Both Bernie Mac and Morgan Freeman are in the hospital? At the same time? Now he'll never have a chance against John McCain. Oh, well. He was too skinny to be president anyway.

A Morgan Freeman Car Accident Update, in Which Things Don't Sound As Dire As We Feared: News reports claim the star of Wanted and The Dark Knight was "lucid, conscious," at the time of the rescue. "He was talking, joking with some of the rescue workers at one point.” When someone tried to take a cellphone picture at the accident site, he joked, "No freebies, no freebies.” His condition is still listed as serious, with only a broken arm specified among his various injuries. Fellow wreck survivor Shia—his own hand currently "crushed" but recovering—is giving him a fist-bump from the heart. [commercialappeal.com]

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.

Terrible news: Morgan Freeman is in "serious condition" after the jaws of life were used to pry him out of a severe car wreck near his home in Mississippi:

After surviving months of Dark Knight hype, viral outreach and tastefully overblown praise for late co-star Heath Ledger, Defamer finally got its chance at a screening Tuesday to see what all the Bat-fuss was about. And as editor Seth Abramovitch and senior editor S.T. VanAirsdale discovered in their second installment of Defamer Instant Reviews, not everybody is ready to validate its Second Coming status quite yet. Is it good? Absolutely. Is it the best film of the summer? That's where things get complicated — on AIM, of course, because this watershed cultural moment deserves no less.

· The eldest denizens of the Dark Knight cast, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, made an obligatory promotional stop-off to hobnob with the ladies of The View this morning. And, of course, they used the opportunity to stump for a Heath Ledger Oscar nomination. We'll weigh in tomorrow morning with our own thoughts, as both Seth and STV saw the movie earlier this eve. [The View]
· Woody Allen's longtime producing partner, Charles Joffe, passed away at age 78. [NYT]
· Continuing the moribund nature of tonight's edition of Short Ends, we're sad to report that nearly 150 staffers at the Los Angeles Times, including publisher David Hiller and truth-challenged reporter Chuck Philips, found themselves on the receiving end of a pink slip. [LA Observed]
· Even though we don't know a single person who watches CSI, we're pretty sure that millions of people will be upset to learn that all-around bad-ass William Peterson is leaving the show mid-season. [Michael Ausiello]
· Your Uncle Grambo's dreamgirl extraordinaire, Miss Amanda Bynes, is dating ... Seth MacFarlane??? NOOOOOO! We are so glad this day is over, we're not sure we could take anymore bad news. [ONTD]

Back in October of 2006, Vanity Fair shocked us all by nabbing the first family photos of until-then MIA Suri Cruise, the tiny Xenuphobic bundle of joy Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had masterfully kept hidden months after her no-screaming-allowed birth. Why were we shocked? Accusations from both the press and the masses flooded the public narrative claiming little Suri looked nothing like Tom or Katie, some going so far as to claim the pregnancy was faked. But after the Knights of Hubbard spent this past weekend in New York with Suri in tow, it's become clear to us that Suri is quite obviously a real-live Cruise. The pictures that convinced us, along with details on which stars the Cruises spent time proselytizing dining with out East, after the jump.

There's no New York theater critic who likes to throw his weight around quite like Michael Riedel of the Post. Riedel's latest beef is with legendary Spamalot director Mike Nichols' version of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl, which goes before critics for the first time tonight. Although he has yet to view the play, Riedel has spewed constant venom about the production, with his favorite target the show's star, much-honored screen veteran Morgan Freeman. The 70-year-old Freeman made the grave error of substituting the name "Mabel Mercer" for "Mabel Beck" this week in previews, and Riedel smelled blood, terming Freeman "Morgan the Mangler" and describing the actor's reported flubbing of every other line. Tomorrow the play opens to critics, but we saw the show last night, and are happy to report Riedel's nastiness is wholly unmerited. More on how wrong Michael Riedel is about this revival of a play Frank Rich termed "near the top of second-rate" after the jump.

The extremely well respected actor told reporters last night that while he may often play God in the movies, he does not actually have a God complex. While he does appreciate people coming up to him on the street and talking about prior work, it's just that he doesn't have all the solutions or answers to your problem. Freeman said that there's only so much he can do. He also appreciates it if people quit asking him to be their outgoing voice mail message.

Seeing as we could very well have a black president soon, curious patriots are tilling through the earth of our history, trying to divine some clues from the past as to what that could mean for America. We, on the other hand, just Googled "black presidents in movies." The Onion recently ran one of their jokey-jokey op eds on the subject, and NPR even covered it over a a year ago. What lessons can we learn from our celluloid brothers-in-chief? What can we expect when we're expecting a black president?

· Variety leads with the story, "Will 'Code' erode?," which asks how X-Men: The Last Stand will fare at the box office this weekend opposite the still strong Da Vinci Code. Leading us to wonder out loud, "Does the mere posing of a question really qualify as a news story?" Or, for that matter, a lame trade round-up joke? [Variety]
· NBC's program-grid shell game has their competitors snickering behind their scrawny, fourth place ass. But it could well be they who laughs last, when Super Deal or No Deal, featuring a stadium of 1000 models holding briefcases containing amounts from $.01 to $1,000,000,000, devours the Thursday 6 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. time slot. [Variety]
· Canadian networks divvy up this year's American TV offerings, then frantically futz with their schedules in an adorable attempt at mimicking the habits of their neighbor to the south. [Variety]
· Morgan Freeman is close to signing on to Gone, Baby, Gone, Ben Affleck's directorial debut from a script he wrote, answering the age old question, "How many motorcycles does it take to get Morgan Freeman to star in your big comeback vehicle?" [THR]
· Les Moonves tells shareholders that CBS has gotten off to "a terrific start" since its divorce from Viacom, a less than subtle dig at rival Tom Freston. And somewhere in Heaven, the legend goes, the Angel of Corporate Honcho Harmony yelps in pain as a clump of wing feathers is instantly torn off. [THR]

We tried to watch the SAGgies last night, but our increasingly sentient-seeming TiVo talked us out of it by politely suggesting that we might better enjoy a recorded rerun of Project Runway instead. (Oh, that wacky Santino! What will he design next?) Luckily, Would You Blog Me was tuned in, and caught this brief on-stage expression of idol worship following Crash's big win: