· Lainie Kazan and Bruce Vilanch co-host "An Evening of Legendary Bingo" to benefit Media City Ballet at Hamburger Mary's. The listing says of the hosts: "one was Barbra Streisand's understudy for Funny Girl on Broadway; the other a child model for Lane Bryant," but we can't, for the life of us, figure out which one is which.
· This evening's musical offerings include The Gutter Twins at the Avalon, The Nightwatchmen at the Hotel Café, Jucifer at the Knitting Factory.
· 7 Dudley Cinema at Sponto Gallery presents the Fools Fest Films, which boasts rare films, poetry and history to inaugurate the second annual art and performance festival.

Back in the early 1970s, when Lindsay Lohan's firecrotch was but a twinkle in young Harvey Levin's eye, the gossip kingpin was a politically-active student at the University Of California Santa Barbara. This recently resurfaced newsclip (exact origin date: unknown) shows the future TMZ boss speaking to a local television crew on the campus of UCSB in the wake of the Isla Vista riots. As evidenced in the clip, Levin demonstrated not only an early penchant for dealing with the media, but also, dare we say, a slight case of Napoleon complex (at least when it came to dealing with trash-talking, beanie-wearing beatniks). However, we are sad to report that the clip shows no sign of his now-ubiquitous Starbucks sippy cup. [YouTube]

Another week, another sex tape rumor. But unlike the somewhat harmless photos of good girl Kristin Davis that caught our attention a few weeks back, the news that Shakira and boyfriend Antonio de la Rua may have recorded each other Pam-and-Tommy style aboard a yacht sounds a bit racier. As one Spanish radio host put it, "if some of this tape's content would be made public, it could seriously threaten the singer and couple's private life." And aside from the prospect of seeing Shakira's famous curves dancing in dirtier ways we've ever seen, the story itself involves a third (and fourth!) party.

When we heard today that Christina Ricci instructed her trainer to give her Jessica Biel's butt for her upcoming role in Speed Racer, we too remembered our longtime fascination with Biel's hard bottom. Even though Justin Timberlake famously praised the back door of Kylie Minogue, we're sure he's doing just fine enjoying his current girlfriend's assets. And considering we've had asses on the brain since Gisele thrust hers into our face this morning, we decided to just declare this Hump Day, well, Rump Day. Herewith, we present our picks for the top five best butts in Hollywood. And not to worry ladies; we'll be sure to devote an upcoming Hump Day to the male stars with the most appealing cushions for pushing.

Believe it or not, the last person we'd expect to perpetuate the Terry Gilliam Curse recently landed in the emergency room: Verne Troyer, soon to be seen as Mike Myers' tiny bad-joke magnet in The Love Guru, was reportedly dispatched to a hospital outside Vancouver while shooting Gilliam's near-doomed Heath Ledger project The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus:

Wunderdouche Ben Silverman unveiled NBC's ambitious 65-week schedule to advertisers today in New York, covering this summer and all of next year with wall-to-wall Steve McPherson ass-kicking action. Included in the programming onslaught: a dreaded Office spin-off and four weeks of primetime Saturday Night Live, Variety reports.

Britney Spears' latest bodyguard/driver suffered a panic attack while attempting to escort the pop star from a clothing boutique, presumably somewhere just off Robertson. Looking at the locust-like media swarm, it was reported that the bodyguard said, "Game Over, Man" multiple times before climbing across Spears' lap to get into the driver's seat.

The Anthony Pellicano saga accidentally became interesting again when a disgruntled hedge-funder testifying Tuesday in the private investigator's wiretapping trial recounted that one time Pellicano offered to whack a producer who ran off with his money. After a $1.1 million investment with talent agent-turned-producer Aaron Russo resulted in exactly no movies and a full year of Russo's evasions, Exis Capital owner Adam Sender turned to Pellicano upon lawyer Bert Fields' recommendations. After the jump, a courtroom report in The NY Times and phone recordings at The Huffingon Post reveal how that could have gone better.

It seems that Heathers writer Daniel Waters is shoring up his cult following in the wake of Diablo Cody, Brad Ingelsby and newly crowned "it" scribe Tollbooth Guy. In a Los Angeles Times profile hailing his return, Waters digs deep and delivers the johnny-come-latelies a clear message: just because you wrote Hudson Hawk and Demolition Man, it doesn't mean you're not certifiably out-there. Defamer breaks down the methods of his madness, below (but be warned — only a person with the exact right balance of self-worth and self-loathing should attempt such a feat at home).

Remember when you were in high school and used to dreamily stare at the sexy magazine spreads (pun intended) of whomever your crush of the moment was? Well, apparently The View's Sherri Shepherd still does this, but she takes the whole process a bit too far. After Jay Leno introduced her as the second slot guest after David Beckham on The Tonight Show last night, Sherri proceeded to spend the next four or so minutes crushing on Becks like she was a nine-year-old schoolgirl with a serious Man U fetish. Not only was there talk of Sherri putting her advanced scrapbooking techniques to work on that infamous Posh 'n Becks photoshoot but, even more disturbingly, she waxed poetically her ladyparts doing what Tracy Morgan would call "a high-five" to a visibly nervous David's manparts. That's one view we'd prefer never to see. [NBC]

· Knight Rider gets a new showrunner to champion the cause of the cynical, the bottom-line watching and the ruthless, Las Vegas creator Gary Scott Thompson. He's hiring right now, so dust off your best car puns. [THR]
· The Sundance Channel announces new music-variety series Spectacle: Elvis Costello with..., executive produced by Elton John. We anticipate every interview to end with Costello wishing he could stop his guests from talking when he hears the stupid things that they say. [Variety]

Yesterday the staff at TMZ, Harvey Levin's AOL Time Warner-owned gossip site, tossed themselves over a line that I don't think even Perez Hilton would dare approach. They made fun of someone's dead mother. In a piece posted yesterday afternoon they wrote: "The mother of 'American Idol' contestant Elliott Yamin died last night in Richmond, Va. She was 65.

 Claudette Yamin had been hospitalized over the weekend...
Yamin finished in 3rd place in 2006 on 'Idol,' behind Katharine McPhee and Taylor Hicks — who, like Mrs. Yamin, will never be heard from again." Commenters were upset in their usual thoughtful, Socratic way and TMZ eventually acknowledged the thoughtless remarks toward the end of the day. Mind you I say "acknowledged," not "apologized for."

It wasn't bad enough that the almost willfully unfunny trailer for Mike Myers' comeback vehicle, The Love Guru (which you can watch after the jump), had Defamer HQ wailing with laments for the comic's lost Canadian soul. The metaphor has officially entered the literal realm this week, as nervous Hindu spiritual leader Rajan Zed — who coaxed a full viewing of the comedy out of Paramount — is on the PR offensive with his Christian and Jewish friends close behind:

All union strife, supermodel ass-massaging and other gossip aside, a hearty Defamer salute goes out today to Roger Ebert, whose unflappability over more than five years of cancer treatment is reaffirmed by the news he'll resume regular movie reviewing duties later this month. The 65-year-old will host his annual Ebertfest event starting April 23, followed by a return to his Chicago Sun-Times post "shortly thereafter," according to an AP report. Still unclear is Ebert's timetable for rejoining his colleague Richard Roeper on their syndicated review show; he is still unable to speak after three surgeries since 2002. Still, it's refreshing for at least one day to read about a critic coming back to his job for a change. Hats off, Rog. [AP, photo via Getty]

"Joshua" Kelley, the husband of Katherine Heigl, went out of his way to put an end to the rumors floating around The Internets that he's whipped. Kelley explained that rockers like him couldn't be whipped because, while on paper he might be married to Heigl, he's actually married the greatest woman of all time, music. "The last time I checked, polygamists aren't whipped," smirked Kelley. He then took a long swig from the water bottle under his arm, which didn't actually contain any water, but rather 20 ounces of Bacardi 151. Rockers!

When it rains, it pours for our beloved Harvey Weinstein, assailed on all sides by Star Wars geeks, wayward film critics and now the Chinese government, whose leery rebuke of Western cinema following the art-smut epic Lust, Caution resulted in yanked permits for his forthcoming John Cusack/Gong Li romance, Shanghai. The sudden change of heart after three months of pre-production provoked Harvey to exotically blow off some steam call an emergency scouting summit in the Far East:

It appears that Vh1 Celebreality masterminds 51 Minds Entertainment have ridden Flavor Flav all the way to the promised land. Variety reports that the reality television production company, led by Cris Abrego and Mark Cronin, has been purchased by Endemol USA (Big Brother, Deal Or No Deal) for $200 million plus. Cronin and Abrego, who are keenly aware that we're all nostalgic for conversations we had yesterday, are the brains behind has-been resurrection series The Surreal Life, and its seemingly endless chain of spinoffs (My Fair Brady, Strange Love, Flavor of Love — its subsequent spin-offs I Love New York and Charm School...). But what do they really have going for them? As Endemol president David Goldberg explains, a lot of it has to do with them not being named Ben Silverman or Mark Burnett:

As Tyra Banks loves to remind us, modeling is hard, okay? Sometimes you have to sit in chairs for really long amounts of time while people make you look pretty, and sometimes you even have to get out of those chairs to stand up and move your arms and stuff. But after seeing these pictures of Gisele Bundchen getting her ass squeezed by a fluffer while shooting a fashion spread, it turns out we didn't know the half of it. Apparently, sometimes, models even have to endure butt massages while they work! A closer look at Bundchen's behind, and the men assigned to perfect it, after the jump.

Mere days after the meltdown of their negotiating partnership in upcoming labor talks with film and TV producers, SAG president Alan Rosenberg and AFTRA boss Ron Morgan appeared at a press conference Tuesday to proclaim their unity in the face of looming crisis — at least when it comes to walking 25 miles from Hancock Park to San Pedro:

An extremely jet lagged Matt Damon happily posed with a photographer who exclaimed that now he's fucking Matt Damon over and over again. Damon smiled and said thanks, but quickly explained that he had to leave. The photographer said that he wanted to say one more thing before Damon left. Damon sheepishly replied, "What?" The photographer with a mile-wide grin said, "I'm fucking Matt Damon."