Enjoy this slideshow salute to Hollywood's longstanding tradition of incongruously pairing fat guys with hot wives. As you might expect, the world of CBS sitcoms is well represented. [Maxim.com]

Following Thursday's controversy-kickstarting BusinessWeek story "Paramount and DreamWorks: Splitsville?," in which it was suggested that a strained relationship between Steven Spielberg and Paramount might cause the director and his partners to jilt Brad Grey's DreamWorks-dependent studio empire when Spielberg's contract expires late next year, has seemingly induced much pants-soiling from within the walls of the Melrose lot. Hoping to halt the spread of further bowel failures over the rumored state of the DW/Paramount union, votes of confidence have been issued by Spielberg and David Geffen, who took breaks from their filmmaking and shuffleboard-playing duties, respectively, to (at least temporarily) envelop Grey in a warm, reassuring hug. In a story about the alleged looming split, Var's Peter Bart passes along Geffen's regards for the Paramount team:

With the announcement that gay-slur-spouting primetime orphan Isaiah Washington was placed into Bionic Woman foster care by NBC rock-star/case-worker Ben Silverman, the actor's mood went from a volatile Mad As Hell And Not Going To Take It Anymore to Quietly Vindicated, But Still Wanting to Break My Silence a Few More Times. After a recent Larry King Live appearance in which Washington reassured America of his enduring admiration of Gays, the actor went on to explain to Access Hollywood how the real villain—aside, of course, from mastermind T.R. Knight, pulling his pink puppet strings from on-high—was Patrick "McEvil" Dempsey:

Legendary cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Shampoo, The Toy, Ghosbusters, and far too many other credits to list here) dies at 74. [THR]

· Following the kind of hype we generally reserve for the release of Hollywood blockbusters that leave us feeling empty inside, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sells 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours of release, shattering™ the record of 7 million copies set by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Saturday's record-setting take could mean as much as $150 million for JK Rowling and her publisher. [Variety]
· Meanwhile, the new Potter movie brings in another $100.8 million at the overseas box office, leading Rowling to consider the possibility of buying her own planet. (Please disregard if she has previously purchased a planet and we somehow missed the news.) [Variety]
· Hollywood GuttenbergWatch: The Gütte joins the cast of the Jessica Simpson comedy Major Movie Star, where he'll play the part of Simpon's agent, a man none too pleased by his earner's decision to enlist in the Army. Hilarity to ensue as Guttenberg steals every scene he's in. [THR]
· Columbia is in "negotiations" with Hotel Rwanda and Reservation Road director Terry George to direct the Tom Cruise vehicle Edwin. A Salt (think The Fugitive, but with a CIA operative instead of a doctor—we see lots of Cruise's trademarked perfect-form sprinting), a project among the contenders that the actor hopes to rush into production before a strike hits. [Variety]
· And speaking of the strike, the AMPTP puts a hold on talks with the WGA while they wrap up contract negotiations with the Teamsters and some craft unions, delaying their next heated round of exchanging "fuck you" proposals and "no, fuck you" counterproposals. [THR]

To celebrate the recent colonization of Los Angeles by imperial British tabloid powers David and Victoria Beckham, celebrity-barons Tom Cruise, Will Smith, and their Hollywood war brides feted their new masters with a massive "Welcome to America, Strangely Famous Foreigners!" party last night at Museum of Contemporary Art's Geffen Warehouse, where representatives of the local nobility publicly paid their respects. Reports People.com on the event:

Of course, that was before the show actually aired, and Abdul's dreary, fame-hungry existence—filled in the Idol off-season with QVC appearances and pointless strategy meetings with a staff who respond with icy, death-stare detachment—was laid out for all the world to see. In the above clip, Paula reacts pretty much as one might expect as she learns that she has been forced out of the Bratz movie she proudly plugged in every interview this year. Dramatic? Perhaps, but where some might see a fourth-rate movie inspired by a line of slutty dolls, Abdul saw in the project a raison d'être outside the karaoke ghetto that has come to define her existence.

At Thursday afternoon's Cinerama Dome celebration of the memory of late MPAA icon Jack Valenti, Steven Bochco offered these words of tribute: "He was the human equivalent of the iPhone. He was a small, sleek package with irresistible features." It's probably best that Valenti himself didn't live to see the iPhone era himself, as he likely would have seen the device as "the Son of Sam of intellectual property theft waiting to blast away the young lovers of copyright as they make out in the front of a parent's Oldsmobile, an infernal machine that infuriatingly allows the brazen pirate to call up his friends and brag about how easy it is to steal food from the mouths of hard-working Hollywood professionals." [LAT]

Through the Darkness of yet another Monday morning comes the Light of hope: the weekend box office numbers:

· The Emmy nominations: Oscars' Paste-Eating Cousin™ announces his picks. They react. Sometimes too eagerly.
· Harry Potter conjures up a shitload of money, decides to celebrate with some recreational chemistry.
· Thanks to NBC's new rock-star leader, Donald Trump and Isaiah Washington learn that life sometimes does offer second chances. Bionic Woman producers couldn't agree with their boss more.
· Hollywood breaks Ed Limato's heart.
· Don't make Jon Lovitz angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.
· It's not TV. It's TV with hand-jobs.
· Creative differences vs. personal issues: What made Mandy run?
· Homer and the boner.
· Jason Reitman rings in his 30s with some naughty prep school action.
· Lindsay Lohan's must-have, gangrene-inducing accessory!
· When it comes to Studio 60's demise, Aaron Sorkin blames himself first, everyone else second.
· Masi Oka on what isn't funny about Rob Schneider.
· Mr. Chappelle gets de-exhausted, goes to Washington.
· Secrets of the looming writers' strike...revealed!
· Tom Cruise not thrilled about how pear-shaped his SS uniform makes him look.
· "Thriller" is never as thrilling as when it's performed by 1,500 prison inmates.

Bad news, eastside Harry Potter fans: You're already too late to be the first in line for Skylight Books' all-night Deathly Hallows bacchanalia. But before you dismiss the chair and pillow as fan overkill, realize that this is a clearly designated BYOC&P event, as unrelenting hour upon hour of wand-making, lively Snape debates, and Hogwarts house self-sorting are likely to tucker out even the most energetic of wizardry enthusiasts, especially once the effects of a handful of Bertie Bott's Booger-Flavored Methamphetamine Beans wear off.

Cherry Jones (it's OK, we need an IMDb consult to put a face to the name, too) inherits one of the least secure jobs on TV, the president of 24's terrorism-ravaged America. Can't wait for the first scene where she's asked to ignore the previous 6 times Jack Bauer has single-handledly saved the country from annihilation and orders his immediate arrest for treason. [THR]

Friday
· Music round-up: Sonic Youth at the Greek; Paul Van Dyk at the Vanguard; Johnathan Rice at the Echo; The Bird and the Bee at the El Rey.
· At the Friday 40 at IO West, host Dave Holmes (credits too numerous to list here) punishes contestants' ignorance of the past week's events with endrunkening* swigs from a 40-ouncer. [*Yup, that's a word now.]
· Pottermania! Be the first adult on your block to obtain the last installment of children's literature's most successful schoolboy wizard franchise by heading out to a midnight book party to celebrate the legal selling of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Stores in on the fun: Vroman's, Borders, Duttons, Skylight, and Book Soup.

While universally recognized as a deity in the Hollywood community, Steven Spielberg is hardly ever taken to task for squandering his limitless God-powers by using his rainbow-spewing Happy Ending Machine to neatly wrap up his movies' third act problems instead of pointing it in the direction of a war-torn Third World nation to cease its suffering. (In his defense, he hasn't pulled any celestial strings to salvage On the Lot's ratings, either.) But Slate's Kim Masters writes that a recent bit of well-publicized heresy by Mia Farrow, who warned that Spielberg would become the "Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games" by taking a position as an adviser to the Olympics if he didn't use his influence to decry China's support of the Sudanese government, seems to have moved the almighty auteur to intercede:

Sarah Silverman expresses remorse over hurting Paris Hilton's feelings at the MTV Movie Awards, where Hilton was just innocently sneaking in one more chance at free camera time before heading off to jail: "I thought, 'She's got to know there's going to be a joke about her,' so I went for it. But then I looked down and saw a man in her face with a camera. I was there to be funny and I was, but that doesn't mean I can't feel bad about it." We hope Silverman is just setting up Paris for a gag where she shows up at her house with a jail cell made up of penises instead of iron bars. [FemaleFirst]

As is our wont on a lazy summer Friday, when we suspect that most of you have abandoned us for the freedom of a two-and-a-half-day weekend, we'll pass along something for no better reason than it brings a small amount of joy into our dark, dark little lives. How does roughly 1,500 inmates at a Filipino prison performing a perfectly choreographed Thriller routine strike you? It strikes us as pretty f'ing amazing.

"If you look like David Beckham, let's have a NSA affair! - w4m - 25
This sounds crazy, but I'm nuts for David Beckham. He's so so cute. And I've been daydreaming that his clone will arrive. Tonight is free. Can my David Beckham roleplay come true? Me: Cute, bubbly, trim, great natural boobies. I don't look like Posh Spice but I get no complaints. 5'7" Long brown hair, sexually adventurous. Fun, good in the sack. I work out. I also have a good day job that leaves me with plenty of energy for the night. Send pics, mine gets yours. And let's talk." [Craigslist]

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and tell everyone about the time you finally saw Entourage's Lloyd ascend to rightful player status, holding court among throngs of adoring Gays.

TV actor Esai Morales, whose fine, hunky work has graced such well-regarded series as NYPD Blue and the short-lived Vanished, was slapped with a lawsuit filed yesterday by former live-in girlfriend Elizabeth Mazzocchi. She claims that not only did her ex-lover batter and force himself on her, but he also knowingly infected her with a dreaded and unmanageable social disease that has also been known to afflict 1 in 1 ex-con socialites. CelebTV.com claims firstsies on the explosive court documents: