Paris Hilton has filmed a mock campaign ad responding to John McCain's references to her in his latest campaign ad. In it, she calls the Republican candidate "the oldest celebrity in the world. [NY Daily News]

Writer Jay McInerney says John Edwards's reported mistress, Rielle Hunter, is "a nice girl"; she was the inspiration for the character of Alison Poole in Mr. McInerney's 1988 novel Story of My Life. [P6]  read more »

A 32-year-old ad copywriter, who sings in a downtown band and has a lot of tattoos, was on the phone from the East Village. His tone was confessional.

“For the last two years,” he said, “I’ve been chasing tail, sowing my wild oats, literally meeting girls and bringing them up to my apartment. And now”—his voice dropped a decibel or two—“I’ve gone three weeks without having sex. And I’m getting this response from some of my male friends: ‘Oh, good for you, that’s great.’ Almost like that’s more manly, more studly.  read more »

Yawn. What? Right. Here's the gossip round-up for Nov. 23, 2008, Thanksgiving Friday and possibly the slowest news day ever.

An eight-months-pregnant Nicole Richie and her friend, the society disc jockeyess Samantha Ronson, volunteered at a Hollywood soup kitchen yesterday.  read more »

Natalie Portman is insecure at times, the 26-year-old actress said in an interview with MTV, where she also talks about the consequences of her poor professional choices. “I might think I won't be able to do something, but I'll do it anyway, because I've sort of known that failing isn't that bad. Especially with my job, no one gets hurt. If I mess up, it's like, ‘OK, somebody loses a little money,’ which I know is a big deal to some people, but no one dies,” offered the 26-year-old star of director Zach Helm’s fantasy feature, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, which opens tomorrow. In the interview, Ms. Portman also talked about taking off her clothes for Wes Anderson’s short, Hotel Chevalier, referring to the fleshy episode as “really silly.” Though she purports to not “really have regrets,” she did say that she doesn’t “like the misappropriation of stuff, like when you create something as part of a story and then a piece of it ends up on a porn site.” In her next film, director Jim Sheridan’s drama Brothers, a remake of Susanne Bier’s 2004 Brødre, Ms. Portman will act alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, who plays her husband in the flick.

Fresh-out-of-the-package lovebirds Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal ran into a little paparazzi action last night while celebrating boo-day with Ms. Witherspoon’s wee tots. Hard as he may have tried, Mr. Gyllenhaal didn’t fool the camera-toting celeb-stalkers with his full-body gorilla suit. The Rendition star’s decidedly less-hairy girlfriend was much easier to spot, however, in a costume that looks something like a marriage of vampire slater Anne Rice and My Fair Lady.

Who’s the Gorilla? [A Socialite’s Life]

Adam B. Vary of Entertainment Weekly asks why Hollywood hasn't put out a gay-themed film since the commercially and critically acclaimed "Brokeback Mountain."

Brokeback was more than a movie. It was a phenomenon that commanded the cultural conversation for months, from Jay Leno to YouTube to the cover of The New Yorker. More important, it proved that straight audiences would snap up tickets to a same-sex romance. Since then, a few gay-themed films have been released (e.g., Notes on a Scandal). But seemingly no studio — nor any studio art-house division — has greenlit a film with a gay lead character. ''I don't think any studio responded by saying, 'Quick, dust off whatever gay dramas we have!''' says one former studio head. As surprising as it seemed that Brokeback could lose the Oscar to Crash, the real shock is just now setting in: Brokeback may have changed nothing.

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Move over, Meryl! Reese steals scenes from Streep in this timely political thriller about the government’s overzealous treatment of suspected terrorists.  read more »