Serially troubled, lesser Baldwin brother Daniel gets a recurring guest role on The Sopranos, playing the star of the horrible horror film that Christopher has been working on. Baldwin will join Kevin "Johnny Drama" Dillon in HBO's stable of actors cast because their relationships to far more successful kin provide an instant, vaguely depressing subtext to every line they deliver. [THR]
Endeavor is happy to pick up ICM's recently dumped Nancy Josephson on the rebound, but she'll probably just leave her new partner gig the second CAA comes calling. [Variety]
Starbucks decides that frappuccinos go down better while reading shitty books, will offer Mitch Albom's For One More Day for purchase in their stores. In a related promotional move, the chain plans to start handing out unsold Akeelah and the Bee DVDs for use as coasters. [Variety]
The Florida Film Commission's new slogan of "Florida: Not As Hurricane-Plagued As You've Been Led To Believe" has failed to reverse the production slowdown the state is experiencing. [THR]
Google will provide New Corp's interactive properties with search and advertising services through 2010, helping Rupert Murdoch finally overcome his inability to track down and destroy the dozens of fake MySpace profiles bearing his likeness. [Variety]

In the second installment on its series on Hollywood's desperate attempts to recapture the attention of teens who are abandoning the multiplex in favor of simultaneous sessions of text messaging, ringtone downloading, and snorting of crushed Ritalin, the LAT relates a moment of clarity achieved by David Gale of MTV Films while observing one of these beautiful, demographically desirable creatures in temporary captivity:

Today's Rush & Molloy column points us to a story in London's Sunday Mirror, a sexy celebrity exclusive that's one paper-thin degree of separation away from depicting what a sweaty, naked, hotel room romp between Colin Farrell and Woody Allen might be like:

In an item that was seemingly paid for by the Joint Council on Rehabilitating Lindsay Lohan's Image and Making the Tightest Celebrity Glory Hole in Hollywood Seem as Wholesome as a Mormon Daycare Center, Fox 411's Roger Friedman ventures deep into the darkest recesses of Hyde, the currently most-favored, velvet-roped walk-in closet of local scenesters. And what he finds there will shock you to the core:

If there's one lesson that we can all take away from the Mel Gibson incident (besides the obvious one about not chugging a bottle of Cazadores before driving home at 90 mph on a twisting, well-patrolled stretch of beachside highway, and all the stuff about not blaming a failed Breathalyzer on the microscopic Jews hiding inside it), it's one about the importance of forgiveness in a moral and tolerant society. After a week spent personally calling each individual of Jewish extraction in the 310 area code to beg for, and eventually receive, absolution for his sins, it's time for Gibson's fellow Christians to finally embrace their flawed brother. And embrace him they will after reading this press release's eloquent plea for forgiveness, in which the actor is very aptly compared to the protagonist of the iconic feel-good movie of the talkie era, It's a Wonderful Life. Excerpt via The Reeler:

· We thought you might enjoy this video of another voodoo-espousing pointyhead trying to make you believe that booze couldn't make Mel Gibson say things that he didn't believe. Resist the brainwashing, people, lest you be held accountable for the things you say after drinking yourself out of a batthub full of Grey Goose.
More Mel: Gibson calls Jesus and stars in the trailer for Signs: of Anti-Semitism. And B&C handicaps who's going to land the post-rehab sitdown.
At the risk of this blog being eventually flooded by annoying Flash ads plugging the movie, we point you to the new Borat trailer.
Nine out of ten shadow presidents agree: Talladega Nights was this weekend's most uproarious thrill-ride!

Her mouth might tell British GQ that she's not getting off first base for a year, but every other body part secretly whispers to the world that Greek Shipping Heir Bukkake Party XXIV Starring Paris Hilton should be hitting the internet within three months.

As Michael Jackson continues to traverse the European countryside in his ongoing quest to find a chateau that can accomodate the amenities his growing family requires—Coca Cola-filled moats, child-safe play dungeons, what have you—his spokesperson in the U.S. has released a statement claiming the singer has discovered that a consort of his former attorneys conspired to put their client in the poor house:

With just a precious few days left in which to overhype Snakes on a Plane before its release next Friday, New Line gave Samuel L. Jackson a break from reading scripts for pre-recorded, semi-personalized Snakes on a Voicemail™ promotions ("Hello...JACK. My good friend...STACEY...tells me that you'd like to take some time away from your job as an...ACTUARY...to go see my new movie, in theaters August 18th!") to spend some time going over his Snakes-related anecdotes with a reporter from Time. We've selected one in which Jackson claims to prepare just as thoroughly for his The Man-level work as he does for the more challenging roles he takes to momentarily drown out the sound of the cash register cha-ching he hears each time he's offered a part in well-paying, "exuberant crap":

Losing a loved one is an emotionally taxing affair, rendered all the more so when those left behind find themselves entrenched in destructive infighting and resentment. Thank goodness, then, that Tori Spelling can always rely on her dear friend and confidante, the celebrity media, to lend an open ear in her time of need:

· Mew at Troubadour; The Little Ones at Spaceland; Kris Special begin their Monday night residency at Mr. T's Bowl.
· Largo's assembled what has been described to us as a "legitimately powerhouse" line-up of Nick Swardson, Jim Gaffigan, Dana Gould, and Doug Benson. Yeah, that's not bad.
· Fans of long-legged, blonde Russian model/athletes will be delighted to learn about Maria Sharapova's participation at the JPMorgan Chase Open at the Home Depot Center, while fans of women with whom Brett Ratner has had sexual relations will be just as happy about Serena Williams' presence at the event.

Now that Mel Gibson is safely locked away at the luxurious resort-hab facilities of Promises Malibu for a solid week or so of waging a poolside battle against his Tequila-chugging, Jew-slandering demons, it might seem like piling on to mention Sunday's NY Times story claiming that the suspect field of "science" does not necessarily support the idea of the beer-goggle anti-Semitism that Gibson claims to have experienced on the night of his DUI arrest:

Realizing they were sitting on a green goldmine of marketing potential with their pot-themed sitcom Weeds, the Showtime publicity department has gone marijuana crazy in their advertising for the series' second season. While alert Defamer readers may have noticed the subtle "Putting the herb in suburb," ads dominating every inch of promotional space on our home page, Rolling Stone readers will be treated to a multi-sensory Weeds-pushing experience, thanks to a scent strip that manages to uncannily recreate the aroma of Paris Hilton departing a Range Rover. It's just one among many sinse-themed Weeds promos that have the feds calling foul:

Since it is our sworn duty to report on photographic evidence of the puzzling configurations occasionally achieved by parts of Paris Hilton's anatomy during her public appearances, we solemnly pass along this latest image of the heiress' much-discussed, mysteriously recurring ass-flap that was captured on film while Hilton was partying in St. Tropez. While this newest picture presents an asscheekgoiter in the right buttock area not quite as pronounced as in the photos from October, it seems that the flesh-apron effect now spreads across both sides of her posterior, with slightly more of the mass concentrating on the left buttock. We recommend a program of looser underthings, targeted exercise, and vigorous deep-tissuse massage to minimize and redistribute the problematic, excess skin more evenly before her next concert.

· No Monday morning would be complete without a blurb about how much money Pirates 2 is making overseas. The megablockbuster sequel added $57 million to what we are contractually obligated refer to as either its "pirate's booty" or "treasure chest," lifting its total worldwide gross to a rival-sterilizing $772 million. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Huge In France Edition: Jerry Lewis will do some voices in a Weinstein Company remake of The Nutty Professor as an animated film, giving new life to a story that hasn't been needlessly recycled in nearly six years. [THR]
Hollywood royalty endures the inconvenience of no direct commercial flights from Los Angeles to Traverse City, MI, to participate in the Michael Moore-hosted film festival there. Notable: Borat's unofficial premiere at the festival, held a month before it's "official" bow in Toronto in September, and Moore's failure to draw any protests to this year's event. [Variety]
The comedy heroes responsible for Wet Hot American Summer add Winona Ryder, Famke Janssen, Gretchen Mol, Liev Schreiber, Rob Corddry, Ron Silver and Oliver Platt to the cast of The Ten, which already includes Jessica Alba, Adam Brody, Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux. [THR]
The non-union actors who walked off the job at the NY American Girl Place store in NY have returned to work, with no guarantees that their stuffed, creepy, racially diverse baby-doll masters will ever recognize their attempts to join Actors' Equity. [Variety]

Director Vadim Perelman is learning the hard way that once one breaks the gossip sheet ice by having one's barfight-cum-accidental-double-ass-grab arrest made public, every questionable encounter from one's past is now fair game. Today's Page Six turns up the story of a woman who claims that she recently met Perelman at a bar, and that an afterparty at his house wound up featuring fewer guests and more flying furniture than initially promised:

As legal wranglings continue to cloud the fate of Marlon Brando's Tahitian estate, the deceased legend's local real estate holdings—i.e. the delapidated, mold-infested Mulholland Drive property friend and neighbor Jack Nicholson snapped up for $6.5 million upon his death—has a firm date with wrecking ball, the NY Daily News reports:

On late Friday afternoon, we urged you to check out Claire Hoffman's piece in the LAT on America's most successful purveyor of drunkenly flashed jailbait mammaries, Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild, because between Francis' reported roughing up of Hoffman and her retaliatory cold-cocking of the handsy titty-mogul, his insistence that he's "been anally raped over and over by the media" that brings back memories of his infamous, non-penetrative dildo-menacing by a kidnapper, and about twenty other anecdotes that suggest Francis might have the makeup to one day run his own wildly successful Central American dictatorship, there is far too much to cover in a single blog post. Still, we find ourselves coming back to the story of the 18-year-old virgin who surrendered her maidenhead to Francis and was rewarded with three pairs of coveted Girls Gone Wild booty shorts and lingering doubts about how consensual the experience had been. An excerpt follows:

You already know how miserable Monday mornings are, so we'll dispense with a cute description of your fresh hell and go straight to the box office numbers:

· Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Mel Gibson's DUI Arrest But Were Too Afraid, Exhausted, or Otherwise Engaged Planning Wars, Getting Fucked Over A Patrol Vehicle, or Admiring Your Sugar Tits In The Mirror To Ask.
· Dina Lohan rallies to her daughter's defense by forgetting how old she is. Lindsay has one "DAY off" ruined by the paparazzi, and the folks at work can't help but notice.
· World Trade Center: Our nation's darkest day has a MySpace friend named President Chimp. Nic Cage wants to heal wounds, career missteps. The party-free premiere.
· Pompeo Burgergate! It's the dragging feet of the Lucky Devils waitstaff—not any perceived eating disorder—that forces "devastatingly thin" Ellen Pompeo not to eat, or so she claims. But our spy in the field stands by his B.F.P.O.N. story.
· Bruce Willis' big day: Die Hard 4 gets a greenlight and a mysterious shakedown attempt by his personal scrapbook attendant.
· British tabloid press cover something flaming on the Bond set that for once isn't the star.
· House of Sand and Fog director Vadim Perelman stumbles onto a set of sugar lumps during a bar brawl.
· Heath Ledger's new role requires him to stretch as never before, as it involves heavy smiling, laughter.
· "But mom, he promised me all the tit-slicing is in the past!"
· Good news, fellas! Star Jones may be single soon.
· Bad news, ladies! Brian Grazer is off the market.
· Great Moments in Former Beard History presents: Cruz Sees Suri.