The entertainment industry is predictably enthusiastic about the Democratic gains in this week's elections, especially MPAA head Dan Glickman, who expects that his organization's agenda will be immediately adopted by the Hollywood-loving, liberal legislators that now control Congress. [Variety]
ABC wins Wednesday with Dancing with the Stars and Lost, while a special Wednesday night airing of The OC doesn't manage to improve on last week's "horrible start." We suggest more cagefighting with Chino. [THR]
Call it a "vote of confidence" or "a desperate move to save a poorly rated show," but ABC is moving Men in Trees to the well-protected post-Grey's Anatomy timeslot on Thursday nights. [Variety]
Time Warner pulls out of China, searches for a more hospitable place in which to insert its throbbing cinema operations. Yeah, we're not proud of that one, but it is what it is. [THR]
Believing that American Idol also-ran Kellie Pickler's adorable inability to pronounce the words "calamari" and "salmon" is sufficient evidence of comedic talent, Fox is now developing a sitcom to take better advantage of her photogenic bimbitude. [Variety]

After months of being battered by Borat's publicity generating cultural offensive, the glorious nation of Kazakhstan, the Central Asian pubis-exporting giant and leading producer of potassium, can finally claim a victory against its greatest tormentor, as neighboring Russia has at least temporarily banned the film to protect its neighbor from the further hilarious tarnishing of its image. Reports Var:

[Spoiler Alert: Just skip this one if you haven't seen Borat or haven't already had most of the movie ruined for you by the obsessive press coverage.] Those who have spent the past month or so trapped in a meat locker in an underground bunker deep beneath one of the country's low-Borat-awareness zones might conceivably be unaware that the film contains both scripted and unscripted elements, a conceit used to give the movie narrative shape and the audience things to laugh at between incidents with RVs full of racist frat-boys and dinner party hosts stunned to discover their Kazakh guest's seeming unfamiliarity with Western waste-elimination apparatuses. In an attempt to ease the fears of moviegoers still concerned that well-hung minors and prodigiously breasted former Baywatch stars might have been harmed in the making of the film, Radar (shockingly!) reveals that part of Borat's teenage son, whose member dangles incestuously close to his fictional father's face, was played by a completely legal male porn star, while Page Six (world-rockingly!) assures us that Pamela Anderson's security detail almost certainly has been trained in how to instantly stun-gun any fan who shows up to a personal appearance brandishing a hand-embroidered betrothal-bag, despite their relative bungling of their duties in the film's culminating scene. You may return to rediscovering on your own the line between fiction and reality hopelessly blurred by your potentially traumatizing cinematic experience.

Marvel plans to clog the summer of 2008—which may already feature the next Batman movie— with its superhero fare by setting a June 27th date for its Hulk sequel, which will arrive just two months after May 2's Iron Man release. [Variety]
THR releases its annual Next Generation list of "35 executives who represent the future of the industry," providing this year's ambitious also-rans a convenient inventory of the people they'll need to murder in order to advance their rising careers. [THR]
More Borat release hand-wringing: Did Fox leave "money on the table" by going with last weekend's limited release? Will the great buzz drive huge numbers of people to theaters when the movie goes wide on Friday? Will Sacha Baron Cohen's emerging fame rob him of his ability to goad RVs full of drunken, Southern frat boys into musing about the good ol' days of slavery? Developing... [Variety]
Paramount Vantage buys the rights to the supernatural novel A Jealous Ghost for Kirsten Dunst to produce and star in, satisfying the actress's desire to unnerve audiences with something other than her mouthful of creepy baby teeth. [THR]
Microsoft fights back against iTunes' content downloading hegemony by offering films and TV programs as on-demand options over their online service for the Xbox, finally offering viewers a way to watch "movies" and "shows" on a "television set." [Variety]

What with an important election coming up and all, the local Fox affiliate last night decided to air an in-depth examination of the day's vital question: Is your husband gay? (Or, to put it in their parlance, "Is the man of your dreams dreaming of another man?") There's video on the website, but there's also an accompanying "checklist" of clues that might provide you with answers. As a public service, we reproduce it after the jump.

Sneak a little bourbon into that first cup of coffee, have a couple of greedy swigs, and come to the weekend box office numbers with a healthy, Monday-kickstarting buzz on:

Somewhere deep within Fox's distribution department, the following conversation is taking place:

Fox's post-World Series line-up is battered by all comers, with new sitcoms Til Death and Happy Hour begging to be put out of their Nielsen misery and the The OC bombing in the post-Coop era. And in a result that makes even NBC executives snicker, "Oh, that shit is embarrassing," Fox was beaten by Univision (who had the Latin Grammys) on the night. [Variety]
· Another way to describe The OC's premiere ratings is "awful." [THR]
Fox gives a series order to David E. Kelley's hour-long wedding planner drama The Wedding Store, which replaces previously announced series The Wedding Album and allows the network to maintain its FCC-mandated levels of nuptial-related programming. [Variety]
The relentlessly publicized Borat is finally opening in 837 theaters, with THR boldly predicting that there's no way the Kazakh can compete with The Santa Clause 3's multiplex-jamming release at 3,458 venues. [THR]
Because what television really needs is more sitcoms about emasculated men: The CW buys Beta Males, about "a trio of guys coping with their lives as domestic caretakers while their girlfriends and wives serve as the breadwinners." [Variety]

Other blogs are much better equipped to keep you informed regarding the coming traffic Apocalypse about to swallow any unfortunate soul wretched enough to have to drive anywhere near LAX, courtesy of your friends at 20th Century Fox's insistence that Live Free or Die Hard be filmed on an authentic stretch of Los Angeles freeway. We can, however, pass along a tiny bit of good news for those who find themselves stuck in a seemingly endless traffic jam: They might hear some shit blow up in the distance and momentarily trick themselves into thinking that the strength of their hate has willed into existence one of their gruesome revenge fantasies involving Bruce Willis and some poorly timed pyrotechnics:

We ask that you steel yourself for the possibility that a recently filed copyright infringement lawsuit could prevent the release of Fox's Deck the Halls, throwing into utter chaos all of your cherished plans to spend the holidays watching Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick driven to the brink of mutual homicide by their competing desires to erect the most ostentatious Christmas light displays ever conceived. THR ESQ reports that a screenwriter is seeking an injunction against Fox and New Regency, claiming that their forthcoming movie is uncomfortably similar to a screenplay he wrote which both the studio and production company had previously rejected:

It's time again for studios to clog the mailboxes of awards voters with their screener DVDs, but this year, some are sending out two versions: plain ones featuring just the movie itself to groups that are uptight about superfluous goodies influencing their principled voters, and fancier ones with extras and nice packaging for associations with looser reins on their swag-whoring membership. [Variety]
The Wachowski Brothers will write and direct a big-screen adaptation of Speed Racer for Warner Brothers. Are they still "brothers"? We've kind of lost track of where they stand in the gender reassignment process. Oops, there we go again, distracting people from the work with some salacious personal stuff. Apologies. [THR]
· We thought that all of the getting-high-and-gorging-on-junk-food questions raised in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle were sufficiently addressed in the first movie, but we were obviously wrong, as a sequel is now in the works. This time around, the toke-happy pals will be suspected of being terrorists after trying to smuggle a bong onto their flight to Amsterdam. [Variety]
With an episode powered by a completely unexpected plot twist in which its titular, wisecracking doctor makes a crazy diagnosis that was later proven to be accurate, House returned to the Fox lineup with the highest demographic rating of the night, but still lost to Dancing with the Stars in total Tuesday night viewers. [THR]
· Var introduces new blog Wilshire and Washington, which will cover the intersection of entertainment and politics, as illustrated by incidents in which people toss liquids at Barbara Streisand for expressing negative opinions about the President. [Variety]

While we are not particularly ashamed to admit that we long ago drank the fermented-horse-urine flavored Kool-Aid and that Borat had us at, "Hello, is it now time for make sex with your sister?" we can nonetheless still see why Fox might be afraid that the movie's buzz has outstripped its overall awareness, especially in parts of the country where the ersatz-Kazakh instigator may have narrowly averted a fatal lynching during filming. Inevitably, the studio's prolonged press blitz is draining all the fun from the rape, incest, and Jew-down-the-well jokes that made us fall in love with the incorrigible, sibling-schtupping scamp in the first place, as illustrated by this meet-cute with a CNN reporter:

A giant horsefly has landed in the ointment Borat has been enthusiastically slathering upon his neon-benutslinged body in anticipation of his movie's imminent release: The LAT is reporting that the initial plan of a 2000-screen opening is being scaled back drastically to a not-so-is-nice 800 screens, a tactical move Fox explains away using the kind of creative, textural jargon that trips effortlessly off the tongues of studio suits forced to save face whilst simultaneously massaging the outsized egos of their Kazakh superstars:

Realizing that Borat's imminent opening effectively ends his "innocent Kazakh documentarian who doesn't understand why he can't purchase sex from shopgirls at The Gap" ruse, Sacha Baron Cohen is already working on the next character (fat suit? age make-up? differently colored nut-sling?) he'll inhabit for a top-secret movie he's expected to shoot next summer. [Variety]
In arguments that the FCC must relax their rules on large media conglomerates, CBS manages to get a dig in on NBC: "Four years ago, when the FCC last reviewed its broadcast-ownership rules, the YouTube.com domain name had not even been registered, the first Windows version of the audio iPod was just rolling out, Google was only a search engine, cable companies sold primarily video packages, and telephone companies sold primarily voice service....and NBC was the most popular broadcast network thanks to its high-rated sitcom 'Friends' airing in the first hour of primetime." Ouch. We'll spare you the punchline, where they mention NBC's layoffs. You get the point already. [THR
Charlize Theron helps out boyfriend Stuart Townsend by lending her star power to The Battle in Seattle, his directing debut. Cute! [Variety]
Is it pre-Oscar awards season already? The Independent Film Project announces the nominees for its Gotham Awards, which include Half Nelson, Babel, and Little Miss Sunshine. [THR]
The placement of TV episodes online by networks and studios hardly seems like news anymore, but Fox will show the first two episodes of the new season of The OC on MySpace and their station sites before they air, and Warner Bros, TV hopes to entice people to start watching The Nine by streaming its pilot episode. [Variety]

Remember back in June of last year, when Microsoft and CAA dispatched an impressively armored battalion of messengers carrying the scripts for a movie adaptation of Halo to the studios, telling executives to read the scripts at lunch and commence an afternoon bidding war, or have face their faces fragged off by a grenade launcher? As they say: Good times. After the initial, "Hey, Brad, there's a guy in a green exoskeleton here to see you" giddiness wore off, some bad, backlashy buzz quickly mounted, but Fox and Universal eventually decided to team up and throw some money at the project. Today, Variety reports that the two studios have bailed on the project; depending on whom you believe, Halo was either getting too expensive (the go-to excuse for this supposed New Era Of Responsible Blockbuster Spending we're now living in—completed here with an invocation of the Two! Hundred! Million! scare number) or Fox and Universal were trying to squeeze executive producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh (and Microsoft) out of some profit participation. In the meantime, preparation for the film continues as they hunt for a new distributor, but we hope Microsoft and CAA refrain from ordering a second studio invasion by their costumed army; the once-intimidating warriors will seem more than a little pathetic crawling into potential financers' offices, removing their helmets, and begging executives to fill them with money.

Between Kazakhstan's president's White House summit to discuss the culture-tarnishing scourge represented by Borat, yesterday's currency snafu, and today's comically conciliatory attempt to invitate Sacha Baron Cohen to their modern, non-women-enslaving country, it now seems clear that 20th Century Fox has purchased (or, at the very least, rented out) the entire Central Asian nation for the purpose of publicizing their upcoming movie. Reports the AP:

Because we're sure that you're curious about what theme-meal goodies your peers at Fox might be enjoying right at this moment while you joylessly pick at your on egregiously atopical commissary offerings (Paramount, Sony, WB, and CBS employees—it's clear your employers don't care about you), we share the menu from their lot's Fire Prevention Day BBQ, wrapping up right now on the lawn outside their dining facility. Historically, Fox has reserved the efforts of its finest thematic chefs for the glorification of series launches or season premieres, but with the network's new crop of Fall shows hardly meriting their timeslots, much less a gustatorial show of company support, they were forced to apply their promotional gifts to a more mundane source of inspiration. By the out-of-the-box combining of the activities of eating delicious food and learning about fire safety, we're sure that the number of on-lot conflagrations will be significantly reduced in the coming weeks.

In easily the strangest TV news of the day, NBC signs up Jon Lovitz to star in the unscripted comedy Bad
Judge, in which he will play a "heightened" version of himself (read: encouraged to constantly lapse into his old SNL characters) who hands out unfair—but hilarious!—decisions in real legal cases. [Variety]
NBC's premiere of its new block of Must See Shows With Numbers in Their Titles TV fails to excite audiences, as 30 Rock and 20 Good Years finish third in their respective timeslots. It's starting to look like viewers won't support even a single behind-the-scenes-of-a-sketch-comedy-show series, much less one each from the sitcom and drama genres. [THR]
Noted North Korean cin aste Kim Jong Il's testing of his new nuclear toys isn't stopping stop film executives and journalists from attending the Pusan Film Fest in South Korea, Asia's most important film event. [Variety]
· In other TV-shows-with-numbers-in-the-title news, CBS will give recently cancelled Smith's Tuesday night timeslot to 3 Lbs., its hunky-neurosurgeon drama starring noted boob-tube albatross Mark Feuerstein. His involvement requires us to predict that it will be off the air after no more than five episodes. [THR]
Fox TV Studios nabs the rights to make The Devil Wears Prada for TV, which they'll develop for their broadcast mothership as a single-camera comedy they envision as "like Ugly Betty, but much better looking." [Variety]

As entertaining as the world's most famous, faux-Kazakh cultural videographer is, credit must also be given to his many duped foils, whose dumbfounded, slow-burn reaction shots add another essential element to the Borat magic. But how, after several seasons of the pranks being aired nationally on HBO's Da Ali G show, does Sacha Baron Cohen still succeed in finding unwitting victims to be Borat'd? Newsweek tracked down some of the film's deeply reluctant stars to find out:

Halle Berry will star in Class Act, the true story of Terry Cahill, the sixth grade teacher who ran for Congress (and lost) with the help of her students. We were all ready to be uplifted, until we read further and discovered that Cahill is a white woman, and now are instead anxious about the coming protests from the perfectly employable Caucasian actresses whom DreamWorks is obviously trying to keep down. [Variety]
Dave Matthews will make the inevitable foray into acting that all rock stars attempt once they find there are no more co-ed groupies to conquer, appearing with Sissy Spacek in the family drama Lake City. But despite his attempt to separate his music from his new career by being credited as "David" Matthews, his collegiate fans still plan to follow the movie from theater to theater, assembling in lobbies hours before showtime to get high and perform clumsy renditions of his hits on bongos and battered acoustic guitars. [THR]
George Lucas has seen the future of the movie business, and it's not Hollywood's' current, wasteful, tentpole-driven strategy, but one where studios take the $200 million they budget for a single, crappy blockbuster and instead use it to produce 50 or 60 lower-budget, crappy movies. [Variety]
· Ludacris will play an angry elf in Fred Claus, the Vince Vaughn vehicle about the degenerate Claus sibling who nearly ruins Christmas. [THR]
Neal Mortiz's Original sets up two sitcom pilots at Fox, Think Tank and Macho Steve, whose comedic premises you can easily discern from their titles. [Variety]