• Previously: Defamer Halloween Costume Ideas, Vol. IV: The Rebel
• Defamer Halloween Costume Ideas, Vol. III: The Dreamer
• Defamer Halloween Costume Ideas, Vol. II: The Aberration
• Defamer Halloween Costume Ideas, Vol. I: The Visionaries [Defamer]

The entire press release is after the jump.

OSCAR WINNING PRODUCER BRIAN GRAZER TO RECEIVE USC PICKFORD AWARD

Disney CEO Robert A. Iger Co-Speaker at May 16 Ceremony

MAY 12, 2008, LOS ANGELES - Brian Grazer, Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning film and television producer and co-founder of Imagine Entertainment, will receive the Mary Pickford Foundation Award at the USC School of Cinematic Arts 2008 commencement ceremony, at which Robert A. Iger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, will serve as co-speaker, Dean Elizabeth M. Daley announced today.

Iger, who will earlier in the day receive an honorary doctorate and appear as the featured speaker at USC's commencement ceremony, will share industry observations with the cinema class. Additionally Iger will present Grazer with the School of Cinematic Arts's Pickford Award, presented to men and women of USC who have made an indelible impact on the entertainment industry. Grazer, a 1974 USC alumnus, will provide his own unique insights gained while producing projects for the big and small screens for nearly 30 years.

States Daley: "Brian has been an indisputable leader in the entertainment community, and a staunch supporter of the School of Cinematic Arts for many years. We are thrilled to honor him with the Pickford Award and to send our latest class off with the wisdom that both he and Bob will impart."

Among the notable films Grazer has produced are Splash, Apollo 13, Backdraft, 8 Mile, Parenthood, The Da Vinci Code, Liar Liar and Cinderella Man. In 2002, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him and long-time producing partner, Ron Howard, the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. Grazer's television credits include 24, Arrested Development, SportsNight, Felicity and the Emmy-award winning mini-series From the Earth to the Moon.

Iger and Grazer will address the May 16 commencement ceremony, which takes place at the Shrine Auditorium. Grazer is the 14th recipient of the Pickford Award, which is conferred in association with the Mary Pickford Foundation. Past recipients include: Ray Harryhausen, William Fraker, Conrad L. Hall, Alan Ladd, Jr., Michelle Manning, Walter Murch, Jay Roach, Gary Rydstrom, Stacey Sher, John Singleton, David L. Wolper, Laura Ziskin and Robert Zemeckis.

I was mountain biking the other weekend and spotted this stenciled Brian Grazer image spray painted on a traffic light control box at the intersection of Sunset Blvd and Allenford.

What struck me was not just the fact that the image was done in a stenciled, pouting motif a la the latest Stallone Rambo movie posters, but also that this little icon was placed at an major intersection no more than 1/2 of a mile from the producer's house as the crow flies...Since so many people seem to be mourning the loss of the graven Grazerhead image, perhaps this may serve as a suitable replacement?

Indeed, we too were saddened by the forcible retiring of the infinitely expanding, Grazer-approved headshot known as Grazerhead—a parting gesture inflicted upon us by Defamer editor-at-large Mark Lisanti on his way out the door. So we'll throw it open to you, Grazerhead Nation: Is the grimacing, beshinered Grazer adorning the traffic light box worthy of taking the original's place? By way of options, we'll also throw this portrait into the running, shot by photographer Martin Schoeller—he of the female bodybuilder photos that so beguiled Mayor Villaraigosa.

• Martin Schoeller images [Ace Gallery]
• Previously: A Farewell To Grazerhead [Defamer]

The e-mail explained:

This person would be responsible for keeping Brian abreast of everything that's going on in the world; politically, culturally, musically. . . . They're also responsible for finding an interesting person for Brian to meet with every week . . . an astronaut, a journalist, a philosopher, a buddhist monk. . . .

There is LOTS of reading for this position! Grazer may ask you to read any book he's interested in. You'll probably get to read about 4 or 5 books a week and you may be required to travel with him on his private plane to Hawaii, New York, Europe—teaching him anything he asks you about along the way. . . . You will also be provided with an assistant. . . . Salary is around $150,000 a year. . . . You will be to Grazer what Karl Rove was to Bush.

By last week, Grazer's staff had already narrowed the potential attachés down to four finalists, who would interview with the boss. "I've met a lot of good candidates," Grazer said..."They have to be really resourceful," Grazer said. "I like to meet people in dangerous organizations, and my cultural attaché finds out who that person is—who runs the Yakuza, or the Masons, or MI5."

We wish the four the best of luck in the final rounds of what is likely to be the most grueling recruitment process of their young post-graduate careers. They'll soon find themselves dispatched to infiltrate the most ruthless organized crime syndicates on the planet; should they manage to survive their undercover deployments inside the Chechen mafia, the Brazilian Comando Vermelho, the Neopolitan Camorra, and the Central American Mara Salvatrucha, only the candidate with the most compelling and realistically budgeted 60-page treatment of their underworld adventures will win the much coveted cultural attachéship.

[Illustration: EW.com]

• Beautiful Minds [NewYorker.com]

Despite having won Oscars as well as most other film and television awards, Mr. Grazer remains largely unknown outside Hollywood. And while he acknowledges the success of his work, he still craves public recognition.

Mr. Grazer almost passed up a partnership with Mr. Howard because he feared the director's celebrity would overshadow his own role in the company. "He was just too famous for me," Mr. Grazer said. "I felt that no matter how hard I could work, it would always be gigantically eclipsed by him." [...]

"I probably should have a brand," Mr. Grazer said, "but I think you can't get the best artists to work for you if you're branded. I get the trade-off, and I really would like to be more famous for my work, get more credit for my achievements. We all want more of that. But on the other hand, if you get too big — like it says in 'American Gangster' — success is your enemy."

If that final quote is sincere, it seems that if Grazer might finally be making an uneasy peace with his situation, accepting that building an ego-feeding personal brand might hamper his ability to collaborate with more celebrated artists who can help him execute his every mildly quirky vision. Still, we won't believe he's completely internalized this cognitive breakthrough until he has one of his assistants remove the giant, sneering, battered portrait of rival Jerry Bruckheimer that hangs behind his desk at Imagine's headquarters, which he mercilessly attacks with his cherished A Beautiful Mind statuette each morning, crying, "Think you're better than me, Mr. Puts His Producing Stamp On Every Film? I have a fucking Oscar, you pirate-loving hack!," a ritual that allows him to begin yet another Sisyphean day of pushing his anonymous boulder up the hill of public recognition.

Bonus: Nikki Finke explains how Grazer *nearly* received a Thalberg lifetime achievement award at the 2004 Oscars.

• Hollywood Producer of Varied Interests, Many Hits, but Little Fame [NY Times]
• Previously: Brian Grazer Puts 'American Gangster' On His Back, Carries It Into Theaters Himself [Defamer]

· Even studios and production companies are getting on the reteaming craze that's currently sweeping Hollywood! Frequent moviemaking partners Universal and Imagine Entertainment climb back into bed yet again to produce The Knife, based on a soon-to-be-published GQ article about how a Crip informant helped the FBI crack some cases. Brian Grazer to superproduce, hang out with gang members. [Variety]
· Warner Bros. is so pleased with Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin's work on Fred Claus that they've signed him to a three-year deal, during which he will produce and helm a variety of projects that may or may not involve Vince Vaughn. [THR]
· TV viewers help to kick off November sweeps by taking a last fling with the scripted programming that may soon disappear from the schedule. [Variety]

· Smelling Oscar, Jamie Foxx will star in DreamWorks' adaptation of the book The Zebra Murders: A Season of Killing, Racial Madness and Civil Rights, playing one of "trailblazing black detectives who set out to solve a series of racially motivated serial killings that rocked San Francisco in the fall and winter of 1973-74." It's a serial killer flick! It's a socially conscious civil rights tale! Academy voters are already fantasizing about checking off Foxx's name on their ballots. [Variety]
· The Red Sox's World Series-opening rout of the Rockies gives Fox nearly as big a Nieslen win over its network rivals. Also: Bionic Woman (see above for fun behind-the-scenes news!) dropped off 23 percent from its previous averages. [THR]
· Demonstrating that Hollywood Cares About The Wildfires, Disney kicks in $2 million in relief. [Variety]
· Michael Mann is making plans to butch up a gone-too-soft Robert De Niro. [Variety]

We apologize in advance for any emotional trauma this may have caused you.

• Grazer on Prowl? [TMZ]

· Volkswagen, MasterCard, and Symantec will reportedly spend $40 million to jump aboard the Bourne Ultimatum brandwagon. [Variety]
· Fox wins a "quiet" (read: littered with reality junk and reruns) Thursday with So You Think You Can Dance. [THR]
· As you're well aware by now, we love nothing more than updates on the shattering™ of minor box office records: with $44.2 million, Harry Potter scores the biggest Wednesday of all time, and the fifth-best day in movie history for any day of the week. [Variety]

Shortly after fainting from delight from reading the phrases "Brett Ratner is set to direct," "Brian Grazer is producing," and "film about the life of Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner" contained in the lede of today's Variety story on the progress of a Hef biopic, a quick-thinking intern revived us with smelling salts, allowing us to read about how Hollywood's most lovable fauxteur and its leading, newly single superproducer have come to team up on the dream project. Reports Var:

Grazer optioned Hefner's life rights several years ago. The producer's "8 Mile" scribe Scott Silver tried it as a musical, and Oliver Stone developed several drafts. Making a film of Hefner's long life as icon of the sexual revolution has proven difficult, but Ratner and Hoffman found a way to do it that pleased Grazer and the 81-year-old Hefner, who approved the take late last week in a meeting at the Playboy Mansion.

Ratner, who completed "Rush Hour 3" for an Aug. 10 release through New Line and has a rep as a playboy himself, knows much about the mag's history, though his mansion visit was his first. When Grazer made his original deal with Hefner, Ratner sent the producer his Playboy pinball machine, which sits outside Grazer's office at Imagine. [...]

Hef came from a puritanical upbringing and reinvented himself to be the godfather of the sexual revolution," Ratner told Daily Variety. "He also used his magazine to advocate civil rights and free speech, and put James Brown on his show 'Playboy After Dark' when they didn't put black performers on national television. He broke all kinds of taboos, especially in sexuality. I want to show it all, from the First Amendment struggles to his first orgy to the stroke in the 1980s that almost killed him."

Perhaps the most surprising element of this thoroughly incredible story is that Ratner, whose Hillhaven Lodge aspires to be a to-scale facsimile (complete with its own randy, superannuated patriarch prowling the grounds) of the famous Mansion, had never previously visited Hefner's Xanadu. But fun tidbits like that one aside, we're encouraged by Ratner's obvious passion for his subject, an exuberance that leads us to believe that he won't have to wait for the passing of his mentor to make his long-promised Oscar film, finally leaving behind the genital-cleaving, broken-English-misunderstanding, buddy-comedy hackwork upon which he has wasted his considerable talents up to this career-validating moment.

• Brett Ratner to direct 'Playboy' [Variety]

• SNL - Melissa w/Zach Braff (05/19/07) [YouTube]

· As we mentioned on Friday, Will & Grace series creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick reached a surprise settlement with NBC Studios after a near mistrial was called moments before the verdict in their $55 million lawsuit was to be read. Both the tossed verdict and settlement deal remain undisclosed, but TMZ is reporting that the jury had awarded them $48.5 million plus punitive damages. [Variety]
· Upcoming World's Biggest Comedy Movie Star Seth Rogen (Carell had his turn) plays an oafish stoner with a hot blonde love interest in a Judd Apatow-produced movie. Only this time, it's called The Pineapple Express, not Knocked Up. [THR]
· Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival turned into a weekend-long tribute to the populist film critic, who's recovering from reconstructive jaw surgery after a bout with thyroid cancer. It even included a screening of Russ Meyers' Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, for which a young Ebert wrote the Triple-D-rated screenplay. [Variety]

• Grazer to produce 'Colossus' [Variety]

With a starting bid of a more than reasonable 99 cents, we'd argue that you can't afford not to make your best offer on the very sectional-seating which very possibly once propped superproducing Man of Ideas Brian Grazer as he pleaded with his artistic life partner to see the "Eminem is a natural born actor's actor!" light. However, should that auction leave you cold, there is always the current offering on Craigslist of a table featured in "THE PERSUIT OF HAPPINES WITH WILL SMITH [sic]," which figured prominently in the movie when Smith's homeless father character locked himself in an office building overnight, and, desperate to provide a meal for his young son, scraped the remains off its underside to make two chewed-gum sandwiches.

• RON HOWARD'S COUCH !!! SECTIONAL SOFA !!! [eBay]
• 54" Herman Miller Aluminum Table used 4 the Movie PERSUIT OF HAPPINESS - $550 [Craigslist]

"I was surprised and delighted when the Los Angeles Times asked me to guest edit its Current section, because it gave me a chance to work with the L.A. Times and these seven extremely talented writers — Nobel laureate Eric Kandel, Vogue's editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley, psychologist Paul Ekman, social scientist Dalton Connelly, attorney Martin Singer, urban planner Sam Hall Kaplan and artist Shepard Fairey," Grazer said.

"Working together, we came up with a collection of essays and art that I think readers would have found genuinely stimulating and would have added to our understanding of our ever-changing culture. My hope now is that we can find another way to present the results of our efforts to the audience it deserves."

Given the way events have played out over the past 24 hours, we're doubtful that the Times would accept the mogul's initial idea for finding an audience for his contributors' hard work, a special advertising section in Sunday's paper entitled, "Brian Grazer Salutes His Favorite Stifled Voices: A Brian Grazer Production." Instead, Grazer will make the respectful gesture of offering to take a symbolic one-dollar option on each of the killed pieces, with the promise of a much larger sum should he decide to dumb down any of their essays for a feature film adaptation directed by longtime collaborator Ron Howard.

• Grazer caught in a difference of opinion [THR]
• Previously: Brian Grazer: The Lost Intro [Defamer]
• Complete Grazergate Coverage [Defamer]