It should surprise no one to discover that launching a film at the Cannes festival is an absurdly expensive proposition, as the overseas export of Hollywood's auto-fellating promotional machinery requires the transport, lodging, and constant pampering of scores of entitiled executives, talent, and hangers-on pressed into movie-pimping duty. (Publicists and other support staff, of course, sleep 30 to a motel room and subsist only on the croissant crumbs they brush off their betters' tuxedo lapels on the red carpet.) In looking at the costs associated with properly debuting at Cannes, the LAT notes that at least one maverick studio is doing what it can to halt the budget-destroying insanity:

By this third morning of the upfronts, you are probably exhausted by the constant barrage of stories about new television shows you probably won't have the time or desire to watch. (NBC really nailed it: Who has time for new? Give us more of what we already like! Fill us up with your quality, Peacock!) Still, CBS will take its turn before their advertisers today, unveiling a schedule aimed at convincing the money people that their network is ready to move beyond just mindless sitcoms and syndication-friendly procedural dramas and take a (well-calculated, not too scary) risk or two: that's right, the Eye is going (mildly) edgy! On the Fall schedule:

· Say what you will about yesterday's ottoman-humping clip, but at least no one got hurt.
· Fred Thompson is ducking Michael Moore's debate challenge, but at least he's doing it in style.
· Tinky-Winky victorious.
· The supposedly yanked Kim Kardashian sex tape is still for sale? Get yours now before she's no longer marginally famous.
· And finally: dumb cop brownies. [via Queerty]

In time for everyone's favorite radioactive web-crawler's record-breaking return to the box office comes this authorized Marvel figurine, depicting Peter Parker's amply endowed love interest, Mary Jane—clearly not modeled on Kirsten Dunst—dutifully attending to Spider-Man's hand-laundering needs.

In between super-sizing, over-ordering, and spinning off every decently rated property on its current programming roster, NBC managed to slip a couple of semi-original shows onto its Fall schedule. To whet your appetite for their upcoming September offerings, the network has posted a number of teasers to its YouTube page, including the above clip from its Bionic Woman update. Network president Kevin Reilly did proudly disclose his "choke on our classy hits" strategy yesterday, so we're not too surprised to discover that the show feels a little like Heroes in atmosphere (why not just go all the way and have the one with the pissed-off reflection turn up to bust Jamie out of the hospital?). If you're still feeling nostalgic for the original even after watching the rebuilt heroine nearly kill her physician because she's less than thrilled with her new legs, a clip of its classic opening credits follows after the jump:

· Music round-up: Lilly Allen at the Wiltern; Great Northern at the Echo; Meat Puppets at the Troubadour.
· Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock screens her documentary Tony Kushner: Wrestling with Angels at the Central Library. She'll also be on hand for the obligatory Q&A.
· The Academy Film Scholars Lecture series invites NYU Cinema Studies Professor Dana Polan to the Linwood Dunn Theater to discuss his book Scenes of Instruction: The Beginnings of the U.S. Study of Film, a look back to the time when aspiring directors first starting throwing their money away on film school.

Frostbitten by the overly generous use of air conditioning and beginning to hallucinate that she's been trapped in "a weird icy vodka freezer," intrepid NY Times TV critic Virginia Heffernan has still managed to tap out frequent blog dispatches from inside ABC's ongoing upfront presentation to advertisers. Before finally collapsing underneath the weight of the icicles forming on her extremities, she notes that pilot-hoarding ABC president Greenlightin' Steve McPherson ("I think it's comical when I hear other people saying we're spending too much on television. We're not spending $600 million on football. We'll continue to spend on R&D," quotes TV Week) made sure that he didn't get so wrapped up in his special day that he forgot to thank infinitely beneficent TV deity Oprah Winfrey for delivering unto him a surefire winner:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so if lady luck should happen to gift you with one, don't squander it: Write it up and send it in! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and tell everyone about the time you spotted David Hasselhoff working off a cheeseburger at your gym.

It's been a busy day for Al Bundy's kids: Earlier today, it was officially announced that low-achiever Kelly, whom no one in the Bundy household believed would ever make much of herself, landed her own bonked-on-the-head sitcom on ABC. Bud, however, long assumed to be the family's lone hope for escaping its cycle of shoe-sales despair, suddenly finds his mugshot splashed all over The Smoking Gun, which reports that he was arrested for pot possession and disorderly intoxication in Florida after the police caught him fighting with his ex-wife in the middle of an intersection. (Classier types know to keep their embarrassing spats close to the valet stand.) OK, now that we're fresh out of Married with Children jokes, we'll direct you to the police report, describing how the arresting officer "could detect the strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from his person that grew stronger as he spoke" and his subsequent confiscation of the bag of weed Faustino had in his pocket. Fun!

· Tim Allen? David Mamet? Together on a "mixed martial arts drama"? Has the world gone totally fucking insane? [Variety]
· TV casting crisis! Close the borders! Foreigners are stealing roles on new Fall series that could be going to American actors. [THR]
· Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson team up to produce three digital 3-D features based on the Belgian cartoon Tintin. They'll direct one installment each, with the last going to Brett Ratner, guaranteeing the franchise will not live past their original vision for a trilogy. (Relax, we're kidding about Ratner. But in a world where Tim Allen and Mamet can collaborate, nothing seems impossible.) [Variety]
· The success of Ugly Betty earns budding TV mogul Salma Hayek a 2-year overall deal with ABC Studios. [THR]
· Adorable netlet The CW makes like the big-people channels, picking up the dramas Gossip Girl, Reaper, and Wild at Heart; Veronica Mars, however, remains on the bubble. [Variety]

A Sydney court hearing addressing the small matter of the 48 vials of banned human growth hormone discovered on prime aged USDA beefcake Sylvester Stallone has elicited a mea culpa from the sexagenarean action star, reports the Sydney Morning Herald:

Lindsay Lohan, so often a helpless victim of her enormous, completely talent-derived worldwide fame, once again finds herself locked in battle with a member of the paparazzi underclass that's so hellbent on destroying her charmed life. Fans of the critically adored actress ("Ann-Margret, Meryl Streep, and Sophia Loren rolled into one," says cinephile journal Maxim) no doubt remember the harrowing March incident in which an innocent photographer somehow wound up splayed upon the hood of Lohan's BMW, a moment of ugliness that has now resulted in a lawsuit alleging that she was "negligent, careless and reckless" in operating the Bavarian death machine in the crowd of swarming shutterbugs and seeking monetary damages "for his pain and suffering and his lost wages." Should the pap succeed in extracting some cash from the embattled defendant, we fear that camera-clutching local grifters will exploit the situation by throwing themselves beneath the wheels of her vehicle each time she attempts to leave Hyde, hoping that TMZ's omnipresent cameras will capture lucrative footage of the lead-footed Lohan's callous disregard for their safety as they just try to make an honest living.

Waitress Kathy Sullivan offered a brief respite from the parade of female witnesses testifying that Phil Spector had invited them to his Alhambra mansion only to ambush them with a firearm when they refused to succumb to the music producer's "icky" advances. Yes, he invited her and a friend back to the Château for a night of sing-alongs and sleepovers; and yes, a gun made an appearance. But this time, Spector was only doing his chivalric duty, giving them an armed escort back to their car:

Back on Thursday, MPAA head Dan Glickman attempted to mollify an increasingly militant anti-tobacco lobby by introducing a complicated algorithm for adjusting the ratings for films in which the filthy, "increasingly...unacceptable behavior" of smoking is prominently depicted, which takes into account such factors as pervasiveness, historical context, and how many sexual partners a protagonist accumulates directly from the image-boost an omnipresent Marlboro affords him.

With ABC having already spoiled Upfront Christmas by unwrapping its much-anticipated pick-up of Cavemen&trade, A Race Parable Brought To You By Geico a few days early, giving the disgruntled, recently canceled stars of its comedy past an opportunity to decry the network's pro-Neanderthal prejudices, the actual announcement of its Fall schedule was bound to underwhelm. They've installed Private Practice, the horny-doctors-in-Santa-Monica supplement ("I am going to kiss you. With tongue. Later, I am going to sex you. With penis.") to their horny-doctors-in-Seattle Nielsen juggernaut, at 9 p.m. on Wednesday night to anchor a block of all-new dramas, allowing the brain-deadening buzz derived from ogling the goodies of various hyperverbal, McAttractive physicians to linger for two consecutive evenings.

· Trump will have to settle for firing his real-life employees while NBC decides if it's going to strike the boardroom set forever.
· We dare not embed this amazing clip for fear that some innocent furniture in view of your computer monitor will be scarred for life by the horrifying group ottoman freaking depicted therein.
· The Mooninites go free, with virtually no discussion of hair care.
· Scientology and Me YouTube faceoff: Shouty BBC Reporter vs. Creepily Intense Defender of the Faith.

We'll warn you in advance: This latest transmission from batshit-genius YouTube monologist Brian Atene is for connoisseurs only, a tour de force of dramatic subtlety featuring none of the cheap, mind-melting fireworks that have marked his recent efforts. Sure, he might be getting a little precious and self-referential in this installment, but after all the joy he's given us, we won't begrudge him 53 seconds for himself.

Anna Nicole Smith's 2001 will—which named her deceased son Daniel as her sole heir and Babydaddy Sweepstakes also-ran Howard K. Stern as its executor—has been filed by Stern in an L.A. probate court yesterday:

· Music round-up: RJD2 at the Henry Fonda; Dear and the Headlights at the Roxy; Gliss at Spaceland.
· The Academy's Great To Be Nominated series of Best Picture also-rans screens Raging Bull at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, followed by a discussion with producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler.
· Gong Show host/CIA contract killer Chuck Barris will be at Book Soup to sign his new novel, The Big Question, and to generally blow the minds of anyone with whom he comes into contact.

As the TV upfronts are intended to be a weeklong celebration of possibility and hope, there is generally no place in a network's presentation to advertisers to pause briefly and remember the once-beloved projects that won't be going forward into the Fall season; accordingly, it took a reporter's uncomfortable question to get NBC president Kevin Reilly to reflect upon the legacy of the newly euthanized Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, whose uncompromising, visionary showrunner was just one year ago anointed the savior of the last-place network. Notes the TV Week upfronts blog: