Bruce Willis' loud-talking, offspring-neglecting cellphone antics of last week seem to have continued unabated up La Brea Boulevard, even after his high-decibel conversation ruptured the eardrums of our eavesdropping spy. Another reader follows up on the original story, leaving us to wonder if there's a mobile phone salesman in Beverly Hills promising celebrities that their phones emit a special jamming ray, making their inane conversations inaudible to anyone who's never been invited to the Vanity Fair Oscar party.

Paris Hilton-clubbing protesters H.O.P.E. declared victory for the their protest of her book signing last night, but at least one of the celebutante-loving faithful thinks reports of their triumph have been greatly exaggerated. We're fairly certain this didn't come from sister Nicky or Tara Reid, who are understandably too busy designing a clothing line and drinking grain alcohol (respectively) to write in.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our hawk-eyed readers. Send yours to tips@defamer.com and let Vincent Gallo know you've caught him perving on college girls.

The LAT stops just short of calling Hollywood a ghost town as industry players try to extend their summer "vacations," leisurely close deals at the Toronto Film Festival, or blithely evade a new cycle of hard work. But it sounds like a post-apocalyptic wasteland to us, where even the unwashed masses can snag a "nice" booth at the Grill and slack-faced zombies like Larry King aimlessly shuffle through our city's power corridors:

· Stroke of genius or buzz-negating, stunt-casting disaster? Semi-musical block of wood Jessica Simpson will play Daisy Duke in the Dukes of Hazzard movie, alongside the already-cast Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott. Sure, she can fill out a pair of cutoffs, but for the love of God, someone please keep her away from the flaming arrows. [THR]
· Eternally classy, rootin' tootin' studio-headin' brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein reconsider their split from Disney after CEO Michael Eisner's departure announcement. [THR]
· All Eisner, all the time: Former Disney board members Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold (the savedisney.com masterminds) predictably demand that he step down sooner, instead of his leisurely 2006 exit date. And they're on to Eisner's Apprentice-like plans for the next two years, warning the board of "Eisner's brazen attempt to usurp your responsibilities as directors by stage-managing the appointment of his anointed successor." We hope he picks Kwame! [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas XVII: Lovable The O.C. dork Adam Brody will help McG produce a Revenge of the Nerds remake for Fox Searchlight. Brody should know by now that the nerds have already won. [Variety, sub, req'd.]
· Jennifer Garner dumpee Scott Foley gets a development deal at 20th Century Fox, where he will try to drown the thought of Ben Affleck groping his ex-wife in television success. [THR]

We've got some devastating news for those with aspirations of instant hip-hop stardom and VIP access to the champagne room on P. Diddy's yacht: You're not going to win a record deal at the Win A Record Deal blog, where the largesse of producer Fallon "Buddha" Jones and his "Triggerstreet Records" offer a contest awarding a recording contract at random to someone who answers three simple questions about their "sponsors." (Which is likely a scheme to induce clickthroughs on their Google Ads.)

Page Six has a touching item about how Dustin Hoffman played matchmaker and made a love connection for sweethearts Jason Schwartzman and Zooey Deschanel (who once unknowingly spent an enchanted evening serenading us in one of Hollywood's most dive-tastic karaoke bars). But the momentary fuzzy feeling that spread across our blackened hearts was quickly replaced by horror, as we realized that the couple must immediately surrender fifteen cred points for being labeled as "Hollywood hipsters" by the gossip establishment. How mortifying. They'll be lucky to avoid being stoned to death by the hipsterati the next time they try to sneak into Spaceland to catch a show.

The View From Here blog finds a Kabbalah Centre press release revealing that not only does the Centre have a thriving magical water and red string retailing business and an uncanny knack for drawing hollow-eyed celebrity followers, they've got designs on solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. TVFH chides the Israeli politicians who are participating in the event and notes that their publicist could have used a proofreader: "I understand that Ehud Olmert's and Tzachi Hanegbi's names might be a bit difficult to spell, but they could have at least spelled Donna Karan's name correctly. Great spelling on Druze and Sufi as well."

—According to the Smoking Gun, Growing Pains actress Tracey Gold was popped for a DUI a couple of weeks ago. Did she learn nothing from the Very Special Episode of her show where Matthew Perry was killed while drunk driving? We must all heed the lessons of sitcoms past.
—Oprah has too much fucking money. Also, she gave everyone in her audience a car.
—Catherine Zeta-Jones might not have been nearly kidnapped in Mexico after all. That should have both the Mexican Tourism Board and her stalker breathing a little easier.
—Who's paying the bills at JenniferAniston.com? Apparently, no one.
—Low Culture examines airports other than LAX that might soon get the television treatment.
—Stepchild-minding sister blog Fleshbot cooks up a brief game of Guess the Mystery MILF, although in fairness, that designation is a bit premature.

According to a press release from Celebrity Justice, Harrison Ford got himself out of jury duty earlier today. It's yet another example of how Stars Are Just Like Us, except that they're treated like heroes for merely showing up to get dismissed from an already-cushy Santa Monica courtroom assignment:

So do you want to read about the supposed details of MGM's alleged sale to Sony, or do you want to look at a picture of a lion humping a lioness with a Sony logo over its eyes? Yeah, we thought so. It looks like it's a done deal, but given the frustrating, back-and-forth nature of the negotiations, we wouldn't rule out an 11th-hour purchase by the world-domination obsessed Viacom co-president Les Moonves, who'd then remortgage his bloodythirsty robot army to convert the studio into some sort of death ray, taking the entire North American continent hostage by the end of the week. OK, go ahead and call us paranoid...we'll no longer interfere with your enjoyment of the humping lions.

1. Paris Hilton signs (yet again) her book, Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose tonight at Book Soup. It's hard to imagine that her hard-core fans didn't get their Paris fix at Brentano's last week, but why not go and see how long it takes her hand to cramp up from the exertion? Or, if you're not a Paris fan...
2. The cock-eyed optimist activists from H.O.P.E. (Horrified Observers of Pedestrian Entertainment) will be protesting the Hilton book signing from in front of the Tower Records on the opposite side of Sunset Blvd, all in the name of restoring quality entertainment to the masses. We smell an old-fashioned rumble!

A Defamer operative tips us to labor problems on David E. Kelley's upcoming lawyer-driven reality show, The David E. Kelley Project. Kelley, in addition to being Mr. Michelle Pfeiffer, is the prolific television genius that inflicted Ally McBeal on the world, singlehandedly inventing the frighteningly-bony, frequently-hallucinating lawyer genre.

The Defamer correspondent for ironic celebrity endorsements on the Continent sends in this dispatch about an ill-advised marketing opportunity that the French division of McDonald's apparently couldn't pass up. It's a good thing that the metric system renders "Quarter Pounder" nonsensical, because the twins posing on a poster suggesting their cumulative weight is probably the only thing that could have been funnier than their schilling for fast food after Mary-Kate's quickie graduation from eating disorder camp.

Courtesy of the Data Lounge's sophisticated theater enthusiasts, we've been treated to these photos of Matt Damon getting a lapful of Hugh Jackman at the final show of The Boy From Oz. These ought to help Jackman finally shake those rumors about his "enthusiasm for Broadway."

· OK, maybe it's not quite as "Must See TV" as NBC would have liked: Variety thinks Joey and The Apprentice's ratings numbers weren't anything to blow Donald Trump's combover back. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Canadian Ivan Reitman will produce film version of Canadian cult TV hit Trailer Park Boys, which "features three dope-smoking ex-convicts living among friends and family." We're floored, having had no idea that Canada had trailer parks, dope, or jails. [THR]
· With Michael Eisner not stepping down as Disney CEO until 2006, his replacement candidates prepare for two long years of hair-pulling, bloodletting, and the occasional hot-oil wrestling match to prove their worth to the cackling lame duck. [THR]
· Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick get an ABC pilot deal for 1/4Life, a drama focused on friends living in Chicago undergoing post-college mid-20's crises; think of it as thirtysomething before receding hairlines and erectile dysfunction set in. [Variety, sub. req'd.]

A reader is disappointed at the (predictably) low-wattage attendees at this weekend's L.A. Short Film Festival. Teller without Penn? A guy from 7th Heaven? No one goes to a short film festival for the glitter factor, they go to indulge a short attention span. If you had your heart set on trolling for the famous that night, you'd have had a more productive night wandering the Cheescake Factory in Sherman Oaks.

Whoops! Looks like Time Warner has dropped its bid to buy MGM and pulled out of The Lion mid-stroke. This puts nearly-jilted suitor Sony back in the hunt to snap up MGM's sloppy seconds with its reported $5 billion offer. We'd try and be happy for Sony, because there's something absolutely precious about how they hung around like Jon Cryer in a Molly Ringwald movie, humming along loudly to their Walkman while Time Warner bent their beloved over the arm of the sofa, but all of this back-and-forth drama has eroded what was left of our limited capacity for joy.

Today, Defamer and Gawker Media (you know, the people that sign our paychecks and keep us in off-brand whiskey from huge, plastic bottles) launch a custom blog for A Dirty Shame, the latest movie from the twisted John Waters. Gawker HQ has signed up evil genius Remy Stern (from the New Yorkish blog and Gawker's previous Nike "Art of Speed" custom blog) to handle the writing duties and fill you in on the cinematic collision of Johnny Knoxville, Selma Blair, head injuries, and sexual obsessions. Stop by, say hello, and find out why the Catholic Church has already branded the movie "morally offensive."

Thanks to everyone that sent us a link to Manny Perry's comics page incarnation in The Boondocks this weekend. Aaron McGruder's version is a bit more menacing than the round-faced, amiable MPAA "Respect Copyrights" propaganda puppet that we've grown to know, love, and pelt with pirate-flavored barbs, but that didn't stop us from reflexively launching a chorus of ARRRRRRRRRs at the computer monitor all weekend. Yes, we felt somewhat impotent doing that, but there's no room for personal vanity in the revolution.