Dumbledore could (and should) buy out the American auto industry. Madonna's dry thrusting leads to tragedy. Google Images will explode within the next few hours. And everyone is mean to the writers!

Now it's just getting ridiculous: Hollywood squandered its only shot at a competitive Oscar season on Saturday when the Directors Guild of America gave its top prize to Danny Boyle.

We hope it's not too soon to pronounce the once-flatlining Oscars fully recovered, tipped upright by an attending nurse, who then removed the IV needle that maintained his celebrity-malnourished frame from his golden arm. All this is wonderful news, especially in light of what was quickly turning out to be the most depressingly atrophied trophy season in Hollywood history—where something as trivial as a bored-to-drunken-action Sean Young being escorted out of the Hyatt Regency became the year's most discussed awards show moment. Young, of course, has since exiled herself to a hecklers wellness facility, but her spirit lives on, particularly in this LAT feature:

THR's Gold Rush blog finally delivers video of the incident, though from the director's perspective; you'll probably have to turn up your speakers to make out Young's now-infamous "Get on with it!" exhortation, but the perturbed honoree's now-poignant "Have another cocktail" retort is clearly documented by the Reporter's camera. Presumably, the clip brings this turbulent chapter in awards show history to an anticlimactic close, at least until some blurry cameraphone footage of Young's subsequent ejection from the event makes its way to YouTube.

With news spreading of Sean Young's Schnabel-shushing shenanigans at Saturday night's DGA awards—a story you may have first read about here on Sunday, and that has now achieved critical mass thanks to a lively, first-person retelling by Julie Chen on The Late Show—the spent actress has achieved new rock-bottom depths in the annals of awards season gate-crashing. (Lower even than the time the Blade Runner star sent security on a cat-and-mouse chase throughout the topiaries of the 2006 Vanity Fair Oscar party.) Young has now checked herself into rehab, The Insider is reporting:

Stories like the one that you are about to read are the reason we REALLY missed watching The Golden Globes this year. While we weren't at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza for last night's DGA Awards, one of our loose-lipped Defamer informants just sent us the following tip regarding an incident involving an the one of Hollywood's most unpredictable actresses, Sean Young. Yes, the same Sean Young who once appeared on The Joan Rivers Show decked out in full Catwoman gear in hopes of landing the role that would go to Michelle Pfieffer. Anyway, after taking time to hurl insults towards both Marion Cotillard and Julian Schnabel (the former en français, no less!), the scourge of James Woods' life was (allegedly) booted from the premises by a security cop. Our tipster's highly amusing recollection of the incident follows after the jump.

· The DGA, as you undoubtedly heard just moments after puffs of white smoke were belched skyward from the chimney of AMPTP headquarters, reached a deal with the studios yesterday. While anxious WGA members are picking over the proposed contract to see if any writer-screwing provisions have been hidden in the fine print, a strike-weary industry reacts: "One thing that is very clear is that with all the bad blood between the WGA and studios, the writers can strike until the end of time and they will not do better than the directors did. It is time to stop this," said a "veteran agent" obviously eager to start earning commissions again. Check out the full story to read quotes carefully chosen to make the WGA look totally unreasonable if they don't fall hopelessly in love with the terms offered the directors! [Variety]
[After the jump: more deal reactions! Zac Efron hearts Orson Welles! Primetime TV may soon offer nothing but celebrity circus shows!]

The Directors Guild reached an agreement with the AMPTP, according to UPI and Variety. No details are available! But it might prove the end of the Writers Strike. The Directors presumably negotiated an internet residual deal with the Producers that will set a precedent that the writers will be more or less obligated to agree to. So everyone wins! Or loses! Who knows. Thank god we'll get some new House. Maybe he could've diagnosed Glenn Beck! It could've been Lupus! [UPI]

It's here! It's finally here! According to Var, the Directors Guild has reached the much-rumored deal with the AMPTP that's had Hollywood aching with uneasy anticipation since the formal start of negotiations over the weekend. No details are in yet; stay tuned to see if the terms offer hope that a similar agreement can be struck with the WGA, or whether the proposed contract is so disappointing that it will just drive a fresh wedge between striking writers and the studios, plunging the town even deeper into gut-wrenching despair.

· Warner Brothers allows its options on the Justice League cast to lapse, putting the project on "indefinite hold," though the studio has assured its roster of mostly no-names that it still would eventually like to see what they all look like in their cute superhero costumes. [Variety]
· Like Monday's American Idol episode, last night's installment was down in the ratings from the show's 2007 season; still, the 30 million people who tuned in were more than enough to help Fox completely eviscerate its competition. [THR]
[After the jump: Hayden is a cheerleader 4ever, the DGA-deal waiting game, and WB layoffs begin!]

A rumor posted on unitedhollywood.com, and substantiated by an article in Variety, suggests the DGA is on the verge of having reached a deal with the AMPTP, if not having done so already. What this means for the WGA isn't entirely clear: United Hollywood cautions that "everyone stay calm," and give WGA negotiators an opportunity to "analyze the terms of that deal and see if they're acceptable to us as a guild or not," but picketing writers have already begun to express optimism that it will provide an acceptable template for their own. Certainly, it should hearten anyone to know that the same union that reps such highly opinionated and demanding artists as Michael Bay was able to reach a swift and workable solution, without the Transformers director even once leaning over the bargaining table to suggest to Nick Counter through a megaphone that his offer was, "BEEEEEEEP...a FUCKING JOKE, OLD MAN."

· NBC's Billy Bush-enhanced Reading of the Golden Globes Winners telecast draws just 5.8 million viewers, lower Nielsen numbers than even last week's public-access-quality People's Choice Awards delivered to CBS. Meanwhile, the premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was huge for Fox. [THR]
· Shaking off the disappointment of its Globes debacle, NBC orders another season of Proven Ratings Winner American Gladiators (surely, two episodes is all the evidence one needs to make such a commitment!), though the network is being coy about how many episodes it's ordered or when they might air. [Variety]

· Annoyed that no progress has been made in the strike, the DGA has offered January 7 as the start date for their own AMPTP negotiations. Obviously, we hope everything goes smoothly, and yet a tiny part of us would love to lay our eyes on an Incredible Picketing Director Baby, wearing a beret and holding a tiny, old-fashioned megaphone. [Variety]
· Lists! Lists! We love lists! Here's one of 10 things that didn't happen in Hollywood this year. [Variety]
· The music industry renames itself Josh Groban's Noel LLC, fires any artist, manager, or A&R person not by that name. [Variety]
· It's producer vs. agent over who came up with the idea of a reality show set in a gym first. [THR]
· Hollywood breaks record overseas, pulling in $10 billion in box office receipts, up 15% from last year. We know this is supposed to be good news, so why does it fill us with a vague sense of dread? [THR]

· Realizing that no matter what their vision was going in for a long-planned, big-screen adaptation of Dallas, the final result would be hilarious, Regency and 20th Century have finally decided to just give up and officially make it as a comedy. Betty Thomas will direct, and John Travolta will still star as JR Ewing, playing the part in only a slightly bigger fashion as a nod to the project's new direction. [Variety]
· Once again, the DGA refuses to allow For Your Consideration DVD screeners to be sent to members for their yearly awards, forcing guild members to schlep out to screenings to see their peers' work presented as it was intended. [THR]
· Following the less-than-blockbuster results of promotions for movies like Akeelah and the Bee and Arctic Tale, Hollywood is discovering that Starbucks might not be marketing monolith that they'd had hoped it would be. Several studios are now considering scaled-back versions of the failing Starbucks experiment, such as planting paid confederates to sit by the door of The Coffee Bean and loudly shout into a cellphone about how much they loved a partner's movie. [Variety]
· It's about time someone made a RenFair comedy*: Universal buys the Rainn Wilson project Renaissance Man, about two community theater actors who hide out a renaissance fair after thinking they've killed one of their co-stars. (*For real; and no, we don't count that one part in The Cable Guy.) [THR]
· Focus Features accepts the MPAA's NC-17 rating for Ang Lee's erotically charged espionage thriller Lust, Caution for "too many scenes of artsy-fartsy fucking." [Variety]

· Deciding that their Ritalin-addled viewers' comedy needs are not being met by episodes of My Super Sweet Sixteen and Yo Momma, MTV is developing three American Pie/Ferris Bueller's Day Off-inspired movies to air on the network. [Variety]
· Richard "Shaft" Roundtree joins the cast of Speed Racer, hopes to avoid the vicious chimp attacks that have plagued other actors on the set. [THR]
· In an effort to keep its leadership intact for the world-ending, multi-guild strike about to wipe Hollywood off the face of the Earth, the DGA elects Michael Apted to a third term as President. [Variety]
· Despite having Sunday night's most watched show in Some Famous People Sing Nice Songs for the Dead Princess, NBC loses the primetime race to CBS. [THR]
· Shrek the Third takes the overseas box office crown with $69.6 million, but Transformers still managed to pull in $34.7 million. [Variety]

In the discussion of the potential work stoppage waiting to cripple Hollywood upon the rapidly approaching expiration of several union contracts, it's all too easy to become consumed with talk of multiplatform residuals, de facto strikes, and script stockpiling, impersonal matters that distract from the human cost of the looming labor Armageddon. A piece in today's NY Times on the strike-induced scheduling crush affecting the industry's most coveted talent finally puts a face—a stubbornly still-cherubic, relatable, and franchise-supporting face—on the issues:

· Things are looking sunny for Marty: As most had predicted, he picked up the top feature award from the Directors Guild of America, his first win after seven previous nominations. 52 of the past 58 winners have gone on to take the Oscar, though that doesn't completely rule out the possibility he won't get slighted again, at which point a global audience can delight in watching his eyebrows instantly turn ashen white. [Variety]
· Steve Martin, presenting an award to the DGA awards longtime host Carl Reiner, won the Dirty Old Man One-Liner of the Night Award with this comment about Leelee Sobieski*: "I've been backstage trying to convince Leelee Sobieski that the best way to remove double stick tape is with saliva." [The Envelope]
· The 34th annual Evening Standard British Film Awards gives its top acting honor to—muted gasp!—Judi Dench for Notes on a Scandal, not Helen Mirren for The Queen. Daniel Craig nabbed the top actor award for Casino Royale, and his anguished approximation of what it might feel like to have one's testicles whacked repeatedly with a knotted rope. [Reuters]

· The Directors Guild of America announced its short list of five nominees, including Martin Scorsese, Bill Condon, Stephen Frears, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and Little Miss Sunshine collaborators Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, leading us to wonder why we don't see more directing duos willing to evenly split their control-freak impulses. [MSNBC]
· Even publicists have awards! The nominees for the Maxwell Weinberg Award for the year's top publicity campaign include Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, Dreamgirls, Happy Feet, and United 93. World Trade Center's campaign, which voters felt relied too heavily on the solicitation of MySpace friendships and currying favor with Tila Tequila, was passed over for recognition. [Variety]
· The Scripter, an unusual award from the USC libraries that recognizes the achievement of both authors and the screenwriters who transform that source material into successful screen adaptions, have narrowed the field of nominees to the teams responsible for Children of Men, The Devil Wears Prada, The Illusionist, The Last King of Scotland, and Notes on a Scandal. [THR]
· Don't forget: Tomorrow is the deadline to get those Golden Globe ballots in, HFPA members! Oh, and for anyone who cares, the People's Choice Awards are tonight. [The Envelope]

DGA ScreenerGate rages on! The Guild reverses its shocking no-screeners policy reversal by banning the DVDs for this award season, then promising there will be no awards campaigner mindfucking next year, when they'll be allowed. "The most awkward and disrespectful awards snafu of the year!" says Outraged Anonymous Exec of The Undisclosed Studio Review-Journal. [Variety]
Drumroll, please: The last Harry Potter book will be named Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Titillating rumor that we just made up: Harry and Hermione will finally get it on, as will Ron and the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. [THR]
Rocky Balboa picks up $6.2 million on its first day of release, prompting MGM to rush out ads touting the film as the "Number One Movie In America On Wednesday, December 20th." [Variety]
NY circuit court judges, network lawyers, and the FCC carry on a lively debate about when people can say "fuck" and "shit" on live television. [THR]
· While Americans largely ignored Clint Eastwood's English-language World War II movie, the Japanese seem to really love the one he made in their tongue. [Variety]

Paramount/Dreamworks' "roadshow" opening of Dreamgirls was a big success, but will it translate to strong numbers as the film expands to 800 screens, when the studios will need to attract audiences outside of the Gays who jumped at the chance to pay $25 a ticket for a preview during the limited run? [Variety]
Who will star in CBS's untitled legal drama pilot as a quirky, sassy public defender who, despite her quirk and sass, has been hardened by her efforts to make it in a man's world? If you guessed the quirky-n-sassy-yet-hardened Janeane Garofalo, give yourself five dollars. [THR]
Awards Screeners Shocker! The DGA does-repeat, DOES! We know!—allow screeners to be sent out to its members! In a reversal of an apparently nonexistent ban on FYC DVDs, the Guild clarifies its policy on the matter (details too boring to repeat here), leading to much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair from awards campaigners angry they weren't informed earlier. [Variety]
...And DreamWorks is the first studio to exploit the DGA's new/old policy on screeners for the purpose of pimping Dreamgirls' Bill Condon. See above re: teeth-gnashing and hair-tearing. [THR]
Either it's just a weird typo, or the Reporter was so taken aback that NCIS was the most watched show of the week in primetime that it took eleven question marks to express its disbelief. [THR]