Corpulent, fraternal Miramax heads Harvey and Bob Weinstein are negotiating to personally buy back Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 911 from Disney, and are reportedly close to a deal which would allow them to find another distributor for the anti-Bush doc. There's too much talking in Hollywood these days; everything's a negotiation. Isn't Harvey obsessed with being an old-school movie mogul? Moguls kicked ass and took what they wanted. Harvey, here's a project for you: By the end of the week, we want to read, "Harvey Weinstein held Disney CEO Michael Eisner out of the 20th floor window of Disney's Burbank headquarters by his ankle, shaking him vigorously until he surrendered the rights to Fahrenheit 911."

From a source on the set of the cancelled Sharon Osbourne Show, which is finally finishing production:

The L.A. Weekly's Nikki Finke updates her story on the ongoing LAT and NYT investigations of Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. Now the Wall Street Journal is in on the investigation, and the LAT may be the first major news outlet to go to press with the story, possibly as early as Monday. According to Finke's article, LAT writer Michael Cieply has uncovered "six cases already' of Carter benefiting financially from his relationship with Hollywood. And there's a lot of heat surrounding Carter supposedly charging outrageous amounts for his "consulting services."

"Seriously, honeybunny. Did that motherfuckin' frog look at you? Because I will fuck that Gallic escargot motherfucker up, okay?"

Variety reports that the negotiations to renew Bob and Harvey Weinstein's contracts to run Mirmax past 2005 may have hit an impasse. The article's headline reads "Miramax headed for divorce court?" Aren't you a little tired of divorce metaphors? We prefer action-packed imagery of Harvey strangling Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who's got an unsigned contract stuffed in his mouth. Come on, Variety, you can use that to formulate one of your famous "Slanguage" headlines. How about "Mouse Topper Chokes On Harv's Offer?" You'll think of something.

Is this the face of someone who gets into a standoff with a SWAT team? Greg Burson, the voice actor behind cartoon characters such as Yogi Bear, Bugs Bunny, and Elmer Fudd, had an intoxicated showdown with the LAPD last night after a possible kidnapping call brought police to his Los Angeles home, according to the NY Post. The standoff ended without anyone getting hurt, although one of the women Burson was holding in the house said he had guns. Thank God The Simpsons cast got what they wanted, because an incident with Homer would have certainly ended in bloodshed.

This week's huge Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) attracts the area's civilian nerds for the video game convention and Hollywood's celebrity lushes for the boozy parties. A reader sends this report from last night's star-studded Playstation 2 event at the Mayan Belasco Theater (you'd think that Sony was debuting a high-end vodka for all of the drunken antics going on):

If you're anything like us (and you probably are, except you're sober at your desk and much better paid), you've been scratching your head, wondering exactly how the new NBC Universal conglomerate will be organized. Who are the people under Universal chairman Stacey Snider in the chain of command? For the love of God, who's NBC Cable's David Zaslav reporting to?! Well, you can stop scratching. We have the new NBC Uni (can we all start calling it Nbuni? Please?) organizational chart for all of your stultifyingly boring reference needs. Click on the picture to get the full-size version, which is easily five times as thrilling and informative.

What's the best way to get the word out that the child molestation charges against you are patently false? Have your former managers put up a web site selling merchandise with snappy logos saying so! MJisinnocent.net has just launched, and is offering a variety of sartorial ways for Jacko fans to publicize their hero's innocence. They don't offer the underwear (yet), but when they do, we're coming for our cut.

Motormouth auteur/amateur pugilist Quentin Tarantino, this year's head juror at the Cannes Film Festival, admitted to cold-cocking a security guard there in 1992. "I am trying to cleverly push my way in and all of a sudden this French guy with a tuxedo and a red bow tie pushes me in the chest. I am from Los Angeles. We have the LAPD there. These red bow tie guys don't show me anything. So I took a swing at the guy." It took five security guards to restrain him.

Continuing our leisurely morning stroll through the trades...

The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers are back at the bargaining table today after a week-long recess to consider proposals. Nobody expects a deal any time soon, but with the networks revealing their Fall schedules to advertisers next week, the pressure to get some kind of agreement in place will be severe. It would be profoundly tragic if CBS's Les Moonves didn't squeeze every nickel out of the 30-second spots between their ten shows with the cute wives and the dumb, insensitive husbands.

NBC and Universal officially merged on Wednesday, creating the world's fifth-largest media concern, according to THR. Check out this steamy, conglomerate ugly-bumpin' action: "The merged entity will be able to leverage its scale by, for example, more aggressively using and cross-promoting content or negotiating better carriage deals with cable and satellite distributors." Hott! Come on, NBC Universal, get a room or we might have to turn a hose on you!

Both the L.A. Times and N.Y. Times are investigating Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter to see if he is benefiting financially from the magazine's Hollywood coverage, according to the L.A. Weekly's Nikki Finke. A possible windfall for Carter because of his regime's loving salad-tossing of its celeb cover story subjects? Sounds juicy to us...DEVELOPING.

The Edmonton Journal's Misty Harris examines the phenomenon of anonymous/pseudonymous supposed-celebrity bloggers such as Rance, asking pointy-headed types like a sociologist, a pop-culture-expert college professor, and a "noted expert of celebrity fandom" why the famous might want to engage in stealth-blogging. Predictably, they come up with the sort of goatee-stroking jibber-jabber we'd expect to hear from such experts: they want to project characters and court intimacy with fans, and so on.

We'd love to take credit for the recent American jailbait craze spreading to the Continent. Unfortunately for Defamer, the French have a much longer history of inappropriately sexualizing the young in film and probably thought this up all by themselves.

For the low, low price of $1,000 per plate, you may be able to get a front row seat for a strangling. Next week's Steven J. Ross Humanitarian Award dinner will honor Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who will leave the safety of his impressive office fortifications to be feted in New York City. Harvey and Bob Weinstein are Journal Chairs (whatever that entails) for the event. And we all know that Eisner is blocking the release of the Michael Moore documentary, Fahrenheit 911, that the Weinsteins are dying to distribute

How did Van Helsing not finish under $50 million in its first weekend and cost half of the Universal staff their jobs? USA Today has a story on the time-worn studio strategy for counteracting negative buzz and horrible reviews: throwing piles of cash at the marketing budget. Van Helsing's promotional budget is rumored to be over $30 million. The article quotes Adam Fogelson, Universal's head of marketing, about VH's opening:

For those of you who would accuse us of suggesting that Los Angeles is entirely populated by B-list actors, wannabe screenwriters, and obscenely rich producers hiding behind electrified fences in Bel Air: We now have an account that proves that L.A. has at least one professional basketball coach and one crazy homeless guy:

Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs has recently sold a script to Revolution Studios (albeit with two writing partners). Her Exorcism For Dummies is about a slacker who pretends to be an exorcist, but then discovers he actually has "the gift" and has to undo the damage he unleashes on the world. No director is attached yet, but does Hoffs' husband, Austin Powers director Jay Roach, love her enough to get involved with this, ahem, sterling logline?