SPEED DIAL BRETT RATNER

Brett Ratner has a $5,000-a-month cell-phone bill and makes at least 100 calls a day from his seven cell phones (including one in each of his five cars). He is, to put it mildly, the speed-dialer's speed-dialer. In fact, Ratner believes that Motorola "started giving 'em to me free because when my antenna fell off and they transferred my numbers to a new phone and looked at my speed dial they saw all these celebrities, and were like, 'Who is this guy?"' Indeed, who is Brett Ratner?

And which celebs lurk within his alphabetically listed, voice-activated speed dial? Well, as far as we're concerned, Ratner, 30, is the L.A.based director of Money Talks, Rush Hour, and, out this month, The Family Man, a romantic fantasy/comedy starring Nicolas Cage. The film features

a score by Danny Elfman ("We're still friends, I mean, Oingo Boingo—come on!"), not to mention songs by Seal and Elvis Costello, both of whom Ratner talks to often, if not daily. But as far as he's concerned, Ratner is "just a Jewish kid from Miami Beach who always wanted to be ghetto fabulous with the flyest new phone," which is why Puff Daddy ("We're sharing a boat this Christmas in St. Barts"), Mariah Carey ("We speak every day"), Russell Simmons ("My best friend"), and Warren Beatty

("I call him for advice") are all programmed. Of course, as far as you're probably concerned, Brett Ratner was at one point, and still may someday be, the future Mr. Rebecca Gayheart. No wonder he's gone through, "like, 20 cell phones," because the Noxzema model turned actress "always breaks 'em," according to Ratner. "Whenever she gets mad at me, she'll either throw it out the window or smash it against the wall. She knows that's my one weakness." Or maybe she simply realizes that so much space-age kibitzing might be hazardous to his health. "I try not to think about it," he mumbles, referring to research possibly linking cell-phone use to brain tumors. "I have the headset, but I've lost maybe, like, 15 of them already."

BOB MACK