The Fix

First Word

Anna's big farewell: It comes as little surprise that Anna Nicole Smith's funeral, set to take place in the Bahamas on Friday morning, isn't going to be a solemn, reserved affair. The New York Daily News reports that she "will be dressed in a specially made pink gown and [a] tiara" described as "over the top." Meanwhile, TMZ reports that the gated community in which the church hosting the service is located has announced it will charge camera crews $2,000 per camera and $5,000 to set up a live feed to cover the event. For the morbidly curious, TMZ will no doubt have up-to-the-minute reports of the spectacle throughout the day. (N.Y. Daily News, TMZ)

Jolie adopting again: Last week's rumblings that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are in the process of adopting a child from Vietnam look to be more than just rumblings. The country's top adoption official, Vu Duc Long, confirmed on Friday that Jolie had applied to adopt as a single parent, saying, "She just filed the papers this week." Last Thanksgiving, Pitt and Jolie took a trip to Ho Chi Minh City, where they visited at least one orphanage. (Associated Press)

D.C. madam auctioning off phone records: Deborah J. Palfrey, former owner of a "high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior" in Washington, D.C., announced Thursday that she's putting the phone records of her business -- which include the numbers of her Washington clientele -- up for sale. Palfrey's financial assets were seized by the IRS as part of an investigation into her business, and she hopes to sell the phone records -- all 46 pounds of them -- to raise money for her legal defense. Her lawyer says a price hasn't been set yet, "because we haven't finished mining the data to identify the individuals. Obviously if Bill Clinton's on the list that's a different matter than, you know, somebody nobody's ever heard of before." (Politico)

White noise ... Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are rumored to be under contract for an apartment -- costing in the neighborhood of $20 million -- at the famed Dakota building in New York. (Gawker) ... Despite rumors that her contract negotiations had broken down and she was planning to leave the show, "Grey's Anatomy" actress Katherine Heigl (right) says she's not going anywhere: "I continue to be passionate about and committed to this character." (Us Online) ... Warner Bros. is reportedly at work developing a film about the CIA leak scandal involving Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson. (Variety) ... Tied loosely to the opening of "Zodiac" on Friday, the Los Angeles Times offers up its casting suggestions for future serial killer films. Vincent Gallo as Charles Manson is brilliance -- click the link to open the slide show. (L.A. Times)

Buzz Index

• Most popular story on Google News: "Anna Nicole's Body Bound for Bahamas," Irish Examiner
• Most e-mailed story from the New York Times: "Whose Bed Is It Anyway?"
• Most popular news link on Technorati: "For Want of a Dentist," Washington Post
• Top entertainment story on Digg: "How the RIAA Almost Shut Down the Entire World Wide Web," forum.cheapbooks.com

; )

"Man Tries to Cash $50K Check From God" (Associated Press)

Judgment

Appreciating Pinter: Looking at a recent surge of revivals of Harold Pinter's plays in the U.K. and Kenneth Branagh's upcoming movie version of Pinter's adaptation of "Sleuth," Guardian theater critic Michael Billington says that both critics and theatergoers are finally really warming up to the playwright, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature last year. "Both artistically and politically, Pinter has persistently been ahead of the pack; and now the public and critics are at last catching up with him." And, Billington argues, the resurgence may be in part due to Pinter's politics: "For a long time he was derided for what those on the right saw as his paranoid obsession with American foreign policy and its contempt for international law ... [but] he has been proved prophetically accurate about American foreign policy." ("We Are Catching Up With This Man's Creative Talent at Last," the Guardian)

Numbers

$480.8 million: Viacom's fourth-quarter net profit, posted Thursday.
250: Number of job cuts Viacom subsidiary MTV announced on Thursday.
(Hollywood Reporter 1, 2)

Turn On

LL Cool J hosts the "38th NAACP Image Awards" (Fox, 8 p.m. EST) Friday night, while the detective shows "Monk" (USA, 9 p.m. EST) and "Psych" (USA, 10 p.m. EST) both have their season finales. On Sunday, it's the series premiere of both "The Winner" (Fox, 8:30 p.m. EST) -- with ex-"Daily Show" funnyman Rob Corddry -- and "Robin Hood" (BBC America, 9 p.m. EST)

Talk

Fix contributors: Heather Havrilesky, Scott Lamb, Kerry Lauerman, David Marchese, Laura Miller, Andrew O'Hehir, Amy Reiter, Stephanie Zacharek

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