· The DGA, as you undoubtedly heard just moments after puffs of white smoke were belched skyward from the chimney of AMPTP headquarters, reached a deal with the studios yesterday. While anxious WGA members are picking over the proposed contract to see if any writer-screwing provisions have been hidden in the fine print, a strike-weary industry reacts: "One thing that is very clear is that with all the bad blood between the WGA and studios, the writers can strike until the end of time and they will not do better than the directors did. It is time to stop this," said a "veteran agent" obviously eager to start earning commissions again. Check out the full story to read quotes carefully chosen to make the WGA look totally unreasonable if they don't fall hopelessly in love with the terms offered the directors! [Variety]
[After the jump: more deal reactions! Zac Efron hearts Orson Welles! Primetime TV may soon offer nothing but celebrity circus shows!]

Demigod to the Gays Kathy Griffin, having only just recovered from her triumphant CNN New Year's Eve coverage, already has her next gig lined up, and it's about 10,000 times more fabulous than the International Insurance Adjusters Convention gigs she usually has to take to keep up with mortgage payments on her Hollywood Hills compound. Our pals at Towleroad report that Griffin has been appointed official hostess of Air New Zealand's Pink Flight—a journey via Boeing 777 from San Francisco to Sydney for their Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras celebration that's almost guaranteed to go down in flames. In a good way:

Great news for all FanningWatchers disappointed in preternaturally talented teen megastar Dakota's meager cinematic output of the past year: the Sundance debut of little sister Elle's Phoebe in Wonderland could spark a return to Hollywood prominence for the clan. And: the movie's completely rape-free, demonstrating that the family's handlers learned their lesson about pushing their earners towards too-mature material from the fallout accompanying the Sundance screenings of Dakota's noble-intentioned, but poorly received, molestation-preparedness film, Hounddog. [LAT Live From Park City]

We know that we said we might not be able to continue on with our Celebrity Rehab viewership following its profoundly depressing premiere, as a weekly look at a largely incomprehensible, addiction-decimated Jeff Conaway would just be too disturbing to bear, comedic cutaways to a libido-overdriven Mary Carey's quest to achieve some inpatient sexual satisfaction notwithstanding. Still, we couldn't resist taking a peek at last night's episode, during which it was revealed that even in his mostly incapacitated, wheelchair-bound state, Conaway managed to smuggle in some cocaine.

Set phasers to splooge: Star Trek: The Official Movie Site has gone live today. Before rushing off to look at photos of a scantily clad Zoe Saldana holding one finger to her ear over at Uhura's Corner, you should probably know that it's "under construction," with nothing up yet except the badge logo. UPDATE: This also just in, the teaser trailer debuting before Cloverfield screenings. [paramount.com/startrek/, iesb.net]

We've already run the advance reviews (what—you don't trust Nicholas Chance, Kid Detective Reviewer?), and given you an exclusive! semi-blurry insider's gallery of Wednesday night's premiere. But with today's opening, everyone can finally check out Cloverfield for themselves—or not, if Godzilla vs. Felicity isn't your thing. (It was totally our thing.) The reviews are in:
· "The doomed Gotham created by producer J.J. Abrams — he with the golden Felicity, Alias, and Lost touch — and his team is almost entirely populated by vapid, twenty-something nincompoops. Oops, I mean attractive, indistinguishable young people who handle cell phones, DV cameras, etc., with ease; call one another ''dude''; don't have anything interesting to say; and, perhaps as a result, don't listen to one another, even in an emergency." [EW.com]

Perhaps fearing that the 80 hours of DUI-related community service Lindsay Lohan has already performed by serving as an unpaid shot girl at the Saddle Ranch (that place, like, doesn't even have a list! And why are all the drunk girls wearing lame cowboy hats?) may not provide the kind of scared-straight, "there but for the grace of delusional producers who believe I possess still-untapped acting talent go I" moment of clarity that will help keep the thrice-rehabbed actress from future alcohol- and cokepant-related vehicular incidents, Lohan's attorney told the court her client will soon spend two four-hour shifts toiling at a morgue and two more days in an emergency room.

Tom Cruise's biographer, for all his embarrassing revelations about the Hollywood actor's fervor for Scientology, doesn't give much credence to the longstanding rumors that the movie star is gay. Tom Cruise is a "conventional, heterosexual man who, more interestingly, never wants to be alone," writer Andrew Morton tells US Weekly. But that's not the conclusion that a close watcher of Cruise's movies might come to. Quentin Tarantino, in Sleep With Me, found homoerotic undertones in the glances between Cruise and Val Kilmer in Top Gun. We see gay, everywhere. So, here it is, the video that the Scientologists really didn't want you to see: Tom Cruise on Tom Cruise, Homoeroticist. It's funny. Watch it.

Been stuck on the picket line all week without a decent WiFi connection? We've still got those Tom Cruise Scientology videos that even your grandmother is talking about. Take a gander at the one that started it all, the nine-minute Scientology indoctrination video. When you're done with that, wash it down with the official Defamer remix. If you're still thirsting for more, try out the video that definitively proves that Tom Cruise saved America after 9/11 (the one that got Page Six in a belated tizzy this morning). But if you're all Cruised out (frankly, we are), why not take a moment to learn how American Idol antihero Simon Cowell deals with his cryptkeeper crotch rot? Allegedly!

· Actually, it kinda looks like a dude to us.
· Spoiler alert! The Cloverfield Monster ... revealed! Click only if you must.
· "Did I, at any point, say to you, 'Flip the genre'? No. All I said was to put in a few more song and dance numbers."
· If the advance quotes are any indication, the new Pixar tell-all is going to read like a Dreamworks animation picture.
· We agree with The Fiddler, Ledger's Joker looks for the world like Beetlejuice.
· We loves us some Tina Fey, but the trailer for Baby Mama looks stillborn.

Last night was the premiere of Cloverfield on Paramount's lot, an event they were kind enough to invite us to. Without getting too deeply into the what and the how of it, we'll only say that the movie was the rare release to receive a unanimous thumbs up from Defamer HQ: short, slick, and ferociously sweet.

· Music round-up: The Adored at Spaceland; Lenny Kravitz at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium; Jan Brannan at the Troubadour.
· It's opening night for the Girly Group Show exhibition at Ghettogloss with art (by Noel ILL, Alexis Walker, Jenny Mollen, Sue-ling, Jessica Garrison, and others), free booze, and the gallery's Thursday night Gorilla.
· At the UCB Theatre, Doug Benson, Hollywood's most respected interruption specialist, invites friends to show clips of their favorite sci-fi movies just so he can talk over them whenever the spirit moves him.

The venerable and undeniably relevant American Film Institute has brought us hours upon hours of pleasurable television viewing in the past with their not-at-all boring "100 Years" series. We just KNOW that each and every one of you found your pants simultaneously bursting at the seams when our great nation finally found out which sidesplitting film reigned burrito supreme in their "100 Years ... 100 Laughs" poll, and of course we're all well aware of the important role that our No Child Left Behind funding has played in encouraging schoolchildren to memorize the AFI's "100 Years ... 100 Passions" list. Though we will certainly gather our grandchildren 'round the fire one day and regale them with the many thousands of memorable moments that these television specials provided for us, we understand that the AFI must too progress, lest it suffer the fate of irrelevance in these ADD times of ours. Hence, it's bye-bye Top 100 and hello Top 10.

Never content to rest on their laurels, it appears that the Associated Press has put the final, Strunk & White approved flourishes on their obituary for pop princess Britney Spears. No, you didn't miss anything — Britney is still alive. Usmagazine.com spoke with AP entertainment editor Jesse Washington, who calmly and objectively asserted that if Britney were to pass away, it would be "easily one of the biggest stories in a long time." You can't put one by that Jesse Washington cat! We applaud both him and his organization for their ghoulish resourcefulness. [USMagazine.com]

Has it already been 44 days since Everyone's Favorite Drinking Buddy Kiefer Sutherland won a free of charge stay at Glendale's finest all-inclusive resort? Time sure flies, we could've swore it was only 42 or 43 days. Either way, those savvy calendar counters at Entertainment Tonight remind us that Jack Bauer will be pulling a daring escape from the oppressive grip of The Man on Monday morning, probs in the early morning hours. We haven't spoken to Willard Scott yet (calls were not returned by press time), but we're betting Monday's forecast will call for a beautiful Tequila Sunrise. [US Magazine]

Tonight marks the beginning of yet another Sundance Film Festival; we'll be covering the proceedings from a safe distance, far from the intoxicating allure of all-night Ketel One-and-Strawberry Hot Tub parties with the juggsiest indie film execs in Park City. Like the breakout hits of Sundance past, such as Once, Little Miss Sunshine, and Hustle & Flow, all your film really needs to get the buyers to come knocking at your condo door is a good antihero (Dublin busker, hip-hop pimp), a major disease or problem to overcome (death, lack of demo CD), an engaging solution (madcap road trip, recording of demo CD), and an unconventional romantic angle thrown in for good measure (love in a piano store, falling for your ho). With that in mind, we've taken the time to break down for you this year's crop according to their fundamental, Sundanciest elements:

It's here! It's finally here! According to Var, the Directors Guild has reached the much-rumored deal with the AMPTP that's had Hollywood aching with uneasy anticipation since the formal start of negotiations over the weekend. No details are in yet; stay tuned to see if the terms offer hope that a similar agreement can be struck with the WGA, or whether the proposed contract is so disappointing that it will just drive a fresh wedge between striking writers and the studios, plunging the town even deeper into gut-wrenching despair.

Grasping for answers and hoping to bring some much-needed order to a world plunged into chaos by Sean Penn and Robin Wright's split after 11 years of marriage, an anonymous source describes a possibly meaningful incident in which a tarted-up Sienna Miller sat in the actor's lap at a NY party. Titillated yet? What if we told you that during that lap-sitting, Miller had her arm around his neck? A ha! Fortunately for all parties involved, a "Penn friend" dismissed the idea that the actress was somehow involved in the break-up, disclosing that the actress has a tendency to "drape herself over people she likes." See, she's just drapey! You may now return to snipe-hunting for clues about why the couple ended their relationship in old movie footage. [Rush & Molloy]

Talking to AARP The Magazine (the #2 periodical for readers over 65, after Kirk Douglas's Senior Moments), veteran Hollywood horndog Jack Nicholson conceded he may, at the ripe age of 70, have begun to slow down in his legendary panty-chasing ways:

· Warner Brothers allows its options on the Justice League cast to lapse, putting the project on "indefinite hold," though the studio has assured its roster of mostly no-names that it still would eventually like to see what they all look like in their cute superhero costumes. [Variety]
· Like Monday's American Idol episode, last night's installment was down in the ratings from the show's 2007 season; still, the 30 million people who tuned in were more than enough to help Fox completely eviscerate its competition. [THR]
[After the jump: Hayden is a cheerleader 4ever, the DGA-deal waiting game, and WB layoffs begin!]