Michael Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, has long held a giant chip on her shoulder against the singer, perhaps stemming from the time he snatched his placenta-covered daughter from between her legs and spider-scuttled along the hospital walls and out the window with the newborn. Rowe has been trying to reclaim legal custody of little Paris and her brother Prince in the years since she relinquished all visitation rights to Jackson in 2001, and Jackson in return filed suit against Rowe in 1994, claiming she "violated a confidentiality agreement." (Read: Blabbed about the seven-story, Donkey Kong-themed bunkbed room at Neverland Ranch.) Today, the two ex-lovebirds finally put their quarrels behind them:

Friday
· Atwater Village tries to prove it's more than just the part of town you drive through on the way to the celebrated Brand Boulevard of Cars, with its free Atwater Movie Night screening of E.T. at Red Car River Park.
· Friday night music round-up: Guster and Nada Surf at the Wiltern; Mojave 3 at the Roxy; Mastodon and The Bronx at the Henry Fonda; Starsailor at the Troubadour.
· We're not even going to pretend to understand what Which Side Are You On? (at Betalevel tonight) is, but it's described as "three multimedia diatribes about this angry, beautiful, and slowly warming world. PowerPoint, tangible electronics, performative lecture, next-gen positive vibrational dome music, among other things..." But it's free, and you can't really argue with that.
Saturday
· More music: We Are Scientists and Art Brut at the Henry Fonda; Silversun Pickups at the Echo; The Oohlas at Sea Level Records.
· Horror/sci-fi orgy Shriekfest 2006 finishes up Saturday and Sunday with screenings at Raleigh Studios. Sample titles from their offerings: Corpus Interruptus, In Memorium, and Zombie Hunter.
· The Committee to Save Silver Lake Reservoirs gives a tour of houses designed by architects so famous even we've heard of them.
Sunday
· Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, and Andrew Daly turn up at the UCB Theatre for an exciting night of improvisational Asssscatting.
· Halloween's just around the corner...sort of, anyway. But Northridge's Spooky House (boo!) is already open, ready to service all of your seasonal underemployed-actors-in-rubber-masks- jumping-out-from-around-corners needs.

Rather than submit to a force-feeding of mindless he-witch fare or the Jackass Collective's latest foray into experimental reverse-peristalsis- and-blunt-force-genital-trauma cinema, an angry Illinois theater owner decided to issue the studios the ultimate symbolic "fuck you" (or at least the ultimate symbolic "fuck you" available to someone with just two movie screens): shutting down for two weeks to protest the "drivel" Hollywood is currently offering. Reports the LAT:

For followers of urban legends, Subliminal Smut Embedded Into Disney Classics division, there is perhaps no more discussed and overanalyzed single case than the Little Mermaid Officiating Bishop With A Hard-On. Disney has of course denied it for years, and per their word, from other angles the only bony protrusions peeking out from his cleric's clothes appear to be a pair of knobby knees. Still, the knot-tying moneyshot (pictured, left) does tend to suggest perhaps a surfeit of enthusiasm on behalf of the man of God, an ambiguity that the Jim Hill blog reports is now taken care of with the pending DVD rerelease (right).

It's once again time to step up to the glory-hole of commerce by thanking this week's line-up of sponsors, who never fail to provide the kind of anonymous satisfaction we desperately crave each Friday, If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and earn your very own weekly bullet-point, see this page.

· Apple and Wal-Mart are in talks to figure out a way to work together on movie downloads, perhaps with Wal-Mart getting some kind of kickback from iTunes offerings in return for the retail giant dropping its threats to cut off the DVD sales of any studio that dares cooperate with Apple in undercutting their profit margins. [Variety]
Ugly Betty edges out Survivor: Race Wars in their second half-hours, while CSI beats Grey's in viewers, not the 18-49 demo. The demo always knows that skinny, whiny, lovesick doctors trump pointy-headed crime scene investigators. [THR]
In an attempt to cut down on the sale of counterfeit Superman Returns DVDs, Warner Bros. joins in a price war with the pirates, offering cheap, encrypted copies—at least until the MPAA and the Chinese Government round up and kill everyone with a DVD burner and an internet connection, allowing them to safely raise prices again. [Variety]
The simultaneous release of The Guardian and Open Season presents moviegoers with the undesirable dilemma of choosing between live-action and animated Ashton Kutcher vehicles. We expect a rash of multiplex lobby suicides as ticketbuyers collapse under the incredible pressure of having to make such a difficult choice. [THR]
An investor advisory service urges News Corp shareholders to protest COO Peter Chernin's excessive compensation, but have so far turned a blind eye towards Rupert Murdoch's weekly ritual of burning $10 million in front of the Fox lot's News Cafe, during which he offers a variety of obscene hand gestures to any underling looking askance at his fiery display of corporate profligacy. [Variety]

The latest skirmish in Sacha Baron Cohen's relentless, publicity-attracting (and, we have to admit, consistently hilarious), undeclared war on the country of Borat's birth is revealed today by Reuters, who abetted the fictional documentarian's assault by contacting Kazakhstan's largest theater chain to ask if they have any intention of screening the film. Predictably, once they did their due diligence on the question, which primarily consisted of figuring out who or what a "Borat" is, they were less than enthusiastic about the prospect of hosting the movie:

In an update to yesterday's feel-good announcement that Anna Nicole Smith had married her lawyer/babydaddy/ dead-son's-photo-broker Howard K. Stern aboard the S.S. Trainwreck, the AP is now reporting that the marriage off the coast of Nassau wasn't official, but merely a commitment ceremony between two sedated soulmates:

What a sweaty, trailer-swaying act of infidelity on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith has joined together, a tabloid tries to tear asunder: Today's Page Six, citing a source with intimate knowledge of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's conflicting, brood-expanding plans, insists that Pitt favors the quaintly outdated penis-in-vagina celebrity reproduction method, while Jolie finds herself nostalgic for her lazy days of infant-shopping on the black markets of the Third World:

Just two weeks into the much-derided, color-coded current season of Survivor, producers have opted to do away with their four race-warring tribes by blending them into two diverse groups. No reason was offered—no seismic, segregationist-TV-history-altering moment, such as Sundra of the Manihiki tribe refusing to relinquish her seat at the back of a canoe; just host Jeff Probst, newly enlightened student of the Pan Asian experience, announcing, "You have been living together as tribes base upon ethnicity; it is now time to integrate." But, as Reality Blurred points out, alignments within last night's losing Aitutaki tribe seem to indicate the race vs. race fun is far from over:

We may have gotten a little caught up in spotlighting Tom Cruise's career slump lately, as his second act as an NFL mascot and amusement park greeter somehow seem beneath a man once considered the biggest box office star in the world. But we'd never impugn his credentials as a tastemaker; his fashion-forward decision to single-handedly revive the long-dormant Baby Toupee sensation by having ostensible biological daughter Suri wear one on the cover of Vanity Fair has touched off a craze that's quickly overtaking the world. And to his credit, the proud father has once again proven his admirable reluctance to cash in on his offspring by not authorizing the mass manufacture of The Suri, content to be a trendsetter instead of a cynical, opportunistic entrepreneur.

In a surprise superhero casting move that recalls Tim Burton's initially baffling, but ultimately inspired, hunch that Mr. Mom would make a fine bat-obsessed, caped vigilante, Variety reports that Paramount has chosen longtime character actor and part-time mugshot model Robert Downey Jr. to play the titular, metal-suited hero in their upcoming Iron Man movie. But as Var quickly points out, Downey has more in common with the character than we immediately realized:

· If the above video has you angry at the cruel, pugilistic kangaroo race, don't worry: Clowns get payback on humanity's behalf.
Really, it was only a matter of time before the twin Satans of VOD and Netflix forced Blockbuster to adopt a no-fee strategy.
Newly launched film news site ReelzChannel (wow, catchy URLS are getting really hard to come by these days, aren't they?) has video of legendary Lindsay Lohan scolder James G. Robinson of Morgan Creek backtracking from his Pissed-Off Letter Heard 'Round The Industry. We really have no one to believe in anymore.
Still spanking-new sibling Idolator offers a handy guide to cruises harboring washed up rock bands. When members of Better than Ezra and Sister Hazel aren't performing, we imagine they're put to work buffing the shuffleboard courts.
Studio 60 SelfEsteemWatch: Amanda Peet says her co-stars call her "Fatty," and that her fianc makes fun of her hammer-thumbs. If she keeps taking blows to the ego like that, she's going to develop a second facial expression: the half-frown.

One has to admire the intrepid comic stylings of Sacha Baron Cohen, who, along with his assortment of alter egos, refuses to stop until entire governments are up in arms, or, as in the case of this Reuters report, until he trots up to the front door of the White House in full Borat drag in order to invite "Premier George Walter Bush" to a screening of his new movie. (He was politely rejected by a small army of secret agents with one finger in their ears and the other on their holsters.) The man is a marvel of ingenuity, constantly conjuring up new ways to further infuriate already pissed-off world leaders:

While we're rusty on the various stages of grieving—we know denial and anger are in there somewhere—we're almost certain that "quickie marriage aboard a party boat just a few miles from where your 20-year-old son died weeks before" is not among them. And yet, that appears to be exactly how Anna Nicole Smith is processing yesterday's toxicology report findings that Daniel Smith died of a drug overdose: by marrying Howard K. Stern, the lawyer/daddy figure/creepy lurking presence in her life who just days ago told Larry King he fathered her baby. Star magazine has the exclusive:

· M. Ward and Mike Watt at the Henry Fonda; Rogue Wave at Safari Sam's; Sonic Youth at the Wiltern; The Gossip at the Troubadour;The Scissor Sisters at the Shrine.
· We're sure that there are many nagging questions that your first viewing of Flyboys this weekend left unanswered. Luckily, producer Dean Devlin and director Tony Bill will be on hand to answer them after tonight's screening at the Aero.
· Relive the bland, fashion-impaired horror of your 1970s suburban upbringing with Bill Owens's Suburbia exhibit at the MOCA. If you're too young to relate, just think of the photos as black-and-white stills from the set of That 70s Show.

A Defamer operative passing by the Two and a Half Men set sent over this photo of Charlie Sheen's trailer door, where the actor was taking a break from the crushing demands of a sitcom actor's schedule, marshaling his strength for a tour-de-force table read performance that would convincingly prove that he's worth every penny of the $350,000 per episode he's reportedly going to be paid this season. Sheen is obviously already taking his responsibilities more seriously now that he's going to be the best-remunerated comedy star on TV, as only a week ago the magnetic sign on his door frequently read "HOOKERS," a downtime activity that definitely didn't help to focus his professional energies.

On the eve of the release of The Guardian, the cinematic event that will finally provide the moviegoing public with the Kevin Costner/Ashton Kutcher grizzled veteran/pretty hotshot pairing they've long clamored for, the LAT details the incredible lengths the production went through to ensure that its doggy-paddling stars seemed like they were battling sufficiently realistic waves. Sensing that the treacherous, water-wing-shredding conditions of the Magic Mountain wave pool might not adequately mimic the churning waters of a hurricane-stirred Bering Sea, Disney decided to build its own, enormously expensive wave-generating apparatus:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so start sending them in more often. Address yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let the world hear all about the time you saw Lando Calrissian light up the produce section with his 100-watt smile.

Our Gawker Media Worldwide Blogging Concern bosses are making a bold push into the world of "books," which our company historian assures us was a content-delivery system once enjoyed by old-timey intellectual-types on their fifteen minute breaks from the butter churn. (We're still skeptical. He once tried to convince us that early blogs were rendered in cuneiform on clay tablets, and that their editors were paid handsomely in livestock.) In any case, this Gawker Book, as we'll refer to it, requires the contributions of you, the endlessly bored reader who loves to type stories about their amusing/enlightening/maddening work experiences into welcoming web forms for no monetary compensation whatsoever. Intrigued yet? Of course you are. The details of how to participate in this project that will undoubtedly revive the long-dormant "book" form are after the jump: