You would think we had reached some kind of critical mass of being fascinated with the famous. But it's all-consuming: pictures and interviews aren't enough. We want their jeans, their bags, their cute shoes. Celebrity-branded fragrances — from Liz Taylor's White Diamonds to Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely and Britney's Curious — bring in millions. Maybe it was just a matter of time before Antiquity fragrances hit the market.

The Antiquity scents are made from DNA tests performed on hair clippings provided by "renowned celebrity hair collector" John Reznikoff. Each fragrance comes in a sculpted aluminum bottle. Einstein's is called IQ and comes in a flask shaped like a light bulb; Entrance is made from Joan Crawford's genetic code and comes in a bottle shaped like a vaginal entrance. Or is that a shoe stretcher? You can also buy Marilyn, based on Marilyn Monroe; Monarch (Kate Hepburn), and Blue Suede (Elvis). But remember: These scents do not smell like a dead celebrities. They smell like perfumes… made from the DNA of a dead celebrity.

Of course these notable figures have a magnetic pull, whether for their charisma, talent or sex appeal. But honestly: Does anyone really believe that a little stardust will rub off and make a non-famous person more exciting? Or does buying into this stuff reek of desperation?

Okay, okay. I'll admit it: I'd be interested in Eau de Josephine Baker.

Perfume's Heaven Scent: New 'Antiquity' Fragrances Based On DNA Of Dead Celebs [NY Daily News]
Related: Antiquity [My DNA Fragrance]

• Sources say Paula Abdul is basically done with American Idol. Just like when she sees a mediocre contestant, it's all: "Thank you, but no." [MSNBC Scoop]

• Former American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe says maybe it was the producers' fault that "stalker" Paula Goodspeed ended up in the same room with Abdul on the show: "We've seen over 700,000 contestants. And one has made a terrible, terrible mistake." [People]
• Macaulay Culkin's sister Dakota died yesterday in a terrible traffic accident in L.A.; she stepped off a curb and was struck by a car. [TMZ]
• Scarlett Johansson talks about hubs Ryan Reynolds: "Getting married is a huge moment in anyone's life, and the few months leading up to it were a little crazy. But Ryan and I are in love, and we're enjoying evolving our relationship together. I feel that my life and my work are heading in the right direction." Also? They're both very romantic. Just so you know. [Perez Hilton]
• Holy sunglasses! Stevie Wonder might be the next contestant on Dancing With The Stars. Stevie sez: "It'd be fun. It's not impossible, but right now it's just a thought… Come on. You've got to think. If I have 7 children, I've got to be able to dance right?" [Perez Hilton]
• Oooh, a book exposing secrets about Martha Stewart? Written by a member of her own family? Intimate details of Martha's boozing, eating and crying binges… the stars she hates, what really happened in prison and her "special" lady friend. A good thing? [Jossip]
• Tom Cruise's new flick, Valkyrie: Reviews are meh. Not good for a $90 million picture. [Fox 411]
• Sienna Miller and Balthazar Getty are still going strong; they were seen checking out some rock show in Hollywood. [Yahoo News via E!]
• Watch Sienna miller act like a mental patient as she wanders around in a hospital gown and smears blood on a wall in this video by UK band The Hours. Deep. [Just Jared]
• Mariah Carey's world tour is canceled. Bun in oven? [Perez Hilton]
• Britney's kid burped while she was wishing people Merry Christmas in a video or her site. Charming! [People]
• Heath Ledger's family is "so proud" the actor got a Golden Globe nomination for The Dark Knight. [People]
• There's a London couple being sentenced for supplying drugs to a "hit list" of celebs including — wait for it — Amy Winehouse. [The Star]
• "Of the 90 or so actors to grace the Saturday Night Live stage since its first show in 1975, only eight have been African-American." Boo. And ridiculous. [Gatecrasher]
• Here's everything you never wanted to know about how Samantha Ronson is suing the lawyer she hired to stop Perez Hilton from spreading rumors about her and how the lawyer is suing her right back and how blogs are writing about the whole thing. [LA Times]
• Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard are joining the cast of Classic Stage Company’s production of Uncle Vanya. Pretty daamn cute, being in a plaay together. [NY Times]
• Ugly Betty's Ashley Jensen is suing the host of Bravo's Flipping Out, Jeff Lewis over "aggressive threats and outrageous behavior." [TMZ]
• We've heard this one before but here it is again: Seal says Heidi Klum told him she was pregnant after their first date. "I laughed and said, 'Already? That’s amazing!' She said, 'Not with you stupid.' There was a pause of about 10 seconds," Seal says, "and I said, 'It doesn’t change the way I feel about you because the fact that you are here tells me that you think a lot about me.'" [Mirror]
• Enrique Inglesias groped a 17-year-old girl on stage in London while singing to her. Well, he put his hand on her heart. But that is kind of close to some other stuff. The young lady in question, Maria from Essex says: "I had such an amazing night. I'll never forget it. It felt like a dream. He's so hot." [Mirror]
• Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham is coming back to primetime! Look for her in an ABC comedy from writer Alex Herschlag (Will and Grace) about a self-help guru who teaches women how to live a stress-free life — but struggles to follow her own advice when her boyfriend dumps her. [Variety]
• Eminem and Dr. Dre are back in the studio, and Em says he and his mentor are "up to our old mischievous ways." Good news. [Reuters]
• Real estate drama between Nicolette Sheridan and former fiancé Michael Bolton: Dude is homeless! [Page Six]
• Did Gwyneth Paltrow have a boob job? [Page Six]
• Axl Rose is anthropophobic — afraid of people. Some people are probably quite Axlphobic. [Page Six]
• If you smell the pungent scent of marijuana, know this: Willie Nelson cannot be far away. [Page Six]
• Kim Raver's heading to Ethiopia for UNICEF. [Page Six]
• Whitney Port has finally discovered that L.A. guys are trolls and New York guys are "more confident and know what they want." [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which rehabbed starlet convinced a group of college kids to bring her a big bag of powder? She hoarded all the drugs for herself before kicking the kids out of her hotel. But the crew had the last laugh - they stole her entire liquor stash as they left." [Gatecrasher]
• Rihanna and Kelly Osbourne are coaching Nicole Richie as she prepares to release her debut album? Does this mean corsets and "Papa Don't Preach"? [Daily News]
• ALL 13 streets on a new £400million estate are being named after Rolling Stones hits. [The Sun]
• "I've heard stories from my aunts and uncles and my dad, I had an attitude about Germans, a prejudice about them. I speak several languages and I'm interested in languages. I can read a German paper slowly and can almost figure it out, yet I don't speak German and I realize I don't want to speak German. I don't like the way it sounds and I don't like being in Germany. By playing a German and trying to be honest about it I sort of got past that prejudice and judgment... Germans are people too!" — Viggo Mortensen. [Daily Express]
• "Mental disease is the only thing you can be diagnosed with and get yelled at for having. Why is that? From the moment I was diagnosed there was a certain sense of euphoria and 'Thank God' we figured this out. I thought that I'd become such a curmudgeon." — The Sopranos' Joe Pantoliano, who was miserable despite the success and family he'd always wanted. (He was diagnosed with clinical depression.) [AP]
• "I loved her, no question, in the proper platonic sense but, yes, I loved her. We were filming one day and I kept her waiting on set because I was still in my caravan, playing cards. She stormed in and shouted: 'You are a real nut and I've met some nuts in my day.' And then she hit me. A couple of hours later, I went to see her and gave her a present to say I was sorry for keeping her waiting. She said: 'Don't worry, pig. I only hit the people I love.'" — Peter O'Toole on Katharine Hepburn. [Daily Mail]
• "Some people believe that if you date a person from another race you are somehow denying who you are. They believe that dating someone with a different skin color somehow makes you a self-hater, loathing that which makes you yourself. They believe that it's an insult to your parents, ancestors, heritage and community. I find this view much more telling about the people who say this than about those who do find a physical, spiritual, mental and emotional connection with someone who looks different than themselves. Choosing someone who I am physically attracted to and who also inspires, uplifts, educates and keeps me interested is my first priority- not their race." — Russell Simmons. [ONTD]
• "I've never played super-dark in a film. I think I'd be curious to do it. If a character comes along that I find really compelling and it works out that the director wants to go that direction with me, I'm totally willing to try. I've actually auditioned, but I think people have a hard time making the leap from — I don't want to use this as a cop-out, but my energy is not dark, my being is not dark. Oh, gosh — I can be very dark… I become very Eeyore." — Amy Adams. [Washington Post]
• "WHAT I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day" - Phyllis Diller in Bruce Littlefield's book, Merry Christmas, America!. [Page Six]
• "I have excellent facilities for ablutions, should you ever tire of the sweating and such. I'd be happy to scrub your back - from a safe distance." "We could meet early evening and bolster your rightly damaged ego with orgasms." "Come and see me in the daytime. We could generate a satanic infant." — text messages to ladies from Russell Brand. [Gatecrasher]

"Anyone who's seen Mean Girls knows what a fierce comic actress she is," Lambert continues, in a well-argued essay lamenting the loss of the Hollywood "comedy of equals."

The Screwball Comedies of the thirties and forties really were a Golden Age of well-matched onscreen couples. Film critics like A.O. Scott and Anthony Lane, and David Denby are not just whistling Dixie when they claim that it was better back then...Women remain a much underserved audience and we deserve much better than How To Lose A Guy Wearing 27 Dresses. I'm just thankful the discussions have finally been opened back up. There are many millions of different modes for being male and female in the modern age. Maybe someday soon we'll get to see some romantic comedies that genuinely reflect that. Lord knows Woody Allen's not gonna make them.

And seriously? What. Happened. In the thirties, tough dames like Rosalind Russell sparred with Cary Grant His Girl Friday while Katharine Hepburn and Cary duked it out in Bringing Up Baby and the Philadelphia Story. One could argue that these films of male and female equals disappeared during the late 40s in the post WWII push to get women back into the kitchen, but uh, it's been 60 years since then.

I imagine film execs think that a "comedy of equals" couldn't sell tickets and so give us movies about equally repellent personalities like that forthcoming Cameron Diaz/ Ashton Kutcher shitshow What Happens In Vegas. Maybe part of the problem is that movie actresses are now solely seen as the sum of their parts (the New Yorker's Anthony Lane on on Tina Fey: "She hasn't yet made up her mind how funny her body is meant to be. She isn't big enough to make a joke of her ripeness, like Bette Midler, but she's no Lily Tomlin, either."). Fingers crossed that Tina Fey and Diablo Cody's successes can help change all that, but it's going to take time.

In Which A Comedy Of Equals Beats A Bromance Every Time [This Recording]
Weekend Results [Box Office Mojo]
Anthony Lane Thinks Tina Fey Is Fat, But Not Fat Enough To Be Funny [Emily Magazine]

Earlier: Baby Mama Is Fertile Ground For Mixed Feelings From Reviewers
Does The Female "Buddy" Movie Exist?

"I think it's dangerous for her to play the part," Shaw said. "Dangerous for the actor she's doing the judo with. She'll probably kill him."

Not only was her physical prowess amazing (Great Kate played tennis and swam for nearly all her 96 years), but she was also a supporter of Planned Parenthood almost from the womb. Her mother crusaded for suffrage and also for Margaret Sanger, and in 1981, Kate was speaking out in support of PP and its mission. "'It is imperative that I join Planned Parenthood," Kate said. "Sadly even today there are those who would completely destroy all of her tireless work and deprive all of us of our right to plan our families.'' The mealy-mouthed starlets of today could certainly take a lesson from Kate's outspoken example.

The Theatrical Katharine Hepburn, in Journals and Letters [New York Times]
Planned Parenthood Mourns the Loss of American Icon and Beloved Friend and Advocate Katharine Hepburn [Planned Parenthood]
The Return of the Helpless Girl [Time, 1967]

• In the weakest blind item ever, the NY Daily News' Ben Widdicombe asks which designer's recent stint in "rehab" also masked (hah!) a cosmetic surgery and recovery. WHO could it be? And, uh, for what? A facelift? Calf implants? Labiaplasty?? Photo scrutiny-fest to come. [Gatecrasher]
  
• In totally unrelated news, 'Page Six' reminds readers that Marc Jacobs just got out of rehab. And oh yeah, he's getting back together with his douchey boyfriend, whose initials he now has tattooed above his belly button. [Page Six]
  
• Remember how Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn tied for Best Actress at the 1969 Oscars? (We know you weren't born a day before 1980, homos, it's a figure of speech!) Anyway, it was sort of like that at the Oscars of Fashion last night, wherein an industry vet and a pair of tenacious up-and-comers (Oscar de la Renta and Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez) tied for Womenswear Designer Of The Year for a second year in a row. [AP via Washington Post]

• The rise of the minimum wage is creating a rise in anxiety for teen clothing retailers, a business predicated on the idea that if you hire slutty-looking, inexperienced high school kids to hawk your wares, you can make up for the amount of shit they let their friends steal by paying them practically nothing. WTF, federal government? Can we, like, vote on this? [WWD, sub req'd]
• In the weirdest revenge tale we've heard of late, French Sole shoe designer Jane Winkworth names her designs after people she hates, shuffling the letters of their names around. We hope to see ZELBEEJ on someone's feet soon: Anyone that crazy probably hates a lot of people, and also, probably designs pretty nice stuff. [Vogue UK]