Wahey! An obsession I had over a week ago is still going strong, which is brilliant news for Ladyhawke. Well, not really for her, but certainly for me. I was lucky enough to get a preview copy of her album to review for a very nice publication, and without giving away too much... by jingoes, what a clever thing that Pip Brown is, eh? She is, of course, from Wellington - my newly adopted home town - so it makes sense she'd be totally amazing.

If there's one thing I love as much as Ladyhawke, it's Popjustice. So when the two things I care most for in the world collide, I'm as happy as a porcine creature in effluents. Popjustice have just announced:

The problem with the Ladyhawke album is that we're finding ourselves spending a lot of time telling people how good it is. This is time we could otherwise be spending listening to the Ladyhawke album.

I could not agree more. Here's Popjustice's solution to this problem.

After the jump, the video for Ladyhawke's new single 'Dusk Till Dawn'

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As we mentioned yesterday, Fairfax staff are striking in Sydney, Melbourne, Illawarra and Newcastle in protest of Fairfax's proposed 550 job cuts (not to mention other issues like freelance agreements and pay rates), the first and highest profile of which was Age editor-in-chief Andrew Jaspan. Well, it seems if there's something Fairfax big wigs like even less than letting people keep their jobs, it's letting striking people keep their jobs!

Radio broadcaster and Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton has been sacked for refusing to write his weekly column during a strike.

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As the "this is going to suck" juggernaut continues to roll in ahead of the premiere of NBC's remake of Kath & Kim, it's looking less and less like our Stateside friends are in any way confident that the show - starring Selma Blair as "Kim" and Molly Shannon as "Kath" - will be all NBC is no doubt hoping it's cracked up to be. And given that here at Defamer Australia we are more or less certain it will blow, we continue to bring you even the most questionable K&K related hate mail news: here's today's!

US TV network NBC has rolled out a massive ad campaign and billboard blitz for the show but it appears Americans don't really care about the foxy morons.

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When it comes to satire, spoofs and mockumentaries, there have admittedly been times when the line between reality and fiction begins to blur; witness Spinal Tap's entry into the general consciousness, actual gigs and endorsement deals for Rock'n Rolls (the "street" Hot Pocket). However, there are also times when you wonder if audiences are so dumb that films need to be screened with a 'serving suggestion'-esque disclaimer to avoid any future confusion. That might have avoided situations like this one at Channel Ten HQ when Shane "Kenny" Jacobson came to visit:

The water was off yesterday (no taps, no flushing) for several hours at the network's South Yarra headquarters on the very day the famed loo lord was there on promo duties for Kenny's World, Ten's spin-off of the hit movie that follows the S-bend saint around the globe.

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Kaan, our dear technical guru around these parts, sent Clem and yours truly this video of fellow who makes sculptures out of chewing gum. This Romanian fellow is AMAZING, but the video is not embeddable. Damn you!

Then I began exploring YouTube, and it seems that there are quite a few chewing gum artistes out there. The guy below - nowhere near as good as the Romanian - even ended up on Ellen!

I can't be the only one who is dying to run out and buy a pack of gum right now, surely?

Tributes have started to pour out of the Australian television, film and theatre industries for actor Mark Priestley, who was found dead on Wednesday afternoon. The show that enjoyed a ratings spike on Tuesday, with 1.7 million tuning in to see Priestley's character Dan get married, All Saints stopped filming yesterday for at least 24 hours, and members of the cast have offered their thoughts about their co-star's tragic death.

John Howard, who plays Dr Frank Campion, said Priestley was a fine actor: "He had the most extraordinary combination of very deft comic touch and great emotional depth."

John Waters, who plays Dr Mike Vlasek, was stunned. "I worked with him on stage and on screen and will miss him more than I can say right now," Waters said. "Mark the actor was intuitive, and graced every scene in which he appeared with a touch of whimsical genius that only he could apply."

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It's taken a good couple of days for the news of Paulini's exit from superladygroup the Young Divas to really sink in. At first, I think I was in denial. This couldn't actually be happening, surely? Sadly, yes.

In case you've been living under a rock, here's what the papers had to say.

When the Young Divas recorded their last track, Turn Me Loose, sounds like singer Paulini Curuenavuli took lyrics literally.

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Well, did you? He was rather good, I suppose, in a "I'm a real musician" sort of way (how he'll cope with the theme weeks remains to be seen, of course). If you didn't make note at the time, the fellow in question is Wes Carr, and as soon as I heard James Mathieson reveal the identity of Dicko's mancrush, I thought to myself "I know that name... I know that name!

And it turns out I did. Anyone remember Ben Gillies from Silverchair's 2005 side project Tambalane?

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Do you recall the MySpazz blogger I directed you toward a while back because they were riling up the coolsie kids with their tongue-in-cheek entry regarding The Top 10 Most Overrated Albums of All Time?

Well, she's kept up with the pot-stirring, and the youth seem unable to identify the pisstaking approach with which she has been tackling all things music related on her blog, and are descending upon it to comment in their thousands. In fact, "Vonette Cherry" has become one of the top bloggers on MySpace!

Her latest flaming (hot) entry is titled "Emos Today Are Ruining Teenagers For Everyone", and in it Vonette neatly encapsulates assorted movements of yesteryear.

In particular, her highly sarcastic but succinct summary of Grunge tickled me:

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After a bit of a false start, the SoHo apartment where Heath Ledger died last January is apparently back on the rental market. And what a deal can be had at $26,000 per month — an increase of more than 20% over Ledger's $22,000 monthly rent after moving in last September. Steep! But again, these are post-Dark Knight dollars, and the mythology premium is good for at least 10% over the usual bump you see around the neighbourhood. Just ask a broker!

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RumerWatch. Whore star Rumer Willis gets more work! She's been cast in an episode of Lifetime's Army Wives set to air October 12, in which she'll play "the wife of a soldier who has been injured in Iraq." Congratulations, Rumer Willis! [TV Guide]

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For every Steven Spielberg flinging a Democratic National Convention short film out the limo window on his way to his cabin retreat in the Rockies, we're learning there are a few dozen other filmmakers scavenging the floor of the convention hall with cameras and about two hours' sleep. Such is the spirit of democracy (or something — don't ask) fueling the makers of Convention, who have seemingly been everywhere at once this week trailing delegates, pols and pundits alike. And they're not the only ones winding down their routines tonight as Barack Obama's speech closes the event; Mayor of the Sunset Strip director George Hickenlooper is hanging around with his cousin, Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, and Amy Rice and Alicia Sams are neck-deep in their top-secret, Ed Norton-backed documentary following the Obama campaign.

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Though MTV isn't always respectful of its own history, it can usually be counted on to remember one thing: a VMAs ceremony is nothing without a memorable kiss. Whether it's Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley or Madonna and Britney Spears, celebrity-on-celebrity Frenching is an absolute must if the network hopes to draw buzz through umpteen rebroadcasts the following week. Luckily, one of this year's biggest songs — "I Kissed a Girl" — gives MTV just the opportunity it needs. Says E!'s Marc Malkin:

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Oh my LORD. I know deep inside my soul that I shouldn't be nearly as gripped by Lindsay Lohan's personal life as I am, but when celebrities turn to their MySpazz blogs to get things off their chest, they capture my attention and I'm rendered helpless by their poorly spelled charm (see also Allen, L and Love, C).

And so, after reading our American cousin's take on "bad dads", I found myself on Lindsay Lohan's MySpace page this morning reading a rant against her father Michael. US Defamer quoted a bit of Lindsay's outburst, but just in case you didn't bother checking out Lindsay's blog entry in its entirety, I thought I should point out this rather adorable excerpt.

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Heavily Vetted: Though rumours are flying about the vice presidential pick that candidate John McCain is set to announce tomorrow morning, it seems that The Hills ingenue Heidi Montag has already let the cat out of the bag. "I am McCain's vice president!" the avowed Republican exclaimed to OK!, adding, "Go team!" Montag is a dark horse candidate to be sure, though in boyfriend Spencer Pratt, she comes with her very own Karl Rove figure. While Lauren, Lo, and Audrina have the most to lose from this possible vice presidency, they're not the only ones likely to greet this news by barricading themselves behind the banquettes at Boulevard 3. In a McCain/Montag administration, you see, we will all be prisoners of war. [OK!]

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With just a little over a week until the new season of Entourage begins, we thought we'd take a moment to salute the most complex and rewarding of all relationships in that ongoing industry sausage fest: that of Ari and Lloyd. And no better examples of their glorious co-dependency exist than in those moments when everyone's favourite double-banger-securing Zeus completely loses his shit on his fiercely loyal Gaysian henchman. Defamer videographer Molly McAleer combed through the Entourage archives to find the greatest of all spittle-flecked Ari-Lloyed exchanges—though call us biased, our favourite one didn't make the cut.

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Red-Headed Step-Fox: The cycle of abusive box-office analysis is renewed today at the Los Angeles Times, where John Horn broke out his calculator and a hot wire hanger in assessing this summer's winners (Paramount, Warner Bros.) and losers (Sony, Disney). And, as per recent LAT tradition, 20th Century Fox was carted in for the grand finale, an epic pinata smackdown invoking everything from Meet Dave to Fox films' Rotten Tomatoes ratings while once again completely ignoring the total! phenomenon! that was The Happening; at last glance, Manoj's Mint broke $150 million worldwide, which isn't exactly a flop under the circumstances. Anyway, there's always next year, Horn writes, "when it will have sequels to X-Men and Ice Age and a film version of The A-Team." And don't forget Watchmen! Seriously, John — is this even your regular beat? [LAT]

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Resisting the Lucas-esque compulsion to digitally swap Pierce Brosnan's open-throated squawk with a mellifluous gay lilt, Universal has instead touched on a decidedly more modest touch in tweaking its hit Mamma Mia! for a late-summer revival: Subtitles, and plenty of them. Behold Mamma Mia! The Sing-Along Version, announced earlier this month and finally making its way into karaoke-plexes near you this weekend. And the early reviews describe just the scenario that can make the ABBA musical a phenomenon all over again:

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There was a time when the aesthetic of the Japanese game show was thought to be too bizarre to translate to America, but the times, they are a-changin'. Hot on the heels of the summer hit Wipeout comes Hole in the Wall, a Fox remake of the Japanese show in which contestants contort their bodies to pass through a strangely-shaped hole in an advancing wall, lest they be knocked backwards into a pool. Sound simple? It is — gleefully so, as you'll see from this clip. We could have used some more J-pop songs or cute, lightning-spouting rat/dogs watching from the sidelines, but otherwise, we think we've found the crown jewel of the fall lineup. It's bold for Hole in the Wall to premiere on the anniversary of September 11, but if this show can't heal America's wounds, what can? [Fox]

A recently unearthed artifact from 1988 offers a mass celebrity humiliation on a scale so staggering, the mind quite simply reels. The setting was that year's Academy Awards ceremony—and what better way to celebrate the most glamorous evening in entertainment that with a nine-minute-long musical number peopled by Hollywood's "brightest young stars," in which they express through singing, dancing, fencing, and moonwalking their, um, desire to become a "super duper pooper scooper" Oscar winner.

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· Low-budget suspense movie The Strangers, which managed to pretty effectively scare the crap out of us, is getting a sequel. It promises to cover all the rooms in a house Liv Tyler wasn't chased through by a trio of masked psychopaths not explored in the original. [Variety]
· NBC gives Chuck gets a full-season order, while America's Got Talent—which seems on course to reward a male Britney Spears impersonator $1 million—got a fourth season. [Variety]
· Lonelygirl15 is returning for LG15: The Resistance. Could someone be a doll and fill Aaron Sorkin in on what's happened in the plot until now? [Variety]
· ABC is hot for a comedy pilot from Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd that would follow three families as their lives are documented by a Dutch filmmaker. None of the families are Caveman-American, to our knowledge. [THR]
· George Clooney is in negotiations to star in Jason Reitman's adaptation of Walter Kirn's frequent-flyer-mile-addiction novel, Up in the Air, effectively bumping this project up to First Class. (Feel free to use that, THR.) [THR]

Now that Heroes has resumed shooting after a strike-truncated, poorly received second season, star Milo Ventimiglia has less time for nachos ("uh-oh!") and more publicity rounds to make. The latest stop on his Heroes redemption tour is gay magazine The Advocate, where Ventimiglia sat down and dished to writer Brandon Voss about his frequent on-screen shirtlessness ("You do start to wonder..."), his friend John Krasinski, and a certain gossip blogger's habit of defacing his paparazzi pictures:

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Undaunted by the poor reception accorded Hamlet 2, Hollywood is pressing on with two even more unlikely sequels: one likely to provoke an excited "Oh my gahhh!" the other, simply an "Oh my." We'll start with the latter: strange as it may seem, Variety reports that Todd Solondz is moving ahead with an "untitled part-sequel, part-companion piece" to his incredibly unsettling 1998 comedy Happiness. If the idea of a Happiness 2 makes you feel just this far from being completely hysterical 24 hours a day, why not meet its unlikely cast of Pee-Wee Herman, Demi Moore, and Emma Thompson! No, this is not a delayed April Fool's Joke, and there is thus far no word on who will be masturbating on, near, or about whom, but the project will begin shooting this October in San Juan, Puerto Rico (naturally).

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The last news we'd heard about Kate Winslet's post-WWII drama The Reader was less than reassuring: While the film ultimately got its first choice of leading lady after a pregnant Nicole Kidman backed out, the successive passings of co-producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack left Scott Rudin on his own with the broke-arse Weinsteins to manoeuvre the Oscar push everyone had in mind. Then, as recently as last month, Defamer operatives whispered that The Reader wouldn't make it to 2008 at all, instead landing somewhere of TWC's choosing in 2009 — if it could afford to release it at all.

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Twice this week, a man has driven his car into the gates of Hugh Hefner's estate—more commonly known as the Playboy Mansion—in Holmby Hills. The LAPD is not being forthcoming with details, saying only it has something to do with an "ongoing dispute." We've rounded up the possible suspects after the jump:

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If it's the last thing it ever does — and it probably will be — Warner Independent Pictures is bound and determined to wring every last bit of notoriety out of the $1.5 million it spent last year on Alan Ball's merde du jour directing debut Towelhead. And almost a full 12 months after the film met its Toronto Film Festival premiere audience with a splat heard 'round the world, the doomed mini-major's quest to culturally salvage what's left of the rape-and-racism coming-of-age drama has tapped into yet another free-publicity boon: The Council on American-Islam Relations finally came around the other day to condemn the title Towelhead and urge a name change. We know nobody saw that coming.

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Though Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff have been rivals for so long that no one can even remember how it began (wait, Aaron Carter? Really?), there's at least one thing the two starlets can agree on this week: their dads each need a serious time-out. In fact, while Lohan took to the pages of MySpace to chastise her father, Duff's received an actual sentencing: ten days in the slammer for poor parenting. Before we explore why, though, let's begin with the latest in the Lohan family psychodrama, which reached its boiling point this week when a fame-hungry Michael Lohan took to the press to denounce the woman who his daughter has "gone gay" for: Samantha Ronson. That didn't sit so well with Lindsay, who made a scathing rebuttal today on her Myspace celebrity blog:

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Horny gossip spinster Liz Smith had unwittingly curried favour with Tom Cruise by appearing on an episode of Fox News Channel's gossip-for-conservatives show Lips & Ears, in which she opined that misunderstood Nazis: Just The Nice Ones-vehicle Valkyrie should be "accepted in the same way World War II movies by Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood and Francis Ford Coppola." (The actor has a staff combing the airwaves 24-hours a day for Cruise-positive messages; both Smith and Lips & Ears have now been slid into the Allies column.) What followed was a candid chat with the actor on everything from his crumbling UA dominion, to his comedic turn as a Harvey Weinstein-type in Tropic Thunder, to his billion-year war bride Katie Holmes bruise-inducing preparations for her Broadway debut:

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