DICAPRIO NOT SEARCHING FOR JACK DAWSON FAME "I’ll never reach that state of popularity again. And I’m not going to try."

The economy sure is bad. How bad is it? Now, even conscious rappers have warrants out!

Mos Def, the Emmy-nominated actor and Brooklyn emcee who made a name for himself with Afrocentric songs about love and how stressful life in America can be, is being sought by Las Vegas police on an arrest warrant stemming from a fistfight with a photographer there in August.

Mos allegedly roughed up a 60-year-old trade publication photographer before snatching the man's camera and smashing it. No word yet on whether the multi-talented artist will turn himself in or stay on the lam.

This is a brilliant career move for Mos, who's obviously learned that gangsta rap is where the money's at.

'AUSTIN POWERS' VILLAIN A TRULY VILLAINOUS RAPIST "Joe Son, who played the character Random Task in the first 'Austin Powers' movie, has been charged by California authorities in connection with an unsolved 1990 Christmas Eve gang rape. Son pleaded guilty in May to felony vandalism, which required him to give a DNA sample — which eventually connected him to the rape, police say. Son, 37, was charged Oct. 1 with five felony counts of forcible rape, two felony counts of forcible sodomy, two felony counts of sodomy in concert by force, seven felony counts of forcible oral copulations, one felony count of sexual penetration by foreign object by force according to an Orange County District Attorney's."

HANDICAPPED ACTORS ASK FOR RECOGNITION "'We are virtually invisible,' Robert David Hall, a regular on 'CSI,' said at a news conference on Monday announcing a plan to expand media-industry employment of people with disabilities. Mr. Hall, who walks on prosthetics and plays Dr. Al Robbins on 'CSI,' said he played one of only three disabled characters in recurring television roles. At briefings in Los Angeles, New York and Washington leaders of the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Actors’ Equity Association said they were planning a broad push to increase … roles for the disabled … A presentation estimated that fewer than 2 percent of film and television characters are disabled, while 20 percent of the nation’s population has a disability of some kind."

SAG GETS CLOSER TO STRIKE "The Screen Actors Guild's negotiating committee voted Wednesday to support a strike authorization vote, a tactic meant to break stalled contract talks with Hollywood studios. The recommendation, approved 11-2, now goes to the guild's national board for review, and would ultimately need approval of 75 percent of the some 120,000 voting guild members. 'My personal opinion is, yes, we will achieve a strike authorization,' said Anne Marie Johnson, a spokeswoman for Membership First, a faction of actors that had controlled SAG's national board until it narrowly lost its majority in elections last month."

COULD BE BRILLIANT, COULD BE TERRIBLE "How do you find an actor of Russell Crowe’s caliber to play against him? Well, Ridley Scott seems to have found the answer: let the Oscar winner play both roles! That’s right, in one of the odder casting ideas in at least a few days … Crowe is going to play both the sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood himself in Ridley Scott’s upcoming flick, 'Nottingham.'"

Vociferous leftist lady Susan Sarandon was recently asked in an interview with The Advocate if she would play Democrat dropout Hillary Clinton in a movie about the Senator's life. As you might imagine, the answer was no, but, oh, it was so much more, also!

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Reportedly displeased with girlfriend Drew Barrymore's excessive drinking, Justin "Mac" Long dumped her and went looking for greener, more sober pastures; so it makes little sense that he's stopped to graze on noted alcohol enthusiast Kirsten Dunst.

Long and Dunst were recently spotted together at LA's Sunset Junction music festival, "making out hardcore" in the margarita line.

Actor and demanding ladies man Terrence Howard is now also a singer, and he's already made a video for his debut single, a soft little number entitled "Sanctuary." Ambitious probably describes the project best, what with the violin strains and delicate French horn blares. At one point, Howard even grabs a maestro's baton and conducts his sound stage full of backing musicians, most of whom are ostensibly much more talented than himself. Weird!

Check it out for yourself and see if you can explain what's up with all the hats.

Fun fact: I'm pretty sure that one time, years ago, when I lived in LA, I got drunk on 40s with the drummer in this video and helped him protect his girlfriend's honor in a minor scuffle with a bunch of meatheads wearing shirts that read, "Show me your tits."

According to the New York Observer, excitable Scientology heavyweight Tom Cruise might have gone and redeemed himself with his upcoming turn in Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder:

… besides a high-powered cast, the movie has a secret, too, which Paramount and DreamWorks have been doing their best to keep under wraps until after the film opens: that a small, uncredited performance from Tom Cruise steals the whole show. In Tropic Thunder, Mr. Cruise plays Les Grossman, a bald, hirsute, foul-mouthed studio mogul with a penchant for hip-hop hip-swiveling moves. It’s an astonishingly funny and surprising supporting performance (especially considering Mr. Cruise’s last outing was in the dreadful, if well-meaning, Lions for Lambs) …

… Even two weeks before release, no one involved in the production—not Mr. Stiller or his co-writers, Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen, nor the producers or co-stars—are willing to talk about Mr. Cruise’s performance until after the film is in theaters. Mr. Cruise’s past directors won’t even talk. (It’s a lockdown!) But we’ll say it: Once again, Tom Cruise has managed to completely flip our perceptions of him upside down and inside out. It doesn’t spoil a thing to say that the film is worth seeing for Mr. Cruise’s performance alone, or that we hope this might usher in a new era for the strange, secretive actor. Could it be that, in fact, Tom Cruise actually gets it? Is it possible that Tom Cruise has a sense of humor about being Tom Cruise? Can we love him again without also feeling creeped out?

We say no, but we're looking forward to seeing him try. This is what Olympics years are all about.

Speaking of things we can't believe, human minstrel show Tiffany "New York" Pollard has once again been granted license to stymie the progress of civil rights with a crappy reality show, New York Goes to Hollywood.

This latest installment in the televised downfall of a human being follows Pollard on her quest for "legitimate, Hollywood fame." Yes, she wants to be an actress now—"a certified actress." This will never happen, of course, but it seems you could have fooled Pollard, who's already mean to everyone despite not having the sort of résumé, background or skill-set normally associated with prima donnas of her caliber.

Guess what: we won't be tuning in. But if your thing is seeing a delusional black lady belittle white people and herself at the same time, check it out.

SAG NOT YET COMPLETELY STAGNANT "With SAG's contract stalemate continuing, the Screen Actors Guild has granted more than 100 waivers to indie feature films over the past month, pushing the total to 620. The waivers have kept a modicum of feature production going. Studios have mostly stopped shooting features since SAG's contract expired on June 30 due to the uncertainty over whether the guild will be able to hammer out a new deal."

Following his triumphant New York City society debut in the Observer, comedic actor turned punchline Steve Guttenberg received more attention than he had in years. A reality show was offered, he was honored at the Fire Island Film Festival and he even received an e-mail from a woman requesting to be his 601st romantic conquest. Surprisingly, The Goot wasn't angry about the article's undercurrent of mockery. Is he angry in general? Yes, but not about the article, as he explains in a newer, greater article:

“Sure. Am I a human?” he said. “Welcome to the real world. So you think everyone on TV is all happy, happy? So let me ask you a question: When you watch The Price is Right, you think Vanna’s in a good mood every day?” (Editor’s note: Vanna White actually appeared on Wheel of Fortune.) “Talk to people who have to go and fill the gas tank and then talk to their mom when she calls. Talk to some of the greatest artists of our time and see that they’ve got real desires and real needs—and sure, they’re full of angst and human emotions like envy and anxiety and certain neuroses. Look in the yellow pages under ‘psychologists’; see if there’s anything listed there. Damn right, I’m a little pissed off. I’m pissed off that John Belushi and River Phoenix were killed by Hollywood. I’m pissed off about all those young people getting off that bus right now and going after all those parts and how they’re going to be used and abused and thrown around and wound up. … Look at that line of people trying out for American Idol. That was me! I know what happened to those guys. I’m on the eighth floor. I want to be on the 20th floor. But on the other side of that, I wake up on the eighth floor and I go, ‘I’m happy I’m on the eighth floor. How many guys get to be on the eighth floor?’”

Not many, The Goot. Not many.

Back in May, while discussing with David Letterman his trespassing arrest at a Chicago Walgreens, Shia Labeouf noted, "Drinking and driving is one thing, but drinking and shopping … it's just as bad." Ha! Funny, because he knows that's not true. But now that the young actor has drunkenly rolled his pickup truck into another car in Hollywood, endangering himself and two others in the process, he probably wishes it were.

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Great idea for Katie Holmes to turn down The Dark Knight, huh?

HOW THE OLD GUY GOT REHIRED "'Nat! My gosh. It was such an accident,' [the new 90210 executive producer] said. 'Someone said they saw Nat in a store, so I called casting and told them, let's see if he'd like to do it. He was ecstatic.'"

We don't know how they do it, but they do, and it. Is. Fucking. Astonishing.

The maniacs at Fox News somehow put together an earnest segment in which giggly hack Laura Ingraham talks to ACTOR Stephen Baldwin about just why the heck these loudmouth celebrities think they can go around expressing their opinions. We're pretty good at sensing irony, and there is NONE in either of their voices. Not even when Stephen, who, by the way, is the one not as smart as Alec, not as handsome as Billy and not as rugged as Daniel, says, "Here's what's freaky to me: The media and Hollywood is so convinced that mainstream America cares what it thinks." !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God, we hope this guy's not kidding when he says he's leaving if Obama wins.

Clip after the jump.

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Snooty British actor Sir Ben Kingsley – who really seriously insists on being called "Sir Ben" – recently told an American reporter that he thinks the entertainment industry fucks with the heads of its youthful stars:

Some young people are told they’re actors and they’re not. It’s unfair to exploit a young person who may look good on a magazine cover and tell them they can be in movies. You’re lifting their expectations so high and then pulling the rug from under their feet when the audience gives them a thumbs-down. We throw people away too easily but should never invite them in the first place.

For a peek at exactly what SBK is talking about, shift your gaze four inches below this line of text.