Until this week, it was taken as gospel that everything touched by peripatetic partners Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt would turn to gold; in fact, newsstand operators were ordered to wear sunglasses when the two released pictures of their Chosen Twins to People, so bright was the babies' gilded glow. Sadly, it looks like the exclusive that People paid so heavily for has resulted in a newsstand baby bump that was significantly less than they'd projected. Says Cover Awards:

Madonna's publicist isn't talking about what her clients like the Material Girl and Cher are doing to their faces ("I have never represented anyone who has spoken to me about plastic surgery. Nor have I asked them. I don’t want to know!"), but that doesn't mean the doctors, the "dermatologists" and other illustrious characters in the pageant of A-list cosmetic surgery aren't offering up a ghastly state of the union regarding their trade in this week's New York Magazine. Which naturally includes Madonna, the issue's cover girl and unauthorized representative of the New New Face — as opposed to the "Old" New Faces belonging to the mishandled likes of Melanie Griffith and Meg Ryan. What's the difference? It's a little complicated, but let's start with "volumizing" — the part where you jam your own fat into your face:

As we teased Friday, courtesy of the deep, deep pockets of the celebrity-baby-photo-crazy people at People, we bring you the first electronically captured and distributed images of The Chosen Blobs, the second and third genetically flawless products of Angelina Jolie's overtaxed loins. Similar in golden hue to their older sister—but providing twice the miraculous healing and war-ending properties—little Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline are pictured napping peacefully beneath their enraptured parents, cute enough to be devoured like two tiny, butter-poached escargots.

Here it is: the cover of this week's People magazine, the iconic shot of Hollywood's alpha couple with their newborn twins. Rights to the photos-which show a Madonna-like Angelina Jolie with Brad Pitt as middle-aged and goateed architect and two blob-like infants-were sold for more than $14m, more than double the price paid for any other set of celebrity baby photos. If anyone ever doubted that human beings were descended from monkeys, obsessed by social hierarchy, then the extraordinary public and media interest in these very ordinary images ought to resolve the question once and for all.

Go ahead and cancel whatever plans you have Sunday afternoon: People Magazine announced today that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's most recent celebrated offspring will make their photographic debut on the rag's Web site Aug. 3 at 4 p.m. PDT. "We're thrilled to be able to feature these pictures in People," the magazine's managing editor Larry Hackett said in a statement to the AP. "They will delight our readers who have followed the growth of the Jolie-Pitt family."The cost of the photos has yet to be officially disclosed, with most estimates ranging between $10 million and $15 million and any proceeds going straight to charity. Really, though, no charity is greater than the soft, pulsating glow sure to radiate forth from little Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, their infant peace held over from an extended, restful sojourn in the Presidential Suite of celebrity uteri. People got a bargain.

• NBC has greenlit Dick Wolf and Chris Levinson's Lost and Found, a drama about—what else?—a female detective. [Variety]

The Golden Age of Villainy may be upon us. Between the accolades and eventual Oscar for Javier Bardem's singular evildoer in No Country For Old Men and the virtual repeat of the same cycle this year for Heath Ledger's Joker, no prospect stokes A-list egos these days quite like a chance to OD on wretchedness. Sony has enough confidence in the era to have undertaken development on the Spider-Man spinoff Venom, a full-length riff on Topher Grace's enemy from Spider-Man 3 that, naturally, will be recast with someone likelier to open a blockbuster. And now, after a few days of Angelina Jolie/Catwoman rumors tailing the Dark Knight follow-up, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Johnny Depp reportedly want a piece of the Bat-action:

• People may have won the bidding war for the first photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins. Total cost: $10 to $15 million. Reportedly. [JustJared]

Not since Donald Sutherland unleashed a spittle-flecked torrent of anti-Hillarian propaganda in The Huffington Post—denouncing the candidate's "wretched illegitimacy," as if she had ruined Canadian Thanksgiving by pulling off a rubber Kiefer mask to reveal her cackling identity beneath—have we been so shaken by a celebrity-penned attack on a Democratic candidate: National Treasure: Book of Secrets star/estranged grandfather Jon Voight has dared to zig when the Obama-loving free world zags in the op-ed pages of the Washington Times:

On one hand, we're sort of ashamed to have doubled our knowledge of Chinese culture today with one glance at the Los Angeles Times. On the other, a spoonful of sugar — or, more specifically, of Kung Fu Panda — made the medicine go down that much easier as we learned the deep angst gripping China in the wake of the film's success. It's not frustrating enough, evidently, that DreamWorks usurped Chinese authority over everything from animation to the sacred panda itself; rather, the hero Po's abject laziness and mild prurience has an angry 1.2 billion souls searching as we speak:

• Ashley Dupre's reps, who have been negotiating deals on her behalf, say she's interested in "journalism and lounge singing," and that she "sees herself as a kind of Dr. Phil." Appropriately, the $2 million TV offer she's considering would team her up with the producer to reunited Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher. [NYP]

· If it weren't for Dark Knight news, there wouldn't have been much news at all. After dispatching the Joker, Batman took on his toughest foe to date, the deranged Momzo The Clown (specialty: extortion). Batman denies all of the charges, which is just fine with new Oscar frontrunner Aaron Eckhart. · NBC announced that Jay Leno will be abdicating his Tonight Show throne on May 29, 2009 while a disguised Jay Leno sat in the audience cracking wise. Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon will be spinning his wheels online for a few months before they let him loose on air. · Miley "Slut!" Cyrus took to the YouTubes to wage war on her new rival, Selena Gomez. · If you come within 1,000 yards of Brangelina's test tube babies, Brad Pitt will beat you to a pulp. · We finally learned what Judd Apatow's favorite season of The Wire was. · Surfer dude Matthew McConaughey cashed a $3 million check from OK! for baby pictures of young prince Levi. · Maybe it's just us, but Lyons & Mankiewicz doesn't quite have the same ring as Ebert & Roeper (let alone Siskel & Ebert). · Cuts at Vantage and Netflix made it another tough week for indie film. · Fer sure, fer sure, we counted down our favorite Valley Girls. · Don't bother with MapQuest, NPH can tell you how to get, how to get to Sesame Street. · And finally, the passing of Estelle Getty affected everyone, from teary YouTube eulogists to our own Molly McAleer. The saddest part? None of the Golden Girls made it to the funeral. Nevertheless, the memory of Sophia Petrillo will always live on.

In the latest Pap Said / Celeb Said scandal, the mystical forests of Brangelina's French estate turned into a bloody battleground where one ruthless pap and the Jolie-Pitts’ head of security attacked each other with walkie-talkies and teeth. As the NY Daily News reports, freelance photographer Luc Goursolas was so determined to slip into the compound unnoticed that he spent five hours on foot, decked himself out in camouflaged clothing, only to come face-to-unhappy-face with the soccer team’s unamused top guard. As Goursolas claims:

Excellent news to report for anyone who still thinks Angelina Jolie is perfection incarnate, in spite of that silly husband-stealing fiasco, heroin tape, Billy Bob phase, Life Or Something Like It and...well, there are probably a few of you left! According to Us, the conception of the Chosen Two was quite literally chosen to arrive at a specific point in Brangelina’s magical life. A source tells the weekly that the “impatient” soccer team managers didn’t rely on Brad’s super-sperm or Jolie’s scream-filled bedroom style to spontaneously produce Knox and Viv. Rather, the no-longer-immortal duo paid a hefty sum for in vitro treatments to speed up their plan to “have 10 kids...while [they’re] young." But their goal may not work out quite as planned. Reports that Angelina is being forced into joining the trendy rapid weight loss/gain club for her next role may cause a serious delay in recruiting new Jolie-Pitts for quite some time.Even though its B.O. numbers didn't exactly scream "Sequel!", the folks behind 1999's The Thomas Crown Affair, also known as Yet Another Chance For Pierce Brosnan To Convince Us He's Charming, are in pre-production mode for the second installment, slated for a 2009 release. The film's original female lead, Rene Russo, intelligently declined to participate in the inevitable disaster, leading producers to seek out Jolie as her replacement. The only glitch? Said folks have worked with Jolie before on Wanted, and reportedly fear another round of Lohan-esque fainting spells the then-skinny-as-a-rail Jolie kept experiencing while on set. As a result, they're said to be requiring their leading lady to pack on 30 pounds. As in, now. One week after giving birth to twins. Which begs the question: is it possible that Jolie has sped far ahead of post-pregnancy slim fast stars Jessica Alba and J. Lo in shedding her tent-dress-requiring baby weight already? And if not, why the need for this unnecessary sequel to star such a "weighty" co-star? Ah, yes. The role is that of an "action woman." Because Jolie hasn't ever portrayed a gunfire-equipped, stunt scene-ready, action hero before or anything. [Photo credits: X17, Wireimage]

We knew we were experiencing déjà vampire when first we glimpsed HBO's central marketing image for Alan Ball's new series True Blood—something we mistakenly attributed to the iconic Rocky Horror lips (soon to be played by Audrina Patridge's vagina in an MTV remake—but more on that later!). But it was only upon seeing the virtually identical key art for sunlight-resistant Diablo Cody's Jennifer's Body that the true inspiration for both campaigns hit us: A portrait of Angelina Jolie from Entertainment Weekly in which the actress plays up her succubus image, savoring what we like to imagine were the last drops of Billy Bob Thornton's hemogravy after a particularly rough session of Hide the Stake. Click to experience the full cannibalistic scope of this bloody marketing horror!

In light of some breaking hair-related news involving future fugitive Katie Holmes, we must admit that we’ve underestimated the Scientology prisoner. As the Daily Mail reported over the weekend, Broadway’s least-alluring celebrity rookie recently chopped off even more of her already chin-grazing bob, and even dared to pull out those hair curlers in what could be the beginning move in a new strategy to finally flee the Knights of Hubbard. Though Kate’s "boyish" cut may backfire, it’s a clever plan nonetheless. Below, we provide five of the best examples of drastic 'do-caused catastrophes directly linked to highly publicized breakups, from Jennifer Aniston’s self-conscious bob that led to Brangelina, to Cameron Diaz’s unfortunate goth dye job that failed to inspire any future sex or love sounds from Justin Timberlake:

• Did Uma Thurman and Arki Busson get secretly married during their engagement party earlier this month? If so, does that mean the European vacation they're on right now is really a honeymoon? [Page Six]

• Madonna did not show up to her alleged lover/disciple Alex Rodriguez's All-Star party, nor did his bitter teammates, so he hung out alone in the club with his mom and two "kabbalah buddies," including a woman spotted leaving his house the next day.

• Jay Leno, on an erroneous magazine cutline reading "Host of The Tonight Show on ABC:" "It's like a headline from the future." [Deadline Hollywood]

Savvy media watchers are beginning to note that the birth of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's twins July 12 indicates they probably were not born in May, as Entertainment Tonight reported at the time. Amid intense scrutiny, the showbiz show in June yanked the story from its website, but its executive producer insisted "we are waiting to see how this plays out" before issuing a retraction. And now that everything has played out as expected, with ET looking stupid, the show has buried its admission of error on some blog, and will not issue a retraction or say anything on broadcast TV. “We have moved on and so have our viewers,” a show spokesman told the Times. Well, sure, but will any of us really trust ET for crucial celebrity baby news again? Not celebrity blogger (and Daily Show host) Jon Stewart, whose June 5 wrapup of the whole scandal is after the jump.