The Producers Guild's is up in arms about the studios and networks' devaluing of its amorphous craft, even threatening to sick lawyers on the Hollywood establishment if it persists in handing out "unearned" credits. Of course, the first step in any such campaign is raising awareness through education, i.e., what the fuck does a producer do? According to the LAT, "The guild maintains that a producer initiates, coordinates, supervises and controls all aspects of a motion picture from inception to completion." Oh, it's so much clearer now!

The MPAA is again out to browbeat its paying customers, and its market research (or the sounds of pirate noises in a theater) apparently has revealed that the "puppet stuntman" is not as "relateable" a propaganda delivery character as a teenage girl. LAist's Paul Davidson stares into the face of the new Manny Perry and sees a gum-smacking, broadband-equipped Hilary Duff fan.

South Park troublemakers Trey Parker and Matt Stone have finally made uneasy peace with the f-word and fellatio tabulators at the MPAA ratings board, as their puppet movie Team America: World Police ultimately got the R rating they needed for release. The R will be accompanied by an explanation that the movie contains "graphic, crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language all involving puppets." [Emphasis ours.] We hardly even need a movie after Stone and Parker got the MPAA to admit there's a completely different ratings standard for marionette fucking. Even better, they got a discussion of water sports into Page Six:

Variety reports that John Woo has signed on to direct and produce a live-action adaptation of the He-Man cartoon. We don't want to ignite another Ang Lee controversy, but perhaps Woo's choice to take a shot at He-Man might be charitably attributed to a language barrier? Or maybe Fox pulled a bait-and-switch on Woo, dangling a prestige property from the 80's cartoon pantheon, like The Snorks, My Little Pony, or Monchichi, and then saddling him with a franchise that's already been tainted by Dolph Lundgren.

With Shark Tale's utterly predictable box office victory this weekend, the AP declares animation voiceover work to be the "cool thing to do in Hollywood." Pray tell, AP coolhunters, what's the appeal of working in the hotter-than-hott CGI genre?

Last week Warner Bros. announced that the release of Oliver Stone's Alexander was getting pushed back a couple of weeks, presumably so they'd have a better shot at some Oscars. But now The Scoop's Jeannette Walls reports that the opening was moved over concerns that the movie's hot man-on-man action might be too much for the public's delicate sensibilities:

Even with a self-imposed two-year adjustment period, turning over the reins of a media conglomerate that you've controlled for 20 years can be a psychically draining experience. We've broken down a recent picture of obsolescent Disney CEO Michael Eisner to illustrate the things that every mogul-in-twilight needs to ease the transition into month-long golf trips and unreturned phone calls.

· SATC's Darren Star gets a script commitment from Fox for a half-hour behind the scenes restaurant series based on the book Kitchen Confidential. Let's hope the term "funky spunk" never comes into play. [THR]
· The relationship between Disney and partner Pixar is likely coming to a sad end. They've "outgrown" one another, according to Disney president Bob Iger. True, the relationship has evolved; Pixar's a money-printing machine and Disney really isn't interested in that kind of thing anymore. [THR]
· MGM puts new Bond on hold while they hunt around for a director. Also, they're probably busy combing all of Australia to find an actor to actually play James Bond and figuring out who to fire when they merge with Sony. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Nothing can stop Chris Columbus, director-lite of annoying confections. He's made a deal with Warner Bros to develop and direct Slanted and Enchanted, a dramedy about a recovering pathological liar with magical elements. So...Liar, Liar meets Harry Potter? That sounds about right. [THR]
· Harvey and Bob Weinstein's Miramax and Dimension get into the CGI game, signing a deal with Wild Brain animation company. Evil, corpulent mogul Harvey just canned everyone he couldn't strang—-Hey! They're making an Opus movie! That's fucking awesome. All is forgiven. [Variety, sub. req'd.]

Blogger The Corsair once again plies his invaluable transcription skills on the latest issue of Complex magazine, in which Serena Williams boyfriend/occasional hacky director of overblown, feature-length music videos Brett Ratner reveals that he has not-so-hot secret tapes of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John dancing in the Grease disco in his house. [Ed.note—If Ratner directed the video, does Travolta explode for no reason ten seconds in? We'd pay to see that.] Ratner also brags that he crashed with pal and legendary producer Robert Evans while his house was being renovated—which is something to boast about only if you're so obsessed with being retro that your idea of fun is watching your grandfather collapse face-first into a punchbowl full of blow while hookers root around for his wallet.

Photographers caught Herbie: Fully Loaded star Lindsay Lohan getting in a quick IM session in some down-time on the set. (Some of you might remember that Lohan's reported hard partying warranted some threats from her director and Disney executives, who thought her hangovers were affecting her work.) Through the magic of the internet, Defamer was able to intercept a snippet of this IM conversation with boyfriend Wilmer Valderrama. Our partial transcript follows after the jump.

The New Yorker's Jame Surowiecki examines embattled, time-delay retiree Disney CEO Michael Eisner succession plans. Or rather, the lack thereof, since the closest he's actually come to making those plans happened in the moments before quadruple-bypass surgery:

The always-reliable WENN quotes twitchy, neurotic go-to-guy Ben Stiller discussing a character flaw: "Normally, people tend to shut off their ambitions and competitive thinking because it doesn't help them much in normal life. But in the movie business you've constantly got to prove yourself. So I can be a real asshole on the set sometimes." Oh, nicely played, Mr. Stiller, cleverly thwarting all future criticism by preemptively branding yourself an asshole, but only because the business is so very stressful and you're an artist with a thirst for personal excellence. We hope you have this quote taped to your dressing room door, just to ensure that a P.A. you might've been short with will rethink "freshening up" your Starbucks order in the bathroom.

The LAT discovers online writer bitch-board WriterAction, where WGA members can evaluate (or anonymously vent about) the studio executives who make their lives miserable with free rewrites, constant firings, and the kinds of helpful story suggestions that usually result in talking-animal movies.

We at Defamer are sad to report that we've confirmed that the rumored Miramax layoffs are now in progress. We've always imagined that Harvey Weinstein personally wanders the halls on his job-slashing sprees, handing out pink-slips and last-chance verbal abuse while dressed as the Grim Reaper. Too morbid? Maybe we'll e-mail him and suggest he spring fifty bucks to rent a bunny costume to take the edge off.

Warner Bros. has pushed the release of Alexander back three weeks to better troll for Oscars. But we hear the studio is terrified to unleash Colin Farrell, the (rumored) generously be-donged Irishman, on the press because of his tendency to show up to every appearance shitfaced. Apparently whiskey fumes visibly rising off of a movie star are not as charming as they used to be, as one studio bigwig supposedly took a recent pass on Farrell after he pounded a handful of beers during a half-hour meeting. It's official: Colin Farrell is our new hero. He can puke in our car anytime, and we'll even pretend to be cool with it.

Rush & Molloy report in today's NY Daily News that director David O. Russell is hacked off about Sharon Waxman's great article in the Sunday NYT, in which she related Russell's incredibly strange antics during the production of I Heart Huckabees. (Sample antic: Upon hearing that Christopher Nolan cast Jude Law away from Huckabees, Russell put Nolan in a headlock at a party and demanded his return. It's no Three Kings fistfight with Clooney, but hey.) Russell's mad because he claims Waxman said she was doing research for an upcoming book on directors, not a NYT piece; the NYT predictably backs up Waxman's version. If we were Waxman, we wouldn't want to piss off Russell—we hear that the ass-slapping paddy-wagon he inflicts on duplicitous reporters is even more brutal than his vaunted headlock-noogie combo.

We're hearing that Harvey Weinstein isn't through slashing jobs at Miramax after last night's supposed liberation of his film acquisition crew. It might be hugs-and-cardboard-boxes time for even more of Harvey's Kids; the rumor circulating inside the 'Max is that 100 additional layoffs are coming as early as tomorrow. If further cuts are really on the way, Weinstein might want to hold off until Friday. That way he'll have time to prepare his office for the flood of thank-you notes he'll surely receive from newly emancipated employees eager to express gratitude for the gift of their unexpected freedom.

It looks like Harvey "Scissorhands" Weinstein wasn't completely done slashing jobs at Miramax after last month's smaller-than-expected round of 65 layoffs. Now we hear that Weinstein axed Miramax's entire film acquisitions staff last night—as a spy puts it, "just so he has something else to atone for on Yom Kippur." Yeah, this should probably make his atonement list, but it could have been worse: We're fairly certain he didn't push the entire department out of an open window before they could clear out their offices.

Russ Meyer, the auteur behind such cult jiggle flicks as Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Vixen, died on Saturday from complications of pneumonia. This is a sad day indeed. We're left to wonder what Meyer could have done with today's up-and-coming talent; Lindsay Lohan, for example, would have been a perfect for Really Mean Girls On Dope Go Nuts!

On Friday, we'd heard that the scrap at The Lot in Hollywood between crews on Jack & Bobby and Flightplan was a relatively minor dust-up between a punchy outsider and a pair of brothers who worked on those productions. A source assures us that story wasn't true, and that a J&B crew guy had himself a personal wrap party at the nearby Formosa before returning to the Lot and getting into a scrap with a Flightplan crew member in a shared work area. Supposedly the boozed-up J&B guy responded to getting his jaw broken by pulling a large utility knife, which understandably sent onlookers scrambling to call the cops. The report contained no instances of gun-fire, swordplay, or mother jokes, so hopefully no bad blood will linger between the the two productions when they run into each other on the soundstage or at the commissary. No one wants a rumble on Fried Chicken Day.