Oh, Wes Anderson! It looked as though you squandered your immense talent with a spate of insufferably quirky, predictable, awkward young man flicks. Could a stop-motion kids' film bring you out of your self-parodying slump?

Lilo stole the formula for her spray-tan product and passed on a starring role in The Hangover, Britney Spears visits the Eiffel Tower, Mischa Barton's wisdom teeth are making her bloated and Megan Fox steps out in an Armani dress.

Meryl Streep celebrates her 60th birthday today. Cyndi Lauper is turning 56. Rob Wiesenthal, Sony's No. 2 exec, is 43. Legendary M&A attorney Marty Lipton is turning 78. Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for NYC, is 63. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California turns 76. Carson Daly is turning 36. Author Dan Brown is 45. Tracy Pollan, the actress and wife of Michael J. Fox, is turning 49. Actress Amy Brenneman is 45. TV personality Jai Rodriguez turns 30. Erin Brockovich is 49. Donald Faison of Scrubs is 35. Kurt Warner, the former Giants quarterback, is turning 38. Singer and drag queen Kevin Aviance is 41. And Lindsay Wagner of Bionic Woman fame is 60 today.

James Gandolfini walking around the West Village ... Jessica Biel carrying a Theory shopping bag downtown ... Anderson Cooper leaving a taping of Live With Regis And Kelly at ABC studios ... Isabella Rossellini walking in Soho ... New Jersey "Housewife" Danielle Staub arriving at Fox Studios ... Blake Lively and Penn Badgley going to dinner at Five Points with Alexis Bledel and Amber Tamblyn ... David Blaine and fiancé Alizee Guinochet shopping for furniture ... Meryl Streep filming scenes for her new movie in midtown ... Joel Schumacher walking in the Village ... Matthew Broderick riding a scooter in the West Village with son James ... Mandy Moore leaving a party for her new album ... Claire Danes walking in Soho ... Nicole Kidman shooting scenes for Rabbit Hole in Queens ... and Paris Hilton leaving her hotel.

Sarah Jessica Parker's surrogate is blessed with bisexual rocker-dom; Lindsay Lohan's sister has been baptized into mega-decauchery; and Mel Gibson's family will be born into sin.

• Eliot and Silda Spitzer made their first public appearance together last night. The couple turned up at the Waldorf for the eighth annual Children's Benefit Gala and were spotted holding hands and making "lovey-dovey looks at each other." Unconditional love is a beautiful thing. [NYDN]
• The stress over the Kiefer Sutherland/Jack McCollough incident must be getting to Brooke Shields: She was spotted looking "upset, overwhelmed and stressed" at the Innocence Project gala on Wednesday night. On a related note, the desk appearance ticket Kiefer received yesterday means he will be a free man until he shows up in court on June 21. [NYDN, NYP]
• Lindsay Lohan's 15-year-old sister Ali has reportedly dropped out of high school so she can party full-time with her big sister. Good work, Dina. [P6]
• Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are expecting girls when their surrogate gives birth in a few weeks. [OK!]

Meryl gets recognition, yet again. Stephen Dorff! Remember him? Yeah, me too. And I sat through all of S.F.W. Plus news of good people that I like.

Michelle Williams and Spike Jonze taking a walk in Brooklyn ... Justin Timberlake playing basketball on a public court downtown ... Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky sitting courtside at a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden ... Julia Roberts leaving her hotel in Midtown ... Helena Christensen walking in the Village ... Beyonce shooting a video in Tribeca ... Meryl Streep reading the Times on the set of her new movie in Brooklyn ... Madonna and Jesus Luz leaving the Kabbalah Center ... Ru Paul walking in the meatpacking district ... Ice-T and Coco leaving a show at Caroline's in Times Square ... Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard arriving at the Classic Stage Company on East 13th Street ... Nelly leaving the Trump International Hotel ... Tim Robbins playing hockey in the Village ... Kiefer Sutherland leaving Kingswood in the West Village with his girlfriend, Siobhan Bonnouvrier ... Naomi Watts carrying her new baby in the meatpacking district ... and Tyra Banks leaving the Waverly Inn.

• Angelina Jolie was seen apartment hunting in Washington Heights. This comes weeks after Angie and Brad signed the lease on a $100,000-a-month home on Long Island. [Us, NYP]
• Michael Phelps has been hanging out at strip clubs, since it's the only place he can go without having his photo being taken. Good thinking. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan showed up to a party at Southern Hospitality on Sunday so she could hang out with Chace Crawford. But then he ditched her and she spent the rest of the night "glued" to model May Andersen. [OK!, P6]
• Sarah Jessica Parker says the next Sex and the City movie will have to be more recession-friendly. You think? [Us]

• Is Jennifer Aniston planning to steal the spotlight away from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the Oscars by showing up to the ceremony with John Mayer and with a ring on her finger? Maybe! [Star]
• Alex Rodriguez either spent last weekend hanging out with Madonna at Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld's East Hampton mansion, or he spent it partying with Bill Clinton and Spike Lee in the Bahamas, depending on what you read. [P6, NYDN]
• Lindsay Lohan's rep says LiLo can't be anorexic since she "ate two full meals" during a recent photo shoot. It's settled! [P6]
• Gwyneth Paltrow's mom says 800 people have already joined her daughter's Tribeca gym, which hasn't even been finished yet. [NYDN]

Why was Kate Winslet—so likable usually—all wheezy and deeply humbled and annoying as she accepted her Screen Actors Guild award last night? Because that's how actresses and actors (especially black ones) audition for Academy Awards.

Whoopi Goldberg served as emcee at the National Board of Review's annual awards ceremony at Cipriani 42nd Street on Wednesday night. Attendees at the Bulgari-sponsored event included Alec Baldwin, Meryl Streep, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber (left), Clint and Dina Eastwood, Ed Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Salma Hayek, Anne Hathaway, Julian Schnabel, Diane Lane and Josh Brolin, Sir Howard Stringer, John Patrick Shanley, Eva Amurri, Tim Robbins, Joy and Regis Philbin, Meredith Vieira, Heather Graham, Amy Adams, Debbie Bancroft, Veronica Webb, Bethenny Frankel, CNN's Alina Cho, Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel, director Danny Boyle, along with a smattering of Bulgaris, including Ilaria, Veronica, Nicola, Natalia, and Beatrice. [PMc, Wireimage, The Daily]

There are few people in this world brave enough to rebuff an insistent, role-seeking Oprah Winfrey, but Doubt director John Patrick Shanley is one of them. He had his certainty!

We're not really sure why this is happening (other than these people being weird), but Mamma Mia! is huuuge in the UK. Like, top-grossing film of all time. Beats Titanic, even.

Meryl Streep and Amy Adams crashed The View today to court a bit of opening-day goodwill for their new film Doubt. Oscar support would be lovely, too, but, you know, only if you want to.

Now that Meryl Streep's career renaissance has been buffeted by a pair of blockbuster chick flicks, the actress has begun feeling her oats, readying Hollywood for a new reign of Meryl (all agents are required to learn at least two foreign accents) and punishing the dissenters. In a new LAT profile, the actress mocks both Universal ("The smart guys banked on Hellboy to carry them throughout the year. The Mamma Mia! wagon is pulling all those movies that didn't have any problem getting made") and Fox head Tom Rothman, whose nasal voice Streep nails. Still, the empowered star's boldest move is perhaps her most terrifying, as Female First reveals:

Just when we thought nothing much had changed in the narcoleptic parallel universe of SAG contract negotiations, we're hearing now that the union's saber-rattlers are finally bringing the heavy weaponry to bear on their studio nemeses: A recent dinner hosting Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Warren Beatty and other influential legends reportedly gave the blessing for a crippling actor's strike. (UPDATE: Not at this meeting, anyway — Sharon Waxman has retracted her original story. More after the jump.)A more formal strike authorization will be sought from SAG's 120,000 members in the weeks ahead, but as Sharon Waxman hinted late Monday, when Hollywood royalty gathers secretly to help drop-kick the industry into another winter of chaos, what's really left to vote on?

· Showtime and Stan Lee are indeed developing a drama about the life of a gay superhero, as Hero author Perry Moore hinted back in May. And he just happens to be gay, OK? He's not, like, Poppers Boy or Wonder Trannie. [Variety] · Michael Moore is shifting the scope of his next movie from foreign affairs to the U.S. economy, allowing him to return to the struggling backroads of Roger & Me's Flint, where he's shocked to find the "Rabbits: Pets or Meat" lady has expanded her roadside stand into HARECO—the world's largest bunny-distributing conglomerate. [THR] · Meryl Streep will star in a movie based on Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World. Finally! A cat movie from grownups! [Variety] After the jump: Which new dad is going to wish they never even heard the name David O. Russell in a matter of months?· ABC won the night with the Three Hours of Country Music Industry Auto-Fellation You'll Never Get Back Again Awards. [Variety] · Matthew McConaughey's life is about to be made a living hell by director David O. Russell in The Grackle, about a "barroom fighter in New Orleans who hires himself out for $250 to settle disputes." He then dispatches a couple of walleyed Malibu surfers to beat the shit out of the warring parties. [Variety]

Doubt to Open AFI Fest: The Oscar-bait shuffle that is AFI Fest's opening night settled down late Thursday when organizers announced Doubt as its Oct. 30 replacement for The Soloist. It will be the Meryl Streep/Philip Seymour Hoffman drama's world premiere following a quiet test screening this summer and a private screening last night for its original Broadway cast and select press. Among them evidently was Tom O'Neil, to whom Scott Rudin expressed nervousness about sharing Doubt on the AFI stage still relatively early in Oscar season (the film opens small Dec. 12). And really, with one horse already down and only one other left in the race after this, can you blame him? OK, fine — so can we. Zip it, Rudin. [Gold Derby]

More confirmation that reality TV's latest star, Stylista's Anne Slowey, is not really the queen of mean she plays on camera: The Transom meets her at the show's premiere and reports that she's "nothing like the icy, stern fashion editor mimicking Meryl Streep mimicking Anna Wintour whom we saw in the previews for the show." And contestant William Buckley reveals: "Anne can party, can party harder than anyone. Trust me, I've seen it. She can drink me under the table." [NYO]