We hadn't yet had an opportunity to snuggle up to Oscar™ Nominated® Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody until David Letterman had her on his show last night, and dare we say the young scribe handled herself with admirable aplomb as she took late night's hottest seat. In a rack-flattering leopard-skin dress, Cody—offering echoes of Lisa Simpson, Bettie Page, and the chick who snatched that last red pepper hummus from us at the Hyperion Trader Joe's—self-deprecatingly relayed all the Oscar-morning excitement, and in the process helped to usher "the buttcrack of dawn" into the popular lexicon. (While "taint of night," sadly, remains fated to the vernacular fringes.)

Diving Bell and the Butterfly director Julian Schnabel tends to split cultural observers the way Hillary splits voters: half adore their ballsy confidence and think they're really making a difference in their respective fields, while the other half kind of just wants to drive a knife into their paunchy tummies. The latter impulse almost sent a London Telegraph reporter to jail after spending time with the hairy-chested artiste for an interview out today. It seems Schnabel's suggestion that the journalist, Mick Brown, was not famous enough to name-drop, coupled with Schnabel's tendency to say "'Cigarette, por favor' to no one in particular" during their meetings was enough to send Brown over the edge...

We generally shy away from servicey items, but we suspect that enough of our readers are afflicted with "insomnia," "free-floating anxiety," and "appetite problems" severe enough to earn them legal entry to Dr. Kindbud's Pain Management Clinic And Herbal Bakery that the following will be of interest: By Monday, two local medical marijuana dispensaries will boast vending machines that will provide round-the-clock access to five different strains of their glaucoma-ameliorating products. Be the first card-carrying stoner on your block to nearly faint with glee at your newfound ability to order up some Granddaddy Purple at the press of a button! [Thrillist]

With the secret of Cloverfield now out, legions of American thrill-seeking moviegoers are emerging from theaters with one finger pressed to their puckered mouths, trying to make it to the cineplex restroom before succumbing to the effects of CBS, or Cloverfield Barf Syndrome. Theaters have taken to posting warnings about the film's side-effects (see photo), and some have even gone so far as to set up [spoiler alert] plastic-tarp containment zones, where suspected victims are quickly herded by ushers in HAZMAT suits before they can detonate into a splat of green liquid. With panic over the quickly spreading condition increasing, CNN.com approached some physicians for advice:

· According to "an industry study conducted by informed sources" which Var was allowed to view on a "confidential basis" (we'll let you concoct your own theories about a trenchcoat-clad Nick Counter giving a sneak preview of the figures in a dark corner of the Beverly Center parking lot), the cost of the writers strike could reach $3 billion if it drags on for 60 to 90 more days. Also, in case you haven't heard: the national economy is headed down the shitter. [Variety]
· While NBC isn't canceling any of its current pilot scripts (unlike recent project-droppers CBS, Fox, and The CW), Jeff Zucker says that going forward, the company will cut back on traditional pilot development to focus its resources on ordering episodes of whatever Colombian telenovela or Dutch game-show Peacock programming-importation expert Ben Silverman thinks he can rush onto his primetime schedule without too much expensive tinkering. [Variety]
[After the jump: ast night's Idol numbers; CEOs and writers chatting; a Buffy reunion]

With this year's Golden Globes orgy replaced instead by a red-faced, naked Billy Bush apologizing sheepishly from beneath the covers, a disappointed America reassuring him not to worry about it, it happens to all awards shows from time to time, all hopes now turn to the SAGgies to satisfy our burning awards show needs. Traditionally a second-tier ceremony where Hollywood thespians felt safe to deliver 17-minute acceptance speeches on the pursuit of craft, the WGA-sanctioned ceremony is now looking like the only sure thing this anemic awards show season, delivering on our inalienable right to sit at home and watch some major fucking stars pick up some goddamned awards. Christ. MSNBC wonders how the ongoing labor strife will affect the fashion bottom line:

Is it officially time to retire the suffix "to-the-stars"? All signs point to yes, now that New York's self-proclaimed "Drug Dealer to the Stars" is hunting down members of the press willing to pay for his stories of celebs snorting his stuff. Especially when homeboy's marketing skills include teasing the NY gossips with the least shocking client listing ever: Lindsay Lohan. No. Effing. WAY. At this point, hasn't every single drug dealer from Los Angeles to Laos helped aid LiLo's (alleged) addiction? If this guy wants a payday, at least give us an Olsen, a Baldwin or a Wilson to write about.

Does merely knowing the same masseuse mean you're dating? That's what breathless stories in both the New York Post and Us Weekly are claiming. The Post is reporting that Heath Ledger's masseuse, Diane Lee Wolozin, made her first phone call to Mary-Kate Olsen immediately after discovering Ledger's lifeless body at 2:45pm on Tuesday (fifteen minutes before her scheduled appointment with him). Wolozin, a possible felon, allegedly told NY police that the two had a "mutual relationship," and that she'd called Olsen using Ledger's phone, where it was programmed in. Added to erroneous early reports that Olsen owned the apartment where Ledger was found and more recently, news that Olsen's bodyguard called the two "an item," we're starting to wonder if all this hubbub is a whole lot of sound and fury, without any real substance.

While last night's disappointing, agonizingly slow-paced The Moment of Truth ("That answer is...[pause for 30 seconds of cuts between the contestant and host Mark Wahlberg barely resisting the temptation to check his watch]...TRUE!") failed to make us feel as irredeemably filthy as we'd hoped it would, the ratings were, in a word, huge. Not only did the show retain 23 million of American Idol's viewers, it was the best-rated debut on any network since similarly highbrow Fox sibling Who Wants To Be Humiliated By A Not Particularly Bright Ten-Year-Old? bowed last year. We suppose we have to see how many of those eyeballs return next week for the resolution of Truth's "Did the guy with the hair plugs and gambling problem lose his son's college fund in a craps game?" cliffhanger. [TV Week]

Perhaps Mike Darnell, Fox's President Of Alternative Programming and Slowly Destroying the Fabric Of Our Society, slightly oversold his much-anticipated lie-detector show, The Moment of Truth, when he claimed back in November, "You're either going to love it, or think it's the end of Western civilization," as last night's premiere was maddeningly short on the kind of shamelessly exploitative moments we'd been hoping for; neither of the show's first two contestants, confronted with the possibility that their lives could unravel because of a nationally televised confrontation with The Truth, suffered the kind of debilitating stroke or heart attack teased during the pre-release hype.

We thought yesterday's news of Nicole Kidman allegedly hanging on to placenta deriven from her 2001 miscarriage was juicy (er, bad word choice?) enough, but it took a little research into the blob's backstory to turn Andrew Morton's claim into a full-fledged screenplay-worthy scandal. As you'll recall, back then we still relied on greasy newspapers for our gossip as The Internets were still years away from taking off as a veritable information highway. And man, was there ever a lot of gossip circling around the set of Moulin Rouge around the time little Placenta came on to the scene. We did some research on Lexis Nexis this morning and, after the jump, we present the complete history of some of the gorier deets surrounding the Cruise/Kidman divorce, co-starring Ewan McGregor, Stanley Kubrick, and Penelope Cruz.

And so, with two days to let the devastating news sink in, Variety now asks the inevitable question of what's to be done with Heath Ledger's final projects—the wrapped The Dark Knight, and Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Morbidly running through the history of productions faced with surprise cast deaths during shooting (apparently CGI has now taken over for stunt doubles and very low lighting as the re-animating technique of choice), the report then addresses the issue of how such misfortune might cast marketing campaigns in an unpleasant new light. As we pointed out on Tuesday, The Dark Knight's focuses squarely and gruesomely on Ledger's chillingly effective performance as The Joker, providing an unwelcome creative predicament for WB's marketing czar:

You may now stop referring to the next installment of the recently "rebooted" James Bond franchise as Bond 22 (or, if you were still so tantalized by images of Daniel Craig emerging unclothed from the surf that you hoped they'd continued on in this beefcake direction, How To Stuff A Wild Superspy Mankini); earlier today, the Official Keepers of the Tuxedo revealed the name of the upcoming film : Quantum of Solace, a title taken from an Ian Fleming story. "We thought it was an intriguing title and referenced what happened to Bond and what is happening in the film," explained producer Michael G. Wilson.

With two bursting-at-the-seams tell-all books out this month delving deeper than anyone wants to go into the demented world of Scientology, authors Ian Halperin (Hollywood Undercover) and Andrew Morton (Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography) are turning against each other, kind of like Xanax and cocaine. According to Halperin, the one who posed as a gay actor in order to uncover the Church's reparative techniques, Morton's book is "full of factual errors," most twisted his claim that Tom is scientology's second most powerful member:

If you've been trying to communicate to your friends in the Latino community that Heath Ledger has tragically died telling them, "Heath Ledger esta muerto" but have been confounded and angered by their replies of "Me gusto Cocktail pero el video es loco, cabron!" we might have figured out why. Apparently, at least according to the geniuses at Google Translate, the Spanish for "Heath Ledger" is "Tom Cruise." Interestingly, the Spanish for Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise. Try it yourself. Go to Google Translate, type in "Heath Ledger is dead" and watch what happens.

· For those of you who couldn't get enough of Deal Or No Deal's John (aka Mr. I Can Do 200 Of These), here's another clip of the retired New York City "gahbage" man whose battles with The Dealer are fast becoming the thing of legend.
· File this one under questions you've always wanted to know the answer to but have always been too afraid to ask: "How many times is too many to take Plan B in a month?" Jezebel's Slut Machine has the answer ... ish.
· The Onion comes up with alternate titles for Over Her Dead Body, the new Eva Longoria Parker shitshow that's about to hit theaters.
· "What is it like in this world of youth, where a pedestrian tear-jerk cover of 'Time After Time' by Hoobastankian California bullshit artists Saosin is considered the height of emotion, and prom is as cliched as the one shown in the initial scenes of this sure-to-be-truly-horrifying remake of the classic 1980 slasher film Prom Night?" If you haven't yet been introduced to Detour, you're in for a treat.
· Lastly, Slate's Dana Stevens put together the best Heath Ledger piece that we read all day.

Charlie Sheen and ex-wife/mortal enemy Denise Richards were back in family court yesterday, arguing behind closed doors over Richards's decision to expose her life, and the lives of her young children, to reality show cameras. From the EOnline.com report:

According to reports published earlier today by WCBS-TV reporter Scott Weinberger, the body of Heath Ledger was discovered yesterday with "a rolled up $20 bill with narcotic residue on it" and "several drug packets containing an unknown substance" lying nearby him. Too bad it turns out that not a stitch of that actually ended up being true. At least not according to the NYPD and Entertainment "ALL QUOTES MUST CREDIT ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT!" Tonight. Also of note: the first phone call that massage therapist Diana Wolozin made after discovering Heath Ledger's unconscious body was not to 911 or even to 411, but to Mary Kate Olsen. [AP]

Please help us settle the contentious debate that rocked the Official Defamer American Idol Cattle Call Show Viewing Party last night: Was San Diego hopeful Alberto Hurtado actually the touchingly naive, peace-spreading angel descended from Heaven's gentlest hippie commune he claimed to be, wanting nothing more than to step "outside his walls" to share a message of love with Simon, Randy and Paula?

If there's one double-edged curse/blessing plaguing us all, as a species, it's probably our capability to love too much: An overprotective parent's smothering love of a child. A neglectful husband's love of golf. And then there's that thing going on between Harvey Levin and his sippy-cup. Wherever Harv goes, the smooth black cylinder goes with him, its thin, green, periscopic straw peeking out, waiting to satisfy the TMZ chief tactical engineer's frequent thirsts.