An Important Drama like Brokeback Mountain has been many things to many people since its release three years ago, but who knew it was a budding franchise? Not only is the cowboys-in-love tale going opera, but ardent internet fans continue to sequelize the film with fan fiction, side stories and improbable follow-ups. Why, even Defamer has gotten into the act — Ang, the rights for "Ennis and Jack's Outrageous UFO Adventure" (above) are still available. Call us! However, there's one person who finds these add-ons downright Jack Nasty, and she's Annie Proulx, the tale's original author. As she told the Wall Street Journal:

· So this little exchange between Lily Allen and Sir Elton John at the GQ Awards is certainly one for the ages. Team...um...Sting? [TMZ] · A People reporter is suing Splash for the Heath Ledger-doing-blow-at-Chateau Marmont video that surfaced after his death, claiming "intrusion of privacy," but an LA Superior Court judge has dismissed 11 of the 12 claims. [ABC News] · Knowing David Duchovny is the voice of this dachshund wanting you to rub its belly makes us worried that this dachshund may actually be addicted to random belly-rubbing from total strangers. [Videogum] · Speaking of sex addiction, at last—all your naughty celebrities-on-a-telephone desires can be satisfied. [celebrities and telephones] · And to end on a hopeful note, Debi Mazar is totally kosher with Bristol Palin's teen pregnancy. She was the product of a teen pregnancy herself! [E Online]

After her latest round of plastic surgery, Joan Rivers has once again sparked concern that her postmodern facial sculpting has perhaps gone one operation too far. "My motto is, 'Better a new face coming out of an old car than an old face coming out of a new car.' Spend your money on you," the Daily Mail quotes her as saying, but clearly the stakes have soared beyond self-service satisfaction: Rivers is but the latest boldface name to join the increasingly cutthroat Joker-Alike 2008 competition, in which grinning celebrities and their psychotic celluloid doppelgangers square off for ear-to-ear supremacy. Have a closer look at the finalists — and vote for a (or nominate your own) winner after the jump.A. Joan Rivers

After a bit of a false start, the SoHo apartment where Heath Ledger died last January is apparently back on the rental market. And what a deal can be had at $26,000 per month — an increase of more than 20% over Ledger's $22,000 monthly rent after moving in last September. Steep! But again, these are post-Dark Knight dollars, and the mythology premium is good for at least 10% over the usual bump you see around the neighborhood. Just ask a broker!

Seven months after his death, Heath Ledger's SoHo loft at 419-421 Broome Street is back on the rental market. The three-bedroom apartment, which according to the Post was quietly (and unsuccessfully) shopped around back in February, is listed with Corcoran's Darren Kearns at $26,000 a month, $4,000 more than what Heath was paying. Photos and the floorplan after the jump.

While some in Hollywood might see Heath Ledger's two-year-old daughter as a sacred cow, to talk show host Wendy Williams, she's red meat. Last seen offering unsolicited advice to a recovering Christina Applegate, Williams today turned her attention to Ledger, who died without updating his will to include his daughter Matilda or his ex, Spike Jonze-canoodler Michelle Williams. In response, actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell will be donating their fees from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (which they stepped into after Ledger's death) to both Michelle Williams and Matilda, an act of generosity that does not go unremarked-upon by Miss Wendy. Watch as she again horrifies her audience by going there in a bizarre, sperm-soaked metaphor meant to defend Matilda. Wendy, Wendy: with friends like these, who needs enemies? [The Wendy Williams Show]

• Paris Hilton either added implants to "her A-cup" breasts or wants to spread gossip that she did so she can sell her stupid "push-up" bra. (Yes, you can click the thumb if you need a closer look. Yes, you will feel dirty. But don't you kinda feel that way already?) [P6]

• Roseanne Barr is outraged that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt haven't endorsed Barack Obama, so she's taken them to task on her blog for being evil and vacuous, and for "trying to look as if they give a crap about humanity." [P6, RoseanneWorld]
  

Though no one cared enough to actually make it to her funeral, Golden Girls actress Estelle Getty was beloved in Hollywood, where actors and agents whiling down coke benders at 4 a.m. grew to love the misadventures of her sassy Sophia Petrillo during countless late-night Lifetime reruns. Still, that didn't stop the sketch comics at Upright Citizens Brigade from trotting out their impressions of the actress — as well as those of the deceased Heath Ledger and Bernie Mac — during a 72-hour marathon at the theater. According to the NY Daily News, celebrity panelist Brooke Shields wasn't laughing:

The untimely death of Heath Ledger left a void in the acting community. In terms of his actual person, yes, but also in what he represented. A subdued, thoughtful actor who shied away from the press, who made a quiet regular guy life for himself when he wasn't emoting really well for lots and lots of money. So, for useless speculation's sake, who will fill that role now, where is our next, uh, sorta-dark knight? Ledger's Brokeback Mountain costar Jake Gyllenhaal is too splashy. Other broody types like Josh Hartnett haven't quite got that leading-man-with-gravitas movie star thing down. So we think it might be James Franco, who is, like Ledger before he died, just beginning the second act of his career.

Bernie Mac's tragic death sparked a surge of postmortems around the Web over the weekend, with many invoking his role as the bad-ass mall gumshoe opposite Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa. But one perceptive observer commenting at Hollywood Elsewhere noted that the late comedian's passing is the latest in a string of similarly untimely demises for other Thornton co-stars as well:

It's well-known that the conceptual period preceding The Dark Knight was an exceptionally fertile time for all involved — smooth Batsailing for a creative team responsible for reimagining the heroes and villains of Gotham City. Chief among those visions was The Joker, preliminary sketches of whom are now appearing in a new coffee-table book for the fanboy who has everything, The Art of The Dark Knight. An attentive reader points out today, however, how one of the early, nastier Joker mock-ups reminds him of an old friend of Defamer — a guy whose uncanny likeness would have no doubt stirred more controversy, trouble and tragedy than all the accursed Dark Knight infamy we've observed over the last year.

Days after implicating Mary-Kate Olsen but months after it began, the DEA inquiry into the death of Heath Ledger has finally wrapped, filing charges against exactly no one. Does it perhaps seem like the U.S. Attorney's Office spent an awful lot of time and money with nothing to show for it? According to TMZ, that's just the beginning — the gossip website alleges that DEA agents essentially used the Ledger investigation as an excuse to talk to supermodels, fly all over the country, and meet people from Hollywood:

Mary-Kate Olsen WINS. Twice law-enforcement authorities have tried pressuring the dopey lil' actress into telling what she knows about the death of close personal friend Heath Ledger, and twice now she has successfully beaten them back — the only person connected to Ledger to successfully do so. Federal sources told first the Daily News and now the Post that U.S. prosecutors have withdrawn their investigation into the death of actor Ledger, forcing the Drug Enforcement Administration to drop demands to interview Olsen. That's a fairly humiliating retreat for an agency that just two days ago implied it would use a Grand Jury subpoena to force Olsen to tell what she knows after word leaked of frustration in its offices over Olsen's demands for immunity. Especially because the feds really did have a subpoena. Reports the News:

• If nothing else, all this new Heath Ledger investigation press may help generate interest, to the extent that's possible, in the Olsen Twins' coffee table book in which they interview their influences. [Scoop - third item]

• Mary-Kate Olsen's lawyer said she had nothing to do with the drugs found in Heath Ledger's home or his body. The feds don't seem to be entirely satisfied, though, because they've now planning to get a subpoena to force Mary-Kate to testify. [NYP]

The Associated Press now has its own law-enforcement source stating that Mary-Kate Olsen is demanding immunity before she will talk with federal agents investigating the January death of actor Heath Ledger, as the Post reported this morning. The immunity request is now all but confirmed. Olsen's attorney didn't bother to deny it in a statement addressing a number of other questions raised by the Post story, such as whether Olsen helped Ledger procure OxyContin:

Uncle Jesse would be very disappointed: according to the New York Post, Mary-Kate Olsen is refusing to speak (wait, they talk?) with federal investigators looking into the death of Heath Ledger — that is, until she receives immunity from prosecution. It seems the feds are making inquiries to determine when and from who Ledger obtained the drugs that may have led to his death, and Olsen (who, as you'll recall, was the first person called when Ledger's masseuse discovered the body) is the only one who isn't talking:

Remember Poltergeist, that 1982 horror film that was rumored to be plagued by a curse? What with the untimely deaths of two of its young stars, and reports of various odd occurrences on set. Can a movie be cursed? The Exorcist saw its fair share of mishaps, including injuries and the deaths of several crew members, as did Peter Berg's recent flop The Kingdom. And then there's Valkyrie. Well, it looks as though The Dark Knight, that Batman blockbuster mega-machine that's roiling in movie theatres currently, may be joining those ranks. Death and violence has surrounded three of its stars since the movie wrapped, Morgan Freeman's car accident last night being the most recent.

In the heated days of confusion and mourning immediately following the January death of Heath Ledger, many of the actor's admirers loudly proclaimed it absurd to raise questions about the role played by the actor's friend Mary-Kate Olsen in his death and aftermath. New York police concluded their investigation into Ledger's death without even interviewing the elfish young actress, even though, as the Post repeatedly pointed out, she was told of Ledger's death before emergency responders and even though her bodyguards may have arrived at his apartment just before paramedics, who Olsen did not bother to call. Having stayed on the story, the Post today reports that federal drug agents are pressing Olsen hard to cooperate in their investigation into how Ledger obtained the powerful painkiller OxyContin without a prescription — and into what happened to the bottle: