• Fran Drescher is launching a skincare line — called FranBrand — this fall on HSN. The products are organic and paraben-free, because, as Drescher puts it, "Women are schmearing stuff on their décolleté, wondering why we're all getting breast cancer..."

• "...Once you wake up and smell the coffee, it's hard to go back to sleep. So I'm sounding the alarm." Drescher, a survivor of uterine cancer, founded the organization Cancer Schmancer. (And she also taught us to love Loehmann's.) [The Cut]
• As we learned yesterday, London Fog confirmed Gisele Bundchen's pregnancy by the roundabout way of announcing it had airbrushed her 5-6 month belly out of its latest campaign "to protect her privacy." But the outerwear brand also released a behind-the-scenes video of the shoot, which includes footage of the raw, unretouched shots as they appear on the computer monitor. A side-by-side comparison reveals exactly what London Fog thought wouldn't move units this fall. [SassyBella]
• Bar Refaeli is allegedly seeing Israeli multi-millionaire Teddy Sagi. Sagi owns a company that makes software for Internet gambling sites, and the nicest thing the Daily Mail can say about him is that he "has a lovely smile." The supermodel's relationship with Leonardo Di Caprio ended earlier this year. [Daily Mail]
• Liya Kebede addressed the UN Secretary-General's Forum on the topic of maternal health. Writes the supermodel, "In times of economic crisis, it is tempting to turn inward, to ignore or postpone the problems of the outside world and focus on ourselves. But, if we hope to thrive once again, we must realize that there are no outside problems in today's interwoven, globalized world. Each mother who dies leaves behind a devastated family and weakened community that will eventually, somehow, affect each of us. Each mother who dies deepens the financial and social strain on our world and puts economic recovery further away. Mothers are our best stimulus package because they invest in their families and in our collective future." [HuffPo]
• SassyBella unearthed footage of Karen Mulder hosting an E! special in 1999. The Dutch model encounters a new girl, who, when she introduces herself, turns out to be an 18-year-old Adriana Lima. [SassyBella]
• The first pictures of Rad by Rad Hourani, the Canadian designer's diffusion line, are looking pretty good, at least for those who were already fans of Hourani's unisex, pared-down rocker aesthetic. "This is exactly the same thing," as his main line, Hourani confirmed. Only instead of costing thousands of dollars it costs hundreds. We need more of this. [WWD]
• The writer of the sometimes entertaining, sometimes savage, always fascinating fashion blog The Emperor's Old Clothes has revealed himself — as New York designer Eric Gaskins. Gaskins, after 22 years in business, was this week forced to close his doors because of the economy. [NYTimes]
• And in September, Daphne Guinness is releasing a signature scent with Comme des Garçons. Only unlike most celebrity perfumes lines, this is actually the distinctive fragrance Guinness has, herself, been mixing for years. "I'll be in airports or in a taxi and the driver will say, ‘What are you wearing?'" reports the heiress. [WWD]
• Designer Hussein Chalayan is "weirded out" by models with clothing lines, like Kate Moss, Amber Valetta, Erin Wasson, and Elle MacPherson: "If you have a really strong sense of style and people want to aspire to being like you, I can understand that. But if you really are doing it just because you think of yourself as a brand and you haven't had the training and you know nothing about clothes, it kind of demeans all the training that designers have had." Chalayan thought Kate Moss's line for Topshop was a poor effort. "I don't think it represented her, and I didn't think she worked hard enough. I even told her to her face." How did la Moss respond? "She said, ‘Oh, I'm just trying to do a light thing; I'm not trying to do anything serious.' But I said, ‘That's not the point.'" [WWD]
• In which case, add Jessica Stam to the list of models who've raised Chalayan's ire. The Canadian just announced a collaboration with Rag & Bone. [Style.com]
• Vogue's Lauren Santo Domingo, on being told her boss Anna Wintour had worn flats to a party in the Hamptons: "I wonder if that means we can wear flats to the office now?" [The Cut]
• Fashion blind item: "Which fantastical designer has a new man? She's ditched her long term fiance for an artist with prime real estate." We're with the commenters on this: signs point to Erin Fetherston, who hasn't been photographed in public with her longtime fiancé, Hedi Ferjani, since late April. [Fashionista]
• Ali Wise, the Dolce & Gabbana publicist who was arrested for hacking into the voicemail of a woman who was dating Wise's ex boyfriend, is no longer a Dolce & Gabbana employee. Which must seem like the least of her problems: Wise is facing felony charges of computer trespass and eavesdropping. [WWD]
• A well-written parsing of W magazine's cover story on model Lara Stone: "The fashion industry — and, in turn, the fashion media — have such a warped concept of slimness that a model like Lara Stone is so much larger than her contemporaries that they feel the need to explain her presence. If Stone's body is such an outlier, what does that say about the rest of us? Worse, the magazine saw fit to issue the disclaimer that Stone 'is, it should be noted, a very lithe five foot ten.' Why, yes, do note that! As if there's the slightest chance someone is going to look at these photos and think Stone needs to, like, slow down on the Cheetos." [GlossedOver]
• Lagardère, the French publishing company that owns Hachette Filipacchi Media, which owns the U.S. edition of Elle magazine, has denied that it is in talks to sell the title to rival Hearst, as had been reported in yesterday's New York Post. [WWD]
• Scott Nylund, Beyoncé's design director, comes from Owatonna, Minnesota. Which is where you can see an exhibit that spans his earliest childhood sketches of women in dresses, to his college fashion collection, to his creations for Beyoncé. [StarTrib]
• Freja Beha Erichsen says Karl Lagerfeld's house in Vermont — which recently served as the setting for the fall Chanel campaign she starred in with Heidi Mount — is a serious farm. With horses and chickens and — spitting llamas. Erichsen also praised Chanel for providing food backstage at its runway shows, which a lot of brands don't manage to do. [W]
• Fashion Meets Finance, the terrible event for douchebags and gold-diggers, is back. It's happening August 6th in — where else? — Murray Hill. [FMF]
• Will Ferrell has a Nike sneaker coming out in Japan. It's inspired by Anchorman's Ron Burgundy, that lovable asshole we met, uh, five years ago. [HighSnobiety]
• Timberland lost $19.2 million in the last quarter, a worse-than-expected result that came off the back of a 14% drop in sales, to $179.7 million. [WWD]
• Shiseido was even worse off — its profits declined 57.8%. [WWD]
• Likewise Hugo Boss, which lost $21.17 million in the last quarter. [WWD]
• Bare Escentuals profits also slid 20% in the same period. [WWD]
• Competitor Avon's profits fell 64.3% on revenues that shrank by 9.7%. Revlon's sales fell 12.2%, and its total profits declined to just $200,000, from $19.9 million one year earlier. [WWD]
• Bucking this downward trend is Tod's — the Italian leather brand reported a 3.4% increase in sales for this first six months of this year. [WWD]
• Ann Taylor wants to cut $30 to $40 million in costs by "right-sizing" its organization. No word yet on the number of people who will be laid off. [WWD]
• Three members of a multi-million-dollar New York counterfeiting ring received prison sentences, and a fourth was sentenced to probation by a federal judge. Michael Chu, the group's leader, was in 2005 ordered to pay $7 million in damages stemming from an unrelated counterfeiting case involving North Face jackets. This time, Chu, who imported fake Nike, Chanel and Burberry products, was sentenced to prison for just over 8 years. [WWD]

• American Idol runner-up Adam Glambert has been vague about his sexuality, but a source says:

He'll come out, officially, on the cover of the next Rolling Stone. [Page Six]

• For the love of Zeus: Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer might be back on. Here is an actual quote from a "source" o the set of The Baster: "[John] wasn't calling her or texting her. But, as she got lonelier and the shoot for her new movie wore on, she started reaching out to him, sometimes very late at night and sometimes after a few too many glasses of wine." Boozy old lonely sad tragic drunk dialing! [MSNBC]
• Jen Aniston's movie is filming near her ex-roommate's restaurant; the roomie is the one who wrote a memoir and depicted Aniston as "weight-obsessed." Unscripted dramz. [Page Six]
• Pierce Brosnan saved Uma Thurman from an out-of-control van on the set of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief! He saw the runaway vehicle "hurtling down a hill" towards Uma and jumped into the drivers' seat and slammed on the brakes. [Daily Express]
• Unsolicited uterus update: Nicole Kidman dyed her hair red and has a "poochy stomach," so clearly she must be pregnant. [Page Six]
• Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez have been dating for about a week but she is "already following A-Rod around." [Page Six]
• Order in the court! Al Roker got in big trouble yesterday for snapping pictures while on jury duty. [NY Daily News]
• Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman together on Broadway? Can your ovaries stand it? [NY Daily News]
• The ex-wife of Jon Cryer (aka Duckie Dale) has been arrested for felony child neglect. [TMZ]
• Is Demi Moore going to the UK without Ashton Kutcher? Well that would mean a woman acting independently of her husband! Sound the alarm! [Mirror]
• "Carla Bruni: I feel pain when people criticise my husband... and mock my low-heeled shoes." [Daily Mail]
• Will Susan Boyle bail out of Britain's Got Talent? At this point, she could get a record deal without actually finishing the program. "The producers of the show are going to do everything in their power to make sure she is there on May 30," said a source close to the show. "Whatever Susan wants between now and then, she'll have." [MSNBC Scoop]
• This report says that network bosses will not get rid of Susan Boyle, despite the fears that she's not coping well with her new-found fame. [Mirror]
• Before he joined the cast of SNL, Andy Samberg worked as a writer for the MTV Movie Awards. So the fact that he's hosting Sunday's show means he's coming full circle, in a way. He says: "It's going to be action packed. There's going to be some surprises - nothing I can divulge, but it will involve celebrities. It's going to be great. There's going to be some pre-taped stuff, some digital shorts-style stuff, and a lot of fun collaborations." [AP]
• The rules for I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here state that there is to be "no bullying, nonconsensual touching, racist or homophobic language, romantic advances (at least ones 'which are not desired or returned'), assault or sex in camp." Can Heidi and Spencer abide? [Gatecrasher]
• Four words: Bridget Jones The Musical. [NY Post]
• Is Disney being cheap with Miley Cyrus? She's getting "only" $5,000 for a week of work to guest star on The Suite Life On Deck. [TMZ]
• Jon and Kate Gosselin spent Memorial Day apart: She took the kids on a boat ride in North Carolina; he was seen in an upstate New York bar with two women. [People]
• Here's video of the Gossip Girl cast talking about various things; Blake Lively has been traveled through Asia on her break from the show and is halfway to getting certified for her scuba license. Penn Badgley went with her and grew a beard, saying, "I looked like a homeless person." [E!]
• The Jonas Brothers do not fight, says Nick Jonas. "We get along very well. I think it's just because we have a different kind of respect for one another, being in the band together. We consider each other as equals. There's no picking on the youngest, it's just not that way." Boo. Zzzzz. [Mirror]
• "Her sunglasses gleam. Her skin is scrubbed, her body pneumatic, her vast white teeth dazzling in the sunshine. Meeting Kruger is, in fact, an almost entirely predictable experience. She is pleasant and pretty and punctual […] She looks extraordinary on screen, but disarmingly normal face-to-face. She is not alienatingly gorgeous […] bland, malleable beauty […]" — from a profile on Diane Kruger. [Guardian]
• Lily Allen will have a cameo appearance in the Aussie soap Neighbors. [Independent]
• Cate Blanchett's Sydney Theatre Company is thankful to Tom Stoppard, whose play Rock and Roll sold the largest number of tickets over the last 12 months. [Telegraph]
• So Mayim Bialik is the first celeb on What Not To Wear, but Stacy London and Clinton Kelly had some restrictions: the woman formerly known as Blossom doesn't wear pants or leather. [People]
• Sherri Shepherd will be taking WWE superstar wrestler Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP) to the prom. No, really. [Page Six]
• Dr. Dre appears in a Dr. Pepper ad, and so do eight seconds of his new, long-awaited album, Detox. [LA Times, Reuters]
• Comedian Zach Galifianakis gets a lot of big-screen time in The Hangover, which could make him into a movie star. [WSJ]
• NBC CEO Jeff Zucker says Seinfeld would not make it on TV today, since shows have less time to mature. [CBS News]
• An Australian woman was sentenced to more than two years in prison today for stalking American Idol's Diana DeGarmo over the Internet. [AP]
• Amy Adams will star in Leap, about a very detail-oriented woman who plans to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day — "and things sort of go off course with the help of a very handsome, roguish Irishman." Matthew Goode is her co-star. [USA Today]
• Break out the jazz flute: Will Ferrell's in talks to do an Anchorman sequel. [NY Daily News]
• Emily Mortimer has purchased a house in Amagansett, Long Island. [Daily Express]
• Chris Martin has lost his voice and Coldplay had to cancel a show in Saratoga Springs, NY. [The Sun]
• Steve Martin's banjo music CD means the actor is on the U.S. pop album chart for the first time since 1981. [Reuters]
• Lucy Gordon, the Spider-Man 3 actress who was found dead in her paris apartment last week, apparently hanged herself, two days before her 29th birthday. She had just finished filming her role as British model-actress Jane Birkin in the biopic of Serge Gainsbourg when she died. [People]
• Phil Spector will be sentenced today. [UPI]
• The Rockabye Baby! CD has hits by Nirvana, Queen, AC/DC, Bob Marley and Pink Floyd — done in lullaby version. With the lights out, it's less dangerous? [The Sun]
• Blind item: "Which former newscaster was so drunk at a recent fete that she could barely remember her own name, never mind what day it was?" [Gatecrasher]
• "There are people who take the quest for youth too far. Madonna – she's from the show-off brigade. She makes my skin crawl. I call her desperate. I know she's got a wonderful willpower and beauty regime but talk about the ‘me' generation wrapped up in one! I think as you get older, you get the face you deserve. I'm hoping that good habits will get me through." — former Dynasty actress Stephanie Beacham. [Daily Express]
• "I tried really hard not to be who I am. I tried super hard. It was a difficult journey for me to come to terms and be whole and happy with who I am." — Kelly McGillis, who says coming out as a lesbian has not been easy, either. [People]
• "It is sad that Linda Hogan continues to attempt to throw her family under the bus to gain publicity. In terms of the ongoing divorce suit, Hulk Hogan and his legal team would gladly take Linda up on her offer to submit to a legally supervised drug test and certainly Terry would do the same. We believe the results would speak for themselves and reveal that Linda's idea of a good time would definitely not be appropriate for Mass or a family restaurant." — An attorney for Hulk Hogan. [Perez]
• "The Tonight Show means everything to me. I'll have good moments and bad, but I'll keep coming at it. At 4 a.m., I do wake up sometimes and go, 'Oh my God, it's The Tonight Show. But nothing funny comes out of reverence. I'll take care of this franchise. The key is to put aside the fear and say, 'Let's just make some people laugh.'" — Conan O'Brien, who plans to host the show "Until I'm 160, because there will be medical advancements. Fallon will take over for me when I retire at 108 to travel with my family. But it won't be Jimmy, it'll be his brain in a jar." [USA Today]
• "As I look around my friends' Tweets I see banality on all sides. I think if people were able to take these 140 characters (allowed in each post) and develop a poetic Western form - a haiku of our own in which all human existence could be compressed into those 140 characters - that would be a satisfying thing, but that's not what I see when I read them." — Hugh Laurie on Twitter. [MSNBC]
• "Tattoos are sexy. I love my name on a woman; it lets me know I'm serious" — Tyrese Gibson to InStyle. [Page Six]
• "I really want to work with Madonna. It doesn't seem a likely pairing, maybe, but I just think that she is so creative and has such vision." — Adam "Glambert" Lambert. [Mirror]

• Many have expressed doubts about Jennifer Figge's 24-day swim across the Atlantic ocean. As several internet commenters have pointed out, in order for Figge to have crossed the Atlantic in such a short time, she would have needed to swim more than 80 miles a day. • For the third year in a row, a 26-year-old Canadian woman has taken to the streets of Toronto to offer free hugs. • An 8-year-old British girl with a dentist phobia recently starved to death. After undergoing traumatic dental surgery, Sophie Waller refused to open her mouth to speak or eat. • Mattel has created a new Barbie doll based on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Mattel says they hope that the doll (which is "flattering" to Merkel) will be an inspiration for young girls. • Just in time for Valentines Day: for the low price of £29.95 you can purchase Sex Panther cologne, first seen in the movie Anchorman. Sex Panther works every time 60% of the time, so you really can't go wrong! • Recent high school graduate Katherine Evens is fighting back against charges of cyberbullying. Evens was suspended for cyberbullying two months after publishing a Facebook rant about her teacher, which invited other students to share their complaints. She is now suing her school to have the suspension removed from her record. • A new study shows that women who drink two or more cans of soda per day are almost twice as likely to develop kidney disease. Fortunately, diet soda did not appear to carry the same risks. • The World Boxing Council has reversed their approval of Kazumi Izaki's title shot due to health concerns. At 45, Izaki is Japan's oldest female boxer, and if she had been allowed to fight for the belt, she could have been the oldest world champion. • Farmers in Britain are abandoning cauliflower due to decreased demand, opting to grow broccoli instead. However, cauliflower-lovers are fighting back with an ad campaign designed to increase public awareness of the benefits of the pale brassica. • The first woman to receive a face transplant in the U.S. has been discharged from the hospital. The woman, whose name remains unknown, is only the fourth person in the world to undergo this surgery. • An Indevus Pharmaceuticals gel designed to protect women from contracting HIV/AIDS has been shown to be effective up to 30% of the time. • Researchers have identified neurochemical mechanisms which they believe may be the underlying cause for feelings of depression and increased anxiety that arise in men when they are separated from their female partners. • There is a fascinating profile in the Telegraph of Ruth Dee (not her real name), who suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (also known as Multiple Personality Disorder). Dee describes her traumatic childhood and the many personalities that sprung up as her way of coping with abuse. • A new study shows that our "gut instincts" may be more effective than we think. Researchers found that when making decisions, we sometimes access memories that we are unaware of having formed. • Eluana Englaro, the 38-year-old woman at the center of Italy's right-to-die debate, passed away today, much to the relief of her family and friends. •

Anyway, Dargis takes issue, not only with the smug step brothers of the title, but also with the portrayal of the women they love. "So, once again, there is the spectacle and pathos of the sexually stunted immature male, here times two: Brennan (Mr. Ferrell) and Dale (Mr. Reilly)," Dargis writes. "Mary Steenburgen, as Brennan’s mother, Nancy, takes the fantasy parent role: she’s saintly, sexy — her relaxed, ready smile telegraphs satisfaction — and endlessly patient. She looks good for a woman who would have had her youngest at about 14."

Dargis goes on to skewer the film further for its semi-insulting portrayal of both men and women, but really, it seems like the cardinal sin in this comedy is that it's not especially funny. I don't really mind so much if comedies don't show women in the best light or elevate the adolescent male psyche, so long as they're entertaining. But Dargis' description of Ferrell and Reilly — "They’re losers that only a mother, an entertainment manager or a gang of self-satisfied comedy insiders could love" — makes me think this movie is both vaguely insulting and entirely unfunny. Come on Apatow and Co., we've seen Freaks and Geeks, and even the actual adolescents in that show were more mature than these dingbats. You can do better. Whatever, I'll probably see it anyway. (You're talking to a woman who saw Let's Go To Prison in theaters. I have no standards.)

Once More To The Well Of Goofball Comedy [NYT]

Earlier: What To Expect When You're Expecting Too Much From A Movie
Now That Her Paycheck Has Cleared, Katherine Heigl Calls Knocked Up Sexist