And right now there is a bit of panic afoot in showbiz, that with a mere 138 days until showtime, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences still hasn't decided on a helmer for the trophy trot. Nikki Finke reported last week, that last year's host and producer, Hugh Jackman and Bill Condon, are planning not to return to the Kodak stage. The pair's up-market, olde-timey glamour version of the show, gave Oscar its first ratings uptick in seemingly forever; a dramatic break in its long slide into irrelevance. ("What an honor for the Aussie actor" grandma Nikki writes of the of the Academy's desire to bring Jackman back to the show.)

UPDATE: Since the writing of this item, the producers have been named...and they are...Hairspray director Adam Shankman and former Fox CEO Bill Mechanic.)

Every year, Hollywood debates the question of how to update an event that is inherently the stodgiest thing thing on Earth. For starters, the thing that Oscar was conceived to honor — big glitzy prestige films — don't exist anymore, so the show will from now until forever be torn between giving their statues to little independent films that no one saw (and hence, that no one wants to see an awards show celebrating) or trying to find ways to squeeze nods to Dark Knight into a show that will never actually honor such popular films.

And for that matter, what with the media attention span being half a second long these days, if you are talking about movies that came out last year, you might as well be giving a lesson in like, the Cold War or Vietnam or something.

Not to mention — three hours of people in tuxedoes getting trophies and making speeches?!? In the epoch of cat videos!? Is this some kinda of Twilight Zone episode? Is America being punk'd by Oscar?

So what the heck do you do with a still huge but dwindling monstrosity like Oscar? Basically you can embrace the future or deny it, and either route has its merits. Here's our suggestions for the roads Oscar could take:

EMBRACE THE KIWANIS WITHIN
Oscar is never, ever going to win over these kids today, so go with your strength. Lead with the stodgy; you'll play well to your base and once every decade and a half, catch a retro wave. These days the Hollywood establishment is the aging Baby Boom generation, who are bound to actually become cool one of these days.
Host: Billy Crystal
Producer: Jeffrey Katzenberg
Ideal Best Picture Winner: Braveheart
Opening Number: A Rockettes lead a musical tribute to the films of screenwriter Ron Bass, high-stepping to the greatest moments from Rain Man, Snow Falling on Cedars and Dangerous Minds.
Clips Reel: A complete recap of The Today Show reporting the weekend grosses every Monday morning of the past year.
Log Line: This IS your grandfather's Oscars.

DRINK THE GLOBES UNDER THE TABLE
The reason why the Golden Globes have held their own against the declining Oscars is liquor. The dinner setting of the Globes show has traditionally meant well-lubricated winners making some of the more free-wheeling, demented speeches of awards season. Well, two can play at that game. Mandatory tequilla shots and forced picks from the mystery wheel of amphetamines for all attendees.
Host: Jack Nicholson
Producer: Ben Silverman
Ideal Best Picture Winner: Couples Retreat
Opening Number: Stars careen to their seats on a giant Slip 'n Slide placed down the aisle.
Clips Reel: The best moments of buddy comedies, guys who love to laugh with each other.
Log Line: Come and Get It!

POST-MODERN OSCAR
Pander completely to Hoodie Nation with an all self-referential celebration of quirk.
Host: Michael Cera
Producer: Spike Jonze
Ideal Best Picture Winner: (500) Days of Summer
Opening Number: Michael Cera sits on the floor of the Kodak stage listening to the mix tape he has made for an impossibly cool girl featuring acoustic remixes of John Hughes soundtrack songs. As we watch, the audience travels inside a giant movie screen and from the perspective of the Oscar nominated films, we watch Cera go to the movies with the impossibly cool girl, but never get to first base.
Clips Reel: Great Moments in Mentioning Bands During Movies.
Log Line: Oscars? What?

LOGANS RUN
The tweens have taken over entertainment; how long does Oscar think it can hold out anyway? Show Oscar's commitment to staying relevant by terminating the careers of any actor over 35 on live TV.
Host: Vanessa Hudgins
Producer: The Kardashians
Ideal Best Picture Winner: New Moon
Opening Number: 50's style sockhop dance number as George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and all the old people in the audience are loaded onto the original Sputnik rocket and blasted into outer space.
Clips Reel: The progression of Taylor Lautner's abs, from flaccid to six pack.
Log Line: This is on, bitch.

GANGSTA OSCAH
When you get down to it, the Academy is the original original gangsta.
Host: 50 Cent
Producer: P Diddy
Ideal Best Picture Winner: Final Destination 3D
Opening Number: The Kodak Theater is transformed with gold plated chandeliers and stripper pole while a car chase screeches through the lobby, ending in a cataclysmic explosion on stage.
Clips Reel: The history of on-screen bling.
Log Line: Don't Forget Who Brung You.

THE REALITY ACADEMY
Turn the show into a real time competition with bug eating contests, relay races and back stage confessionals.
Host: Ryan Seacrest
Producer: Nigel Lythgoe
Ideal Best Picture Winner: Step Up 2: The Streets
Opening Number: Nominees forced to perform a Polish mazurka, with one catch; one mis-step and the plummet into a tub of a million centipedes — and lose their shot at taking home Oscar.
Clips Reel: Night vision cameras placed in the hotel rooms of the stars while on set reveal secret celebrity hook ups — and a few drunken nights with a key grip or two.
Log Line: Oscar Wild!

THE TMZ OSCARS
Why fight it anymore? Throw down the barricades; let the paparazzi hordes loot and sack the kingdom, enjoy the rush of attention that the train wreck will bring. And whomever is still alive after showbiz has been reduced to smoldering ruins — let them figure out what to do next.
Host: Perez Hilton
Producer: Harvey Levin
Ideal Best Picture Winner: One Night in Paris
Opening Number: Celebrities are vivisected before the audience's eyes, the last remnants of their souls are ripped out and and then eaten, buffet style by the nation as a whole.
Clips Reel: A million Tweets are simultaneously projected directly into viewers' frontal lobes.
Log Line: We're Here.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
The Story: Based on the Maurice Sendak book, little Max leaves behind his gloomy family and travels to a land of giant forest creatures.
The Pitch: Spirited Away meets Rushmore
Who It's For: Man/boys who dream of fleeing their dismal existences where they are surrounded by people who don't pay them enough attention, and sailing off to a land where they can spend the whole day riding skateboards and throwing things with cool but sensitive dudes like Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers.
Cause for Hope: The monster suits look pretty neat.
Cause for Concern: This is not a Spike Jonze movie based on a Charlie Kaufman script; after spending years teaching writing to children, Dave Eggers appears to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and believes that grown-ups should write like six year olds rather than for them.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 3

THE STEPFATHER
The Story: A young man (Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley) returns from school to find his mother has moved in her new flame (Dylan Walsh), a man whose helpful nature may hide some terrible secrets.
The Pitch: Shadow of a Doubt meets Poison Ivy
Who It's For: People who are too young to remember the dregs of the 80s — 90s sexy thriller era.
Cause for Hope: Well, um...the Executive Producer is friends with Madonna? Does that count?
Cause for Concern: Your great-grandchildren will do the math on how much the money you spent on a night out at The Stepfather would be worth a hundred years hence, with interest, and curse your spirit forevermore.
Bonus Fact: J.S. Cardone, the screenwriter, has one of the most thrilling IMDB pages ever recorded. A secret giant of Hollywood.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 2

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN
The Story: When a man (Gerard Butler) sees his daughter's murderer get off easy thanks to The System, he takes justice into his own hands, first killing the murderer and then from behind bars, attacking The System while an ambitious young prosecutor (Jamie Foxx) fights to stop him.
The Pitch: Death Wish meets The Dark Knight meets Silence of the Lambs meets a bunch Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford movies whose names we can't remember.
Who It's For: Those who want to be jolted into forgetting their troubles.
Cause for Hope: Seems at least ambitiously pulpy; director F. Gary Gray made the cult classic Set It Off.
Cause for Concern: How many minutes of screen time will it take just to portray the set-up described above before the actual film starts.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU
The Story: A series of short film homages to the Big Apple.
The Pitch: Manhattan meets Hotel Chevalier
Who It's For: Manhattanites who love to love themselves
Cause for Hope: Some very great film makers involved including Fatih Akim.
Cause for Concern: There is also a segment by Brett Ratner. And honestly, (and I say this as a frequent visitor from California) isn't every second of every day in Manhattan the time that New Yorkers devote to telling themselves how much they love themselves and their quaint little island. Does there really need to be a special film devoted to that? Isn't that basically, every film made by every New Yorker ever? Isn't that why the world took your filmmaking capital status away from you and gave it to California in the first place?
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 6

BLACK DYNAMITE
The Story: A satire of 70's blacksploitation fims.
The Pitch: Shaft meets Airplane
Who It's For: Comedy nerds
Cause for Hope: Hilarious trailer; very strong buzz when it debuted at Sundance.
Cause for Concern: One joke premise walks down well-trod lane.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 8

With Rushmore and Being John Malkovitch under their belts, they had finally made the multi-plex safe for The Quirkies, and with that door open, a great era was born. Well this month, both the wunderkinds are back, and the question rings out whether they will make triumphant returns to their rightful glory or a last stand for the once proud Ur-Hoodies.

The intervening years have not been so kind to the young Orson Welleses. For Anderson, the past half-decade has seen his once beloved off-kilter pastiche derided as hollow and increasingly irritating shtick with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou before he descended to the point of purest self-obsession in The Darjeeling Limited.

For Jonze, the burden of young genius seemed too much to bear. It has been a full seven years since he released his second and last film, Adaptation the mildy celebrated, repeat collaboration with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. In the intervening near decade, Jonze has publicly wrestled and flailed with an attempted adaptation of the Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, ultimately making what may ultimately be the last bad choice he ever makes, bringing on fellow wunderkind Dave Eggers to write the Wild Things script, after Eggers penned him a fan letter.

Early reviews are already very mixed at best. Variety wrote, boding ill for the Oscar trophy for which Eggers has no doubt already cleared out a spot on the mantle:

Where the Wild Things Are earns a lot of points for its hand-crafted look and unhomogenized, dare-one-say organic rendering of unrestrained youthful imagination. But director Spike Jonze's sharp instincts and vibrant visual style can't quite compensate for the lack of narrative eventfulness that increasingly bogs down this bright-minded picture.

However, at Hitfix, Drew McWeeny calls the film a "masterpiece." So don't break out the guillotine quite yet.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of his return with The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson is attracting the kind of attention boy geniuses typically attract from those little people who can't appreciate the true nature of boy genius. A startling LA Times profile of Anderson begins:

To be clear, Wes Anderson did not set out to direct his new movie via e-mail. Even if that's precisely how the writer-director's stop-motion animation version of Roald Dahl's beloved children's book "Fantastic Mr. Fox" — a jaunty visual joy ride that features voice characterizations by George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman — ultimately came to be, Anderson never intended to become an in-box auteur.

That choice was made all but inevitable, however, by the Oscar nominee's unorthodox decision to hole up in Paris for most of the shoot's one-year duration while principal photography commenced across the English Channel at London's venerable Three Mills Studios. He wasn't working on another project, and nothing Paris-centric demanded he be there; Anderson simply "didn't want to be at Three Mills Studios for two years."

The piece goes on to quote the film's director of animation saying "He has made our lives miserable." Just to put that quote in perspective, in Hollywood when you are on the crew of a film and you are asked about the director, if that director happens to be a tyrannical no-talent hack, the way you express that sentiment in the following words: "He was an incredible inspiration to work with. We looked forward to shooting every day." If the director spends the entire shoot in his trailer snorting coke and sexually harassing extras, the code for that is, "He knew how to get the best out of each and every one of us."

In Hollywood publicity-ese then, "He has made our lives miserable" is the real world equivalent of: this is the single biggest jerk-off anyone associated with this film has ever seen on or off the set. Hitler in the bunker would have been more fun to be around and this discarded Pringles tube understands moviemaking better.

In any event, judging by the trailers, Mr. Fox actually looks to be the most interesting film Anderson has made since....before he started making films, so perhaps the boy genius has actually stumbled upon a magic formula; perhaps Anderson on another continent from his movies is exactly the little something his films needed to make that leap to greatness. Hoodie directors take note!

So we were warned from the outset that Smith brought a certain, er, perspective to the table.

Normally mere readers are not privileged to see the workings of a celebrity interview; that is, the long minutes of kissing up before the tape goes on. And even the kissing up when the tape is rolling usually discreetly finds its way to the cutting room floor before the final version of a Q and A goes on. In the interviews of my own career, I have worked tirelessly to shield my readers from the shamelessness that goes on in your typical profile.

But seeing as Smith was interviewing his five-year buddy, it seems he wanted to paint a scene not just of interviewer and interviewee, but of two bros just you know, like, hangin'.

Below are a few of the gotchas Smith threw down at Jonze, talking about his new adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are:

• Well, I think you did a great job on the writing, but when I was watching the movie I was thinking to myself that this must have been a hard sell to a major studio for a tent-pole release. This is obviously a big film, but it's also so intimate and artistic…

• I was thinking that this was a very brave film for you to have made because you made art even though it's financed by a conglomerate and there are so many millions of dollars involved and so many pressures against it. That's incredibly brave, and I'm proud of you.

• It's going to be huge. Are you nervous about that? You're not a public guy, and you made this thing for five years and it's your little baby and everything, and now it's going to be in, like, People magazine. You're gonna be in People! Can you believe it?

• Wow.

• That's really pretty amazing.

• It must have felt insane to finally see it all put together.

• Are you excited?

• Eat it and then lick it? 

Answers to these bold inquiries available at Vice.

What with the swooning Arcade Fire song, the lazy, sad late-afternoon sunlight spilling everywhere, and the hand-drawn title cards and all. Jonze is a certified whiz kid director, and there are some striking visuals on display in this trailer, but we're a little wary of just how hip it seems. We knew that one day soon (read: already) kids would be cooler than us, but it happened so fast. Ah well. Judging from this preview, aside from the Urban-Outfitters-for-Kids vibe, we're pretty psyched for this movie.

But we're blaming the whole hipster children phenomenon on these parents, displayed in similarly twee fashion in the trailer for Away We Go, the new indie pregnancy travelogue from Dave Eggers:

Fittingly, the monsters have made their debut on skateboards released by skate aficionado Jonze. Have fun mixing and matching the monsters to their vocal portrayers (including Forest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara, and James Gandolfini). No word yet on when you can use these intriguing, wistful boards to terrorize small children.

• Sneak Peek: The Monsters of Where the Wild Things Are [/Film]

I think that’s what freaked the studio out about the movie too. It wasn’t a studio film for kids, or it wasn’t a traditional film about kids. We didn’t have like a Movie Kid in our movie, or a Movie Performance in a Movie Kid world. We had a real kid and a real world, and I think that’s sort of where our problem was. In the end they realized the movie is what it is, and there’s no real way to... it’s sort of like they were expecting a boy and I gave birth to a girl.

[Laughs] So they just needed their time to sort that out and figure out how they were going to learn to love their new daughter.

It could have been worse, Spike: We hear Baz Luhrmann's newborn faced a full-blown sex-change over at Fox.

• Moriarty Sits Down With Spike Jonze... [AICN]

The pair boarded a private jet bound for Oregon yesterday along with the Brokeback Mountain actress's two-year-old daughter Matilda.

The trio were seen strolling together outside the airport, Williams at one point breaking into a broad smile.

Williams and Jonze, who previously dated Drew Barrymore, first met in 2006 when she auditioned for his film adaptation of the Maurice Sendak children's book Where The Wild Things Are.

She was offered a part, but later withdrew from the film.

We hate to scrutinize for meaning in the spilled tea-leaves of Williams's personal life, but this would make the second tortured Warner Bros. villain to romance the Brokeback Mountain star—Jonze of course being famously at odds with the studio over his vision on a $70 million children's book adaption that is rumored to be quickly swirling down a monster-fur-clogged drain. But Max eventually found his way safely back home, and we're confident this bedtime story will have a happy ending, too.

[Photo credit: Exposurephotos.com]

• Pictured: Heath Ledger's ex fiancée Michelle Williams with new love Spike Jonze [Daily Mail]

And while the release has now been postponed indefinitely and Horn assures us that Jonze is staying on the project, tell us if Horn's comments after the jump read as one of the less emphatic endorsements you've seen from a studio boss this year:

"We've given him more money and, even more importantly, more time for him to work on the film," Horn said. "We'd like to find a common ground that represents Spike's vision but still offers a film that really delivers for a broad-based audience. We obviously still have a challenge on our hands. But I wouldn't call it a problem, simply a challenge. No one wants to turn this into a bland, sanitized studio movie. This is a very special piece of material and we're just trying to get it right. ... The jury is still out on this one. But we remain confident that Spike is going to figure things out and at the end of the day we'll have an artistically compelling movie.""

Goldstein brings up a good point that for better or worse, Warners gambles (or used to, anyhow) on directing talent more aggressively than most studios are prepared to do, but that for every Christopher Nolan franchise reboot there's a Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain) or Oliver Hirschbiegel (The Invasion) lurking in the distance. The worst thing Horn and Robinov could do, though, is nudge Jonze somewhere toward the middle — somewhere ostensibly "safe," where the edge and the bloom wear off in short, mediocre order, leaving everyone dissatisfied.

Which, of course, is where it's headed considering Warners' recent hard right turn. Thanks a pantload for the pep talk, Horn.

• Can Spike Jonze save 'Where the Wild Things Are'? [The Big Picture]

We're on the verge of losing a movie.

If the entire film gets reshot you will hear that the decision came because of technical issues, specifically the animation of the Wild Things' mouths and facial features. The film uses people in huge Jim Henson Creature Shop suits, and the plan was to shoot the suits and animate the Wild Things' faces later. That has been proving to be more technically difficult than anyone had foreseen [...]

This is a bad situation, obviously, but one where some footage could be salvaged, meaning that a complete and total reshoot of the film wouldn't be necessary.

Yet I'm hearing that just such a massive reshoot is what is on the table right now. And it's not because of technical issues, unless you want to consider the lead kid actor and the script technical issues..

Sadly, when you agree to embark upon a major studio release—particularly one positioned as a family tentpole—marketability will always wind up trumping vision. Just ask the creators of Surf's Up, who had originally envisioned their CGI epic as an all-field-rodent Watership Down for the Iraq War generation, only to find it reprocessed into the virtually unrecognizable penguin surfing movie that made its way into theaters.

• WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE... BEING COMPLETELY RESHOT? [chud.com]

That was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work. The clip doesn't look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours Griffin who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before. We love him, but he is not in the actually film...Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet. Talk to you later..."

Despite his assurances and excuses, he has bigger fish to fry than bloggers and their readers; Slashfilm is also reporting that Things test screenings are scaring the kiddies! After hearing feedback from their target audience, the "extremely unhappy" execs at Warner Brothers are reportedly pushing the film's release date to 2009. What could be so scary that kids are crying and begging their parents to go home mid-film? Said one tester, "The things are not cute. Max comes off a bit weird and off-putting. He slaps his mom! And he seems confused and not charming at all." Stranger still, IMDB has an actor named Max Records listed for the role, which may explain all the tears. Apparently Records once "led a protest for vegetarian options at his school cafeteria" at 8 years old. Now that is scary.

[Photo Credit: SlashFilm]

• SPIKE JONZE RESPONDS TO 'WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE' VIDEO CLIP [SlashFilm]

The leaked footage above, featuring a quiet moment between the fearsome Max and Wild Thing Carol —rumored to be voiced in the movie by James Gandolfini—was the source of much dispute over the weekend. A few frantic dispatches placed by Warner Bros. to various blogspots, however, has led to the consensus that the scene, bathed in golden hour and possessing a near pitch-perfect tone (try imagining the sub-in actors' voices replaced with the sound of Tony Soprano talking to a nine-year-old AJ at a Yankee's game) is, in fact, a screen test. If we start now, we should be able to produce our own offspring in time to accompany us to its opening weekend, at some point in 2009.

• Where the Wild Things Are [IMDB]
• Wild Things Clip [thebadandugly.com]

In today's episode: Drew Barrymore and Spike Jonze; Tobey Maguire and Kevin Connolly; Will Ferrell; Halle Berry; Kiefer Sutherland; Beck; Liev Schreiber; Tom Waits; Heather Graham and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje; Rachel Leigh Cook; Michael C. Hall; Jonathan Bennett; William Fichtner; Drew Carey; Joey Lawrence; William Mapother and Dennis Haskins.

· last night (Aug. 20), drew barrymore at the beastie boys greek theater show. standing in line, swathed in black, for refreshments, she scribbled furiously onto a yellow pad, her head as far down as possible so as not to be recognized. was she composing her own rhymes? journaling about the deep feelings that "brass monkey" elicit in her? writing a love letter to mike d?

· So I was at the arclight this Saturday and who do I see snuggled into Spike Jonze's shoulder? None other than Drew Barrymore, fabulous and adorable in a soft baggy sweater. They just walked by trying for the inconspicuous while she hid behind her hair and Jonze's mustache.

· Beastie Boys concert last night Aug 20. Well, the Beastie Boys for one, then Tobey Maguire walks in with cutie Kevin Connolly and random actor guy I've seen in some things but have no idea what his name is. Concert was great although a bit more subdued when I last saw them in the early 90's at Lalapalooza. I think I just dated myself. Anyway, Team MCA!

· Will Ferrell with wife and two kids in double-stroller (the baby having a cranky moment) on Sunday afternoon (around 3:30) at the Whole Foods on Fairfax and 3rd St. Was wearing a blue button-down shirt...with goofy/preppy print shorts. Really friendly, bought some organic diapers and tons of reusable Whole Foods bags...must have just seen the 11th Hour. After he left, the cashier who played it cool excitedly ran to the other cashiers to see if they noticed who was just in the store.

· I saw Halle Berry at Pace Restaurant in Laurel Canyon on Sunday night. I don't think she noticed me though.

· ok, last i looked, there are some who are Jonesing(sp?) for their Kiefer Sutherland sighting...
-Sunday night, Sunset Junction Festival is closing down the BuzzCocks inspired a real and ferocious moshpit, Chebi Sabah was oh-so Wunderbar, and now i'm so happily intoxicated that i'm just doing a drinkless walk-through of 4100 Bar on my way home... and there he is! with friends on the outdoor patio, partying appropriately. Monsieur Kiefer, i salute you.

and now that i know that you have to say "sighting" in the subject line, your readers shall hear of my encounters (going backwards now) with Miss Bilson (um, Rachel?)shopping alone and well at Rock n' Roll Gelsons (on Franklin, about two weeks ago), David Carradine (gently weaving somewhat on the sidewalk in front of La Poubelle that same afternoon), Colin Farrell cruising in a black 4-wheeler through SilverLake last Spring... Oh! and Monsieur Beck got my hopes up when he was walking around Sunset Junction with a small but lovely female entourage Saturday morning. did he play? Diz the MC said yeah he will ... but no.

· Sunset Junction — August 19. Around 6:30 at 4100 Bar. A sad-sack Kiefer Sutherland, sitting alone, playing with his cell phone. Maybe he was just hung over, but everyone else in the bar looked happier than this dude. I guess money, fame and a quasi-annoying, "high concept" TV series can't buy you serenity.

· 8/15 Turning into my doctor's office parking lot near Beverly & Robertson, my wife says "Watch out for the homeless guy."

Homeless guy? Pshaw! It's Liev Schreiber, my generation's Olivier, hobbling around with a cast on his foot, looking glum and scruffy. His sartorial sense, baseball cap, wrinkled, un-tucked shirt and khakis, reminded me of another screen legend: Robert Shaw in Jaws.

· 8/19 - saw tom waits and his son/grandson/whatever at beastie boys. he was very casual and quiet and rad and had corpse-ier skin than keith richards. we walked down the stairs behind him to go to the bar in hospitality and it seemed like everyone there stopped their conversations and stared at him. i saw the neanderthal-ish guy from justice in the pit as well but i don't think that's really a celeb sighting unless you stay up late looking at cobrasnake.

· Friday 8/17 Fred 62. Spotted Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) from Lost...big dude, didn't smile. Stood near the counter top for a while, but didn't see what he was up to. A little later, Heather Graham sat down in a booth with an older guy—looked like a business meeting...he had a lot of papers, seemed sort of "producer" like. She looked pretty. That is all. Boring, I know.

· Hi, Defamer. Yesterday, the 19th, I went to Sunset Junction early with my girlfriend. Around 1:30p we headed up to the Vista to catch the matinee of "Superbad" (so funny). I got into the concessions line to get us some junk food. Two people in line ahead of me, I noticed a shapely woman with colorful shoes, tight jeans and a form-fitting blouse. Her hair was kind of blonde-ish. I got a look at her face and, without a doubt, it was Rachel Leigh Cook, looking absolutely, stunningly beautiful (face, body, the whole package). She also had on a Sunset Junction wristband, so she must've done the same thing as my girlfriend and me. She was with a guy who looked around 40 —graying a bit, short hair. Sad (but lucky for him) that this guy is her (I assume) boyfriend. I hope to God the guy's loaded, because if not, she could do so, so much better (no offense — sorry old man).

· Friday night at the Village Idiot, Jonathan Bennett (AKA The Cute Boy in Mean Girls) with friends. He's cute in person, but I spent my entire meal trying to remember if I knew him from college or from the TV.

Sunday at Bristol Farms — Celebrity Sighting HQ — Michael C. Hall in the produce department. He gave me a weirdly aggressive "YEAH IT'S ME WANNA MAKE SOMETHING OF IT?!" glare. Dude, I was just looking for the jicama.

· Aug. 17 - On my husband's American flight from DFW to BUR, William Fichtner, whom he recognized only because "Blades of Glory" had been the in-flight movie on his connecting flight. Sitting in first class looking tan and, god knows I quote, "a little sweaty."

· HACK ALERT! Aug. 17. I just patronized Swinger's on Beverly, where I found myself privy to Drew "Cleveland Rocks!" Carey's blatant hit on a member of the wait staff (who was, I must say, patently out of his league). She feigned interest convincingly at some banal anecdote he was relating about The Price Is Right. His arm was in a cast. And that's that.

· Aug. 20 Tucker Carlson is out in front of the McDonald's on Ventura & Radford, having an animated cell phone conversation. Brooks Brothers-y, a little chunky, cuter than I'm comfortable with.

· Saturday, August 19th, LAX. Joey Lawrence with a woman and infant. He was bald, shiny, and copper as a new penny. I was underwhelmed enough not to stalk him to baggage claim.

· 8/21 - Holy shit - I just saw William Mapother (aka fucking ETHAN ROM from Lost) last night at Ralphs in Brentwood. He is one scary looking guy even in real life. Absolutely made my night.

· Just moved to LA yesterday and my inaugural celebrity sighting was Mr. Belding (Dennis Haskins, right?) at The Cat and Fiddle. He was at the "Have fun moving to New Jersey, see you in nine months when you realize it's a terrible place" goodbye party for the comedian Steve Hofstetter. He caught me totally staring him down. I merited an eyebrow raise in acknowledgement.

BoingBoing directs us to a previously unseen 1999 video commissioned by Al Gore's presidential campaign and directed by none other than Being John Malkovich and Adaptation director Spike Jonze. (It was first made available in the debut issue of Wholphin DVD magazine.) Dispensing with his typical, whimsical visual style, Jonze created a fairly straightforward, day-in-the-life diary, painting a nuanced portrait of a very animated and non-robotic candidate. The World's Fair blog goes so far as to wonder if its release would have netted him the "precious few votes needed to win that election," though the scene in the third act in which Gore gets high on orchid dust and trips out to his own feet on a hotel room bed may have ultimately rendered the candidate just a little too "human" for his image-makers' tastes.

• Al Gore Documentary [Wholphin via The World's Fair via BoingBoing]