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Here's the short, possibly oversimplified version: After Paramount Classics agreed to a "handshake deal" to buy Thank You for Smoking at the Toronto film festival, the movie's producer, a dot-com billionaire allegedly ignorant of The Way Things Are Done in Hollywood, then turned around and made an "actual deal" to sell it to Fox Searchlight. Paramount Classics, it should be noted, is less than pleased with this outcome, and wackiness ensues. Sayeth the LAT:

"There's no moral high ground where money is involved," said Mark Urman of independent distributor ThinkFilm. "The fact is the door was still open. If someone was continuing to talk, then the deal wasn't done. There's an etiquette and rules, but that's only for British gentlemen. In Hollywood, there are no rules." [...]

When asked if she and [producer David] Sacks had spoken about the dispute, [Paramount Classics co-pres Ruth] Vitale said they did and all Sacks could do was "stutter." She said she got the same response from veteran William Morris sales agent Cassian Elwes, who was representing the film at the festival. Sacks said in a statement: "I want to be clear that only one studio, Fox Searchlight, bought the movie. Although we had negotiations with Paramount Classics, no deal was ever concluded."

Elwes, who could not be reached for comment, is reportedly trying to work out a deal between Fox and Paramount to settle the issue before it ends up in court.

Asked if legal action is possibility, Vitale didn't rule it out, adding, "I hope not."

Urman seems to think that Vitale doesn't have a leg to stand on.

"Where are they going to go?" he asks. "The handshake court? About the only thing Ruth Vitale can do is stick pins in a Cassian Elwes doll. At the end of the day they'll work something out."

Thus a new and brilliant Hollywood catchphrase is born. All over town, tentative deals will fall apart with a shrug and the blithe retort, "What are you gonna do, take me to handshake court?" And for aborted deals a little further along in the negotiating process, there will be the threat of an appeal to the higher-circuit "blowjob court."