Donna Karan heard that viral videos are really popular with the kids these days, so she hired Sting’s son to make a two-minute movie starring Christina Ricci and a handbag, then released it to the wilds of the internet. Er, sorry Donna, we’re not sure this has what it takes to be the next Susan Boyle-level web hit, but hey, it’s Friday. We’ll go ahead and post it anyway. [WSJ]

• Christina Ricci and Owen Benjamin have called off their engagement. [Dlisted]—I wonder if the breakup had something to do with their height difference.
• Now, Kate Gosselin’s former fiance is dishing on her past. Factory worker Adam Miller says Kate cheated on him with some guy in a Corvette. [Perez Hilton]
• A rep for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie says the couple is going strong in response to the National Enquirer‘s insistence they had split up. [E! Online]—If they did break up, I think they’d work out some agreement to keep their family together, and we’d never know if they were together or not.

Which celeb will be daring enough to attend a red-carpet event in this black dress featuring cut-outs and what looks like horse hair fringe? We’re putting our money on Christina Ricci. [Jil Sander fashion show; Milan Fashion Week; 9/23/2008]

Now and Then is one of those classic girls-coming-of-age movies. Most of the action takes place in the 1970s, so actresses Christina Ricci, Thora Birch, Gaby Hoffmann, and Ashleigh Aston Moore got to wear some pretty sweet clothes. (I hope I’m not the only one to think cut-off jean shorts, plaid shirts, and the most basic sneakers ever are awesome.) Exchange your usual flip-flops for canvas sneaks, and channel your favorite of the four girls—I’m a Samantha (Gaby Hoffmann). 

BOOKS

• Life With My Sister Madonna by Christopher Ciccone Surprisingly enough, the thing we’re excited the most about this week is a book…okay, so it’s not War and Peace obvi, but it is about Madonna!  Written by her brother, (who is gay of course), it’s supposed to be a tell-all that shows the real way to Madonna’s heart isn’t through blood relation, but through her crotch. Duh!  Still we can’t wait to read it!

Back when Contempo Casuals made us all total Betties, they probably marketed more sheer tops than Spring Break wet t-shirt contests. And now, almost a decade later, sheer is sexier than ever!  The likes of actress Christina Ricci at the Met Costume Gala and model Eva Herzigova at Cannes have strutted down the red carpet in nothing but hot shorts under sheer dresses.  Even Courtney Love is rockin’ a see-through slip—although you know she was probably just going to get coffee. But celebs shouldn’t get to have all the fun, here’s how we regular folk can show off!

“I love Christina Ricci. She’s really hot and I think she looks kind of odd like me…I fell in love with her when I saw Black Snake Moan. She was naked in that one. I kind of drooled over her naked scenes…” —Tila Tequila [OK magazine]

There were so many people at this dang Gala, it felt like more of an event than the Academy Awards (which is a pretty big event in celeb land). We could have included so many more—Emmy Rossum, Fergie-Ferg, Molly Sims, etc.—but these ten ladies about the jump stood out the most. We would have done more, but our slideshow program (and our Emily, who does the photo uploading) would have exploded. Click here to see all the fanciful fanciness.

We love a girl who expresses things excessively with her hands. [Promoting Speed Racer on The Today Show on May 5, 2008]

Apparently not. Yesterday, Simcha and I were comparing notes on our first celebrity crushes—my first serious one was Wil Wheaton from Star Trek: The Next Generation (waving my nerd flag!), while Simcha was hot for The Count from Sesame Street. Even now, Simcha says she still goes for guys who seem a little like vampires, whereas Wil was my first and last dork crush after he replied to my loving fan letter with a generic postcard of himself decked out in Batman memorabilia (hat, shirt, buttons on his light jean jacket, the works). But up until that point I was convinced we were destined for each other. Talking about all of this with Simcha made me want to find out who Emily and Catherine’s crushes were when they were boy crazy tweens. Unfortunately, both of them said they never crushed on celebrities.