This weekend's projections were co-produced by delusional certainty and crippling self-doubt.

· NBC gains the upper hand in the network fight to exploit 9/11 in a miniseries, gets close to signing Brian Grazer and Ron Howard to executive produce the project. Look for the same kind of sophisticated treatment they brought to A Beautiful Mind, with the hijackers debating their evil mission with imaginary friends. [THR]
· Former ABC president Susan Lyne will take over Martha Stewart Omnimedia. She's charged with the task of trying to smuggle cameras and kitchen utensils in a variety of delicious cakes into jail to keep their brand viable. [THR]
· Schlockhouse Revolution Studios trips over a Philip K. Dick anthology on the way to the bathroom, then signs up Nicholas Cage to star in Next, an adaptation of the Dick story The Golden Man. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Craig Kilborn's big post-Late Late Show splash is in...The Shaggy Dog remake? Kilborn will play Tim Allen's (the dog/man) incredibly, inevitably smarmy neighbor. [THR]
· Apparently, people won't just watch just any shitty reality show, as My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss, The Rebel Billionaire, and The $25 Million Hoax all flopped this week. [Variety]

Lest this weekend's limited release of the new Bridget Jones movie give anyone dangerously radical ideas about the ideal female figure, a Craigslist poster reminds everyone about our town's stringent weight requirements for trophy wives (all spelling and grammar errors [sic]):

BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin reports in Wired on some of the anti-piracy technologies that might soon come to your local theater. In keeping with the MPAA's subtle tactics, one of the new "solutions" is unironically named PirateEye and looks "looks like a mechanical replica of Darth Vader's head" watching movie patrons. Did a Hannibal Lecter mask fail in focus groups as too on the nose? The CEO of the company that makes PirateEye explains that antipiracy measure could be worse:

Every morning, our favorite moment comes when we sit down at the computer, take that first sip of a Starbucks™ caramel macchiato, and hunt through our inbox for the retail-damaged musings of the DailyCandy crew. Today's DC was an especially edifying treat, where a "lexicon" feature introduced us to some cutting-edge vocab:

We're nearly as tired of passing on Miramax layoff rumors as their employees are of actually being fired (are those sympathetic whip-wounds we're developing on our back?), but we're hearing that the pre-Thanksgiving downsizing party might be coming sooner than expected...like tomorrow sooner. The whispers have about 50 NY-based jobs disappearing with a wave of Harvey Weinstein's meaty hand on Friday. So, Miramax staffers, if you find yourself on the business end of a pink-slip tomorrow, count to ten before filling your pockets with office supplies and making a break for the front door. Harvey is a big man, sure, but much quicker than he looks, so plan your escape route before bolting.

—Say it ain't so! Fez and Lindsay are Splitsville? No longer on each other's buddy lists? No longer having sexual intercourse after nights of boozing at Concorde? We can't handle news like this so late in the day. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SOMEONE GET A PUBLICIST DENIAL BEFORE WE WAKE UP TOMORROW.
—Red staters, delusional with boredom from having secured control of the country for four more years, seek to fill their empty place by protesting Kinsey.
—Hugh Grant is retiring. Or semiretired. Or starring in the new Bridget Jones movie. Who can really keep track of this guy when he's not getting blown by a hooker? At least then there's a paper trail.
—Someone actually might be more excited about The O.C. than we are. We're challenging him to a duel tomorrow, and Summer is the prize.

1. The ambiguously gay uno (a.k.a. Morrissey) unpacks his bag full of mope-pop at the Universal Amphitheatre tonight and tomorrow. Should you desire something more in the garage rock vein, head to the Echo for Wolf Eyes and Comets on Fire.
2. The things about these film festivals is they keep showing movies until the festival is over! Amazing! Tonight's AFI Fest has Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story with The Daily Show's Rob Corddry and Hotel Rwanda with the always worthy Don Cheadle.
3. Now that The O.C. burned off last week's season premiere clumsily undoing the damage of last season's finale, we can get back to the important business of savoring Seth Cohen wisecracks and wondering exactly why they haven't killed off Marissa yet. [This space not paid for by Fox. Unfortunately. We like to eat!]

LA.comfidential ventured out to last night's Hammer Conversation at UCLA with I Heart Huckabees maverick/director/headlock artist David O. Russell and star Lily Tomlin. Tomlin shared her thoughts on drugs as a "creative tool" with the audience:

A spy dining at Disney spotted a certain tabloid-friendly starlet on the loose at the cafeteria. Disappointingly, no disco balls dropped from the ceiling or open bars appeared to celebrate her arrival:

Since recently-appointed MPAA head/pirate-hunter Dan Glickman is still new on the job, he's going to have to endure months of inevitable "He's no Jack Valenti" profiles like the one in today's NYT, which begins with "He's about as bland as Jack Valenti is colorful. A navy blue blazer and a comb-over. A long face with puffy eyelids that have yet to feel the sharp edge of Beverly Hills' finest technicians." Eventually, the piece heats up a little when News Corp president Peter Chernin seemingly hints that although Glickman's clearly no dapper Jack, he might draw some interest from a certain faction of Hollywood power players when he's not occupied with suing movie downloaders:

Publicists Ken Sunshine and Brad Cafarelli have released this explanation for Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake's weekend paparazzi skirmish in front of Chateau Marmont, in which Diaz appropriated a camera for "evidence":

Isn't it strange how celebrities always get sued in threes? Following suits involving Burt Reynolds and Liza Minelli, Bill Maher completes the legal trifecta by being named in a palimony suit by ex-girlfriend Nancy "Coco Johnsen" Johnson.[Link NSFW!] Observe the sobering way that lawsuits narrate the melancholy fade of romance:

· Kevin Spacey's is so firmly in the thrall of Bobby Darin after making Beyond the Sea that he's performing Darin's music at the Wiltern with an orchestra. Obviously, Spacey wanted to give THR another opportunity to run that picture of him getting friendly with a microphone. [THR]
· Brett Ratner signs on to direct and executive produce the Fox drama pilot Prison Break. He's wasting himself on television. We firmly believe that Ratner's hacky gifts need to be writ large on a silver-screen canvas to be truly appreciated. [THR]

When we heard yesterday that Miramax might be planning another round of layoffs just in time for Thanksgiving, we mused that Harvey Weinstein might need to hire temps to have the necessary warm bodies to toss out of the nearest open window. Now we've discovered that Miramax has posted a job listing at Monster.com. It's an assistant level position (is "Assistant" Max-speak for "pinkslip fodder"?), so if you're a risk-taker looking to get abused for a week or two before before getting laid off, send over a resume.

You may not remember an ethical flap resulting from the Television Critics Association taking network and studio blood money for ads in the TCA Awards program earlier this year. Really, why would you? But officials within the TCA are still wringing their hands about how to get rid of the tainted funds and restore the credibility of people who watch the tube for a living. Why don't they just send the money back? The nets/studios won't take it back. And what should they do with the funds if the networks persist in their "no givebacks" policy? An e-mail to TCA members ponders a plan of action:

Rumors that Britney Spears is indeed incubating the Baby of Truth in her popstar womb are still flying, and not even publicist/human denial machine Leslie Sloane Zelnick can shoot them down. She meekly offers Page Six a defeated "I don't know" about the status of Britney's uterus and claims that Spears isn't returning her calls. Because it's her job to cloud the minds of the press, we must entertain the possibility that LSZ isn't giving us all of the facts and was just having a bad day. After another cup of coffee, she might have come up with something like, "Not only is Britney Spears not pregnant, she's never even seen a background dancer's penis." We're confident she'll do better next time.

—Madonna's opinions about Iraq count more than yours because she's famous and knows 72 names for God. Also, her manager quit.
—Kate Bosworth and Kirsten Dunst indulge in some subtly ironic smoking at a cancer benefit.
—Obvious for anyone whose name ends in "ilton": "The couple may not have been entirely sober when they swapped vows at 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 15 at Vegas Wedding Chapel."
—Two Minutes with Taylor Negron, Better Off Dead's creepy mailman.
—Maybe there was something to David Gest's headaches...

1. David O. Russell and Lily Tomlin shoot the shit about I Heart Huckabees at the Hammer Conversations series at UCLA. They're sure to discuss Russell's now-legendary directing techniques, and somewhat less likely to talk about his putting Christopher Nolan in a headlock or his infamous brawl with George Clooney. Bonus points for anyone asking him about proper armpit licking technique should there be a Q and A session.
2. Rising indie darlings Dogs Die in Hot Cars rock in a hot club at the Troubadour.
3. Sean Penn finally opts for some refreshingly light, apolitical fare, starring in The Assassination of Richard Nixon at an AFI Fest showing at the ArcLight. OK, maybe not so light, but it's probably less political than another trip to Iraq.

A reader grubs free stuff at the "Amazon.com Goes Hollywood for the Holidays" party last night and overhears an intriguing conversation about Har Mar Superstar's recently-shaved nether regions: