After Viacom went blazingly public Wednesday with its threat of an MTV/Comedy Central/Nickelodeon blackout on Time Warner Cable, an 11th-hour truce settled the matter just in time for 2009.

The terms of the deal weren't disclosed — Viacom initially sought a 23 cent-per-subscriber boost, amounting to about $39 million — though the LAT confirms that the consumer-fueled, call-center fury influenced a swift resolution to keep SpongeBob SquarePants, South Park and Dora the Explorer on the air. The bad news: A new episode of The City airs Sunday night at 10. Call Viacom with your complaints this time around — it's only fair.

• Viacom, Time Warner Cable settle contract dispute [LAT]

Being a celebrity is a double-edged sword: you're often more likely to find yourself involved in ridiculous, well-publicized crime, but at least it's easy to get acquitted!

This is the happy realization today for two of Hollywood's most recently beleaguered actresses. First, TMZ reports that Heather Locklear has had her DUI case dismissed thanks to the help of mega lawyer Blair Berk, who also negotiated an 84-minute jail stay for Lindsay Lohan last year. Despite the fact that the actress was found to be under the influence of prescription drugs, the judge waved that little infraction away so that Locklear could plea no contest to reckless driving, which mandates three years of informal probation, a $700 fine, and a 12-hour drug education course. Sadly, all of Denise Richards's plotting has come to naught.

Also cleared of wrongdoing are Hairspray star Nikki Blonsky and Top Model castoff Bianca Golden, whose Caribbean family blowout left more than a few egos and vaginas bruised. Both women have had the cases against them dropped, says Us. However, Blonsky's father still faces assault charges, on account of not being famous.

• Heather Locklear Dodges DUI Bullet [TMZ]

• Hairspray Star, ANTM Contestant Cleared of Assault Charges [Us]

A note taped to Defamer HQ's door greeted us this morning — not an eviction notice as we feared, but rather just another Weinstein news dump announcing Inglourious Basterds' [sic] eyebrow-raising late-summer '09 release date.

The Weinstein Company has officially pinned Quentin Tarantino's Nazi-scalping World War II action-drama to August 21 — traditionally the place films like Bangkok Dangerous, College and God knows what else go to die before flourishing in the DVD/Flopz™ afterlife. That changes now, insists trend-buster Harvey, who spent a good portion of mid-2008 courting Basterds suitors to help pursue a Cannes '09 premiere, and who retains only the highest hopes for QT's Brad Pitt-led epic.

Cannes isn't out of the question, though even if Tarantino missed it we figured it had Venice and Toronto to push it into a mild, mid-September prestige slot — more Burn After Reading than Tropic Thunder, the latter which survived an Aug. 15 opening last year with a ubiquitous, $35 million marketing blitz on its behalf. That's way too rich for the Weinsteins' blood, leaving us to wonder if we should circle the date in pencil like we're accustomed to before they move a film back to a more word-of-mouth friendly awards-season spot.

Or if Harvey knows something we don't — that all the spit-take rehearsals in the world won't save what might be looking increasingly like a critical and commercial nonstarter. At least someone learned something from Grindhouse.

• August date for Quentin Tarantino World War II movie [Reuters]

1/1 — SCOTT FOLEY from The Unit engaging in some New Year's Day shopping with friends at Century City Mall. He's a handsome guy. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

Marky Mark was snapped once again by a creepily urine-curious paparazzo, this time on a golf course. The tinkle-splattered bush in question was then pruned by an industrious caddy, who'll later put the Ziploc-sealed clipping up for sale on eBay in a bogus charity auction for the nonexistent "Mark Wahlberg Incontinence Research Fund." Don't be fooled.

• Marky Mark Waters the Bushes

Apparently, Hugh Jackman would prefer his career uncapsized, as Variety notes he has pulled out of Steven Soderbergh's upcoming 3-D musical, Cleo (citing scoffed-at "scheduling conflicts"). So who in Hollywood can replace him?

It's a shame that Robert Downey Jr. is locked into franchise properties until roughly the year 2015, as the now-bankable actor possesses both the singing ability and proven "what the hell" track record for Cleo. And since Soderbergh will need a trim, youthful Marc Anthony to balance out Ray Winstone's Julius Caesar, we imagine that stipulation may clash with the "no diets" rider of 30 Odd Foot of Grunts frontman Russell Crowe.

Thus, Soderbergh may want to consider making a more unconventional choice (an unlikely route for a filmmaker making a 3-D, Guided by Voices-penned musical, we're aware). Why not choose between singing rivals Jamie Foxx and Terrence Howard—one self-enamored, the other "as soft as doctor's cotton"? Can we interest you in either Conchord? Or does the role of Marc Anthony call for the boyish looks and "not entirely present" personality of a David Archuleta?

Oh, who are we kidding. Johnny Depp and Ewan McGregor, call your agents—it's time to go down swinging and singing!

• Hugh Jackman off 'Cleo' wishlist [Variety]

We hope your NYE was as joyous, wasted, and overstuffed as ours was, and your First Hangover of 2009—which felt like a tiny monkey putting up drywall inside our skull—has abated.

We did make sure to tune in for a few minutes of CNN's unlikely Times Square correspondent team, with Anderson Cooper once again playing glass-closeted Dean Martin to Kathy Griffin's fag-hag Jerry Lewis. They seemed to be having a gay old time in the sub-zero temperatures—in the few minutes we caught leading up to the ball-drop, Kathy was pledging to pull Anderson's pants down at the stroke of midnight, and her scandalized partner was giggling with delight. Yup, it all seemed under control.

Apparently we missed the money-shot, however, which involved Griffin shouting back to an off-camera heckler, "You know, I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth!" as the show cut to commercial. Will this remark hasten the end of the Cooper & Griffin comedy era? Probably, but we hope not. In fact, they'd be smart to dump the atrociously unfunny D.L. Hughley Breaks the News, and give these two the slot—maybe promoted ad nauseam with the tagline, "The Best Heckler-Shaming Team on Television."

For contrast, we flipped channels between that and ABC to watch Dick Clark's final Rockin' Eve address. Getting old sucks. Happy 2009, Dick. You're a legend, and as far as we're concerned you should be able to ring in the New Year as long as you want to, even if you're just a brain suspended in a ball jar with an LED crawl underneath relaying your wishes that we have "the rockingest 2047 ever!"

Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your radically truncated guide to what's new, noteworthy and/or foolhardy enough to open on the last weekend of the year at the movies.

WHAT'S NEW: After the starry, lucrative grand finale that was the Christmas weekend, only four films bothered to shuffle out of the holiday hangover on to screens in the last minutes of 2008. Neither of the biggest among them — Defiance and Good — seem to have designated The Reader and Valkyrie worthy-enough Nazis-by-way-of-Hollywood parables for the season, so we now face a quartet of films recounting the era — each in their own, fitfullly successful ways, but perhaps not enough to justify their coexistence when all anyone really wants to do is sleep in until '09 begins in earnest next Monday.

Still, they're out there: Defiance (finally reaching screens after a delay by Paramount Vantage) banishes screen siblings Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell to the Belarussian woods, where their makeshift Jewish refugee encampment in 1941 established a heroic, true-story counterpoint to the horrors of the Holocaust. Directed by Edward Zwick, who previously dramatized Glory, The Last Samurai and Blood Diamond to within an inch of their lives, Defiance is Oscar fodder of the highest grade and the lowest momentum, opening on two screens too late in the year to aquire any traction other than a per-theater average that should crack $40,000.

Good, meanwhile, is a casualty of similar timing and near-mute word-of-mouth, adapting C.P. Taylor's play about a German intellectual (Viggo Mortensen, recalibrating his Aragorn accent to an academic lilt) who finds his novel about euthanasia perverted to endorse Nazi atrocities. The problem: He's the pervert, the proverbial "good German" who comes to realize that his helplessness is the least of the consequences of his complicity in Hitler's regime. Mortensen has the right idea here, following an enlightened parallel of Kate Winslet's equally bewildered, illiterate war criminal in The Reader, but Vicente Amorim's direction is so woefully on-the-nose and stage-managed (let Good count as Exhibit A in the Steadicam's own trial for crimes against humanity) that the actors are almost incidental to the moral crisis beating you over the head. It's too bad; there's something here that filmmakers Stephen Frears or Neil Jordan — with Mortensen's aid — probably could have knocked out of the park. But not this year.

Also opening: The Bollywood Memento rip-off — complete with amnesia, tattoos, Polaroids and everything — Ghajini; and the slice-of-arty-20-something-life Let Them Chirp a While.

THE BIG LOSER: N/A, unless you count us.

THE UNDERDOG: There's not so much to recommend here, either, so let's just suggest once again: If you haven't seen Synecdoche, New York, it's time. And even if you have, a second viewing of 2008's best film can't hurt.

FOR SHUT-INS: Now we're talking. New DVD's this week include the Shia-running-for-his-life thriller Eagle Eye; the underrated Keira Knightley drama The Duchess; Ricky Gervais's abortive big-screen breakthrough Ghost Town; Nick Broomfield's terrific narrative feature debut Battle For Haditha; and Alan Ball's notorious piece of shit Towelhead. Happy New Year — it can only get better from here.

For this, our final post of 2008, join Defamer in recalling the heroes, history and other Earth-shattering phenomena that raised the bar for years of pop culture to come.

· The year's top-three meme-ready utterances: "Contract, Guy, Contract." "Google me, you dumb fuck." And "I THINK SHE ABOUT TO PULL SOME'N OUTTA HER PANTS!" Not necessarily in that order.

· Things were going great for the gays after finally welcoming Clay Aiken and Lindsay Lohan into the fold. And then came Proposition 8.

· Shia LaBeouf had his balls thwacked, hand shattered, pinkie nearly amputated and likeness stolen. But it could have been worse: At least he's not Mike Myers. Or Eddie Murphy. Or a Wachowski brother.

· With the tragic help of the late Heath Ledger — and despite the best saboteurial efforts of Momzo the Clown — The Dark Knight became the box-office phenomenon of the decade.

· Twilight, Iron Man, Sex and the City, and plunderrific Indiana Jones 4 were box-office sensations, Australia, Speed Racer and Zack and Miri Make a Porno went straight to Flopz™. And Delgo was Del-gone before we knew it.

· Lessons in love came hard to Anne Hathaway, who could have learned a thing or two about how to find a man from classy Bachelor contestant Stacey. Or, if she's after something more casual, Ben Lyons is always happy to oblige Hollywood's starfucking needs.

· The 2008 vintage of celebrity sex media proved disappointing at best, with Verne Troyer's frightening video tryst easily outmaneuvering Kristin Davis's racy amateur porn for the overall top spot. Linsday Lohan handily won the Glossy Nudes category, while Adrienne Bailon earned Best Nontroversy with a little help from the Worst Publicist in the World.

· Yet scandal-plagued tween darling Miley Cyrus ultimately emerged in a class by herself, devouring her clothes and going topless-ish for Vanity Fair. But so what, right? Teenagers fuck.

· After numerous teases and an awards-show casualty, the WGA strike finally concluded. Bored with all that peacetime labor harmony, a defiant SAG turned its own missiles on Hollywood.

· We were saddened to see the dissolution of power couples ranging from Madonna and Guy Ritchie to Star Jones and Al Reynolds. If only they had half the excuse that Sarah Silverman had for her temporary bust-up with Jimmy Kimmel.

· The View usurped The Hills as our favorite source of shrill, soul-debasing thrills.

· The Oscars and Emmys were nice and everything, but this year we finally discovered we're really more of a Video Music Awards kind of blog.

· A handful of doomed mini-majors were at the vanguard of the film industry's march toward recession. Harvey Weinstein, meanwhile, straggled behind the pack to bury his dead and plot his retreat.

· We got to know — like really got to know — the Jonas Brothers, Courtenay Semel, Dustin Lance Black and Tyler Perry. In 2009, we resolve to finally meet our beloved Archie.

· Scientology might have had its detractors, scandals and sword-swinging nemeses, but at least its members didn't go around Hollywood asking who this crazy Rosh Hashanah person is.

· We cornered Judd Apatow, Robert Pattinson, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Griffin, Stephen Daldry, John Cusack, Werner Herzog, Rob Corddry, Russell Brand, David Cronenberg, Etan Cohen, Vera Farmiga, Casey Wilson, Dave Holmes and Dennis Hopper into having a word with us. Not all at once, alas, though that would have been awesome.

· Tom Cruise slogged through '08 as well with an ailing studio and a bit of an eyepatch problem, culminating in his "Nazi apologia" Valkyrie. Katie Holmes avoided the whole mess by spending a few months on Broadway.

· The fearless leadership combo of Jeff Zucker and Ben Silverman continued to offer reason upon reason why NBC is your home for Must-Flee TV.

· ZOMG!!!! EARRRRRRRRRTHQUAAAAAKE!!!!

· Nothing surprised us more than Corey Haim's touching full-page contrition. Except maybe for Dolly Parton's unspeakbly filthy mouth.

· So long, Mr. Lisanti. You are missed. As are you, Miss McAleer. And you, Mr. Reinhardt. And you, Miss Friedman. And you, Mr. Graham. Happy new year to them and to you, Dear Reader. We'll see you in 2009!

New Year's Eve is one of the worst television days of the year: year-in-review montages, college football, competing countdown shows. This lack of thoughtful programming is as good a reason to drink as any.

For three years in a row, we have been at a party where the TiVo got paused momentarily at some point during the night and everyone was too drunk to realize that we were watching the ball drop at 12:08 AM. Not to say that it won't happen this year, but these are the programs we'll be flipping between:

WATCH

Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2009 [10 PM/11:30 PM, ABC] - Ageless icons Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest team up again to bring you simply-scripted performance intros and limited off-the-cuff moments as they welcome the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift and Fall Out Boy to play songs that we have all heard a lot this year. A lot. Kellie Pickler and Fergie do some moderate lifting as the supporting hosts in alternate geographic locations, but DCNYREwRS2k9 is Seacrest at his Sea-best: Narrating American moments without irony or judgment.

TiVo

New Year's Eve Live with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin [11 PM, CNN] - This is good for skimming the morning after while trying to remember where you left your phone, glasses and boyfriend. If you can stand to have the volume on, listen for this pattern: AC makes a reference to someone/something important, Kathy Griffin makes fun of it, AC mentions that angry emails can be sent to Kathy. It might be shopworn, but it's still funny.

KILL

Totally New Year [6 PM, Disney] - Flip this on, give the kids some sparkling cider and go next door to your neighbor's key party. Your unassuming children will grin for six hours as Selena Gomez and the Wizards of Waverly Place cast host a marathon of pre-tween goodies.