· "Now you listen here, Jakey. This might seem all silly-goose to you, Mr. Serious Actor Man, but I'm milking this thing until the Oscar nominations are out, OK? Now if you don't want to wind up snubbed, put your hand on your goddamn hip and play along!"
· Blogger Tony Pierce figures out where Heather Graham moved her birthday party (The Short Stop—nice choice) after snubbing Akbar.
· Just like in her acting career, Jessica Alba's incredible good looks obviously played no part in her success in this poll.
· Gallery of the Absurd never fails to horrify us with its artwork. Today, Britney Spears and Cheetos team up to chill us to the bone.
· A Craigslister in NY is less than thrilled with the medical accuracy of last night's Grey's Anatomy. Seriously, though: The flesh-eating bacteria? That's been around long enough to been recycled through ER three or four times, hasn't it?

In the end, Lionsgate's plan to buy themselves a SAG award by sending out an unprecedented 130,000 Crash screeners to every living SAG member (last paying gig Thug #3 on Magnum P.I.? You get a screener!) proved to be a winning strategy, as the movie took a best film ensemble trophy at yesterday's SAG awards. Shut out of the proceedings was Brokeback Mountain, a clear message from voters that it requires more actorly skill to pretend to be racist than it does to pretend to be gay. Other winners included Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote, Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line, the cast of Lost for best ensemble TV drama and, in a turn of events sure to have resulted in Ari Emanuel launching a plate of Chinese food at his plasma screen, the cast of Desperate Housewives for best ensemble TV comedy.

Sadly, a fifth of the world's population will never know the wistful heartache of unrequited gay cowboy love, as Brokeback Mountain will not be screened in China:

Kenny "I Defrauded Renee Zellweger And All I Got Was This Lousy Wedding Band" Chesney had long faded into gay cowboy obscurity, quickly eclipsed by the much hotter spurs-and-chaps action of Brokeback's Ennis and Jack. Today, thanks to a Southwest flight attendant and Fox 411's Roger Friedman, Chesney's been yanked back into our consciousness and been declared not homosexual by virtue of cougar-humping. In perhaps the strangest story we've ever heard, Friedman happened to be a passenger on the flight where a fortysomething stewardess lit this overshare shoe-bomb in front of her captive, pressured cabin audience:

Towleroad interviews Brokeback Mountain producer James Schamus today, who candidly answers many of our burning gay cowboy questions:

· We thought that there was no new territory to mine in Brokeback Mountain parodies, but Brokeback Squadron, the unforgettable tale of a couple of hotshot pilots' forbidden love, can be our wingman any time.
· The Blowing Smoke blog gets an advance look at The CW's Fall schedule.
· The very brave Brooke Shields risks Tom Cruise's renewed wrath by preparing to bring yet another child into the world.
· Meanwhile in other baby-related news, Meg "America's Sweetheart, Before All The Chilling Plastic Surgery" Ryan gets it all wrong by adopting a Chinese baby. You're supposed to go Cambodian, Meg. Have you learned nothing from Angelina?
· Meanwhile In other Angelina Jolie-related news, Film Stew says Jolie extorted People into giving money to charity in exchange for bump pics.
· ABC's Steve McPherson has the hots for John Stamos, but might lose him to NBC's Kevin Reilly.

Towleroad notes that President Bush, taking questions after a speech today at Kansas State University, was asked by an audience member if he had seen Brokeback Mountain. The following is an exact transcript of the exchange (video available at Brad Blog):

· We have our first official big-buzz Sundance hit: Little Miss Sunshine, an ensemble comedy starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Steve Carell, was snapped up by Fox Searchlight for $10 million after an enthusiastically received premiere and a bidding war that went into the "wee hours." Look for a huge release next year, followed by disappointing box office take when it is completely eclipsed by a Norwegian documentary about sea lion reproduction. [Variety]
· As we mentioned earlier, Brokeback Mountain earns the Producers Guild's top honor. Larry H. Miller reacts by banning any movie with a producer credit from screening at his theaters. [Variety]
· Fox orders a half-hour sitcom based on former NBAer Paul Shirley's blog, "My So-Called NBA Career." The blogification of Hollywood begins, with agents adapting first: Goodbye Armani suits, hello soiled boxers! [Variety]
· Tommy Mottola has optioned the book Queens Reigns Supreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent and the Rise of the Hip-Hop Hustler, with plans to develop a series. Industry watchers are touting it as the next Designing Women, just with bullet-riddled gangsta rappers sitting around trading saucy quips instead of southern belle interior decorators. [Variety]
· Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code will open the Cannes Festival in May, to be immediately followed by crowds of French cinema elitists doing their weird-sounding version of booing. [THR]

Like a mother sparrow dropping worm segments into the hungry, outstretched beaks of its screeching baby brood, we regurgitate for you the weekend's box office numbers. Nourish yourselves.

· FishbowlLA reports that Reese Witherspoon has taken a moment's break from vigorously loofahing any residual Kirsten Dunst cells off her body to sign with Endeavor.
· Accorded to Us Weekly, it was Ryan Seacrest himself who got Kathy Griffin booted from E!. Add that to her growing shit list resume.
· Asked to comment on the "Seinfeld Curse," Julia Louis-Dreyfus provides a master class in how to respond to obnoxious entertainment reporter questions: "My short answer is I have no worries about that because I'm on a heavy dose of antibiotics right now."
· Before we get all carried away in the Sundance hoopla (bon voyage, Mark!), the LAT would like to remind us that many Sundance winners are still miserable, broke schmos like the rest of us.
· We've all heard the jokes. But Defamer slutty sister site Fleshbot delivers the goods. Ladies and gentlemen: Bareback Mountain, the gay porn.
· Ever wonder how tall you stood in relation to celebrities and famous historical figures? No? Well here's the link anyway. [via b3ta]
· "You are getting very sleepy, my subservient rabbit friend."

The Drudge Report, your always-on source for breaking news about the Oscar race, screams the above headline touting a supposed sibling psychodrama unfolding at Universal, where a source accuses studio head Stacey Snider of being way more into gay cowboys than Israeli hitmen:

Brokeback Mountain is still riding high in the saddle since its Golden Globes triumph, but don't expect the accolades to sway Larry H. Miller, the Utah Jazz and movie theater chain owner who caused an international controversy for pulling the movie at the very last minute from his multiplex, no explanation offered. Towleroad notes that when a radio reporter approached him for a comment as he was entering a hotel ballroom to deliver a speech at the (irony alert) local NAACP's annual Martin Luther King luncheon, a pissy Miller slapped the microphone away, saying "I said everything I had to say when I pulled the movie. Okay? Anything else you want to know?" The entire exchange was caught on video. Meanwhile, it's business at usual at Miller's Sandy Megaplex theater, where you can catch six screenings a day of a ball-gagged Jay Hernandez exploring the outer recesses of his pain threshold in Hostel.

The Golden Globes, as it turns out, were pretty good to The Gays, with Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Transamerica taking home the lion's share of the major awards. So welcome have these portrayals of the previously marginalized been and in particular, Brokeback's unflinching gaze upon two (ick!) masculine, sexually active men in love that some are going so far as to call last night's ceremony a "watershed" moment in the history of gay social acceptance:

Anyone who sat through last night's Golden Globes telecast felt crippling, vicarious embarrassment on behalf of presenter Dennis Quaid, whose soon-to-be infamous "chick flick" joke will surely go down in the storied history of awards show misfires. Our transcription of Quaid's doomed introduction of Brokeback Mountain:

The tempest grows over the controversial last minute pulling of Brokeback Mountain from the Sandy Megaplex, a movie theater owned and run by Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller. Yesterday, representatives of Utah's gay community made a "call to action" against the theater, demanding to know "why that decision was made." So far, the only communication on the subject has been a notice posted in the ticket window an hour before the film was to have its premiere screening, stating, "There has been a change in booking and we will not be showing 'Brokeback Mountain.' We apologize for any inconvenience." Since then, not a peep:

Had you asked us this morning if there was a riff on the Brokeback Mountain poster out there that might still make us laugh, we would have responded in an assuredly confident negative. But then someone had to go and send us Grayskull Mountain, and damn it if we weren't helpless to poor Skeletor Del Mar's disconsolate gaze, or the manboyish allure of the object of his forbidden affections, He-Jack. And while we're feeling all warm and Brokeback fuzzy, why not mention that Gene Shalit has made a heartfelt and apologetic statement regarding his highly criticized review, saying, "In describing the behavior of "Jack" I used words ("sexual predator") that I now discover have angered, agitated, and hurt many people. I did not intend to use a word that many in the gay community consider incendiary." Oh, Bozo the Pringles Guy, you had us at "describing." How could we possibly stay angry with you come back into our tender buns, you silly hairball!

· Finally, unexplored territory regarding Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal's rough cowboy love in Brokeback: "When we kissed it felt like we were exfoliating."

· The Gallery of the Absurd accomplishes something heretofore deemed impossible: making Star Jones seem even more grotesque than she appears on television.

· Scientology helped her kick a coke habit, but it couldn't make Kirstie Alley skinny. With this news, Jenny Craig is destined to take the COS's place as the hottest cult in town.

· See, it's entirely possible for a celebrity to get knocked up without causing total media hysteria.

· NY's Craigslist is also plagued by "famous actors" trolling for sex.

Thanks to his performance in Brokeback Mountain, Heath Ledger is no longer just "that dude who jousted to Queen remixes," but a bankable and respected leading man. But getting to sink your teeth into this calibre of material nothing says Oscar bait like his wrenching attack of love withdrawal, aka the "Jake shakes" comes with a price, which in this instance is finding yourself cast in the unexpected role of a gay rights media mouthpiece. If this interview from the Sydney Herald is any indication, however, Ledger is up to the task:

Not satisfied merely to report who won what irrelevant critics award and what they were wearing when they collected the prize, Reuters is quickly becoming the go to newswire for half-baked Oscar prognostications. Consider their analysis of last night's Broadcast Film Critics' Choice Awards:

Today's LAT explores the possibility that Brokeback Mountain's critical reception and early success in limited theatrical release may recast the movie's now-iconic gay cowboys as gay messiahs sent to resurrect various similarly themed (read: gay) projects from development hell. While it's definitely nice to imagine Ennis and Jack galloping onto a movie lot and setting up a production ranch where they can nurture such endeavors, some insiders tell the Times that the studios don't see enough dollar signs to totally flip over for Brokeback Mania: