As you may have gleaned from the sudden proliferation of stories about why Entourage feels so real (hint: they go to actual restaurants frequented by the kinds of people the show lightly satirizes!) or taking deeper looks into the series' puzzling self-censorship, the show's fourth season premiere finally arrives this Sunday, just in time to provide agents running out of abusive material with fresh insults to hurl at their homosexual assistants. The NY Times reviews the upcoming episodes, in which Entourage's exploration of the homoerotic undercurrent of its characters' emotionally complex bro-on-bro love seems even more pronounced than in previous seasons:

Today's LAT continues its ongoing mission of digging beneath the surface of HBO's popular, softcore Hollywood-lifestyle-porn series Entourage by posing the kinds of probing questions that expose the dramatic Truth obscured by its glitter-speckled veneer, asking, "Hey, for a show in which the main characters do little besides chase tail, why don't we see some fucking?"

· After stumbling upon some screeners for its new season, Var's Peter Bart finally discovers The Entourage, which he believes pampers Hollywood's sexy underbelly but neglects the stepchildren. [Variety]
· Starz is suing Disney because it believes that offering its movies for download at places like iTunes and WalMart.com violates their distribution rights, an internet-related legal action that refreshingly does not involve YouTube. (We think?) [THR]
· In a development that all entertainment news outlets will be contractually obligated to refer to as a "Titanic Reunion," Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio will star in a Sam Mendes-directed DreamWorks adaptation of Revolutionary Road, the grandaddy of all suburban angst novels. [Variety]
· While pitching media buyers on his ongoing turnaround plan for his fourth-place network, NBC president Kevin Reilly expresses hope that beloved-but-low-rated series Friday Night Lights and 30 Rock will evolve into this generation's St. Elsewhere and Cheers. However, he had no historical comparison for breakout hit Deal or No Deal, as the brain-smoothing innovations of reality television had not yet arrived to make viewers stupid enough to watch people shouting at briefcases back in the 80s. [THR]
· Grey's Anatomy is still huge on Thursday nights, while Are You Dumber Than This 10-Year-Old We Plucked From A Special-Ed Class? seems to be sliding in popularity. [Variety]

In this magical, DVR-enabled era in which we live, viewers need only press a button to confirm that the tussled blonde extra they spotted on a repeat airing of Entourage was, in fact, a central player in the Anna Nicole Smith saga: Larry Birkhead. Radar Online posts a screencap of Birkhead's turn as an Ari Gold underling, assigned to the challenging task of reigniting former Viking Quest star Johnny Chase's flagging career. How Birkhead, whose occupation is usually referred to as photographer, wound up cast as an expendable AMA redshirt is anyone's guess: As Radar points out, his name doesn't appear anywhere on IMDB (which could change just as soon as the MOW conveyor belt starts pooping out Anna Nicole miniseries), and his page on Studio System lists precisely zero credits. Regardless, the mere involvement of a leading paternity candidate instantly throws a new light on the industry-satirizing series, making us wonder if other Entourage bit players—from Paul Haggis to Peter Dinklage to Seth Green—might also be worthy of consideration in the Dannielynn Smith Genetic Sweepstakes.

Hotshot HBO exec Michael Fuchs held his famous (among all the right people) Oscar party at his East Village-ish penthouse last evening, and all sorts of high-profile people were invited. How do we know? Because he forgot to Bcc, of course! The strangely diverse guest list (Bette Midler! Various Tisches! Michael Wolff! Katarina Witt! Tim Zagat! Mort Zuckerman! Uh, Nikki Finke?) after the jump.

The long-awaited HBO shop has finally opened its doors, which means the public now has a convenient one-stop shop right near Bryant Park for all their Sopranos, Deadwood, and, SIGH, Sex and the City needs. Really, are things so bad that we need an entire room—make that shrine—dedicated to the memory of Carrie et al? Seriously, this looks like someone from Six Feet Under got the interior design contract. Is it wrong to think that Sarah Jessica Parker looked better on the side of a bus?

BED, the New York club akin to an atmospherically lit Sit n' Sleep showroom and made famous in an episode of Sex and the City, played host to a bizarre accident Saturday night. Granville Adams, a manager at the club (and, strangely enough, an actor from yet another HBO series, Oz), brawled with a customer, hurtling him towards a set of elevator doors with enough force to open them and send him plunging four floors below:

· Columbia Pictures and David Koepp, writer of the first Spider-Man's script, have begun the process of trying to agree upon on the presumably huge number that would bring him back to do the screenplay for Spidey 4. [Variety]
· Foreign moviegoers' love affair with Ben Stiller shows no sign of slowing down, with Night at the Museum topping the international box office yet again with $14.4. million. [THR]
· At the TCAs, Peter Liguori says networks are feeling the "chilling effect" of FCC indecency rulings, and that the "regrettably restrictive" climate they've created could stand in the way of his dream of one day hearing House call one of his medical underlings a "a total fucking incompetent." [Variety]
· HBO picks up the Lily Tomlin drama 12 Miles of Bad Road to series, and orders 40 (!) more episodes of the Gabriel Byrne therapy comedy In Treatment, bringing its commitment to the show to 45 half-hours. [THR]
· A high-level Italian court rules that the unauthorized downloading of copyrighted movies and music isn't a crime if the downloader doesn't profit from it, prompting the MPAA to announce its intentions to lobby Congress to immediately invade Italy before it becomes a safe haven for the pirate menace that threatens to bring down Hollywood. [Variety]

· Gail BermanWatch:Var reads this morning's LAT story about Berman's imminent departure from Paramount and puts in some calls at the studio, getting a no comment and a promise that a statement about the situation is forthcoming. Meanwhile, the Reporter updates that "a source close to the executive" says Berman is negotiating a separation settlement. We're on pins and needles over here as we await the forwarding of a heartbreaking press release. [Variety, THR]
· Madonna's Maverick Films and HBO Films combine their resources to lock up the highly coveted, non-Johnny Knoxville part of the Jackass collective for the wacky firefighter comedy Hosed, in which we assume Steve-O and the gang do nothing but give each other firehose enemas and test the limits of their genitals' resistance to open flame. [THR]
· Paramount will sell its movies on iTunes. In a statement about their move to exploit the digital platform, studio boss Brad Grey made no comment on Gail Berman's reportedly imminent departure. [Variety]
· Fox House "easily trounced" (is there any other way?) L&O: Criminal Intent and the People's Choice Awards in the ratings last night, giving the network a nice win as it awaits next week's return of Nielsen juggernaut American Idol. [THR]

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:

• Jeff Zucker may take over for Bob Wright as head of NBC by the end of the year. Honestly, you get the feeling that Zucker could rip the head off a transgendered prostitute and skullfuck it in the middle of a board meeting and he'd still get promoted. [NYP]
  

Dave Chappelle, America's most beloved no-show comedian, is set to once again thrill audiences with one of his trademark mysterious absences at the HBO-co-sponsored Comedy Festival this Thursday in Las Vegas:

• Yep, it's true: Time cuts its rate base, tries to convince advertisers that people pass issues on to friends. Be real, Stengel: Those nursing homes only get one copy each week. [NYT]
  

Finding that exploring the effect of new wealth on interpersonal relationships through the lens of an up-and-coming Hollywood star with a net worth in the mere seven figures was ultimately insufficient for realizing his lofty sociological mission, Entourage creator Doug Ellin will turn his attention to a more "mature" group of friends who make real, Wall Street money for an HBO pilot. Reports Variety:

Those who find themselves jonesing for the mildly homoerotic lifestyle porn of Entourage during its hiatus might be temporarily sated by the adventures of Group of Guys, the story of F, Theater, and Duck-Billed Platypus, three childhood pals just trying to mooch off mildly successful pal Vincent Pursuit's Smallville cameo. We'd call it a Bizarro version of Hollywood, except that this version of the industry is a lot more true to reality than the one where a doe-eyed Aquaman's hardest decision is whether to hit the bong before or after stopping by Book Soup for a groupie fuck.

Rupert Murdoch tells investors that he can potentially make money from MySpace from a combination of advertising, videos and "internet telephony," but admitted that even News Corps' best business minds have yet to find a legal way to monetize the site's community of sexual predators, who wield an impressive discretionary income. [Variety]
Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions moves into TV with P.E., a single-camera comedy for HBO about "a guy who, after flaming out as a major league baseball pitcher, returns to his small Southern hometown to teach physical education at the middle school he once attended and has to make amends with all the people he turned his back on." It is unclear whether HBO plans to back out of the deal once they discover that Ferrell himself will not be starring in the project. [THR]
The Class and Studio 60 have "solid" premieres, but it's hard to get too excited about numbers that earn the headline "Big Hopes, OK Debuts." [Variety]
Former WB Network bigshot Garth Ancier gets the standard, "Hey, sorry we fired you, but please accept this bag of money and an office on our lot as a token of our affection" shingle at Warner Bros. TV. [THR]
George Lucas will donates $175 million to USC Film School, at least $10 million of which is earmarked for the commissioning of a 50-foot-tall bronze statue of the director kicking Steven Spielberg in the ass. [THR]

While driving around the east side of our fine city, we'd often find ourselves musing that the sleepy, upper-middle-class environs would make an excellent stand-in for suburban Utah. The Citizen Robot blog notes that this fake billboard has gone up in Glassell Park, indicating that location scouts for Big Love obviously agree with our amateur hunch. And while it's great to see a TV production staying in town (even if it's because Utah probably isn't that welcoming of a show that wants to harp on the whole polygamy thing), we fear that some local day laborers visiting the neighborhood might not subscribe to the premium channel and could become confused by the prop, circling the neighborhood endlessly looking to stake out a good spot in the parking lot of the nonexistent home superstore in an attempt to pick up some work.

It looks like HBO has decided that its bold attempt to add the ability to repeatedly use the word "cunt," show flaccid male genitalia, and depict a schlubby TV husband pumping away at his sexually frustrated wife to the traditional, multicamera sitcom genre has failed, as they've announced that they've canceled Lucky Louie after just one season. TV Week relates the network's heartfelt expression of admiration for the boundary-pushing comedian they just shitcanned:

"When we last saw the bedraggled Bubbles, he was shuffling through a drug-infested corner of Baltimore on the HBO crime drama ''The Wire,'' pontificating as only Bubbles can." The New York Times, August 28

Highly eligible local bachelor Robert Evans is reportedly not pleased with Hollywood's weekly Narcissine gaze into show business' murky waters, Entourage. Having been approached to play a jokey version of himself, like so many other behind-the-scenes luminaries have done already, the immaculately becoiffed superproducer politely turned them down. As a consolation prize, he offered full access to shoot in his multi-waterbedroom manse. But then he got a look at the final product—particularly the aging, buffoon producer played by Martin Landau: