Remember when Sex and the City came along and started dictating to women what their hopes and dreams should be? It was a fun, heady time! The two main lessons were: shopping and fucking. That's what ladies do. And, when looking at Sexism's disciples, one can see a clear path where these two roads diverged in the yellow wood of a Barney's spring sale. One group of people, those (including Candace Bushnell!) behind the regrettable NBC women's seminar Lipstick Jungle bumbled off toward the shopping, and a young queen of New Jersey named Ashley Alexandra Dupre trotted off toward the fucking (specifically as a hooker with the Governor of New York!) Finally, one has emerged the victor. And it should come as no surprise that, in the end, the fucking won out. We mean to say that in a ratings battle that was historially waged on Friday night, Dupre's much ballyhooed Diane Sawyer 20/20 interview handily trounced Lipstick Jungle (which aired, on a Friday for some reason, in the same slot as the interview) with a 8.2 million to 3.3 million point spread. So, though series star Brooke Shields might deny it, Jungle is ding-dong diddily dead. And Ashley Dupre is famous(ish) again! Jungle has plenty of sex, sure, but it's mostly about the clothes (there's a character named Victory who is a fashionz dezinerz!) and the Baudelaire lifestyles the garments imply. Dupre was all about where the sexing will get you—money! in New York! fleeting, squirrely third-hand fame! Both gluttony and lust are strong ass sins, to be sure, but I guess in the end the carnality, unlike the consumerism, is free. Well, not free. But... Oh, you know what I mean.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 11/23 — Brunch at Alcove in Silver Lake on Sunday; spotted DOMINIC MONAGHAN and EVANGELINE LILLY. She looked fantastic (even in sweats and a T-shirt). He looked like a guy who knew he was the luckiest guy in the world! [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

This from-the-archives Hugh MacLeod comic pulled 1,181 diggs this morning. Timeless, Hugh, timeless.

Barack Obama totally wanted to give the auto makers billions of dollars, but, you know, when they showed up in DC and stepped off their fancy private jets and addressed congress, the representatives of the Big Three forgot to bring any sort of plan. How much money did they need and what were they going to do with it and how would they become solvent and restructure to become competitive again? They dont know! The president-elect knows he should probably not let the nation lose 2 million jobs in one fell swoop (unlike the sitting president) but, you know, they're not giving him much to work with here. Leading the Free World is already like one of those SNL sketches that doesn't need to be ten whole minutes long. Now we totally feel bad we made him be president.

♦ New York takes a long look in this week's issue at The Box, Simon Hammerstein's infamously sleazy club. Don't read it if you're eating or you're easily offended by tales of snot and/or raw sewage. [NYM]
♦ Fresh trouble for the Cipriani family: The head of the State Liquor Authority, Daniel Boyle, says an aide to Governor Paterson tried to "intimidate" him into renewing the family's liquor licenses. [NYP]
♦ Opening this week: Macao Trading Co., brought to you by the team behind Employees Only; Carroll Gardens' Buttermilk Channel; and Perle on Pearl Street. [NYM]
♦ The Observer has put up its list of top 10 new bars. [NYO]

Hopefully, most Defamer readers have a short work week and a long weekend to reflect on the descent into economic depression occurring in front of our eyes. With Obama naming his economic team today, it's time for you to put together your own team of advisers, namely your broker friend Steve and that attractive junior agent who told you that he has all his money in Turkish pharmaceutical stocks. If today - November 24 - is your birthday: Thanksgiving day promises a variety of experiences and flavors for you. Metaphorically speaking, avoid the green bean casserole (Jealousy) and salty gravy (Anger) but eat as much pumpkin pie (Comfort) as you like. The executive producers may have demanded that you lose 20 pounds for that bikini-centric role, but your mom's turkey (Shame) is being served in large quantities. Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21): A time for renewal is coming. Sure, you'll still be in poor health and not getting enough sleep, but those mid-season replacements will make your world bright again. More star sign servings after the jump!

After 17 years of false starts and whispery rumors, no one was shocked when Chinese Democracy, Guns N' Roses' (well, Axl Rose's at least) newest and much-delayed album, was finally released last week. Except for the, well, Chinese! As if they were living under some sort of all-the-way-around-the-world rock or something, this is apparently the first the Communist-y supernation has heard of the album. And they are not happy about it. The album's title is "venomously attacking China," according to national Chinese newspaper the Global Times. The album is laden with commentary on the Chinese government, referencing the banned spiritual practice of Falun Gong and featuring the 1989-y lyric: "if your Great Wall rocks blame yourself." (If you're Great Wall's a rockin', you're probably doin' the knockin'! Of boots! Chinese boots!) But, c'mon, we've known the title of this thing for years, and the Chinese are just now getting mad about it? They could have been raging about this since, like, before the internet even existed! Where were the pamphlets about how the album is a Western tool meant to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn"? I mean, it's true! And it's also about rockin' out! Their reaction, though resoundingly nationalistic and scary, is probably kind of what Axl and his newish bandmates were hoping for here stateside. Instead all they got was a deliciously side-winding review by Chuck Klosterman, and sad opening day debuts at Best Buy. So, I guess it just goes to show that the world has changed a lot since last we Used Our Illusion, but China hasn't noticed. Because, you know, they've been focusing on slightly bigger things. China State Media Blast New Guns N' Roses Album [AP]

T-Mobile's G1 phone, which runs Google's Android operating system, just doesn't have the cultural icon status of Apple's iPhone. But HTC, the Taiwanese company that makes the G1, revised its 2008 sales forecast up to one million, from an initial 600,000. (For context, Apple sold a million iPhones in the first 74 days.) Silicon Alley Insider asks the burning question: Who here bought one? Are G1 owners somehow different from iPhone evangelists who need to show their superphone to everyone on the bus?

Now that we have a glorious, hopey new president, it's time for the assholes to come out. Idiot L.E.S. designer Apollo Braun—famous for being the idiot who makes sweatshirts saying "Who Killed Obama?"— has issued a mumbly press release declaring that he will not stop making his idiot sweatshirts, despite alleged pressure from the FBI, which may or may not be a likely fabrication like the rest of the idiot's stories. He also gives an appropriately amusing quote!:

Alan Colmes, television's most beloved representative of the liberal Lizard People, has finally decided to leave the Hannity and Ineffectual Lizard Person show behind. Colmes will abandon his longtime partner Sean Hannity, who probably won't notice that he's just bullying a mop in a suit now, and develop his own weekend show. Maybe on the weekend show he'll invite a rotating series of louder, more charismatic alpha conservatives to shout him down or ignore him outright? Otherwise it'll just be an hour of Colmes trying to get a word in edgewise against dead air. Beckettian, really. [TVNewser]

Allow us to introduce to you our Inverse Baldwin Theory, which goes a little something like this: whenever one Baldwin rises in the public's estimation, another Baldwin must descend to heretofore unknown levels of douchebaggery to balance out the universe. Thus, it is so that as Alec Baldwin enjoys near-universal acclaim and awards for his role on 30 Rock, baby brother Stephen has been reduced to stunts like becoming a right-wing Republican, Celebrity Apprentice, and now... this.Appearing today on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet (the daytime chatfest hosted by Spaghetti Cat), Baldwin showed off the tattoo of Hannah Montana's initials that he had inked in a bid to appear on the Miley Cyrus-toplined show. Sadly, this misguided attempt to book an acting gig produced nothing but some strong guffaws from Cyrus, a round of boos from the confused Mike and Juliet audience, and Baldwin's preliminary placement on the Megan's Law registry. [The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet]

The global economy might be crumbling, but let us not forget that love still conquers all. Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt tied the knot last week in Mexico, Us confirms. And you might just tear up when you hear the tender words Spencer shared with his bride at the ceremony: "You are the light in my life like the sun to the earth! Your loving warmth makes me want to be a better person. Being with you, I feel complete. I'm honored to even be able to call you my wife. You are the most amazing, loving and caring woman on this planet. I will love you forever and always." [Us Weekly]

When you're done opening presents (slippers, again?) and eating your goose (not much meat, mostly fat) what will you do on Christmas? If you're like the rest of us gurgling popcorn stuffers, you'll go see one of the big ticket, Oscar-scented movies that are dancing on the screens down at your local multiplex. Australia, the Baz Luhrmann epic, will have been out for a month at that point, and its expensive glossy brother in arms, the life-in-reverse special effects vehicle The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, will have just come out that day. You'll spend a bundle on tickets and parking and snacks, and will it have been worth it? And, actually, will it have been worth it for the studios? Right now, the outlook seems pretty hazy. Australia cost a rumored $120 million to make, and Button is whispered about in the $150 million range. Which is astronomically expensive for movies that seriously hinge their box office receipts on resoundingly positive, ground-swelling reviews. There is always the potential for these films to be the next Titanic or Forrest Gump—darling little Oscar smashes that eventually became reviled bits of pop culture schmaltzery—but that's quite a gamble to take. It wasn't too long ago that the real things to see on Christmas were the Lord of the Rings films, big lush works of terrific filmmaking that they were. But those were exceptions to the increasingly depressing rule of large, painterly studio gambles being, for the most part, crap. So we wonder, then, why the Buttons and Australias of this world are still getting made, when the last four Best Picture Oscar winners were far smaller—and, most importantly, cheaper—in scale. Big budget box office thumps like The Last Samurai ($140 million) and Memoirs of a Geisha ($85 million) should have been the death knells of this creaky old idea of Holiday Prestige cinema. (Plus, nobody likes the Japs!) But here we're faced with Button, an FX-laden Magical Negro-besotted bit of Gumpery (though, Variety liked it! even if it's a bit "remote"), and Australia, a not that bad epic about a faraway land that, as a commenter astutely put it, is basically Canada with weirder mammals. In the core of my gooey heart, I hope they're both huge successes, because I sort of mourn the idea that the studios can make big, expensive, good dramas, but something tells me they won't win out in the end. We'll make early calls for Revolutionary Road (still studio, but way smaller), Slumdog Millionaire (a "specialty" studio pick-up), The Wrestler (tiny) instead.

A few weeks ago, it was reported that Julian Schnabel was stepping out on his wife, Olatz, with Palestinian author Rula Jebreal. Cindy Adams reports today that the artist/filmmaker put his mistress up in his Palazzo Chupi, "maybe a floor away from the missus." You'll undoubtedly be shocked to hear that both Julian and Olatz have now retained divorce lawyers. [NYP]

The studio fatwa prohibiting early reviews of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has ended, it seems, with Variety leading the critical charge online late Sunday. Prepare to be shocked by the general consensus: It's good, and will surely be nominated for Oscars! Who could have seen this coming? Nevertheless, the film has its detractors, and we hear from them — along with those slobbering at its altar — after the jump. (Light spoilers ahead.)· "David Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) have delivered an historic achievement, a masterful piece of cinema, and a moving treatise on death, loss, loneliness and love. As the movie proceeds, and Brad Pitt as Button ages backwards, we know where he is headed: it's where we are all going. But he feels he has to go there by himself, without his loved ones. And nobody wants to die alone." — Anne Thompson, Variety · "Perhaps it’s my youthful cynicism, who knows, but I thought Fincher brought an arm’s length approach to the emotions in the film and I wanted Roth’s reaction to that. Of course, Roth doesn’t particularly agree with my take. Indeed, he was right in the middle of telling me how the bathroom was filled with sobbers after the screening when a beautiful young lady walked up to us and told him how much the movie had affected her. But he took my comment in stride. 'Fincher is the kind of director that brings you right up to the point of sentiment and then brings it back,' he said. 'There’s something to be said for that I think.' " — Kris Tapley, InContention

Looking at cute animals online is pornographic in the sense that we are aroused (in a non-erotic way) and addicted to a certain type of image. Now there's a takeoff on the wildly pup-ular Shiba Inu puppycam live-feed: a DudeCam, featuring a bunch of guys rolling around on a bed, pretending to be puppies and tossing a frisbee around. It's, um, a bit homoerotic. Now, if they would just take off their shirts. But if you combined the most profitable aspects of the puppycam and the Mandog cam, it would be six girls rolling around a bed in their underwear. After that you get into Girls Gone Wild lesbian-orgy territory. That, friends, is the entire circle of life on the Internet. Click for the (PG-13) photographic history.

Forbes has "absolutely" denied last night's rumor that they were going to be bought by a Russian oligarch's private equity firm. They add that Forbes Russia isn't for sale to the firm, either. [Alley Insider]

NASA announced today that deadlines and budget overruns have forced them to "cut certain features" from the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory. The feature? A "debris container" designed to "collect and store rock fragments for future study purposes." One small cost cut for a man, one giant leap for mankind.

If you're bored today and interested in watching one of the angrier exchanges on cable news in the last few days, look no further than this angry confrontation over the weekend between Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto and former actor/economist Ben Stein. Who knew Ben Stein was capable of such emotion? [YouTube via Huffpo]

If only he could travel back in time to avert this catastrophe! After remarking that the only people who watch Heroes live are "saps and dipshits" who haven't figured out how to operate a DVR, show creator Tim Kring is apologizing for his remarks becoming so public. "It was a boneheaded attempt at being cute and making a point. Instead, it turned out to be just plain insulting and stupid." Wait, we're sorry: that was actually his attempt to explain season two of Heroes. [SyFy Portal]