The Observer declared occasionally nutty but totally must-read WGA strike chronicler and studio nemesis Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke their "media mensch of the year." ALSO they found an ultra-rare kinda recent photo of her! Finke, who used to be the Observer's West Coast editor, is unapologetically on the side of the striking writers, though she has well-placed sources on both sides of the fight. Also this strike will never ever end, so we get to read a million passionate words from her about the bullshit-spewing hordes of soulless corporate ninnies at the AMPTP every day until the end of time, currently scheduled for January '09. [NYO]

That writer's strike is settling in for the long haul: "As for the writers strike, the Bagger was at an industry dinner last night and a longtime Hollywood producer said that cooler heads are in no danger of prevailing." [Carpetbagger]

Now that they're on strike, it seems like screenwriters are busier and more productive than ever. But left to their own devices, it turns out that they are a distinctly unfunny bunch. Put a bunch of 'em in a room and eventually they'll write Six Feet Under, but in the end they're just monkeys—monkeys writing for the LA Times and New York mag and making their own blogs and getting all up on the HuffPo. Here's our Striking Screenwriter Roundup—clearly the work of simians. All they can think about is food!

Lots of fun and crazy items of interest in Bryan Burrough's December Vanity Fair piece about the ongoing nastiness between Viacom and CBS billionaire Sumner Redstone and his Paramount-owned studio Dreamworks SKG. 82-year-old Redstone, not exactly known for his soothing managerial style (although at least just yesterday he sorta reconciled with his estranged daughter), acquired the "Shrek" studio four years ago. Much to his irritation, we're sure, David Geffen came with the place. The two have been thorns in each other's sides ever since. Here's our bullet-pointed breakdown!

Hollywood and the videogame industry have long engaged in a war for consumer attention span (and dollars), but movie analysts are now using the game phenom Halo 3 as a scapegoat for poor box office performance. Ben Stiller's new comedy, The Heartbreak Kid, snagged a mere $14 million opening weekend, half of what was expected.. Total movie-ticket sales for Halo's opening weekend took a 27 percent nosedive compared to last year. Conversely, Halo 3 broke all sorts of sales records with its $300 million week. Analysts blame youth's obsession with games for the lack of moviegoing. Really? It has nothing to do with the Heartbreak Kid's rotten reviews and the generally poor quality of films opening that weekend?

Some tool is offering a Jeremy Blake-Theresa Duncan movie script for sale—was it a double suicide or a murder, blah blah. They have a website! They want $1.5 mil. Ha! It's the most retarded thing we've seen on the internet since those animated gifs of cross-eyed kittens eating tacos! [Fisbhowlla]

Today's Page Six wonders: "WHICH Hollywood trio of friends is in trouble? One is on crack, one's on smack, and the other cheats so much on his wife that he single-handedly is supporting several hookers..." We've narrowed it down to a few possible candidates; your input is, of course, mandatory.

The film crew for "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People" has been terrorizing New York this week. Last night, they shot what people were told were the final scenes of the movie adaptation of exiled former Vanity Fair journo Toby Young's book. Is it a spoiler if, you know, the film's based on a book? Sort of?

You know how to tell when you've been working in celebrity journalism too long? When your first impulse after getting fired is to run and hire Marty Singer as your counsel—and today's Page Six suggests that fired TMZ TV producer Bryn Friedman is talking to good old Marty about her potential employment litigation.

Today Page Six ran two blind items, the first of which was so obvious that if you don't get it then, really, we feel sorry for you. But the second one left us scratching our heads! It said: "WHICH too-good-to-be-real Hollywood leading man and his hard-bodied wife deserve Oscars for their portrayal of a perfect marriage? They both have secret lives with members of the same sex." Hmm! Options were proposed and summarily dismissed for various reasons, until finally we came up with a list of suitable candidates. Guesses, in the form of a poll, after the jump; feel free to leave additional options, as always, in the comments.

We hear that Hollywood reporter Sharon Waxman, who's been based in Los Angeles for years (before her stint at the Times, she wrote for the Washington Post from the West Coast), will definitely be joining Joe "Private Dancer" Sexton's Metro desk when her book leave is over later this year. (Until now, Sexton had not committed to taking her on.) We've heard (from a single source) that Waxman will be on the religion beat. Her current editor, Culture honcho Sam Sifton, said he wouldn't comment on personnel matters, to us "or to anyone else." Waxman responded via email from Cairo, where she is doing research on her book: "I have no comment because Gawker has not shown itself to function by accepted journalistic rules."

Asra Nomani, the former Wall Street Journal reporter who's the "supporting character" in "A Mighty Heart," the Angelina Jolie film about journalists Danny and Marianne Pearl and Danny's murder in Pakistan, helped out on making the picture true to life. She made sure the cast even got the right notebooks that she and Danny used. But when she saw the glittery press photos out of the film's premiere at Cannes, she had a "duh" moment. The marketing, the PR, the celebrities: All of it was absolutely the antithesis of Danny, she realized. The studio publicists brought a screener of the film to her house in West Virginia: the on-screen Danny just looked so flat. So in an email to a producer of the film early this month, Nomani wrote: "I'm not going to be attending the premiere because, upon reflection, I just don't believe in the movie and the mythology of its marketing and PR campaign."

Radar's begun a new anonymously-penned series exposing Hollywood as a land filled of shallow, greedy narcissists who hate America. It's "Sex and the Entourage." Speaking of!

NICK DOUGLAS — While dust gathers on our old VHS copies of Pirates of Silicon Valley (for us, Noah Wyle's career hit its high point with his role as Steve Jobs), it's time to cast the sequel. Starring the Daily Show's Demetri Martin as Digg founder Kevin Rose, Jason Bateman as Diggnation co-host Alex Albrecht and Rush Limbaugh as John C. Dvorak, the show also includes stars playing Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Merlin Mann, and Google's Marissa Mayer.

"He's Top Gun again."

In case you haven't seen the promotional interviews yet ("Actor David Ellison is no stranger to flying"), the 23-year-old son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison stars in the period flick Flyboys, an indie film partially funded by Larry and wife Melanie Craft.

Robert Evans sucks.

This in the NYP:

Snakes on a Plane, the summer flick destined to be the most ironic box-office hit in history, has sunk its fangs deep into Silicon Valley.

The Mercury News chimes in on that up-and-coming idea: "Silicon Valley is taking over Hollywood." Nevermind, for the moment, that it isn't. Pay attention to this excerpt, 'cause there's a quiz after.