· After snatching away Thank You For Smoking from Paramount Classics and beating out Miramax for Trust the Man, Fox Searchlight has made the Toronto film festival its bitch. [Variety]
· The season premiere of Fox's House was Wednesday night's most-watched show. New series Bones also did well with the support of its breakout star, Emily Deschanel's outstanding rack. [THR]
· The paint is barely dry on Hong Kong Disneyland and the Mouse is already talking about opening another theme park next door. We know what you're thinking, Mr. Naysayer, but Hong Kong Adventure is totally gonna rock! [Variety]
· MTV plans to launch an HD channel in January to carry music-related content from its other channels—which they will then discontinue so that viewers can watch Real World cast members vomit on the sidewalk in front of a bar in thrilling high-definition. [THR]
· Warner Bros. chooses Constantine director-with-two-first-names Francis Lawrence to direct the now-fastracked I Am Legend, a property first put into development in 1799 and once involving the teams of Ridley Scott/Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Bay/Will Smith. Once a cast is set, Warner Bros. can safely delay the project indefinitely, giving a new generation of talent a chance to never make the movie. [Variety]

We're starting to suspect that the Times is more obsessed with MTV's quasi-reality show Laguna Beach than we are. Sure, we may have our Gawker HQ walls plastered with the sunny faces of Orange County, but the Gray Lady certainly does write some long-ass articles about the skein. We're impressed: It's quite the challenge to squeeze out more than a thousand, Times-worthy words on a show that on average features only 50 words of intelligent dialogue.

• Some hot Laguna Beach gossip for you kids: At a VMA after-party in Miami, Jason was seen holding hands and locking face with LC. And if you've no idea what this means, you're so much better than us. Really.
• Our congratulations to urban redneck Steve Cuozzo, whose contempt for the Pakistani Pride festivities is admirably unrivaled for its sheer racism. [NYP]
• If Target buys online wedding planning service TheKnot.com, does this mean we'll never have to deal with another Tiffany's registry? Please, oh please. [BW]
• Some women will go just too damn far to be on Oprah. Rest assured, their children are ashamed. [Oprah]
• It's not murder, but something just as sinister: A gay catfight over litterbox duty. [Towleroad]

You've got to admire MTV's resiliency. It takes guts to shrug off God's warning shots, a life-taking, Biblical hurricane (it seems He's far more angry with the New Hollywood and hates runaway production as much as the Governator) and a bullet to Suge Knight's leg, and defiantly continue the proud traditions of celebrating music videos that no longer play on their channel and giving away scads of free shit to rich people. If only Jessica Simpson's assistant had fallen down and turned an ankle while fumbling with an armload of goodie bags, they might've endured enough hardship to merit a very special movie of the week on VH1. They'll probably just have to settle for a True Hollywood Story.

• After hearing that her younger sister Jamie Lynn was having a 13-year-old appropriate tiff with a co-star on the set of Nickelodeon's Zoey 101, Britney Spears stormed the set to defend her sibling and kick some preteen ass. Hell hath no fury like pregnant trailer trash. [Page Six]
• Hurricane Katrina sours VMA festivities, delays Lindsay Lohan's pre-show scene arrival, and forces Mariah Carey to drink until 3 AM. [Gatecrasher]
• Or perhaps it was Eddie Murphy forcing Mariah Carey to stay out so late. [R&M]
• The boring socialites behind Washington Life magazine are none too happy about Gotham mag publisher Jason Binn's efforts to launch his glossy Capitol File. [Lowdown]
• Naomi Campbell leaves no continent untouched by her scorn, now taking her rage to Brazil. [Scoop]
• OK! magazine kinda sucks. But you knew that, just like you knew that baby puppies are cute but a fucking mess. [Page Six]

As we earlier bitched, our Thursday flight down to Miami for MTV's Video Music Awards was cancelled due to some biblical thunderstorm and the resulting shortage of in-flight alcohol. So we rescheduled our travel plans for Friday, determined to smell the Hennessey on Luda's breath. Just hours prior to the new departure time, however, we received word that flight number two had been cancelled and all remaining flights on Friday were booked. Our dream of playing poolside ping-pong with Kelly Clarkson was dying.

· Steve Carell Is The New Poker, Part 2: Carell's Bruce Almighty character will take the lead in the sequel Evan Almighty, in which he embarks on a (hilarious!) quest to build an ark. Additionally, Carell may earn ten times his $500,000 40 Year-Old Virgin payday, making him the first actor to earn five trillion dollars for a single film. [Variety]
· Fox picks up Ivan Reitman's half hour comedy script That Guy, about a 35 year-old who decides to start living like he's 21 again. Or, in other words, like he's living a completely unremarkable life in Hollywood. [THR]
· Sensing an opportunity to get more than 15 people to take interest in one of their shows, UPN launches the biggest promo campaign in its history to make sure that each and every person in America is aware of Everybody Hates Chris. [Variety]
· Hurricane Katrina proves terribly inconvenient for various pre-VMA bacchanalia. Damn, you, Mother Nature, Carson Daly needs to get his schwerve on! [THR]
· The Weinsteins decide that "The Twins of Tribeca" sounds better than "The Psychos of SoHo," decide to stay put in their old neighborhood. [Variety]

Hey, how about the weather? No, seriously: We were supposed to be working from Miami by yesterday afternoon, but that ridunculous hurricane working its way across southern Florida has resulted in our flights being cancelled two days in a row. We suppose the change in VMA travel plans is slightly less inconveniencing than, say, being killed, but we were so excited to skank about South Beach and rub our flesh against Diddy's porcelain threads. Alas, our budget airline of choice has inexplicably cancelled all of its NYC flights to Miami, despite the fact that most flights from other cities to the area are still running. Clearly, the city of Miami doesn't want any more New Yorkers around. Since every publicist and her tiny dog is in town, we suppose the sentiment is rather understandable.

Radar outlines the disturbingly exorbitant gift bags given to the worthy folks at June's MTV Movie Awards, which are only slightly more disgusting that the gift bags to be cradled in the arms of luminaries at this weekend's Video Music Awards. But what about the common folk, those media and business hangers-on? If they can get into Ocean Drive's luxury suite at the Ritz, where "gifting" reigns supreme, they'll do pretty well for themselves. Freebies, we hear, include:

Can we talk, just for a moment, about MTV's Video Music Awards? Okay, good, 'cause the damn things aren't even until Sunday night and yet, every day, all day, we're being bombarded with preparations for what can only be described as a swag-and-substance-fueled 3-day weekend in Miami. It's actually amazing: Anyone willing to feign just the slightest interest in publicists or "reporting" is eagerly making their way down to Miami. A giant pasty blob of Manhattanites have rented a VW bus (fueled exclusively by refuse from the September fashion mags) to head on down for a weekend of media-justified fun. Ourselves included.

• The MTA hooks military hardware wizards Lockheed Martin for a three-year, $212 million contract to pull a subway security and communications system out of its cauldron. Interestingly enough, the system would allow for cellphone usage in underground stations. Awesome, just another damn place people can hunt you down. [NYT]
• R. Kelly joins the lineup at the MTV Video Music Awards, leaving us all excited for a 6-hour performance of In the Closet. Perhaps a few lucky souls in the audience will get even get peed on. [AP]
• We doubt Radar actually ponied up cash for information regarding Tom Cruise, so you've got to wonder what's up with their budget sticker advertising scheme. [Adrants]
• Just when we were floating along our Martha Stewart love train, word comes that she'll be letting her daughter Alexis in on the Apprentice act. Reality television nepotism is so gauche, really. [Zap2it]

• MTV conspires with Nokia to makes Times Square even more crowded, tourist-friendly, and generally hideous. Swell. [Open All Night]
• Speaking of Times Square: See the debacle that was the "World's Greatest Guitar Smash," celebrating the Hard Rock Caf 's move that famed, benighted intersection. [Cityrag via Curbed]
• Gay Jewish rappers and your great-grandparents' favorite socialist newspaper, which loves them. [Proceed at Your Own Risk]
• And yet Washington State still won't let that dude keep his "F Dubya" license plate. [ToTC]
• Even online, Jews are still crafty and scheming. At least so say the anti-Semites at blottered. [Blottered]

· Does beating your already "lowered expectations" constitute "good news"? If you're DreamWorks Animation and the news doesn't involve losing more money (here, it's Madagascar products helping the bottom line), it's good enough. [Variety]
· Bad contract or house payment due? Bill Murray is in negotiations to once again voice the world's favorite lasagna-gulping cat in Garfield 2. [THR]
· Chinese authorities relent and will let Desperate Housewives through its Great Wall of Programming, insuring that the world's most populous nation will think that all Americans are horny soap-opera actors with nicely manicured front lawns. [Variety]
· David E. Kelley generates buzz at NBC by giving morning talk shows the Ally McBeal treatment. Not so long ago, the performance of his The Law Firm reality series generated so much buzz that they had to demote it to Bravo. [THR]
· Westworld, the sci-fi remake put on hold when attached star Arnold Scwhwzenegger quite inconveniently was elected governor of California, is once again "a go." And should he or the people decide that he's a crappy politician, Arnold may use it as a comeback vehicle. [Variety]
· MTV refuses to let Wilmer Valderrama slip away into total obscurity, greenlights his "yo mama" joke competition show. Sometimes we're so happy that we've passed out of their target audience. [THR]

• God bless Jack Shafer, who writes what most journalists know but don't say: That readers are two-faced nincompoops. [Slate]
• BusinessWeek gets hammered by new circ rules; other pubs likely to follow. [NYP]
• Natalee Holloway's Aruba disappearance is, while bad for Natalee, very, very good for Greta Van Susteren. [AP]
• Explaining the baby-mag boom. [Mediaweek]
• Esquire announces five-year-plus series on building the Freedom Tower. [NYT]
• More proof of Simon Dumenco's very strange fantasy life: An imagined Thanksgiving at the Murdochs'. [Ad Age]
• Mediabistro's Elizabeth Spiers doesn't like women's magazines. Also, she is friends with people who are friends with Christopher Hitchens. [mb]
• On the recently wrapped MTV reality show Miss Seventeen, 17 girls compete to win an internship from Atoosa. [WWD, second item]

In a fit of the usual lackadaisical Friday ennui, last week we expressed our confusion regarding MTV s Laguna Beach, which presents itself as a reality show following the interaction of several teenagers in various, intertwining cliques in Orange County s prestigious Laguna Beach community. Our problem was multi-thorned: If LB is a reality show, why is it so meticulously filmed? How did MTV just happen to have camera crews present at all the times pivotal to these story lines, which seemed remarkably linear for a reality show purporting to follow around the random lives of high schoolers? Frankly, we just didn t buy it.

JessicaGawker: hey, got a sec? i need to talk about something.
MarkDefamer: uh oh. you ok?
JessicaGawker: not really. So...
JessicaGawker: what's up with laguna beach?
MarkDefamer: hahaha
JessicaGawker: seriously, it's driving me insane! is it HALF reality? completely scripted?!
MarkDefamer: it's supposedly ALL reality
JessicaGawker: it is in NO way 100% reality. their names are different in real life.
MarkDefamer: i'm baffled by it.
JessicaGawker: i want a definitive explanation from MTV.
MarkDefamer: i think no one has the answer. it's like trying to describe the color of the wind, or what God tastes like.
JessicaGawker: MTV has the answer. and i want to know.
MarkDefamer: but if you know, won't it become less special?
JessicaGawker: i'm willing to sacrifice "special" for the truth, mark.

Anything good — hell with good; anything successful — must be copied ad nauseum, and so today's Post brings news that Rolling Stone frontman Jann Wenner will become the latest mogul to rip off Donald Trump's The Apprentice. Janny-boy is in talks with MTV Networks to create the show, in which he'll star, reports Krazy Keith Kelly.

In The Boston Globe, critic Matthew Gilbert is shocked, shocked by last evening's Xbox special on MTV:

There's another amusing casting call on Craig's List for a show allegedly on MTV:

As if being a single gal in New York wasn't hard enough, the kind folks at MTV want to make it just a little worse.