Click to viewBoomp3.com Popular actress Lindsay Lohan stopped by a Los Angeles area gas station to pick up what she considers to be her life force: candy! The star of such films as I Know Who Killed Me and Just My Luck purchased the min mart’s entire stock of Sprees, Sour Patch Kids, and a few bottles of Nesquik chocolate milk. Lohan hoped her restocking mission would keep her going through at least Wednesday afternoon. [Photo Credit: WENN] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

This past weekend's episode of Saturday Night Live continues to make news; first, everyone was talking about the Tina Fey-enhanced vice presidential debate sketch, then, praise trickled down to Andy Samberg's Mark Wahlberg imitation and Kristen Wiig's tiny, tiny hands. Over on the right-wing side of the blogosphere, however, the sketch that ignited conservative appreciation was a takeoff on the government bailout (spoofing Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, and Golden West Financial founders Herbert and Marion Sandler) where Jason Sudeikis as President Bush noted, "Wasn't it my administration that warned about the problem six years ago and it was Democrats who refused to listen?" The skit initially appeared on NBC's website but was abruptly yanked yesterday, causing a conservative furor. Now, NBC says a censored version will be reuploaded today. THR has the scoop:

We're going to preface this by saying that we here at Defamer don't just respect our elders, we downright adulate them. (That is, unless they're in the car ahead of us, counting pennies at the Vons 15-items-or-less lane, or generally engaging us in a conversation that involves several extinct movie stars and cookie brands that we've never heard of.) The last thing we'd want is for you to think we were taking some sort of perverse pleasure in witnessing whatever it is Cloris Leachman's body was doing on Dancing with the Stars last night.In a similar vein, we're not providing the above Regis Philbin brainfartstravaganza to mock the lightly addled broadcast legend. God only knows how many bits of showbiz ephemera he's amassed over the years, and are currently floating through his cortex like fabulous amoeba; the very act of reaching up and grabbing the right one at the right moment seems almost a fool's task. We'll tell you one name, however, that Reeg will never blank on: that of his schoolgirlish mancrush object, Jon Hamm. With a side of eggs, if you please. Are we right, Reeg? Special thanks to intern Matthew Rebula for doing such a nice job in putting this together.

Nick Nolte is recovering this afternoon following a blaze that officials say completely destroyed his Malibu home, causing an estimated $1.5 million in damage. Nolte reportedly cut his hand while fleeing the fire through a window, and — Wait! This just in: His rep issued a statement to Extra claiming there was in fact no structural damage, and neither Nolte nor anyone else at the house was injured. Whom to believe? One thing the dueling parties appear to agree on is the fire's source, an electrical mishap in Nolte's living room. Details beyond that are evolving as we write this; now the AP reports the home was burned to the ground, with damage totaling $3.5 million. But he's OK! Developing...

Our little Miley is growing up so fast! This weekend, the Hannah Montana threw her Sweet 16 extravaganza at Disneyland (despite the fact that she won't actually turn sixteen for several more weeks) and one of the most notable acts was a rendition of "Achy Breaky Heart" performed by both her father, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Miley's new underwear-modeling beau, Justin Gaston. Though some fathers might blanch at the idea of a smooth-crooning 20-year-old dating their 15-year-old daughter, Billy Ray tells Access Hollywood that he sees a lot of himself in the briefs-clad hunk:

When the gang at William Morris Agency sold their headquarters last week for $143 million, stunned real-estate observers wondered how the agency could command such lucre near the bottom of the market. However, a new picture finally reveals WMA's secret bargaining chip: the parking-lot gas pump where agents seek refuge from the retail class.Moreover, this is the fabled pump where some of Hollywood's most influential service-station attendants got their starts before moving on to Chevron, 76, Mobil and elsewhere. The opportunity to own a piece of history proved too irresistible for the building's buyers, whose previous attempt to buy an old agency headquarters fell through when CAA insisted on moving its 96-Octane Baby Mulcher and Stem-Cell Refinery to the Death Star in 2006. If this isn't the definition of a win-win situation, then we don't know what is.

In defending himself from a slander lawsuit—that's the one filed after he went on Letterman and called the woman who his wife ripped off her cookbook idea from a "wacko" and "hysterical" before suggesting her three names might mean she's an assassin—Jerry Seinfeld is pulling out the big guns: His beloved, long-running, top-rated sitcom has now been entered as evidence. The Smoking Gun reports:

Click to viewBoomp3.com Emotions ran high outside of popular Italian restaurant Il Sole on Monday night as Goldie Hawn attempted to come to grips with her missing car. The valet brought a series of silver Mercedes Benz, but none of them belonged to the Cactus Flower star. Eventually, Hawn’s silver Benz emerged from its seclusion. The valets could not come up with an answer for the confusion other than simply suggesting that people look into another color for their Mercedes Benz. [Photo Credit: X17] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Change We Can Believe In: Though John McCain recently made headlines for conceding the swing state of Michigan to Barack Obama, there's one battle he's not giving up on, and that's the perilous McCain/Letterman War of '08. Begun not with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand but with McCain's Late Show cancellation, the war has raged on for two perilous weeks without a peep from the presidential candidate, allowing Letterman to gather strength (as well as a celebrity army comprised of Paris Hilton and Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Now, says the New York Post, "McCain representatives and Late Show executives are negotiating an appearance on Letterman's show sometime around the final presidential debate on Oct. 15," when McCain will be in New York for the Hofstra University-set debate. Start steeling yourself for the awkward, self-effacing "heh heh hehs" now. [New York Post]

Lionsgate hosted the premiere of W. last night at the Landmark, where Josh Brolin, Oliver Stone and a celebrity cast of dozens dropped by for the first public-ish screening of Stone's five-month miracle baby. Elsewhere, in a subterranean dungeon populated by the world's few remaining mainstream film critics, the professionals parsed W. in terms that could best be described as lukewarm — Brolin's performance notwithstanding:"The damn movie leaves you feeling sorry for this fucker at the finale, and that ain't hay." — Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere "It's a gutsy movie but not necessarily a good one. Its greatest strength is that it wants to talk about what's on our minds right now and not wait for historians. ... The film gets off to an awkward start with a presidential bull session with speechwriters and top advisers that produced his 'Axis of Evil' speech about Iran, Iraq and North Korea. It borders perilously close to a Saturday Night Live sketch." — Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter "At its best, it holds up as a dramatized character study of the father and son presidents which will be watched keenly in years to come. At its worst, it is submerged by an over-populated cast of characters and a tone which shifts awkwardly between dramatic storytelling and smartass political comedy. ... [T]he film is not a biopic by any means." — Mike Goodridge, Screen Daily "For the most part, Stone and his actors meet the basic requirements of pulling off this quick-draw portrait of still-evolving history. ... Dominating are borderline distorted closeups, especially of Brolin, along with shadowy lighting and generally lackluster lensing. Some of the song choices are downright sophomoric in their too-obvious irony." — Todd McCarthy, Variety "Brolin should be nominated for the Oscar. We'll see whether the crowd around Best Actor is too big for him to crack, but it is a letter-perfect performance that looks much, much easier than most critics and audiences, I think, will understand. ... The question of the film is, 'Why?' " — David Poland, The Hot Blog Why, indeed? We're digging for the critics' bunker as we write this, determined to have an answer one way or another by the time W. opens next week. Send help if you don't hear from us.

As far as nightmare-fueling Dancing with the Stars performances go, nothing in the sequence above even approaches Marie Osmond's legendary Baby Doll Dance of Despair—a harrowing journey into wind-up madness that to this day makes our left eyelid twitch whenever we hear the song "Start Me Up" or see the color pink. We'll extend that now to fuchsia, too, as it seems Cloris Leachman's hairpiece-malfunction-plagued rockabilly ballet has already burrowed itself into our subconscious; we hold it singularly responsible for what is sure to be a recurring Busby Berkeley-on-bad-acid fever dream, featuring our worm's-eye view of hundreds of spanky-pants-wearing octogenarians scissor-kicking around us in circle formation.

Click to viewBoomp3.com Hunky indie film star Peter Dinklage approached the Jedi master of Sarah Palin impressions, Tina Fey for a few helpful tips on how to nail down Palin’s legendary wink. Fey said that there was nothing special about the wink, other than simply winking. Fey demonstrated her wink, which floored Dinklage. After watching Fey wink a few times, Dinklage developed enough courage to perform his own Palin wink. Fey winced slightly as Dinklage’s eyelid shut tightly and quickly reopened. Dinklage asked for some feedback and Fey said that he was going to need a lot of practice. [Photo Credit: Splash Pics] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Pop-culture physicists have spent the last several years chasing the elusive TMZ Principle, which dictates that scraping through the bottom of the gossip barrel will in fact bring you right back to its newsy surface. While a recent dispatch about Emeril Lagasse's 'shroom-possessing brother-in-law was an admirable if failed attempt to prove the theory, Harvey Levin's tireless moles may have found the D-list breakthough we were waiting for:

This just in from CNN.com: In an address at a manufacturing company in Chantilly, VA, President Bush—who rarely fails to shoot from the hip—has reassured a panicky population that, despite the fact that Wall Street has spent its load on bogus mortgages, the growing crisis and stiff economic times ahead are something that will eventually blow over. He then paused solemnly, and added, "Not the tip! It gets really sensitive."

Yesterday's unlikely emergence of Sherri Shepherd as The View's new foil to Elisabeth Hasselbeck was no fluke! As you might be able to discern from the fierce, finger-wagging screencap up above, Shepherd set it off on today's program (and View producers helpfully sat the two budding rivals next to each other for maximum in-your-face screaming).As Hasselbeck again brings up this week's Republican talking points by linking Barack Obama to William Ayers, Shepherd goes ballistic, shouting, "Can we talk about poor judgment?" The evisceration of Cindy McCain's homewrecking ways that follows stuns Hasselbeck ("Wow, this is super personal now!") and even the unflappable Joy Behar, who rises and... mimes flashing the audience? We're not entirely sure, but now that The View has become a reliable daily source of politically-charged catfighting, we suppose some T&A wouldn't be entirely out of place.

Clint Eastwood took himself and his new film Changeling to its US premiere last weekend at the New York Film Festival. Just like we had for our audience with Mickey Rourke, we sneaked in via a film canister to check out the scene and lob a question his way; still, as lovely and reliably austere as Changeling is, we had more pressing issues on our mind than how little Eastwood rehearsed with Angelina Jolie (answer: hardly at all). To wit: How is a long-time conservative, former elected official and John McCain supporter like Eastwood getting his head around the Celebrity Election of '08 — Sarah Palin's candidacy in particular? Was this a circus anyone could have foreseen 57 years ago when he joined the GOP? He wasn't really going there, we soon learned (he was only slightly more candid at the recent New Yorker Festival, vaguely alluding to Palin's truthfulness in her debate with Joe Biden). But as reformed Republicans go, Eastwood still packs a robust skepticism alongside his tux when he travels."My mortgage is in the toilet, too," he replied. "I haven't been very active in politics. Yes, I started out as a Republican in 1951; I was a young 21-year-old in the Army, and I wanted to vote for Dwight Eisenhower. He, like all politicians, was always promising something, and he promised he would go to Korea and end the Korean War. But the Republican Party, as has the Democratic Party, has changed dramatically in the 50-some years that I've been involved with it, so I've sort of drifted to a more Libertarian point of view. The Libertarian Party never got going as a party — just leave everybody alone. It was very appealing to a guy like myself who came up in the '30s and watched my parents struggle through the Depression and [who] nowadays is wanting for nothing. "Now, of course, everybody is promising everything," Eastwood continued. "That's the only way to get elected: You have to promise to give people all kinds of stuff. You have to give away new cars like on Oprah or something. We'll give you anything to go down and vote. It's kind of perverted politics as far as I'm concerned. Whether Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama... Whatever happens there, who knows? There are a lot of promises going on there, too. It's a very confusing era." We couldn't agree more — we'll be so much happier when no one has to worry any longer about distinguishing Palin from Tina Fey. [Photo: Getty Images]

When the conservative satire An American Carol failed to catch fire at this weekend's box office, there were a wealth of potential targets for blame: the terrible, terrible trailer, the heated political climate, even the low-wattage cast of Hollywood's few Republicans (without even so much as a cameo for D.B. Sweeney!). However, the team behind the David Zucker-helmed parody would prefer to ignore those valid debits, instead alleging that there has been a vast, ticket-switching conspiracy designed to deflate American Carol grosses (and boost, perhaps, the thinly-veiled pro-immigration dogma of Beverly Hills Chihuahua?):

· Steve Carell's new production shingle, Carousel Prods., will set up on the Warners lot, run by The Daily Show's Vance DeGeneres and college buddy Charlie Hartsock. "My idea was to partner with friends of mine, people I trusted, with whom I share a certain sensibility," Carell said, confident that employing his friends in these increasingly desperate times means he'll never want for a lift to the airport again. [Variety]
· Everyone's gaga for politics! On the eve of W's premiere, left wing and right wing releases are performing surprisingly well at the box office. (With the exception of An American Carol, as a distaste for unfunniness is the one true uniter.) [Variety]

In the "special skills" area on the back of her headshot, renaissance woman Jennifer Lopez is able to list so very many things: whispery acting, AutoTune proficiency, early 1990s dance mastery... the list goes on and on. Still, there is one useful Hollywood skill that La Lopez has always been cagey about showing off, and it's her intimate familiarity with Scientology. Though her dad has been a Scientologist for over twenty years and Lopez pals around with famous L. Ron disciples like Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and Leah Remini, she tells the Daily Beast that she's still a free agent — though her new twins might not be so lucky:

Entertainment Weekly embarked yesterday on "Recall the Gold," a project likely to result in its most complex listicle to date: The magazine's editors organized a mock vote by 7,000 industry insiders invited to reconsider the Academy Awards given in 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998 and 2003. The ballot includes only the six "major" categories — Picture, Director and the four acting awards — and, in editor Sean Smith's words, represents "voting without buzz." For starters, you won't see New Line hitting its Lord of the Rings campaign (or any campaign for that matter) quite as hard five years after its Best Picture win, and Harvey Weinstein won't be able to buy Shakespeare in Love's Oscar success from 10 years ago. All of which is sure to arouse dormant Hollywood justice even as it arouses the more fundamental question: Who gives a shit?Let's be specific, though: Even as we hate the hype, we love the Oscars. We love their glamour and mythology and the internecine Rudin/Weinstein bloodbaths — all of it. We particularly love that the Academy is the imperfect, short-sighted body that it is, because it affirms its own irrelevance without us having to do the heavy historical lifting in its losers' defense. Think Ordinary People over Raging Bull, Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction, etc. The idea that Academy voters ever got anything "wrong" is the most enduring, baffling myth of all, the outgrowth of willful ignorance that the Oscar phenomenon is anything but an annual glimpse at Hollywood's mood ring. Smith mentions being inspired by Brokeback Mountain loss to Crash, but when you treat the Oscars as what they really are — not the actual "best" of anything — revoting only reinforces the saw that justice delayed is justice denied. It's not just the winners then or now who signify that, either; even the nominees always exclude some of the most impressive work of any given year — the films and performances not designated worthy of awards pushes by studios or the critics who work in begrudging concert with them at the end of every year. "Oscar purism" is an oxymoron, as likely to reward the five most conspicuous cola brands as it is the five "best" films of any year. It doesn't make our Oscar party any less fun. Just the opposite, in fact, especially after seeing Paul Haggis claim his hardware sends us careening to the bar. But we doubt you need us to tell you any of that, and anyway, "Recall the Gold" is coming whether you want it or not. Ian McKellen will probably overtake Roberto Benigni's 1998 Best Actor prize (itself a memorably annoying surprise we wouldn't trade for anything), but were there really better performances nominated in 1988 than those of Dustin Hoffman or Jodie Foster? And would you even want to revisit that class of nominees (hint: Melanie Griffith) if your life depended on it? Thankfully it doesn't, and you don't have to. And that means all of you — revoters, toss those ballots.