There's something quaintly old school about Hollywood PR fluff machine Entertainment Tonight, whose "reporters" accept every word that tumbles from the mouths of their A-list fixations as celebrity gospel. They recently sent Jann Carl (cloned, we think, off a sample taken from Mary Hart's right ankle) to interview Tom Cruise about Mission: Impossible 3. The result was yet another Cruise-controlled conversation about the diminutive daredevil's fearless stunt work ("You prepare and you prepare, and even if things go wrong, you prepare so that it won't go that wrong. But I do feel the adrenaline!") But it was a bonus video with a nervous-seeming M:i:III director J.J. Abrams, made available on the ET website, that revealed perhaps a more candid glimpse at what's involved in directing a Tom Cruise vehicle. A partial transcript:

Today's LAT reports that New New Paramount™ chief Brad Grey, still twitching from the acquisitive rush of the studio's DreamWorks buy, is trying to add Lost producer/MI:III (hey, that's really fun to type!) director/current Hollywood It-boy JJ Abrams to his hoard: