie Trailer Gets Shown at Your Local Theater, But Were Afraid To Ask," we were utterly unsurprised to discover that the same system of studio payoffs, favor-trading, and intimidation that marks day-to-day business in Hollywood also effects theater chains' choices in trailers. Most comforting is the revelation that these transactions are not immune from the time-honored industry ritual of a studio executive unleashing profanities at someone with a much smaller salary:

—Angelina Jolie shows considerably more pull than Tara Reid did in erasing pictures of a (small scale) wardrobe incident. Maybe it was the Oscar, or maybe it was the fact that her entire breast didn't plop out.
—This truly disturbing promotional video for Showtime's Fat Actress features Kirstie Alley devouring a huge bowl of spaghetti and jokingly requesting a Diet Coke to wash it down. We don't care how tongue-in-cheek it professes to be, it still made us want to swear off pasta (and eating, and television, and Cheers reruns) forever. [via IMDb]
—Rudy Huxtable is all grows up. All grows up!
—Finally, a case of celebrity exhaustion we can actually believe.
—Pee Wee's flack bans all mentions of "public masturbation" and "kiddie porn arrests" from his interviews. Well, that leaves a fascinating discussion of his role as a hairdresser in Blow or his super-flatulence in Mystery Men in play for reporters.

· Green Day performs its "punk opera" American Idiot at the Long Beach Arena. This may seem too far to travel for Green Day, but if Billie Joe Armstrong fully embraces the opera aesthetic and performs in a Viking helmet and surrounded by fat ladies (OK, we learned everything we know about opera from Bugs Bunny), it might be worth the drive.
· Tears for Fears, however, will be right in your backyard at the Universal Amphitheater. If you listen closely enough, you just might hear the chant "Shout, shout, let it all out" drifting over the Hills.
· Blues Explosion (née John Spencer Blues Explosion, but don't worry, he's still fronting the band) play the El Rey with The Gossip.

Drawn like a cripple to the healing waters at Lourdes, we felt compelled to make a pilgrimage to a site similarly touched by otherworldly power: the Melrose Avenue t-shirt shop where one Britney Spears composed her incredible Graffiti of Truth on a wall.

The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke generously awards herself an honorary "Eisner' ("you get a prick with brass balls") for earning a mention in The Hollywood Trial of the Century when an article she wrote about the tensions between Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz started to leak out into the press turned up as evidence. Finke recounts the plaintiff's lawyer's mention of her piece:

Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are sent in by our readers. Send yours to tips@defamer.com and let Cameron Diaz know her treadmill technique leaves something to be desired.

The Defamer special movie premiere food critic reports from last night's opening of Closer and the after-party at Spago. Among the night's culinary delights was that new avatar of Hollywood dessert table class, the chocolate fountain, which discerning freebie food-seekers stalk like Ponce de Leon through the marshes of Florida on his mission for eternal youth.

· News hotter than a narcoleptic possum that fell asleep inside a wood-burning stove: Dan Rather will "step down" as CBS' chief anchor in March. He'll take his mildly brain-damaged, countrified sayings to a full-time correspondent gig with the network. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Desperate to plug the hole left by the end of Sex and the City, HBO gives SATC's Michael Patrick King's Lisa Kudrow vehicle Comeback a quick 13 episode order. HBO usually knows what it's doing, but does the phrase "Lisa Kudrow vehicle" scare you as much as it does us? It's not quite "David Schwimmer directs," but still. [THR]
· Hollywood's most beloved showrunners, Will & Grace's David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, are close to getting their pilot Kings of New York set up at NBC—the same network they're fighting in court. Will the lawsuits mysteriously disappear following a pick-up? Will the show suck as much as Good Morning, Miami? Only time will tell. [THR]
· The recent tidal wave of useless swag pouring forth from Hollywood's promotion departments indicates that the industry is back to its classic, money-burning ways. [Variety]
· Congress OKs the creation of a copyright enforcement czar, establishing a Supreme Pirate Hunter at the federal level. Arrrrrrr and whatnot. [THR]

Stephen Bollenbach, Disney's chief financial officer during the Ovitz Debacle, took the stand at The Hollywood Trial of the Century and described the former president's "odd" managerial style. Among Ovitz's more charming behaviors was gathering his executives and asking them whom they thought was the most important person in history (among the answers: Jesus and Eisner) and showily pulling aside CEO Michael Eisner to conspicuously whisper in his ear.

The NYT's Sharon Waxman looks at the fallout from last week's PMK/HBH bloodletting, where Pat Kingsley, the Iron Flack, preemptively fired number two uberpublicist Leslee Dart before the whippersnapper could force her into the Old Reps Home. Unhappy A-list movie clients are rumbling about bolting the firm to stay with Dart, terrified that the change could hurt their films' awards-time promotion. Even former PMK director Lois Smith thinks canning Dart was a mistake and that the er, mature, Kingsley might have to start thinking about hanging up her cat o' nine tails.

Film Threat knows that other magazine's "hot" and "power" lists are an exercise in futility, as one year's Most Powerful Man in Hollywood is the next's high profile defendant, and fleetingly omnipotent studio are forced to cut back employee's vacation time to make ends meet. It's arguably far more relevant to examine the lower reaches of the power thermometer, so Film Threat lists this year's "Frigid 50," the Hollywood players whose careers seem to have a caught walking pneumonia. Congratulations to old pals Michael Moore (No. 1), Michael Eisner (3), Paris Hilton (9), and Ben Affleck (10), who've all managed to crack the top ten. If things break right for them, they might manage to get hotter than Colin Farrell's infamous penis (17).

—Lindsay Lohan reveals the "real" reason for her recent, five-day stay at Cedars Sinai: "exhaustion." Hollywood should really get some doctors working on a cure for that. Movies lose more money from star "exhaustion" than from all other maladies combined.
—John Stamos is using his upcoming TV show to get crazy laid. God bless his heart!
—Burglars broke into Ozzy Osbourne's English house and made off with a "large amount" of jewelry. Osbourne's reps wouldn't say whether it was Ozzy who confronted one of the thieves, but someone "mumbled incomprehensibly, shouted at a dog, and wet his pants" before the criminal escaped.
—It's official: Hollywood ignores flyover country. Somebody should immediately write an analysis of this finding that declares a "culture war" between the red and blue states.

· If you're the kind of person classy enough to sit through one of those movies where you have to read the dialogue on the bottom of the screen, you very well may enjoy the the Jean-Pierre Jeunet Tribute at the Egyptian Theatre. Jeunet will discuss his oeuvre between screenings of Delicatessen and Amelie, and perhaps can be persuaded to cross the street for a late showing of instant American classic National Treasure in the interest of cultural exchange.
· An evening that truly sells itself: Hot Bitches of Comedy at Mbar.
· Daughters on Dads: At Dutton's in Brentwood, Patti Davis reads from The Long Goodbye, in which she discusses her famous father (he was an actor, we think). And Deana Martin dishes on the Rat Packer that raised her in Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter’s Eyes at the Barnes and Noble at The Grove.

We hate to admit it, but we've become completely desensitized to Paris Hilton sex stories. Today's Rush & Molloy column in the NY Daily News reveals that Hustler will be running pictures of Hilton kissing a woman (and clothed pictures, no less), and we practically had to apply jumper cables to our privates to even get through the item. It's a sorry state of affairs when the atrocious grammar on her t-shirt does more to raise our blood pressure than the "lesbian make-out" she's now rendered utterly mundane. [Ed. note—Was the printer fresh out of apostrophes?] This is truly a sad day for us all. Let the cutting commence.

Please, don't be alarmed. Britney Spears' face is NOT twisted into a mask of indescribable suffering because she's in the thrall of a fiery attack of an STD that Kevin Federline "forgot" to tell her about—she's merely desperate to use the toilet at a Malibu Jack in the Box. Other photos in the series seem to reveal that Spears' bladder-voiding needs were so urgent that she forgot to remove her shoes before entering the public bathroom, but it's anyone's guess as to whether they remained on once she was in the safety of her own stall.

Bruce Willis is suing schlockhouse extraordinaire Revolution Studios over an injury he suffered on the set of Tears of the Sun. Willis was hit in the forehead by a "projectile" that struck him while some special effects "squibs" were detonated around him to simulate gunfire. If we hadn't written about him moments ago, we'd suggest that it's hilarious to re-read the complaint and substitute "injured by the projectile" with "injured by images of Ashton Kutcher having sex with the mother of his children in a variety of acrobatic positions." (We'd like to sue for that one as well.) Instead, we'll speculate that maybe Willis' injury is to blame for his extremely loud, public cellphone conversations.

When a reader first spotted the automotive abomination known as the CXT (picture a Mack truck raping a Hummer) at The Grove a couple of months ago, we knew it was only a matter of time before some high-profile jackass started tooling around town in one. So color us utterly unsurprised that Ashton Kutcher, ever on the vanguard of useless Hollywood fads, is among the ridiculous behemoth's early adopters. If he really wants everyone in town to know what's going on underneath his man-skirt, it probably would've been cheaper to drive around Beverly Hills in a tiny, shriveled version of the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.

· Dr. Phil extends his contract for three more years, allowing him to continue making the hard work of ruining America's families look effortless. [THR]
· Halle Berry is cast in Revolution Studios' psychological thriller At Least It's Not Fucking Catwoman Perfect Stranger. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· CBS thinks they're protecting themselves from another incident by choosing Paul McCartney as this year's Super Bowl halftime entertainment, but we predict Super Sunday will be marred by Sir Paul "accidentally" showing us his Prince Albert in the middle of a Wings medley. [THR]
· Desperate Housewives shrugs off all the horrifying, damaging Monday Night Football publicity and continues to dominate the ratings. [Variety]
· Punk'd/Without a Paddle megastar Dax Shepard condescends to star with has-been Dustin Hoffman in Car Wars for Warner Bros. [THR]