Back in August, comedian Dane Cook assailed the marketing job for his upcoming movie My Best Friend's Girl, claiming that it was the "best / funniest film" he'd ever made but that its quality was overshadowed by a photoshopped poster that left his face looking like "Brittany Spears' [sic] vagina." Then, the film actually came out, and critics treated Cook's vulva-tastic mug like it was the least of the rom-com's problems. Now, co-star Alec Baldwin is leaping into the fray, admitting on his official website that he'd rather watch My Name is Earl than have to sit through My Best Friend's Girl again:

With My Best Friend's Girl abysmal box office performance last weekend now behind us, we've been pondering the fallout of some of film's stars. Obviously Jason Biggs is always going to be known as the dude who stuck his peen in an apple pie. And Dane Cook's MySpace rants have gotten more views than all of his films put together. But Kate Hudson! We had so much hope for you, spawn of Goldie Hawn. Once a flaxen-haired hippie goddess with daisies laced in your hair, your gracefully slept your way to the top of the Stillwater groupies in Almost Famous. And you were almost more endearing than annoying in How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days, which we must admit we occasionally watch on TBS when our plans fall through on a Friday night. We thought you might be on your way to becoming the queen of chick flicks, but now, you've taken it too far.How you suddenly went from a cute, perky blonde ingénue to a shrill, talentless flop is puzzling, but we have a feeling the downward spiral began when you took on the gem that was Fool's Gold, in which you reprised your stale dynamic with co-star Matthew McConaughey. Okay, so the film did decently, pulling in $70 million stateside. But it was the film that officially marked you as a romantic foil. You've made a habit out of banking on your hunky co-stars - even doubling up with the Wilson brothers by taking Owen in You, Me, and Dupree, and Luke in Alex and Emma. No longer are you the enticing, independent Penny Lane we once knew who wanted to establish her own identity as an actress. Instead, you seem more interested in raising your dating profile by serving as Lance Armstrong's last blonde-of-the-month. And we're not the only ones who are upset. Your poor career choices have also angered film blogger Jeffrey Wells, who has some harsh words for you:

It's been a rough weekend for Dane Cook: after being publicly shamed by our own Molly McAleer, the comedian saw his romantic comedy My Best Friend's Girl tank at the box office. Now, TMZ is reporting that thanks to his incontinent dog, Cook has been evicted from his apartment — though his attempt to fight the ruling may have provided us with the beleaguered actor's first amusing work in years:

Like Diablo Cody before her, Molly McAleer is not afraid to call someone out for being bad (just ask Shenae Grimes). Today's object of her disaffection is comedian Dane Cook, with whom Molls has a long, personal history that dates back to her college days as a sketch comic. Watch as our Ms. McAleer relates the time Cook screwed her out of her big break, then yelled at her for being friendly to his incontinent dog. All that, plus your weekend to-dos, after the jump:FRIDAY · The Bangles at the LA County Fair · Samantha Ronson at the Roxy · Red Scare on Sunset at the Attic Theater SATURDAY · Beck at the Hollywood Bowl · Gladys Knight at the Greek Theater · Dirtiest Sketch in LA at UCB SUNDAY · Hot Chip at the Wiltern · Goldfrapp at the Orpheum · My Morning Jacket at the Greek Theater

Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your official tastemaking Bible for everything new and noteworthy at the movies. The second week of the fall season offers another mixed harvest of Oscar bait, multiplex placeholders and indie hopefuls, none more eagerly anticipated than the historically skeevy Dakota Fanning 2.0 drama Hounddog. But we'll get to that momentarily, along with this week's worthwhile DVD releases and an all-call for your own recommendations. As always, our opinions are our own — in times like these, who really wants to share? WHAT'S NEW: The first genuine Oscar-chasing release of the fall, The Duchess will likely split its viewership between pro- and anti-Keira Knightley factions before anyone bothers to acknowledge its broader, bodice-ripping appeal. So yes, Team Knightley: She deftly portrays Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, the late-18th-century heroine with the bitterly controlling husband (Ralph Fiennes), the rabble-rousing side dish (Dominic Cooper) and a surfeit of corsted, pre-feminist longing. The star and the film are beautiful, the direction assured and the awards-season creds affirmed — particularly Fiennes', whose customary wretchedness as the Duke acquires a kind of fascinating tenderness with age. If anyone should be on the Oscar bubble (besides the art and costume crew, which are locks), it's him.Still, in limited release, Duchess isn't competing for any box-office glory; that distinction belongs to Lakeview Terrace, the not-entirely-miserable Neil LaBute thriller featuring Samuel L. Jackson as a sociopathic cop out to get the hot interracial couple next door (Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington). Against sturdy holdovers (Burn After Reading, The Family That Preys) and middling newbies (the Dane Cook slog My Best Friend's Girl, Ricky Gervais's leading-man debut Ghost Town), Lakeview will top out at $15.6 million. Cook will follow with $13.2 million; with half the screens and even less promotion, Ghost Town should still manage an even $6 million. Also opening: Ed Harris's old-old-school Western Appaloosa; Chris Smith's tiny, acclaimed Indian excursion The Pool; the gay-conversion melodrama Save Me; the wrenching immigrant day-in-the-life tale Take Out; and the Duchess-correcting, misogynist fantasia The Pink Conspiracy. THE BIG LOSER: You know, after we just predicted the Weinsteins would once again find their step in the multiplex, trust in Harvey to not only dump another subpar animated fairy tale on an unsuspecting public, but to essentially disown it. Such is Igor's lot, with its backers AWOL, its reviews tepid, and its voice talent (John Cusack, Molly Shannon, Steve Buscemi) trapped in a Straight-to-Flopz™ patchwork about a hunchback pursuing his dream of becoming a mad scientist. MGM is left to collect the grosses for this one, which won't break $5 million on 2,300 screens. Or, as they call it at Weinstein HQ, business as usual.

Click to viewBoomp3.com At the premiere of the blockbuster rom-com My Best Friend’s Girl, Jason Biggs went the extra mile to ensure that the press photographed his preferred side. Biggs admitted that he may have been influenced by a recent episode of Entourage, but he’s always a bit sheepish about the right side of his face. Biggs said, “I think there’s a couple of crow’s feet on that side that the Photoshop wizards forgot to remove.” Biggs firmly planted himself in front of the poster until all of the invited guests had walked all the way down the red carpet and into the theater. [Photo Credit: Getty Images] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Dane Cook is finally playing nice these days on behalf of his Mr. Fix-It remake new film My Best Friend's Girl, getting through an entire interview recently without once mentioning his mildly vagina-like face or those other movie-poster mishaps that so traumatized him last month. In their place, readers are treated to hints about Cook's sweeter, sensitive side — the leading man in him who prepares for onscreen interludes with a grueling two-month training routine for his mouth and hands:

We've been telling you about The End of Ideas for a while now, but generally in the context where otherwise upstanding individuals knowingly attach their names to remakes, rehashes, reimaginings and revisions whose very existence could threaten even a VMA attendee's faith in a benevolent God. (His close neighbors are starting to have their doubts, anyway.) But to think that a Dane Cook movie that even he has found reason to second-guess could in fact be a poorly rendered rip-off of a straight-to-video David Boreanaz exercise from a decade ago? Really, now — that's just unholy. Judge for yourself after the jump as we bring you the special-needs trailer for Cook's forthcoming My Best Friend's Girl and its 2006 counterpart for the forgotten rom-com Mr. Fix It. As an added bonus, find a dormant IMDB comment thread parsing the films' respective plots: "What a rip-off! I predict this movie will never be released..." Alas.