What a difference two years makes. The picture on left of Shia LaBeouf ran in Parade Magazine when Disturbia made him into a star. The photo on the right ran this week in Parade in advance of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. (Here's Variety's review.) We all know that talent is only one component of a long and happy career. Stability is another. Or to put it another way, sometimes the sensitive tuning rod that is essential to a working actor's skill set isn't screwed on tight enough. LaBeouf speaks frankly about his demons. I wish him well in dealing with them.

The young star also let slip the fact that Indiana Jones 5 is in the offing. Surprise.

UPDATE: More LaBeouf true confessions.

My old EW colleague Chris Willman posted a long detailed account on Facebook of a night at the Aero in Santa Monica with Bound for Glory cinematographer Haskell Wexler and stars David Carradine and Ronny Cox. The Depression era movie marks one of Carradine's best performances, as Woody Guthrie; he appears to have been quite feisty at the Q & A session, to say the least.

And here's a snippet:

There’s a moment of calm. Since the presumptive moderator is just sitting there, smirking and stunned, an audience member takes it upon himself to shout out a question about the cinematography. Who knew this would be a more dangerous subject than unions? Wexler talks about color desaturation (“You’ll notice the movie gets more colorful when we get to California”) and gives some technical specs. Carradine breaks in and starts talking about crane shots and suitcase cameras. Wexler, visibly irritated, goes back to the specs. And this is the point at which Carradine really kind of goes off the rails, albeit it in a subdued, passive-aggressive kind of way. He uses the line—which he repeats at least two or three more times—about how Wexler “got an Academy Award for ruining my movie.” You can feel the audience sort of collectively holding its breath as Carradine says the film “looks like it was shot through a glass of milk.” When he explains what he wished the look of the film had been, which is grittier, again, it’s a lucid point, but the way he’s making it is either tone-deaf or just evil.

Then he tells the story of how Ashby, the director, hated the look of the film, too, and was insisting on firing Wexler during the making of the film. I’m pretty sure I hear gasps go up at this point. Carradine says he talked Ashby out of firing him, “because if you fire somebody, they just go out in the parking lot and steal your hubcaps.” I’m pretty sure that’s a metaphor, but the audience doesn’t know what to do with this image other than to nervously titter. There will be a lot more of that—oh, yes, there will.

Here are two sound files:

Felicity Huffman, star of Desperate Housewives, is married to Bill Macy, the guy who saved the day on David Mamet's Speed the Plow after Jeremy Piven left the show, pleading mercury poisoning (from ingesting too much sushi). On Letterman, she deliciously gets in a few licks on Piven. [Hat tip: Hollywood Elsewhere]

Inspired by the movie adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen, Rotten Tomatoes lays out which graphic novels actually made good movies. Here's one of three Alan Moore comics so far that didn't score with audiences, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:

Brad Pitt makes tough-as-nails Congressional majority leader Nancy Pelosi flutter a bit when he pitches New Orleans on Capitol Hill:

Screen International names a new editor. He sounds like he's overworked and underpaid.

I take no pleasure in watching this train wreck of a performance on David Letterman. I love Joaquin Phoenix's work in Two Lovers--but the folks marketing the movie should ever have put a guy in the shape that Phoenix is in on national television. He could barely talk. I hope he gets his act together. Soon. "I'll come to your house and chew gum," said a pissed off Letterman. "Joaquin, I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight. We owe an apology to Farrah Fawcett."

UPDATE: Two Lovers director James Gray writes his farewell to Phoenix as actor.

"I was out of order beyond belief," he said. "I acted like a punk, I regret that. There is no one who has heard that tape that's been hit harder by it than me... I'm not comfortable with this notion of being a movie star. I'm an actor... I put so much into what I do and care so much about it and sometimes the enthusiasm just goes awry. I'm embarrassed by it. I ask everybody to sit down and ask themselves, have they ever had a bad day and have they ever lost their temper and really regretted it immensely...I've seen a rough cut of the movie and it looks fantastic and Shane did a wonderful job. Please don't allow this incredibly embarrassing meltdown to overshadow this movie."

"It was just a moment," insists the first assistant director on Terminator Salvation. He's talking about an explosion of F-bombs directed by Christian Bale at his cinematographer during filming last July. The guy had walked through a scene. Stars are under huge pressure when they're shooting, especially when they're carrying a big tentpole Terminator movie. Clearly, though, Bale has a temper, as we know from his blowup last year at London's Dorchester Hotel.

But sets are no longer private. Someone turned on an audio recorder and helpfully sent it to TMZ which posted the profanity-riddled podcast. (UPDATE: Here's McG's offhand comment in a video interview.) Director David Russell learned the Internet lesson the hard way on the set of I Heart Huckabees, when video of his abusive behavior to his cast was posted on YouTube.

Finally, I disagree with those who think Bale is setting himself up as another Russell Crowe. Bale isn't going to be permanently hurt by this. He's a movie star who is intense anyway, whether he's playing Batman or American Psycho. I've always subscribed to the theory that the biggest stars, the ones who sell magazine covers and put butts in seats, always carry a bit of danger. It's sexy.

Whatever happened to "The show must go on?" When I ran into Jeremy Piven at the Toronto Film Festival, he was miffed that I was asking him about HBO's Entourage, when he was starring in a Feature Film (Guy Ritchie's Rocknrolla). Excuse me. Doesn't he know that HBO's programming is often better than most movies?

Piven may not want to admit that he was born to play Ari Emanuel Gold, at the same time that he may not be made of the stern stuff required to trod the boards on Broadway. After missing several performances of the well-reviewed revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, Piven's doctor diagnosed him as too ill to forge on.

Mamet gave this response to Variety:

"I talked to Jeremy on the phone, and he told me that he discovered that he had a very high level of mercury. So my understanding is that he is leaving show business to pursue a career as a thermometer."

Norbert Leo Butz, and then Bill Macy, will fill in for Piven.

Perhaps under increasing pressure from the reeling economy, buccaneering Relativity Media financier Ryan Kavanaugh, 34, has been arrested for drunk driving for a second time, reports the NYT. He has big business with several studios in town, most notably NBC Universal, from which he is buying Rogue Pictures, plus Sony, DreamWorks, Paramount Vantage and MGM. Can't this guy afford a driver?

The New Yorker goes behind the scenes of Hollywood's premiere luxury rehab facility, Wonderland. This is one of those cases where the subject may regret opening up to magazine.

[New Yorker illo by Tom Bachtell]

David Duchovny has entered rehab. for "sex addiction," he said. I guess his role as a womanizer in Showtime's Californication was type-casting, as was his cameo in Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal as a well-endowed producer, which made fun of his real-life rep.

Christian Bale can rest easy and enjoy the success of The Dark Knight. British prosecutors say that Bale will not face charges from an alleged assault filed by his family after strong words broke out in the Dorchester Hotel on July 20, on the eve of the movie's premiere in London.

By all appearances, film critic and personality-at-large Elvis Mitchell is having a banner year. He continues to interview the likes of Dark Knight director Chris Nolan on KCRW's The Treatment, and Quentin Tarantino on his new Turner Classic Movies series Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence. Mitchell also produced the Sundance doc entry The Black List, which debuts on HBO on August 25.

Now Mitchell is trying to recover some cash seized by the feds, reports the A.P.

Here's an A.P. excerpt:

Mitchell was entering Detroit in a cab from Windsor April 26 when a luggage search turned up $11,817 in U.S. currency and 15 Cuban cigars, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The feds want to keep the cash because Mitchell didn’t declare it in Detroit or three days earlier when he flew to Toronto from New York. Anyone carrying more than $10,000 outside the country or into the United States must report it.

Mitchell said he grabbed the wrong box when he left home in New York and was too embarrassed to disclose the money.

“An awful and dumb situation,” Mitchell told the Associated Press today.

Hmmm. Mitchell has long had a taste for Cuban cigars, and has asked pals to carry them over the Canadian border for him--without necessarily alerting them that it's illegal.

{Posted by David S. Cohen}

With all the furor over the McCain ad that dissolves from Britney Spears to Paris Hilton to Barack Obama, calling the latter a celebrity, let me add one small voice in defense of Ms. Spears.

The meme here seems to be that they are all celebrities, that is to say, people who are famous for being well-known. Plenty of people are defending Obama against that charge, but not Spears.

Now I don't know the woman and I'm not a fan, but not so long ago Britney Spears was mainly known as a star performer, something that requires some actual skill and hard work. More recently, even after she became a tabloid train wreck, her last album got some pretty good reviews. She got famous by becoming a star; she didn't become a star because she was famous. So, without going out of my way to be snarky about Paris Hilton, she's not Paris Hilton.

So... ummm... leave Britney Spears alone?

Holy batshit! Shades of Russell Crowe are haunting Dark Knight star Christian Bale, who got into something in advance of the record opening of the second Christopher Nolan Batman installment that caused his mother and sister to file assault allegations. Wow. We don't yet know what went on here.

How bad can it be to star in what could be the biggest movie of the year? Bad timing indeed.

Hold your horses everybody. Patrick Goldstein and Stu Van Airsdale pile on Murphy after the disastrous $5 million opening of Meet Dave, which was stupidly marketed; Fox should have kept the title Starship Dave. But the studio's problem with this $75-million comedy was insurmountable: They were selling a movie starring Eddie Murphy playing Eddie Murphy.

All the guy has to do to have a hit comedy is play someone else. Eddie Murphy works best in movies like Shrek and Norbit when you can't see his face.

It's that simple, and that's the reason why the star has enjoyed a much longer career (26 years) than most comedians in Hollywood. He's a chameleon shape-shifter. You love him as the fat guy in Nutty Professor, not the thin one. Even in Dreamgirls, Murphy was playing someone utterly different from himself. And grabbed an Oscar nom for it. And he will surely do well playing all the characters (under makeup) in the upcoming Fantasy Island. But any studio that has an Eddie Murphy project that involves no disguising makeup (like Beverly Hills Cop IV) or isn't animated had better think twice.

Or you could meet another Dave or Pluto Nash.

Looks like emotions were running high Saturday night off the set of Oliver Stone's W in Shreveport, Louisiana. Actors Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Wright and other W cohorts were arrested trying to prevent police from arresting a fellow crew member, according to various reports. Here's the A.P.:

Shreveport police Sgt. Willie Lewis said Brolin, Wright and five others were arrested just after 2 a.m. at a club called the Stray Cat bar.

A call to deal with a rowdy patron drew interference from other patrons, Lewis said.

The Times of Shreveport reported that Brolin was booked and posted $334 cash bond to be released. Police could not say Saturday night whether he or the others had been released. The paper said they are part of the crew on an Oliver Stone film, "W," about President George W. Bush.

In a January interview with Variety, Stone said he wanted the film, in which Brolin plays George W. Bush, to be "a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?"

[Photos: Brolin in W, and police mug shot]

The dispute over the HBO doc, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, continues as director Marina Zenovich, who was asked by HB0 to rewrite the film's final "card" on the eve of its first broadcast June 9, tweaked the card again for its Saturday, June 14 airing. The question remains what the final card will read for its theatrical release by ThinkFilm on July 11th.

Finally, after all these years, it's still a case of he said, she said, as Zenovich makes tweaks and tries to keep her film's dramatic punch. And Polanski himself stays in limbo. (He finally saw the film in Paris just before he arrived in Cannes, where he lunched with Zenovich before the fest's closing night ceremony.)

The problem Monday was that the person talking was a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. HBO decided to back off the film's assertion that Judge Larry Paul Flider in 1997 demanded that any court hearing with Polanski be televised, should the exiled director return to the U.S. That's because right before the doc was due to air, L.A. court officials called the assertion "a complete fabrication." So Zenovich reworded the ending to say that the judge demanded an open court hearing.

Now the card refers to a dispute over what happened, stating: "the judge insisted the hearing be held on the record in superior court."

On Wednesday, in response to Monday's L.A. Superior Court statement and an L.A. Times story, former deputy district attorney Roger Gunson and Polanski's attorney Douglas Dalton, who are interviewed in Wanted and Desired, made a statement in support of the film's version of events--and talked to each other for the first time in a decade. "It is our shared view that Monday's false and reprehensible statement by the Los Angeles Superior Court continues their inappropriate handling of the Polanski case," they said.

(The full statement is on the jump; here's my prior story, Polanski Doc Wanted and Desired Changed for HBO. )

The real question when looking at The Incredible Hulk--given all the sturm-and-drang in the media about Edward Norton--is what did he contribute to this movie?

Here's the real deal:

Zak Penn wrote the original script, which includes two pivotal scenes from his 16-year-old first screenplay for the Hulk, which was not used on the Ang Lee movie written by James Schamus. Marvel came back to Penn and wanted the two scenes in the movie: Bruce Banner jumping out of a helicopter to the earth below, not knowing whether or not he would morph into Hulk, and a lovemaking scene in a motel where Banner's rising heart rate becomes an issue. Both are among the best scenes in the final movie.

When Marvel approached Norton to do The Incredible Hulk, he initially declined. They asked him to meet with director Louis Leterrier (Transporter) to discuss his objections to doing the movie; there Norton offered some ideas as to where he'd want it to go. Marvel agreed to hire a screenwriter to work with him. This is totally normal. At this point Penn was off the movie.

Marvel realized they didn't have time to hire a new writer and asked Norton to do it, offering him an uncredited producer credit as well. With about two months to go before the movie started filming, Norton did a page one rewrite--knowing that he couldn't do anything radical, because sets were being built, locations found, etc. The entire Brazil sequence was already story-boarded.

So Norton mostly changed dialogue, filled in gaps of motivation and developed character. For example, the scenes in Brazil about finding a serum in the Amazon to cure him, and Banner's emails with Tim Blake Nelson, were Norton adds. Marvel agreed to shoot Norton's script.

The Incredible Hulk filming was well under way in Toronto when the team flew to San Diego to do a Comic-Con panel last July. When the panel moderator asked Norton to address his enhanced role on the film--which was supposed to be revealed on the panel, but not by him--both Norton and producer Gale Ann Hurd recognized that his announcing his own role as screenwriter would play badly. And so it did.

In post-production, when it came time to edit the movie, Marvel wanted a streamlined cut. Norton wanted more of his stuff, some 20 minutes worth. Norton is a serious actor who wants to be cool. Marvel convinced him to star in a movie on which he would have considerable input as writer-co-producer-star. A collision was inevitable. Their heated debate was leaked to Deadline Hollywood. Marvel had final cut, not Norton. He did not get his way. Some 50 minutes of outtakes will turn up on the DVD.

Post-Ang Lee, Marvel wanted the most commercial version of the movie, while Norton wanted something more nuanced.

As for the script, Marvel submitted both Penn and Norton (under his pseudonym, Edward Harrison) to the Writers' Guild; Penn (who had substantial economic incentives to want to win the arbitration) wrote an impassioned argument that Norton had not considerably changed his screenplay. The Guild tends to favor plot, structure and pre-exisiting characters over dialogue. Given the final version of the movie, they gave the sole credit to Penn. (Another early writer was seeking story by credit and didn't get anywhere.)

Interestingly, the reviews have been mixed, 61 on metacritic; some have criticized the movie for being light on character. Here's Todd McCarthy's review and a funny one in The Guardian.

When it came to marketing the pic, Universal's Adam Fogleson talked with Norton about his schedule and what PR they wanted him to do. The studio wanted to sell the Hulk, not Norton, finally--they avoided the traditional print junket in favor of a more superficial Adam Sandler TV-friendly media sell (not opening up to lots of questions about what Norton wanted the movie to be). Norton did Access Hollywood, Jimmy Kimmel (see below), lots of Internet stuff and attended the L.A. premiere. Then, as planned, he went off to Africa for his own purposes--and will do Japan PAs later this month.

This LAT Norton story addresses his image problems, which are substantial. He is seen as a gifted writer and actor, but opinionated and persnickety.

This Jimmy Kimmel spoof heads in the right direction.

Finally, my sense is that Norton's issues were with Marvel, which misled him into believing that he would have more control over the picture than in fact he did. Norton didn't take his issues to the press. When told about Deadline Hollywood, he had never heard of the blog. He's fine with Universal. Here's EW, with Norton's statement. Whether Norton will play Hulk again remains to be seen.

It's probably time for Norton to take charge via directing. (He debuted with the 2000 relationship comedy Keeping the Faith and has been developing Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn as a directing vehicle.) The smartest movie stars--Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Mel Gibson, Robert Redford, George Clooney and others--have figured out how to take control of their careers. Instead of fighting with studios over final cut, they earn it.

UPDATE: Norton is already producing: 2005's Down in the Valley and 2006's Painted Veil, plus Tim Blake Nelson's upcoming comedy thriller Leaves of Grass and a doc about Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Here's: my previous Hulk story and Norton vs. China and Warners on Painted Veil.

What Gamma Rays can really do.

Variety's Hulk blockbuster page.

ThinkFilm has nabbed Marina Zenovich's doc, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a hit at Sundance, for theatrical release after its June 9 HBO launch. The doc-friendly distrib acquired theatrical and homevideo rights. The movie will play at Cannes.

Jamie Lee Curtis, who knows what she's talking about, responds to the Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair scandal on The Huffington Post:

None of this is new. None of this should be news. But it is news because it is a business. It is all Business. It is called Show Business. Show Abyss-ness! I call it Show-OFF Business. You throw a child into the jaws of a business and they will get eaten.

I know how Miley feels. I too was a little embarrassed by my recent topless "scandal" and the subsequent parodies, but I am an adult woman. I protected myself during the shoot and I can take the heat. I only wish that her guardians had protected her.

What were they thinking? Vanity Fair can shoot 15-year-old Disney pop star Miley Cyrus in a silk bedsheet if they want to. Clearly, mighty star photographer Annie Leibovitz was persuasive; Cyrus thought she was participating in something "artistic," she told People.com, adding that from now on she would "trust my support team."

But the reps behind the Hannah Montana family brand should be ashamed of themselves, not only for showcasing their teen star as a sex object, but misreading her fanbase. It's obvious and stupid. According to Vanity Fair's statement to E.T., Cyrus's parents were at the shoot. Here's the NYT and Reuters:

"For Vanity Fair, I was so honored and thrilled to work with Annie. I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed," Cyrus said in a statement published on People magazine's Web site.

The Disney Channel backed up the rising star saying in a statement that "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines."

No one from Vanity Fair was immediately available to comment.

But in a statement to the TV show "Entertainment Tonight," Vanity Fair defended itself.

"Miley's parents and/or minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley," said the magazine's statement.

Regarding the photos on the Internet, Cyrus said these were "silly, inappropriate shots" and she was sorry if she had disappointed anyone.

"I appreciate all the support of my fans, and hope they understand that along the way I am going to make mistakes and I am not perfect," she said.

"Most of all, I have let myself down. I will learn from my mistakes and trust my support team. My family and my faith will guide me through my life's journey."

UPDATE: MCN's David Poland sees nothing to make a fuss about. The LAT's Mary McNamara. And Kim Masters on NPR.

If anyone needs proof that media investing in online can pay off handsomely, New York Magazine is the poster child. Their February fashion issue featured Lindsay Lohan channeling Marilyn Monroe with no clothes on. That month NYmag.com's online traffic skyrocketed to 9.6 million unique views, a 120% gain.

Tell me you are not fascinated by the downfall of New York's righteous governor Eliot Spitzer and the how and why of his inner-child/id/acting-out/craziness/self-destruction. The media will follow where the tabloids have already gone: to call-girl Ashley Alexandra Dupre.

Here's her appearance in a music video.

And here's a YouTube video inspired by her:

News that Lindsay Lohan's manager/mom-from-hell Dina Lohan has signed up to do an eight-part E! series this summer called Living Lohan, offering a peep into the Long Island lives of her and 14-year-old daughter Ali--who has showbiz ambitions, natch--makes me crazy. What does this woman want to do, screw up her second daughter as much as her first? A reality TV show expose of their lives is hardly the recipe for a well-adjusted family life. Look how well the Osbournes, Paris Hilton, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, and Anna Nicole Smith turned out. Sometimes less really is more.

Page Six has the scoop on Vanity Fair's April cover story on today's crop of comediennes. Annie Leibovitz shoots Queens of Comedy Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman and Amy Poehler for the cover, while inside, they and Sandra Bernhard, Jenna Fischer, Chelsea Handler and Wanda Sykes impersonate the likes of Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan and Lil Kim.

Did you see this amazing photo of Amy Winehouse in The New Yorker? Talk about skanky. (Here's the piece that goes with it.)

The person at New York Magazine who came up with the idea of shooting tragic ingenue Lindsay Lohan as late great Hollywood sexpot Marilyn Monroe should get a raise. (The issue will sell like hotcakes and traffic on the site will surge.) Like it or not, the girl can act and putting her and photographer Bert Stern together to recreate Monroe's last nude photo session was genius. It works. And Lohan's got the right stuff. (I just hope she's not heading toward a similar fate.)

Actually, folks in the office were passing around a poll that asks: If you had to be stranded on a desert island with Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, who would you pick? To a person, everyone picked Lohan. Why? Messed up and badly parented as she may be, at least she has talent and a glimmer of intelligence to hang onto. The others are truly lost souls. (Thank God The Hottie and the Nottie tanked.)

More sexy nude photos on the jump. [Hat tip Gawker.]

Writer-director Roger Avary was arrested for drunk driving after an Ojai car crash early Sunday left his wife seriously injured and another passenger dead. Very sad news.

Paul Reubens talks about bringing back Pee-Wee Herman at MTV.com.

Fox Searchlight is injecting some life into Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Limited. One, the studio has finally added the Hotel Chevalier short to the movie, which was probably their plan all along. Until now it had been available as a free iTunes download. And while recovering star Owen Wilson, who had checked into a hospital following a suicide attempt, showed up at an Academy screening of the movie, he is now going to promote the pic. But not via the usual route, the press. No, Wilson will be interviewed by Anderson as part of MySpace's Artist on Artist series, reports USA Today.

The interview will be posted online at midnight Friday as part of MySpace.com’s Artist on Artist series, according to Fox Searchlight, the studio that released the pair's most recent film, The Darjeeling Limited. Anderson and Wilson have worked together on all of Anderson’s movies -- Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It’s unclear how far the interview, recorded today, will delve into Wilson’s recent personal struggles –- if at all.

In other words, Searchlight is using the Internet to go direct to fans.

UPDATE: Here's the video. Pretty dull stuff. (ABC reports.) Although it's cool that Anderson was in NYC and Wilson was in Culver City.

In a classic case of all-too obvious image spin, Lindsay Lohan poses for some photos for OK! Magazine---from rehab. She's reading the AA bible!

She doesn't seem to realize that sometimes, doing nothing is best.

On the other hand, her lawyers have been working overtime. Lohan's a luckygirl indeed if she gets off without any felony cocaine charges.

If I had Lindsay Lohan on an upcoming magazine cover, I would not be happy. She screams TABLOID FODDER at this point, not classy young beautiful movie star. She's a train wreck and people will check fastbreaking news online, dailies, radio, TV, and mag racks at the supermarket. But no one wants to read another glossy profile in a monthly which has long been superseded by current events. Meanwhile, Lohan insists she's innocent.

TMZ's Harvey Levin has become as powerful in Hollywood as Walter Winchell, writes the NYT. The Mel Gibson DUI rant alerted me to TMZ, which is the future of online journalism. I wrote a story on Levin, who has a strong relationship with L.A. County Sheriff Lee Bacca, last year:

Harvey Levin COMPANY: Managing editor, TMZ.com WHY: A year ago, Levin figured out that if he posted well-reported breaking celebrity news stories on the Internet, many eyeballs would come -- and so would burgeoning ad revenue.

BACK STORY: "I'm a mut," says the veteran creator/executive producer of Telepictures Prods.' syndicated TV show "Celebrity Justice," which lasted four seasons. "I'm a TV guy, I'm not going to the Internet," he said when he was first approached to start a Web site. But then Levin recalled his frustration on "Celebrity Justice" when they'd be forced to break news on their Web site that they couldn't break on the TV show. "People never thought the Internet could ever be a competitive news source," he says. But just as Levin was about to sign a deal with another network, it struck him that he could make a Web site into "a real functioning news organization," he says, "not (like) Slate (.com). More about breaking news and enterprise stories." He eventually pitched the idea for TMZ.com as the first co-venture between Warner Bros.-owned Telepictures and AOL. "I was banking on AOL's ability to drive traffic and Telepictures' ability to produce and supply video."

TMZ's huge breakout story in July put the site on the map: Mel Gibson's arrest in Malibu on a DUI charge -- and subsequent anti-Semitic rant. A tip to a staff production assistant about his arrest led to the Gibson story -- and Levin's call to the County Sheriff's office. "We broke it at 8:36 p.m. on a Friday evening. We didn't have to wait until we put a TV show to bed or until the newspaper was published or another 24 hours on the news cycle. When we get it right, we get it up. It's about getting things out instantly. At 8:36, the world got it -- it's not about who's watching TV right now. It's hard for others to compete with that. They don't have that kind of agility."

INNOVATIVE APPROACH: TMZ.com, which has a staff of 25 editors, reporters and fact-checkers in Los Angeles and New York, is all about being first with breaking show business stories and "digging up things, going to the courts, getting video angles on stories and creating a vibrant news site."

LEADING EDGE: The radical idea behind TMZ.com was to monetize its chief asset. Instead of being an adjunct to another news organization, the Web site itself makes money by breaking news, says Levin, whose staff fact-checks each story on the Zone before it goes up online. "Accuracy is a big deal for us. If we're wrong, there's legal exposure. We're so careful, we haven't been sued. We don't have time periods. When you start breaking stories, they can't ignore you. Everyone picks up our stuff. A good story is a good story. And there are plenty of stories out there. "

THE ROAD AHEAD: As broadband video technology evolves, so, too, will TMZ.com, which has been adding blogs like City of Industry, which often breaks film-industry news before the trades do, and a vastly improved embedded flash video player. Next up: programming for mobile phones.

Tina Brown writes about Diana Spencer in The Diana Chronicles: here are reviews by Pat Morrison in the LAT and Caroline Weber in the NYT. UPDATE: NPR interviews Tina Brown.

Some fourteen books on the late princess are set to be published this year, which marks ten years since her death in a Paris tunnel, writes the WSJ:

At least 14 new Diana titles are set for publication this year, but no one has more at stake in rekindling that interest than Tina Brown, the former high-profile editor of the New Yorker and Vanity Fair who banked a "healthy seven-figure advance" from Bertelsmann AG's Doubleday imprint for "The Diana Chronicles," according to the publisher.

Doubleday is printing 200,000 copies that will reach stores on June 12. The comprehensive biography promises new insights regarding Diana's pursuit of Prince Charles, her sad early years and how she used the media to her own ends. Beyond juicy details, Ms. Brown says she set out to write a book that examined the princess in a media and social context while discussing the impact of celebrity culture: "Why Diana was important, why she continues to fascinate, and what we should make of her 10 years after her death."

Ms. Brown's own celebrity will feed a major marketing blitz for the book. It will be a July main selection of Bertelsmann's Book-of-the-Month Club, and an excerpt will appear in the July issue of Vanity Fair that hits newsstands in early June. Ms. Brown will appear on ABC's "Good Morning America" June 11 and 12. "It's a very strong lineup," says Stephen Rubin, president of Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group.

Of late, Ms. Brown, a 53-year-old native of England who is now a U.S. citizen, has been outside the media whirl she once dominated. Her magazine start-up "Talk" was canceled in 2002. She left her CNBC talk show in 2005 after her two-year contract expired to work on the Diana book and later suspended her weekly Washington Post column for the same reason. To take on that project, she canceled an earlier title, "The Icarus Complex," about the fall from grace of rich overachievers such as Martha Stewart and Enron's Kenneth Lay, which she had agreed to write for Random House.

While not as sexy, in the LAT, Richard Schickel does a thorough job on the autobiography left behind by Jack "Boom Boom" Valenti.

UPDATE: An excerpt from Brown's The Diana Chronicles is on the jump.

Here's Paris Hilton's mug shot. LA County Sheriff Lee Baca is her jailer, the guy who talks to TMZ.com about people like her and Mel Gibson, and the man who tried to set the pampered heiress free. Baca has an unusual degree of autonomy over who stays in which jail for how long. Except in Hilton's case, as the LAT reveals.

Here's the latest AP report situation.

And Paris Hilton's diary.

And a Brit view on how America is treating our most famous prisoner.

I'm getting tired of going to the movies and imagining the indie version of the crap studio picture I'm seeing. I watch a bloated twee glossy concoction with a treacly sweet twangy soundtrack and stars made up to a faretheewell in countless perfect outfits and I fantasize about the pared down, authentic, realistic, well-acted smart-house movie I really want to see. All the actors in Georgia Rule were capable of doing that--truth be told, the talented Lindsay Lohan and Felicity Huffman seemed lost--but that's the fault of the director Garry Marshall, who was so wrong for this movie. (I will defend Pretty Woman, always.) Granted, Georgia Rule is probably more commercial than what I want to see. Mark Andrus is a strong writer--the bones for this movie were solid. Jane Fonda was terrific; so was Dermot Mulroney. Damn.

UPDATE: John Anderson agrees with me overall, though I like Fonda better.

Cannes is beckoning. Thank God.

I managed to score a 4--moderately wise--on the NYT's wisdom quiz. Avoiding extremes seems to be one way to go here; but I didn't score a 5, either.

I have to admit that one of the questions--along the lines of, do you ever derive pleasure from someone else's pain?-- did make me think of Paris Hilton. When one of the privileged few gets their comeuppance for bad behavior, be it Leona Helmsley or Hilton, there is some satisfaction in that. But in this case, as Nora and I agreed, Paris Hilton was asking to be sentenced to 45 days in jail, because she was endangering other drivers and needed to be taught some consequences. One woman summed up the situation up nicely for the LAT:

"I think it's very fair," said Toni Marabou, 39, who was at the courthouse with her 16-year-old son to pay his traffic ticket.

"Even though you may be a high-end celebrity, it doesn't mean you can live recklessly.

"If she was drinking and driving and killed someone, then would she get a slap on the wrist? It's a lesson she has to learn."

UPDATE: Paris Hilton's Must-See Jailhouse DVDs.