A reader points out a possible weakness in Amanda Scheer Demme's defenses at the Trop: the service entrance. Why, that's just crazy enough to work! From Craigslist:

Why must the press persist in punishing Tara Reid for her happiness? Reid once again rails against her unfair portrayal as a vacuous VIP booth-monkey, this time to the UK's Metro (which we're told is handed out for free on the subway):

Blogger The Corsair transcribes a section of an interview from Hollywood Life magazine with Sir Anthony Hopkins, who's developed an innovative system for coping with preparation-destroying on-set rewrites:

Fresh off the AP wire, an almost minute-by-minute account of how your favorite celebrities have been affected by Hurricane Katrina, presented in reverse order of severity:

For those cutting-edge Hollywood scenesters who find that the Tropicana Bar isn't exclusive and/or sufficiently A-lister-fellating enough for their tastes, local nightlife despot Amanda Scheer Demme will soon offer a solution at the Roosevelt Hotel. Our friends at LA.com explain:

What's perhaps the only thing that could be more badly timed than a sitcom about terrorists? How about a new, much-hyped drama series about a family "trying to recover from a devastating hurricane and its mysterious aftermath"? ABC stopped soiling itself long enough to quickly and wisely disappear its disaster-themed promos for Invasion:

· NBC surprised and angered other networks by launching its preemptive hurricane benefit strike while they planned a cooperative, cross-net event, and they worry the NBC Friday concert will dilute the talent pool and audience for the relief effort. [Variety]
· NBC dispatches its own private security team to New Orleans to keep protect its employees reporting from the lawless post-Katrina city. [THR]
· When not bickering or competing for viewers with benefit specials, media conglomerates donate money to aid Katrina victims and establish matching gift programs for employees. [Variety]
· THR reviews MPAA sultan Dan Glickman's "rocky" first year on the job. Replacing the legendary Jack Valenti hasn't been easy, and Glickman still isn't quite comfortable adopting his predecessor's nightly ritual of bathing in the blood of movie pirates. [THR]
· The Weinsteins completely disregard Jessica Alba's rocking body and pouty, sultry lips, signing her to star in the psychological thriller Awake based only on her hard work and acting talent. Hayden Christensen will unconvincingly portray her husband. [Variety]

Hey guys, all of this hurricane talk is so depressing. Why can't we think about something happy, like the theoretical baby that may have been put inside Sienna Miller's tummy by her nanny-mounting (ex?) fiancée, Jude "That Water I'm About To Get Into Looks So Cold!" Law? From Page Six:

NBC might've been the first out of the gate with its hurricane benefit plan (nabbing Leonardo DiCaprio, to boot, for their Friday "A Concert For Hurricane Relief"), but other, slightly slower-moving but better-rated networks were trailing close behind, as ABC, Fox, and CBS will do their own event early next week. Viacom has also thrown in basic cable events on Sept. 9th on BET and Sept. 10th on MTV, VH1, and CMT. (Got it?) Perhaps realizing that these efforts might seem competitive, first-moving NBC assures us it's all about helping people:

The NY Times looks at the obstacles that "envelope-pushing" sitcom script "The Cell," about the wacky world of a hapless terror cell, has faced while trying to find a network willing to suicide-bomb itself by putting it on the air. Development execs, it seems, are raving about it behind the scenes, secretly wishing they were edgy enough to let someone apply Still Standing-quality jokecraft (a highlight: "'You're bright, you're funny, you're talented,' Musab says, urging his comrade on. 'Who made the best nail bomb in training camp? You did!'") to the still-taboo subject of terrorism. But why won't anyone take a chance on these lovable death-merchants? The agent of one of "The Cell"'s writers lends some crucial, bottom-line perspective:

· Wow, the Telethon Countdown was much shorter than we expected. NBC Uni's "Concert for Hurricane Relief" will air on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC on Friday night at 8 pm EST, but it looks like we're going to only get the tape delay version of Leonardo DiCaprio and Harry Connick on the West Coast.
· There are only three days left to vote for which half-pilot wins Bravo's Situation: Comedy and goes on to be completely ignored by NBC's desperate programming executives. Don't worry, it's all anonymous, so no one has to know about the secret shame of your viewership. Stephen's Life is totally gonna win, right?
· We knew that there was something fishy about the rumor that Al Pacino is dating Rose McGowan. Especially because we're quietly dating her, and she denied the whole thing to us.
· The "A" is for "Ass-Whoopin'": Vivica A. Fox warns Jimmy Kimmel that a beating may be in his future if he persists in publicly taunting her very good friend, Star Jones.
· Everyone else has already linked to the "black people loot, white people find" post, but we're going to do it anyway.

· Wednesday night music round-up: The Blood Arm at the Troubadour, Silversun Pickups with the Golden Arms at Spaceland; the Oohlas at King King.
· J. Keith van Straaten's "What’s My Line?" live-on-stage game show picks up any slack in your midweek plans at the Acme Comedy Theatre with Rip Taylor, three other celebrity panelists, and the obligatory Mystery Guest. Five bonus points to anyone who remembered Taylor's The $1.98 Beauty Show without help from his bio.
· Outfest screens Unveiled, a tale of lesbians-without-borders, persecution, and cross-dressing for the sake of survival, at the Egyptian. Hott.

Finally, some news about Hollywood's involvement with the hurricane that doesn't involve fretting about delays to Road House 2 or the the future of tax-friendly productions in New Orleans. Morgan Freeman, the closest thing to the Voice of God that the entertainment industry can muster, is helping to organize an auction for hurricane victims, and Disney's announced it's kicking in $2.5 million for disaster relief. (You can donate to the relief efforts directly via the Red Cross and FEMA websites.)

Forwarded mass e-mail day continues at Defamer, as a soon-to-be inconvenienced reader sends along a note from the powers-that-be at the Universal lot, which may soon find itself being picketed by the subcontracted security force charged with keeping the studio safe and relatively free of out-of-work actors randomly dropping off headshots in every unlocked office:

For reasons that are completely inscrutable to us (really, is there no limit to people's appetite for campy crap?), some actual human beings attended "original supermodel" and reality TV personality Janice Dickinson's one-woman show, the imaginatively titled What Would Janice Do?, at the El Rey last night. The Office Monkey blog posts a review of the debacle:

We've long been irrationally obsessed with the cheaply-attired superheroes and movie characters who stalk the section of Hollywood Boulevard in front the Chinese Theatre, corralling tourists for uncomfortably posed, five-dollar Polaroids. LAist feeds our obsession, overhearing this conversation across the street from the Chinese:

A spy for NY Daily News JV gossip Lloyd Grove escapes from Drew Carey's Hollywood compound, filing this brief report about a very special room tucked away in the actor's house:

The treasured, undercompensated employees of the notoriously, er, frugal E! network (as the joke goes within the company, you can't spell "cheap" without "E") have been informed that their boss feels their finanical pain. In a e-missive that just went out to the entire L.A. office, fearless leader Ted Harbert has done the second-best thing to giving across-the-board raises to his starving troops—he's commissioned a compensation study (to be completed in "a few months") to determine how his underlings' paystubs stack up against the competition's:

· Hurricane Katrina causes the evacuation of the productions of Michael Keaton's The Last Time, Lucy Lawless's The Vampire Bats, and, perhaps most disappointingly, Road House 2. Don't miss the "Stars Flee Hurricane Katrina" graphic on the Variety homepage. [Variety]
· "With possibly hundreds dead, many injured and millions displaced — including most of New Orleans, which was underwater — reporters found themselves covering a story that got bigger as daylight rose on what looked on television like a scene from a Hollywood disaster movie." Do we really need the Hollywood point of reference when we can see the actual tragedy on TV, not recreated on sound stages? [THR]
· Jim Carrey is in talks to costar with Ben Stiller in Fox comedy Used Guys, about two obsolete "pleasure clones" who are "rendered obsolete by superior models whose enhancements include better listening and lovemaking skills." [Variety]
· Producers continue to flounder trying to fill James Bond's empty tuxedo, with Casino Royale's start date looming in January. They're hilariously picky about who gets to replace to the too-pricey Pierce Brosnan—Broadway-loving Hugh Jackman isn't "masucline enough," Ewan McGregor is "too short," Eric Bana's not "good-looking enough," and we think we all know about what's wrong with Colin Farrell. [THR]
· Need something to take your mind off of the hurricane coverage? How about a story on the Venice Film Festival being on high-alert for potential terrorist attacks? [Variety]

It's been so long since we've heard anything about the once-intense Lindsay Lohan-Hilary Duff feud (starring Aaron Carter as Helen of Troy) that we'd assumed it had sputtered out all on its own; after all, how is Lohan supposed to find the time to actively hate on a bitch while spending seven nights a week haunting Hollywood clubs and monitoring her extreme, puberty-driven weight loss? There are only so many hours in the day. To her publicist's credit, however, Lohan's now claiming that she tried to be the bigger starlet and attempted to finally squash the spat, but Duff's sister was all, I don't think so!: