In America, everyone just wants to be housewives. As true today as it was in 1958. As evidence, the season finale of Real Housewives of New Jersey won Tuesday night's ratings battle not just in cable, but in regular network television. OK, not in terms of sheer millions of viewers, but at least in terms of young adults. 3.48 million folks tuned in, earning the show a 6 share in 18-49ers, the highest of the night, from any show on the air at the time. Pretty remarkable. Also, pretty goddamned depressing. [Variety]

Poor, heart-faced Reese Witherspoon will soon be taking a deep dive into the horrifying annals of the pharmaceutical industry. Well, not that deep. She'll star in and produce the comedy Pharm Girl, about a wide-eyed young dreamer lady who gets beaten down, hilariously!, by the byzantine and morally corrosive machine that keeps people on unnecessary drugs for their restless legs because everyone wants money. Terrific. [THR]

Yay, we're gonna see it! We're gonna see the "stark" pre-WWI drama about a wicked boarding school directed by shock auteur Michael Haneke (the brilliant Cache, the unnecessary Funny Games)! Sony Pictures Classic has picked up American distribution rights for The White Ribbon, which recently won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival. Oh, and it's in black and white. So. Popcorn flick! [Variety]

Shantel VanSanten, yes the Shantel VanSanten, has joined the cast of the CW's bizarrely successful workhorse series One Tree Hill. She'll play the sister to some other character and I'm sure there will be romantic polyhedrons and everyone who's watching at home will just wheeze and fart and take another hit of Munchos. [THR]

Oh good. The Travel Channel has picked up a reality series called The Streets of America: The Search for America's Worst Driver. It will pit a bunch of terrible drivers in a battle royale in the streets of Los Angeles. Winner kills all. It will be the highest employer on television of women and Asian people. DRIVING JOKES! [Variety]

Perhaps sensing the acrid, cotton-candyish whiff of defeat in the air, fading megastar Tom Cruise has reteamed with Jackie Joyner Abrams to produce the next Mission Impossible flick. No, he's not yet signed on to star in the flick, which would be the fourth in the franchise, so that's still cast in some doubt. Abrams is also not onboard to direct, as his threequel was a box office disappointment. Which is a shame, because it was, in strict movie-makin' terms, the best of the series. Sure MI one was fun but Brian De Palma is also kind of a hack, and we all know that John Woo's ludicrous MI 2 was an execrable failure, so really, MI 3 was the best. Hands down. You just can't beat that opening scene with Phil Hoffman (we're best friends). Anyway, the two might reboot the whole thing and do an ensemble approach, which they tried with the first one (Kristin Scott Thomas! Emilio Estevez!) until Tom Cruise got greedy and hired Jon Voight to kill everyone. [THR]

Aw, old ladies are funny. Sigourney Weaver (did you know that when she and Meryl Streep were at Yale together, Sigourney was the perpetual underdog, always overshadowed by the genius acting machine that is Meryl? It's true! And, sadly, it still sort of is) and Blythe Danner have been cast in the new Simon Pegg/Nick Frost commedia dell'arte, Paul. Flick is about two science fiction dorks who travel to Area 51 and discover a real alien. Then Sigourney busts out and screams "Get away from them, you bitch!" and kills Paul with her Exosquad suit while Blythe stands in the corner nervously reciting lines from Suddenly Last Summer. Oh, Greg Mottola is directing it, so there will probably be dick jokes as well. We're excited. No, really. We are. [Variety]

Image of Tom Cruise pretending to like basketball via Getty

Buzz Cuts Gone Good:
Though they both donned powder-dusted ponytails together in Interview With The Vampire, both Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's best look to date is the crop cut. Think Cruise in all the MI films as opposed to his Village People allusion in Magnolia, or Brad in all the Ocean's movies vs. that caveman look we never even got to see on the big screen for The Fountain. And for all his demerits, from daring to put down Madonna to failing to ever make us laugh, Justin Timberlake's sole redeeming attribute is his near-perfection of the style.

Buzz Cuts Gone Bad:
We happen to be among the few remaining females still ignoring all those silly gay rumors and clinging to Jake Gyllenhaal's heterosexual plausibility. But every crush reaches a standstill at some point, and re: Jake, that point was officially reached courtesy of Jarhead, which required The Jake to feign military obedience and cut it all off. Despite a yearning to see as much of Jake's skin as possible, we didn't appreciate said skin being exposed so plentifully on his scalp. And anyone besides us feverishly following the depressingly rapid decrease in blooming hair on Jude Law's curiously peaked head knows a buzz cut hasn't resulted in the best aesthetic for the rock heiress-snogging star. Finally, we know she's not technically a male celebrity, but no one proved just how wrong a buzz can look than Britney Spears and her infamous self-shearing.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images, Celebrity Details, Beauty And The Bath, Dark Horizons, All Things D and Dyli.org]

• STYLE IT LIKE BECKHAM: ROCKER JOHN MAYER COPIES DAVID'S LOOK [Daily Mail]
• JOSH BROLIN: I'M 'IN A BAD PREDICAMENT RIGHT NOW' [HuffPo]

Leaving the office one night, the diminutive Grey, walking to his car in the Paramount lot, suddenly found himself surrounded by more than a dozen Scientologists, who pressured him to ease up on the actor, according to the source.

Following a terse exchange, the visitors allowed Grey to get into his car and leave, but the message was clear. Though he was unnerved by the incident, sources say, Grey stood his ground. After protracted negotiations, Cruise eventually agreed to a less generous deal.

We have developed a whole new level of admiration for Grey, as the same heavies have managed to bring plenty of lesser studio heads to their greenlighting knees. There's nothing like being suspended over the edge of a high-floor Celebrity Center balcony with an entire packet of vitamins stuffed up your nose, then vigorously shaken of excess thetan dust, to help you quickly start seeing the commercial potential of your star's Rasta-alien passion project.

• Brad Grey's Scientology Scare [Radar]

From the outside in, I probably would have been paralyzed with fear doing something like this, 'cause you think huge movie, biggest star in the world. [...] I felt like it was a movie franchise that hadnt really as good as the first two were that hadn't...really...taken advantage of what the TV series promised, and taken advantage of the potential in that regard, which is taking advantage of this team... I mean, clearly, Tom Cruise is the star, but this is very much a movie where the team works together plots and executes these incredibly intricate and very cool missions. And that for me was the fun of the series.

You have to pity a talent like Abrams, who tumbled out of the safe zone of his Lost TV universe, and landed with a shell-shocked thud into the world of summer blockbuster filmmaking: treacherous waters filled with increasingly hungry Paramount alligators and one toothy little piranha in wrap-around shades who'll chew through your stomach sooner than have you forget who's the star of the show.

• Making 'Mission: Impossible 3'! [ET online]

• Tom Cruise must have own toilet [Just Jared]
• Previously: Cruise And Spielberg: End Of The Affair? [Defamer]

Took a stroll down to Stage 18 on the Paramount lot Friday night following a screening to check out the MI:3 set and spotted Philip Seymour Hoffman out front. He was wearing a tux, huffing a smoke, and was decidedly taller, slimmer and less Cro-magnon than I expected. Even better were the three obvious stand-ins/evil clones for Cruise dressed in tuxes and hanging out front as well. Each one stood about 5'6, had spiky black hair, and all sported huge noses. To make things even more creepy they all smiled and cackled EXACTLY like Mr. Xenu (in a deranged, barely hinged manner, for those unfamiliar with his recent behavior). It might be time to start sending out my completely falsified resume because the thought of Tom Cruise building a miniature army from his own DNA right here on the lot is just too unnerving for words. We walked right into a group of them gathered in front of the stage, so we were no more than 10 feet away from these munchkins. I actually double-took all three because I thought they might be the real deal.

But what if there is no movie, and each stand-in/stunt double's "set call" is merely a ruse for harvesting the priceless organs that keep their doppleganger movie star vital? We wouldn't be surprised if there were ten lookalikes hanging around Stage 18 when production started. We'll make sure our operative keeps an accurate count in the coming weeks, just to be sure we're merely being paranoid.

• Previously: Roasters Test Tom Cruise s Lawyer s Sense Of Humor [Defamer]