There's been much to-do over the last day about Peter Jackson's hiring of Guillermo del Toro to direct the two-part Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit. Among our favourite dissenting opinions belongs to Salon critic Andrew O'Hehir, who pulls out his Cannes '06 interview notebook to look up del Toro's sentiment at the time: "I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don't like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits — I've never been into that at all. I don't like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff." Our sister blog Gawker doesn't like del Toro's selection either, but we're optimistic this is a perfect match for everyone because The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien and Guillermo del Toro all fucking suck. Does it really matter which A-list fantasy/horror fanboy with $300 million of Warner Bros.' money and Jackson's imprimatur is going to spend four years jacking off behind a camera in New Zealand? It's going to be unwatchable. Not only that, but didn't Jackson make this movie three times already? Here's our exclusive script excerpt: "EXT. FOREST — DAY. Bilbo Baggins furrows his brow. Visual effects and soundtrack happen. INT. CASTLE — NIGHT. Ian McKellen cameo. More effects. EXT. FOREST — DAY. The end." It's a hit! [Salon]

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Former BFFs Heather Locklear and Denise Richards have each enjoyed watching the other's respective star status fall farther with each passing year, but the good news is they both share something in common to smile about. While it's not exactly an Emmy, they both look hot in bikinis. Heather's gone from starring in a hit primetime drama and being the object of many a male fantasy to her current role in a Lifetime movie about women over 40 or something. And Denise? Well, after impressing nearly every male on the planet with her pouty lips and lesbian pool antics in Wild Things, she earned the title of Mrs. Charlie Sheen (quite an honour, indeed). Now? She's filming some kind of reality show that no one cares about. What do we care about? Who looks better in their red bikinis, and who's the better surfer! Judge for yourselves after the jump:

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How quickly the week rolls by when we know a brand new Dirt Sandwich—Defamer videographer and part-time, uncredited massage therapist Molly McAleer's attempt at making some condensed sense of the week in tabloid television—is waiting for us at the end of it. Today's 6-inch treat comes served on freshly baked jalapeno cheesy bread, overstuffed with slutty Mileys, drunk Lindsays, bear-attack 911 calls, and Brad Pitt in head-to-toe leather undies (kinky!). Most amazing of all, however, is one anonymous TMZ staffer's cracking of the Cheryl Burke Bangs Code, a complex theorem linking the angle of the Dancing with the Stars regular's hair to her blood alcohol level. Watch and learn!

The formerly primmer-than-thou Gwyneth Paltrow's slow and steady progression to kinky-boot-wearing siren has hardly gone unnoticed by the press ever since she began promoting her summer blockbuster Iron Man. But up until now, the sexpot look has mainly been limited to her wildly high, frighteningly strappy S&M-style footwear. Now, she's officially moved on to wearing entire ensembles devoted to showing the world (and the industry) that her uptight rep is long gone. So why use short skirts and lacy, skin-tight dresses to woo the paparazzi? We're guessing Paltrow's picked up on that old-fashioned Hollywood formula used by many an actress looking to catch producers' eyes: a few flesh-baring public appearances can go a long way towards jumpstarting a recently lackluster career.

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The 24 hours since Wesley Snipes's three-year prison sentence for tax evasion have allowed for some perspective-gathering among the crack legal analysts at Defamer HQ. Sifting through the wreckage, we think we've discovered the key weak spots in the Snipes defence that, if only someone had acted sooner, could have kept our 18th (19th?) favourite action star a free man. Don't let this happen to you; follow the jump for a glimpse at the Chuck Norris factor and other Achilles' heels in Snipes's strategy.

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When we first heard the idea of a reimagined Beverly Hills: 90210, we believed it would be impossible to recreate the teary, teenybop magic of the original series. Who could possibly sneer like Luke Perry? Or turn the world on with his smile like Jason Priestley? But the Rob "Not Matchbox 20 Rob" Thomas-produced spinoff slated for CW's upcoming fall season is charging full-speed ahead, leaking news of potential cast members burdened with the challenge of filling our favourite Peach Pit regulars' Reeboks. Though recent casting announcements have been less than thrilling, two new additions have us busting out our dusty 90210 drinking game rule book once again. As E! News reports, "Producers for the CW's 90210 remake have reached out to Hilary [Duff] to offer her a starring role in the series." News on the other confirmed West Beverly students, plus which alum from the original has signed on to reprise their old role, after the jump.

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As if to say to the world, "You think Indy's too old? Well, how do you like these rippling, 8-pack apples?" as well as, "I'm smiling on the outside, but on the inside, my chest feels like it's being gnawed upon by 10,000 hungry rats," Harrison Ford took to the depilatory chair recently. It had nothing to do with Crystal Skull, but rather some pet cause that involves deforestation and a Spice Girl. Still, we'd hope his co-star and protégé Greaser LaBeouf will follow suit, with an Earth Day season pledge to submit himself to a Brazilian as a means of encouraging better sorting of compostables. [Access Hollywood]

When it comes to celebrity couples making out in public, you'd think all those beautiful people would know how to make a kiss look hot. They manage to do it on-screen with complete strangers, and frankly, a large part of their job is to hook up take after take and make it still look steamy and unrehearsed, right? But as our slideshow-happy friends at Us have shown us, stars are seriously lacking in the hot and heavy PDA department. While some couples (Drew Barrymore and Justin Long) are downright sweet, and some are disturbingly turning us on at such an early hour (Enrique and Anna Kournikova, natch), we'd like to officially ban any future photos of a select few couples getting down and dirty ever again. The good, the bad, and the nauseating, after the jump:

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Like so many other tropes of the 1980s, the theme of busty-teacher-as-sex-predator that fuelled many a teen comedy (and locked-bathroom meditation session) appears to be enjoying a resurgence as well, as THR is reporting that J.J. Abrams will produce the unambiguously titled spec Hot For Teacher for Paramount:

"Hot" is a "Superbad"-like story of a high school senior who sets out to have sex with his teacher before he graduates.

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Deciphering your moviegoing options for the third week running, Defamer Attractions returns today with a look at the final weekend before the studios spill summer in our lap. Today we gauge Tina Fey's chances for box office superiority, corral the highest-profile dog since 88 Minutes (that was only last week? Really?), recommend a certain Oscar-winning actress's directing debut and scan the new arrivals shelf for DVD's of notice. As always, our opinions are our own, but they're also right. You can thank us later!

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Having apparently run out of the tantalising audio excerpts with which she's been sustaining our interest in the Anthony Pellicano trial, Allison Hope Weiner is testing a new kind of bombshell today over at The Huffington Post — and it's called "A Possible Mistrial." It's not as sexy as it sounds, but that's not to say it won't be eventually: A government witness testifying to have handled paperwork saying co-defendant Sgt. Mark Arneson was in bankruptcy — a claim he denied under oath — may have actually forged and filed the paperwork herself. Brilliant!

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Uwe Boll's 15 minutes of hammy artistic self-defence are just about through, but we find ourselves increasingly won over with his thrashing, language-butchering viral efforts on his own behalf. And while we're pleased to hear he'll be judging that Uwe Boll Movie Challenge we noted here yesterday, we are total suckers for his latest — and ideally his last — publicity stunt before vanishing into fauxter oblivion. Or, in his words: "Boll against Bay":

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· Ewan McGregor is close to signing on for The Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons, the least anticipated sequel of all time. (Don't even try to argue this. It is futile. It's even less anticipated than Ice Cube's Next Monday, Not This Monday Coming, But The One Like A Week From This Monday.) [Variety]
· Rogue Pictures purchased Drill Team, a "female-driven teen dance movie set in the competitive world of high school drill teams" for low six-figures, eventually going on to usher the catchphrase "You've been drilled!" into the popular lexicon. [Variety]

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The week that started with Les Moonves and Phillipe Dauman kickboxing in Sumner Redstone's corporate steel cage will apparently end with Dauman retreating to his corner of the Viacom boardroom for medical attention. Or at least that's the impression we glean from today's gloom-and-doom survey of the Great Pay-Cable Cockfight of 2008, during which Paramount broke off from cousin network Showtime after failing to renegotiate an output deal for its titles. On their own now with partners Lionsgate and MGM/UA, even Viacom/Paramount flacks acknowledge finding little comfort in the TV wild:

The marketplace reaction to the fourth feevee was predictable: Who needs it?

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For what seems like an entire century, ladies and ladyboys have been anxiously awaiting the release of the ultimate "chick flick," Sex And The City: The Movie (have we mentioned how godawful that title is by the way?). In any case, yesterday we had the privilege of seeing the final one-sheet for the film which is set to open next month. And almost immediately, we began griping about it (annoyingly, just the way Carrie Bradshaw whined over her column's bus ad during the first season). After the jump, we discuss all the various problems with this image, from that dress to that font to, well, almost everything, boiled down into three primary points:

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Think back, to before Tom Cruise the Cycloptic Nazi-Hunter, before Cruise the Android-Baby-Wrangler (but not to Cruise the Goateed Samurai—that's too far), all the way to the Tom Cruise of May 2005: A man in the throes of a love so monstrous, the only way he could adequately relay it to Oprah Winfrey was by mounting the talk show host's couch, and, in a vivid demonstration of Hooke's law, using the coiled energy stored inside her upholstered seating to launch himself 23 feet into the air.

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