Defamer

· Defamer videographer Molly goes deep inside slow news day victim Barbara Walters' beef with her TMZ TV tormentors, stringing together the show's speech-impediment-based attack and Walters' subsequent Airing of the Grievances on today's The View. Enjoy the feud while it lasts!
· Brad Pitt's publicist patiently explains that just because someone at his production company may be looking at Unambomber script doesn't mean that he's wandering around the office trying on hooded sweatshirts, sunglasses, and various crazy-person beards quite yet. After all, he may eventually realize that Benicio del Toro is a much more natural fit for the part.
· David Beckham will attempt to save his adopted home from the wildfires through the power of soccer.
· An angry father accuses a strip club of fraudulently lapdancing and champagne-rooming his son into $53,000 worth of charges, threatening to diminish what was obviously the greatest day of his kid's life.

Ever since it was reported that irresolvable scheduling conflicts brought on by two years of unemployment prevented Katie Holmes from taking on a seven-figure gig reprising her Batman Begins character in The Dark Knight, we've eagerly anticipated getting a look at her big comeback project, Mad Money, in which Holmes joins up with gal pals Queen Latifah and Diane Keaton to rob the Federal Reserve. (Hilarity, as it invariably does in such high-concept situations, ensues.)

The Leaky Cauldron posted photos of the first public sighting of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore as an outed wizard, snapped by a group of muggle bystanders taking in a location shooting of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the small English village of Lacock. The autograph-seeking youngsters appeared to feel no differently about the conjuring great now that his proclivities have been made public. On the contrary--more than one delighted child's voice was heard to have cried out, "When I grow up, I want to be a powerful gay wizard, just like you!" which drew appreciative chuckles from the larger-than-life figure wearing an Invisibility Beard-Cloak.

• Apparate! More from Location Filming for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (Updated) [Leaky Cauldron]

· Music round-up: Tegan and Sara at the Orpheum; Queens of the Stone Age at the Nokia Theater; Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the LA Sports Arena (there's still plenty of time to blow a scalper!); Ghostface Killah at the House of Blues; The Abe Lincoln Story finishes up its Monday night residency at Mr. T's Bowl.
· Take a flashlight tour of the Natural History Museum's darkened Spider Pavilion; the venue promises all its creatures are "safely" behind terrarium glass, but that won't stop you from wetting yourself each time your date insists on walking his "tarantula fingers" along your shoulder. [via Citybeat]
· Jenna Bush will be at Vroman's to sign (but not personalize!) copies of her book Ana's Story. Also n.b.: security will be high, so the weapons, explosives and fireworks you normally bring to book events are strictly verboten.
[Image: costumezone.com]

Portfolio's Hollywood Deal blog writes touchingly of the once-strained relationship between Imagine Entertainment superproducer Brian Grazer and black sheep sibling Gavin, whose reciprocal appearances at each other's recent New York movie premieres (Brian's the troubled $100 million blockbuster he brought to the screen by sheer force of will; Gavin's, a somewhat less expensive , surrealistic Anthony Hopkins art project) were indicative of a closeness that long eluded brothers on the opposite end of the spectrum of Hollywood success. You need to read the entire story to appreciate their long journey towards reconciliation, but we've excerpted a couple of the piece's feel-good moments here:

Grazer's stature as the younger, struggling sibling of big-shot, Oscar-winning, and occasionally hyper-intense producer Brian Grazer is well-known in Hollywood but will have its first real public airing in Slipstream. Writer-actor-director-producer Hopkins (dubbed "SIr Realist" by one paper) chose to call Gavin's character "Gavin Grazer"; Brian Grazer considered a cameo as the character's unnamed brothers but couldn't schedule it.

We'll have to wait until Wednesday to find out what The View has in store for us this Halloween: We're pretty sure it won't be nearly as scary as last year, which featured Rosie O'Donnell in full Queen Victoria drag, or the one before that, in which Barbara Walters horrified a nation by refusing to break her breathy, baby-voiced Marilyn Monroe character for the entire episode.

Apparently, we weren't the only ones shocked and saddened to learn that William Shatner's erratic speech patterns and considerable Klingon wrestling experience would not be put to use in the next Star Trek movie. (Some turk named Chris Pine would be playing young Kirk in JJ Abrams' Muppet Babies-esque take on the series.) In Hollywood, however, when one transporter pod closes, another often opens; we're thrilled, then, to direct Mr. Shatner to the following Craigslist casting opportunity for an upcoming major motion picture, tailored to his specific strengths:

While we'd hoped that the foreboding appearance of Alex Perez, Scab Horseman of the Coming Hollywood Apocalypse would instill enough fear in the warring writer and studio factions to nudge them closer to a new deal, it seems that even the repeated viewing of Perez's soul-chilling Dialogue Sample Promo #1 has done little to stanch the flow of bellicose words from frustrated negotiators.

· NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker whines that his company wasn't making much money from iTunes downloads of its TV shows, and that the control-freaky Apple wouldn't allow him to "experiment" with raising the prices for one of its series. Also, the greedy Apple is apparently to blame for denying them revenue they would then immediately share with their beloved partners in content creation, their writers: "Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money. They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing." [Variety]
· The feds are sending a nanny to tomorrow's contract negotiation session to make sure that WGA and AMPTP play nice in the final moments before a possible strike. [THR]

Ellen DeGeneres promises to liven up the Deal or No Deal proceedings when she makes a guest appearance on the hit NBC game show. But unlike past guests, like Donald "The Banker" Trump and Celine "Open Da Case!" Dion, the canine-regifter will join the show's Pyramid of Hot Briefcasemodels. TVGuide.com reports:

That's right: DeGeneres will be one of the 26 briefcase-toting, elegant, sparkly dress-wearing women who may or may not be holding the million-dollar bag.