Aside from what you feel about his contribution to cinema history, which is estimable by anyone's standards, Quentin Tarantino should have already earned your undying respect for having once hocked a viscous, yellow loogey at World's Most Annoying Backstage Oscars Presence™, Chris Connelly. The LAT spends some time with the iconic filmmaker, who's currently curating the Grindhouse Film Festival at the New Beverly, while also finishing up editing "Death Proof," his chapter of the double feature Grindhouse. As he prowls the same, mean Hollywood streets from his youth, the man who's never met a topic he couldn't append the suffix "-sploitation" to recalls one deliciously meta cinematic moment from his teens:

· Thursday night music round-up: Josh Ritter plays with The Sumbarines at the El Rey, Emma Burgess is at the Hotel Cafe, and Bob Seger, to whom Tom Cruise slid into our hearts in nothing but an Oxford, some briefs, and his Wayfarers, plays the Forum.
· Experimental film and video junkie alert! Pioneer of the medium Joan Jonas speaks tonight at the Hammer Museum. Is her stuff on YouTube? Yes, it is. What about Brakhage, Anger, and Mekas? Yep, yep, and yep. There just may be something to this YouTube thing, after all!
· Doubleheader at Skylight Books: Chris Abani reads from The Virgin of Flames, and T Cooper, formerly of drag king boy band The Backdoor Boys, reads from Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes.

As the former head writer for Dawson's Creek, Greg Berlanti is probably a fountain of insights into whatever led a pre-assimilated Katie Holmes to ditch her once promising career for a life of home-imprisonment and engineered-child rearing. AfterElton recently interviewed the openly gay Brothers and Sisters EP, but instead chose to focus on the show's matter-of-fact approach to gay content. And to what can we attribute those refreshingly frank, four-way conference calls in which the titular siblings gossip candidly about their gay brother's recent one-night stand? Why, the mere fact that the really gay-sounding dude who used to answer the phones at ABC back in '97 is now their VP of Drama Development:

Oscarless singing sensation Beyoncé Knowles may be OK, but that still leaves thousands more local revelers who may have been exposed to the hepatitis A-tainted morsels of beef tenderloin and mini crab-cakes circulating among various Wolfgang Puck-catered parties in recent weeks. Guests of Sports Illustrated's bash are still anxiously awaiting the onset of symptoms, wondering now if digging a chocolate-covered strawberry out of that aspiring model's cleavage—an interaction which at the time felt so, so right—might have carried with it grave, liver-inflaming consequences. Similarly, the cavalcade of CGI experts on hand for the Visual Effects Society Awards Diner have also been waking up in cold sweats, fearful that the delicious tuna-tartare-on-a-potato-chip that they insisted their spouse take a bite of might soon cause their yellowish dooms. Well, fret not, sayeth the L.A. Department of Health, in a letter sent to all party attendees (download it here): The chances you have contracted hep-A are incredibly slim. But if you did, you're shit outta luck, since Immune Globulin shots only work within 2 weeks of exposure. Whoops! Sorry!

It took a little longer than expected, but beleaguered NBC Entertainment president/Dwight Schrute-comic-foil Kevin Reilly, who for years was expected to be but one axe-swing away from being ejected from his Burbank offices via medieval catapult, has renewed his contract:

· With a successful Dreamgirls and World Trade Center DVD release in the year's fourth quarter, Viacom has Paramount and DreamWorks to thank for coming out $86 million in the black. To celebrate, Sumner Redstone ordered Brad Grey to follow the trail of rose petals leading down the hall and into his candle-lit office, where, inside, the scantily clad Viacom overlord lay splayed over his desk for the taking. [Variety]
· The Weinstein Co. renewed its first-look deal with Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella's Mirage for three years. That includes the remake rights to foreign language Oscar-winner The Lives of Others, which they plan an making more accessible to domestic audiences by transferring the story from Cold War East Germany to the gripping milieu of an African American university, where students are preparing for a fierce national step show competition. [Variety]
· This season of American Idol continues to pop the competition into its mouth like a fearsome giant terrorizing the countryside, only to later poop out the Friday Night Lights-flecked remains all over the village windmill. [Variety]
· A new study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. shows that show business is the single largest contributor to the local economy, followed by hooking, and frozen yogurt franchises. [THR]
· It's pilot season! Draft those test options faster, you business and legal peons! Already cast: Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh in ABC drama Dirty Sexy Money, Shawnee Smith in ABC's comedy Traveling in Packs, and Horatio Sanz in something that will likely not get a pick-up.

The orgiastic clusterfuck that is Oscars Week in L.A. can produce just about any variety of celebrity composite, and so one is hardly compelled to raise an eyebrow at sightings involving Orlando Bloom pouring hot fudge from a gravy terrine down Penelope Cruz's cleavage, with an incapacitated Courtney Love lying on the floor directly below, hungrily collecting the drippings. But something about this PrivacyWatch sighting of Real Time host and tireless cokewhores' rights advocate Bill Maher cozying up with Saks' Fifth-Most-Wanted Winona Ryder struck as instantly noteworthy:

We here at Defamer are fully aware that the public may have long since reached its saturation point with Anna Nicole Smith death coverage, and that nothing short of a decomposed Smith knocking from within her casket during her "over the top" Bahamas funeral, then climbing out to perform a surprisingly on-key rendition of "Don't Cha" for the gathered guests, would warrant mentioning. You may be amazed to learn, however, that there are fascinating, still unexplored avenues to this bizarre tale, even if they only exist on alternate-reality planes. Without further ado, then, we proudly present for you some hot Howard K. Stern-on-Larry Birkhead slashfic action:

Hello. This is your Defamer associate editor, just here to inform you that Mark is away today on "business," i.e. camped outside CBS Television City on Beverly Blvd. holding a large, glittery poster board reading "SANJAYA ROCKS MY WORLD!!!," eagerly anticipating attendance at tonight's American Idol elimination round. (Don't worry, Mark! Your boy's gotta be safe!) He'll be away tomorrow, as well, for an equally humiliating reason we'll hopefully come up with by then. In the meantime, I'll do everything in my power to make this as pleasant an experience as possible, short of sweet-talking you into joining me in the Air Defamer lavatory for some sky-high shenanigans. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

Not since John Cusack found himself the recipient of a series of care packages containing love letters, screwdrivers, and rocks tossed over the fence of his property by a heartsick, homeless admirer, have we been so struck by a celebrity stalker's pertinacity: Meet Linda Ransom, an unfortunately surnamed aspiring screenwriter with third-act problems so insurmountable, she's been tormenting Jeff Goldblum for eight years:

· Please take a few minutes to allow a tag team of the Fonz and Henry Winkler (how'd they do that?) educate you about sexual abuse. You might think you're too old to benefit, but if nothing else, maybe your inner child will be saved from a scarring encounter with your inner handsy uncle. [via Fast Hugs]
· Jake Gyllenhaal's personal secrets to becoming famous, revealed!
· Please, we beg of you, don't view this video of the Clippers' Shaun Livingston injuring his knee. Trust us, don't watch it. Just don't. We're not kidding. Go watch some moose ball instead.
· The Big Pussy jokes really do write themselves.
· Suri Cruise is not only real, but really cute! Also, it took Tom's genetic engineers about forty tries before they produced a clone that could do that adorable pointing thing with the left index finger.

For the millions of you patiently awaiting the DVD release of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, either in anticipation of adding the film to your home video library, or merely to see if your slavery-endorsing and/or urinal-peek-a-boo scene might have by some miracle been excised from the final version despite a judge having ruled otherwise, March 6 will be the magic date to circle upon your calendars. The matter of how much, meanwhile, is looking to be a very nice suggested retail price of $19.95. Slashfilm.com has seen an advance copy, which is purposely designed to look as though you may have bartered for it from a toothless Kazakh street urchin for a bottle of goat urine: "[There's] not a word of English on the packaging...[It looks] color-copied...complete with off color tones, slightly blurred company logos, blurry text and moire pattern/lithographic scans." Whether the "HILARIOUS DeeVeeDee EXTRAS" touted on Borat's official website will maintain the illusion remains to be seen, though we're indifferent as to whether or not Ken Davitian's commentary track comes from him or in character as producer Azamat Bagatov—as long as we get some kind of insight into just how stimulating Sacha Baron Cohen's proboscis felt when he lowered his feculent taint upon it.

When Paris Hilton threw herself on the mercy of the court back in January, Lady Justice looked sympathetically upon the wayward heiress' DUI ways, sentencing the preeminent area flashbulb-whore to 36 months of probation, reducible to 24 with optional community service. Sadly, Hilton's recidivist nature would prevent her from resisting the Call of the Strip, as she was stopped speeding on Sunset around 11 p.m. last night, with her headlights off and in possession of a suspended licence. The probation violation could result in the "Stars Are Blind" singer's next impromptu table-top performance occuring at a medium-security correctional facility dining hall near you:

· Music round-up: French Kicks at the Troubadour; Kate Earl at the Hotel Café; Ima Robot at Social Hollywood.
· The Borders in Westwood provides you with your latest opportunity to ask David Mamet to sign your copy of his latest book, Bambi vs. Godzilla; On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business, with "What's my name? Fuck you, that's my name!"
· We'll leave it up to your own resourcefulness to figure out how to get in, but Mean magazine is apparently throwing a party at Les Deux to preview its new issue with Very Special Sober DJ Lindsay Lohan on the turntables. Good luck.

While TMZ's valiant efforts to reveal the list of industry parties possibly tainted by Wolfgang Puck's hepatitis-infected pre cook have so far been stymied by the combination of a tight-lipped Health Department and the shadowy Hollywood Event-Catering Industrial Complex, their TV-based corporate siblings at Extra have managed to advance this important work: According to a press release, they've received confirmation from a publicist that Beyoncé passed on all the tempting—but possibly dangerous!—trays of hors d'oeuvres waved under her nose at Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue bash at the Pacific Design Center on February 14th, the Party Zero of the ongoing hep-A pandemic that's terrorizing the city. She's safe! There's still no update on the status of Visual Effects Society awards banquet attendees George Lucas and John Landis, but TMZ's earlier story about the at-risk directors seems to have disappeared; hopefully, the site's warnings about the scare reached them before its deletion and they've taken the necessary medical precautions.

Thank God that John Travolta was on Ellen to let the world know what his upcoming Wild Hogs is really about; without the admirable honesty of this promotional appearance, potential ticket-buyers might have been fooled by conservative Disney's ad campaign marketing the film as just another slapsticky, City Slickers rip-off breeder-bonding comedy, but now they know that it's actually the story of four leather daddies' musical romp through the country's wildest S&M bars.

If going back and reviewing the press room video of Dreamgirls' Best Sound Mixing Oscar sore-winner Michael Minkler's shocking backstage sneak attack on record-setting, 19-time also-ran Kevin O'Connell fails to convince you that the whole thing wasn't actually some kind of straight-faced joke between below-the-line frenemies (as we were secretly hoping it was, because that was some cold shit), the angry and frustrated response that O'Connell's Apocalypto partner Greg P. Russell gave to InContention.com should remove all doubts about Minkler's intentions when he said that his colleague was an "OK mixer" who should "take up another line of work." Prepare for things to get even uglier:

· But how did yesterday's 416 point stock market bed-shitting affect the faceless multimedia corporations behind your favorite entertainment products, you ask? Disney was hit the hardest with a 6% fall, followed by Time Warner at 4%, and 2-4% drops by News Corp., CBS, Viacom, and Sony. [Variety]
· Kelsey Grammer's Grammnet Productions throws away a 15-year relationship with Paramount for a one-year fling with 20th Century Fox TV's younger, hotter piece of studio ass. [THR]
· Fox's Fifth Graders Humiliating Morons draws a depressingly huge 26.6 million viewers in its American Idol-boosted premiere. Realizing that the series' initial numbers might be a little inflated by its lead-in, the network hopes to continue to hold that audience's interest by adding an element to Fifth Grader in which the show's precocious ten-year-olds kick its contestants in the genitals after each incorrect answer. [Variety]
· Oscar winner Alan Arkin will join Little Miss Sunshine co-star Steve Carell underneath the Cone of Silence in Warner Bros. Get Smart movie adaptation. [THR]
· Robert Downey Jr. signs on to play "Kirk Lazarus, the greatest actor of his generation and a four-time Oscar winner" in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, but there's no mention if that's the role that Tom Cruise was reportedly hoping to land to extend his buddy time with Stiller past Hardy Boys. We'd hate for Downey to get blacklisted at Cruise's United Artists for stealing a role away from the new mogul. [THR]

In a National! Enquirer! Exclusive!, the pioneering periodical, which long ago perfected the winning tabloid formula of sketchily sourced celebrity exposés interspersed with white trash recipes, reports that the autopsy performed on Anna Nicole Smith revealed the cause of her death to be pneumonia. Drugs played a part only so much as the prescription meds she was washing down with contraband SlimFast shakes were masking the illness's potentially fatal symptoms:

In landing Us Weekly's cover to tell His Side of the Why Britney Spears Went Batshit Insane, Shaved Her Head, Entered Rehab, Escaped Rehab, And Ultimately Bought Out An Entire Wing At Promises Story, Kevin Federline's improbable journey from Superbowl ad punchline to Deadbeat Dad & Estranged Househusband Quarterly's Comeback of the Year recipient is nearly complete. Soon, the entire world will know all the gripping details of Federline's "transformation into Super Dad," a total image rehabilitation marked by crippling crying jags over his better-monied soulmate's troubles, depressive episodes that subside only upon his realization that his emergency custody of Sean Preston and the other one might prove highly lucrative if "sources close to him" keep feeding magazines stories about how he's selflessly resisted the temptation to drop off the rugrats at Promises' Sober Day Care program so that he can focus on his promising music and acting careers.