Back on Wednesday, we were finally willing to be convinced that an actual human corpse turning up at a CSI: NY shoot in downtown L.A. was just an eerie coincidence, after a brief but enjoyable dalliance with a conspiracy theory that the whole thing was nothing more than a PR stunt. But now we're once again finding ourselves suspicious that master TV manipulator Jerry Bruckheimer really will feed us the same story over and over again until we finally stop tuning in, as another dead body has found its way to a different CSI franchise's set:

Banksy, Banksy, Banksy. We submitted, and checked out the show on Sunday, along with 25,000 others willing to weather the punishing sun in the easy-to-digest hipster-art equivalent of a Russian bread line. Inside, we were pleasantly surprised—aroused even—by the candy-colored eye-crack on display. (Watching a prank on YouTube just doesn't have the same effect as seeing actual, giant cockroaches shit all over the "Paris" CD cover.) And while we were secretly disappointed there was no gift store where we could pick up a "smooching Bobbies" hoodie on the way out, we weren't left completely souvenir-less, as we return over and over to your celebrity PrivacyWatch submissions to relive the happy memories of our day covered in sweat and jockeying for sight lines at the most overly publicized unpublicized event of the season.

Strong-jawed triple-threat George Clooney will star in, direct, and rewrite the oft-in-development, football-related period romantic comedy (yeah, we don't get it either) Leatherheads for Universal, while Renee Zellweger is in negotiations to play his inevitably pouty, yet adorably plucky, love interest. [Variety]
CSI creator Anthony Zuiker is developing the cop drama The Man for LL Cool J, who will star as the titular alpha-male who raises troubled kids by day, and runs so-deep-undercover-he-doesn't-know-which-way-is-up-anymore sting operations by night. [THR]
Simpsons writer Josh Lieb and David O. Russell are developing a series for FX described as an "Upstairs, Downstairs" dramedy set at a Los Angeles country club. We put the over/under on the amount of time it takes for a mouthy actor playing a haughty tennis pro to find himself on the wrong end of a Russell headlock at two days. [Variety]
· New Fox shows Justice, Til Death, and Happy Hour can now be streamed online as early as the next morning after their initial TV broadcast, allowing you to catch up on missed episodes at virtually the same time executives get their Nielsen overnights and try to decide which of the series to cancel first. [THR]
Hollywood Out of Ideas, Exploiting a Classic Edition: ABC is developing a weekly series based on Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, with Coppola signed on to oversee the network's needless adaptation and updating of his film. [Variety]

At a publicist-orchestrated photo shoot in Malibu on Saturday devised to dispel persistent rumors that her skeletal figure is due to her unwillingness to consume solid food, a hired cameraman captures Nicole Richie taking a greedy bite of a huge hamburger. Just in case this photographic evidence of a healthy appetite proves insufficient in quashing nasty gossip about an eating disorder, Richie was also posed gnawing on the neck of still-living, fattened cow, a scene meant to demonstrate in more dramatic fashion her uncontrollable lust for red meat.

On Friday, our East Coast big sister Gawker noted that an email had landed in the inbox of all the celebrity weeklies' top editors, offering them the once-in-a-newscycle opportunity to cash in on someone's else's tragedy. Getty Images informed them that for $200k, plus an assurance of "no negative press," they could have 17 photos of Anna Nicole Smith beaming in a hospital bed with newborn daughter and Daniel, the son who would be found mysteriously dead in the same building the very next day, at her side. A bidding war ensued, with third-tier glossy In Touch reportedly scoring the World's Most Depressing Photoset for a sum well north of $300k, now rightly theirs to splatter across a cover accompanied by 190-pt, canary-yellow block-lettering screaming some variation of, "ANNA NICOLE'S LAST MINUTES OF HAPPINESS." The personal snapshot nature of the photos—some previews of which are above, the rest over at Gawker—has raised questions of how Getty obtained them in the first place, and who is benefitting from the winning bid.

Today's LAT celebrates seemingly immortal media moguls Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch as "the last of the titans," two old-school autocrats who will be separated from the empires they've built only by the unlikely occurrence of corporeal death. And what's the secret to their impressive twilight-year vigor? Wives young enough to withstand the pharmaceutical-powered assault of reproductive organs that lesser, weaker men might have retired decades ago:

As Seth helpfully informed you on Thursday, I spent an intense weekend learning about the heretofore unexplored erotic possibilities of private aviation at the John Travolta Flight Academy, studying under the master himself. Unfortunately, a fairly comprehensive nondisclosure agreement prevents me from divulging his trade secrets, but I am allowed to say this: At first, you may question how 24 hours of stripping off your cadet's uniform (no, the hot pants aren't optional), being slathered in baby oil, and getting chased around the cabin by an instructor trying to cover your glistening body in handfuls of pink feathers is going to teach you to fly a jet. But on the second day, the genius of Captain Travolta's unconventional methods really pay off.

· O, TIFF: Brad Pitt dazzles. The gift bags don't. Canada fails to live up to its Bowling For Columbine reputation. At least we know where they stand on Spicoli smoking.
· Anna Nicole Smith loses her sweet, 20-year-old son, and Her Majesty's Secret Coroner won't tell us why or how.
· "If you can't get my $200 million Ripley's Believe It Or Not movie off the ground, maybe CAA can."
· Ben Affleck celebrates his Vienna Film Festival Best Actor win by plopping a journalist on his lap and showering her with jokes about sausages and coffee.
· CorpseGate! The on again, off again, on again stinky, CSI: NY-inconveniencing sensation!
· Tom Cruise uses everything he learned from Jerry Maguire to pretend he really, really likes football.
· We'll never forget the bulge and the bump.
· Sean Preston is smiling because he now has someone to sympathize with him.
· The Ballad of Big Red.
· Joe Francis has learned his lesson, and will glance quickly at fake IDs from here on in.
· When Jane Fonda used to do blow, it wasn't for fun—it was for the revolution.
· If Bobby Brown thinks he's getting hell to the half of her net worth, he's hell to the nuts.

· Ooh, CNN.com, we love it when you talk rough and dirty to us.
· In honor of Tom Cruise's alleged sparring partner— the "Big Red" wrestling T-shirt. Also available in black, which we don't really understand.
· This child is going to be gifted with more stuffed ligers than any kid in history.
· A week ago, we had never even heard of Banksy. Today we've seen his name about 5000 times. Banksy, Banksy, Banksy! Enough, already!
· The fun starts at 1:12.
· Don't panic—if you can make it until the second paragraph, you'll see they aren't talking about Jeremy Piven.
· We meant to post this yesterday but forgot: Our single favorite moment from Wednesday night's To Catch A Predator.

Just in time for The Black Dahlia's opening weekend, a verdict and sentence was finally handed down in our own, shocking murder of an aspiring starlet—against Victor Paleologus, the man who lured Kristi Johnson to her death after he approached her at the Century City mall with promises of a part in a James Bond movie:

Friday
· White Teeth author Zadie Smith talks and reads from her latest novel, On Beauty, at UCLA Live.
· Go to the MOCA store in Santa Monica for its second annual Invitational Skateboard Silent Auction, then ruin your newly purchased masterpiece on a stainless steel handrail in a failed attempt at a grind.
· Portland indie folk savants Horse Feathers play Tangier.
Saturday
· Actorfest LA 2006 at Raleigh Studios gives "actors and performing artists the unique opportunity to embrace free-flowing and honest advise from agents, casting directors and successful actors." We don't see any "You need to lose 20 lbs before you get anywhere near a camera" workshops on the schedule, so we're wondering how authentic these casting directors are.
· The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour is a "five-hour guided luxury coach tour," though we can't promise you won't start getting a little fidgety at the four-hour mark.
· Jamie Lee Curtis signs her new book, Is There Really a Human Race?, which only contains one word ("Yes."), but is opulently illustrated nonetheless.
Sunday
· The Aero's Monty Python Weekend concludes with screenings of The Meaning of Life followed by And Now for Something Completely Different.
· Dutton's Beverly Hills hosts Joel Stern, signing copies of his new book, Jewish Holiday Origami. He'll also conduct a hands-on presentation, where you can learn the art of making a delicate paper crane, stuffed and roasted and served with knaidlech, out of a single sheet of paper.

For those of you currently looking to buy in what is becoming on overwhelmingly crowded real estate market, allow us to guide you to a new listing that may interest fans of Johnny Depp's early oeuvre and dream-stalking serial killers alike: 1428 N. Genesee Ave., otherwise known as the house from A Nightmare On Elm Street:

Unlike Rupert Murdoch's contentious relationship with the last-month's-technology company he owns a controlling interest in, we would never refer to any of our sponsors as "turd birds." If they had to be compared to something that falls from between the legs of a squatting chicken, we would most probably liken them to golden eggs—shiny and precious and valuable beyond words. If you'd like to join them, everything you need to know is right here.

SAG president Alan Rosenberg—whom most usually identify as being married to CSI's Marg Helgenberger, virtually glossing over such other biographical highlights as being the NY State backgammon champion of 1982—has learned the hard way of the disseminative powers of the Internets. Instead of cooling down before firing off a highly vituperative e-mail to a colleague who wouldn't see eye-to-eye, Rosenberg decided to click "send." And so did the recipient—in a forward addressed to 17,000 Guild members:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so start sending them in more often! Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you heard the voice of Roger Rabbit bringing some laughter and light to the lives of the downtrodden patrons of a Starbucks in the Valley.

· The best thing to come out of the Toronto International Film Festival so far, says Variety, is a transcendent documentary from a little known Eurasian filmmaker with a "chram thick like tube of Pringles." [Variety]
· We hope Nick Meyer, formerly of Lionsgate, likes hugs, because his new co-president at Paramount Vantage, John Lesher, prefers to celebrate every new acquisition with a big, bear embrace from behind. [Variety]
· Second-tier Rocky and Bullwinkle regulars Mr. Peabody and Sherman get their own CGI feature, in which Sherman finally shuts up the know-it-all, time-traveling mutt by threatening him with a one-way ticket to Dr. Kebarkian's Furry Friends Cat & Dog Clinic. [Variety]
· Rupert Murdoch is looking to dump his controlling interest in DirecTV, a company he has been dismissively referring to lately as his "turd bird." No joke. [Variety]
· "Lolita Davidovich has been cast opposite Lili Taylor in Lifetime's drama pilot State of Mind." Davidovich, fine. But Taylor? A Lifetime pilot? Things sure have taken a turn for the worse since Nate buried her in a burlap sack in the desert. [THR]
· Universal Music CEO Doug Morris tells shareholders YouTube and MySpace users are violating copyright laws, but that he has a great plan to catch them that involves a smoking hot 16-year-old chick with an online video diary. [THR]

It's no secret that Brad Pitt and Angelina's security detail is among the most lethal and effective fighting forces on the planet. It's the kind of prestige unit Navy SEALs dream of graduating to, that they might one day join the best of the best in the stealthy stalking and neck-snapping of lurking paparazzi at Maddox's little league games. Nelson Mercado, 46, had his heart set on scoring the prestigious gig—so much so that he went so far as to masquerade as a DHS agent. He was arrested yesterday, and The Smoking Gun has the indictment:

Paramount head Brad Grey stayed mostly tight-lipped during the tense period following the femur-shattering kick-in-the-pants Sumner Redstone delivered to Tom Cruise on his way out of the Viacom family doors. Radar now reports that Grey might have been relieved to see Cruise go, especially after the deadlocked negotiations for his Mission Impossible 3 salary led to an after-hours run-in with a pack of navy-blazered Scientology goons, fists lightly pounding into their palms as they attempted to get shorty to see the light:

Match the following Survivor: Cook Islands tribes to the corresponding statements made by one of their members on last night's premiere:

· George Clooney is the sexiest thing to strut down the halls of the UN since the swinging heyday of Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
· Poor Beth must be beside herself with worry as her beloved Dog sits behind bars.
· Say what you will about DVD bootlegs—their packaging can't be accused of misleading the customer.
· It seems Sean Penn is above Canadian law, after all.
· Try not to weep as you take in Wal-Mart Ex-Boy Bander Tragedy.
· To wrap up what turned out to be a filthier day than usual, enjoy The Price Is Right contestant Ignacia's shameless, foul-mouthed come-ons to Bob Barker.