lipstick-jungle

Martha's Coping Technique, Kanye's 'Shoekeeper'

cityfile · 01/30/09 06:34AM

Martha Stewart is so distraught over the death of her chow chow and her break-up with Charles Simonyi that she's been adopting cats left and right (and throwing them parties, too). Or at least that's what the National Enquirer says. [NE]
• Brooke Shields says the Lipstick Jungle stage manager who stole props from the set swiped cash from her wallet, too. [NYDN]
• Amy Winehouse's house in London was robbed yesterday. [People, The Sun]
Kimora Lee Simmons and Russell Simmons have finalized their divorce. Good thing, too, since she's pregnant with Djimon Hounsou's baby. [Us]
Kanye West employs a resident "shoekeeper" to keep track of his 450 pairs of shoes, which is what you'd do, too, if you were Kanye West. [The Sun]

Own A Hot Piece Of 'Lipstick Jungle'

Seth Abramovitch · 01/26/09 03:14PM

With the fate of NBC's uncanceled Lipstick Jungle a primetime uncertainty, one staffer took no chances with his fallback plans: He swiped $30,000 in fashions from the show and put them on eBay.

Lipstick Jungle Makes Headlines for Possibly Final Time

cityfile · 01/26/09 08:45AM

How fabulous for Lipstick Jungle: It's all over the news for a reason other than its disappointing ratings and impending death, namely that it's been a victim of a heinous crime. Stage manager Arthur Moreira, perhaps hoping to put some money aside in expectation of losing his job, filched a bunch of clothes and accessories worth $29,555 from the show's wardrobe and put them on Ebay. His cunning plan was foiled when agents for Sylvia Toledano, the designer of one of those hideous Swarovski crystal-adorned minaudieres, saw the purse for sale online. Moreira was arrested on Friday in a "sting operation," and has been charged with 13 counts of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and petty larceny. If only Lipstick's plotlines had been half as interesting!

Brooke Shields Isn't Giving Up

cityfile · 01/09/09 02:33PM

Lipstick Jungle's fate is sealed, but poor Brooke Shields appears determined to tune out the bad news. Although the show's finale airs tonight and co-star Robert Buckley has already signed on to star in a new CW show, none of that appears to be fazing Brooke, who says she's keeping the faith and "not going to give up" because "we keep getting emails" and "they're all positive." Too bad they don't hand out a Norman Vincent Peale Honorary Emmy for Optimism. Brooke would be a shoo-in! [Us]

Candace's Humble Country Retreat

cityfile · 01/09/09 10:43AM

As every newspaper profile of Candace Bushnell is obliged by law to mention, she didn't get rich off of Sex and the City, having sold the rights to Darren Star for a mere $60,000. Then she neglected to marry a Mr. Big-type mogul, opting unexpectedly for a ballet dancer ten years her junior. Her lifestyle, as a result, isn't exactly as lavish as her characters': Those seven-figure book advances don't go so far, she recently lost her radio show, and it's clear that executive-producing ratings disappointment Lipstick Jungle isn't going to provide for an early retirement. Still, at least she's got a second home, even if it is only worthy of a feature in the Hartford Courant rather than Architectural Digest.

Sex vs. Shopping: Sex Wins!

Richard Lawson · 11/24/08 02:50PM

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.

Lipstick Jungle Lives to See Another Day

cityfile · 11/18/08 09:03AM

Just when it looked as though viewers were going to be cruelly deprived of their weekly life-affirming glimpse into the lives of three mistresses of the universe who always drop everything to be supportive to one other (or to engage in the most idealized cougar-cub relationship ever likely to grace our screens), Lipstick Jungle has won an eleventh-hour reprieve.

Ben Silverman Searches for Subordinate to Drag Brooke Shields Off NBC Lot

Kyle Buchanan · 11/17/08 06:13PM

Few were surprised when NBC axed Lipstick Jungle, figuring that if a brutal, Project Runway-assisted title indoctrination couldn't help it gain a ratings foothold, nothing could. But wait! insists star Brooke Shields to Us. "It's not true," she said. "Our bosses are saying, 'You’re not canceled, don’t worry. We’re just trying to figure out how to make this make sense.'" Yes, if only a major media conglomerate like NBC could get the word out somehow! Still, James Hibberd writes that even though there's been a fan outcry (really?), there are other factors at play that may doom a new application of Lipstick:

Brooke Shields Keeps the Faith

cityfile · 11/17/08 12:58PM

Nevermind that Lipstick Jungle was axed by NBC last week: Brooke Shields thinks the show is doing great! In fact, she says the show has a "huge fanbase," people have been demonstrating their support by mailing NBC chief Jeff Zucker tubes of lipstick, and the only reason the the show is rumored to be on the rocks is because it's "so popular on DVR" that advertisers don't know what to do with it yet. Possibly related: Shields shares a birthday (and astrological chart) with Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking. [NYO, NYP]

Cancel-Happy Ben Silverman Uses Pope As Human Shield

Kyle Buchanan · 11/14/08 03:10PM

Before the premiere of this fall season, NBC head Ben Silverman liked to brag about the extensive movie star outreach he'd done to populate his shows: Selma Blair in Kath & Kim! Christian Slater in My Own Worst Enemy! Sadly, Kath was poorly received, Enemy has just been axed (alongside another show called something like Project Lipstick, we think?), and the rest of the fall lineup is skidding out like Silverman's Knight Rider retread. You might imagine, with all this broadcast carnage, that some of it might be Silverman's fault. Nuh-unh! protests Page Six:

Sexiness And A Sex Position Couldn't Save Lipstick Jungle And My Own Worst Enemy

Richard Lawson · 11/13/08 10:39AM

Sad news for those who are fans of people who were famous about eighteen years ago. NBC has canceled Christian Slater's new spy-with-dual-personalities show My Own Worst Enemy and Brooke Sheilds' the-world-is-a-cold-dead-place lady drama Lipstick Jungle. The latter was something of a miraculous holdover from last year, while Slater's show sputtered and died after only four episodes. This is bad news for the struggling NBC, which had pinned high hopes on Enemy, launching a rather enormous ad campaign. At least the show had one cultural zeitgeist moment before it died. And it had to do with sex! Last month the show made mention of something called The Hummingbird sex position. People were so curious about what this wife-pleasing technique could possibly be that they made it the top Google Trends search of the day. The crusty old ladies at wowOwow even got in the game! (Though it's still kind of unclear what, if anything, it actually is. I'm assuming it means really fast sex against a window.) Oh and it bears mentioning that Lipstick Jungle did invent the Cougarnaut Position, which can only be done with a two year old pair of Manolo Blahniks and a bitter sense of life having pretty much passed you by. So yeah, two once buzzy shows now lost to the ages. We expect more beloved but pretty much as little-watched shows like ABC's Pushing Daisies to follow fairly soon. Pie Maker Position or not. (Blackbirds required.)

Lipstick Jungle Gets Yanked

cityfile · 11/13/08 09:53AM

For a while it looked as if weekly topless scenes of Robert Buckley would keep Lipstick Jungle in business, but it seems that one man's perfect abs can only do so much: NBC has axed the Candace Bushnell adaptation after a move to the Friday lineup failed to make more viewers believe that massively powerful businesswomen juggling relationships, children, and perfect designer wardrobes would also have time to meet every day for breakfast, lunch, cocktails, and dinner. Of course our sympathies go out to the cast of Brooke Shields, Lindsay Price, and Kim Raver (as well as to the cast of My Own Worst Enemy, which NBC also canceled). But you know who we feel most sorry for? Bushnell's ballet dancer husband. This news is not going to improve her already volatile mood.

A New Baby for Brown, Arianna and Tina Make Nice

cityfile · 10/27/08 11:35AM

Campbell Brown is reportedly pregnant. [TVNewser]
♦ Arianna Huffington and Tina Brown aren't in competition. They're best friends! [NYT]
The Robb Report is on the market. The price? "Upwards of $100 million." [Folio]
♦ NBC has exiled the struggling Lipstick Jungle to Friday nights. [Variety]
♦ CNN's new (and appallingly unfunny) political humor show starring D.L. Hughley debuted this past weekend. [NYT]

Emily Gould Doppelgänger Featured In TV Show

Ryan Tate · 09/18/08 11:40PM

It stands to reason that a show about frazzled females in New York media might include a cameo by Emily Gould, the former Gawker editor now working on her six-figure "book of autobiographical stories" about being a frazzled female in new New York media. Via certain Observer staff Gould is just a degree or two of separation away from Lipstick Jungle creator Candace Bushnell. But after an email tip and way too much (20 minutes!) research, we've determined that those tattoos on the Lipstick extra's arms (above) just don't match up with Gould's own body art. So you (and we) should probably move on to thinking about more important things, like the implosion of Western capitalism. Or, you know, scrutinize this Gould-aping extra some more in the clip after the jump.

Kyle Buchanan · 08/26/08 04:00PM

Going for the Bronze: Though NBC's Olympic coverage provided the network with television's most watched event anywhere, ever, in the history of the universe, that massive audience hasn't translated into major spikes of interest for NBC's fall shows like Kath & Kim and My Own Worst Enemy. The network spent 65% of its promo time on returning shows (like Lipstick Jungle Lipstick Jungle Lipstick Jungle) but failed to perk awareness for anything but the 80's retread Knight Rider. Still, before NBC shoehorns Michael Phelps into Selma Blair's thong, they've got this bit of recent history to add perspective: the Athens Olympics were used to tout quickly flushed shows like Joey and LAX. Perhaps Kath & Kim will stand on its own merits — that is, as long as they didn't advertise it during the rebellion-inducing beach volleyball marathon. [Variety]

Watching Rich People Makes All the Misery of Being Poor Just Disappear

Richard Lawson · 08/26/08 11:49AM

Everyone's always been miserable, except when they're watching rich people. As if previously operating under the crazy idea that people watch television to see their own lives reflected back at them, television writers today are all a-tizzy about the amount of shows about rich people, scratching their heads and wondering why, in this time of foreclosures and defaulted mortgages and soaring gas prices, anyone would want to watch something about people with overabundances of money. Their theory is that shows like Gossip Girl, Dirty Sexy Money, Lipstick Jungle, and the upcoming CW series 90210 and Privileged all create wish-fulfillment in mostly hopeless times. And, um yeah!, they're right!

Did 'Project Runway' Apply Too Much 'Lipstick' Last Night?

Kyle Buchanan · 08/14/08 01:35PM

Perhaps cognizant of the fact that this is their last season to milk Project Runway for all it's worth, Bravo parent company NBC Universal has been cramming the show with so much obvious corporate synergy that you can practically hear Tim Gunn muttering, "This concerns me." Still, last week's challenge to create an outfit for the Olympics (currently being broadcast on NBC and NBC-owned channels!) was just a drop in the fierce, organza-draped bucket compared to the corporate chutzpah on display during last night's episode. With guest judge Brooke Shields in the house, the designers were challenged to create a look for her character on season two of the barely-renewed NBC drama Lipstick Jungle. Thanks to Molly McAleer, we've assembled a video of all the times the show's title was uttered last night — even when it sounded suspiciously ADR'd in! Who could have known that "Lipstick Jungle" would surpass "licious" and "Holla at your boy!" to become this season's biggest catchphrase? [Bravo]

What Bitch On Wheels Publicist Is Rosie Perez Affecting On 'Lipstick Jungle?'

Seth Abramovitch · 08/01/08 02:01PM

We know we gave Rosie Perez a hard time for her little Seth Rogaine gaffe on the Late Show the other week, but we kid because we love—and have since we first glimpsed her beating the shit out of the Do The Right Thing credits to "Fight the Power." On The Tonight Show last night, Jay Leno inquired as to the inspiration for her bitch-on-wheels flack character on Lipstick Jungle. As it turns out, the creation is based on a very real woman who wouldn't hesitate to plunge a pen in an eye and let the chain-attached clipboard dangle from the hollowed socket if it meant keeping a pushy gatecrasher out of an A-list-only event. Any guesses as to the Satanic flack's identity? [The Tonight Show]