Marion Cotillard chatting away.

Just when we were sick and tired of cinema screenings and movie premiere parties (Hello nomination-baiting season!), The Cinema Society alongside Dior and Vanity Fair hosted one of its best shindigs yet, at the legendary Indochine restaurant following a showing of the Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard’s 2012 French-Belgian film, which stars Marion Cotillard and dizzyingly sexy Matthias Schoenaerts.

“I’m gonna need eight glasses of Champagne to lift myself up from that one!” one power publicist bellowed to The Observer over the roaring crowd.

“But Marion Cotillard was just amazing!”

This writer unfortunately missed the screening in order to support wounded U.S. servicemen and women uptown for Stand Up For Heroes event, which featured performances by John Mayer, Roger Waters and Bruce Springsteen.

We were hoping for a sighting and perhaps to bavarder with the Oscar-winner.

"Marion had to immediately catch an international flight," one social stalwart dutifully informed us. Of course she had plenty of time to pose for the cameras in her Dior couture, flashing her wondrous baby-bump.

Those that did turn out for the Indochine post-bash made the night memorable. Mischievous attendees included Harley Vieira Newton, Jean-Marc Houmard, Katie Lee, Nan Bush and Bruce Weber, Stefano Tonchi, the mouthy Amy Sacco, Isiah Whitlock and Donna D'Cruz, who off-duty on the DJ gig for the evening.

“I think it’s the food!’ suggested a male model, whose name escaped us.

“These mushroom things and the filet mignon!” he raved between bites.

We schmoozed with model Johannes Huebl and admired Ellen von Unwerth dancing skills. An attempt to question Emma Watson about the premise of the film resulted in a chic pout; her smart phone was of more interest.

The film, which takes place in Antibes, we were told, follows a young man who develops a bond with a whale trainer and traces how their relationship intensifies after a tragic accident. It won critical acclaim at Cannes and the BFI Film Festival. So we shall see how it plays with American audiences. It is en Français.

We got a few words with the Belgian star, Matthias Schoenaerts, but most of it was in Flemish… “I am very excited about the film,” was about all our infantile Nederland skills could reward us.

Nonetheless, the night was about celebration and good vibes. Signature Belvedere cocktails like the Rust and Bone mojitos kept conversation lively and bodies loose until well after midnight.

We told the host of evening and The Cinema Society founder, Andrew Saffir that this was our favorite fête of his thus far. He was unfazed and just smiled politely. With that, we were off to Norwood to continue our foolish, but fabulous escapades.

Ruh-oh! (ABC)

-Though Mr. Timberlake might be going to the courthouse for something other than a marriage certificate: Britney Spears trial lawyers have brought up her former Mouseketeer co-star and boyfriend as a precipitating cause for her meltdown.

- Tom Hanks dropped a big 'ole F-bomb on Good Morning America, shattering the illusion that he is the celebrity equivalent of Ned Flanders. Even so, how adorable is it that he only curses when doing an impression of a foreign person who uses profanity?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C2h6JSnM-E

Daily reminder of your own mortality, now with more homophobia. (HuffingtonPost)

– The fact that this is the cover of Huffington Post's entertainment section is making us feel very sad, and very empty inside.

– Alex Rodriguez is busy lining up a limo full of champagne and coconut water for 33-year-old bikini model Kyna Treacy, his latest "I'm so over Cameron Diaz" conquest.

– If you thought Russell Brand was bad, just wait to you hear whom Katy Perry is hooking up with now. Okay, one hint: his racist penis has been inside Jessica Simpson.

– It's really frustrating when you have a brilliant idea and then realize someone's already made an entire Pinterist board of Claire Danes crying on Homeland.

"How presumptuous! I never disclose who my songs are about," Ms. Swift remarked to Glamour in an interview promoting her new album, which features a single rumored to be about another ex, actor Jake Gyllenhaal. Asked how she deals with criticism, Ms. Swift remarked, "I just kind of live a life, and I let all the gossip live somewhere else."

"Somewhere else" can be purchased at record stores near you, or on iTunes!

Jon Hamm with a mustache. (YouTube)

— Mindy Kaling was spotted pleading with John Mayer to give his expert opinion on her love life at Koi in the Trump SoHo. We can only speculate that his answer involved calling her genitals racist.

— Jon Hamm plays Aimee Mann's director in her new music video for Labrador:
http://youtu.be/XA1cX-wgMdM

— A bevy of musical greats made a show last night in memorial of Broadway composer Marvin Hamlisch. Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Aretha Franklin and Itzhak Perlman performed for VIPs including Mike Nichols, Nancy Pelosi, Regis Philbin, Susan Lucci, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alan Cumming, Sheldon Harnick, Mary Rodgers and Paul Shaffer.

— Eva Longoria and Mark Sanchez were spotted holding hands while leaving a romantic dinner at Daniel. You know, if you care about that kind of thing.

— And in chair-related news, Clint Eastwood feels bad about making fun of the president, and calls himself a Libertarian. Also he has no respect for tables.
http://youtu.be/7mIC8Nw7LqI

An hour after the weekly 3:30 a.m. text message spread like spitfire across New York, interns and set crew and assistants arrived at Professor Thom's, a sports bar in the East Village, with outfits assembled and the password for the door on the tips of their tongues. They had heard stories, of the cast members and guest hosts and the rockers who played the stage at 30 Rockefeller Center, and their assorted flashy pals, basking in drug cornucopia and cigarette smoke, a haze that lingered long after last call anywhere else in the city. It was the after-party for last week's Saturday Night Live, but the wild past seems no longer the norm.

These things end earlier now. By the time the creative underclass showed up to that corner of Second Avenue and barked out the password--"Mr. Cluck's Chuckle Shack"--The Observer had already endured the backstage antics of the show's fleet of bedheaded writers, the encore Paul Simon performances, the madhouse that is 30 Rock as guests scramble around the labyrinthine studios, and a massive all-show dinner that took over McCormick & Schmick's midtown digs.

A writer had invited us along, knowing that trying to get in as press would be impossible.

The narrow halls of 30 Rock's ninth floor are such that The Observer had to physically dodge every person they had ever laughed at in their lives. Seth Meyers, pacing and going over lines. Kristen Wiig, her elastic gumby face stone-cold as make-up artists caked on the powder. Lorne Michaels, shifting his paunch from soundboards to dressing rooms, which stretch down the hall from the viewing parties and reek conspicuously of cigarettes and weed.

And also: Josh Brolin, why are you thumbs-over-lips making out with Zach Galifianakis? Maya Rudolph, bride in this weekend's titular Bridesmaids, who knew you were very, very much expecting? And Morgan Spurlock, why are you here?

"I'm going to tap your leg," said the SNL writer who ushered us in to the city's most press-embargoed area, "whenever one of my jokes is coming up."

The show began and those who write the jokes sat on beat-up couches with clutter wedged between the cushions, the screen airing the show they had written--or rather were still writing; they cut and revise skits as they air. The temperament is that of calibrated frenzy, a free-for-all of creative modes smashing against each other.

Fred Armisen ducked out of a room and into a corner, emerging in the green vest, ready to pop up on Weekend Update.

Snatching a beer from the well-stocked coolers required navigating through the cast of The Office. And naturally, when The Observer ran into Jack McBrayer, we came close to asking him which way to the writers room--was he not Kenneth, an NBC page?

Then the host, Ed Helms, called the cast back on stage for the final bow, saxophones wailing behind them, as The Observer took a spot downstairs between indie darling Greta Gerwig and the guy who played Hurley on Lost, to snag a spot to see Mr. Simon close his set with "Kodachrome." iPhones went aloft, snapping pictures, and everyone decamped for the first of the parties.

"It's kind of a corporate thing," the writer announced as we walked into McCormick & Schmick's with Aziz Ansari and Jason Sudeikis.

"Great story everybody--John Mayer's here," the writer's agent said.

"We were at dinner, but we're gonna watch it later. I'm a late cat," Mr. Mayer told The Observer at the bar in the basement.

The singer has been maligned for his over-sharing habits with reporters, and for a while he zipped it up, but tonight his head was almost swallowing the recorder, lest he not be heard.

"I'm a big fan of everyone! I love everybody!" he said.

"They wanted to give me a line and I was like 'No! Don't!' It's funnier if I don't have a line!" said Chris Colfer, the Glee star.

"It's a little distracting in the writers room," said Mr. Galifinakis, whom had been watching the show with The Observer. He had foam-padding, outdated headphones strung around his neck. "I'm sure it translated well."

"I was actually leaving," said Andy Samberg, with his harp-plucking girlfriend Joanna Newsom.

To Professor Thom's, for the after party?

Mr. Samberg paused.

"Thinking about it."

He didn't show up, leaving the eye-batting interns to chain smoke in a corner, but by that time it was well into Sunday anyway.

nfreeman@observer.com

First, the app. What was yesterday a group text messaging and conference call app is now a more versatile tool. The big upgrade is in-app chat, which moves the group conversation to a data connection (and saves GroupMe some money on text messages). There's the option to use SMS at any time, preserving functionality for non-smartphone users and anyone stranded without a mobile web connection. "The ability to toggle between SMS and push notifications is so dear to everyone over here's heart," co-founder Steve Martocci said. "We added all these features without at all alienating our original users."

Android and iPhone users can also now add a photo and location to a message and see where group members are on a map. IPhone users can invite friends from Twitter, Facebook and Gmail and check into Foursquare when they add a location to a message. (A beta version of the BlackBerry app was released last week.)

GroupMe's new crop of hires also set themselves upon the website. GroupMe's hash-eyed smiley face has been restyled, the name is now lowercase and engineer Chris Connolly implemented a faux-3D effect on the homepage (use Chrome or Safari, and be impressed).

The upgrades have brought GroupMe to a crucial milestone on the grand roadmap in its co-founders' brains, Mr. Martocci says, paving the way for quick iteration. "We know what's coming and we know what we're building," he said. "We'll be able to extend it quickly now."

The company plans to reward (most of) its hardworking staff with a trip to South By Southwest, where GroupMe is planning parties and "fun surprises," he said.

GroupMe itself received a fun surprise last week: a cease-and-desist notice from musician John Mayer. After the company unveiled its Foursquare integration at the Foursquare Hack Day, developer and Mayer megafan Pat Nakajima posted the code publicly on the programming forum Github as "john-mayer" with a link to johnmayer.com.

Mr. Mayer's lawyer, who declined to comment for The Observer, promptly responded with a C&D. "They weren't that cool with it," Mr. Martocci said. "The library has been renamed after our favorite fictional mayor, Mayor Quimby from the Simpsons. Hopefully that'll be okay."

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries

Both sites are a sort of blog-lite, giving users a stripped down interface that lets them grab content from anywhere on the web and post it quickly. Tumblr bills itself as "The easiest way to blog" while Posterous chose the more gustatory "Easy as pie."

Posterous took the extra step of posting testimonials from folks who left Tumblr. "For the switch campaign, we knew we had to make some bold statements to break through the clutter but weren't intentionally trying to piss people off," said Posterous CEO Rich Pearson. "We have nothing against our competitors - we're just playing to win."

But as RRW pointed out today, Tumblr is crushing Posterous. In fact, over the last year, it's destroyed the competition, growing from about twice the size of Posterous to more than 8x it's size.

The growth in Tumblr's visitors probably has something to do with its popularity among celebs. Katy Perry, Josh Groban, John Legend and Pete Wentz are all Tumblr users. Earlier this week John Mayer made waves this week by shutting down his Twitter account, where he had 3.7 million followers, and switching to Tumblr full time.

Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson, an early investor, crowed that Tumblr has broken 1 billion page views a month, pretty rarefied company, on a total investment of just $10 million. For the folks over at Posterous, this must seem like the night of the living dead.

1. When They're In Charge We'll Have Only Ourselves to Blame

A few days ago we learned how Terminator truly begins: researchers at the Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing have taught robots how to lie. So--that's pretty much it, then, right? The beginning of the end? Final word on the subject below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Jo8QoOTQ4

2. John Mayer Walks Away, Newspapers Drift In His Wake, Sad Tumbleweeds Roll

Once there was a troubadour who had 3 million people a day to hang on his every 140 characters. Then he was gone, in the night, as if he'd never been there at all. His name was John Mayer. He left Twitter. And the world was sad. We have reached out to John Mayer via his Tumblr for comment. If we hear back from him, we'll let you know. Meanwhile, you'd think a John Mayer song might be appropriate here. We disagree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUWgE0EVQ9c

3. Go Ask Conan O'Brien Questions

The Ginger Ninja of Comedy will endeavor to make your Facebooking worthwhile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4aVTBebh-4&feature=player_embedded

Anyway, various versions of the HuffPo story have popped on less rigorously sourced sites. In a jeremiad that bemoans the state of web journalism, he tosses some awesomely barbed metaphors at the HuffPo, calling it:

• "the internet Death Star"
• "an insolvent law student willing to dance for a few extra dollars"
• "a stripper wearing reading glasses"

It's a political site that pays its writers poorly/nothing, yet hawks Chevy Malibus in banner ads, and then it goes and publishes unbylined, unsourced celebrity gossip! He is extremely on point here. He concludes with a headline of his own: "JOHN MAYER SLAMS HUFFPO: "GO F**K YOURSELF!" The Huffington Post acknowledged his rant with an update noting that he did not deny whether he and Jennifer were getting back together... Sounds like they want to piss him off some more.

We're hoping that, instead of another impassioned rant saying that the Huffington Post is an avaricious hypocrite, though, John Mayer responds with a simple diss track. The refrain could go, "The Huffington Post is full of s**t / I wonder if they'll invite Jen to guest edit." Two birds, one stone.