Scarlett Johansson's *ahem* long-awaited Tom Waits cover album "Anywhere I Lay My Head" is hitting stores a week from today. But in order to demonstrate to your circle of friends that you are ahead of the curve when it comes to blonde starlets and their ego-driven vanity music projects, you can check out her album now on the social network imeem.com (she's "online now!"). It's more targeted than putting it out on laughably polluted Myspace, so from an online marketing perspective, it's a fair deal for ScarJo, and an even better deal for iMeem. But from the perspective of a Tom Waits fan, it's tragic. "I Don't Want To Grow Up" redone as a droning plinky synth-pop song? We're not friends any more. If all goes well technically, her playlist is embedded after the jump. Good credibility-builder for iMeem. Bad for ears:

Yesterday, I finally received my advance copy of Hiding in Hip Hop, former closeted entertainment industry gadfly (pictured) Terrance Dean's much-hyped autobiography about all of the gays that are, well, hiding in hip hop. I've read about half of it so far. Dean has already proven himself eager to trot out blind items about male celebrities he says he's hooked up with, and the book doesn't disappoint in that regard. Today, an overview of what the book is and isn't, and then some of what you've been waiting for: three TV actors, a famous rapper, and a "megastar," anonymously outed.

We hear that People magazine paid around $2 million (if not more) for the recent wedding pictures of Barbie-like singer Mariah Carey and younger actor Nick Cannon. People triumphed in a bidding war with OK!. This surely rates as one of the biggest paydays of Cannon's career, if not his wife's. And that figure would make their photos even pricier than the baby pictures of Nicole Richie and Christina Aguilera, though only half as valuable as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's baby shots of Shiloh. Does Mariah still move that many magazines?

Everybody listen: Scarlett Johansson is saying stuff. About men. Heroic men! Iconic men! Men she would like to honor! The blonde actress, who insists on putting out an unwanted record, reveals the five guys she considers her "dads": Woody Allen, Bill Murray, Tom Waits, Barack Obama, and Bob Dylan. Suck it, actual dad! While a waggish type might be tempted to point out that none of these "dads" saved her from looking like an alien albino on the cover of Paste, a wiser person would examine her dad choices and ponder the question: Aren't these just a bunch of random old guys that probably don't even know her that well?

Hannah Montana, the kids' show starring exploited teenager (or, alternately, picture-posing strumpet) Miley Cyrus, ran its first new episode in two months last Sunday. And the ratings were down 24%! Could this be the end for our hero—done in by Annie Leibovitz, Vanity Fair, and a child-unfriendly wave of bad publicity?

Steve Jobs has finally wooed all the major studios, including Fox, Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount and Universal, to sell movie downloads on the day DVDs are released. On Friday, you'll be able to wait a while as American Gangster downloads over your crappy American broadband connection for $14.99. And it will be delivered in lower quality than standard DVDs, without any of those annoying extra features. But it will have Apple's DRM installed with every copy! What finally brought Hollywood to the table?

A New York Times reporter who quite obviously was just poking around on YouTube in desperate search of a workable story came up with this: there are racist cartoons on there! Old, racist cartoons. Anyone who grew up in the good old days (the 80s) surely remembers when the racist Bugs Bunny episodes from the early part of the century used to sneak into the Looney Tunes broadcasts and you were too young to know the difference. So in that sense, this cobbled-together story is a good reminder that your favorite cartoon characters and their owners were all a public bunch of horrible, horrible racists not too long ago. Below, the clip of "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs," that should really have Warner Bros. donating millions to the Rainbow Coalition at this very moment:

"The appearance of Jason Segel's genitalia in the romcom Forgetting Sarah Marshall had American critics crowing about how the film has courageously broken one of the last taboos in mainstream cinema. Yet Segel's flaccid member looks pathetic and laughable, especially because it's attached to a body that is doughy and pallid. It can't seriously be accused of being capable of anything, let alone of breaking a taboo. So obviously devoid of sexual intent, it symbolises not so much his character's abject emotional condition at his girlfriend's rejection of him, but the sorry state of masculinity in American movies today." The Times of London's Christopher Goodwin goes on to piss and moan about how actors such as Seth Rogen, Michael Cera and Jonah Hill have replaced the manly men of yore-and conveniently dodges a crucial and trend-piece-killing point.

It seems like only yesterday that Gene Hackman was making film magic in The Royal Tenenbaums. But apparently it was a seriously long time ago. In fact, he old thespian hasn't been in a movie so long that he's decided to hang it up altogether. According to a report, he's "quit acting for good, insisting he is too old to land appealing roles. The 78-year-old actor hasn't starred in a film since 2004 comedy Welcome to Mooseport, and although he has never announced his retirement-he couldn't bring himself to return to Hollywood and play 'grandfathers'. Hackman says, 'I guess you could call it retired. I haven't worked for four years now. And I don't miss the business. I miss the process of being on-set with actors when things get cooking. But there's so much crapola in order to get there. It's just too painful." More sad news, plus a classic Hackman moment, after the jump.

First of all, it's just great that the New York Times has a headline today that reads "Zombie Strippers." It has to, cause that's the name of a new movie. But it would be great under any circumstances. The Times' stuffy assessment is that pretty much everyone "can sit this one out." But would they be saying that if they were facing down Zombie Jenna Jameson who was intent on eating their face? These are the questions that "ivory tower" journalists don't like to think about. The trailer for this thrill ride of a lifetime is below—it looks like it could be good! No it doesn't.

Famous Paris Hilton impersonator Natalie Reid is getting so popular these days that paid publicists are spontaneously sending out emails celebrating her overwhelming popularity. Along with photos generously marked "for public display," such as the one pictured! We received this bit of fan mail from Jim Strzalkowski of Xtra Public Relations: "Wow! Natalie Reid was all glammed up on the set of the Wayans Brothers' 'Snowflake.' Natalie was beside herself as she was bestowed the superstar treatment on the set. She had her own trailer, a stand-in and even fans asking her for her autograph" Fans you say, Jim? INCREDIBLE. But what did she tell her close friend?

Cash money, not equity, is what powers the entertainment industry. Especially when it comes to talent. In a possibly apocryphal but illustrative anecdote, legendary bluesman Albert King reportedly refused to leave the stage until he had cash in hand from the concert promoter, presumably because he'd been cheated out of so many deals in the past. Studio accounting has an only slightly better reputation than that of the music industry when it comes to being, ahem, creative. Hence it's no surprise that when negotiating venture funding for Funny Or Die, Will Ferrell reportedly wanted to know what his upfront payout would be, according to Sequoia Capital's Mark Kvamme in comments to the New York Times. Which is one reason why private equity efforts to fund traditional film and television production have yet to pan out. Better to get your money upfront and walk away in case the project is a disaster. So how is Valley money changing Hollywood business models?

Mark Zuckerberg dodged a bullet. His mug got featured on TMZ next to a picture of his secret mistress, and luckily she happened to be his actual girlfriend. Michael Arrington kicks Valleywag out of a party, giving our party report far more attention than it probably deserved. And Robert Scoble strikes a Roman Polanski-esque pose with an underage tech-starlet in his lap. As a captain of online industry, a hack covering the beat and a publicity-hungry B-lister, all three share one thing in common — they want the good stuff that comes with being public figures (free publicity, adoring fans, access to wealth) without the bad (salacious press, limited privacy and expensive hangers-on). The world, of course, doesn't work that way. So here's eight tips from the entertainment industry that might help them navigate the nascent perils of Internet fame.

Sure, I might have spotted an atypically incognito Jeremy Piven, who panders to Hollywood agent stereotypes as Ari Gold on Entourage, hopping into his Land Rover on Sunset and Vine. I might have seen the paps hounding prettyboy Apple pitchman Justin Long walking past the Belmont on La Cienega with his arm around Drew Barrymore. But getting kidnapped after brunch at Toast for an afternoon of browsing boutiques on Third Street in West Hollywood with successful online entrepreneur Patricia Handschiegel as she did her rounds for StyleDiary was when I was finally seduced, if just a bit. Here we model frilly bras at Polkadots and Moonbeams. I think the pink really compliments my sun-kissed complexion, don't you?

LOS ANGELES — I'm the first to admit that I wanted to see the Web kill Hollywood. It just ain't happening. It's finally dawned on the studios that you can now pay artists even less to produce content, and pay YouTube absolutely nothing to distribute it. The problem is you have to sell your own ads — but the studios and networks, unlike indie content creators and Valley startups, have armies of ad sales people still at their command. And it's still a hits-based business. So while it's great to have all the creative freedom in the world, you're still going to have to wait tables and get coffee for producers while working, unpaid, on your own projects and pray to the ghost of Mae West that something ends up with mass appeal. What does success look like in the wake of the online video revolution?

Who among us could not be a changed person after seeing the 1991 beach-based thriller Point Break? Patrick Swayze as the surf gang leader Bodhi; Gary Busey as the world-weary cop Pappas; and Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah, trying to do whatever he imagined an actor's job to be. The movie became an instant classic, of a sort, in 1991. It took 12 more years before the inevitable stage version of the show, "Point Break LIVE!," hit theatergoers like a surfboard to the face. And that show—in which an audience member is selected to play Johnny Utah each night, and "reads their entire script off cue cards in order to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance"—has put in five long years on stage before being awarded its own official day in a formal proclamation by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom. As the immortal Bodhi said, "Goddamn! You are one radical son of a bitch [MAYOR NEWSOM]!" They should make it TWO days:

Elisabeth Murdoch—the daughter of News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch, owner of all currently operating media outlets—has a personal story that Horatio Alger would appreciate. Sure, today she's the CEO of her own production company. But she started with nothing. Absolutely nothing. Elisabeth Murdoch was once a lowly, unappreciated "broke acquisitions executive" on the bottom rung of the ladder, according to Elisabeth Murdoch. In a recent speech to a crowd of other wealthy entertainment executives [Hollywood Reporter], she delivered a tale of woe and triumph that will serve as an inspiration to people who, like Murdoch, had to work their way up with pure grit:

Remember that delightful multicultural collegiate duo Harold & Kumar, whom we last saw being forever thwarted on their Sisyphean journey to procure White Castle burgers? Well they're back, the scamps, and this time they're trying to escape from Guantanamo Bay! You wouldn't be able to tell from this just-released trailer, though, since it features their interactions with a cyclops, rather than with the US military. Ah well, we're sure that it fits into the plot in a way we can scarcely imagine. If you so choose, you can watch the clip [via OhNoTheyDidnt] after the jump.

George Clooney has jokes. His latest celebrity-based antics: a swarm of paparazzi descended upon his house in Italy after a (false) rumor spread that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were going to be getting married there. Clooney, who was away working, heard about this, and ordered 15 large wedding tables to be set up on the house's lawn. The paps went crazy [Hollyscoop]! Clooney laughed. He's a funny guy. But there's more to this than just a friendly joke. Because George Clooney, one of the biggest celebrities in the world, doesn't just want to make himself chuckle; he wants to undermine the entire celebrity economy that gives him his lofty position in the first place.

Let's face a hard truth: most movies that started out as video games end up sucking pretty bad. Sure, some of them make plenty of money, but are you really able to suspend your critical faculties long enough to enjoy them without gagging a little bit on the forced synergy? Well now, a company called Radar Group is planning to develop "storyverses," which are ideas that can simultaneously spawn video games, movies, and other content. First up: a movie spinoff of the game "Max Payne," starring Mark Wahlberg as a rogue cop. Future ideas: an environmental disaster story, an alien invasion story, and "a horror story in which evil must be hunted down and imprisoned." Will they suck less than previous game/ movie efforts? Well, they're from the "Storyverse," so of course. Everything is different now! [Portfolio; image via Vayacine]