Variety wastes no time taking some potshots at new MPAA head Dan Glickman. They find him wanting when his "Hollywood" factor is compared to the outgoing Jack Valenti. 'He's certainly not straight out of Central Casting. The balding, slightly pudgy former congressman from Kansas has never been known for his pizzazz or sartorial splendor...Glickman's serious, plain-spoken statements at the press conference also stood in stark contrast to Valenti's florid elocution." And the picture Variety runs, in which Glickman looks like he was once separated from actor Jeffrey Tambor with a chainsaw, isn't helping to sex him up. Maybe he was better off when we stuck his head on Valenti's body.

Tinfoil-helmeted blogger Jim Treacher has a moment of clarity, where the sex scandals align and conspiracies are nearly revealed. Jack Ryan's public sex scandal...a former "Jack Ryan" allegedly f**ked in the a**? Something is up:

The MPAA's home page posts the press releases announcing Jack Valenti's retirement from his position as the organization's leader and the appointment of former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman as his successor. We're a tad wary; the guy doesn't look nearly angry enough. And this quote from the release naming Glickman as the new chief isn't reassuring. He just sounds so reasonable.

Drudge reports that Marlon Brando has died of unknown causes, citing this story from a local TV station in Phoenix. Brando. He was 80 years old. Brando recently settled a lawsuit with a former personal assistant. Brando was best known for his roles in The Godfather, On the Waterfront, and for refusing to wear pants on the set of The Score so that he would only be shot from the waist up.

The Fresno Famous blog has the freshman yearbook photo of Kevin Federline, current Britney Spears fiancé and former baby-batter supplier to auxiliary Moesha cast members.* Doesn't he just look like he's been planning a doomed marriage to a home-wrecking pop-star since he was 14?

—Perhaps Michael Moore doesn't really want you to download Fahrenheit 9/11.
—Celebrity Drunk Driving: It's not just for Hasselhoff anymore.
—Spider-Man 2 makes the biggest shitload of money in the history of opening days.
—Big day at Star magazine: They discover both Friendster and that Tara Reid is a little trampy.
—In case you were wondering what happened to the guessing game, this week's blind item was way too obvious for us to bother.
—Maybe Drudge was wrong about Tobey's bulge. Here's an old, probably doctored and definitely disturbing pic. [NSFW]

This Variety headline for their story on the "bidding war" between Time Warner and Sony for MGM has the folks at TW executing a classic, if dangerous, negotiation ploy: the extreme low-ball. "What, the Japanese are offering you five billion? They probably mean yen, that's like ten dollars American. Fuck that, we'll do you a favor and give you five million. Take it or leave it, I got Viacom on the other line and they're offering to sell us Paramount for a hundred dollars and a bag of hammers."

Just because you've all been so good and made it to the afternoon without any fresh Mary-Kate Olsen coverage, we'll direct you to this strange turn in her redemption saga. Bitchmongering, media-whore cousin Gawker hears a strange tale of recent DUI recipient David Hasselhoff outing little Mary-Kate as a resident of Cirque Lodge, where he was "relaxing" until recently, to a radio station. MK's plight just gets sadder by the day. Not only are the tabloids screaming about her alleged coke habit, but she's being betrayed by her rehab buddy—even after she never laughed when he insisted on telling everyone in the encounter session how huge he is in Germany.

The Smoking Gun, your home for all headache-inducing celebrity-excess documents, has Sharon Stone's five-page contract rider detailing her perks. Among her demands are a $3500/week "per diem" (isn't that really just an obnoxious way of saying $500 per day?), an assurance that "no one receives better facilities" for their trailer, three nannies, and a draconian ban on all on-set cigar smoke. We wonder if she's slowly dropping some of these demands after watching herself gradually disappear from Catwoman's promotional campaign. Even the buzz-deficient disaster wants to bury her in the litter box.

After seeing an original scoop being followed up by Page Six, chronically self-touching sister blog Fleshbot picked up a phone to call supposed Alec Baldwin sweaty a**-f**ker Dessarae Bradford. Page Six got the official Baldwin denials; Fleshbot bagged the penetrating interview:

What's on Matt Drudge's mind today? Check out the picture of Spider-Man Drudge selected to dangle over his Drudge Report headline "'SPIDERMAN' OPENS HUGE." Tobey Maguire must not have filled out certain parts of the Spidey costume to suit Drudge's taste, as an older incarnation of the superhero is featured. Also notable is the picture's crotch-eye view, Spider-Man's seeming "that's right, Matty Boy, it's THIS big" gesture...and the gigantic phallic structure rising behind him, disappearing into a looming, tight circle.

The MPAA's night-vision goggles program is paying early, pirate-nabbing dividends. A projectionist at the Pacific Winnetka theater in Chatsworth caught a 16-year-old trying to record Spider-Man 2 on Wednesday, possibly reducing its projected opening-day $30 million take by dozens of dollars. Said an MPAA spokeman of the arrest, "In theaters nationwide, there are now thousands of eyes looking for camcording-pirates and this incident proves that pirates who use these devices in theaters will be caught." Now that the first phase of the anti-piracy campaign seems to be up and running, the MPAA can start arming minimum wage ushers in preparation for Phase Two.

The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke updates her story on the NYT's recent raiding of the LAT's newsroom, which included the hiring away of star film critic Manohla Dargis. LA Observed points out this quote from the column, indicating that the LAT's entertainment writers are unhappy that their work is kept under a for-pay lock on the Calendar Live site:

OK, maybe we're not responsible, but Defamer won't have Jack Valenti to kick around anymore. According to a breaking story in THR, the pirate-hunting, internet-hating MPAA chief has finally retired. As we'd recently heard, he'll be succeeded by former Clinton agriculture secretary Dan Glickman.

This morning, the incredibly helpful Norton Anti-Virus stopped an electronic menace from penetrating into our computer. Whatever behind-the-scenes voodoo the program employs to keep us safe from viruses also had the unpleasant side effect of destroying virtually all of the e-mail we've received in the last two months. So if you sent us a message in the last couple of days and we haven't responded, there's a chance it wasn't personal. Feel free to resend your recent tips, hate-mail, and urgent pleas for assistance in recovering your offshore fortunes.

According to published reports pretty much everywhere, former ABC and NBC Studios head Ted Harbert is expected to take over at E!, with an announcement coming as early as today. Good luck to Ted as he takes his place at the head of an empire built on paparazzi video, the plastic surgery deathmask that is Joan Rivers' face, and Anna Nicole Smith trying to squeeze her enormous, drug-addled ass into a bathtub. (Yes, we know that Joan Rivers has moved on. He'll just have to find another mouthy self-mutilator to annoy people on the red carpet.)

The following flagrant abuse of Craigslist's Missed Connections should effectively halt all sexual activity within a thirty-foot radius of any web browser displaying this page:

—Los Angeles: seventh best city for singles, but maintains stranglehold on number one ranking for casting-couch salad-tossings.
—"Marketing a la Michael Moore (Serves half of a polarized electorate)...Ingredients: 1 heaping dose of controversy/ 1 1/2 villains (colorful preferred)/ 1/2 cup of audience naivety"
—Nicole Kidman says that it's hard for her, a single mother, to find a mate. She just needs to do what all the kids in Hollywood are doing: get knocked up and back into a quickie wedding. Simplicity itself. (And if she seems unhealthily skinny to any of you, it's just her hairstyle.)
—Literal real-estate porn: A horny, young Hollywood couple terrorizes area open-houses with their trashy sexcapades.

This NYT still photograph of Halle Berry humiliating herself by performing the "Wal-Mart cheer" with Susan Lucci and board-member David Glass, despite a tiny-to-nonexistent theatrical release, is still projected to out-earn Catwoman in its opening weekend.

In the July 12th issue of People (which should hit the newsstands tomorrow), Britney Spears breaks her deafening silence on her engagement to dancer/bastard baby-daddy Kevin Federline. Here's what you need to know, culled from the AP's sneak preview: