• On Tuesday night, hours after his sentencing, Chris Brown partied at a night club in Hollywood. His probation report says he can't drink or be in places that serve alcohol, but he may get off on a technicality.

• In her sentencing order, the judge never mentioned this restriction and the judge trumps the probation department. Still, what was he celebrating? [TMZ]
• Chris Brown was at the club with a male friend and a "woman he seemed to be clearly dating." "He was in a great mood," said a source. "He jumped on the top of the back booth and did Michael Jackson 's 'Dirty Diana.' He danced on top of the booth all night." [N.Y. Post]
• Chris Brown's mother Joyce has released a statement, saying, "I just want to say from the bottom of my heart thank you for your continued support. I'm sorry I wasn't allowed to speak to anyone as this case was ongoing. I can now say this has been the most painful moment in my entire life, but knowing that you were still standing by Chris side in his time of need made this a little easier for us... I made a promise to him I would never be ashamed of him no matter where I am or who I talk to. You see this whole thing isn't about Chris it's about God. He wants to show all of you the goodness of him through Chris. Chris will be addressing all of his fans very soon. We love you so much and so does God." [Necole Betchie]
• Jon Gosselin was spotted with a black eye and several stitches over he eyebrow. A source says, "It's nothing, he's fine, he hit a cabinet." But surely the tabloids will come up with a more salacious explanation. [Radar Online]
• Jon Gosselin is taking his mom to Sin City. "I always promised my mom I'd take her to Vegas to see the shows and that kind of stuff," he says. "We're just going to do our own thing." [People]
• Gerard Butler was pictured with his hand on Jennifer Aniston's butt, and it doesn't appear that they were on set. [TMZ]
• Madonna was booed during a concert in Bucharest, Romania last night when she stopped the show to talk about the discrimination against "gypsies" in Eastern Europe. In the clip at the link she can be heard saying "god damn it" as the crowd shouts at her. [TMZ]
• The search warrant affidavit for Michael Jackson 's home said police found "tar heroin in a bag" in MJ's bedroom, marijuana and Benoguin bleaching cream. But a source connected to the case says the "tar heroin" was tested and was actually not heroin. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse appeared in public today with "freckles" on her nose, but it looks like she just drew dots on her nose with marker. [Daily Mail]
• Though earlier reports claimed George Clooney broke his hand in a motorcycle accident on the border of Italy and Switzerland, his rep says, "There was an accident and he did break his hand... He was not riding a motorcycle, it was not in Switzerland ... He was on his property in Italy and he shut the car door on his hand." [People]
• Police have discovered love letters Jasmine Fiore wrote to ex Michael Cardosi while he was in jail that may shed light on her murder. She met him at the prison gates when he was released four days before she was murdered and police found the letters when he was rearrested on the day her body was found for a parole violation. Police say he's not a suspect in her murder. [TMZ]
• Ryan O'Neal has fired William Slattery, the attorney who has represented his son Redmond O'Neal for years. "This came completely out of left field. Slattery was steadfast about protecting Redmond," says a source, who suggests Ryan may be exploiting Redmond. "Now there is talk of a reality show that Ryan is supposedly trying to arrange, a show that would feature Redmond's battle with addiction." [Radar Online]
• A source close to Ryan O'Neal says reports that Redmond will star in a reality show are untrue. [UPI]
• John Mayer offered a $25,000 charitable donation for the publication of his mug shot, which was taken after a 2001 arrest for speeding, via Twitter. TMZ and The Smoking Gun are having some kind of competition over who posted it first. The unremarkable mug shot is at the link: [The Smoking Gun]
• An arbitrator has found that Jeremy Piven did not violate his contract when he pulled out of Speed The Plow due to a case of mercury poisoning. [N.Y. Times]
• Fox is developing the 1989 film Heathers into a TV show. [Variety]
• Project Runway's Chris March has filed a lawsuit against the costume designers for Beyoncé 's world tour because he says they didn't pay him for designing some of her costumes. [E!]
• Beyoncé will perform her song "Sweet Dreams" at the VMAs on September 13. [AP]
• Laura Linney will star in a TV series on Showtime called The C Word, in which her character is diagnosed with cancer. [Variety]
• In the video at the link Kim Zolciak offers her opinions on other celebs who wear wigs, including Tyra Banks and Britney Spears. [People]
• Mike Pihl, star of the History Channel show Ax Men was arrested in Oregon for rolling his Jeep into a ditch while his three children were unbuckled inside. The car rolled three times and police think alcohol was involved. [TMZ]
• AC/DC refused to call off an outdoor show in Edmonton, Canada on Tuesday night when a huge thunderstorm hit, but they were forced to pause when a giant inflatable devil horn attached to the side of the rigging on stage collapsed. [Daily Express]
• Helen Mirren has joined the cast of the film Brighton Rock, which is based on Graham Greene's novel of the same name. [Variety]
• Star believes Shania Twain is going to marry Frédéric Thiébaud , the ex-husband of her former best friend who broke up her marriage, because the two are wearing promise rings. [Star Magazine]
• Paula Abdul is in talks to star in a revue-style stage show in Las Vegas. [N.Y. Post]
• Kristin Chenoweth will guest judge an episode of American Idol in place of Paula Abdul . [People]
• Kim Kardashian is going to executive produce a new reality show about public relations starring her two friends who work at Command PR. Kim will occasionally appear on the show and says, "Every week we'll have a different celebrity and a different crisis and drama." [People]
• Brazilian banker Andre Pinto says Jordan used him as a "sex toy" then dumped him when she didn't need him. Also, she would only have sex in the dark and didn't like having her boobs touched. [The Sun]
• Countess LuAnn de Lesseps is dating again now that her 16-year marriage is over but says "I just want to have a good time" and rejected a guy Jill Zarin suggested because he's too old. "I'm going younger baby — under 50," she says. [N.Y. Magazine]
• Gabourey Sidibe says of Precious co-star Mariah Carey , "Mariah and I would sit and talk about fashion and perfume and jewelry. It was like sitting in junior high and talking to your bestie." [People]
• "Whenever I can be physical it helps me a lot with the actual acting aspect. I prefer it. If I could just be either beating someone up or getting my ass beaten in every scene I would love it. It's so sexy." — Megan Fox [The Sun]
• Serena Williams says in her memoir that people are too obsessive about weight, but that she also feels insecure about her body sometimes. She says: "I think every female does that. We think we look good one day, and then the next day -– or the next minute -– we're insecure about something. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and am like, 'I want to lose my inner thigh. I've got to do an hour of cardio today,' or whatever. I try not to do it, but the insecurity comes back sometimes. I do want to look good still; I do want to be healthy." She adds that she thinks her troublesome body parts are "My thighs. I think they're too big. But also my arms. I think they're too muscular. They're too thick... I'm sensitive about them. I know that toned arms are in now. Look at Michelle Obama. She has great arms, and I think it's wonderful that she shows them off like that! I love her for that. I'm like, 'keep wearing strapless dresses!' But I don't like mine." [People]

• Wow, Lindsay Lohan and Sean Penn nuzzled at a private dinner for Milk last week. Samantha Ronson was not present. What does it all mean? [Fox 411]
• Photographs of Jennifer Aniston in a wet T-shirt with a "visible breast" are in a calendar, but a spokesperson says, "I don't think this is legal." [Times Of India]
• In this interview to promote Marley & Me, Jennifer Aniston gets pissy about her personal life, and when asked about the "difficult times," Owen Wilson walks out. [USA Today]
• Oh, dear: Amy Winehouse's husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, wants $1.6 million to walk away from the marriage and not write a tell-all book. All together now: What kind of fuckery is this? [Perez Hilton]
• Another divorce payout: Madonna will reportedly give Guy Ritchie about £32 million in cash and prizes. [Telegraph]

• In this interview, Brtiney's mom, Lynne Spears, says she almost called her autobiography All My Fault. "I can laugh about it now, but did I feel that way at the time? Yes, I did and, if I'm being totally honest, I still do," she says. Lynne also talks about being worried that Britney will kill herself, the conservatorship and what's missing in Britney's life. [Daily Mail]
• David Beckham was being followed by paparazzi, so he and his bodyguard got out of the car and started punching photographers through the other car's window. [E!]
• Click to see a picture of David Beckham bungee jumping in New Zealand! [Mirror]
• Mary-Kate Olsen: Not pregnant, which makes it okay that she was in Miami, "smoking and drinking vodka cocktails all night." [Page Six]
• Ouch! Man Vs. Wild host Bear Grylls injured his shoulder in Antarctica during an expedition to raise money for charity. [CNN]
• What does Scarlett Johansson want for Christmas? Tickets to Barack Obama's inauguration ball! [Mirror]
• Is 42-year-old Janet Jackson knocked up? [Perez Hilton]
• Heath Ledger was posthumously named best actor by the Australian Film Institute for his role in The Dark Knight. [Reuters]
• Heidi Montag's mom suggested maybe Heidi was drugged before she married Spencer Pratt; Heidi says: "I want to make it very clear to family, friends and fans that the decision to marry Spencer was very much mine." Ugh, we know. [Contact Music]
• Perez Hilton has a book, you guys. Inside, predictions such as: "Britney will be probably be dead. I believe she came pretty close to the stripper pole in the sky the last time she hit rock bottom." And! Nicole Richie "will be really fat in her old age. Her body will rebel and she’ll weigh almost 180 lbs. OMG!" [Gatecrasher]
• America Ferrera will be the master of ceremonies at a debt-retirement "conversation" with Hillary Clinton. The Senator has $7.5 million in campaign debt, yikes. [MSNBC]
• Poor Barbra Streisand got a kiss from President Bush, whom she loathes, at the Kennedy Center honors. [NY Post]
• In an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow and her friend/trainer, Tracy Anderson (who also trains Madonna), Gwynnie reveals: "When I was about 25, I started doing ashtanga yoga every day. I did Pilates for a while and was always disciplined about it, but I never got the results I get with this. After my first 10 days I lost 11 inches!" [Gotham Magazine]
• Want Kanye West to appear at an after-party? Better have $40,000. [News.com.au]
• If you have $8.5 million, you can scoop up Jennifer Lopez's Bel Air estate. [TMZ]
• Jamie Foxx jokes that he's trying to pick out Barack Obama's Christmas puppy right now: "I think I'm going to get him a pitbull, we just got to keep it street." [Yahoo News]
• Lily Allen "swaps grungy guys for a more mature gent": She went to the ballet with her grandfather. [Mirror]
• Oh, and Lily Allen is sticking up for Amy Winehouse: "Yes, she does get out of her mind on drugs sometimes, but she is also a very clever, intelligent, witty, funny person who can hold it together. I mean, there aren't that many people with whom the press concentrate on their personality so much. I think in the UK, as far as females go, it's mainly me and her that get that treatment. She gets it more than I do. But I don't see it that much with other people." [Mirror]
• Keanu Reeves is trying to quit smoking. "I didn't even start until I was 30," he says. "Now it's a prison. I want to stop." [Daily Mail]
• Due to the economy, Kate Hudson is having a handmade Christmas: "We've always been pretty crafty anyway," she says. "We all knit. The girls knit. This year I’m doing these great big knit… Well, actually I shouldn’t even talk about it because I can’t say it!" [People]
• Wow, Catherine Hardwicke, who directed Twilight, won't be directing the sequel. What will become of the fangless, unscary vampires now? [EW]
• Terri Seymour on her breakup with Simon Cowell: "Simon will be a hard act to follow. But on the bright side at least I will be able to use the mirror. He used to take forever in the mornings." [Mirror]
• Suri Cruise is a budding artist. [Daily Mail]
• Dame Judi Dench was presented with a lifetime achievement award by The European Film Academy at a gala in Copenhagen, Denmark. [UPI]
• Jonny Lee Miller's wife, Michele Hicks, gave birth to a baby boy, Buster Timothy Miller. Will Buster get to play with the Jolie-Pitt kids? Jonny is still friends with ex-wife Angelina Jolie, right? [Yahoo News]
• Another day, another stalker: Alyssa Milano is seeking a temporary restraining order against a man who hiked miles to try and reach her and has displayed "increasingly threatening behavior." [AP]
• Chris Klein and Ginnifer Goodwin: Splitsville. [ET]
• Uterus news: Eric Dane says he and wife Rebecca Gayheart are "trying" to have kids. [ET]
• Another important message from Natalie Portman and Rashida Jones. [Funny Or Die]
• Blind item! "Which supposedly straight funnyman keeps getting caught in West Village dives propositioning men by opening his legs and winking? We hear the B-lister had a few takers." [Gatecrasher]
• 'Tis the season? There are six Holocaust-themed movies this winter. [Page Six]
• The Fonz, Henry Winkler, had terrible dyslexia: "I'd look at a menu, which I couldn't read, then ask what everyone else was having and choose from that. Or if I was out with a girl I'd tell her I loved the way she spoke and get her to read the whole menu to me. I got through life by listening very carefully to what people said and learning that way. As I got older I learned to ask for help." [Daily Mail]
• Is Danity Kane/Hairspray's Aubrey O'Day gay? [Page Six]
• "I'm 41. Everybody says I'd be dead. Well, I wouldn't be dead, I'd just be a little caricature of a rock star. Who wants to be a drug addict at 41? Listen, I'm 41, I've got two kids, I don't expect a 16-year-old to be looking to me for inspiration. It's the Arctic Monkeys' job now. I've done my bit. Now we go in the studio and it's just like, let's make some records, let's do it cos we love it." — Noel Gallagher. [Guardian]
• "I didn't want to see her journey belittled. She was not a stereotypical long-suffering wife who just chastised her husband when he was grumpy and took care of the kids. She was extremely capable, and she was forward thinking. Looking back, she was clearly a feminist." — Laura Linney on her role as Abigail Adams in John Adams. [Telegraph]
• "I'm just really lazy. Too lazy to phone the cleaning lady. But I do have a German boyfriend. He can't help cleaning. Recently he came back from a long trip and he kissed me and immediately went and cleaned the toilet." — Rufus Wainwright. [Newsweek]
• "I'm at a strange age. I'm not a woman yet, but I'm not a girl any more. [Film companies] say, 'Oh, in a couple of years you’ll be perfect for this.' I'll be like, yeah, but I want to be studying English then, so it’s going to be quite tough to choose between the two. I'm going to have a battle on my hands, because after Harry Potter has finished, I don't know. I definitely want to go to university." — Emma Watson. [Times Of London]
• "I will not be shagging Russell Brand. Just because I gave him my number does not mean I’ll be going on a date with him. I was the subject of one of his calls once, but I didn’t answer the phone thank goodness! I just saw his name come up on the screen and thought: 'I don’t think I’m going to answer that right now.' He was on air and it was just good female intuition. I had another conversation with him on the radio shortly before he left his radio show and he is a lot fun. I like him. And I can totally handle guys like that." — Dita Von Teese. [The Sun]

The Good:

The Bad:

The Ugly:

Best Supporting Actress:
Cate Blanchett — I'm Not There
Tilda Swinton — Michael Clayton
Amy Ryan — Gone Baby Gone
Ruby Dee — American Gangster
Saorise Ronan — Atonement

Best Supporting Actor:
Casey Affleck — The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
Javier bardem — No Country For Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman — Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook — Into The Wild
Tom WIlkinson — Michael Clayton

Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett — Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie — Away From Her
Marion Cotillard — La Vie En Rose
Laura Linney — The Savages
Ellen Page — Juno

Best Actor:
George Clooney — Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis — There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp — Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones — In The Valley Of Elah
Viggo Mortensen — Eastern Promises

Best Director:
Ethan and Joel Coen — No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson — There Will Be Blood
Julian Schnabel — The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman — Juno
Tony Gilroy — Michael Clayton

Best Original Screenplay:
Tamara Jenkins — The Savages
Diablo Cody — Juno
Nancy Oliver — Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy — Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Jim Capobianco, Jan Pinkava — Ratatouille

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Atonement — Christopher Hampton
Away From Her — Sarah Polley
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly — Ronald Harwood
No Country For Old Men — Ethan and Joel Cohen
There Will Be Blood — Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Picture:
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood

No Country, Blood Lead Oscar Nominations [Reuters]

New York Post:

LOCKED down in a celluloid prison cell marked "The Nanny Diaries" for 105 punishingly awful minutes, I was seconds away from crying "Attica" and leading a tactical assault on the projectionist's booth when the words "The End" appeared on screen. I rocketed out of my seat as though wearing a jet pack.

Washington Post:

In "The Nanny Diaries," the sublime Linney takes the most reprehensible of icons, the snooty, privileged, controlling Upper East Side rhymes-with-rich, and delivers a masterpiece of Cruella De Vil-level toxin as the Park Avenue hostess with the leastest, Mrs. X. She becomes the woman you love to hate. But — this is the greatness of Linney — she also gives you a glimpse of the forces that crushed her into such monstrous certitude. It's funny, it's sad, it's real. Too bad, alas, the rest of the movie isn't.

Because "The Nanny Diaries" is essentially a two-character story whose supporting players are wooden props, it would help if the actors playing the two were evenly matched. But Ms. Johansson's Annie, who narrates the movie in a glum, plodding voice, is a leaden screen presence, devoid of charm and humor. With her heavy-lidded eyes and plump lips, Ms. Johansson may smolder invitingly in certain roles, but "The Nanny Diaries" is the latest in a string of films that suggest that this somnolent actress confuses sullen attitudinizing with acting.

One has to wonder what kind of movie about a nanny focuses entirely on a woman like Annie. The movie explains that as a young, single, white, American college graduate, she's extremely eligible. "The Chanel bag of nannies," Annie puts it. And Hispanic, Caribbean, Indian, and Irish women throw in their two cents, but the filmmakers seem uncomfortable with the surrounding racial, social, and class politics. Admittedly, the brief shot of a nanny and her charge at a costume party dressed as Condoleezza Rice and little George W. Bush is quite a statement....The movie's banal fantasies badly chafe any anthropological consideration of what a girl should do with her career. This isn't life. It's Lifetime.

Curiously, the most compelling (if only half-formed) idea here has less to do with class than with parenting—how parents can, out of fear or selfishness or both, abdicate the responsibility of child-rearing to self-appointed experts and Ivy League grade schools, and how when a marriage goes south, children can become assets akin to investment accounts or property deeds. That's a rich subject for a film, but instead The Nanny Diaries gives us a half-cocked martyr movie about a plucky prole sticking it to the corrupt bourgeoisie: Joan of (Central) Park.

More boring still is Nanny's love interest, the Harvard Hottie (Chris Evans), a blandly handsome stick figure who serves no purpose other than to give our heroine a shot at the life she's come to know and love-hate. And lest we think Nanny a hypocrite in the making, we're informed that H.H.'s life hasn't been quite as charmed as his address and educational background would suggest. Sure, he was raised by nannies, but it's because his mother died. (Otherwise, surely. . . )

Satire should be knife-sharp and whip-smart, and The Nanny Diaries never is....Johansson, displaying flustered mannerisms that smack of one too many Woody Allen projects, goes about all this like the hopeful protagonist of a sitcom pilot. That is, attractive, amorphous, bland.

Frankly, there's something painful about watching Scarlett Johansson, who looks as if she never had an indecisive moment in her life, struggle to seem ineffectual. As Annie, a recent college graduate who falls into nannying, she plays a young woman who doesn't know who she is or what she wants. To make that seem even possible, Johansson tries to drain her eyes of all traces of intelligence, ego and self-assertion and even goes around with her mouth open half the time. The result is that the actress robs herself of about 90 percent of her appeal onscreen - and yet she still isn't convincing.

• Amy Winehouse has left The Causeway rehab facility. Apparently, she and her husband Blake Civil-Fielder got into a fight, then headed back to London. Blake "upset people in The Causeway with his behavior," says a source. She needs to dump this douchebag, and pronto. [The Sun]
  
• Between the MTV Awards in Las Vegas and the Emmy Awards in L.A., not a lot of stars are RSVPing for shows during Fashion Week. Hmm, whatever shall we focus on — the clothes??? [Page Six]
  
• Faye Dunaway: Went to Koo Koo Roo, ordered chicken, pulled out a tiny scale and weighed it. Not sure about the Roo but definitely a wee bit Koo Koo! [Page Six]

• Is Jeremy Piven literally Entourage's Ari Gold? Witnesses at Nobu Malibu heard him having a very loud argument... with his Mom. Oy. [Page Six]
• Cameron Diaz and John Mayer: Second date! That we know of! [Page Six]
• Lauren Conrad has a new man named Sean Zastoupil, in case you care. [Page Six]
• "She's far too voluptuously beautiful for the job, like a Tiffany necklace in a brown paper bag" - Variety's assessment of Scarlett Johansson in The Nanny Diaries. Ugh. [Page Six]
• OK, we get it, Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. is a total player — married and making out with chicks all over town — and almost surely the subject of yesterday's so-called blind item. [Rush & Molloy]
• Blind item! "Which TV bigwig's daughter recently commandeered the family beach house for a weekend-long orgy of psychedelic drugs?" [Rush & Molloy, 4th item]
• Kevin Federline got a job! He'll be a guest star on the CW's One Tree Hill. This should look great in court. [TMZ]
• Pete Doherty is free again! The suspicion of drug possession charges were dropped because of a technicality. How long do you think he can go without getting arrested again? [Guardian]