So, remember that blind item from Monday about the "hunk in a summer movie" who is secretly gay and violent and awful and sneaked into his boyfriend's house and raped him? It's one of the crazier blind items we've read, and has been the Talk of the Internet (the whole internet! even Alex Balk is intrigued!) this week, with people desperately trying to figure out which star is Just Like Us. I mean, not like us. The opposite of us. Out of the dense fog of speculation, three clear candidates have emerged: Christian Bale, Will Smith, and (gasp!) James Franco. Christian Bale could be the gay rapist because he already murdered his mother then salted the earth so no other moms could grow. Plus we don't know much about his personal life other than that he's married. You know, to a lady. Still, doesn't mean he's not a disco-dancing, Oscar Wilde-reading, Streisand ticket-holding, friend of Dorothy. The scuttlebutt around the big celebrity weeklies is that it was the American Psycho who committed the heinous act. It could be Will Smith who got non-consensually jiggy because gay rumors have plagued him for years, reaching a fever pitch as fellow possible-'mo Tom Cruise led him (by which body part??!) into the dank recesses of Scientology-a supermarket checkout rack religion often thought to be a celebrity haven for gaydom and tax dodging. Plus he played a homosexual gay person in a movie once! The violence stuff would be news to me, but who knows what roiling darkness lurks in the heart of the Fresh Prince? Plus this guy says it was Will, though he implies that it was just rough sex play, not rape. And then there's the compelling case of James Franco. Basically the rumor is that Franco dated the guy about two years ago, and still had a key to his house. Guy goes to an Oscars party, comes back and Franco is waiting for him and then awfulness goes down. He's rumored to have been abusive towards an old girlfriend, also an actor, some five years ago. This makes me sad because James Franco is dreamy and oh if he were gay we'd surely be married next spring, but if he's a raper then I don't want anything to do with him and he should be in jail. So. Boo. I dunno. He does do a wicked James Dean, who, as we know, was a buggerer. Plus, he's leaving the leggy blond bimbos of Los Angeles to go to writing school in New York. That's pretty geigh. So who do you think it is? Take our Very Important Poll below and weigh in on this highly galvanizing matter. (And don't say anything stupid in the comments... it's a 'Mo News Day.)

Fedora fanatic Samantha Ronson performed her best Al Bundy impression as she tagged along with good friend Lindsay Lohan on yet another shopping trip. Ronson was quick to specify that their shopping trip would not involve any more attempts to make her appear more "girly." As she reflected upon the failure of her recent makeover, Lohan released a disappointed sigh. Lohan said, "I tried. I really did. But it's like they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks." Ronson quickly quipped back, "Why change horses midstream?" The twosome began to trade old proverbs and quotes from Benjamin Franklin for over ten minutes before they reached a compromise and planned a trip to go sneaker shopping on Fairfax Ave.

Press your ear to the ground this morning and feel the subsonic rumblings rolling over from Riverside — better known these days as the Epicenter of Epochal Doll Litigation since Mattel went to war against Bratz manufacturer MGA Entertainment last month over Barbie-centric copyright infringement. And while a jury has already ruled that Bratz designer Carter Bryant conceived the dolls while working for Mattel (as well as MGA boss Isaac Larian's complicity in adapting them for his company), Bratz future are in doubt as aftershocks threaten nearly $2 billion worth of damage on the sassy young brand. But what seismic phenomena could possibly wreak such catastrophe in both the dollscape and the hearts of Bratz-obsessed girls around the world? Aggressive eyebrows and suggestive lips, lawyers argue for starters:

Continuing with our ongoing Defamer Decides 2008 political coverage (splashy logo forthcoming just as soon as we figure out how to work out another Photoshop 30-day free trial), we now bring you this new ONE campaign TV spot featuring Hollywood's most likable superstar and enviable nape-haver Matt Damon. The ad features the pedostache-free actor star soberly addressing the camera about their poverty-combating efforts. Fans should be warned, however, that the strange voices that soon emerge from Damon's lips are not the result of any multiple-personality disorders, secret hormone treatments, or Satanic possessions.Rather, Damon was transformed through the magic of A/V editing into the comely mouthpiece for a wide variety of American voices, "among them Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain and Mayor Bloomberg." It's an effective gimmick, if a little unfair to John McCain, who now can't help but hide his disappointment every time he rolls over in bed to the sound of his wife's voice, only to find a smiling Cindy instead of that dreamycakes actor from the Bourne movies.

Famed celebuspawn Suri Cruise was not in the mood to play a game of 'Peek-A-Boo' outside of a Manhattan area pottery store. In fact, Cruise just wanted to hide together. Katie Holmes quickly asked her daughter what the problem was. Suri simply replied by pointing out her mother's leggings. Holmes said, "I thought you liked them. I mean, it's a lot better than wearing your father's old jeans, right?" Suri shook her head 'no' and asked if her mother thought she was one of those girls on those party photo websites. Holmes began wonder to what had gotten in her daughter, but her thought was quickly interrupted. Suri looked directly into her eyes, "I'm quietly judging your fashion sensibilities. Now, let's go to FAO Schwartz!"

· Seriously—one towel, Jack Black? We can't even get one towel to stay securely wrapped around our waist after a shower; do you just wrap it around your head like a turban and prance around the house air-drying? What are we saying. Of course you do. [The Cho Show] · You know, we didn't want to say it—but that All Growed Up feature on TMZ has felt a little phoned in as of late. [Jossip] · You've thrilled to A Very Brady Gangbang, now enjoy a similar blaspheming of your favorite monster family in This Ain't The Munsters XXX. Be sure to browse the gallery. [Munsters XXX] · You've waited long enough: Ladies and gentlemen, Sanjaya's Nationwide commercial debuted today. [Nationwide] · Finally, someone has mapped out The Periodic Table of Awesoments. [Dapperstache]

The Watchmen Studio Blood Feud pitting Fox against Warner Bros. in a copyright scuffle to the death is turning more shrill by the minute, with outraged fanboys filling the public space from which studio lawyers retreated on Tuesday. One war-zone observer filed a particularly harrowing dispatch this morning, describing the spillover onto the Web and the violent counterattack calling for a boycott of Fox should its claim to Watchmen's rights delay the film's release. A more militant protest suggested pirating Fox's own troubled summer offering Wolverine instead, leaving an exasperated Fox spokesman to swat defensively as mouthbreathers descended from all sides:

Though MTV spent the earlier part of this week teaching men how to emotionally manipulate their girlfriends, it's got plenty of advice to dole out to women, too. Why, just have a gander at the casting call for the network's upcoming entry in the crowded "model reality" genre! In what could be a first for the network, they're looking to cast the show solely with overweight women, but there's a catch: those women will be expected to lose up to 80 pounds in just 12 dangerous weeks. Says ABC News:

We don't know if you've been keeping up with the big-ticket realty-sales going on down by Bravo's Million Dollar Listing, but these aren't one-bedroom rentals in Van Nuys, mmkay? Seriously posh properties are being sold to seriously surgeried occupants by seriously egg-haired agents. As fabulous as these homes are, however, there's still nothing like the personal touch of being left a beautiful orchid accompanied by a handwritten note wishing that they "have a wonderful summer in the BU." BU. B. U. Buh? Byooooooh. Boston University? Blair Underwood? We're stumped.

Sure, Sharon Stone is a great many things—an award-winning actress, a karmic-geology theorist, a glamorous throwback to the Golden Era of Hollywood Crazy—but she's been trying on a new persona lately: That of the majestic cougar, roaming the Hollywood hills in search of fresh, hunky meat, which she traps using her preferred stalking method of slowly uncrossing her powerful hind legs to reveal that she isn't wearing any cougar-panties. The lucky young man in the photo above is identified by In Touch as Simon LeBon 25 years ago 24-year-old Chase Dreyfus:

From the Dept. of Mildly Pressing Questions Worth Asking on A Slow Wednesday Afternoon comes this new query: "Why Is This DreamWorks-Reliance Deal Taking So Long?" It features an accompanying clock and everything — 63 Days, 18 Hours, 34 Minutes and counting! — to emphasize the hold-up since Indian conglom Reliance Big Entertainment was reported to be within weeks of saving Steven Spielberg and co. from Paramount. Indeed, what is taking so long, and why do so many sources supposedly in the know keep jumping the gun?The timekeeper cites three news sources in as many weeks that have noted that the $500 million Reliance/DreamWorks deal is "a week" away from closing. The Wall Street Journal was a little more vague when breaking the story last June, reporting only that the parties were "close" to a deal. A fun theory floated at the time suggested outgoing 'Works partner David Geffen fed the story to the Journal to entice a bid from Rupert Murdoch himself, whose 20th Century Fox is on the short (if unlikely) list of potential DreamWorks distributors:

You ever have one of those days where the only thing you want to do is go home and crawl underneath your covers? Well, if you were Molly McAleer, you could actually do your job from beneath your covers. Imagine that! Well, thanks to the magic of streaming video, you don't have to. Tonight's installment of Defamer To Do's not only occurs underneath Molly's covers, but it also echoes the time when Molls retreated to a monster fort for her own protection. However, as she'll explain to you, the circumstances for tonight's vid could not be any different. Enjoy!· Hollywood Web and Television Meetup at Blankspaces. · Gin Blossoms in Pershing Square Park (Free!). · Wizard Finger at Molly Malone's · Katchafire at the Roxy.

While some in Hollywood might see Heath Ledger's two-year-old daughter as a sacred cow, to talk show host Wendy Williams, she's red meat. Last seen offering unsolicited advice to a recovering Christina Applegate, Williams today turned her attention to Ledger, who died without updating his will to include his daughter Matilda or his ex, Spike Jonze-canoodler Michelle Williams. In response, actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell will be donating their fees from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (which they stepped into after Ledger's death) to both Michelle Williams and Matilda, an act of generosity that does not go unremarked-upon by Miss Wendy. Watch as she again horrifies her audience by going there in a bizarre, sperm-soaked metaphor meant to defend Matilda. Wendy, Wendy: with friends like these, who needs enemies? [The Wendy Williams Show]

Beloved actress Anne Hathaway embarked on a mini walk of shame outside of Coco De Ville Tuesday night. The Get Smart star, who recently split from con man & Zach Braff look alike Raffaello Follieri, allegedly had a lapse in judgment and gave reality TV maven Brody Jenner her number. At the valet station, Hathaway confessed to a BFF that she was suckered in by Jenner's frat boy charm. Hathaway sighed, "He had a backwards hat on and, well, I don't know....He just seemed like a guy who wouldn't be able pull off an elaborate con involving the Vatican, which is exactly the kind of guy I'm looking to rebound with. And he was wearing a backwards hat."

If there's one important lesson that can be drawn from the blockbuster performance of Warner Bros.' The Dark Knight, it's that audiences aren't afraid of a comic-book movie that takes a walk on the dark, grim side. However, the same can't necessarily be said for Fox topper Tom Rothman (the bane of AICN) who greenlit two Fantastic Four movies, hired Brett Ratner to direct X3, and now is allegedly mucking with the X-Men spinoff Wolverine. Despite the fact that the gritty, Hugh Jackman-topped film was met with a giddy response at this year's Comic-Con, Jeff Wells says that Rothman is pressuring director Gavin Hood to make the movie more kid-friendly — and when Hood won't cave, Rothman is taking matters into his own hands:

As a charter member of the Hollywood Welcome Wagon, Jeremy Piven did his best to welcome the city's newest resident on the set of Entourage. Piven listened intently as the woman explained her trials and tribulations in the big city of dreams and the differences here and back home in St. Paul, Minnesota. Piven confided to the woman that he also was a reformed midwesterner as well. Piven said, "After you have that first double-double from In-N-Out and watch the sunrise in Malibu and then get grossed out by a tranny on Santa Monica Blvd, you'll never want to go back there." Piven also slipped the woman his business card and said that the card would be for two free drinks at the Green Door on Thursday night.

New Line's Survivor Party: We regret overlooking this story Tuesday afternoon, but the news that New Line plans its annual summer party despite pink-slipping its founders (and more than 500 other staffers) in April can't really get old, can it? Especially not with the party coming up tomorrow night at SkyBar of all places — a $35,000 fete for 45 people, according to Nikki Finke, with whom "studio insiders" debate the figure and argue that "[e]ven in the worst years New Line always had that party. ... Toby [Emmerich] felt like the summer party is part of New Line's DNA and to change that is a mistake." OK, but this is the last time: Expect Warner Bros. to absorb the party planning and invitation distribution duties in 2009, only to push the event back to 2010 when its other parties that year threaten to underperform. [DHD]

When word came over the wires that Us Weekly was breaking the news, "Singer Ricky Martin Welcomes Twin Boys"... well, let's just say that headline promises a different article than the one we got. Still: congratulations are in order for the pop singer, who's followed in the footsteps of Clay Aiken and become a new father. Says Us:

· NBC commanded an appropriately world-record-breaking ratings win over the other four networks thanks to Michael Phelps and the rest of their Olympics coverage; but CBS's Big Brother managed to hold its own, due in no small part to a competitively themed Drown the Old Guy in Slop episode that tested the outer limits of senior contestant Jerry's will to live. [Variety] · She lost the weight, she's feeling great, and now she's ready to work: Valerie Bertinelli will return to her sitcom roots with a half-four TBS comedy about a single mom "who struggles to care for two kids and a lumber business." Even more exciting? Bonnie Franklin is in talks to play a stack of two-by-fours! [Variety] · Fox News Channel is sprucing up its Facebook page with a video clip library, enhanced feedback applications, and anchor status updates alerting you that "Bill O'Reilly is...totally nuts for WALL-E even though he knows he shouldn't be :P!!!" [Variety] ·James McAvoy and Emily Blunt will voice the title gnomes is Gnomio and Juliet, playing starcrossed Travelocity pitchmen from "rival gardens" in a computer-animated Miramax feature. [THR] ·ABC is going forward with Supermanny, a male version of Supernanny, in which bratty problem-children will be dazzled into submission by their new hunky caregiver's rippling abs and dreamy smile. [THR] [Photo via BWE.tv]

That slight crisp in the air this morning signals to us that autumn is fast approaching, with its hayrides and pumpkin picking and legion of miserable children tromping off to their imagined doom. But also it means television, sweet and glorious non-off-season TV like Gossip Girl and, um... other... shows. Many other shows! So many, in fact, that you can't-even with the aid of DVR techmologies-be expected to watch them all. But in this increasingly (for the past few hundred years) pop-driven culture, it's important that you are least able to talk about the zeitgeistiest shows out there, so after the jump we'll give you a few key talking points for some of the most buzzed about series soon to be (or, in a few cases, that already are) flickering on your idiot box. SUNDAY