The recent New York Times profile of Melvin Van Peebles finds the 81-year-old filmmaker tired, probably from exuberant sex the night before. The Times is too demure to tell you that, but you can read it between the lines:

The members of Here We Go Magic were driving in Ohio and picked up a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker was director John Waters. Here is their story, as told by guitarist Michael Bloch in an email his record label forwarded to us:

International man of idiocy (and occasionally brilliant filmmaking) Lars von Trier is at Cannes promoting his new movie Melancholia, and at a recent press conference the Danish director went off the rails with a weird diatribe about his Nazi sympathies.

Gawker had a chance to speak with Stephen Frears—the renowned British director of such films as My Beautiful Launderette, Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity, and The Queen—and get his views on this year's crop of Oscar nominees, George Clooney's politics, and why smart actresses are so sexy.

Oscar-winning wizard of technique Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Oceans Etc.) is going to call it quits after a few more movies. Says his regular collaborator Matt Damon, "He's kind of exhausted with everything that interested him." He might try painting next.

French New Wave director Claude Chabrol died on Sunday at age 80.

Due to production delays, Director Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) won't direct the two-part film adaptation of The Hobbit. He'll still co-write the script with Peter Jackson, but we had high hopes for del Toro's Middle Earth. Oh well. [AP]

The neverending power-struggle between actors and directors dates back to ancient Rome, when Zeus killed the actor Cyclops in a traveling production of The Odyssey over improper stage blocking... or something. That struggle resonates today, as proven by this video.

Megan Fox was being cute by calling Michael Bay a "Nazi" regarding the Transformers 2 shoot. Some Michael Bay crew members wrote a letter about Awful Megan Fox on Michael Bay's site, which has since been censored. Just awesome.

So that "Office Berserker" video we linked to last week—security camera footage purportedly showing a man going crazy at work and destroying his entire office, along with many of his coworkers—has been confirmed as another freaking viral marketing video (as suspected). This time the prankster was a Russian director trying to build buzz for a film called Wanted. Damn you, Timur Bekmambetov! It's getting to where you just can't trust online footage of unprovoked violence any more. If you care to, watch the clip again with a more jaundiced eye, after the jump.

Defamer is committed to bringing together real directors of real movies with real celebrities hard up for fake dates on the biggest nights of their lives, and so in the interest of furthering our mission of faux-romantic mercy, we spotlight this anonymous plea for companionship from Craigslist, the internet's leading escort service for industry professionals desperately seeking non-embarrassing arm-candy. Posts our seeker:

Fully embracing a recent mission to champion the unsung, trench-digging heroes of Hollywood kicked off by last week's introduction of their scribecentric Scriptland feature, the LAT today presents the first installment of Made-for-TV-Movie Directorville, which will explore the lives and work of the small-screen auteurs behind projects as wide-ranging as AMC's celebrated Broken Trail and less-appreciated masterpieces like Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?. The Times kicks off the new column by illustrating the MFTVM director's uphill battle for respect and recognition: