Will This Performance Save Tom Cruise's Career?

Palimony Suit Could Force Jodie Foster's 'Midlife Crisis' $25 Million Over Budget

Jodie Foster really has gotten off exceptionally easy so far in her dizzying, delicate miracle of new love with homewrecking writer/producer Cynthia Mort, with her most significant cash outlays being that always-steep first date and the extravagant "My Condolences" balloon bouquet sent Mort's way after HBO canceled her show Tell Me You Love Me. Foster had fared even better with ex Cydney Bernard, who, after 14 years of cohabitative bliss, spared the Oscar-winner the ugliness of custody squabbles, L Word box-set splits and other public indignities. Her typically low public profile escalated for what felt like mere minutes, soon returning to its subtle, cultivated ebb of lesbian quietude — just the way she likes it.

Oh, but for the good old days, we're learning as the all-knowing National Enquirer — your trusted (and print-only in this case, we're afraid) oracle for anonymously sourced Foster's Splitsville drama — now reports that the actress's romantic reboot may cost her a quarter of her fortune. Or, adjusted roughly for inflation, $25 million:

Spencer Pratt's Five-Part Guide to Being the Worst Boyfriend on Televison

'Thunder' Ushers In Tom Cruise's Bear Period

Having paid tribute this weekend to Michael Phelps's historic athletic achievement with a record-shattering of your own in the 200-liter grain-alcohol-medley, your soaring national pride has likely given way to the agony of hangover defeat. Have some box office number; they're full of electrolytes:

1. Tropic Thunder - $26 million
Putting controversy aside for a moment, Tropic Thunder—Ben Stiller's $90 million satirical homage to movie star narcissism, context-reliant flatulence, and Down Syndrome humor—finally succeeded in doing what no other movie released in the past month could: It unseated The Dark Knight from its topmost perch. Still, we'd caution the director and star that it might be a little early to throw a pair of shredded stump-hands into the air and claim victory, as that puts Tropic's take somewhere between that of Pineapple Express and Step Brothers— both of which managed to go full retard at a fraction of the budget. What Tropic needs now to inch its way into the black is a strong overseas showing—which is not entirely out of the realm of possibility, considering the French critical elite have already touted movie-within-a-movie Simple Jack (L'imbécile Jacques) as the greatest sad-clown cinematic achievement since Jerry Lewis's The Errand Boy.

TMZ Thinks That M. Night Shyamalan 'Sucks'

Look, we're old. Not "old" old, but more like "the Olympics were so much better in Los Angeles" old. And definitely not "Beatlemania" old, but old enough to wonder if the Jonas Brothers phenomenon is anything like what we've heard about Beatlemania. We honestly don't know — before today we'd never listened to a Jonas Brothers song, we've never seen them perform, we don't even know which is which, only that the moppiest-headed one occasionally receives photos of Miley Cyrus eating her skivvies.

But this week's seismic release of the new Jonas Brothers album A Little Bit Longer — and the ensuing tear-streaked, hair-gnawing tween bedlam (best evinced by the accompanying snapshot from the group's recent TRL appearance) — has us taking the Jonases' impact much more seriously. After all, today's young pop heroes are tomorrow's clinically wasted reality TV icons; on that basis alone their soaring stars deserve a closer look and deeper understanding — or at least a handy Defamer fact sheet for your water-cooler convenience. Everything you need to know is after the jump.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: Neil Patrick Harris, Sweatin' To The Oldies

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our millions of Defamer operatives. We'd like to remind you that this feature is powered by you, so if you want to see more installments of PrivacyWatch, then all you've got to do is to send us your sightings. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw NPH getting all sweaty during a workout.

In today's installment: Neil Patrick Harris, Woody Allen, Matthew McConaughey, Brian Grazer, Blake Lively, Pierce Brosnan, Christian Slater, Chris Noth, Jason Lee, Jenny Lewis, John Rzeznik, Dave Navarro, Mark McGrath, Dyan Cannon, Camryn Manheim, Bruce Vilanch and more!

Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your bulletproof one-stop resource for the weekend in new moviegoing. Or sort of bulletproof — Pineapple Express burned us last week with a late slowdown, but we're preparing to bet the farm on The Dark Knight's fall from box-office supremacy by Sunday night. But is what's replacing it even any good? Yes and no, but we'll get to that, as we will with this week's best release off the beaten path and a look-see at new DVD releases for the tired, cheap and/or agoraphobic among us. As always, our opinions are our own, but as long they're right, what's to argue?

WHAT'S NEW: We're avowedly Team Tropic Thunder, a genuinely funny (if perhaps too-close-for-comfort) satire that nevertheless looks likelier and likelier to slide softly into history as DreamWorks' last noble misfire. We'll discuss that more below, but our skepticism doesn't mean it can't finish on top for one happy weekend — the question is, How happy? Opening opposite Star Wars: The Clone Wars and still facing a formidable money magnet in The Dark Knight, we could see Thunder surmounting the new Harry Knowles favorite with around $25 million. Clone Wars will finish close to $19 million, with TDK wielding enough juice to creep as far north as maybe even $18 million. Pineapple Express will holdover nicely around $13 million.

Into The Diaspora: UA To Wander In Hollywood Desert For Another 40 Years

Yesterday brought the not-entirely-shocking bombshell that Paula Wagner would abandon her vanity-mini-major Eden—not to mention her decade-and-a-half long producing partnership with Tom Cruise—by resigning from her position as CEO of United Artists, reportedly to strike out on her own. This came after a disastrous 21 months on the job that produced a single stinker release, in what, to our knowledge, is the first studio scandal based entirely upon underspending: The reckless frugality! The gluttonous discretion! How dare she not greenlight a $75 million Will Ferrell-as-loutish-badminton-pro comedy in this depressed economic environment?

Exclusive: 'Tropic Thunder' Writer Stops Making Fun Of Mentally Challenged People Just Long Enough To Let Us Interview Him

Take a good look at that Tropic Thunder poster. Go past the glossy, airbrushed photos of the film's many stars, past the lush jungle setting, past the fiery explosions, and you might notice something. See there? Down at the bottom? It says "Screenplay by Ben Stiller & Justin Theroux, and Etan Cohen." Sure, other more "legitimate" media outlets may give all the ink to those first two dudes, but here at Defamer we like to dig a little deeper. Just who is this Etan Cohen fellow and how did he get roped in to working on the biggest comedy of the summer? Stick around after the jump to hear one of Hollywood's newest writing stars dish the dirt about meeting Tom Cruise for the first time, what it feels like to suddenly have people kissing your ass, and why you shouldn't be offended by all that Simple Jack stuff.

EXCLUSIVE: MTV VMAs Host Russell Brand Takes the Defamer Pop Culture Test

If the recent VMAs promo made you wonder "Who's the Brit next to Brit-Brit?", then meet Russell Brand. We asked the British funnyman (and Forgetting Sarah Marshall star) to sit down with us in an effort to prove his pop culture bona fides before hosting the VMAs on September 7. Already a famous ladykiller in the U.K., can Brand prove equally charming as the emcee of MTV's biggest event? We solicited his thoughts on Miley Cyrus, Christian Bale, and hermaphrodite presidents in a bid to find out.

DEFAMER: Russell, since American audiences are still becoming familiar with you, we wanted to see how familiar you are with the tastes of the American audience.
RUSSELL: Right.
DEFAMER: So we're going to give you the Defamer American Pop Culture Literacy Test. I'm just going to throw out famous names and you tell me whether you know them and what your take is on each.
RUSSELL: OK!

What better après-puff-piece aperitif to follow the NY Times's profile of a content-hungry Time Warner than Portfolio's equally attentive servicing of NBC Universal oligarch, Jeff Zucker? Interviewed at his ballroom-sized corner office at 30 Rock, the reporter at first can't resist infantilizing his subject: "Zucker has an appealing, ruddy tint that lends him a cherubic appearance," reads one willies-inducing passage. "When he sits back, his feet actually lift off from the floor a bit, like a boy taking a turn on someone else’s throne." (We'll assume the part that read, "He then soils his diaper, a mess quickly attended to by the youngest and prettiest of his three assistants..." was edited for space.)

5 Burning Questions We Still Have For 'Content Kings' at Warner Bros.

We took the better part of two days to process the NYT's recent recognition of Warner Bros. as the crown jewel at Time Warner, where Jeff Bewkes, Barry Meyer, Alan Horn and Co. are venerated at length for emphasizing "content" (i.e. their film and TV properties) ahead of "distribution" outlets like AOL, DVD and on-demand services. It's an oddly situational success story; in fact, it opens with WB chairman Meyer literally inhaling the incoming fax telling him The Dark Knight made $66 million on opening day, and namechecks Two and a Half Men among a handful of TV series that are finding lucrative traction internationally. There's also the HBO factor and the Turner channels' flourishing as well.

And while we can't and/or wouldn't argue any of these points, a ceremonious Warners rimjob also seems untimely. After all, what did Meyer do with his Speed Racer faxes on opening weekend? That and a few more pressing questions after the jump.

Despite all traces of Simple Jack—veteran fake-action-star Tugg Speedman's brazen Oscar-shot playing a stuttering, simpleton farmhand—having been literally whitewashed from the web, activists remain outraged over Tropic Thunder's depiction-within-a-depiction of the developmentally disabled as bucktoothed "retards" incapable of expressing affection without the use of the phrase, "You mm-mm-m-ake my p-p-pee-peemaker t-t-t-tingle." (Sheesh—so touchy.) As threatened, dozens of placard-wielding protesters outfitted in 'Retard'busters T-shirts marched outside last night's premiere in Westwood, giving the proceedings the strangely familiar air of an RGA West strike line. From the AP report:

"When I heard about it, I felt really hurt inside," said Special Olympics global messenger Dustin Plunkett.

A 'Pineapple' Upside Down Cake

Does Death's double-dipping have you disturbed? Fret not—we have an easy way to ward of the scythe. Simply slaughter a baby lamb in your office kitchen, collect its blood, then paint that along your cubicle's entrance. The Angel of Death will then skip your workspace to reap the annoyingly high-pitched temp working next door. Enjoy these box office numbers, along with your freshly spared life:

1. The Dark Knight - $26.03 million
Tripping up most of the world's most esteemed box office prognosticators—even us, and we're never wrong!—once again was bat-eared juggernaut The Dark Knight. Like a seasoned welterweight pro who knows the fight has 12 rounds, Knight ceded to Pineapple Express until Saturday, when it surged ahead of the stoner crime opera to easily take the weekend. Children, take out your chalk and slates: Plus $26.06 brings us to $441.5 million, making it...? That's right: the third-highest-grossing domestic film of all time, ahead of Shrek 2, poised to creep ahead of Star Wars for the slot behind Titanic by this week's end.

Isaac Hayes Makes Two, And We Can't Seem To Dig It

As if the surprise death of Bernie Mac wasn't showbiz tragedy enough, before the weekend was through we'd also be robbed of music legend Isaac Hayes. What can we say about the wocka-chicka- wocka-chicka-popularizer that hasn't already been said?

Bernie Mac Ain't Scared Of Death, Motherfucker

We interrupt your weekend to relay sad news: Comedian and star of TV and movies Bernie Mac succumbed to pneumonia early this morning at the ridiculously unfair age of 50. Mac seemed an unlikely candidate for crossover success: He never outwardly solicited an audience's love, instead playing on his cannily conceived persona of the put-upon, working-class every-African-American. Despite his imposing size, booming voice, and those angry eye flares, the comedic hook, of course, was his blustery impotence—like a latter-day Ralph Kramden who insisted on referring to himself in the third-person, but who could give a shit if we knew that deep down he had a heart of gold. (We'd suggest he should have played him in The Honeymooners instead of Cedric the Entertainer, but that thing was such a piece of shit it wasn't worthy of his talents. Motherfucker had an appointment with Clooney and Pitt, anyway.) Listen to the bit above about taking in his drug-addict sister's kids—what would become the premise of his underrated Fox sitcom. Of the youngest he says,"That two-year-old—she the motherfucker. She the ringleader. She was sent here by the Devil. She works for the Devil!" Peace, Bernie. You're gone too soon.

• Bernie Mac dies at 50 [Chicago Tribune]
• Bernie Mac- Bad Ass Kids [YouTube]