Nicholas Stoller is having a very good year. After being taken under the mighty wing of Judd Apatow, his hilarious-yet-touching directorial debut, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, opens today. Not only that, he and star Jason Segel are currently making the new Muppet movie. Clearly, it's time to learn a little more about this guy before he becomes too much of a big shot. Since they're old friends, we asked our frequent guest-blogger Nick Malis (who contractually required us to plug Malis in Wonderland and Cute Things Falling Asleep) to interview Stoller. What follows is a fascinating portrait of a young artist at the dawn of his career. Also, he talks about penises a lot. Stick around after the jump to hear Stoller opine on the homoerotic world of Judd Apatow's office, seeing Kristen Bell naked, and what Richard Roeper is like in bed.

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Dependable stunt-cast object Britney Spears recent triumph on How I Met Your Mother has apparently kick-started a new lease on life for the singer, having been photographed recently looking thinner and in full command of a local gym's cardio equipment. Also on the menu: a trip to a Beverly Hills hair salon, en route to which she stopped to pick up a shirtless individual the tabloids were quick to describe as "reminiscent of that which attracted Britney to her ex-husband." X17 caught up with this betanktopped figure of mystery, who was quick to clear up any misconceptions: He was the friend of Brett, Britney's assistant, and was eager to catch up with his old pal by diving into the back of the Most Photographed White Diamond Escalade on Earth. The man with the perilously high sperm-count's frank assessment of Spears? "She's cool. She's really cool...She's a good girl."

[Video: X17Online.com]

• What Did Brit Do On The Way To The Hair Salon? [X17Online]

We awoke this morning to a double-shot of accidental Sex and the City hype, with news of the film's notable omission from the Cannes line-up doing battle with a pesky John Corbett imposter in our inbox. First things first: After Sarah Jessica Parker got fans' hopes up last month, a quick perusal of the festival's '08 selections reveals no S&TC at all — not on opening night, not in competition, not on pirated DVD's sold two-for-$10 outside the Palais des Festival. What happened? We'd ask the gang at New Line if they weren't pink-slipped this week, except we guess that suggests an answer to our question right there.

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It's time once again for Dirt Sandwich, the brain-smoothing snack that simulates the experience of Being Pat O'Brien—if only for a few fleeting minutes, before dumping you out unceremoniously somewhere near the Nevada Turnpike. This week's episode, lovingly pressed by Defamer's own master videologist (and part-time FBI forensic psychiatrist who only has 88 minutes to solve her own murder!) Molly McAleer, is chock-full of as many deli-meat shockers and condiment exclusives as we could cram between two slices of bread: Christie Brinkley's bearded mystery man! Someone screaming at a white Mercedes! And two varieties of cancer! And for just $1.49 more, you can make it a combo with chips and a drink. So what are you waiting for? Dig in.

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This pairing of actor and sugar-coated-horror material isn't yet on any studio production slate (it's rather the brainchild of a rogue Photoshopper answering Cracked.com's call for ill-conceived movie monsters), but that doesn't mean the idea is entirely without its merits. For once every comic book superhero has been plundered and replundered, producers of overbaked summer blockbusters will be forced to draw from other beloved, hand-drawn characters of our youth. And hey, once we're fantasising about Oscar-winning talent like Bardem in the lead, there's no reason why we couldn't shoot for the moon in rounding out the rest of the cast of The Brown Knight: Count Chocula Begins: Philip Seymour Hoffman as Franken Berry, and Jake Gyllenhaal in the role of their dreamy-eyed sidekick, Boo Berry.

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In other Cannes program news from Todd McCarthy's Variety survey this morning, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro's Che Guevara biopic two-fer The Argentine and Guerilla will apparently join Sex and the City among the year's notable omissions. It's a bit of a surprise considering Soderbergh's lightning-fast methodology and Focus Features' high expectations for early awards momentum (the Universal subsidiary is holding the Coens' Burn After Reading until September as well); also, as we hear from McCarthy after the jump, at least one of the films is ready to go:

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James Caan and Jake Gyllenhaal are the latest casualties of David O. Russell's tastefully hands-on directing style, which this week resulted in the Caan's departure from and Gyllenhaal's apparent whimpering around the set of Russell's latest film, Nailed. As reported today, Caan walked out after "creative differences" with the tempestuous filmmaker best known for berating Lily Tomlin while shooting I Heart Huckabees (or is it for fighting George Clooney during Three Kings? It's always been too close for us to call).

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Speed Racer doesn't have enough going for it, evidently, for Warner Bros. to sell an April 25 sneak preview in Los Angeles on its own hotly anticipated merits. And its venue partners at the ImaginAsian Theatre apparently could take or leave stars Emile Hirch, Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon and others. No, what this movie really needs is a boost from one of the world's most famous international pop stars to get people interested — i.e. Rain, the Korean sensation (and Speed Racer co-star) whose profile dwarfs the WB tentpole by comparison. And with free, first-come-first-served seats, we imagine a perfectly calm crowd will be on hand to join him. Follow the jump for details about joining the riot.

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As we find ourselves winding once again towards the end of another stunning American Idol season—the very fate of the adult-contemporary-radio universe hinging on the name read out by host Ryan Seacrest in the final seconds of its lean, seven-hour finale broadcast—we take a moment to catch up with the some of the also-rans from Idol past. Remember Chris Sligh, Season 6's Guarini-fro'd, Caucasian soul singer? According to Craigslist's Nashville chapter, Sligh will be headlining Thursdays Acoustics for Academics fundraiser at East Cheatham Elementary School in Joelton, TN!

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As Hollywood braces for the possibility of yet another work stoppage, this one by the actors' unions (as represented by their universally recognised symbol of a laughing hammer superimposed over a weeping sickle), the fallout from the last bitter labour war to hit our shores continues: In a "Letter from the Presidents" posted to the WGA's web site, Patric Verrone and Michael Winship point the end of a blood-soaked fountain pen at those members who chose to go "financial core," or fi-core as it's known in the hip-hop world, during the strike. (Recently employed by George Clooney in a tussle with the Guild over Leatherheads, it's as far as you can go towards cutting ties with the union while still being permitted to work on WGA projects.)

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We were not among the critics who recently took offence to Tyler Perry's frocked-out "minstrelsy" antics in Meet the Browns, but we are more than a little beside ourselves with today's news that Perry has cast Keshia Knight Pulliam — best known as the youngest Huxtable child, Rudy, on The Cosby Show — as an "imprisoned prostitute" in his upcoming installment in the Madea canon, Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail. We can't believe it; she grew up so fast!

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True, by now we've become somewhat accustomed to the trickery employed by so-called "reality" TV to achieve the sorts of heightened, 12-unemployed-bartenders -living-on-the- Radford-lot drama that keeps us glued to our sets. But we hold certain networks to a higher standard. History Channel—we expect those Ice Road Truckers to be careening over real roads, on real ice, in real trucks. And Discovery Channel: You offer us the delicious prospect of a Deadliest Catch, well then, that 5,000-lb. crab-leviathan your crew are hauling in better be the real thing, and not some Ray Harryhausenesque flight-of-fancy. Unfortunately, THR has stumbled upon a production outline that suggests the Xtreme fishing show may have been fudging some of the details:

[A] sequence suggests that the fishermen are in danger of sinking as a violent tempest tosses huge waves against the boat.

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