Sometimes—particularly when we find ourselves creating topic tags like "Sacha Baron Cohen's Junk"—we are prone to having minor lightbulb moments, such as the one just moments ago in which it suddenly occurred to us that the Sweeney Todd star might be inordinately preoccupied with his own manhood. It having already been revealed that it was his idea to outfit his Adolfo Pirelli character with certain below-the-belt costuming enhancements, the NY Daily News delves even deeper into the British comedian's priapic self-fascination, discovering, among other Cohen-bone bits, the reason behind that strategically placed black bar in the Borat movie's climactic naked wrestling scene:

During a rare interview in which chameleonic prankster Sacha Baron Cohen answered questions without retreating into one of his ego-protecting characters (apparently, the marketing team for Sweeney Todd felt that conducting junket appearances as singing, enormously beschlonged barber Adolfo Pirelli wasn't the way to go for their film), Cohen confirmed that he has no choice but to kill off both Ali G and Borat, the alter-egos he used to torment scores of clueless politicians, intolerant frat boys and litigious driving instructors. Laments Cohen about the old friends he now must sacrifice upon the altar of success:

Some 13 months after the theatrical release of Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary about an intellectually curious Kazakh journalist's travels across the U.S. and A to engage in cultural exchanges with as many litigious Americans as possible, one might think that any of comedian's on-camera victims who hadn't already filed lawsuits had grudgingly accepted their cinematic notoriety. Amazingly, legal papers are still being filed, with the latest coming from the driving instructor tasked with teaching the foreigner how to operate a non-mule-powered vehicle:

· In yet another one of those uncomfortable Martha Stewart Show moments that keep us coming back over and over again, the host describes her mother's recent stroke in such alarming detail that we now know not only the name of the hospital in which she's recovering, but the exact floor her room is on.
· Borat's book-signing featured filthy children, vanilla faces, and, of course, the requisite dude in a neon nut-sling.
· Grey's Anatomy McPicketing! How did we miss that opportunity yesterday? Maybe we were distracted by the weiners.
· J. Lo knocked up, officially. We know her refusal to disclose the contents of her uterus had really been eating at you.

Despite extensive naked-fighting practice on the set of Eastern Promises, a humble Viggo Mortensen doesn't think he could defeat Borat in a clothes-free fight—if the wiry Kazakh could survive the anal-suffocation attacks of frightently hirsute grappling partner Ken Davitian, what hope does Mortensen have of victory against an obviously invincible opponent? [MTV.com]

What, you may or may not find yourselves wondering, could agitprop documentary director Michael Moore possibly have in common with guerrilla-comedy king Sacha Baron Cohen? Quite a bit, it just so happens, as a chance encounter at last year's Toronto International Film Festival led to a mutual gush-a-thon between the two mischief-making filmmakers:

For those of you who prefer to live in the recent past, peering wistfully over your shoulders at the halcyon days when a neon-bethonged Kazakh reporter delighted audiences with his naïve take on sister-pimping and fist-shaped dildo usage, we bring to you news of yet more Borat-related litigiousness. No, not even the movie's Fleeing, Freaked-Out New York City Guy was able to find the humor in his brief but memorable cameo, as his somewhat late-to-the-party lawsuit outlines. Reports The Smoking Gun:

The national housewife superego has lady feelings? Yes, maybe. Via the Post, the AP reports that Former Inmate 55170-0549 might soon become Mrs. Martha Helen Kostrya Stewart Simonyi (evidently, WASPiness works by the one-drop rule). Her omnibeing notwithstanding, Martha is currently in Kazakhstan to cheer on and/or get married to her space-tourist manfriend, who's set to blast off today. Unfortunately, he is not Lance Bass. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Post, and half a world away, a New York City subway car yesterday was attacked and transformed into "a cozy living room with curtains, flowers, throw pillows and rugs" in a "guerrilla installation, dubbed 'No Train Like Home.'" No signs indicate that these heinous transportation/decoration acts are related, but that's because Martha Stewart is a evil genius, like Marilyn vos Savant without the ILF part.

If your memory extends all the way back to last October, you may recall a little multistudio bidding war that resulted in Universal shelling out $42.5 million for the rights to Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno, a shocking price considering that at the time, there was at a fair amount of pants-soiling going on about some potentially scary tracking data for Borat, which was yet to prove that naked wrestling and the throwing of wadded up bills at bed-and-breakfast operating roach-Jews would be embraced on a worldwide basis. So how did Baron's people pull off such a great deal in the pre-Kazakhmania era? Slate's Kim Masters reports on speculation that Endeavor is running a puppet regime whose sole mission is to screw the studios while enriching its clients (yeah, that sounds exactly like an "agency," but stick with it):

· Var chief Peter Bart pens yet another memo to Tom Cruise, this time encouraging his successor at United Artists to ignore the skepticism of the press, take a big swig of some Oprah-endorsed positivity Kool-Aid, and realize that he's not the only one in this town trying to figure out how to run a studio. [Variety]
· Spunky test-pattern alternative MyNetworkTV will kick of a new schedule on Monday, shifting its focus from cheaply produced telenovelas that no one wants to watch to low-cost reality programming audiences will be eager to ignore. [THR]
· Clint Eastwood may direct and Angelina Jolie is in talks to star in The Changeling for Universal, the story of a woman who suspects that the abducted son that's eventually returned to her is not actually her child—material that the actress instantly connected with because of a paranoid fear she's been harboring that careless partner Brad Pitt lost Maddox at a Ralphs a year ago and has been trying to pass off another Cambodian orphan as their beloved tyke ever since. Imagine's Brian Grazer is also on board to superproduce the shit out of this one. [Variety]
· ABC elevates Ellen Pompeo to $200,000 per episode, while Grey's Anatomy co-stars James T. Pickens Jr, Chandra Wilson, Justin Chambers, and TR Knight are expected to get raises to $125k. No word on whether Isaiah Washington's successful completion of gayhab will earn him a similar reward, but should he be passed over on this round of renegotiations, he plans to recoup some of the withheld salary bump by stealing Knight's lunch money each day. [THR]
· USA pays $11 million for the rights to air Borat for five years starting in 2009, a relatively low sum due to the fact that the network will be forced to pixelate Ken Davitian's hairy, suffocating anus during the movie's iconic wrestling scene. [Variety]

The State Department released their annual global human rights abuses report yesterday, and, somewhat astonishingly, everyone's favorite faux-Kazakh cultural ambassador makes a surprise appearance in a chapter devoted to Kazakhstan's offenses:

Since his full-frontal breakout performance playing roving Kazakh cultural ambassador Borat Sagdiyev's long-suffering producer Azamat Bagatov in the Borat movie, self-described "day player" Ken Davitian has now officially graduated from "get me a fat Armenian-looking dude" Central Casting parts to becoming a bankable, sought-after talent in his own right. Davitian has just signed on to play the evil sidekick in the Get Smart movie:

For the millions of you patiently awaiting the DVD release of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, either in anticipation of adding the film to your home video library, or merely to see if your slavery-endorsing and/or urinal-peek-a-boo scene might have by some miracle been excised from the final version despite a judge having ruled otherwise, March 6 will be the magic date to circle upon your calendars. The matter of how much, meanwhile, is looking to be a very nice suggested retail price of $19.95. Slashfilm.com has seen an advance copy, which is purposely designed to look as though you may have bartered for it from a toothless Kazakh street urchin for a bottle of goat urine: "[There's] not a word of English on the packaging...[It looks] color-copied...complete with off color tones, slightly blurred company logos, blurry text and moire pattern/lithographic scans." Whether the "HILARIOUS DeeVeeDee EXTRAS" touted on Borat's official website will maintain the illusion remains to be seen, though we're indifferent as to whether or not Ken Davitian's commentary track comes from him or in character as producer Azamat Bagatov—as long as we get some kind of insight into just how stimulating Sacha Baron Cohen's proboscis felt when he lowered his feculent taint upon it.

Those duped Borat movie frat boys have been dealt yet another massive blow in their ongoing legal battle against the makers of the film. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph Biderman—the same judge who tossed their motion to have the scene featuring their bonehead pronouncements on women, Jews, and slavery nostalgia cut from the movie's DVD release—has now rejected their case outright, THR Esq. is reporting, in a legal decision that might affect the outcome of the scores of other victim/stars hoping to make benefit of glorious lawsuit settlement:

· More on Rupert Murdoch's "Borat boo-boo," a slip-up weird beyond its inherent inaccuracy because News Corp. neglected to mention a Borat sequel while it was bragging about how much the original film had boosted its quarterly earnings, and for Fox's previous bitching that Bruno was too expensive for the studio to purchase. [Variety]
· Julia Roberts will star in the ensemble drama Fireflies in the Garden, which "explores the complexities of love and commitment in a family torn apart when faced with an unexpected tragedy," shorthand for, "My Oscar is feeling a little lonely all by itself up on that mantel." [THR]
· "I've finally admitted to myself that I am afraid of my own lawyer." Var's Peter Bart looks at how entertainment lawyers have scared the town shitless. [Variety]
· ABC wins Thursday night with another great Nielsen performance by Grey's Anatomy, which is on such a roll that the network is considering making public at least one ugly feud from the Grey's set each month. [THR]
· In a completely unsurprising move, Disney is making a big-screen spinoff from its wildly successful TV movie High School Musical. [Variety]

Almost completely lost in the media chaos following Anna Nicole Smith's death was the fact that soon after News Corp. potentate Rupert Murdoch shocked—shocked!—the entertainment industry by bragging that his 20th Century Fox division had locked up Sacha Baron Cohen for a Borat sequel, the studio had to very delicately inform the world that while Fox loves and admires Cohen and would like nothing better than to lavish millions of dollars upon him for such a project, things were not quite as contractually finalized (the phrases "casual discussions" and "too preliminary to discuss" figured in the statement) as the boss might have erroneously hinted. Following such a public backtracking off a blockbuster announcement, it's not too hard to imagine that an embarrassed Murdoch's vague order to "Make this go away. I don't care how," being taken by an overeager underling as an opportunity to demonstrate his skill in creating the kind of media smokescreen only achievable by the mysterious and unexpected passing of a troubled celebrity.

· Mark off May 22, 2008 on your calendars, for that's the day that Indiana Jones 4: Short Round, I'm Really Getting Too Old For This Shit hits theaters. Warner Bros. blockbuster hopeful Speed Racer is also scheduled to open over that long Memorial Day weekend, but we bet the movie will be mysteriously stricken by "post-production problems" that force a move to a safer release date. [Variety]
· The publicists responsible for making sure that every Borat appearance was accompanied by a trashy throng of Kazakh prostisisters and death threats from the president of the constantly mocked Central Asian nation saw their hard work rewarded at yesterday's Flackies, the awards celebrating achievements in the promotional arts. [THR]
· Dakota Fanning makes a bold move to combat being typecast as a preteen rape victim, joining her sister Elle in portraying disabled twins in the drama Hurricane Mary. Look for the ambitious elder Fanning to muscle out her sister to better showcase her acting chops by playing both parts herself. [Variety]
· American Idol plunges from 33.1 million viewers on Tuesday to just 27.6 million on Wednesday, a slide that's temporarily reduced its level of domination of primetime competition from "utter destruction" to "a pretty rough ass-kicking." [THR]
· Borat boosts News Corp.'s studio division, but MyNetworkTV, barely beating public access bulletins about winter-weather school closures in most markets, has clearly shit the financial bed. [Variety]

· Sacha Baron Cohen may be the Oscars' only hope at getting a younger, wider audience to show up to this year's telecast, though of course there's no guarantee any time he spends at the podium won't be filled with references to how convincingly Ellen DeGeneres has hidden her testisatchels. [The Envelope]
· The Oscar ballots are in the mail and must be returned to Pricewaterhouse-Coopers by 5 p.m., February 20, where a small army of accountants will tabulate them and shout things like, "Yup! Another one for Forest!" [Variety]
· "Oscars" has seen a 440% jump in search engine queries since the nominations were announced, with increases for nominees Will Smith, Leonardo DiCaprio, Penelope Cruz, Kate Winslet, and, most popular, "Helen Mirren without underwear." [Earthtimes.org]
· Jennifer Hudson told Oprah she will be performing a song at the Oscar ceremony. And we are telling you it won't be the one you want to hear, but "Love You I Do." And we are also telling you that jokes involving this particular lyric have long overstayed their welcome. [Broadwayworld.com]
· Abigail Breslin also mentioned to Oprah that her date for the evening will be Curious George—her stuffed monkey. Bi-Curious George, meanwhile, still hasn't announced who he'll be bringing. [Hello]

Perhaps Sacha Baron Cohen should have been more specific during his Golden Globes acceptance speech—not about Ken Davitian's rancid pocket of taint air, about which he was entirely too specific, but rather with regards to his comments thanking "every American who has not sued me so far." The heartfelt show of gratitude forgot all those international Borat audiences who might also have considered and rejected seeking damages, such as the Israeli comedian currently mulling a lawsuit over Cohen's adoption of his "wa-wa-wee-wa" catchphrase:

· The 3,300 members of the Producers Guild of America surprised just about everyone by giving its top honor to Little Miss Sunshine, the little Sundance acquisition that could. With the PGA predicting the Best Picture Oscar 11 out of the past 17 years, a Crash-style upset for Sunshine isn't beyond the realm of possibility—nor is the requisite musical number, featuring interpretive dancers pirouetting on the roof of a VW bus as Sufjan Stevens strums "Chicago" on an acoustic guitar. [Variety]
· The GLAAD Media Awards nominated Little Miss Sunshine, The Night Listener, Running With Scissors, V for Vendetta, and Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby for outstanding film in wide release. Ricky Bobby made the list presumably for the maturity with which the comedy portrayed the relationship between Sacha Baron Cohen's French Grand Prix champion and his poodle-trainer lover, played by Andy Richter. Despite its enthusiastic gay pride parade sequences and the great strides it made in humanizing the experiences of rubber-fist-dildo enthusiasts, Cohen's other effort this year, Borat, was egregiously overlooked. [THR]
· On the eve of the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nominations announcement, Cohen admitted to a WGA Q&A audience that Borat, whose production notes originally read "there was no script," actually was the work of four writers, with up to 80% of the final film was comprised of scenes they "set out to accomplish." Still, all the studio saw was a five-page outline, not the secret, 60-page detailed master bible the filmmakers were working from. [The Envelope]