Victoria Beckham and her razor-sharp cheekbones celebrated her 34th birthday last night alongside soon-to-be Yeshivite husband David, and two new female friends: Eva Longoria and Kate Beckinsale, both of whom were dressed to the nines in order to live up to the immaculately glamorous appearances Posh and her cronies tend to exhibit. But were Longoria and Beckinsale also trying to fill the stilettos of Beckham BFF, a role Katie Holmes has filled for so many years? Favored dining, uh, dieting companions Tom and Katie were noticeably absent from the festivities. Did Tom Cruise's wishes to keep Katie away from the bobble-headed Brit come true so quickly?

Jenna Jameson's mainstream star turn in this week's Zombie Strippers seemed bemusing enough to us a while back — right around the time, probably, that dirty-minded Premiere critic Glenn Kenny undertook his massive new survey of porn-star crossover attempts. We knew a little about the wide trajectories of most performers cited here, including Marilyn Chambers, Traci Lords and obviously Jameson herself. We didn't know, however, the degree to which more worldly veterans like Ron Jeremy were slumming when they first broke into smut:

Pictured, recent CAA defector Vince Vaughn is captured taking a brief moment out of his Griffith Park power-walking regimen to soak in the Southern California sunshine. After the jump, the Fred Claus star makes eyes at a passing fellow fitness enthusiast, then celebrates with his favorite post-workout ritual: flashing what remains of his quickly evaporating belly at his easily spooked, navel-lint-phobic driver.

A friend at YouTube told me that maybe a half-dozen people make their living as YouTube creators. Everyone else in the site's partner program gets maybe a couple thousand bucks for millions of views (like our guest writer Yuri Baranovsky). How can someone figure out their personal worth to YouTube? Good question. Tech and media blogs like paidContent keep guessing and making rough calculations, but it's all fake numbers based on spotty data. So how much did the YouTube stars in that South Park episode — the ones waiting in YouTube's office for their money until they all fight to the death — how much money did they really make?

The always fashion forward Mary Kate Olsen told reporters that she was running late and just threw on whatever she could find. Whatever she could find happened to be a patio chair and a piece of her cats' scratching post. Olsen told a reporter that she got caught up with her Blackberry and just lost track of time and she just thought that the scratching post looked really cool.

As far as directionless conversations with aloof, quasi-paranoid movie stars go, David Letterman's interview last night with Uma Thurman went about as well as could be expected. Perhaps retaining the slightest of old Oprah-Uma Oscar grudges toward our favorite joke-recycling late-night icon, Thurman deflects an odd series of inquiries about her country home for a full minute before anything resembling a punchline arrives. It could be a Pellicano trial reenactment as much as an affected celebrity sit-down, or perhaps just uncannily close to a conversation Thurman had earlier in the day with ex-husband Ethan Hawke. We knew Dave likes the studio cold, but watch after the jump and tell us if this isn't a bit much. [CBS]

Defamer HQ opens for business this morning with an apology to newly non-difficult Edward Norton, whose squabbles with Marvel and Universal over The Incredible Hulk appear to have been blown out of proportion by a naturally overzealous press. Via Entertainment Weekly, Norton himself went public for the first time this week to shout "Piffle!" at the accounts of acrimony dug up by Nikki Finke and The New York Times (and dutifully passed on by us); lest we risk decontextualization of any of his precious 257 words, we now pass along his full statement and more of our own profuse contrition after the jump:

· Sure, Rickrolling is a fun way to amuse yourself while harmlessly pranking your friends. But were you aware it might have added benefits, such as quieting your cranky infant? [YouTube]
· Meet Tricia Walsh Smith, who's harnessed the power of YouTube and a Magic: The Gathering deck to totally out her sleazebag of a Broadway producer ex-husband. [YouTube]
· "Sign district" status for downtown and K-Town brings us one step closer to the blinking neon, replicant-infested L.A. we all wish would get here already. [Curbed LA]
· Kim Cattrall is thrilled to star alongside Daniel Radcliffe in PBS's Samantha and Harry Potter Try Something Period and Artsy-Fartsy For a Change of Pace. [AP]
· Michelle Rodriguez on her sexuality: ""What the majority of [people] want to know is what I'm doing with my vagina, and I think that that's sick." Translation: Not putting penises in it! [latina.com]

Judd Apatow has fulfilled his promise to "shake Americans from their squeamishness about male anatomy in movies" by featuring Forgetting Sarah Marshall star Jason Segel completely nude in the movie's pivotal break-up scene. And as the LAT pointed out yesterday, Segel's manhood provides the film's "most captivating screen presence" (sorry, Kristen Bell). But Apatow and his cool comedy clique aren't the first ones to boldly focus their cinematic lens on male actors' full frontal displays. We took a look back on Segel's predecessors to showcase other (pun intended) ballsy big-screen cameos by the likes of Bruce Willis and Ewan McGregor after the jump. Just a warning, this is NSFW.

Though we certainly feel pangs of sorrow for the impossible-not-to-adore Robert Downey Jr. whenever we read the latest interview with him unloading his thoughts on what it was like to be a druggie, we're wondering if it's possible to publish a story about the guy without it feeling like a public therapy session. As he begins his inevitably long and high-profile series of appearances in the press to push Iron Man, he sat down with normally family-friendly Parade to chat not really about the role or the movie, but about his battle with drugs yet again. But this time, he's dishing on the mythic seven-year relationship he had with multi-tasking celebrity Sarah Jessica Parker:

Beloved Coen Brothers regular John Goodman was spotted exit a restroom in Malibu early this morning. Goodman did his best Ace Ventura impression and said that he did not want to go in there for a while. "I had one too many wings the other night over at Happy Endings," Goodman remarked with a smirk.

Cash money, not equity, is what powers the entertainment industry. Especially when it comes to talent. In a possibly apocryphal but illustrative anecdote, legendary bluesman Albert King reportedly refused to leave the stage until he had cash in hand from the concert promoter, presumably because he'd been cheated out of so many deals in the past. Studio accounting has an only slightly better reputation than that of the music industry when it comes to being, ahem, creative. Hence it's no surprise that when negotiating venture funding for Funny Or Die, Will Ferrell reportedly wanted to know what his upfront payout would be, according to Sequoia Capital's Mark Kvamme in comments to the New York Times. Which is one reason why private equity efforts to fund traditional film and television production have yet to pan out. Better to get your money upfront and walk away in case the project is a disaster. So how is Valley money changing Hollywood business models?

Come for the illustration featuring Jesus locked in fisticuffs with a Jewish studio mogul, but stay a while at Heeb Magazine for Eric Kohn's nifty survey of how Mel Gibson ruined it for the rest of the Christians trying to get a leg up in Hollywood. Well, kind of: It turns out all the conspiracy theories in the world can't explain why, after The Passion grossed $600 million worldwide in 2004, our friends in Christ haven't been able to break through with another global hit for the faithful. Is it the Jews? Is it the MPAA? Or is it just, as one infamous anecdote alludes, that some of these guys make pouty Edward Norton look positively docile in comparison?

The Stop Dr. Uwe Boll online petition ticks ever upward, a sort of virtual career death clock whose every added signature brings us one tantalizing step closer to the million required to ensure the director never unleashes another atrociously realized video game adaptation on a public who strongly feel all the loose threads of BloodRaynes 1 thru 2 still don't quite justify a third. Not surprisingly, the feisty and outspoken cinematic visionary has opted to fight back, via verbal take-downs of some of his better regarded peers. From the MTV Movies Blog:

There's plenty of studio hand-wringing and noose-tying to go around as movies about the Iraq War yield one box-office bomb after another. But a feature in this week's Village Voice reveals a new strategy for getting over those wartime blahs and rolling back into the black: Make 'em laugh! Not that the heirs to Dr. Strangelove or M*A*S*H are any new breed, of course, but if we can't cash in on grave exposes of torture and failed diplomacy (not to mention Ryan Phillippe's abs), we may as well have fun with them, say filmmakers like Morgan Spurlock:

This photograph of Katherine Heigl was taken after she received word that once again she was the punch line of a joke on gossip site. She then proceeded to eat all the sweets that the craft services table had to offer, including one quickly devoured Hostess cupcake. Reportedly, Heigl phoned her friend and asked why she would be the victim of constant attacks. "I'm a good person. I'm not perfect, but I'm a pretty decent person," Heigl was overheard saying. "Just ask Joshua."

The Circle of Vaguely Latino-Looking Reality Stars With Gay Porn Pasts continues with news (and accompanying suite of fleshy, very NSFW photos) that Step It Up & Dance contestant Michael, described by Bravo's official site as living by the motto, "life is my canvas, the beat is my soul, crank it up and watch me roll," has applied that same vigorous enthusiasm towards his modeling work on LatinBoyz.com. Despite The Ashton Cruz Zoo blog's semi-hysterical assessment of the photos as a "GAY PORN SCANDAL!!!," however, we doubt anyone tuning in to a dance contest hosted by Elizabeth "I'm Not a Whore" Berkley would be entirely shocked to learn that any one of the talented contestants might have at some other point impressed a different set of judges with the sheer technical skill of their tripoded pliés.

The Anti-Idea Train rolled inexorably closer to derailing today with word that Orlando Bloom is among principals involved in remaking Le Cercle Rouge, the great Jean-Pierre Melville heist film from 1970. We don't know what flip-flopped our stomachs more: the idea of the milquetoast Bloom slipping into the role of brooding French icon Alain Delon; or maybe the thoroughly incompatible Hong Kong crime auteur Johnnie To inheriting Melville's modest reins; or maybe it's just the mere thought that an English-language do-over flatly titled Red Circle will enter the stolid, stinking cosmos of Things That Make Us Sob Bitterly. We expected more from Gallic production giants Studio Canal, whose $40 million budget also covers co-stars Liam Neeson, Chow Yun-Fat and evidently enough insurance to cover the souls of all involved. Bob Weinstein would be sooooo proud. [THR]

There's something kind of magical about coming to work every day at Defamer HQ: The migraines; the server issues; the chronic ADD ... you get the picture. We're alerted today, however, to one of the perks we had apparently overlooked while basking in all this bleary-eyed glory. To hear the erstwhile auteur behind Wild Wild West and RV tell it, we and the rest of the Internet are now destroying American democracy!

· The two-hour season finale of The Biggest Loser earns NBC the runner-up spot on Tuesday, rousing Ben Silverman later that night with the 4 a.m. inspiration for a companion series: The Biggest Gainer will be a gluttonous exploitainment the likes of which the network hasn't seen since Feed The Bears. [Variety]
· Smugly vicious Idol judge Simon Cowell rendered all the more so by his The X Factor winner Leona Lewis's No. 1 position on Billboard—a first for a British artist. Also: Michael Johns lost because he has no personality. And: Randy Jackson has a boner. Further: Paula Abdul is drunk. [Variety]