Katie Holmes debuted her new look for husband Tom Cruise while visiting the set of the ABC series Eli Stone. Holmes thought the look combined two of her favorite elements: high fashion and being a mom. Cruise nodded in agreement and also complimented her on taking him up on his recommendation to wear gloves while drinking coffee. Later on, Cruise was overheard warning Johnny Lee Miller that, "They don't put that warning label on the cup just for kicks, you know."

· Baby Mama's supporting womb Amy Poehler is in "final negotiations" to star in the "don't-call-it-a-spinoff" The Office spinoff. Said Poehler, "The second I heard Aziz Ansari had already signed on, it really just became a matter of 'when do we start?'" [Variety]
· Most annoyingly overhyped project ever (and it's still just a script! Barely a glimmer of a storyboard in its amorous father Quentin Tarantino's eye) Inglorious Bastards is said to now be considering Leo DiCaprio to star, in addition to Brad Pitt. Also on their shortlist: Marlon Brando, Charlie Chaplin, and Jesus Christ. [Variety]
· Wait a second—Desperate Housewives is actually committing to the whole jump-ahead-five-years gimmick used in the season finale? We guess so, as all the kids on the show have been replaced by teenage actors. Maybe that's what Grey's Anatomy can do with Katherine Heigl: Set next season in 2118, where all your friends at Seattle Grace enjoys the benefits of a miraculous age-freezing pill, except Izzie, who didn't sign up for trials. (And died of natural causes at 86.) [THR]
· Lost writer Craig Rosenberg will make his feature directorial debut with The Panopticon, about "a medical salesman who receives a mysterious videotape from himself telling him the world will end and that he must stop it." [THR]
· Fox has ordered a presentation for Sincerely, Ted L. Nancy, a non-scripted comedy based on the popular disgruntled-consumer-fights-back Letters From A Nut books, an inferior retread of Don Novello's classic The Lazlo Letters. [THR]

Like most celebrants of cinema's smoldering, dangerous geek-stud archetype, we've been following actor Justin Theroux's career arc for a while — mostly in front of the camera, obviously, where his roles in Mullholland Drive, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Six Feet Under and elsewhere yielded a batch of performances we presumed would catapult him to the A-list sooner or later. But now it's just getting ridiculous, as we're learning that Theroux just nabbed one of the most desirable writing gigs in Hollywood: Iron Man 2.

Made to address rumors that Grey's Anatomy writers' room dartboard pinup-girl Katherine Heigl might not survive the coming season, ABC head Steve

After surviving months of Dark Knight hype, viral outreach and tastefully overblown praise for late co-star Heath Ledger, Defamer finally got its chance at a screening Tuesday to see what all the Bat-fuss was about. And as editor Seth Abramovitch and senior editor S.T. VanAirsdale discovered in their second installment of Defamer Instant Reviews, not everybody is ready to validate its Second Coming status quite yet. Is it good? Absolutely. Is it the best film of the summer? That's where things get complicated — on AIM, of course, because this watershed cultural moment deserves no less.

Yesterday, we noted a Gawker item suggesting that Molly McNearney, who swiftly ascended the Jimmy Kimmel Live! ranks from lowly Chinese Theater Chewbacca-wrangling assistant to that show's head writer, had been the woman who came between Kimmel and Sarah Silverman. A Defamer tipster who knows McNearny wrote us to say this couldn't be further from the truth:

At the premiere of his latest film, Step Brothers, Will Ferrell attempted to use his newly acquired telepathic skills to make peoples' head explode. Ferrell recently watched the 1981 David Cronenberg film Scanners and felt inspired to pursue the telepathic arts. Ferrell said, "I started out small. Using my mind to blow up cantaloupes, watermelons. You know, the Gallagher classics. Now, I feel that I'm ready to move onto bigger things."

Google employees must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to the company's code of conduct. But Sergey Brin is exempt from such bureaucratic trifles. The cofounder skirted ethical lines when he loaned money to 23andMe, a genetic-testing startup cofounded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki, and later had Google repay that loan in the course of investing in that company. The Google board's audit committee and CEO Eric Schmidt blithely signed off on the deal, however. Now, Brin has found a new way to route money to 23andMe, this time through a charity — thereby boosting, at least notionally, the value of Google's investment and his wife's net worth. Brin can claim it's all for a good cause, but the deal stinks to high heaven.

The Daily Mail, that notorious rag that deconstructs celebrity faces and performs detailed analyses of every miniscule wrinkle, inflated pout, and sagging rump, has finally turned its eagle eyes towards Sarah Jessica Parker. And unlike fellow plastic surgery obsessed sites, the tab has gone beyond simply accusing the SATC behemoth of getting nips and tucks, choosing instead to focus on the famously anti-surgical enhancement star’s cute, albeit sizable, mole above her chin. You see, the British body part attack squad spotted a recent photo of SJP taken at last night's MLB All-Star Game and jumped to the thrilling conclusion that the actress has had her trademark imperfection — the one that inspired Rex Reed to spend an entire paragraph of his mean-spirited SATC review begging her to laser off — removed once and for all. But paired with Parker’s decade-long (sometimes downright bitchy) assault on peers who dare halt the aging process with needles and knives, the photo in question does little to convince us Sarah Jessica is guilty of anything more than having enough money to hire a proper makeup artist:

Andy Dick wears many hats: substance-friendly pansexualist, loving dad, and infrequent cannibal. We can add to that list chicken-wingery-parking-lot-felon, as the comedian was arrested at 2 a.m., found allegedly fondling a teenager in a van parked outside Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Murrieta. From TMZ:

Bride Of Chucky star Katherine Heigl and husband/rocker Joshua Kelley ran into a bit of trouble with an old man while on way to the Coldplay concert. The commotion began when Heigl made a stop in an Los Angeles area neighborhood to pick up an friend. As soon as she stepped out of the car, Heigl was greeted by paparazzi and fans taking pictures. The old man, reportedly named Mr. Johnson, came out storming out of his 2 bedroom ranch when the flashbulbs and clamor made it nearly impossible for him and his wife, Gertrude, to watch America's Got Talent. Mr. Johnson told Heigl that if she didn't leave by the count of ten, he would turn the hose on them. A panicked Joshua Kelley grabbed Heigl and headed into the car, explaining that he didn't want to get his hair wet.

If there was any doubt that the Paramount Vantage you know and love or maybe just really like — the art-house darling responsible for An Inconvenient Truth, Babel, Margot at the Wedding, There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men (the latter two co-produced by Miramax) — was done for, please direct your sad eyes toward the front door. There you'll find Amy Israel, handing over her ID badge before fleeing her post as VP of production and acquisitions.

What better way to kick off the humpday drudgery than with a truly spectacular shot of Oscar-winning cougar royalty and longstanding Defamer lust object Helen Mirren, splendidly filling out a cherry-red bikini. We really don't care what team you play for: one glimpse of that legendary rack—twice damed by the Queen herself!—instantly transforms you into a horny Helenosexual. More titillating Mirren two-piece shots after the jump:

Life is rough these days for Verne Troyer, the diminutive, sex-tape-making, back-tax-owing (allegedly), bomb-starring actor whose bout with the tabloids took an introspective turn Tuesday in an interview with E! Denying he had anything to do with the "unauthorized" release of his videotaped tongue-stabbing of ex-girlfriend Ranae Shrider, a sober Troyer inventoried Shrider's motivations for supposedly dropping the tryst at TMZ's doorstep — and, in the process, both defused and started harrowing rumors we could have gone the rest of our lives without conjuring:

· The eldest denizens of the Dark Knight cast, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, made an obligatory promotional stop-off to hobnob with the ladies of The View this morning. And, of course, they used the opportunity to stump for a Heath Ledger Oscar nomination. We'll weigh in tomorrow morning with our own thoughts, as both Seth and STV saw the movie earlier this eve. [The View]
· Woody Allen's longtime producing partner, Charles Joffe, passed away at age 78. [NYT]
· Continuing the moribund nature of tonight's edition of Short Ends, we're sad to report that nearly 150 staffers at the Los Angeles Times, including publisher David Hiller and truth-challenged reporter Chuck Philips, found themselves on the receiving end of a pink slip. [LA Observed]
· Even though we don't know a single person who watches CSI, we're pretty sure that millions of people will be upset to learn that all-around bad-ass William Peterson is leaving the show mid-season. [Michael Ausiello]
· Your Uncle Grambo's dreamgirl extraordinaire, Miss Amanda Bynes, is dating ... Seth MacFarlane??? NOOOOOO! We are so glad this day is over, we're not sure we could take anymore bad news. [ONTD]

Confession time: ever since she rescued Alfie: The Version Jude Law Wrecked from racking up Razzies with her sparkly hair and oddly transfixing "good naked" scenes, we've been a Sienna Miller fan. One of the few stars to design an actual wearable fashion line, a regular on nude beaches, not to mention her impressive performance in the neglected but excellent Interview, she's the kind of weird, devil-may-care actress we like. But our girl is in quite the pickle these days. With a loony ex-boyfriend sobbing over her in sappy love songs and telling her to "fuck off" in tabs, and a new set of her trademark topless pics featuring concrete evidence that she's screwing former heroin addict, richer-than-God oil heir, and married father of four Balthazar Getty, Sienna isn't exactly having the best month ever. However, it has been an NSFW one...

You might have heard, but I'm an L.A. virgin, cast aside from the shores of New York Shitty to the Best Coast, where I have reborn as a wide-eyed, optimistic, positive vibes, yoga-practicing girl. (However, please slap me if I ask for your astrological sign.) Still, when an old friend recommended Mustache Mondays, thus: "It's the most New York party in L.A.," I was compelled to investigate the truthiness of this statement.

In case you haven't noticed, our country is, for lack of a better expression, in the shitter. The economy blows, gas prices are off the chains, people can't afford to pay their mortgages and the most exciting news we've heard in the last few months is that Mini-Me has a sex tape. You'd think that, in a time of crisis like this, the government would step in and take action. But no! Instead, they added insult to injury when they denied Boy George a work visa so he could rock all of your red, gold and green asses on a 30-day tour of our country's purple mountained majesty. Not surprisingly, this news affected our youngest staffer, the eternally rosy cheeked Molly McAleer, in a profound way. Won't you mourn with us as you watch this evening's To Do's? That is all.

We’ve given Gwyneth Paltrow some flack lately for her sudden determination to vamp up her prim and proper image using everything from dominatrix footwear to bizarre backless jumpsuits but, with the need to promote Iron Man no longer an issue, the mother of Hollywood’s most promising cross-dressing duo is back to basics. And as it turns out, all those goopy mascara-drenched lashes and see-through mini-dresses pale in comparison to the makeup-free, covered up version of Gwyneth 1.0. In these photos, taken over the weekend at a party in the Hamptons, see why the Madonna make-out partner should give up the hooker heels for good and stick to (painful as it may be to admit) her lucky genetic makeup-free makeup:

Kudos today to James Hibberd, the Hollywood Reporter TV blogger who is perhaps the only reason we have any clue (or rather, care to have any clue) about the horrors unfolding presently at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. Apparently the Florence Henderson/Ed Asner days are over, with the one-two punch of confirmed buddies Karl Rove and Seth MacFarlane taking over Monday as the off-color star tandem to beat.