Later today, angel-faced actor Matt Damon, his knees still lightly bruised from his humble reception of the gift of Grauman's immortality, will receive a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, an honor in no way connected to the imminent opening of The Bourne Ultimatum, in theaters August 3rd.

· Typical: Ben's the one running around in the stupid corn costume, but Matt's the one getting all the press.
· Lindsay Lohan's recent streak of trouble calls to mind the heyday of one of Hollywood's most accomplished fuck-ups.
· Just because we feel like Paris Hilton's been a little starved for attention today, here you go.
· Popular Mechanics looks at how close science is to replicating some of Harry Potter's favorite magical toys.
· Here's a list of the six trippiest scenes culled from The Simpsons' long, proud tradition of drug humor. The Guatemalan Insanity Peppers clip is a fine choice for #1.

After almost ten years of creative paralysis brought on by wondering when the Academy repo men would arrive to snatch the Good Will Hunting Best Original Screenplay Oscar from his mantel as punishment for every career-sabotaging choice he's made since 2002, Ben Affleck has decided to stop living in fear and take proactive steps towards winning a second one, phoning partner/lifelong BFF Matt Damon and inviting him on a creative retreat in Hawaii. Reports Us Weekly in their new Procrastinating Screenwriters, They're Just Like Us! feature:

In the discussion of the potential work stoppage waiting to cripple Hollywood upon the rapidly approaching expiration of several union contracts, it's all too easy to become consumed with talk of multiplatform residuals, de facto strikes, and script stockpiling, impersonal matters that distract from the human cost of the looming labor Armageddon. A piece in today's NY Times on the strike-induced scheduling crush affecting the industry's most coveted talent finally puts a face—a stubbornly still-cherubic, relatable, and franchise-supporting face—on the issues:

· HBO and Tom Hanks' Playtone are close to a deal to adapt the Vincent Bugliosi book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy into a miniseries that would finally pay some attention to the allegedly shadowy circumstances surrounding the too-long-ignored event of JFK's untimely death. [Variety]
· John McTiernan will direct the "Las Vegas action thriller" High Stakes. The director's impressive list of credits include Die Hard, The Last Action Hero, and lying to the FBI about his involvement with wiretapper-to-the-stars Anthony Pellicano. [THR]
· Bourne franchise BFFs Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are close to reigniting their professional love affair with an adaptation of the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City for Universal. [Variety]
· Newly installed NBC Universal TV Studio president Katherine Pope celebrates her promotion by dumping a huge pile of money in Heroes creator/executive producer Tim Kring's lap. [THR]
·And in other "showrunners getting filthy rich" news, Scrubs' Bill Lawrence (pictured, looking stunned by his staggering wealth) signs an eight-figure, four-year overall deal with ABC Studios, who bought him out of his NUTS contract. [Variety]

· Can't three Hollywood buddies pose for some photos on their knees without people taking cheap shots at the nature of their friendship anymore?
· That's right, ladies: Larry David is back on the market. And as for the guys, Laurie David's got to be worth at least $100 million (assuming Larry didn't have her sign a Massey prenup), so bone up on your environmentally savvy pick-up lines (the one about checking out the back seat of your Prius is a classic) and get to work.
· E! Online details the hidden dangers of your innocent searches for photos of Britney Spears' vagina.
· Though he finds Judd Apatow cuddly, Peter Bart isn't buying the Knocked Up hype. Is the cantankerous Var chief's heart made of stone?

· Paramount will enable the on-screen reunion of The Departed's Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon, who will star as pugilism-loving, Massachusetts-native half-brothers Micky and Dicky Ward in the boxing drama The Fighter (if they like the script), though it's unclear from the story which actor will be the "Rocky-like" boxing champion and which the "boxer-turned-trainer who rebounded in life after nearly being KO'd by drugs and crime." [Variety]
· VH1 and BET are jointly developing the hip-hop drama series Wifey; if picked up, the show would air at the same time on both networks through its first season in an attempt at "broadening the audience," an unusual arrangement transparently aimed at sparing white viewers the inconvenience of having to find BET on their cable channel guides. [THR]
· Jennifer Hudson's not the only discarded Idol contestant to shake off the public humiliation of rejection and do something with her life. [Variety]
· American Idol and House win Tuesday for Fox. Sure, we could just copy and paste that blurb in every Tuesday trade round-up item for the remainder of the television season, but we prefer to marvel anew each week at Idol's ritualistic Nielsen humiliation of its doomed competition. [THR]
· Michael Bay screens footage of Transformers in NY for attendees of a toy conference, noting to an impressed crowd that the movie's plot was derived entirely from the copy on the back of the original toys' packaging, and even going so far as to explain that Bumblee's dramatic arc was constructed to demonstrate a character of 8 Intelligence and 10 Courage. [Variety]

· If you can do your best to ignore TMZ's 101 Thinly Veiled Homophobic Adjectives (yes, we get it—he's gay), there are just so many things both simultaneously right and wrong with this chance encounter between Richard Simmons and a jolly green paparazzi giant, we simply had to share.
· Shmuel Tennenhaus, everyone's favorite tribe member and YouTube talking head activist, is calling for an all-out boycott of the next season of The Apprentice. You know what, Shmuel? We're with you! Unless it happens to be on and we're home and bored.
· Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's 1-year-old daughter, Violet, has been baptized. At the behest of the parents, it took place in a custom made, giant Starbucks to go cup.
· James Brown will be laid out on the stage of the Apollo from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday for fans to pay their last respects. We're going to go out on a limb and rechristen the day after that James Brown Laid Out on the Apollo Stage YouTube Nirvana.
· The script might read "...and he's quiet," but when it's Matt Damon in the role, you know that quiet is going to be a dreamy, thinking man's quiet.
· Are we happy there's a blog devoted entirely to Squid? Why, yes. Yes we are.

• A man who played a KGB agent in The Good Shepard claims that co-star Matt Damon's genius idea of coming up with a code he could mutter if things got too rough saved his life. Gaygaygay. [USWeekly]
  

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so start sending them in more often! Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time Tony Danza demonstrated the classy way to be a shitfaced celebrity at a Malibu bar.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie managed to leave the Compound That Love Built™ last night, secure that Maddox, Zahara and the Chosen One were being well supervised in their nursery, amusing themselves to no end with the various hand-carved, African farming implements they've been provided with in place of more traditional, "Western" toys. The occasion was Scott Caan's 30th birthday at a Hollywood art gallery, a star-studded event also attended by his Oceans 13 co-star Matt Damon, with nuclear-family-elements in tow. But things quickly grew awkward when, upon Jolie's arrival, she was informed that Jon Voight, the father to whom she hasn't spoken in years, was inside:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers. Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you became spontaneously aroused at the sight of Hilary Swank in head-to-toe Lycra.

The Walk of Fame committee offered a sneak preview of which famous names will get their own star on Hollywood Blvd. in the coming year, later to be urinated upon countless times by drunk and/or homeless well-wishers. Here's the list:

Having turned out a handsome, if not record-shattering, third chapter to Paramount's Mission: Impossible series, J.J. Abrams has now been entrusted to reinvigorate one of the studio's most enduring franchises: Star Trek. the Insider's Marc Malkin reports that for his prequel vision, Abrams wants none other than Matt Damon to step in as a youthful, pre-toupeed Captain Kirk:

Is there no limit to God's glorious bounty in this, the high era of celebrity reproductiveness? Matt Damon and wife Luciana Bozan have become the proud parents of a baby daughter (having a boy at this point would seem almost unthinkably passe), born yesterday and named Isabella. Says Damon's publicist Jennifer Allen: "Mother and baby — everyone — is wonderful, fine." Within minutes of receiving word of the happy news, homemaker/former movie star Ben Affleck was on the phone with hearty good wishes, as well as a generous offer to make himself available for any questions or problems that may arise in the coming months. Damon soon found that he had to awkwardly remove himself from the conversation, however, once Affleck starting going all new-parent-geek on him, droning on about the exciting new advances in breast-pump technology, and a website that lets you customize your own Baby Björns, "down to the color of the stitching, man!"

· Tom Freston unveils the new Viacom for investors, which will adhere to a "two-pronged approach" of domestic niches and international expansion. Other prongs left unmentioned: fucking CBS Corp. employees out of everything they can, and laying off enough of their own Paramount workforce to start a studio of their own. [Variety]
· The always resourceful Universal finds a way to turn Curious George into a simian whore, placing products throughout the incorrigible monkey's animated movie. [THR]
· Six Oscar nominations (and a clever in-store display that hisses racial epithets at nearby shoppers) trick unwitting consumers into a Crash DVD purchase, causing video sales of the movie to jump 150%. The Constant Gardener and Cinderella Man DVDs also received boosts from Academy Awards nods. [Variety]
· Director Catherine Hardwicke is in negotiations to direct a movie about the life of the Virgin Mary before the birth of Christ for New Line. Please, God, let them skip the interactive sex games for this one. [THR]
· Affleck's career gets temporary stay of execution: Ben Affleck is finally successful in begging movie-star buddy Matt Damon to do another movie with him, as Touchstone makes a deal for a film starring the pair as real-life lawyers who exonerated a death row inmate. [Variety]

By all means, shed a tear for the ending of another celebrity relationship: that of cyclebot Lance Armstrong and his sun-soaked dittybird, Sheryl Crow. But life goes on, as do biopics, and the feature based on Armstrong's autobiography "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life" is no exception. Matt Damon is cast as Armstrong, and veteran producer and director Frank Marshall is at the helm, with footage already in the can of the actual athlete soaring past the finish line at the last Tour de France for a real-life happy ending. But Marshall wants everyone to know that this Lance-authorized and monitored production will not be a breezy, downhill, sightseeing affair:

· Brittany Murphy finds a less controversial way to get her name into the rags: By getting engaged.
· Citing the always-reliable foreign-language translations of an actor's fansite, The Scoop circuitously notes that Matt Damon and the new wifey might be having a girl.
· Emma Thompson proves that she's just a down-to-earth gal by humbly storing those terribly embarrassing Oscars in her bathroom.
· The Gilded Moose turns up for Elvira's garage sale, discovers overpriced, tackily airbrushed denim.

Many things, it seems, went wrong with The Brothers Grimm, one of 2005's more resounding box office bombs. Big-budget movie production is a delicate, interconnected affair, so who's to say that an error in producer Harvey Weinstein's fuckability calculus, which led to casting little-known actress Lena Headley instead of an Oscar-nominated treasure, didn't contribute to its failure? From The Scoop: