Randy Quaid's recently filed lawsuit against the producers of Brokeback Mountain has turned a pair of watchful binoculars on how talent is being paid for working in features produced by the so-called "mini-majors"—those arthouse divisions of huge studios such as Focus and Fox Searchlight. The studios claim that the low-budget films wouldn't be made without their casts and crew drastically cutting their asking price, while above-the-line players like Quaid feel they are nickle-and-dimed only to have the studios spend huge amounts on marketing, eventually reaping big distribution fees. The NY Times reports:

Natural bearskin birthing spokesmodel Britney Spears can always be relied upon to be at the center of multiple ridiculous lawsuits and brushes with the law. To keep you up to date with the latest on the Spears legal docket, a Britney Justice round-up:
· Britney's songwriters (wait—she doesn't write them herself?) are accusing a South Korean singer named Lee Hyo-lee of having "partially plagiarized" a song called "Do Something." (We've never heard of it, but we'll assume it's an empowering disco track a la "I Will Survive" in which a fed up Britney confronts Kevin Federline once and for all).

After hearing about Randy Quaid's lawsuit against Brokeback Mountain's producers claiming that the actor's love of independent cinema was taken advantage of to lower his quote and cheat him out of millions, Bat Boy: The Musical co-author Brian Flemming dropped us a note to point out that Quaid once loved indie films so much he wouldn't even joke about the low-budget world at the 1999 Independent Spirit Awards. Says Flemming:

Now that the warm glow of three Oscar wins (and the bitter sting of one huge loss) is finally fading into memory, it's time for those involved in Brokeback Mountain to start suing each other for pieces of the movie's unexpected financial success. Brokeback supporting player Randy Quaid, who played the grizzled ranch boss whose employment opportunities brought together tragic lovers Jack and Ennis, is first out of the gate with a suit claiming the actor was misled into thinking that the movie was just a lil' old gay cowboy tone poem with little chance of scaring up any profits, thus depressing the asking price for his services. Reports Variety:

A producer of Chicago—the swansong of Miramax's heyday, when the Weinsteins would throw enough blinding sequins, stars and money at audiences and Academy voters to distract them long enough to scoop up all the Oscars—is suing the studio for cheating him out of what he claims is $10 million in his share of the profits:

The Steven Spielberg-produced TNT miniseries Into the West continues to run into controversy regarding its treatment of Native American extras. First it was accused of having not provided shelter during a storm and denying them meals. Now, the production is being sued by the family of a young girl whose (shades of Vendetta) hair was cut off in order to make her look like a boy:

Ever since Scary Hollywood Lawyer Terry Christensen was indicted in connection with the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, the entertainment industry has been waiting for the other, fancier shoe to drop: namely, the bringing of charges against Scarier Hollywood Lawyer Bert Fields, who had hired Pellicano in the past but denies knowing about any of the investigator's illegal eavesdropping activities in connection with his cases. Today's LAT reports that prosecutors and Fields' predictably high-powered defense team have engaged in "a difficult game of chicken" by agreeing to extend the deadline for the filing of charges, and that part of the new strategy may include offering Fields an emasculating-sounding "queen for a day" session, which, unfortunately, does not seem to include wearing a tiara while receiving a pedicure and mud mask treatment:

Tom Wopat, much like his Dukes of Hazzard alter ego Luke Duke, has found himself on the wrong side of the law. In an incident worthy of any Hazzard episode, Wopat nearly rammed his car into a police vehicle, a scenario rendered less hilarious when the officer on duty wasn't a bumbling moron with a Bassett Hound for a sidekick but rather a New Jersey patrolman with a breathalyzer:

A judge with the wisdom of a latter-day King Solomon has come up with an ingenious solution in the complicated matter of enforcing a restraining order meant to keep Paris Hilton from a party promoter who runs in her circles:

Boy George has finally freed himself from the clutches of the Dark Side. You may recall, last October George practically ordered up his own drug arrest as if it were a Domino's pizza, calling cops to his apartment in New York to investigate a burglary. They quickly discovered upon their arrival 13 bags of coke sitting by his computer, which he insisted belonged to one of his many party guests. A plea bargain deal at a Manhattan criminal court yesterday got him out of doing any hard time:

Today's LAT looks at two lawsuits swirling around Best Picture nominee Crash, at least one of which, sadly, forces us to consider the unspeakable possibility that Paul Haggis' (Oscar post-party t-shirt: "Do you have any racist in you? No? Would you like some?") heavy-handed race-relations fable might actually win the award. In the first suit, producer Bob Yari is suing the Producers Guild and Academy over the secretive process ("Who doesn't like Yari today? Show of hands...OK, he's not the producer.") that denied him a producer credit on the film; in the second, former partner Cathy Schulman puts the legal screws to Yari over their soured business relationship. Reports the LAT:

Sitting high atop Eddie Murphy's long list of lifelong regrets, above even The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Showtime, must be that fateful night in 1997 when he fell victim to his own bleeding heart and whisked a weepy transexual street walker off the mean streets of West Hollywood, only to be stopped by cops and questioned about what s/he was doing in his car. ("Taking a load off, officers!" we imagine him saying, before launching into his trademark wheeze-laugh.) Nine years later, he's still living his good deed down, and thanks to his recent divorce to Nicole Mitchell, the whole affair is about to bubble back up to the surface:

Anna Nicole Smith scurried up the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court today in order to observe arguments in her ongoing battle to win the half-billion dollars she insists are coming to her for her full year of wedded devotion to 89-year-old oil tycoon Howard Marshall before his extremely timely death. The issue the Supreme Court is considering specifically involves federal vs. state jurisdiction over bankruptcy law, and believe it or not, the White House is firmly on Smith's side. Says one legal analyst:

In another gripping chapter in the ongoing and addictive serial drama Gay British 80s Pop Stars Getting Arrested In Really Stupid, Embarrassing and Easily Avoidable Situations, George Michael was arrested for drug possession after he was found passed out and slumped over the wheel of his car in the early morning hours on a London street. Michael then released a statement taking responsibility for the arrest, if remaining a little vague about just what drug he was caught with:

Brad Renfro has finally fessed up to the drug charges that landed him bound and distressed on the front page of the LAT just days before Christmas:

TMZ.com is reporting that cross-dressing, fellatio-hawking director Lee Tamahori has plea bargained his way out of prostitution charges, thus bringing an end to a distressingly literal chapter in the history of Hollywood whoredom:

No amount of weeping was going to save Lucyna Turyk-Wawrynowicz, the sticky-fingered maid who relieved Robert De Niro and Candace Bergen of tens of thousands of dollars in valuables, from the righteous sting of celebrity justice. A judge denied her tearful request to be sent home to Poland, instead slapping her with one to three years in jail:

Just a day after we fantasized aloud about a childhood spent swapping Scary Hollywood Lawyer trading cards, USA Today, your home for useless clippable-sidebar information, makes our dream collectibles a reality. Focusing on the leagues' Divorce Division, they manage to compress every essential stat in one handy, suitable-for-laminating cheat sheet. Just think how much easier it will be to take advantage of that vaguely termed loophole in your prenup when you can whip out your Neal Hersh card on the witness stand and announce with great confidence, "Listen here, Mr. 'Graduated from Southwestern in 1976.' You may have played the 'sex addict' card to your advantage in Berry vs. Benet, but I can promise YOU, sir, I will get what's coming to me!"

You may recall Lyle v. Warner Brothers Television Productions, the case that blew the sitcom writer's room door wide open: A female Friends writer's assistant, fired after four months, sued the show for sexual harassment, claiming the show's writer-producers subjected her to a daily barrage of sexually explicit and racist comments (sample complaint: "69. [Executive Producer Andrew] Reich said that [Courtney] Cox's pussy was full of dried up twigs and said that if her husband put his dick in her she'd break in two.") After an LA County Superior Court judge initially dismissed the suit, the Court of Appeal ruled it should go to trial. The California Supreme Court began hearing arguments yesterday, and according to the LAT, so far they seem to be siding with the grotesquely overpaid, wisecracking white guys:

For those interested in perhaps following in the footsteps of David Hans Schmidt, aka the "Sultan of Sleaze," and carving out a career for yourselves based entirely around the brokering of celebrity smut, pay close attention: Using his recent big score (Paris Hilton's time capsule of personal skank-effects) as a case study, Schmidt recently explained the nuts and bolts of the sleaze-purveying business to a CourtTV.com reporter: