• Tom Cruise gets political with 'Lions For Lambs' [LiveVideo.com]

We're going to have to give the cast of Jimmy Kimmel Live this year's Best Talk Show Costume trophy, with Jimmy, the band, and the security team decked out as every significant cereal mascot of the past 100 years (video here).

Faced with the possibility of months of lost commissions, Endeavor superagent/HuffPo superblogger Ari "Can't We All Just Get Along?" Emanuel makes a last-ditch plea for sanity during these tense, pre-strike moments: "I'm about to get myself in a lot of trouble. So be it... Listening to both sides in the looming writers' strike, it's clear to me that politics is about to trump sound economics. Neither the Writers Guild nor the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is looking at the issue properly. If you look at the amount of money that was at issue during the last writers' strike in 1988, I bet it was less than the amount the strike ended up costing all concerned. And I believe that will be the case this time around, too. [...] Going on strike to lose more than you gain is not smart negotiating." [HuffPo]

It's been a strange couple of days in the Drunk-Alice-in-a- Child-Neglecting-Wonderland universe of Britney Spears, whose long-awaited comeback album, "Blackout," released Tuesday to shockingly not horrible notices. (Her parenting skills, on the other hand, scored a solidly red Metacritics 16, the general consensus being that a Praline Ice Blended does "not constitute a suitable replacement for baby formula.") In order to get you up to speed, a Britney round-up:
· First day sales of "Blackout" numbered 124,000, putting her on track to sell around 350,000 units in the first week. That's enough to put her at the top of the Billboard charts—a feat rendered even more amazing when you consider her producers derived the entirety of the album's vocals by digitally fiddling with one usable note. [People]

· A mere nine years after the first X-Files film surfaced in theaters, Fox announces that the second of Mulder and Scully's big-screen adventures (a reteaming, if you will) will arrive on July 25, 2008, a project that will begin shooting in December in Vancouver, far away from the picket lines of Los Angeles. [Variety]
· Joss Whedon reteams (we love it when people reteam) with former Buffy cast member Eliza Dushku for Fox's Dollhouse, getting a seven-episode commitment from the network for an idea that struck Whedon in between bites of a Caesar salad while lunching with the actress. [THR]

As the saying goes, hell hath no fury like a Playmate scorned by a reality TV manwhore. Hefnerian figure model Holley Dorrough sharpens her bunny-claws to a razor edge, slashing out wildly at the marginally famous scion of Bruce Jenner in this MySpace attack: "1. Brody Jenner ( Malibu/LA, CA)- You can just go fuck yourself! You and ur little buddy Frankie. You get a high off THINKING you are famous. Think about it dumbass, YOU have done nothing. You are known as Brody, they guy that you will occasionally see on the hills trying to screw Lauren, or the guy who dated Lindsay, or Nicole , whos dad is an Olympic gold medalist a long time ago. But what have you done youself? nothing! You feed off other people to get fame. You only date girls that have made a name for themselves just to be seen with them so you can try and stay in the spotlight. You know that 75% percent of the girls in LA are whores and will have sex with you just to say they did and you take full advantage of that which is disgusting. Its pretty bad when I couldnt even mention your name without AT LEAST one girl in LA saying "ohh watch out for him girl." [MySpace]

The pencil, it seems, has become the dominant image of the looming™ writers strike (mushroom clouds are so two weeks ago): previously, THR incorporated it in an evocative tug-of-war logo for its contract talks coverage; today, over a hundred WGA showrunners have placed their names (not pictured due to space constraints) below a trusty No. 2 in an ad appearing in both Variety and the Reporter, promising the Guild membership they'll plunge its dangerously sharp point into the jugular vein of any network executive who asks them to secretly break stories, write scripts, or perform any other strike-verboten duty while their brothers and sisters are out on the picket line, trying to dodge the rubber-bullet fire of overzealous studio security guards.

Yesterday, we noted that a controversial recording had surfaced, featuring Dog the Bounty Hunter railing against his son for dating an African-American woman in a despicable, racist rant that fell just short of tearfully demanding, "Why, just once, can't you bring home a nice, Jewish bounty hunter girl I can take to dinner at my producer's house?" In case you haven't yet heard it, TMZ TV helpfully transcribes the contents of the offensive phone call; simply follow the bouncing, sunglass-wearing KKK hood and swear along to your favorite bigoted reality TV star!

Yesterday afternoon, ICM announced to its entire staff that now that an industry-crippling strike could hit at any moment, it seems like as good a time as any to hang on to a week of everyone's pay, giving the agency the "financial flexibility" it needs to keep the lights on. Sure, this unexpected move might cause "short-term financial challenges" to those employees who might find it difficult to afford luxuries like "food" and "shelter," but they're confident that the angry mob of assistants on the verge of rioting will extinguish their torches and lay down their pitchforks once they realize that missing 50 percent of their paychecks isn't due to a "salary reduction," just some little payroll system changes they'd been planning for a long time. The e-mail announcing the paycheck reduction follows; sadly, the agency's partners made no official offer to allow any adversely affected staffers to crash on their couches if their next rent checks bounce:

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At midnight last night, the WGA's contract with the studios expired. The good news: Hollywood has not yet been blanketed in the radioactive fallout from the settling of a city-spanning mushroom cloud. The bad news: Yesterday's negotiations did not end well. The dueling, end-of-day statements of the WGA and AMPTP kick off this morning's round-up of strike-related news:

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· Our friend People Paula has compiled a list of more trashy Halloween costumes than you can shake a slut at.
· Finally, someone stepped up to the plate on the Writers Strike costume. Though we will be sending him a bill for the use of our StrikeWatch logo.
· If one look at Gawker's Halloween costume chart doesn't drive you completely insane, chances are you're already crazy.
· Jerry Seinfeld reminds Hollywood about his fuck-you money.
· Thighs Wide Shut offers a heartfelt goodbye to Robert Goulet.

Of the countless doomsday scenarios we've pondered since the kickoff of the StrikeWatch season, perhaps none has been more upsetting than the one suggested by the above Fox e-Alert that just landed in our inbox: a primetime TV schedule where's there's nothing to watch but Regis Philbin and Clay Aiken furrowing their brows in frustration at grade-school geometry lessons long forgotten, determined not to hear a smug Jeff Foxworthy ask, "So, since it's obvious that being famous has made you retarded, why don't you ask little Bobby over here how many sides a rhombus has?"

It seems not a season can pass without at least one foul-mouthed, racist celebrity tirade rearing its ugly head, and we suppose Dog the Bounty Hunter would seem as good a candidate as any for the latest iteration. For one thing, his name is Dog. Furthermore, the guy's a bounty hunter. In an n-word splattered audio recording obtained by The National Enquirer, Dog forbids his son from dating an African-American woman for the rather curious and self-fulfilling logic that it will force him to utter the n-word more often—that's just the way he refers to African-Americans, you see—and that might eventually find its way into "the Enquirer magazine," ultimately putting the cuddly bounty hunting persona he's worked so hard to cultivate in jeopardy.

Though it pains us to admit it, we fear our once-torrid relationship with HBO fuckumentary Tell Me You Love Me has gotten a little stale; where we once eagerly tuned in to freeze-frame each possible stunt-cock scene for evidence of the Truth or to uncover acts of penetration that were supposed to be obscured by a cinematographer's carefully cast shadows, there's no longer any joy in our Zapruderesque examination of the sex-riddles we're offered each week. Things have gotten so bad, in fact, that following last Sunday's episode, we couldn't even be bothered to wonder whether Ian Somerhalder's actual scrotum made a cameo, or if a contractual no-balls rider necessitated the use of a nuts-double. Maybe we'll bring it up with our surprisingly foxy, sexagenarian therapist in this week's session. Anyway, there's footage of the scene at the link following this item, for those whose workplaces allow the viewing of graphic depictions of attractive people screwing. [Fleshbot]

It's been a busy week for Defamer PartyWatcher Ann: Having barely recovered from Saturday night's Guitar Hero III launch festivities in which she got a little carried away and set her controller ablaze in a Hendrix-channeling moment, she managed to pull it together in time to check out Monday night's celebrations in honor of the 100th episode of Family Guy. Accompanied by photographer Maggie Serrano, the two were warmly welcomed by the various Seths in attendance. Her report, and another one of those fun photo galleries, follow after the jump.

· Music round-up: The Pogues with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the Wiltern; Tristeza at the Echo; The Deadly Syndrome at Spaceland; Danzig at the Greek.
· AFI Fest screens Psycho at the ArcLight for free, Jack Nicholson's terrifying visage will haunt the picnicking moviegoers who cram into Hollywood Forever's showing of The Shining, and the Aero's presentation of The Omen will remind you all over again why you don't want to have kids.
· If you're determined to go clubbing in your slutty witch/devil/inmate/maid/schoolgirl costume, there's Crash Mansion LA's Massacre, Heidi Klum's Cabana Club event, Mood's Halloween Haunt, Avalon's Hex, or the Bondage Ball at the Henry Fonda. OK, we'll stop now.
· And though you hardly need us to remind you about it, West Hollywood's Halloween Carnaval will offer hundreds of thousands of costumed frotteurists a place to rub up against each other as they try to navigate an overcrowded Santa Monica Blvd.