• Actor Peter Boyle dead at 71 [AP]

At last night's panel discussion/entertainment journalist deathmatch featuring the LAT's Jon Horn and Patrick Goldstein and the NY Times' Sharon Waxman and Laura Holson, talk inevitably turned to DreamWorks mogul/Gay Mafia potentate/Malibu beach baron David Geffen's efforts to acquire the west-coasted Times, prompting a debate between the two camps about whether LAT staffers should embrace or fear their potential Hollywood master. LA Observed recaps:

Lindsay Ratowsky — the former assistant to Lindsay Lohan, outed as the "LR" that Lohan rails against in her crazy rage-mail — has her own darkly criminal past. Ratowsky may be temporarily protected by her status as new assistant to Jessica Biel, but if Biel really is sorta "dating" NY Yankee Derek Jeter, Ratowsky could find herself drawn dangerously close to Lohan's home turf. (Incidentally, we personally spotted Derek Jeter sunning his golden physique on a Dominican Republic beach this past weekend, and he was complaining about some non-Biel chick he was trying to bone.) Anyway! Goldenfiddle runs a reader mail detailing Ratowsky's extremely amateurish attempt to steal a boutique necklace while masquerading as Lohan's assistant, even though she had already parted ways with the other Lindsay. Expect her to try and lift Jeter's 2000 World Series ring if not carefully monitored.

Today's Page Six puzzles through how floundering megastar Jim Carrey and multimedia-brand-in-decline Jennifer Lopez squeezed onto the guest list for last month's Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Billion Year Commitment Ceremony Spectacular, connecting the dots first through evil agenting monolith CAA, then through a possible interest in discovering how some time in the sauna with a fistful of vitamins can help one's career or family-building ambitions. Says Page Six:

· Take a good look at this guy. (Record producer "DJ Jazzy" Jonathan "JR" Rotem, if you must know his name.) He was supposedly seen making out with Britney Spears, meaning that there's at least a fifty percent chance he'll be the father of her next child.
Meanwhile, Paris Hilton valiantly defends Britney Spears' mothering skills and partying ethics, claiming that a woman with small children who likes to get out of the house once in a while to flash her cooch isn't necessarily a bad mom.
Lindsay Lohan's hitting the pole, but she's not taking her clothes off. We'll grudgingly put up with such shenanigans from someone of Natalie Portman's abilities and level of class, but not from someone whose career high points are Mean Girls and begging Al Gore to ask the media to be nice to her.
Hey, Bigfoot pleasuring a unicorn! [Note to Fox Interactive types—disabling embedding on your promotional videos makes them much less fun. Free the handjobbing Sasquatch!]

As part of our continuing efforts to publicly celebrate the generous and chastise the miserly during this industry holiday gifting season, we pass along two more reports of what agencies are giving to employees and lower-ranking business associates this year. A reader lets us know that evil agenting monolith CAA has significantly improved upon last December's feeble offering:

Following quickly after yesterday's ruling against the slave-owners'-rights-espousing frat boys seeking to have their scene in the Borat movie removed from the DVD release, comes another lawsuit brought against the filmmakers by a South Carolinian claiming to have been duped by the prankster now famous the world over, Sacha Baron Cohen. In a scene that never made it to the movie's final cut, Borat earns some money as a bathroom attendant at an upscale restaurant. It's a short sequence that has made the rounds on TV and online (but has since been pulled down by YouTube 2.0, Lame Edition), and now its full-bladdered mark is suing to ensure his Pee of Shame never sees the DVD extras light of day:

· Music round-up: Wolfmother at the Palladium; KCRW's Gimme Shelter Benefit with Starsailor and The Like at The Roxy. Lemon Sun at the Echo.
· The Comedians of Comedy storm (yeah, that's probably too strong a verb for what stand-ups do when they show up to a venue) the Troubadour, with performances by David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Zack Galifianakis, Maria Bamford, Bob Odenkirk, and other instantly recognizable names we are too lazy to cut and paste into this space.
· Variety's Dana Harris will preside over tonight's entertainment journalist deathmatch at the Central Library, where the LAT's Jon Horn and Patrick Goldstein and the NY Times' Sharon Waxman and Laura Holson will be locked in a steel cage with an assortment of edged and blunt implements, asked which news organization currently dominates Hollywood reporting, and then hack/bludgeon each other into bloody messes. Our prediction: There will be no survivors.

A fearless photographer for Hello! magazine risked the searing of his retinas by training his camera lens on Shiloh Nouvel, the genetically flawless biological offspring of globe-trotting United Nations Goodwill Ambassadors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, in an attempt to document the baby's progress from Chosen newborn to toddling Savior of All Mankind (pictured, gently bathed in the distracting divine light that will continue to fade as she ages) for the future generations of children who will be delivered from poverty, pestilence, and substandard nanny care by the messianic celebrity progeny. We recommend that you only view the other photos from the spread (taken during the family's recent, fruitless orphan-recruiting trip to Cambodia) through a pane of smoked glass, as gazing on the unfiltered Good of Shiloh's visage will result in an irreversible blindness that not even direct exposure to the miracle-brining child can possibly cure.

Yesterday, when we pointed out the video clip which seemed to depict Pauly Shore as the victim of semi-senseless heckler-on-comedian violence in an Odessa, TX comedy club, we neglected to raise the possibility that the incident was some kind of publicity stunt meant to capitalize on the red-hot "blurry videos of loud-mouthed stand-ups clashing with audience members" trend recently popularized by edgy performance artist Michael Richards, content to believe that the patron was provoked enough to punch Shore in the mouth. Today, an anonymous e-mailer (whose reliability we can't vouch for, so we'll just throw this out there in the interest of lively, high-minded debate) claims that the punch was staged and shot in multiple takes at the conclusion of the show, forcing us to confront the unpleasant idea that a performer of Shore's stature would stage such a thing for the fleeting attention it might bring. (Remembering, of course, that this is a wily trickster who put out a movie called Pauly Shore Is Dead while not actually being dead.) Does the punch actually connect? Was it thrown by cynical design, or in genuine, heartfelt anger? We don't have the answers, but urge you to watch the video a few dozen more times in an attempt to puzzle through these questions on your own.

It seems Christmas parties have finally gone the way of the Bar and Bat Mitzvah, as what were once modest eggnog-and-fruitcake-imbibing gatherings are now over-the-top extravaganzas, desperate to one-up each other with hunky Santa waiters, chestnut-roasting stations, hot-toddy-spewing volcanos, and, for that crowning, seasonal touch, your very own celebrity showing up to mingle with your guests. ABCNews.com explores the increasingly common trend, which will set you back as little as $5,000 for your Potsies or your Klingers, anywhere up to the neighborhood of a cool $100,000 for your marquee names. (That's what they report Drew Carey will be paid to entertain a Houston energy company next week, proving that not even the lessons of Enron can kill that industry's love of a profit-hemmoraghing good time.) But if it's an even bigger star you want, perhaps from a hit TV series still on the air, fret not—even Emmy winners have a price:

An unfortunate side effect of our steeling what's left of our blackened hearts to resist loudly obsolescent actor Sylvester Stallone's impassioned pleas to buy a ticket to Rocky Balboa and help him rage against an ageist Hollywood that callously casts aside the used up, bloated husks of its former action stars is our forgetting that the man is not a mere reader of other people's scripted lines, but a multitalented individual who expresses himself through both his own words and stirring images. Radar has obtained script pages of an early draft of the Balboa script featuring painstaking illustrations of the movie's action rendered by Stallone himself, which offer hope that even when the industry will no longer let him contribute in front of the camera, a prosperous second act as a storyboard artist surely awaits him.

We here at Defamer love the holiday season for no other reason than the bounty of movie critics' year-end lists and awards it brings us, like decrees handed down from on high from our pull-quote producing, thumb-direction-assigning cinematic sages. The Broadcast Film Critics Association adds another layer of intrigue to the process, dragging things out heightening the suspense by first releasing a list of nominees in every category, and later announcing the winners at the E!-broadcast Critics' Choice Awards—a mini-Oscars, as it were, only with the added feature of having Ryan Seacrest backstage to helpfully offer select Best Actor and Supporting Actor nominees stress-relieving lower back rubs. A partial list of the nominees, from The Envelope:

Like nearly all seemingly feel-good Hollywood stories, March of the Penguins's triumphant run is ending in legal ugliness, with the doc's director of photography suing for a director credit on the film. [Variety]
Jason Lee will star in and produce Krater, a comedy about a late 70s/early 80s rock band who hires a lead singer with "secret Broadway ambitions" a description that we will decode as "is secretly gay." [THR]
Getting a whiff of the awards buzz on Letters from Iwo Jima, Warner Bros. pushes director Clint Eastwood in front of as many media members as possible, politely urges him not to confuse people by talking about the other World War II movie he recently did for another studio that everyone's already forgotten about. [Variety]
The Reporter calls 2006 the "Year of the Apology." Serial apologizers Mel Gibson and Michael Richards figure prominently. [THR]
With Studio 60 getting the week off, made-for-TV holiday flick A Year Without a Santa Claus ably filled in as NBC's designated Monday night ratings momentum-stopper, even though the movie completely ignored the lessons we learned about the sham that is Christmas on S60's uplifting holiday special. [Variety]

For more than two television seasons, Orange County has enjoyed the free publicity (and definite article value-add) provided by relatively low-rated but culturally influential Fox dramedy The O.C., which week after week portrayed the county as an incredibly glamorous teen playground where the spoiled children of successful citizens party by the beach, haunt shopping malls, and listen to arena-headlining indie rock bands in tiny venues friendly to underage music fans. Today's LAT notes that the tourism boost "The" O.C.'s experienced could be imperiled by the cancellation that seems inevitable for the struggling series, as fans like this one may no longer crisscross the globe to briefly live out their TV-inspired dreams:

AfterElton.com explores the fascinating case of the character of Zach from NBC's hit drama, Heroes: The best friend and confidante to the series' pivotal cheerleader character Claire, Zach (actor Thomas Dekker) was conceived by the show's creators to be a gay teenager. And while Zach never once uttered the words "I'm gay," up until the "Homecoming" episode that aired Nov. 20, all signs still pointed to Queer. (The episode features the cheerleader punching out another girl who called Zach a "gay boy," and later features a scene in which Zach refuses to accompany Claire to the homecoming "for a million different reasons," then seguing into a maddeningly vague speech about embracing one's otherness.) AfterElton reports the official Heroes website even summarized the exchange by saying "Zach stammers with his reply, admitting that he's gay," words which then went mysteriously missing from the online recap. His MySpace page, meanwhile, lists his orientation as "Not Sure," and his favorite movies as a lavender laundry list of the usual suspects (Rocky Horror, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Velvet Goldmine, etc.). So why, then, with Dekker about to leave the show to star in a Terminator TV series, are NBC and the actor's reps now insisting the character was straight all along?

In the first entry in the "Totally True Confessions Of A Maturing Starlet Looking To Fix A Tiny Image Problem" sobriety diary she'll be keeping in People magazine over the coming months to document her brave recovery from a completely understandable impulse to enjoy the occasional cocktail with some friends after an arduous, honest, and call-time-observing day of shooting, hard-working actress and occasional manifesto author Lindsay Lohan informs her fans that she hasn't had a drink in seven days, a dry streak she prepared for with a year of AA meetings:

You've read the booking sheet with its shocking, self-reported (and probably exaggerated by 10 percent) 85 lbs of body mass and listened to the chilling 911 calls, but now, thanks to local ABC affiliate KABC 7's exclusive RichieTracker7000™ technology, you can experience what it would have been like to view the wild, Vicodin-and-marijuana impaired ride that resulted in Nicole Richie's DUI arrest from a seat in their VirtualNewsChopper7 hovering over a crudely animated 134 Freeway. We warn you in advance: So immersive is the simulation that you may find yourself short of breath (or, God forbid, loose of bowel—take the appropriate precautions) when the overscaled, lane-clogging rectangle representing Richie's SUV enters the freeway on an exit ramp, then quickly executes an incredibly dangerous U-turn in the middle of the roadway, threatening to wipe out every unseen vehicle you can imagine driving in the proper direction. Enter the RichieTracker7000™ here via the video widow, if you dare. You'll never get behind the wheel after hitting the bong and popping a downer again.

In one of the sadder examples of sycophantic censorship, Adrants notes that Entertainment Weekly has bravely refused to run ads for coatier Cloudveil Mountain Works — meant to run during Sundance — that made almost undetectable fun of breast implants and scientology. These are not edgy, border-pushing ads, but apparently EW has no interest in even slightly offending the large-bosomed theta-fighting demographic. The injurious ads are after the jump; click to enlarge for the full horror.

Paris Hilton's publicist quashes rumors that she and Britney Spears like to engage in hot, celebutard-on-poptard action, thereby reducing public interest in their shenanigans by at least 80 percent.
Making a socially conscious studio film with an indie sensibility is just so much harder when the paparazzi won't let you get a plate of curry without harassment.
· And speaking of harassment, Superman Returns producer Jon Peters' rep calls the lawsuit with all the naked bear-hugging and boyparts-exposing allegations "frivolous."
Here's a way to protest Mel Gibson, but see Apocalypto anyway.
· This is only the second best 911 call of the day.