Friday
· Music round-up: The lovely/amazing Neko Case at the Henry Fonda; Future Pigeon at MOCA; Devics and Sea Wolf at the Troubadour.
· The Downtown Center Business Improvement District is sponsoring a freeing showing of Crash, should that sort of thing interest you. We think you already know our feelings on this matter.
Saturday
· Former Vice President Al Gore will be sign his new book, An Inconvenient Truth, which may or may not be a novelization of the blockbuster global-warming documentary of the same name, at Dutton's Beverly Hills.
· While there is absolutely nothing that you can do to stop the polar ice caps from melting and flooding the entire California coast sometime later this year, you can support the fine writing tutors and mentors of WriteGirl by buying a ticket to Saturday's readings by their teen authors at the WGA Theater, or by bidding on the fine items at their silent auction before the performance.
Sunday
· Think lots of colorful cotton fabrics draped over thin, coke-addled 20-something bodies while listening to music and watching some skateboarding: It's the Wassup Rockers Free-For-All Block Party And Sneak Preview Screening at the Downtown American Apparel Factory.
· Internet-type person makes good! Jami Attenberg reads from her story collection, Instant Love, at the The Mountain Bar in Chinatown.

Q: How long does it take a starlet who owes her middling acting career to her father to rush to his side following a medical emergency?

As we've already noted today, some recently minted celebrities misguidedly try to avoid being harassed in public without the assistance of qualified professionals. The more experienced, however, know that it's OK to ask for help in repelling the unwashed masses:

The Walk of Fame committee offered a sneak preview of which famous names will get their own star on Hollywood Blvd. in the coming year, later to be urinated upon countless times by drunk and/or homeless well-wishers. Here's the list:

In our first-ever Defamer Celebrity Service Announcement, an eagle-eyed operative offers some helpful advice to celebrities trying to avoid detection in public places:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers. Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you saw Kiefer Sutherland lingering for an uncomfortably long time in the deli meats section of your local market.

Now is the time when we grab the hands of this week's sponsors and skip along the beach, totally unaware of the nasty teenagers who are scoffing at the joyful, silly way we're swinging our arms. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and get started on your plan to become the most powerful company in your industry of choice, see this page.

· Pity TV development executives, whose summer vacation plans are ruined by the current shift to year-round programming. [Variety]
· The festivities in honor of Paramount's We're Number Two! Week continue, as THR hoists once-embattled studio president Gail Berman on its shoulders and parades her around the Melrose lot to celebrate Nacho Libre's strong second-place opening. [THR]
· Today's opening of Click should serve as the John the Baptist for the twin blockbuster Christs that will deliver Hollywood unto summer box office salvation, Superman Returns and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. [Variety]
· THR's Up With Female Studio Execs Day also features a fine piece on how Stacey Snider is doing in her new gig at DreamWorks. [THR]
· New Line unambiguously declares its desire to be in the "rakish-but-charming bachelor finally opens up his heart and meets the woman of his dreams" business, signing up Matthew McConaughey's production company to a development deal and working to insert the actor into two of its pre-existing comedy vehicles. [Variety]

It's David Hasselhoff Comeback Week, and now that it's here, we kind of wish things would go back to the way they were. We liked it better when the guy was a relic from our youths who carved out a second-act music career in Germany and had a last name containing all the funny-sounding letters of the alphabet. Now we have to deal with Hasselhoff the movie star (see him play the creepy boss in Click, in theaters today), Hasselhoff the reality TV star (see him be a creepy judge on America's Got Talent, which premiered Wednesday), and Hasselhoff the morning show guest (see him act like a creepy ex-husband, and generally scare the shit out of Soledad O'Brien, on CNN this morning.) Was it only just weeks ago that the Hoff brought us all so much happiness, openly weeping at the American Idol finale? Now, he even managed to ruin that for us, making us feel all bad and shit invoking a friend's brain tumor in a sanctimonious defense of his moist-eyed actions. His statement is after the jump.

The LAT previews the shocking! tell-all! confessions offered in the pages of The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale, the forthcoming, shockingtellall volume that details the painful dissolution of the visionary, climactic-twist-obsessed director's relationship with Disney, the movie studio who no longer "got" him, over a difference of opinion over the quality of his script for The Lady in the Water. The Times describes the end of the affair—which Shyamalan's pals cutely called the "Valentine's Day Massacre"—thusly:

As Nicole Kidman and soon-to-be-husband Keith Urban's secret wedding operations swiftly approach DEFCON 1, details have emerged regarding that most cherished of celebrity marriage traditions, the lowballing prenup. Says Page Six:

To celebrate today's release of Adam Sandler's Click, which by now you surely know concerns the wackiness—with heart!—that ensues when a man comes to possess a remote control that can manipulate the real world, the Ironic Sans blog shared a post listing ten other projects whose creators were diddled by the same "magic remote" muse. A taste:

When an actor signs his first fame contract and gleefully accepts the three-hundred blows with an oak paddle that officially initiates him into the brotherhood, no one tells him that in the twilight of his career, weeks of his life will be spent travelling the world to hug a smelly, non-union schlub in a raccoon costume, and that each embrace must seem like the first, joyous clench of fading star and enormous woodland creature.

· Without the benefit of paparazzi-eating lions to devour their camera-toting tormenters, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie now has to rely on Malibu's Finest to keep their family safe from unauthorized photography.
· If Paris Hilton wore underwear, hers would burst into flames and singe her ladyparts: "I've never danced on a table in my life."
· Every time a pair of celebrities announces they're divorcing, the baby Jesus poops his swaddling clothes.
· Courtney Love says that both Coke and a sexual lubricant company are all horny for a chance to use Nirvana songs in their commercials.
· This Fark Photoshop contest will scare you shitless, we can promise you that, though we fear that even linking to it will subject us to a lifetime of baby-rape suspicion. The 04:16:54 PM entry is a particularly soul-chilling vision of this alternate reality that we'd like to forget as soon as possible.

Poor KooKoo Bear. While a competing house of bambino fashion stumbled upon the Holy Grail of celebrity baby endorsements by having one of its T-shirts modeled by the Chosen One on the cover of People magazine, the KK Bear must settle for a press release touting a secondhand endorsement ("Jennie Garth received numerous gift item from KooKoo Bear Kids — and loved them!") from an actress best known for holding her own against Tori Spelling in a teen drama that peaked 20 years ago. And while it can't offer much comfort to know one's career currently carries only enough heat to grace the headline of a PR script pushing plushie onesies, it certainly beats the prospect of being a former Oscar winner and discovering your name ("Hollywood stars, such as Mira Sorvino, seek out the exceptional designer items...") buried several paragraphs into the text.

Perhaps wanting a piece of what she sensed to be the hot trend amongst Hollywood's brightest scenewhores, celebrity perk-activist Eva Longoria capped off a trying day of contributing to the economic vitality of Robertson Blvd. by getting into a car accident:

· Music round-up: Hella at The Echo; Pink Martini at UCLA; The Oohlas at Spaceland; and in your latest chance to catch Kiefer Sutherland enjoying his favorite band, Rocco DeLuca & the Burden play the Troubadour.
· The Bicycle Film Festival, which kicked off last night and continues through the 24th, offers two-wheeler enthusiasts all the bike-related movie action they can handle.
· Pallin' Around at the UCB is the behind-the-fake-scenes, E! True Hollywood Stories-ish account of "the feud that destroyed the biggest sitcom of the early '80s." Well, biggest imaginary sitcom, but we hope you figured that out already.

We've been unexpectedly graced with two reports of last night's opening party for nightlife impresario Rande "I'm Married To Cindy Crawford" Gerber's new celebrity-strewn watering hole at the Sofitel, the Stone Rose. Before we even get to obligatory B- and C-list roll call, let us tease you with this snippet of Actual, Unironic Hollywood Conversation overheard by one of our operatives:

At Tuesday's annual DreamWorks Animation benefit for the Glendale Public Library's Children's Room, no one was surprised when enthusiastic CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg captured his second consecutive wet t-shirt contest title. While no employee was brave enough to publicly accuse the boss of bribing his way to victory, several also-rans from the competition could be heard cattily whispering a little too loudly that "He's not even that hot," and "I heard from his assistant that his breasts are real—real expensive!"

Robert Altman has yet to devote one of his well-populated and naturalistic observational studies to the milieu of potheads, perhaps because the world is not yet ready for three hours of Shelley Duval and Lily Tomlin snacking on Doritos and giggling on a couch. (We'd disagree.) However, should the octogenarian auteur choose to go there, the NY Daily News reports that he'll have already done all his required research: