Oscar winners Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker will star in a new film about two old lesbians who break out of a nursing home and go on a road trip. This is expected to be summer 2010 tentpole programming for Universal, which is hoping for a franchise. What this says for Fox's similarly-themed big-budget summer film Me & Henry, about Hal Holbrook and Philip Bosco being gay together, remains to be seen. [Variety]

The marvelous Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Christina Applegate have joined Drew Barrymore and Justin Long in the romantical comedy Going the Distance. They'll play the best friend/snarky sibling characters, obviously. New Line is hoping to add some box office oomph by asking the screenwriter to pen in a subplot about Blythe Danner and Lynn Cohen going to sex parties. [THR]

Speaking of It's Always Sunny..., FX has announced their fall premiere dates. Sunny will premiere September 17th at 10pm, the same day that NBC rolls out their Thursday night laff line-up (sans 30 Rock). So, a funny night! [Variety]

Columbus Circle, a movie co-written by Kevin Pollack, lurches into motion. The film is about Selma Blair being a hermited New York heiress who is interviewed by detective Giovanni Ribisi after there's a murder in her building. Amy Smart and Jason Lee play new neighbors. So, that sounds like a movie that could have been made ten years ago. [THR]

Oh, another box office smash! Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are set to play lesbian parents whose two kids, Mia Wasikowska from In Treatment and Josh Hutcherson from Bridge to Terabithia, go in search of their sperm donor papa in The Kids are All Right. He turns out to be Mark Ruffalo, and hilarity and awkwardness ensue. This will probably open against James Ivory's boffo new picture, Lady with a Lapdog, an adaptation of the Chekhov short story starring Phyllida Law. In this version, everyone's gay. [Variety]

ABC has picked up an internationally-produced show about astronauts starring Ron Livingston. The thing was actually pitched at one point as "Grey's Anatomy in space". So. A couple days ago we learned about that Canadian show Coppers that was picked up for distribution by ABC. It was described as Grey's Anatomy about rookie cops. Basically, everything is Grey's Anatomy and foreign. That's your new TV, folks. Enjoy it. [THR]

Oh, and remakes! Also there are remakes. Sci Fi, oh excuse me Syfy, is trying its hand at yet another gritty retelling of a cheesy story. They'll be rebooting Alien Nation, that 1980s series about cops and aliens named Sam Francisco. It would be an alien procedural. It'll also have to compete, someday theoretically, with V, another remount that ABC is doing in the fall. Hey, TV! We have ideas for shows that are new! Come talk to us! [Variety]

· Heart's Nancy Wilson has taken umbrage at the use of their band's song "Barracuda" to introduce Palin at the RNC (Palin earned the nickname "Barracuda" during her high school basketball days). "I think it's completely unfair to be so misrepresented," she said to EW. "I feel completely fucked over."

· Diddy has much warmer feelings toward the vice presidential candidate, though they're expressed in equally blue terms. "You did your thing," he said on his Diddy Blog after watching Palin's RNC speech. "You gave a speech that pretty much shut me the fuck up."

· "The idea that people who voted for Hillary, who tend to be Democrats, would change and vote for McCain because of Sarah Palin seems to me bizarre," said actress Annette Bening while on promotional duties for The Women. "I find that an odd idea because of course Sarah Palin's politics are to the right of McCain's. She's incredibly conservative and I think it's fair to say she's more conservative than John McCain. So whether she will rally more conservative people to get out there and vote, I don't know. But most of the people I know that were interested in voting for Hillary are voting for Obama."

· Project Runway judge Nina Garcia thinks Palin could use a makeover. ""She has promise," Garcia told Us. "She just needs to lose those glasses. Get them lasered or something."

· Frequent VH1 talking head Simon Doonan disagreed, positing that you can take the glasses away from the moosehunter, but you can't take the moosehunter away from the glasses shop. “Oh, she is so LensCrafters I just don’t even know where to begin," he told New York. "People keep saying to me, ‘She’s Miss Congeniality.’ I’m seeing more LensCrafters."

· Robert Downey Jr. enjoyed himself immensely, delighting the crowd with his take on the famous goosestepping sequence from Shampoo. [ONTD]
· Jane Fonda recalled her first impressions after having screen tested with Beatty in the '50s, "I thought he was gay. He was so cute, and all his men friends were gay, and brilliant. He had a way of collecting really brilliant gay men friends. And he liked to play piano in a piano bar – I mean, what were the odds he was straight? Shows you how dumb I was." [People]

In today's episode: Jennifer Aniston and Emilio Estevez; Christian Slater and Larry King; Leonardo DiCaprio; Annette Bening; Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard; Kirsten Dunst and Taye Diggs; Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart; James Caan and Scott Caan; Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell; Jessica Biel and Derek Jeter; Ralf Moeller and David Krumholtz; David Caruso; Zooey Deschanel; Cobi Jones and Dennis Rodman; Dennis Haysbert; Adam Goldberg; Efren Ramirez and Alexa Varga; Flavor Flav and Lance Bass.

· Was chilling by the pool at the Four Seasons in Santa Barbara last weekend, when I noticed Jennifer Aniston across from me at the pool. She smoked roughly a pack and a half of cigs, while sipping on a margarita and checking her treo ever so often.....We were all excited and went up to the bar to order some margs of our own, when a short liitle man came up to us and offered to buy us our drinks, we brushed him off and as I was finishing up my sentence, which was going to end with something like: "you short little shit" I realized I was talking to a very botox induced Emilio Estevez....I changed my tune, told him I loved him in Breakfast Club and had watched it a couple of nights before (sad but true story)....we ended up letting him buy us the margs - nice guy, BUT so short Jen Aniston looked like Angelina in comparison!

· First major A-list sighting! Yay LA! Jennifer Aniston at AOC on 3rd st. tonight. Why does fancy dinner taste fancier after fancy famous people walk by? She's ten times prettier in person and looks delicate.

· Sat daytime @ amc century 14. Christian Slater and daughter. Larry King with wife and kids. Sun afternoon. Leo DiCaprio and girlfriend walking on melrose.

· Keanu Reeves wining and dining his new 'main squeeze', Vicky Kujawa, a beautiful brunette Chicago Socialite, at Lawry's Prime Rib in Beverly Hills; this could be serious......

· Thursday, November 16th @ the Pinkberry in West Hollywood. Annette Bening in a beautiful Calvin Klein top and skirt looking very hip, chic and slim. She was totally approachable and polite. Said she hadn't been there before and allowed another customer to go in front of her while she perused the toppings. She ordered one medium plain pinkberry with blackberries and granola and one to go. She and friend chatted for a while and then got her 'to go' order and left.

· Taking a break from filming at the LA Film School, I took a walk at the Hollywood Farmer's Market, where I saw none other than Maggie Gyllenhaal with Peter Sarsgaard and baby Ramona! The family had quite a few bags and seemed adorably content

· I had a friend visiting from out of town and was excited to produce 2 celeb sightings for him. We spotted Kirsten Dunst (way too skinny and not that attractive) and Taye Diggs (extremely buff and extremely good-looking) at American Rag on Saturday afternoon. Although Kristin ducked into the changing room, she left without buying anything. Taye arrived a little bit later with a small dog and a bag from Undefeated (the shoe store nearby).

· Just left regular Saturday morning breakfast spot Jinky's on Sunset Blvd (11/18 - 11:30AM). Dr. McSteamy Eric Dane and wife Rebecca Gayheart sat down a table over from us on the same side of the table (Parisian style) just like we were. He had aviator sunglasses dangling from his button down shirt, jeans, and those grey-black-flourescent yellow striped Nikes everyone wore 5 years ago. She wore a 60s mod scarf in her hair. Another white couple joined them after a few minutes later, the new arrival dude wore a Georgetown Baseball T-Shirt...to which Eric shouted "You went to Georgetown?, I didnt know that" and was really interested in his college baseball career. As someone who went to Georgetown myself, I can say that baseball is one of the last things the school is known for...after hoops, priests, and politicians.

The waitress came and Rebecca said "I didnt even see the menu..." Rebecca ordered well done turkey bacon. Eric wanted fries with whatever he ordered but it didnt come with it, so he ordered a side of fries. Then we left and drove right by Eric's billboard for "Wedding Wars" on Sunset Blvd (by coincidence, not to continue an Eric Dane love fest)

· two, two, two sightings within 4 hours of each other! whoopee doo!

sunday morning i spotted james caan and his sons scott, james Arthur and jacob (i had to look the last two up on imdb) enjoying an al fresco breakfast outside the beverly glen deli at the top of beverly glen. scott and his old man were wearing semi-matching cab driver style, kangol-ish hats. awwww.

· sunday afternoon i was driving in a very residential, incredibly non-celebrity infested woodland hills neighborhood, when i passed jerry o'connell and rebecca romijn in matching bike outfits out for a leisurely ride on a bicycle built for two. no shit. they were heading up mulholland when i left for a 90 minute car wash/foodshop combo and when i returned i caught them heading the other way back towards calabasas.

· nov 14th— (i dont know if this really qualifies) but at red pearl kitchen i saw Ralf Moeller ( gladiator, conan, mr universe) dining with a hot blonde actress type that looked kinda familiar... it was clearly a date!— And at the table next to them- was david krumholtz ( numbers) dining with what looked like his father and a girlfriend. david krumholdzt said good-bye to ralf when he left... do all actors know each other??
also jessica biel and derek jeter together at the getty museum during the day— he could not keep his hands off her ass... ( can you blame him?)— guess they are dating?!

· Walking down Dayton Way between Canon and Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills this past Wednesday (11/15) was a poorly concealed David Caruso in a baseball cap and dark sunglasses. It appears he was being lead by a handler or some sort - possibly just a life coach he hired to follow him at all times reminding him not to quit CSI Miami for a film career.

· Went to Area for the first and last time last night (thursday 11/16). Fairly standard incredible looking women-to-women trying incredibly hard to be incredible looking-to-the men who love them ratio, and a thin night on the star side: Zooey Deschanel was there, with her standard "Did I just sit on something?" expression on her face. Still, she's sort of adorable. Also, washed up U.S. soccer stud Cobi Jones, washed up NBA freak Dennis Rodman, and washed up professional sports league franchise The Philadelphia Flyers. Peter Forsberg is still a total badass, though.

· Dennis Haysbert at the USC Cal game last night, walking on the field and stopping to take pictures with people in the front row. People kept yelling "youre in good hands" and making jokes about President Palmer from 24, but I guess it didnt bother him.

· If you can even call him a celebrity any more (though I guess malingering near Christina Ricci confers a kind of celebrity status): Adam Goldberg looking rough, gruff and surly outside an AFI Fest screening of David Lynch's (sublime) "Inland Empire."

· I was at the Grove on Friday night at 2AM and spotted actor Efren Ramirez (PEDRO from Napoleon Dynamite) with Alexa Vega from the Spy Kids movies all leaving Casino Royale and talking with friends in the lobby for about 15 minutes after the screening.

· Last night (11/19) I was waiting for my luggage at LAX. Behind me was a tiny guy wearing a huge Reggie Bush jersey, a ridiculously long gold chain and a white clock necklace. Turns out it was Flavor Flav, whose luggage had apparently been lost. I'm pushing "You got your claim check, Flav?" as the hot new slogan for '07.

· I saw Lance Bass in all his gayness at Bally's Total Fitness in Studio City. He was with a chunky female and they rode elliptical trainers together and chatted all the while. He was wearing a trucker hat that covered his eyes, but there was no missing him.