We once again pause to anoint the feet of this week's sponsors with fragrant oils, in accordance with the sacred rituals passed down by our advertiser-worshipping ancestors. If you'd like to get some sweet ads all up in this piece, see this page.

· Absolut
· American Apparel
· Curse of the Golden Flower
· Nokia
· Perfect Stranger
· SV Supreme Vodka
· Sprint
· Toyota
· VW
· Verizon

· After stumbling upon some screeners for its new season, Var's Peter Bart finally discovers The Entourage, which he believes pampers Hollywood's sexy underbelly but neglects the stepchildren. [Variety]
· Starz is suing Disney because it believes that offering its movies for download at places like iTunes and WalMart.com violates their distribution rights, an internet-related legal action that refreshingly does not involve YouTube. (We think?) [THR]
· In a development that all entertainment news outlets will be contractually obligated to refer to as a "Titanic Reunion," Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio will star in a Sam Mendes-directed DreamWorks adaptation of Revolutionary Road, the grandaddy of all suburban angst novels. [Variety]
· While pitching media buyers on his ongoing turnaround plan for his fourth-place network, NBC president Kevin Reilly expresses hope that beloved-but-low-rated series Friday Night Lights and 30 Rock will evolve into this generation's St. Elsewhere and Cheers. However, he had no historical comparison for breakout hit Deal or No Deal, as the brain-smoothing innovations of reality television had not yet arrived to make viewers stupid enough to watch people shouting at briefcases back in the 80s. [THR]
· Grey's Anatomy is still huge on Thursday nights, while Are You Dumber Than This 10-Year-Old We Plucked From A Special-Ed Class? seems to be sliding in popularity. [Variety]

Getting the drop on famous people and breaking potentially upsetting news to capture their shocked reactions is a popular bloodsport with local celeb-stalking news crews, but Extra failed to put any points on the Gotcha! scoreboard by waylaying Eva Longoria about her former co-star's recently announced trip to rehab. Even after being gently reminded that Metcalfe was the guy who both provided her expert lawn care and sexually serviced her for 22 episodes, she merely shrugged, offered a polite, "No, I'm sure I don't know who that is," then continued in a whisper, "you know, I might 'go to rehab' too once the show's over and I need to get my name out there. Check back with me in couple of years and I'll get you the exclusive."

Late yesterday afternoon, Imagine philosopher-king Brian Grazer's introduction to his ill-fated Current section was saved from the oblivion to which it was dispatched by the LAT's cautious publisher, whose decision to kill the stunt-edit called down from the media heavens a shitstorm arguably equal in filthy intensity to the one he was trying to avoid in the first place. Today, Grazer's statement on the matter is circulating in reports about the controversy (words probably lovingly composed by the same publicists who got him into this mess), hinting at the delights the intellectually voracious superproducer of easily digestible populist entertainments had planned for the Times' readership this Sunday morning. From THR:

Since graduating with honors from his outpatient "ongoing program of recovery" (aka Jewhab), Malibu's Ambassador of Tolerance Mel Gibson has skillfully managed to avoid further embarrasing Don Julio-fueled dust-ups with members of warmongering and/or tit-sugaring minority communities. His Mayan-mutilating masterwork Apocalypto, however, continues to sit like a blowdart in the side of certain Mayan descendants, like professor Alicia Estrada, who earned the auteur's wrath when she challenged his Melicized take on Latin American history at his recent Cal State Northridge speaking appearance:

In the post-post Brokeback mash-up era, setting the trailer for a movie in which nearly every frame is filled with the CGI-enhanced six-packs of three-quarters-naked, glistening Greeks to "It's Raining Men" might be a little too easy. But in truth, a flick whose pivotal scene involves a proud King refusing an initiation to kneel down in supplication before a freshly waxed, liberally pierced god-warrior draped in spangly chains (who, it should be noted, travels the countryside in a mobile Vegas hotel shuttled to and fro by strong-backed rentboys) by defiantly shrugging off a seductive shoulder rub and reciting the lyrics to "I Will Survive" is kind of asking for it.

· The Screengrab blog compiles a two-part top ten list of the worst accents in movie history, including Keanu Reeves' hilarious effort in Bram Stoker's Dracula, which produced a result so bizarre that his dialect coach was executed following its premiere.
·The Office's Jenna Fischer finds a way to increase her already impressive nerd fanbase.
· Winona Ryder's rack is poised to make a big-time comeback.
· Still no bids on Gwen Stefani's petrified wedding donuts.

With the LAT's unfortunate decision to callously discard all the hard work superproducing guest editor Brian Grazer had put into his masterfully curated Sunday Current section just because the paper caught a faint whiff of possible publicist-related impropriety, we feared that the words of introduction that Hollywood's Grand Inquisitor of Interesting People so painstakingly dictated to his assistants for later transcription might be lost to history. (Luckily for his support staff, their notoriously quixotic boss abandoned a poorly conceived plan to have his introductory remarks on his editorial mission pressed into a clay tablet in cuneiform—an idea that grew out of a brief obsession with producing an action-thriller set in ancient Sumeria—ultimately tasking them with translating his scattered thoughts into comprehensible English instead.) But thanks to LA Observed (and someone on the inside with access to the Times's editing system), Grazer's Lost Introduction has been preserved for as long as these blogowebs exist:

No, Transformers star Shia LaBeouf hasn't finally decided to take the radical gender reassignment steps that will permanently tranform him into the weeping 13-year-old girl he's long known to be living inside him, he's merely expressing his desire to graduate to the kinds of manly roles he knows he would be able to play if he still wasn't corporeally limited by a scrawny, post-adolescent frame. As for his supposedly confirmed role in Indy 4, the actor tells the AP, "I don't have a deal on the table, it's just a rumor," most probably a savvy, backpeddling offering to the Spielbergian gods, who expressly told his people to keep their big mouths shut until they could secure the rest of the top secret cast now common knowledge thanks to similarly loose-lipped actors.

· Music round-up: Badly Drawn Boy at the El Rey (always a chance of a meltdown!); The Apples In Stereo at Spaceland; Ozomatli at the Key Club.
· Also in music: Beck is doing a not-so-secret show at the Echo. Reports are mixed on the availability of tickets, but why not try your luck? If you get in, you may get to sing along to "Devil's Haircut" with Giovanni Ribisi.
· The ongoing tribute to Warner Herzog at the Aero Theatre features a showing of Nosferatu, The Vampyre tonight, featuring longtime Herzog muse Klaus Kinski. The director himself will be on hand to answer all of your questions about what it was like to rescue Joaquin Phoenix from his overturned car.

By now you have undoubtedly watched the now-infamous footage of Lily Tomlin and David O. Russell's love-in on the set of I Heart Huckabees dozens and dozens of times (if not, hey, there's a video hovering right above these words! Convenient!), delighting anew at every bird flipped in frustration and each heartfelt, profane accusation of directorial incest. The clips' rapid proliferation via the YouTubes prompted the Miami New Times to ask Tomlin what she thinks about having the three-year-old laundry run out on the interweb clothesline for a fresh airing:

· A businessman from Germany bid over a half million dollars for two of Anna Nicole's diaries from the early '90s, a sample page of which contains many of the running themes of tragic loss and addiction that would follow her until the end of her life: "I had lunch with Howard Someone ran over my cat yesterday I was real sad Clay came over last nite to give me some sleeping pills It was nice to see him" [TMZ]
· Not even a court-ordered eviction has managed to get Howard K. Stern out of the Bahamian home that belongs to former Anna Nicole sugardaddy G. Ben Thompson (see him traipsing around it with authorities here!), whose attorneys have filed a summons, asking the courts to do the Stern dropkicking for them. [Access Hollywood]
· Autopsy results! Monday! (You thought we'd have some definitive answers readily available for you? Perish the thought.) [USA Today]
· Earlier this month, Larry Birkhead trademarked the phrase "Goodnight, My Sweet Anna Baby" for use in "movies, books, TV programs, Internet programs and stage plays," though we think it would best suit the inevitable Schönberg and Boublil West End megamusical. [ABCNews.com]

The current issue of LA Weekly gets acquainted with a man named Rio, the sole survivor of the infamous Heaven's Gate mass suicide of a decade ago that inspired those macabre "Just Do It" parody Nike ads while forever tainting the public's congenial perception of their neighborhood, sci-fi-based alien-worshipping cult. You'd think ten years without his spaceship friends might have given him some perspective on the matter, but Rio, a Westwood resident, remains confident he will one day join them, just as soon as he finishes some unfinished business for departed leader DO here on Earth: High on his To DO list, selling a studio on his Hollywood passion project, SIRUS FROM SIRIUS, a SCI/FI-ACTION-ADVENTURE-COMEDY, a script in which NBC once reportedly demonstrated some interest:

In case there was any doubt that the once-hot trend of following up a bender with an image-salvaging trip to rehab has been overused to the point of utter unfashionability, today's obviously publicist-planted item in Page Six revealing that onetime Desperate Housewives featured lawncare extra Jesse Metcalfe is off to battle whatever demons have been blocking his rise from the C-list should finally close off this avenue to reps looking for some easy, profile-boosting ink. The next hottness for troubled attention-whores needing a quick hit from the publicity-pipe: owning one's problems by inviting over an Insider camera crew to film them as they inject heroin between their toes.

Hi there! While you choke down that subpar Cobb salad at your desk, hoping that the people you're eavesdropping on during your boss's lunchtime conference call can't hear your chewing, why not multitask by participating in a totally fun survey for a chance to win a $300 Jet Blue gift card? To enter, just send an email containing the last question asked in the questionnaire to surveys@gawker.com once you're through. Did we mention it's totally fun? It totally is!

The dominoes in Grazergate have fallen, and fallen quickly: The paper's publisher this morning announced it would kill Brian Grazer's blockbuster Sunday Current section to avoid the appearance of undue publicist influence in the superproducer/intellectual dynamo's coronation as guest editor-king, prompting embattled, flack-entangled section editor Andres Martinez to quickly resign, and the Times Ouroboros to hastily swallow its deliciously scandal-tipped tail by immediately posting a story about the resignation. The real victim in all of this is Grazer, whose selfless desire to share with the public an all-consuming, lifelong curiosity about Stuff has now been tainted by controversy, with the pages upon which the precious words he so lovingly curated—but is tragically unable to read—were printed soon to be recycled into Best Buy circulars advertising specially discounted A Beautiful Mind DVDs.

Britney Spears's camp (now down to her manager, a lawyer who bills by the nervous breakdown, and a single, overtaxed nanny knee deep in crap-filled Luvs) was determined to prevent the kinds of anonymously leaked, "Tales of the Rehab Crypt" stories that have littered the U.S. media landscape this past month from appearing in the British tabloid press. Why, we're not entirely sure, as the English have always looked sympathetically upon the struggles of Coke-addict Satanists and their ilk, but the injunction was nevertheless successful:

· Famously temperamental thespian Russell Crowe will make his directorial debut on a feature adaptation of the documentary Bra Boys, about three brothers who started an underground surf movement in Sydney, during which the novice helmer will learn precisely how much damage a hurled megaphone can do to a mouthy PA's skull. Imagine's Brian Grazer to superproduce. [Ed.note—Since an update to this morning's Grazergate story is possible at some point today, we're forced to spare you the headshot at this time due to image bandwidth issues that could arise from its repeated posting.] [Variety]
· News Corp. and NBC Universal announce that they will partner with Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL to create a copyright-friendly online video distribution system that will crush the YouTubes. "A game changer!" cackles News Corp. CEO Peter Chernin while high-fiving colleague Jeff Zucker of NBCU, giddy over the untold millions of shareholder dollars they'll spend on an ultimately inferior product. [THR]
· Emboldened by the success of series like Heroes and Deal or No Deal, NBC president Kevin Reilly is confident he'll get more respect in today's meeting with media buyers than he did a year ago, when he was subjected to a humiliating round of wedgies, swirlies, and "Kick Me! My Networks Sux!" signs taped to his back by bullies whose money he was desperate to take. [Variety]
· Jet Li is in negotiations to play the bad guy in the China-set, totally unnecessary third The Mummy movie. [THR]
· The West Coast-based Academy of TV Arts & Sciences (the organization behind the Real Emmys) and East-Coasted National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences (who handle the Daytime, or Fake, Emmys) are at war! At issue: some profoundly boring shit involving who gets to give out broadband awards no one will care about for 10 years. [Variety]

American Idol's newest breakout star, tear-drenched 13-year-old superfan Ashley Ferl, has embarked on the first leg of her worldwide publicity tour, appearing on this morning's Today Show to chat with Meredith Vieira about fulfilling her dream of hugging feather-haired, music-destroying karaoke demon Sanjaya Malakar, a brief embrace that will nonetheless permanently arrest her emotional development. Her eyes spinning like pinwheels powered by the hellwinds rising from whatever chamber of Hades Malakar calls home in his Idol downtime, Ferl explained how she handles the blasphemies of those who would speak out against her warbling master, who was vindicated by last night's baptism into the Top Ten : "I just like, say they're wrong or just ignore them."

The AP brings word that Lucky and Flo, the two darling black Labs who have become international sensations for their keen ability to sniff out illegal DVDs and CDs, are in grave danger. After their first practical stakeout and bust while on loan to the Malaysian government netted a bounty of nearly $3 million in bootlegged discs and six arrests, the Malaysian pirating mafia reportedly put a bounty on their cute, poochie heads: