During this year's NBA Finals, a courtside power summit at Staples Center provided stirring insight into the intimate camaraderie between Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Eddie Murphy. (You might recall Sylvester Stallone joining in when Katzenberg visited the men's room.) We're learning even more today about that alliance, which, in addition to Spielberg's orotund ref-hating, influenced detente in ways not seen since Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill converged at Yalta. The stakes: Peace between directors Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood, who had feuded over representations of African-American soldiers (or the lack thereof) in Eastwood's films. Lee remembers it like it was yesterday:

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our millions of Defamer operatives. We'd like to remind you that this feature is powered by you, so if you want to see more installments of PrivacyWatch, then all you've got to do is to send us your sightings. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw Ellen Pompeo at the Century City Mall looking like (and we quote) "a Staten Island prostitute". This week's installment also includes: Clint Eastwood, Jerry Seinfeld, Ryan Phillippe, Kirsten Dunst and Justin Long, Farrah Fawcett, James Woods, Dane Cook, John C. Reilly, Lauren Conrad, Ellen Pompeo, P. Diddy (twice in the same night!), Jared Leto, Kevin Federline, Sandra Oh, Seth Green, Balthazar Getty, Pete Wentz, Briam Baumgartner, Zachary Levi, Ciara, Adam "Seymour Butts" Glasser and more.TUESDAY, AUGUST 21 · Sitting in a booth at the recently re-opened Fab's on Van Nuys Blvd in Sherman Oaks at 8pm, Mr. "Hey, Spike Lee, Shut Your Pie-Hole" himself, CLINT EASTWOOD, speaking in hushed tones while dining with Sinatra's favorite opening comic, Tom Dreesen. I couldn't hear if Clint said to the waiter, "Go ahead, make my Chicken Marsala." Even at 93 [Ed. Note: He's actually only 78], Clint looks like he could kick some serious butt. FRIDAY, AUGUST 22 · It was celeb night on Friday 8/22 at the AMC theater at the Century City Mall. Spotted PETE WENTZ standing outside with friends. His hair is flat ironed to oblivion and he is short, almost alarmingly so. Kept his hoodie on the whole time. Jessica's pregnant sister was nowhere in sight. Then, a few minutes later, ELLEN POMPEO (that's Meredith Grey to you) walked by hand-in-hand with her hubby. Super skinny and wearing gross, skin tight white jeans, white shirt with trashy sky high black heels. They were in a rush which made her look like she walks funny because she clearly couldn't handle those heels. We decided she was dressed like a Staten Island prostitute. We decided to hold out a few more minutes on the hope we would spot an elusive A-lister. And before we knew it, PUFF DADDY walked by sans entourage! He is indeed puffy. Mr. Mogul needs to get back to running marathons for charity. He was wearing sunglasses. At 10:30pm. And he was texting while walking briskly. Who says men can't multi-task? · Equinox West Hollywood. PUFF DADDY (again!) makes his entourage wait in the juice bar while he grabs a steam. · JUSTIN LONG and KIRSTEN DUNST were spotted Friday night at the Dragonfly, checking out the show Point Break LIVE! She sat behind him w/ her girlfriends, but Justin kept turning around to talk to her & see her reaction to the craziness onstage. ·Bristol Farms, West Hollywood, 5:30PM (ish). Looking determined to get out and towing a tow-headed child: RYAN PHILLIPPE. Taller than I would have expected, and beefier (but by no means tall). I don't know if he's moved to the neighborhood but the shopping cart was brimming. In case he is, a word of advice: I know it's technically West Hollywood, but the look you should be going for should be more "Daddy out shopping for groceries with my kids on Beverly" and less "Out shopping for a Daddy to buy my groceries on Santa Monica". SATURDAY, AUGUST 23 · He's not a household name, but with 33 film and 40 television credits, let's just say I was surprised to see SEAN WHALEN selling blenders at the Burbank Costco on Saturday, miked up, dressed in a white lab coat and white paper hat. He usually plays nerds, but now he's extolling the virtues of raw food smoothies. Ouch. SUNDAY, AUGUST 24 · Sunday night at the Radiohead show. Saw SANDRA OH with several dudes scrambling to get to their seats. She looked flustered, yet excited. Also saw SETH GREEN in line between songs waiting for beers. He was sporting a trucker hat and has a big, shaggy red beard. He looks like he belongs under a bridge waiting for three billy goats gruff. Lastly, also saw BALTHAZAR GETTY near the beer line between songs, wearing douchey skinny jeans and chomping on cigarettes. Dude looked like he was having way too much fun, like he'd just ditched his wife and kids for a hot chick who likes to bang while only wearing a sailor's hat. Oh, wait... · As I approached the cool 'n' groovy Santa Monica/Fairfax Whole Foods, I saw two paps outside aiming their lenses into the store. Store security blocked their view. I heard someone say, "She's the one in orange," and then noticed LAUREN CONRAD in a cute orange summer dress, casual hair, grinding her own peanut butter near the bulk grains. No, she did not have an assistant to pour in the peanuts and press the button for her. When I left she was checking out, the paps were lining up, and the Whole Foods security guys, looking vaguely energized, were preparing to escort Ms. Conrad to her vehicle. MONDAY, AUGUST 25 · Monday night, Radiohead at the Bowl. After briefly encountering JARED LETO (dressed a bit like Shia in Indiana Jones) on the concourse leading a small scuzzy posse around and claiming that he had extra seats, I was surprised to see him all alone in the pool circle up front where I was seated (second row, yo!). Jared apparently ditched his "boys" and tried a bum rush to get up front as the lights went down. Multiple security guards stopped him and he immediately went into "Don't you know who I am?" mode. At first it was high-larious, but then it became a bit pathetic. And then it became a lot pathetic. He just would not give up. It didn't matter. They hauled him away just before the band came out and killed it. I'd like to believe that Radiohead hates Jared's stupid fucking band and the noise pollution he calls music as much as I and everyone else at the show does, and that they ordered security to remove him from their immediate vicinity, but more than likely Thom Yorke has never heard of 30 (Minutes? Miles? I refuse to google.) to Mars. To Thom, it was probably just another dumb asshole without a ticket getting the boot from the front. Which is exactly what it was. ·Saw JAMES WOODS on 8/25 on Burton Way near Raffles L'Ermitage Beverly Hills. He was on the phone and completely plugged into it. Looks pretty good for a man his age. No sign of his 20 year old girl anywhere. TUESDAY, AUGUST 26 · Comedy Antichrist DANE COOK was at Crunch. His name was on the marquee at the Laugh Factory across the street, so I'm guessing it was some sort of pre- or post-show routine. If you imagined that he'd work out in a backwards baseball cap and muscle shirt, thereby confirming your image of him as a superannuated, doughy-faced, overgrown frat boy - you'd be correct. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27 · Two fun (separate) sightings. Saw Kevin (BRAIN BAUMGARTNER) from Scrantonicity (and, yes, The Office); and, Chuck (ZACHARY LEVI), from, well, Chuck at the Studio City Starbucks. Both taking meetings around the corner at the NBC/Universal building? Kevin wearing shorts, Chuck driving a gas-guzzling Chevy Tahoe. Bad choices, boys. · Eyed R&B sensation/masturbation fantasy CIARA placing a to-go order at the El Pollo Loco on Sunset and Crescent Heights around 4:40pm. Body was insane. · I was walking back to my office from Rick's Tavern yesterday around 8:35pm going South on Main St when, lo and behold, JERRY SEINFELD was walking the opposite direction. He was with a group of like 3 or 4 friends and looking casual but good. Hoodie and glasses and admiring the motor bikes parked on the street. · Saw Seymore Butts (born ADAM GLASSER) in the Miracle Mile Marie Callender's today. No cameras, no nudity, no sex acts being performed. But seriously, I saw Seymore Butts!!! FRIDAY, AUGUST 29 · Walking through the hallways of a building deep in the heart of Toluca Lake around 3:30pm is FARRAH FAWCETT. Farrah raised her head to look me in the eye with a a look that said "Yes I am Farrah Fawcett and don't talk to me" Farrah had heavy duty perfume situation going on that wafted in the hallway well after she left the building. Christie Brinkley is about the same age as her but Farrah looks like she has been through the ringer and had a rough, rough hard drinking, hard partying, heavy tanning life. Use sunscreen, kids. Use Sunscreen. · Not sure if KEVIN FEDERLINE is a real "sighting" but we saw Father of The Year at Malibu Seafood on Friday. Did not look overly douche-y. Was with a few guys, both whom I recognized but neither that I could place. · We saw JOHN C. REILLY out in Dublin's (as in, Ireland) posh south side last Friday. We couldn't remember his name right off. We called him "Not-Will-Ferrell". He didn't seem to mind. [Photo Credit: X17]

First, director Spike Lee criticized Clint Eastwood over the absence of black soldiers in his WWII epic Flags of Our Fathers. Next, Eastwood pointed out that the flick is about the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima, which was done by white soldiers, adding that "A guy like him should shut his face." But Lee insists on keeping his face and mouth quite open, casually accusing Eastwood racism and calling him "an angry old man." Says Lee, "First of all, the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either. He's a great director. He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn't personally attack him. And a comment like 'a guy like that should shut his face'-come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there."

Less than 24 hours after a mildly grumpy Clint Eastwood took the race-bait laid for him by Spike Lee over his omission of black characters from his WWII films, Lee's imminent rebuttal appeared online at ABC News. Needless to say, the filmmaker did not exactly follow Eastwood's directions to "shut his face," but rather artfully engaged a few choice metaphors the elder director will no doubt take under advisement as he pursues that reported project about Nelson Mandela:

The Guardian runs an outrageously satisfying interview with Clint Eastwood today, in which he was asked to address comments made at Cannes by his perennially malcontented, bullhorn-wielding peer, Spike Lee. In them, Lee suggested Eastwood ignored African-Americans' contributions to the Allied cause in Flags of Our Fathers. (The exact quote: "There were many African-Americans who survived that war and who were upset at Clint for not having one [in the films]. That was his version: the negro soldier did not exist. I have a different version.") And while "a guy like him should shut his face" will undoubtedly emerge as the rant's most pull-quoted phrase—and deservedly so, being eight perfectly chosen syllables that manage to encapsulate everything we love about the shoot-first, dump-the-body-later Eastwood mystique—there's much else to savor in the permagrizzled auteur's verbal swat-down:

On MSNBC's Morning Joe show today, Courtney Hazlett reported on the current racial tiff between Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood. She reminded us that this isn't the first time the two have had issues: "Spike Lee got really uppity" about Eastwood's WWII movies before! I wonder what Spike Lee has to say about that. Click to watch the lady say the racist thing. [via PlanetGordon. Hazlett is the same reporter who said "we've almost had a dress rehearsal for this with Owen Wilson" when actor Heath Ledger died in January.]

A couple of weeks ago, black filmmaker Spike Lee criticized white director Clint Eastwood's World War II films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima for not having any black soldiers, saying, "In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist." Today Britain's Guardian publishes an interview in which Eastwood hits back, and you can practically hear the director peeling off lines like "A guy like him should shut his face" in his low, rough Dirty Harry voice. On to Eastwood's trash-talking:

· Celebrity nape-haver Matt Damon will play South African rugby star Francois Pienaar in Clint Eastwood's Human Factor. Accent time! [Variety]
· Chuck creator Josh Schwartz declares "computer geeks...the new doctors and cops of television," by which he means a clichéd profession conspired upon by lazy writers and unimaginative network executives to oversaturate the TV landscape. [Variety]
· SAG is churning out more and more waivers with indie producers, guaranteeing production won't be interrupted after June 30 should something go horribly wrong with the negotiations. It's a limbo agents are referring to as "Waiverland," named for the union spokesman who signs the interim agreements, Kenneth Waiverland. [Variety]
· Bruce Willis will star in Kane & Lynch, a lesser-beloved-videogame adaptation for Lionsgate. [THR]
· Brian DePalma goes to the serial-killer well once more with The Boston Stranglers, written by former Diff'rent Strokes and Head of the Class writer Alan Rosen. No word yet on whether or not they'll throw Dan "Arvid" Frischman a bone. [THR]

Now that he's a bigtime fancy-pants director, Clint Eastwood wants nothing to do with his role as a rogue cop with a taste for brutality in the Dirty Harry franchise. Kidding! He's totally cool with it. "'At the time in the press, there was a lot of attention to the rights of the accused, and that's not bad or wrong, but nobody thought too much about the rights of the public or the rights of the victim, that's not what the attention was on,' Eastwood said. 'All of a sudden here was a picture about the rights of all the victims, and I think it really resonated with people who were frustrated.'" And Eastwood's not some gun-nut, either.

Only a few days remain before Cannes ends and we can roll our bleary eyes from the backs of our heads. In the meantime, the rubbernecker in us can't help but take an interest in Spike Lee's latest sortie against the Hollywood establishment — this time as personified by Cannes darling Clint Eastwood, whom Lee railed against while promoting his upcoming Afro-centric World War II drama Miracle at St. Anna:

Ho-hum. Clint Eastwood went to Cannes and all he got were more late-career raves, award mentions, his star Angelina Jolie on his arm and perhaps the most meta title switcheroo in Hollywood history: The Exchange (née Changeling) has all kinds of fans at the festival, where the child-disappearance drama premieres today in competition and already has Variety's Todd McCarthy running back at his hotel room to change his pants:

The pandas have been euthanized and Sean Penn is still lighting up despite you on the first full day of the Cannes Film Festival, which we continue to study from our vantage point in the salt mines. We continue to wince at the reaction to the opening-night film Blindness, whose bad buzz we were nervous about back when the festival waited forever to announce its selection. Variety's Justin Chang piled on this morning — "Blindness emerges onscreen both overdressed and undermotivated, scrupulously hitting the novel's beats yet barely approximating, so to speak, its vision" — with an only slightly happier James Rocchi following suit at Cinematical.

Then there's the anticipation for Indiana Jones and Whatever the Fuck, whose anxious makers are taking precautions to dodge the lynch-mob on their own tail:

The Cannes Film Festival announced this morning it will get four hours of Che Guevara after all — not to mention additional Oscar bait from Clint Eastwood, Angelina Jolie and Charlie Kaufman in this year's competition program. As recently as last Friday, the Steven Soderbergh/Benicio Del Toro all-or-nothing two-fer of Guerrilla and The Argentine was looking doubtful for the Cannes deadline, but the festival announced this morning that it is indeed in. Out of competition, meanwhile, world premieres Indiana Jones 4 and Kung-Fu Panda will do battle for the honorary Jerry Seinfeld Award For Shameless Publicity Hijacking.

· Clint Eastwood will direct and star in Gran Torino for Warner Bros. While details "are being kept under tantalizingly tight wraps," muscle car enthusiasts are hoping the grizzled star of Dirty Harry will be voicing the Laser Striped title vehicle. [Variety]
· Juno-seeder Michael Cera in talks to star in Universal's Scott Pilgrim's Little Life, an adrom (adventure romance) about "a young slacker (Cera) who meets the woman of his dreams but finds that he can only win her heart by battling and defeating her seven evil ex-boyfriends." [THR]
· Anton Yelchin is in talks to play the Michael Biehn role of Kyle Reese: Post-Apocalyptic Warrior in McG's meaninglessly titled Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. [THR]

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you spotted Adrian Grenier possibly consoling the dead bird out of some weepy blonde girl:

A prosecutor who has not been to the movies in 28 years is lashing out at the film he thinks inspired two prison escapees to cover holes in their cell walls with posters of sexy women: Escape from Alcatraz. "This isn't fiction; this is real life. It is dangerous for other people, and I don't find it entertaining," vents County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow. The two inmates, one of whom was born 8 years after the Fred Ward-starrer hit theaters, went over the wall of the Union County on Saturday evening, escaping with just the clothes on their back and the entirety of IMDB's #2 rated film in their head. Damn you, Clint Eastwood. [CBS News]

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you spotted Scott Baio: 45, single, and ready to settle down with a new iMac.

An eagle-eyed reader directed us to return to the TiVo for a replay of Martin Scorsese's Best Director victory speech, during which an inopportune cut to audience reactions clearly spotlights the hand of Clint Eastwood's wife taking a couple of swipes at the Oscar-nominated helmer's crotch. Sure, she's probably just brushing some crumbs from his pants, but she just as easily could be patting Lil' Clint, doing her best to console her husband's suddenly withering manhood after a disappointing loss to an inferior Scorsese effort.

DGA ScreenerGate rages on! The Guild reverses its shocking no-screeners policy reversal by banning the DVDs for this award season, then promising there will be no awards campaigner mindfucking next year, when they'll be allowed. "The most awkward and disrespectful awards snafu of the year!" says Outraged Anonymous Exec of The Undisclosed Studio Review-Journal. [Variety]
Drumroll, please: The last Harry Potter book will be named Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Titillating rumor that we just made up: Harry and Hermione will finally get it on, as will Ron and the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. [THR]
Rocky Balboa picks up $6.2 million on its first day of release, prompting MGM to rush out ads touting the film as the "Number One Movie In America On Wednesday, December 20th." [Variety]
NY circuit court judges, network lawyers, and the FCC carry on a lively debate about when people can say "fuck" and "shit" on live television. [THR]
· While Americans largely ignored Clint Eastwood's English-language World War II movie, the Japanese seem to really love the one he made in their tongue. [Variety]

· The International Press Academy (sort of like the HFPA, but even more international and obscure) presented their Satellite Awards in the Beverly Hills le Méridien ballroom Sunday. Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker get best acting nods for a drama, while Bill Condon and Clint Eastwood (for Flags) tie for best director, in a contest with a category and winner for just about everything. (A Lifetime movie picked up multiple awards.) [Variety]
· The Black Reel Awards give the most nominations to—surprise!—Dreamgirls, with nods also to Pursuit of Happyness, Inside Man, Akeelah and the Bee, Idelwild and more. Shockingly, Big Momma's House 2 is completely shut out, not even recognized for a Special Makeup Award For Excellence in Fat-Suit Drag Achievement. [BlackReelAwards]
· The London Film Critics' Circle has a massive list of nominees divided into regular and "British film" categories. British actors (Helen Mirren, Judi Dench) are nominated in both acting categories, yet Kate Winslet gets a Best British Actress nomination for Little Children, but doesn't make the Best Actress cut. To make matters more confusing, some 2005 films which presumably got later releases in the U.K.—Capote, The Squid and the Whale—got multiple nominations. [shadowsonthewall.co.uk]