• Alec Baldwin lashes out at the family court system in his book, not his ex-wife Kim Basinger. He takes care of her at live party appearances: "My ex-wife reaches an almost sexual level of satisfaction when she's in a room full of high-priced lawyers." [Showbiz Spy]

• Charlie Sheen and wife-to-be Brooke Mueller are getting married tonight. The bride might already be pregnant, and Denise Richards might be planning to crash the party with her reality show camera crew. Should be fun! [Rush & Molloy]

• Yes, George Clooney is single again. Ex-girlfriend Sarah Larson was "sweet" but "they had little in common." More revealing: she moved so much crap into his house during their brief relationship that he has to move out while she hauls it all away. [In Touch]

Remember last month when we took a moment to consider the potential back-end windfalls for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford should Indiana Jones 4 turn when Indiana Jones 4 turns a profit? "Crystal Skull will have to generate around $400 million for Paramount for the studio to make its money back and earn its distribution fee," Claudia Eller wrote in the LA Times. "Only at that point will Lucas, Spielberg, Ford and smaller profit participants, including screenwriter David Koepp, begin collecting their portion. Paramount will take 12.5 cents from every dollar thereafter, while Lucas and company will earn 87.5 cents." With the worldwide total pushing $332 million in five days, the film could drop 75% percent globally this weekend and still be pouring money on the principals by Sunday night. A more likely 50% drop would still split $86 million among them — with another solid month of box office ahead. Elsewhere in percentages: The likelihood of Indiana Jones 5 climbed to 100% while we wrote this.

The dirty, no-good Reds are not at all happy about the portrayal of Cold War Russians in a new historical documentary starring Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett that's sweeping our country this weekend. "The Communist Party of St. Petersburg say the actors promote crude, anti-Soviet propaganda in their new film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; and have urged Russia's movie-going public to boycott the film and told Ford, 65, not to visit the country.The Communist Party's ideology committee in Russia's second largest city published an open letter declaring, 'Your work in this film is an insult to the Soviet and Russian people, who remember the difficult Fifties when our country was concluding its reconstruction after the Great War, but did not send merciless terrorists to the USA'."

Defamer Attractions returns today with another round of movie scanning for your Memorial Day weekend. We already know you're planning at least two excursions to view Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (once out of drunken impulse, and once to make sure that really was the ending you saw before blacking out), but Indy alone does not a holiday make! At least one of the poor bastards sharing this opening weekend is bound to tank the worst, and yet another is a fine bit of foreign-language counterprogramming worth your consideration. And of course we've got a few new DVD choices for the agoraphobic, hungover and/or the cheapskates among us. As always, our opinions and projections are A) our own and B) impeccably fail-safe. Where should we start?

No one combats Indy 4 fatigue like our batty, beloved gossip aunt Cindy Adams, who today grilled one of the blockbuster's key consultants in an attempt to discover the sexy mystique of — wait for it — the bullwhip. Not just any bullwhip, of course, but Harrison Ford's $1,000 bullwhip — all 13 feet and two-and-a-half pounds of it, said whipmaster Anthony De Longis:

Even as Indy 4 is poised to do mammoth B.O. this weekend, it seems that one member of the LaBeouf Snow Cone Family Circus is a bit down on his luck. Shia LaBeouf’s father, whom Shia has already outed as a former drug dealer who used to smoke him out at 10 years old, has allegedly been crashing in Indiana Jones Jr.’s garage all winter long and has yet to return to his warm weather teepee in Montana (yes, really). As Shia puts it, "We've got this little air mattress set up for him. It's very comfortable. But now it's not winter anymore and he's still there. But I can't go there and go, `Hey dad. Listen it's time to go back.' I can't make him leave." So isn’t it time we finally figure out who this longshot Father Of The Year candidate is already? You know, before he inhales too many fumes while sleeping next to his superstar son’s pricey cars?

With all the magnetized baked potatoes and dancing chihuahua sequences in store in this weekend’s Indy 4, it’s no surprise Harrison Ford’s next on-screen project is as simple and easy to understand as possible. As we noted weeks ago, Ford was filming spots for an environmental group that prompted him to step in as copywriter and retool the scripts. And thank goodness he did — who else could have come up with this illuminating dialogue between the grizzly manscaping actor and, well, himself? Apparently, even big boys like Ford wince when hair is ripped from their shiny manly chests using hot wax. And that’s how the environment feels. So get thee to the nearest beauty parlor, shoot the unsmiling waxer a charismatic flirty smirk or two, and save the planet already.

Looking remarkably sober and well-recovered from last weekend's Cannes-diana Jones sojourn, Harrison Ford returned home Tuesday for the film's long-awaited Harlem premiere (yes, Harlem) and a requisite visit with David Letterman. The conversation quickly turned to Ford's piloting hobby — particularly his fondness for taking off in a Beaver. What? No, not a late-model Calista Beaver, but rather a vintage de Havilland model — the bulletproof kind flown covertly by the CIA during Vietnam. Naturally Letterman's audience followed his train of thought straight into the gutter, but an unfazed Ford stuck to the high road with tales of his soaring journeys into the bush. If only Kevin Spacey had shown the host so much class the night before. [The Late Show With David Letterman]

After intrepidly (and only somewhat confusedly) parsing the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise yesterday, we've looked on in amazement as the phenomenon continues its global siege. To wit: If ever we actually wanted to see Harrison Ford return for a fifth Indy film, we can only hope it extrapolates the promise of the accompanying trailer for Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Gay Rabbi. Which looks suspiciously more influenced by the 1979 Harrison Ford/Gene Wilder vehicle The Frisco Kid, but still — it's not like George Lucas is going to come up with anything better. (via The Hot Blog)

The first-in-the-world hype accompanying Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's premiere at Cannes appears to remain the only story of interest to most festivalgoers, with everything from live-blogs of the screening to more meditative reads ("I was bored out of my mind," writes Manohla Dargis) peppering the spectrum of feedback. Of course there's always Harvey Weinstein, who continues his Cannes dealings with impunity despite our corporate death sentence leveled last week. And people actually seem to like Woody Allen's latest! It's the '80s all over again!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has been unveiled at last for international critics, and with most verdicts coming in mixed to above-average, our discriminating tastes still found much left to be desired. Defamer editor Seth Abramovitch and senior editor S.T. VanAirsdale attended yesterday's screenings in Los Angeles and New York, respectively, after which the slow process of psychological reckoning and franchise restoration began the only way they knew how: via instant messaging.

Forget the jerk-ass haters: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will make you happy. "[O]nce it gets going, Crystal Skull delivers smart, robust, familiar entertainment. Ford looks just fine, his chest skin tanned to a rich Corinthian leather; he's still lithe on his feet, and can deliver a wisecrack as sharp as a whipcrack. Karen Allen, 56, who was Indy's saucy love Marion Ravenwood in Raiders, still has that glittering smile and vestiges of her old elfin swagger. They needn't break a sweat keeping up with the (relative) kids: 39-year-old Cate Blanchett, the movie's villainess, and Shia LaBeouf, who plays the young lead Mutt Williams, and who may be tapped to continue the series after Ford's retirement - at least that's what Lucas hinted a few days ago here in Cannes." Slight spoilers after the jump.

Pity the poor, misunderstood archaeologist, chained to painstaking years of research and field work only to live in the cultural shadow of the globetrotting, Nazi-battling adventurer Indiana Jones. Not ones to miss an opportunity, though, the leaders of the Archaeological Institute of America have dovetailed with the forthcoming release of Indiana Jones 4 to welcome franchise star Harrison Ford as a trustee. "The group promotes archaeological excavation, research, education and preservation worldwide," notes an AP dispatch. "AIA President Brian Rose says Ford's Indiana Jones character has played a major part in stimulating interest in archaeological exploration."

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

After only three days, the teaser trailer for Twilight — that highly anticipated franchise initially classified as the "new Harry Potter" — racked up more than two million views on the film's MySpace page. As industry insiders have noted, the vampire flick may break the record of 4.1 million first week views set by Indy 4 earlier this year. But after viewing Twilight's trailer for ourselves, we couldn't care less about records or the fate of Indiana What's His Name. Why? The folks at Summit Entertainment managed to create excitement (and widespread teen titillation) not by appealing to HP dorks or Narnia obsessives, but rather by going the Gossip Girl route and putting together an ensemble cast comprised of barely known and ridiculously hot actors. Take a gander at what appears to be a fantastical and surprisingly romantic Tim Burton-esque world after the jump.

• Carrie Fisher so totally did have take a ride in Harrison Ford's Millennium Falcon during the filming of the Star Wars movies. Fisher: "Once I left the room and came back and he was in the closet not wearing a lot of clothes." The Sun headlined their story, "Carrie: I gave Ford Obi-Wan." [Sun]

As if to say to the world, "You think Indy's too old? Well, how do you like these rippling, 8-pack apples?" as well as, "I'm smiling on the outside, but on the inside, my chest feels like it's being gnawed upon by 10,000 hungry rats," Harrison Ford took to the depilatory chair recently. It had nothing to do with Crystal Skull, but rather some pet cause that involves deforestation and a Spice Girl. Still, we'd hope his co-star and protégé Greaser LaBeouf will follow suit, with an Earth Day season pledge to submit himself to a Brazilian as a means of encouraging better sorting of compostables. [Access Hollywood]

Sean Connery might have reprised his role as Indy's dad in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but Harrison Ford put the kibosh on that noise real quick. "I said no, no no no. I'm old enough to play my own father in this one. Sean's only 12 years older than I am. [In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade] I had to play so much younger than I am in order to make it work for him. It was really a strain." More on Ford's rapidly olding oldness after the jump.