In the rapidly approaching future, the DNA that once produced successful pop-stars will be degraded by its commingling with the inferior genes of suspiciously fertile, unemployed background dancers, and a recording industry decimated by the resulting lack of marketable talent will pay any price for a cloneable sample of that prelapsarian, platinum-selling genetic material. It is then that your great-grandchildren will finally recognize your speculative, $250 investment in a pumice stone that may or may not have rubbed against Britney Spears's skin for its genius.

First Chappelle, now this? We're not going outside today, because we're pretty sure the next thing is going to involve a torrential downpour of boiling menstrual blood. The Big Mogul in the Sky's really backed himself into a corner with this one.

Like a wild-haired John the Baptist strolling in from the desert*, but to announce that He ain't never coming, so quit asking, comedian Charlie Murphy says that Chappelle's Show is no more:

We already linked to a THR article about Touchstone's acquisition of Blowback in the trade round-up (have you already forgotten?), but we couldn't let the story about how the deal went down go without a spotlight:

· The emergence of new technology in all aspects of filmmaking make Oscar scratch head, feel confused. Smash computer! Smashsmash! [Variety]
· Richard Gere mistakes Hong Kong director Andrew Lau for the Dalai Lama, agrees to star in The Flock, his English-language debut. [THR]
· Observing its corporate mandate that no show is too offensive to air, the Fox Reality Channel offers to buy pulled ABC reality series Welcome the the Neighborhood. ABC head Steve McPherson vows to kill his baby rather than let it be adopted by Fox. [Variety]
Touchstone picks up the "modern day Lethal Weapon" buddy action-flick Blowback, starring The Rock and Ryan Reynolds as San Francisco cops. Why do we get the feeling that the top-secret "high concept" idea can be explained in the tagline, "They're partners...on the beat, and at home." [THR]
· Time Warner sets aside $3 billion to settle lawsuits from shareholders angry about the multibillion-dollar boo-boo that was their merger with AOL. [Variety]

We know that NBC's Nielsen disaster of last season has caused some pretty profound self-esteem issues at the network (the "colonic" talk was a tip-off), but this plea for comedy scripts sounds a little like a recent divorcée slurring, "Boy, am I waaaaasted! I think if I do one more widdle shot, I might go home with anybody!" from the end of the bar:

It seems that superannuated superproducer Robert Evans was having a senior moment when he told Page Six that he wasn't getting married for a seventh time, because now the Sixies report that there's a Mexican wedding certificate awaiting his signature:

The LAT's Restaurant Journal turns in a quick survey of the local patio scene, and like all discussions of what's painfully hot conducted in the last six weeks, this one begins with Amanda Scheer Demme's Star-Fellating Xanadu At The New Scheer/Roosevelt Demme-Hotel:

Star, the bastard offspring of a celebrity OB/GYN and a Tourettes-afflicted town crier, adds a potentially exciting new chapter to the storybook romance of Sienna Miller and nanny-impaling fiancée Jude Law by reporting that Miller is a half-dozen weeks pregnant with Law's baby. And to heighten the already crippling drama of the situation, the once-happy couple allegedly announced the pregnancy to their families a mere two days before Law was publicly busted for admitted the extracurricular penetration of his child-care provider. Since all tabloid fetuses are highly theoretical creatures, like six-legged llamas made of white chocolate, the world should hold any judgmental tsk-tsking directed at Law's naughty baby-making boomstick (hasn't he suffered enough?) until next week, when it will almost certainly be posited that the actor has also knocked up the nanny.

· $20 gets you the once-worn, authentic, 1950s pin-up bathing suit, but you have to take Kathy Griffin with it. It's a package deal. Sorry, no exceptions!
· And now to cleanse the pallette: In the words of Goldenfiddle, "Jessica Alba adjusts her bikini to get the sand out of her acting ability on a beach in Mexico."
· It goes without saying that the idea that Tom Cruise is a relationship addict is completely ridiculous. After all, this is a man who has personally—personally!—stepped countless others off the dangerous street drug of serial monogamy.
· It's only a matter of time before the next celebrity sex tape hits the market, and it looks like Jude Law is the odds-on favorite amateur porn-star-in-waiting.
· Director Joss Whedon reveals that his version of Wonder Woman might not be wearing panties. [via ComicBookMovie.com, scroll down to fifth section.]

· It's Tuesday, and Average Joe is done, so what about some music? The Violent Femmes are doing a free in-store show at Amoeba, and if you're thinking of attending, you'll probably want to leave around now. The Like, who we think of as the Nonviolent Femmes, play the Troubadour (beware of possible Olsen twin appearances), and Golden Arms throw an EP release party at the Silverlake Lounge.
· The RES returns again, for the first time: Tonight's RES screening at the Egyptian has its usual batch of animated shorts and new music videos, including one for Nine Inch Nails by David "Why Is It Always Raining?" Fincher.
· At Dutton's Beverly Hills, author Darcy Steinke will sit in front of a copy of her new novel, Milk, read some of the words aloud to those assembled, and, if she's feeling a little wild, perhaps sign freshly-purchased copies of the book.

The LAT explores the process of celebrity photographer Steven Klein, whose infamous 58-page spread in W magazine depicted the Mr. and Mrs. Smith era (i.e. "we're just friends, not ferocious lovers") Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a horny suburban couple surrounded by genetically perfect mini-Pitts, and discovers that Klein didn't have to try too hard to get his subjects to exercise their acting chops for the shoot:

As if it weren't bad enough when Google News sullied the West Nile Virus's good name by associating it with Kathy Hilton, now their crazed news-bot is trying to use the Hilton matriarch and her mindless reality show to bring down the entire Texas public school system. [Scroll down the page until you see the pic.]

Wow, it's almost like the happy parents are rubbing it right in Jennifer Aniston's face. How insensitive. Don't they know this is Jen's day? Their baby was born almost a month ago.

During a press event in Toronto to promote the upcoming release of The Dukes of Hazzard, star Johnny Knoxville proved himself to be a little delicate when it comes to questions about politics:

The director of the Warhol movie Factory Girl wants the world to know that the attention that Jude Law's nanny-drilling antics gained for finacé Sienna Miller didn't help her (re)land the role of Edie Sedgwick:

· Have international audiences finally built up a resistance to crap? Even overseas, family-friendly movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are whooping the box office asses of traditionally more popular action flicks. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Denial Edition: Nicole Kidman is in "final negotiations" to star in the sci-fi Invasion for Warner Bros., which started out as a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but now has evolved into "something fresh" that will nevertheless remind everyone of the original movie. [THR]
· Al Gore's Current TV launched Monday, eschewing "shows" for 15 second to five minute long "pods" of programming in recognition of the MTV generation's need to be profoundly bored in the smallest period of time possible. [Variety]
· Matthew Perry takes up residency in the ghetto of basic cable movies even more quickly than we would have guessed. [THR]
· From now on, George Lucas will only disappoint Star Wars fans in the medium of television. [Variety]

For six incredible seasons, you laughed, cried, and explained away a troubling tendency towards promiscuity along with the glamorous gals of Sex and the City. Don't think for a second that HBO can't put a price on those fond memories, as the network knows it can bleed the hopelessly devoted faithful by issuing a $300 box set, Sex and the City: The Complete Series. Variety explains what those three Ben Franklins get you:

The headlines about Jennifer Aniston's Vanity Fair interview, in which she finally speaks publicly about The Break-Up, tell her story more poignantly than any magazine piece could ever hope to.

The Australian surf, Owen Wilson in a wetsuit, and the most efficient killing machine that Nature has ever produced—the stage is set for that classic theoretical match-up of two of the world's most irresistible forces, The Butterscotch Stallion Vs. The Shark. From the Sydney Morning Herald: