We feel a contractual obligation deep responsibility to inform you that this might be your last chance to give the only gift that can adequately express your feelings for anyone you care at all about, a t-shirt from the Gawker shop. In fact, we can't guarantee that the impulse purchase that will certainly follow this entreaty will arrive before Christmas, but that is no reason not to buy, buy, buy. Ask yourself: Is it more awkward to explain to that special someone that their gift may arrive a day or two late because you're a procrastinator, or that there will be no gift at all? And as long as we're asking questions here, which is a more dignified way to broach the delicate subject of moving back into the family home to one's parents: this commemorative "Hollywood Kicked My Ass" t-shirt, or a tear-drenched nervous breakdown? Yeah, we thought so. Consume!

· Sony's last-gasp hope to end a disastrous year on a positive note, Fun With Dick and Jane, opens today against sequeltastic family pap Cheaper By The Dozen 2, as the two comedies compete for second place against King Kong. Indeed, this is news on the Wednesday before Christmas. [Variety]
· Against virtually no competition, NBC's Deal or No Deal steamed to a Tuesday night ratings win, prompting the network to erect a 50-foot-tall bronze statue honoring Howie Mandel. [THR]
· Despite the fact that the movie is opening in NY and LA for Christmas, director Terrence Malick is still cutting down The New World, preparing a 15-20 minute shorter version (Colin Farrell goes from John Smith to Explorer #3?) that may be used when the film goes into wide release. [Variety]
· Aspiring filmmakers: No matter how skillful your microbudgeted Star Wars fan film is, Hollywood is not impressed. [THR]
· The ongoing legal battle between actress Rosa "Strong Medicine" Blasi and her manager has Larger Implications For The Industry, as the courts try to decide if talent can fire their managers for getting them jobs, thereby violating the Catch-22-esque 1978 Talent Agencies Act.. [Variety]

David Letterman is no stranger to psycho fan obsession; something about his twitchy, sarcastic demeanor beckons them like a silent dog whistle. But a recent incident involving a deranged fan in New Mexico who claims she was being personally tormented by Letterman through coded on-air behavior had an usual outcome: it was Letterman himself who was served with the restraining order.

The LAT reports that the man accused of extorting pioneering drunken Spring Break exhibitionist documentarian, Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, was ordered to stand trial after a preliminary hearing yesterday. The Times sums up the apparent irony of the trial efficiently:

The Scoop reports that, shockingly, the British tabloid press may have gotten a few details wrong in its story of an encounter between Annie Lennox and Orlando Bloom at an Annie Hall screening in London. The Daily Star reported that Lennox failed to recognize Bloom, and responded to his requests for an autograph by saying, "I just want a quiet night. Please leave me alone and get a life." Lennox's official website, under the heading "Untruths," responds directly (News, Dec 15):

Today's Page Six lends an uncharacteristically sympathetic ear to Kathy Griffin, who found out that E! had rolled up her heavily nip/tucked body in a red carpet and tossed her in the river only when her lawyer tried to find out about her Golden Globes assignment:

· Forget about that Jesus guy, He-Man and She-Ra are the central characters in the greatest Christmas story ever told. [via cityrag]
· Perhaps the worst thing about not having an indispensable mass transit system is missing out on all the wildcat strike sex.
· Garish neckbrace model Brooke Burns is now an outspoken advocate of the buddy system.
· Elton John was genuinely enjoying his "joint stag party" with partner David Furnish, but no matter how much he tried to think about their upcoming civil union ceremony, his thoughts were filled with Bruno.
· If you were worried that Leo DiCaprio was going to have a hard time rebounding from Gisele, you can put your mind at ease. He seems to be doing just fine.

· If we tried, we could probably find two more divergent film-viewing options, but these are pretty good: The ArcLight shows The Wizard of Oz (with a Q&A with a film preservationist afterwards), while the New Beverly screens Silent Night, Deadly Night and Black Christmas. [via flavorpill]
· Music round-up: Queens of the Stone Age do another night at the Wiltern; the truly excellent Rogue Wave (with Irving) at the Troubadour; Ozomatli at the House of Blues on Sunset; The Gray Kid and La Bella Ruse at Silverlake Lounge.
· For some reason, we were paranoid that The Drowsy Chaperone (at the Ahmanson) existed only on the jaunty banners attached to seemingly every lamp post in town, but the LAT assuages our fear by letting us know it's "an entertaining 'This Is Spinal Tap'-esque look at the greatest 1920s song-and-dance spectacle that never was."

We bet the traffic on your evening's commute will be just a bit less excruciating in light of the New York transit strike, but when any huge news story touches the lives of millions, we must first ask the obvious question: how does this event affect the entertainment industry?

Before the advent of the technological interwebs, an actor abruptly dismissed from the one of biggest shows on television for mysterious reasons of "improper conduct" would have had to awkwardly explain his situation through the usual publicist-enabled channels. But in this brave new world of personal publishing, a guy like former Desperate Housewives star Page Kennedy can not only tell his side of the story, but do it in rap form through his home page. The NY Daily News' Ben Widdicombe transcribes some of Kennedy's lyrical throw-down:

The WOW Report continues its groundbreaking work in the premiere audience diagramming sciences with an analysis of last Wednesday's Fun With Dick and Jane screening. As their above chart demonstrates, the seating arrangement was carefully engineered by producer Brian Grazer to enhance the already amplified phenomenon of a premiere crowd's laugh-response, an idea no doubt hatched in an intense thinktank session between Grazer and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking (a meeting brokered, of course, by the always-innovative mogul's cultural attaché). While the early results were promising, the process is far from perfected, so expect that Grazer's next event will feature a sonically reflective material surrounding the seating area, which will theoretically produce an eardrum-bursting echo chamber of sycophantic guffaws.

With seemingly every company in town lopping of a portion of its workforce just in time for the holidays, many of the suddenly unemployed will need to keep an open mind when considering new opportunities within the entertainment business. As always, the anonymous potential employers of Craigslist offer a creative, short-term solution to one's cash-flow problems:

It's been a big week for anyone curious about the shadowy inner workings of Hollywood's most celebrated cabalistic institutions. First, the LAT gets inside the bizarro world of Scientology's desert Cruise-courting compound, and today comes a NY Times report on the suicide of Irish-born showbiz reporter and one-time Hollywood Foreign Press Association member Nick Douglas. The Golden Globe-mounting international starfucking consortium put Douglas on a 17-month probation for various petty violations, including walking out of an MGM party with some unopened beers (have we mentioned he's Irish-born?) and selling a Tom Selleck photo to a tabloid, forcing him to return to his native Dublin, where, denied of his life-affirming junkets and movie star photo-ops, some maintain he became so despondent he hanged himself to death. The report takes a look at some other regrettable past incidents involving members of the Foreign Press, including one involving HFPA president himself, Philip Berk:

We may have a winner for worst holiday gift, courtesy of Untitled Entertainment, a company that manages the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Madonna, Demi Moore, Lucy Liu, Kirstie Alley, and Courtney Love. Says our profoundly disappointed reviewer:

· More heads in Santa hats are rolling just in time for the holidays, as Paramount Classics gets ready to turn on the high-pressure hoses and wash away the bloody remains of the old regime. The good news, of course, is that new PC head John Lesher will soften the beheadings with a sincere hug. [THR]
· Babyfaced Fox Searchlight head Peter Rice (we're going from his headshot, we wouldn't recognize him if he crashed into us making an unprotected left) will head up a new, teen-focused division at Fox, and gets right into the role by talking the kids' language: "The way they are consuming movies is changing and we need to make incredibly cool things for them." Rad! First project in development: MySpace Presents Rainbow Party: The Movie. [Variety]
· Not even Oprah and Farrakhan can keep Dave Chappelle down, as Chappelle's Show: Season 2 Uncensored is the highest selling TV DVD title of the year. [THR]
· Var asks: "Is 'King Kong' a disappointment or a slow-building smash?" The shocking answer: We don't know yet. Thanks for clearing that up! If we demand one thing from our trade publications, it's a snap judgment based on incomplete data, and we're denied even that. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Not To Be Confused with Are We There Yet? 2 Edition: Fox plans Johnson Family Vacation 2. [THR]

Sadly, the real-life inspiration for Entourage's beloved bong-enthusiast and hanger-on Turtle has died from an asthma attack over the weekend:

Just when we all had assumed Woody Allen had shmeared his bagel too thinly, running through virtually every conceivable lightly comic narrative scenario involving Manhattan, neurotic Jews, and infidelity, the 70-year-old director makes a triumphant comeback with his latest release, Match Point, a film so well-received and far from his frame of reference (a film noir about British social hierarchy?), there are hopeful whispers that his long dry period could be blossoming into a late-life renaissance. And like Diane Keaton in his golden period, Allen has a new muse in his star, Scarlett Johansson. But don't get any creepy, Soon-Yi-tinged ideas. As her Match co-star Jonathan Rhys-Meyers explains in USA Today, Woody doesn't want to do her. He wants to be her:

About a month ago, a Writers Guild guerrilla squad stormed a breakfast panel of unsuspecting networks executives, demanding better treatment for reality show writers and ushering in a new, militant era at the WGA (and the birth of Subservient Donald). Today's LAT reports that while some in the Guild question trying to humiliate the very people they need to face at the negotiating table, new Guild executive director David Young, who earned his union bona fides with decidedly more blue-collar groups such as garment workers and carpenters, is ready for a grind:

The incredible flood of "No roaming charges, bitch!" and "Unlimited in-network calling, bitch!" jokes made us black out for a few minutes, but after we came to (the interns are pretty quick with the smelling salts), we realized that doing regional endorsements is perhaps not as distressingly small-time as we first believed. After all, Jeremy Piven's on board with the best network in Cincinnati, and when he, Vince, and the Entourage boys are cruising the Midwest for tail, he needs a service provider that isn't gonna drop his calls right as he's about to close a deal with an Explorer full of starstruck honies.

Britney Spears is suing glossy scoopster Us Weekly for $20 million for publishing a story claiming that she and obedience-challenged lap-husband Kevin Federline screened a personal sex video for their lawyers: