January 2008 Archives

When Intern George isn't rubbing our feet, scrawling "Mr. George Fug Girls" on his Trapper Keeper, or peeling grapes that he then feeds us from a silver platter -- as we lounge on our chaises and swoon, "Dahling, WHITHER the fug today, I shall simply PERISH if Mischa Barton doesn't soon leave the house in a Value Village tee!" -- we sometimes let him answer our mail. And today, we decided to let him print some of his answers. We swear on all things holy (so, on George himself) that these are all VERY real e-mails we've received at GFY HQ, with names removed to protect the somewhat innocent.

E-mail #1

Subject line: Not Above The Law

This is to say paris your  not above the law !!!!!YOur  driving that way  and  more than one time is  pathetic ,  you  could  of killed  someone and hurt them  very badly .Can ya  deal with that ????Hope the  law  gives you the  most penalty  that  can be  given ,  you  deserve it totally , no  sympathy for you  period .  And there's  no  muff for your  tiolet  seat  either , so enjoy  that !!!!!!!Get it  good !!!!Not a  Fan  !!!!!!!

Dear Friend,

Playing Sherlock Holmes for a second on this vague, veiled missive, I am sensing feelings of rich disdain. A very wise person once told me, "The sum of your feeling equals the number of exclamation points you use when you're in a wicked strop." Here's a hint: Her name started with "M" and ended in "other Teresa." I thought we'd topped the scale at 14, which were the number she used in a handwritten missive to me raging against the cancellation of Models, Inc., but your 23 push things into the next stratosphere. Such passion! My toes are curling, pet. And you're right, if there's one thing that scaly heiress needs, it's a tiolet seat sans muff. But that doesn't mean I can't knit one for myself...

Getting it good,

G

E-mail #2

Subject line: (none)

hey can u tell amanda bines to stay out of my garbage can thanx

Dear Friend,

I understand your concerns; Anne Heche was once in my garbage can for three weeks. It was awkward, but she wove me potholders out of my old Coffee Bean cups, so how could I begrudge her? I urge you, put on your empathy pants and consider things from your visitor's perspective: Did it ever occur to you there might be a reason Amanda Bynes is in your garbage can? Maybe she was just passing by, and lost an earring. Maybe you threw out a sweater she thought would make a great piece for her clothing line. Maybe she's rooting around to try and find your Social Security Number so that she can steal your identity and run off to Fiji to escape memories of Sydney White. Gosh, maybe she saw an intergalactic wolf-sprite peeking out at her, begging her to return with it to another galaxy and save the world by spawning a new civilization with Andy Dick (although I've heard that before, ahem, ANNE, and it didn't happen, so tread carefully if Amanda tries that old chestnut).

My point is, stretch out your arms and embrace the unknown -- in this case, the reasons a Hollywood starlet is standing on your lawn nape-deep in your trash. There is nothing a hug of curiosity can't answer. But bring noseplugs if you ate fish recently.

Feeling whiffy,

G

E-mail #3

Subject line: words "Go Fug Yourself" sure is a fashion reject

the words "go fug yourself" sure is a a verbal fashion reject. it has very BAD connotation.  you probably thought you were oh so cute, but it is a blight on the culture. here you are, pointing out the errors of others, with a blattant business name that is depressing and demeaning.

Dear Friend,

It is? It does? Bless, you sweet peach of knowledge -- I learn so much from reading the GFY e-mail. For instance, I only found out the other day that Britney is just like the rest of us, and that Hilary Duff needs her head shaved by someone who cares. But consider me your knight in shining tuxedo. Once I explain this to the girls, we'll have a renaming summit, going for something that really sends out positive vibes. We'll get all the best cuddle-monkeys in the business together -- David Cassidy, Faye Dunaway, that Verizon guy... It's going to be  magnificent. Gird your loins, Officer Sweetpea of the Reject Police, because it's going to set them aflutter and the ensuing round of hugs will shake the smog layer clean out of Los Angeles.

HappyFashionPancakes.com,

G

E-mail #4

Subject line: hi

I am interested in know an famous people do you can help me ? Thanks

Dear Friend,

I can do better than that. I can hold you. I can sate your thirst, and sup on your elixir of yearning for some celebrity sparkle. My name is George. I wear many hats, but my most cherished is the Intern headdress strapped to my grateful cranium every time I get to man the bar at GFY HQ. I cherish sarcasm, pigs, human rights, and silk pillowcases. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can whiff the world, and it smells like truffles. Hugs are my kryptonite but also my moisturizer. Feel this. Know me. Let's buy each other dinner and then watch it get cold, to remind us that the piece of our hearts we gave to one another lives somewhere else.

I must go. Celebrity Apprentice beckons like a post-coital sandwich.

You're hired,

G

I've been staring at this photo for a few days now, and I still can't decide fully.

What do you think: avant garde...

... or wearable modern art entitled Aborted Straitjacket?

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of Rachel Bilson's style lately. She goes out to get some ice cream and I want to pop up and hand her a Well Played. I just think she's been dressing so well lately. And she's so tiny, but never shows up looking like she just stepped off the midnight train from Stumpyville. So why did Seventeen decide that it would be an awesome idea if she recreated a Seventeen cover from when I was in 8th grade?

SO 8Os. The only way I will approve is if the inside ALSO recreates the Seventeen of my youth, specifically including a photoshoot I have never forgotten despite the fact that it is probably nearly twenty years old: Johnny Depp, wearing a striped shirt, holding a puppy. You know how they say that when you die, one of your loved ones comes out of the light to escort you to heaven? I think it's very possible that when I finally fatally overdose on chalupas or whatever, Johnny Depp is going to emerge from the sky with that puppy to carry me home. In other news, I imagine overdosing on chalupas isn't the #1 Secret to a GREAT BODY, as per that headline, but what are you gonna do?

We've already mentioned how crappy the Lake Bell/Eva Longoria (Parker)/Paul Rudd flick Over Her Dead Body looks, like Paul Rudd tripped and fell into an ABC Family movie.  And I'm incline to extend the same judgment (crappy) to Lake Bell's look at the premiere:

I like that color on her, and she's certainly very pretty and well-toned, but I really really really am not a fan of those shoes and I suspect that in the final analysis she resembles nothing so much as a robot cocktail waitress. But my judgment might be clouded by the fact that I'm totally gripped with fear that, one day in the future, I'll be stuck on a plane watching this terrible movie with only the emergency exit doors as an escape.

Katee Sackhoff was the only amusing thing about NBC's ill-fated Bionic Woman remake -- so, of course, the last few episodes they showed didn't have her in it, because why roll with what works?

Indeed, Katee may have applied that philosophy to her wardrobe. At the premiere of Over Her Dead Body (which, parenthetically: How BAD does that look?!? Could someone out there please go ahead and pay Paul Rudd's mortgage or something, so he doesn't feel like he has to stoop this low? He's too good for it, and also, I don't want him to develop a hunch), Katee whipped out this little number:

[Photo: flynetonline.com]

Hopefully Katee is waving to the person who fought his or her way through the crowd with her coat. Not only is the dress washing her out, but the color is radioactive. You could ball it up, shove it into your DeLorean's secret reactor, and hit up 1955 for a sock hop.

Also, that fabric is notoriously unforgiving if you plan to sit down in it -- the limo ride already gave her some creases -- but it lends credence to my secret theory that she is merely going through the motions here and plans to bolt as soon as the lights go down in the theater. Perhaps she, too, does not want to remember Paul Rudd this way.

This is Kellie Hoggart, who used to be an Australian pop singer and is now on some children's program there called Hi-5, which I'm sure brings great joy to Australian children and terrible pain to their parents, the kind of pain that comes when you find yourself standing in front of the copier at work idly humming a song from the show and then realizing that you've been singing it for THREE DAYS:

Leaving aside the fact that she looks rather like Courtney Peldon to me (a revelation which led to my wondering if perhaps she has a marginally less-well-known, darker-haired sister and a sadly broken engagement to a quirky actor in her past), I must express sincere concern about her midsection, and what tragic event led her to her decision to wrap it up like a package of Jordon almonds at a particularly frilly wedding.

Oh, Amanda Bynes. You're so nice and person-colored now.

And that gown is totally gorgeous -- love that peacock color, love the bodice, love the flirty layers at the bottom, love the way it fits her.  The hair might be a little twee, but you know what? I don't care today. That's right. Dare I say it, I'm in a GOOD MOOD, and looking at this dress only enhances it -- like frosting on an already really yummy piece of carrot cake. I am pretty sure that those boys in the background are trying really hard not to stare at her, but inside, are totally stoked that Hot Amanda Bynes is standing mere feet from them and are planning to tell all their friends tomorrow that they held her hand and that she promised they'd get married in 15 years. Or, you know, whatever it is that boys do. Having no brothers, I can't say for sure. Doodling your names jointly inside a big heart all over a spiral notebook and then frantically doing MASH, trying to cheat so that you end up married, living in a mansion, driving a Ferrari, working as a movie star, having three kids, and owning stacks of emeralds, seems like it's more of a girly response.

Could someone please email me and explain to me how Raven-Symone has turned into a 40-something woman in the last six weeks?

I mean, she's one sexy 40-something, right? Like, I'd love to see this woman move into the gated community on The Real Housewives of Orange County and shake things up. I suspect, judging from this get-up, that her character would secretly running a call-girl operation out of her McMansion, which - I think it goes without saying -- would be AMAZING.

But as our R-S is only 23 years old, you'd hope she'd be showing up places looking a bit more Gossip Girl and a bit less MILF. I'd tell her so personally, but I'm scared she might deck me with that dinner-plate ring and I can't afford the cosmetic dentistry to repair the damage it would inflict.

Remember the last time we saw Joy Bryant? To say this is an improvement is an understatement:

I wonder if she's got some kind of multiple personality thing going on -- a la Bai Ling but with less nudity (also, doesn't "a la Bai Ling" sound like an option on the menu at some poncy restaurant, like, "the chicken can also be served a la Bai Ling for a surcharge of $8"?). One night, Joy's wardrobe selection is driven by the girl who REALLY loves dressing like an extra from a poorly-produced Lifetime movie about pioneers, the next evening it's propelled by the one with simple, glamourous taste. If I may offer some advice, Joy, see if you can do something about getting rid of Girl One and hang on like cold, grim death to Girl Two.

We got an email from one of our attractive and insightful readers this morning, along with this photo of Lindsay, remarking that it looks like Lindsay woke up "and went insane," and I have to say that I agree, although perhaps it's closer to the truth to say that she woke up and continued to BE insane:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

And yet there is something about this that I almost kind of love. I know, I know, but it's just because she's SO over the top with the HAIR and the FUR and the BAG and the f'ing shiny endless leggings and the PRODUCT PLACEMENT that it's almost hilarious. For one thing, it's so low-rent to accept a surreptitious contract to promote a stop-smoking gum or whatever the heck it is that she's flinging around. For another, I feel like this secret celebrity product placement thing opens up a whole world of possible hilarity for those of us who enjoy celebrity-sighting: ScarJo ostentatiously gulping a Slurpee as part of her secret contract with 7-11, Katie Holmes waving around a package of Tampax, Paris Hilton gallivanting about with a giant bag of Baked Lays over her head.

So potentially, Lindsay has lulled me into an acceptance of her Leggings Habit, as I also think she looks sort of cute here:

Okay, so a lot of you were divided on whether Kylie looked great or ghastly -- we do love our alliteration here at GFY HQ -- in the purple outfit from last week. Since our polling function was down that day, I'm making it up to you with this little number; I'm curious to know whether the following will be just as divisive, or whether we will all soon be hugging each other and sobbing about how that gulf between us was simply too painful to endure.

[Photos: Splash News]

On the pro list: It fits her. The shoes are good, as are her shoulders. Her waist is tiny. She appears to have shaved her legs. Oh, and her face is mobile enough for an ear-splitting grin.

Cons: Its fabric resembles nothing so much as the upholstery on the patio deckchairs at the Scotsdale Golden-Age Retirement Villas and Shuffleboard Training Facility.

Oh, and there's one more.

[Photos: Splash News]

Oh, Bai. Don't be so bashful.

I'm not sure what's up with turning your boobs into a befuddling curiosity. It's not as if most people don't find a lady's bustline interesting in and of itself -- no, now it needs a gimmick. First Kate Hudson glides down the SAG carpet looking like a pigeon has flown headfirst into her sternum, and now Sandra Oh is joining the fray:

Actually, I just noticed that the black fabric has splotches on it that almost look like very organized raindrops, so staring at those is a diversion in and of itself that is terrible for my brow furrow. Mostly, though, I find the massive bow growing out of her chest sort of confusing. As if all this time, we never realized that all those gigantic ribbons people stick on their brand-new Lexus-- the one they secretly bought their partner for Christmas, drove home under apparent cover of deep night, and parked in the driveway, all totally unbeknownst to their unsuspicious and probably a tad unobservant spouse/parent/significant other -- are actually manufactured straight from Sandra Oh's mammaries. Once it's done you just clip it off and another one starts to form in its place. Kind of creepy from an anatomical point of view, but as performance art, it's a pretty impressive side gig.

** Okay, so this is what we get for being in midair during the SAGs, and cross-eyed with jet-lag today -- apparently Sandra is paying homage to traditional Korean garb called a hanbok. So I will resist the urge to strap her to a brand-new vehicle and gift it to someone by burying the keys in a pile of pancakes, and instead applaud her for getting in touch with her heritage while apologizing for the fact that I am out of touch with my non-pop-culture references. Next thing you know someone will show up in a bodice shaped like Eiffel Tower and I'll be all, "Hey, look, it's that casino in Las Vegas!" And then Jessica will have to behead me. It'll be so tragic.

The first thing that strikes me about this photo is how much Kate Hudson looks like her mother:

The second thing is how pale and wan and unenthusiastic she looks. The third thing is that I feel like she wears this sort of dress ALL THE TIME. There is certainly something to be said for wearing a style of clothes that works for you -- which is why I wear so many turbans -- but there is MORE to be said for wearing something that doesn't prompt the reaction, "is this picture from like six years ago?"

Whether or not Angelina Jolie is actually pregnant, she sure knows how to make sure the rumors are swirling like the chocolate-vanilla soft-serve cone she might be dipping pickles and cheese into:

And Brad knows how to feed into rumors that he is in need of a three-day nap. But Angelina... I have to say, she really can wear almost anything and look fantastic. I still find myself wishing it were, say, blood red -- you know, since she doesn't have to worry about it being too matchy with her vial of Type AB or whatever --  but on the whole you could pleat a Hefty bag and Angelina would work it. Of course, if she's NOT pregnant, then this choice is a little more confusing. Surely she is be-fetused, though, right? It's Angie. She's not going to veer off the freeway at the Caftan City exit, past the Cheesecake Factory at the Rue McClanahan Rest Stop and Service Plaza, unless she's playing coy with the contents of her womb.

There's a lot I could say about Jane Krakowksi's unfortunate craft-fair bodice:

But the fact that our image provider has her uniformly labeled as "Marla Maples" kind of says it all, no?

Take a moment, dear readers, and behold our delicious intern, George:

Is he not suave? Do you not wish to bathe in his manly aura? Don't you have several inappropriate and double entendre-laced questions to pose?  That's a good thing, as extenuating circumstances have conspired -- both circumstantially and extenuatingly -- to prevent us from posting until a bit later today. Please hold tight as we sharpen our claws and whip things into shape, and please check back later for SAG-y deliciousness. Thank you. Have we mentioned you look fantastic today?

You'd think the worst thing about Sharon Stone's new look was her "I did this by myself with my nail clippers at four in the morning after six Harvey Wallbangers and a cup of gravy!" haircut, wouldn't you?

But that's only because you haven't seen the rest of it:

I once went to a focus group screening of the film in which Rita Wilson got her one leading role: the Steve Martin/Adam Sandler/Parker Posey/Jon Stewart/Nora Ephron stinker Mixed Nuts. I clearly recall waiting to get into the movie and one of the studio flunkies dramatically yanking the guy in front of me out of line and tossing him out of the screening. "YOU'RE A FILM STUDENT," the flunky screamed (the news that they didn't want film students in the screening in addition to the usual banning of journalists and whatnot was a bad sign). "HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?" the student screamed back. "YOU'RE WEARING AN ERASERHEAD TEE SHIRT!" the flunky spat. And the student had to admit defeat in the face of this stunning evidence and slunk away.

The movie WAS bad, although I seem to recall that Rita wasn't terrible. She may, however, want to make like that student and skulk off in the face of this photo, though:

On its own, each of these pieces is not that terrible -- well, the sweater is very reminiscent of something you'd see on an overly invested floor manager at Talbots, the one who is only half-joking about fire-bombing the Chico's across the food court -- but as a whole, she rather looks as though she just fell, fully-formed, out of the mid-nineties, where she is just months away from deciding to bin her beret in order to staunch all the Monica Lewinsky jokes she's been hearing. But cheer up, 90s Rita. You're about to get a big part in a Steve Martin movie!

We're not sure how the folks behind the Razzies do it, but somehow, they manage to distill a whole year of Hollywood hackery into just a few nominees for its awards celebrating the very worst in film. And since the one thing we haven't missed about this somewhat aborted awards season is the industry's aura of self-congratulation, we couldn't help but weigh in as to who we think will walk away with what is arguably the statuette in this town most richly deserved by its winner than any other. 

Worst Supporting Actor Nominees: Orlando Bloom, Kevin James, Eddie Murphy, Rob Schneider, Jon Voight.

Not to ruin his moment, but we dispute Orlando's inclusion: He looked smoking hot in Yet More Pirates of the Caribbean, and that's truly the most supportive an actor can be. Chuck & Larry's problems go way beyond poor Kevin James, and, let's face it, there's no way Rob Schneider was any worse in that than he is in anything else. That leaves Jon Voight in Bratz (oy) and Eddie Murphy as Mr. Wong in Norbit, another of those parts he hogs because he's a whore for latex makeup. But it's Voight's Razzie to lose, if only because seeing his name next to the word "bratz" makes us want to crawl back into the womb.

If you're in the mood to see what we make of the other acting nominees, click here to read the rest of the piece.

Sometimes I think that if I were at Sundance -- or if I could afford to be more fabulous at February's frigid Fashion Week in New York -- I would go all the way down the road to Campville and get togged up in exactly what Janice Combs is wearing.

Then I tear myself away from the furry splendor of her turban and jacket, and realize Diddy's mother is wearing A JUMPSUIT made of COTTON SPANDEX -- like the unholy spawn of leggings and unitards  -- and that I have become suddenly delirious.

Friday is FINALLY here. We are thrilled; it's been a long week for us - we're currently traveling for work and blogging by candlelight in the wee hours, so thanks for putting up with our often hugely slap-happy ramblings, which for us feel scrawled on the back of our hands with a sinister blood quill a la Dolores Umbridge's torture method in the fifth Harry Potter book. Anyway, the net effect is that, in addition to getting behind on other things -- like sleeping, and eating vegetables -- I am lagging on a post I'd been meaning to do all week about Ghost Whisperer.

I know, you guys are probably sort of sick of hearing us yap about cheesy television shows you likely ignore but we love for inexplicable -- well, totally explicable, but maybe only to us -- reasons. But hear me out: I was way behind on my episodes, so I didn't realize that back in November, their rogue costumer struck again.

[Photo: My TV set and a digital camera]

Ahoy, Jay Mohr! First of all, what are you even doing on Ghost Whisperer? Don't you usually play a fast-talking jackhole, as opposed to the fast-talking family-friendly academic you're playing here? Granted, your snarky comments are becoming the show's only bright spot, but it's still really jarring to see you doing gentle weekend television and spewing stuff about the occult and the spirit world and Chinese takeaway instead of cussing out some poor schmoe. Second, please do tell us how you managed to avert your eyes from Jennifer Love Hewitt's insane shirt. It looks like her elbows are wearing a wedding dress. They are the brides of Fuggenstein. And third, are Jennifer Love Hewitt's arms actually that freakishly short, or is it just an optical illusion? It reminds me of the Seinfeld Puffy Shirt. If she's going on the Today show tomorrow to hawk it for charity, I will feel bad. But not as bad as if I'd been forced to wear it. I'm beginning to understand why actresses become divas -- it's to stop stuff like this from happening to them at the hands of other people who don't understand how long a human's arms are supposed to look.

However, this was not the most grievous offense of Rogue Costumer. That was merely the icing on this chewy, billowy, trouser cake. With apologies for the quality of the photos, behold:

Okay, I know we haven't talked about this yet, but we just HAVE to:

What is Stamos doing? I stopped watching ER, so maybe this is one of those A Character's Downward Spiral Is Reflected In His Facial Hair beards, or perhaps he's growing it so as to donate it to Beards For Bros, a charity I just invented which benefits college dudes who try desperately to grow facial hair but totally fail and instead lope around campus scratching their ill-seeded, patchy cheeks, wondering if their tragical bread configuration means something bad about their testosterone levels.

It was so thoughtful of these men to hustle Claudia Schiffer so quickly out of Valentino's Paris haute couture show.

One simply can't expose one's supermodel self to public scrutiny when one is evoking the most famous fought-over, virginity-surrendering Spring Dance gown of all time. Kelly Taylor would claw her nose off, Brenda would promptly slam the door in Claudia's bloodied, pulpy face after screaming, "I HATE YOU BOTH. NEVER TALK TO ME AGAIN," and Dylan would be stuck cooing, "Relax, Bren, you know the drill -- I don't start digging blondes until you go to Paris," while David Silver busts a convulsive groove in his loud silk shirt. Somewhere, six feet under, Aaron Spelling's body is twitching with yearning for this missed reunion-movie opportunity. And Valentino is wondering how he ever got mentioned in the same sentence as Beverly Hills, 90210. You're welcome, V.

Have you ever won a ribbon for a special achievement -- say, a cook-off,  three-legged race, or perhaps a consolation prize because, while you were not Best In Show at the county fair, you were at least Zuckerman's Famous (and Humble) Pig? And have you ever admired said ribbon for approximately 20 minutes before stuffing it into a box, never to be seen again, despite your secret yearning for excuses to remind everyone you were named Best Socks -- Men's Over-20 Division at your country club's annual Geek-Off? Well, no longer. Eva La Rue might have an avant-garde answer for you.

The way she's preening about in those sleeves, I wouldn't be surprised to learn one of those wacky embellishments actually says on the back, "Best Straight Face In A Role That Requires You To Look At Disgusting Fake Corpses Without Barfing All Over Your Expensive Loaned-Out Shoes." That might also account for how huge they are. Big honor, big words, BIG ribbony ruffles.

Dear Lucy Liu,

Bjork you are not. Just thought I'd let you know.

Cheers, Jessica

Oh, Quaid. You are many, many things. Talented, yes; robustly bearded, clearly. Possessed of a last name that's really fun to say, and that I recently wished very much would count as a word in Scrabble? Indubitably. Thanks to things like Vacation and, let's face it, Days of Thunder, you were already a double-word score in my heart, but creating a part of speech from your last name so that I could reap the rewards would've made you a triple. [Maybe I can help in that regard: "I totally quaided my audition" could mean that one brought husky, somewhat slurry humor to it; "Those shoes are totally quaid" might recall the white shiny loafers your character gave Clark Griswold; "That quaid over there totally checked me out"... well, that might get a little confusing, thanks to Dennis, so let's just work on the noun a bit longer.]

So as I said, you are a whole lot of good. But one thing you are not...

[Photo: infdaily.com]

... is Sharon Stone. So tread carefully and don't let yourself get so Stoned -- yeah, yeah, I know, but lousy puns are my specialty -- that you further mold yourself in her kooky, lukewarm-diva image. I mean, the last thing we need at this point is you getting arrested in Park City when, during a copycat rejection of knickers, you leave your quaid out in the wind while uncrossing and recrossing your legs. Although yours did just inadvertently help me find that noun I was looking for, so thanks for that. Never thought I'd find it in your trousers, but what can I say? It's Hump Day.

Rutina Wesley here stars in the new movie How She Move, the IMDb description for which reads like a Teen Movie Mad Lib: "Following her [SIBLING]'s death from [TERRIBLE THING], a high school student is forced to [DO SOMETHING UNPLEASANT THAT WILL PLACE HER DANCING-ADJACENT] where she re-kindles an unlikely passion for the competitive world of [KIND OF DANCING]."  But what [TERRIBLE THING] has placed her [ROMPER-ADJACENT], I wonder?

Whatever it was, I hope it kept the receipt.

Alice + Olivia designer Stacey Bendet Wienet certainly designs extremely cute, Gossip Girl-y dresses, many of which I covet:

So you'd think someone would be nice enough to tell her she's spilled Orange Crush all down her front.

"Dear Jessica and Ashlee: You never call. You never write. When you text, it's always, ' I LUV PETE 4EVA,' or 'ROMO ROX,' or 'WHAT'S A TOUCHDOWN?' or even, 'REFS IN VERTICAL STRIPES SO CUTE!!!!' No more coming to my salon to pour your heart out while photographers snap pictures outside; no more going to lunch, or shopping, or to the movies, and pouring out your heart while photographers snap pictures of us walking. No more hawking those "HairDo Clip-In Blah Blah Blah And Ken Paves" extensions that are our love child. And no more asking me if I miss your old nose. Is that how it's going to be? Were you two USING ME? Well, ladies, I have news for you: I DON'T NEED YOU ANY MORE EITHER. I have this other blonde person with wavy hair hanging off my EVERY WORD. I can comb my OWN chest hair, I can peel my OWN grape for lunch, and I can smear my own self tanner all over myself for HOURS without you whining about how it makes me smell like a beach sewer. I'm like Marc Anthony meets Jay Manuel meets Renee Zellweger's hair and I have NEVER FELT BETTER. Instead of sleeping, I bathe in a vat of orange juice. So don't come crying to ME the next time Pete steals your eyeliner or Tony Romo gets frustrated because you asked him to take you to his father's rib joint and throws his helmet against the wall. Because I MIGHT BE BUSY MARKING OFF ROADWORK ON THE HIGHWAY. That's right, bitches, I'm giving back to the world. You snooze you lose."

I don't know who the dude is with Mischa Barton here, but I do know one thing: I wish his strange shirt had hypnotized her OUT of her shorts (ew, not in THAT way) rather than INTO buying a guitar and trotting it around town like she's part of the Von Trappuccinos, a Sound Of Music-inspired coffeehouse band that specializes in close-harmony angst-metal.

[Photo: flynetonline.com]

It's like my grandmother always never said: When the rise on your pants is that much longer than your inseam, you might as well just slap some suspenders on and call 'em lederhosen. Although either way, Mischa owes her midsection a heartfelt apology.

Julianne Moore, you delightful redhead. I adore you and your russet mane. I also like saying "russet mane," as though I were a romance novelist, because that seems like it would be a fun job to have, if only for all the euphemisms you'd get to come up with. There is a bit of romance missing, however, in Moore's latest dress:

SO close, and yet not quite -- sort of like the clothing equivalent of your field goal clonking off the uprights in the wrong direction. I myself am rather up-and-down, so I feel her pain, but there's something about this that just makes her look slightly boxy and a bit bland. Kind of like a mini-wheat.  I hate to sound like David Spade in those old SNL skits about the Gap salesgirls (fellow elderly readers know of what I speak), but maybe she needs to just cinch it with a belt? Awesome necklace, though. Very romance novel worthy. I can see those gracing the cover of Roderigo's Windswept Family Jewels, easy.

Okaaaaaay:

I have been rendered (temporarily) speechless right here.  This is like some kind of bizarre bare-midriff compromise, like Hilary really REALLY wanted to wear a skirt and a bikini top, and Mr. Armani was like, "Hmmm. That is an INTERESTING idea. You are clearly...inspired. Yes. That's what we will call you. Inspired. Why don't we save that for some other time?" And Hilary was like, "NO! We are only on year six of my Ten Year Hilary Swank: SHE SO GIRLY Master Plan. BIKINI TOP! BIKINI TOP!" And Mr. Armani was like, "God, drama queen, okay. Settle down. Can I distract you with some illusion netting? Nothing is more feminine than figure skating! Or doilies! What do you think?" And then he waved those shoes in front of her face and she was hypnotized and agreed.

Leaving aside for a second the temperature in Utah right now, I don't understand why Bijou Phillips would pair a floaty, flirty peach nightie...

... with heavy black tights and shoes that someone's Granny Hazel wears at the retirement palace on Meatloaf/Meat Loaf night (room and board  = a fortune; chowing down on slabs of ground beef and then dancing cheek-to-cheek to "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" with the dude her girlfriends call Liver-Spots Pete = priceless).

But also, you can't totally ignore the weather, because she's at Sundance and it's been something like 25 degrees (or -4, for you Celsius lovebirds out there). It seems unfair to the rest of her that her ankles and toes are the only things receiving extra consideration for the fact that it is not summer, she is not in L.A., and she is not ninety and sleepwalking. Although, I've never been to Sundance -- maybe it's like that scene in Gone With The Wind when they attend the Wilkes' barbecue at Twelve Oaks, and all the girls go upstairs halfway through to undress and take restorative, ladylike naps in their modest skivvies. Maybe Bijou just woke up from a quick kip all flush with thoughts of getting revenge on somebody, and momentarily forgot to put on the rest of her clothes.

Or maybe she woke up a vagrant:

If GFY had a currency, like Disneyland, or Canada, surely one side would be FUG and the other, FAB, enabling us to make decisions like, "are Ugg boots okay, if it's seventeen below zero?" And on this coin, I can't help but think, would be someone much like Miss Paris Hilton, who is currently at Sundance, surely because she is nothing if not a great patroness of the art of film.

This would be the FAB side:

Okay, technically, it's fab tinged with a hint of Star Trek's Rocking New Year's Eve Party, but she looks cute. I like shiny.

This, of course, would be the FUG side:

When I saw this portrait of Mena Suvari at Sundance, I naturally assumed she was in costume as her character in Mysteries of Pittsburgh AKA -- if you listen to that charming master of PR Sienna Miller -- Mysteries of Shitsburgh. (Don't email me, Pittsburgers -- I have not been to your fair burgh, but I would NEVER speak ill of the home of the Steelers, especially as it is also the city where ketchup was invented. Take it up with S. Mil, and tell her I sent you):

HAS to be a costume of some sort, right? RIGHT? But then:

Here's the thing: I almost made this a "Fug or Fab," until I realized that I pretty solidly come down on the "fab" side when it comes to this outfit.

[Photo: Splash News]

It's a beautiful color on our  favorite tiny Aussie superstar, and she's glowing. It's kind of hard to believe Kylie is almost 40, and that it was a full  twenty years ago that I was sitting in my bedroom wailing along to "I Should Be So Lucky," wishing I had her hair and thinking that crazy hat from the album cover was probably the coolest thing anyone had ever put on their body in the ENTIRE history of bodies (hey, I was young, she was my favorite, it was the 80s... a lot of things I  felt strongly about were, in retrospect, completely ridiculous). Indeed, I should be so lucky as to look that great at 40 AND after surviving both a harrowing medical condition.

My only real moment of concern was whether the tulle wrap shooting out of her right boob was too much -- whether it ended up overwhelming her. But then I decided I didn't care, because she's so regal and pretty and there's something deliciously old-movie about that piece of fabric. Back in the day when people would dress for dinner, getting all fancy whether they were going to a club for dancing and a meal or just coming back downstairs to eat it at their table, I could totally see Kylie swanning in wearing that dress and puffing on a superlong cigarette holder (since of course back then nobody knew or cared that cigs were so terrible for you), dangling a brandy glass from her fingertips and drawling words like "darling" and "devilish" in conversation with the local rogue, whom she will of course end up marrying. Maybe she should MAKE that movie somehow.

I suppose one can argue that Melissa George's getup here is at least very striking.

[Photo: Splash News]

Unfortunately, it's also very severe. And so very, very red. I love red, don't get me wrong, but when you have to hire a bodyguard to keep the Heinz Ketchup people from covertly slapping a label on your back, you might have gone too far with it. Although if Cirque de Soleil ever wants to rustle up a Valentine's Day-themed show along with the other approximately 4,327 performances they currently have going in Vegas, Melissa here would be an ideal featured performer. Assuming she isn't afraid to fold herself in half or hang from her ankle off one of Cupid's arrows.

Hey, I like Ice Princess as much as the next person - Math makes you skate better! Of course! This is why I can neither perform long division nor an axel of any sort! -- but that doesn't mean I approve of any cockamamie thing that shiny-haired Michelle Trachtenberg does to her poor innocent midsection:

Conceptually, I kind of like the Paper Bag Waist Thingie. In execution, it sort of feels like there's something very very wrong with her skirt and it MUST BE CONTAINED by that belt, or the WORLD WILL END.

So, it seems like the rumors that Kristin Cavallari will appear on this season of The Hills must be true: she hasn't been seen out and about in ages, and all of a sudden, she's showing up at a movie premiere that L.C. and Speidi and Audrina are all also attending? Very interesting. If Lauren and Kristin team up to take down Spencer....I will watch the heck out of that. Okay, yes, I will watch The Hills even if it's more of Lauren and Brody staring at each other over dinner and not saying anything ever. But it will be better with The Return of Kristin. She was so awesome on Laguna Beach.

This is less awesome:

By a lot. I mean, Kristin is quite lovely. But not even the loveliest girl can really pull off something that seems to be inspired by my bedroom's window treatments. Like, I'm pretty sure that under-dress has a tiny pull-tag attached to it, so you can raise and lower it at will. And we all know how I feel about anything which transforms your crotch into a be-curtained stage: very negatively. Your womanly delights are not a play. (Okay, maybe The Vagina Monologues. And the play I'm currently working on myself, Try It, You'll Like It: The Britney Spears Story. But that's it! )

Oh, holy HELL, Pompeo.

I don't even know where to start. The makeup that's overpowering her eyes? The satin top, picked up at a David's Bridal separates clearance sale? The gloves, clearly inspired by Karl Lagerfeld but deployed more in the vein of Michael Jackson? The skirt, which looks like it was fashioned after one of those drive-through car washes that uses rubber ribbons to wipe off the muck?

She looks ripped from the pages of an old-timey Agatha Christie mystery novel --  Murder On The Shell-Station-Super-Plus-Wash Express, or The Wing-Mirror Crack'd. Maybe Evil Under The Soft-Cloth. Regardless, I'm pretty sure there is either a pistol hidden under her passenger seat, or a vial of cyanide tucked up inside her spare tire. Trust me: The butler did NOT do it.

Dear Lindsay,

[Photo: Splash News]

ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?

Bless,

Jessica

Crazy Tom Cruise is back in the news, thanks to what is allegedly a Scientology indoctrination video from 2004 that got yanked off You Tube and then reposted by Defamer (and is now the subject of a copyright-infringement lawsuit of some kind; we're not sure, as we're currently trying to bleach most of the video from our brains so we're too busy to look it up). Seriously, it's 9 minutes of creepy. Some of which might be the editing, in how it smashes together his statements without giving the preceding question, but most of it is from Cruise's wicked cocktail of intensity, oddball charisma, deranged cackling, and directionless rambling.

We wrote a bit about it for New York's web site this week.

Obviously, the world will never embrace Tom Cruise as the same dreamboat from the Top Gun poster tacked above our beds in junior high. That guy didn’t jump on Oprah’s couch, or engage Matt Lauer in a war of words about whose knowledge of psychiatry was more encyclopedic. He was not, at least publicly, the guffawing nutjob we see on this latest Scientology leak. His sweaty, intense proclamations of infatuation with meek little Katie Holmes officially turned our girlhood crush into someone we feared encountering in a dark furniture store (or a shrink’s office). Next time we play MASH, Tom Cruise is so totally off the “husband” list.

There is always a "but," though -- if you're so inclined, click through to "Tom Cruise: Crazy Like A Fugging Fox?" to see what we had to say about whether Andrew Morton's sure-to-be-bestselling, sadly-n0t-all-that-muckraking, still-totally-unauthorized biography might help or hurt the Cruise camp.

So, the popular rumor now is that in addition to inserting softballs into her chest and shaving off part of her nose, Heidi Montag has started plumping up her lips. And I have to say, strange things do seem to be afoot on her face.

Observe:

Something isn't right. And I suspect it's the fact that her upper lip is all numb and swollen from whatever she shot up in there, and it hurts to smile. Somehow, the subtle stiffening almost renders her unrecognizable. It's like all this whittling, from the rhinoplasty to the booboplasty to the mouthoplasty, has taken a face that was distinctive and turned it into something ever more generic. She looks less like Heidi, The Two-Faced Hills Vixen With Crappy Taste In Men, and more like HeiDee, The Blonde Barbie With Crappy Taste In Men Who Has Decided That, At Age 21, She Is Too Washed-Up To Meet A Man On Her Own And Instead Needs To Go On The Bachelor.

Seriously, she looked slightly off all night.

Just the other day, I was wondering what Ashlee Simpson was up to. Not in a, "Do you think she's brushing her teeth? Ooh, maybe she's flossing!" kind of way. I am not a stalker. And if I were, I don't think I'd pick Ashlee Simpson as my stalkee.  I would be more likely to stalk, like... I don't know. Ian Ziering, maybe. You know, for one thing, he'd probably appreciate the attention. Plus everyone loves Steve Sanders. Win-Win!

Anyway, it appears that she was actually off dyeing her hair and buying one of those big-ass clutches that I've decided I want (it fits a lot of stuff, AND it's easy to smack people with):

I don't know, you guys! I think she's kind of working it. But I also suffered a head injury this morning when a box containing a pair of wooden heel boots fell off the top shelf of my closet and onto my head. Does she actually look sort of cute - in that prim way that I dig -- or is it just the giant hematoma talking?

Oh, Kate Moss. Happy birthday, I guess.

[Photo: Splash News]

It has been quite a year for Kate, eh? With all the Doherty drama, for one thing. (I wonder if she ever reads pieces in the paper about Johnny Depp -- like that recent story about how he spent several hours reading to the kids in the pediatric ward of the hospital that treated his daughter last year, wearing his Captain Jack Sparrow costume, which basically...I mean, come on. That's awesome. -- and wonders what would have happened to them if they'd stayed together.) And, you know, all that cocaine stuff.  Not to mention just being Kate Moss: Poster Child For Models With Bad Taste In Dudes And Other Stuff. That sounds totally exhausting. I think it would be enough to drive any girl to a starry, starry jumpsuit. (Oh, yeah, those are pants. I know. ) And, um, child-like/Bowie-esque face paint. Despite being neither a child, nor nowhere as cool as David Bowie. You know, some people would say that a starry, flowy pantsuit accessorized with face paint was appropriate only for an elementary school student at their school's spring carnival in 1985, but don't worry! I read that memo about how Kate Moss is a stylistic genius who can do no wrong NO MATTER WHAT SHE WEARS. A barrel as a dress: AWESOME.  Pants as a scarf: PERFECT FOR FALL! Crocs as earmuffs: UNMITIGATED BRILLIANCE! Therefore, I will not tell you all that I am totally over Kate Moss and think she looks ridiculous, and instead just say, if you want to wallow in the almost incomprehensible dreaminess of this look, I suggest making a run to Joann's Fabrics first off. Try to get there early, before Sienna Miller realizes what she's missing and buys out their entire stash of pajama material.

Sigh. We knew it would happen. It had to eventually. It's a tactic as old as time: Wholesome, cherubic young actor wanders onto the Dark Side for a magazine cover and article, in the hope that the industry will suddenly take him/her super seriously and that it will all lead to an Oscar -- or better, an Oscar gift basket -- magically turning up in his/her hand. Britney, minus the Oscar hope (although Crossroads was REALLY GOOD, people, and she DID have to act the hell out of it in order to convince us she'd never paraded around in her bra in front of a dude before), did that sort of thing on magazine covers all the time back in her heyday. And now it's Zac Efron's turn.

We're all familiar with Zac's floppy-haired, Good Boy, let's-hold-hands-under-the-lunch-table visage; now drink in the brooding, adult version who would really like to defile you in his Camaro and then roll you a cigarette.

[Photo: Splash News]

"Disney's Boy Wonder" even goes so far as to drop an f-bomb or two in the interview -- you know, just to prove he's got edge, when in fact he generally has all the sharp corners of a Mini Babybel. I also enjoy how the cover-line placement on his shoulder makes it look like his ensemble is supposed to be part of the tips for dressing like a leading man, despite the fact that Zac appears to be squeezed into The Jeans No Man Should Ever Own (in this case, quite possibly women's low-rise skinny-cut).

But really, I think Zac is just trying really hard to convince you, and his agents, and directors, and probably also Disney, that he's secretly someone else. Specifically, this person:

This is so exciting, y'all. Okay, so the shirt is all over the place --a billowy and occasionally unfinished-looking mess. In fact, it looks a bit like she's mourning the death-at-sea of her favorite pirate (but don't worry, honey, I have it on good authority that death cannot stop true love; all it does is delay it for a while).  But there's something more exciting at work here to compensate.

Check it out!

It FEELS! It really feels! Number Five Three is ALIVE!

So, this is it. After months of gestation -- growing, changing, expanding, turning into something recognizable -- we're finally ready for our book to hit stores. It really IS like having a baby, minus the mess. And the sharp surgical instruments.

Still, behold the cover of Go Fug Yourself: The Fug Awards.

If you're yearning for the Golden Globes and the Oscars end up similarly imperiled and/or embarrassingly lame, then you can sate your awards-show cravings with our book. It's all new material, even if a handful of the pictures are some old favorites (like, say, the shot of Scarlett Johansson mangling her boobs in that cocktail dress, or Fergie and her follicular flagella). And designer Jane Archer created a special statuette for every award category, which really does elevate the whole enterprise. We wanted to design them in Intern George's glorious image, but of course ultimately he is too full of hugs and perfection to be immortalized in Fug Award form, so we settled for consulting him every step of the way. Currently he is taking a nap with an advance copy of the book nestled under his head.

Officially, the book is released on Tuesday, Feb. 5, but you can also pre-order it in all the usual places -- Amazon, Barnes &  Noble, through a BookSense retailer, etc. Soon we'll be updating our masthead to reflect a link to the new GFY store on Glarkware, as well as a link to a page dedicated to the book, and any updates about promotional appearances we might be doing if we can pry ourselves off the couch and face actual sunlight.

Here is where we would really like to conclude with something appropriately snarky about all this, but honestly, we had such a blast with our book every step of the way; we just sincerely hope anyone who buys it truly enjoys it. We couldn't have done it without you guys. Well, you, and a lot of really bad clothes on some really blind famous people. We're grateful for them, too.

Just to be clear, I am not saying Rachel Bilson or her figure are fugly, or that dudes won't see the cover of this magazine, proclaim her the perfect woman, and buy two copies to stash around the house.

[Photo: Splash News]

It's just odd to me. Rachel has been doing so well with clothes ON lately. And then GQ sticks her in a bikini like it's July 4 and Uncle Sam is offering up a patriotic beach-party showcase on The Price Is Right -- with Rachel curled up on the prow of a really small powerboat while the contestant jumps up and down screaming and then overbids by $4000 -- and suddenly she seems totally plastic and out-of-proportion. Maybe the designers were too busy crafting the cover lines about squirrel rampages to notice. I mean, obviously, yes, Rachel Bilson is naturally tiny; it's not like I expected her to put on a bikini and suddenly be my size. But I'm not sure why this photo of a lovely, genetically tiny person still called for so much airbrushing that Rachel has turned into a crazy pageant-zombie bobblehead with one leg that looks weirdly small compared to the other. Her face looks frozen in place and as if it's been Photoshopped onto someone else's body.

Also, I hope nobody misinterprets the cover and shows up at work in this bikini, thinking Rachel is saluting this as "The Modern Business Suit." Although it might help you ace a job interview.

Musician Natasha Khan performs under the name -- I can't tell if it's a group, or just her with some backing musicians --Bat for Lashes. I like to think that means she fights really hard to get all her false eyelashes for free, but alas, I don't know the true story.

What I DO know is that Natasha is apparently REALLY late to the paratrooper wedding at which she's the maid of honor. She'd better hope a rogue gust of wind accidentally dumped the bride somewhere in Arizona, or else she's going to get punished by being forced to do her next jump with Handsy Uncle Jack while catching the dreaded bouquet.

Oh, Kelly Osbourne. Part of me loves you in this -- black and blue! So French! So like a bruise, but in that "You Should See The OTHER Guy" kind of way! So flattering to your pretty skin! And part of me, I must confess, said, "is that a MEMBERS ONLY JACKET?" except I sort of said it in with a shamed "because I might need it" tone in my voice rather than the perhaps expected distain.

On the other hand, I fear that aggressively pleated hem may lead to disaster, in the form of cocktail weenies or cocktail shrimp or cocktail quiches falling off plates at parties and getting buried deep in there, unnoticed, only to be discovered later after a harrowing afternoon in which Kelly tears through her entire closet saying things like, "Something smells TERRIBLE in here! Did I step in dog shit? WHAT IS GOING ON?!"

I may be concerned about this because I recently found a potato chip in my bra. I had not eaten chips (yet) that day. Ergo, maybe this is just a touchy subject. I DON'T KNOW.

Ladies and gents, welcome back to LILO LEGGINGWATCH2008: YET MORE LEGGINGS. Our intrepid heroine has ventured out several times in the last few days -- didn't she recently say she was going to be spending more time in Long Island with her family? Was that a fib? Or was that just a way to get her mother off her back? Or is she avoiding Dina? Is that good? Or are we reading too much into this, needing our daily dose of soaps now that Passions is kaput? If so, does that mean I am also going to start seeing the floating head of Adrian Zmed everywhere I look? -- treating us to YET MORE DELICIOUS BLACK LEGGINGS. Honestly, people, I am getting to the point where I don't even care that she's wearing leggings. LEG IT UP, I say. I DO care that she's ONLY wearing leggings.

To wit, on January 11th:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

Is it me, or is she working a sort of weird Bret Michaels look here? I'm sure it's just the Tight Pants + Long Weave Under Funky Headgear look, but I am beginning to wonder (hope) if the "album" she's supposedly "working on" "in the studio" "right now" is ACTUALLY full of covers of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," rendered in different moods -- crabby, hungry, happy, wistful, coke-pants-wearing, bitter, etc.

We get a brief respite from the LEGGINGS on January 13th in the form of this:

Relative newcomer Jess Weixler stars in an upcoming movie called Teeth about... well, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll put it simply: Her character's genitals have teeth. Her crotch is a Venus Flytrap, and it is no vegetarian.

Given that, maybe this all makes sense.

Maybe if one of us had to be associated forever with having little shop of horrors in our pants, we'd ALSO shave half the skirt off a Disney Pretty Princess costume and layer it like body armor over a black skirt. Maybe we'd WANT to distract from being The Pretty, Pretty Face Of Vagina Dentata by borrowing a color scheme from a particularly nasty bruise. Honestly, no one knows what the appropriate reaction is, because no one else has ever been faced with being so closely identified with an angry lady-maw.

Well, except for Disney, since I just dragged them into this. If Minnie Mouse starts wandering around Burbank in something similar, we'll be well on our way to a new, groundbreaking understanding. Also, we'll put in a warning call to her gyno.

[Photo: infdaily.com]

SPORTY: Don't you love my bangs?

GINGER: Don't you love how I sort of look like I'm taking my aging tips from Madonna, with the yoga and the muscles and the wavy hair?

BABY:  Don't you love daydreaming? Like, say, about a time you can take off a huge wrap that makes you look boxy?

SOLDIER DUDE: Hi, Mom! Can you see me? HI!

SCARY: Don't you love going to the hairdresser to get a piece of Mel's bangs action, and coming away looking older and like a flight attendant on a really cheap airline? Take your unapproved electronic devices and shove them up your arses, mmmkay? Buh-bye.

BABY: Don't you miss Posh?

SPORTY: Where IS Posh?

SCARY: Dunno -- who's the really reedy gay dude down the end, though? Maybe he's her stand-in?

GINGER: He has BOOBS, though. I think I recognize those, actually.

BABY: I thought that was Angelina Jolie!

SPORTY: I thought it was a really big Chuck Norris fan!

SOLDIER DUDE: I thought it was Becks!

POSH: Don't you people just love androgyny? It's so hot right now. Well, it is when you get your rack out.  That's what Roberto said: "Are you a man? Are you a woman? Are you everything? I need to see more of your breasts."

GINGER: Bollocks, now NOBODY will be looking at me. This is awful.

SCARY: Well, I've got a hot tip on where the emergency exits are, if anyone wants the demonstration.

We love clothes. And we love a good fugging. Now, at long last, we can have our cake and throw it in someone's face, too.

Thanks to the hard work of the illustrious, generous, and talented Glark over at Glarkware, we here at GFY HQ are delighted to unveil our brand new Go Fug Yourself store. It's open for business 24/7, it's never over-airconditioned, and there is always a prime parking spot for you -- yes, you -- right out front.

We're launching the store today with the above shirt, plus two others for your passive-aggressive trash-talking pleasure. It's like a silent fugging -- if Charlie Chaplin were a fashion blogger, he'd probably pick up one of these to wear under one of his coats. A tip, though: Hide your grandmother's bifocals before she gets wind of what your clothes are trying to say. Her blood pressure will thank you.

Drop by the GFY store, bookmark it, or wait until later in the week when we add a permanent link to our site banner. Whatever you like. Just remember that all of these colors look really great on you. No, seriously. They totally bring out your eyes. Intern George just said so, and he never lies.

Listen, I love a large handbag. Love one! I carried an enormous tote for YEARS until I realized that the larger my bag was, the more stuff I would jam into it, and that maybe my back hurt so badly because I had a pony keg in my purse.

And, as Katie Holmes demonstrates, there is something to be said for moderation in all things:

I know moderation isn't practiced often around the Cruise/Holmes abode, but unless you're using this as your Very Posh Birkin Weekender -- full of bathing suits and cashmere cover-ups and Pucci print bath towels and all the other stuff InStyle insists is required for a resort weekend away -- this mother is just too big. For one thing, she can barely carry the thing (what's IN there, anyway? She hasn't got Suri nestled in there for a little nap, has she?).  For another, it's wider than her entire body, which you think would be a good tip-off to downsize.  There's a fine line between Fantastically Glamorous Oversized Luxury Item and Damn, Girl, Do You Need A Hand With Those Bags?, and K. Ho here left that line behind her about twenty feet ago.

JAMES MCAVOY: Hi, K.

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY: Hi, J.

JAMES: Can I ask you something?

KEIRA: Of course.

JAMES: We were hot in Atonement, right?

KEIRA: Completely.  Hot + WWII + English = SUPER HOT.

JAMES: I thought I remembered it right. So...?

KEIRA: Like we're in some kind of simultaneously post-modern and low-rent version of Grease. I know.

JAMES: It's terrible. Also, are those your....?

KEIRA: Knickers? So it seems. 

JAMES: But we're so attractive and good in the movie. Why would they do this to us?

KEIRA: Oh, honey. You haven't even seen the worst of it.

JAMES: How is that possible? Do they have an outtake in which I am drooling?

KEIRA: Turn the magazine over.

RUMER: I can't believe I didn't get to be Miss Golden Globe.

EMILY: But you look the prettiest I've ever seen you!

RUMER: Whatever.

EMILY: No, really.  I also look pretty, but why shouldn't I, really?

RUMER: I'm just so annoyed. This dress is really cute on me. But I don't even get to be on TV. It's so unfair. But I'm going to slouch over and be all Miss Poor Posture and defeat the entire effect. I'm THAT ANNOYED. I've turned to SELF-DESTRUCTIVE POSTURE. THAT'S WHAT I'VE BECOME.

EMILY: Oh, honey. Have some wine with me, and my charming up-do.

RUMER: I DON'T WANT ANY. I WANT TO BE CRANKY.

EMILY: Just smile for this nice photographer who found us here in this corner. CHEESE!

RUMER: Fine. Freaking cheese.

On this day, when we would under other circumstances be, say, wailing over Keira Knightley's decision to wear a burlap sack and coconut earmuffs to the Golden Globes, or waxing lustily poetic over how dreamy Mad Men's John Hamm looked in his tux, accepting his award, it is a relief that Courtney and Brown Peldon have popped out of obscurity to both bring us great joy and to reassure us that they are alive, and appearing and directing (respectively) in some play called Publicityville, which has but nine friends on MySpace (one of which, at least, is Charlie Schlatter, whom I loved deeply when I was about eleven, thanks to his shortlived stint in the Ferris Bueller TV series):

And they look pretty cute, in that Generically Styled By Wet Seal's Annual Sale kind of way.  You know, the longer I work the desk here at GFY HQ, the more fond I have become of Misses Peldon and Peldon. They just want to make their perfumes, and put on the occasional show in a barn, and if their past  shenanigans include prancing around the woods in satin tunics, or short-lived engagements to George McFly, well, we are all only the richer for it. My goal for 2008 is to run into one of them -- at the post office, maybe, or waiting in line to try on $11 tunics at Forever 21 -- and feel the glorious thrill that comes with spying a celebrity a rare few civilians would even recognize. Kind of like the time I sat next to Brandon Davis at the movies. Sure, he was the worst smelling person I'd ever sniffed, but seeing him out in the wild was like the fugger's version of spotting a rare bird sitting in the camellia bush in your front yard - a delicious but easily obtained prize.

Damn! Do my eyes deceive me, or is Alicia Keys finally wearing something sort of regal and classy?

She looks a little bit like she just wandered off the set of Dreamgirls II: Wake Up, Y'all. But it totally works on her; I'm thrilled Alicia is at long last wearing something worthy of her face. I was especially tired of seeing her dressed in jumpsuits that made me want to check her back for humps, so really, everybody wins.

I'm not sure what I dislike most about this dress:

It could be the way it looks Jennifer Morrison's poor, trapped arms had to poke themselves to freedom through the prison of an insane furry bodystocking. Or how badly it appears to fit around her hips, or perhaps how it makes her torso look so square that it's about to beg her for an earlier curfew.

But mostly, I think, my aversion stems from the fact that it reminds me  too much of the skin of one of my personal heroes.

NANCY: GREETINGS EVERYONE FROM THE EXCITING GOLDEN GLOBES NEWSCAST STUDIO DESK THING! I AM NANCY O'DELL AND THE DUDE WITH THE STEEL WOOL SHRUBBERY COMING OUT OF HIS HEAD IS BILLY BUSH! HOW APPROPRIATE! HA HA HA HA HA!

BILLY: Well, now, Nancy, I think I look really sharp. Whereas your arms are different color than the rest of you by, like, a LOT.

NANCY: AT LEAST I DON'T LOOK LIKE A FULLER BRUSH SALESMAN DID MY HAIR!

BILLY: It really IS uncanny, actually, how much of a different color they are. Are you in costume as a color spectrum?

NANCY: ARE YOU IN COSTUME AS SOMETHING I CAN USE TO SCRUB MY TILE GROUT? WHEE! IT'S ALL FUN TONIGHT AT THE SUPERAWESOMEWICKEDCOOL GOLDEN GLOBES STANDING-UP PARTY AND READING OF NAMES!

BILLY: Let's stop insulting each other and do that thing we planned where we read the winner's name, and then talk about how we totally didn't think that person was going to win AT ALL, because it's going to be totally organic and real and not at all awkward when we do that. And then maybe we can totally mix up all our facts, like we don't cover this freaking industry every day of our lives or anything!

NANCY: YES LET'S FIRE UP THE FUN GUN AND SHOOT OURSELVES WITH IT BILLY!!!!! BUT FIRST I NEED TO CLEAN MY FINGERNAILS ON YOUR HAIR.

BILLY: Oh, Nancy, you are fierce. Give Willy Wonka my best.

NANCY: WOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't we all just PRETEND that yesterday the Golden Globes went off as per usual, and we all got the red carpet shenanigans as per usual, and Rachel Bilson showed up wearing this?

And then we all said things like, "Did you see Rachel Bilson at the Golden Globes? She's so pretty!" and "I just loved Rachel Bilson's Golden Globes dress," and "I think Rachel Bilson showing up at the Golden Globes in that white goddess-y dress was really a turning point in her career, don't you?" Let's just pretend that happened, shall we? Excellent!

Would one of the nice people at TV Guide channel please take Debbie Matenopoulos aside and explain to her that the Chicken Dance is best saved for drunken wedding receptions, children's birthdays, and perhaps the office holiday party?

I swear, she will thank you later.

Oh, fine. Go ahead and look proud of yourself, Kristen Bell:

You look cute. And non-stumpy. And your narration work on Gossip Girl is quite good. And Gossip Girl itself is quite, quite, quite addictively good -- how am I going to wait however long I have to wait until we all find out what Blair plans to do to destroy her enemies? How can I stand not knowing whether or not poor tragic Nate is going to take up with that surprisingly somewhat conniving  yet still in-over-her-head Jenny? Most importantly: how can I live week-to-week without knowing what color turtleneck Chuck is wearing? How, I ask you? How?  I know, I know: you'll never tell. But your dress is good, okay? Don't say I never said nothing nice about you, Bell.

XOXO

Fug Girl

I understand that, given his history, we're lucky Johnny Depp didn't wear ratty jeans and a panama hat to the London premiere of Sweeney Todd. That's a small victory, and I'm sure we all accept it gratefully, because he's too pretty to wander around looking like a lost tobacco farmer.

But. There is always a but.

[Photo: Splash News]

Is it just me, or is Johnny Depp just now realizing that the Demon Tailor of Fleet Street gave him such high-waisted pants that he's starting to chafe in strange places?

In addition to your shortened torso, Johnny, don't think I didn't see those scuffed Doc Martens hiding under there. Or the belt that may once have been wrapped around a hay bale. I was simply momentarily thrown by how the ensemble threw off your proportions. I'm sure there's a Demon Pharmacist somewhere that has a salve to take care of any evil, unexpected chapping; as for dealing with your Demon Stylist, I'm afraid you're on your own.

I'm pretty sure this cover is supposed to be sultry, or something, but instead Reese Witherspoon looks bored. And a little depressed.

[Photo: Splash News]

Reese looks way more like the cover-line cautionary tale of the girl who got caught red-handed in the boss's drawers, and no, not the ones on his desk. Or perhaps the young girl who nailed the septagenarian and is trying to say, "Listen, if I were after his money, this sweater would be a damn MINK WRAP." She does NOT look, tragically, look like a woman with any kind of new passion -- unless, say, it's a passion for staring blankly into middle distance, reading Beowulf in 24-hour spurts, or making a steak every day and then forcing herself to stare at it without ever bringing it to her lips.

Or maybe she's just upset because she lost a sizable bet to Jake Gyllenhaal that Marie Claire would pull together only 350 hot spring looks this year. It'll be okay, though, Reese -- if Jake's that attuned to the mag, then you could still win out, as he'll surely he'll flip through that poorly titled article being pimped just above the masthead, called "What Makes Men Propose." Because nothing is sexier or more strong and independent than trying to understand what to do to MAKE your man propose, right? So cheer up, and let's socially regress together!

So, I watched Medium for the first time this week. I don't know. It's okay, I guess. Patricia Arquette's character seems so MOPEY.  I may have got a bum episode, and I get that it's hard to have dream visions of terrible things and have no one believe you or whatever, but it must be exhausting to be so glum so much of the time. Especially since her character's glumness seems to have bled over into real life:

Babes, come on. You're attending the InStyle Diamond Luncheon Something Or Other. How bad can it be? At the very least, the gift bag should have some kind of sparkling goody in it! There's no need to pull out the old Somber Suit AND High Necked Blouse AND Dark Tights. Nothing wrong with looking demure to a luncheon, of course, but a wee tiny hint of skin somewhere would have gone a long way toward looking a bit more relaxed. This is what you wear when you're playing a guest role on Law and Order: Whatever Version as a former nun who's being forced to testify to cooking the parish books as a way to cover up some kind of gruesome -- yet justified! -- murder.  On the other hand, you don't seem to have aged AT ALL since Flirting With Disaster and that was over 10 years ago.  There's something to be said for that, at least.

Oh, kooky Helena Bonham Carter. I love you. I love you as Bellatrix Lestrange. I loved you as Lucy Honeychurch. I love that you probably did your own hair for Sweeney Todd, as it was a messy birds' nest that closely resembled how your hair looked at every event from 2004-2007. I love that you are married to Tim Burton, as I suspect you two have long conversations about things that are not of this world.  I love it when you show up places looking like you've just wandered out of the attic. In the Edwardian era. And I actually love this:

Yeah, she just had a baby, like this morning. So way to rock the red satin bedsheets, HBC. Seriously.

As everyone reading this blog surely knows, Sunday was originally Golden Globes day -- a carbs-fueled couch-a-thon in honor of that most glorious and drunken of awards shows, where the honorees are more likely than not to accept their statuette through a delicious red-wine haze and may or may not choose to adjust their push-up bras in front of everyone. With the show scuttled due to the strike, we couldn't help but use this week's New York Fugging City column to wonder OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CLOTHES?!?!?!!?!!?!?!?!?!!!!!

"Usually, this is the time when we’re stocking up on Ruffles and dip in preparation for an evening on the couch, wondering if Cate Blanchett will wear Armani (possibly) or something metallic (probably) and laying bets on whether Nicole Kidman’s inevitable Balenciaga will successfully make her look less waxen (doubtful). But this year, no ceremony means no fashion parade: no hits, no misses, no Marchesa. Fine, the sacrifice is all in the name of union labor and whatnot — but will no one think of the outfits?"

Check out the rest, if you're so inclined, here.

The Scene: the Ivy (of course.)

The Players: Phoebe Price, her remarkably shapeless yet still cornea-scrambling dress, and Frederic Prinz von Anhalt (wearing a giant ass Mr. T-style gold medallion which is tragically not visible in this shot), whom you may remember as Zsa Zsa Gabor's ninth husband, who claimed he was pretty sure he was Dannielynn Birkhead's father. Wikipedia being the font of knowledge that it is, I have also recently learned that Prinz von Anhalt did not want to divorce Zsa Zsa to marry Anna Nicole, so he allegedly just drew up papers to adopt her instead, which Zsa Zsa (rightfully) refused to sign. Can I just say that someone needs to work that scenario into a soap opera? Thank you.

[Photo: Splash News]

You know things are grim when P-Squared, who would happily pose for photographs outside the Manson compound, is like, "yeah, leave me alone. No. Please, seriously. I can't have Zsa Zsa mad at me. I won't marry you when she kicks it. For real." And he's like, "no, no, I just want to brush your hair! I mean nothing by it! We're not dating, paparazzi! Hands off! It's a totally hands off policy here!" And the paparazzi are like, "are we SERIOUSLY photographing these two? Where the f is Lohan when you need her?"

Katherine Heigl's recent spate of interviews and the wretchedly unfunny previews for 27 Dresses have me a) concerned she might be a bit of a pill in real life, b) totally sick of her, and c) in disbelief that this movie appears to think that simply dyeing her hair faintly brown will help us believe Katherine Heigl is suddenly sort of frumpy and dowdy and weak-willed. Great message there, people.

In fact, I wish Jennifer Love Hewitt would go BACK to being a darker brunette because it makes her look more striking. Check it out:

This is just an achingly pretty dress, which paired with the shoes gives Jennifer a really lovely old-movie glamour. Even Cardbord Heigl seems to be eyeing her, all, "I can't believe you look better than I do. SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN, ho. Trust."

As a fair-skinned lass, I know it's tough to wear that pale pinky color without it washing you out (and as a side note, I accidentally pasted that sentence into Google and it came up with a line from what's trying to be the world's longest poem that read, "It would help if the firefighter inside you lit a fire," which... I don't think THAT'S necessarily the solution here; for one thing, it would char the heck out of her womb). Jennifer mostly succeeds, and I think the "mostly" comes from the fact that it's her hair -- with an assist from her makeup -- washing her out and not the dress. If she went back to that awesome, shiny darker brown hair, and possibly rediscovered bangs, she could probably get away with the minimalist makeup and the light hue of the dress, because the dark cherry on top would elevate it all.

Also, Dark-Haired-Hewitt is from the glory days of the Ghost Whisperer -- YES, the show has some, thank you very much -- when her coifs and fake eyelashes and old-school nighties and bedjackets were HUUUGE. So maybe I'm just being nostalgic. Still, that doesn't detract from how fantastic that dress is on her. She's someone who's struggled, I think, to find the right cuts of clothes to accentuate her natural assets (I am not at all sure the Ghost Whisperer costumer is putting this kind of effort into it). This one is perfect: She's all woman, brimming with curves that demand to be celebrated. Which I am sure her fiance will gleefully take care of later.

Despite the presence of Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah, I do not have hopes for Katie Holmes' big return to the multiplex, Mad Money. Let us remember that as madcap comedies go, Diane Keaton recently brought us Because I Said So; Queen Latifah, we have not forgotten Taxi, which was a blight on our souls even though we didn't actually see anything more than the preview. So, neither of you can be trusted unequivocally in this arena, and when you add into the mix Mrs. Cruise and a poster where you're chucking money into the air like you're Mary Tyler Moore at a strip club, it bodes poorly.

Still, at least Katie Holmes is interesting to talk about these days. In all the years I watched Dawson's Creek, I never particularly thought Joey Potter would ever make me think. She would make me enraged, irritated, annoyed, and at times murderous -- between Dawson and Pacey, or anyone and Pacey, THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS PACEY, fool -- but never thoughtful. So I'll say this for the post-Cruise Katie: She has achieved what I thought was impossible. I am actually pondering her fashion choices with more than just passing interest.

First, let's start with what worked at the Mad Money premiere.

She looks amazing: I never noticed how interesting her eyes are before, and whoever has commandeered her makeup bag is doing a bang-up job. [Although, just to prove she is human, Katie has thoughtfully gone and gotten a stray hair stuck in her lipstick. I feel that pain, sister. It's the curse of almost every gloss-loving girl in the world who's ever wandered into even the lightest breeze.]

Also, let it be known that I blame Katie Holmes in advance for any bad hair decisions I might make. That bob is so cute that I am liable to forget my hair is completely different than hers is, and that's how I'll accidentally wind up with the poodle version of this sleek coif, and it will be ALL HER FAULT. I hope she can live with herself.

Now for the part I'm less sure of:

First of all, can we discuss how TERRIBLE Cashmere Mafia is? It's like a high school film class project written by a trust fund kid who's decided to replicate Sex and the City, but with more slapstick and less heart. So the production values are great, but it's chock-full of groaners like, "she's wishing him BONE voyage," re: a character who's having pre-business trip sex with her husband. Also, everyone has seemingly been instructed to purr her lines, except for poor Bonnie Somerville, who has already knocked heads (literally) with the object of her affection and for some reason occasionally speaks with a Tough New York accent. I guarantee you her character will, at some point, find herself locked out of her hotel room naked.  It's worse than The Starter Wife. By a lot. I'm just saying.

But, Lucy Liu's hair is really cute in it -- even if she does dress like someone who spent all her grad school years watching Sex and the City and trying to make her friends refer to her inappropriate boyfriend as Mr Big (Pat Field strikes again) -- and I like her, so it's nice to see her making the rounds again. Or is it?

[Photo: Splash News]

Is this fun (the gloves! the color!) or just plain old crazy (the twenty minutes you'd spend standing in your undies, staring at it and trying to figure out how exactly to put it on without accidentally getting your head woven through the bodice)?

At the end of the television season last year, I took you all on a journey. A meaningful, touching, emotional journey full of fake-gayness and hair gel. A journey through Chad Michael Murray's hair choices on One Tree Hill. Well, thank god our long, dry, CMM-less summer/fall is over, because OTH is back, and dudes, the hair is WORSE THAN EVER (for the menfolk. The girls actually look kind of great).  And, yet, the show is so good/bad.  People are fake-paralyzed! Daphne Zuniga is there, and she is a full-on, Dr. Kimberly Shaw-style mega bitch, because she can be! And there were Important Statements about how Anorexia Is an Illness, Not a Style Choice! And there's a cute kid in a cape! And sexual harassment of the weakest of sauces! And Sophia Bush's character not only runs an incredibly successful fashion line, SHE HAS HER OWN MAGAZINE! At 22! But, like the character in the Britney Spears' song "Lucky," she cries, cries, cries in her lonely heart, because if there is nothing missing in her life, why doooo the tears come at night? (Apparently, it is because success is hollow without love, or something.)  Oh, it's so bad/fantastic. And, speaking of Britney, K-Fed is going to guest star in a couple of weeks! Like things could not get better.

One thing that could get better, though, would be the grammatical construction of Sophia Bush's clothing line's name:

For serious? I get that TECHNICALLY her clothing line COULD be called "Clothes Over Brothers," and TECHNICALLY "bro's" is a contraction thereof, but that's a lie. It's apostrophe misuse and I object.

You know what else I object to?

When I first glanced at this photo, I thought, "Aw, Kate Nash got to leave her tweedy boarding school early today to promote her album. She must have been so excited to ditch out on Geography."

[Photo: Splash News]

Then I realized that:

a) Kate is in New York, and wearing your uniform across the Atlantic is a pretty heady commitment to school spirit;

b) Kate is twenty-one, and therefore too old to be going to a tweedy boarding school -- or a meeting of her Brownie troupe, for that matter, all of which makes the outfit and the wee orange tie really confusing;

c) The backdrop wrangler at this photo shoot totally failed at his or her job, since I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be bunched up in the corner as if somebody got caught trying to cop a cheap feel;

d) I might need those shoes; Kate does not, since they look terrible with this, and so maybe she could lend them to me indefinitely;

e) What Kate does need is a personal shopper.

At the People's Choice Awards, which I admit I did not watch, apparently all the acceptance speeches were pre-taped because of the writers' strike (no one actually attended except the host, Queen Latifah, who was probably terribly embarrassed she'd gotten stuck in this situation and got an eleventh-hour call from her lawyers that they couldn't find her an exit loophole).

Joaquin Phoenix decided not to employ actual speech in his speech, preferring to hold up a series of cue cards to express his "gratitude" for having been chosen by the people. This was his first mistake.

No, his first mistake was living so rough for the past however-long that he looks a bit like an accountant right after tax season: bloated, tired, and as if he's being scraped off the fender of a giant bus that's recently mowed him down.

Anyway, Joaquin's gesture was evidently his way of supporting the strike -- I'm not sure how, though, since somebody did actually WRITE the words onto a piece of paper. He does know it's not a speaker's strike, right?

Here's what I didn't know:

[Photo: Splash News]

Apparently, proofreaders are on strike as well. Or maybe now that text messaging is a series of largely illiterate abbreviations, the letter U is sick and tired of working so hard AND bringing all those Sesame Street episodes to you, and has walked off the job until it gets a pay raise, a massage, and at least two solo numbers in its next show.

It must be hard being Melora Hardin.

I'm sure it's challenging to pick an outfit for the premiere of a movie called 27 Dresses, because there is the inevitable crack about, "Wow, if that's the one she chose, I'd hate to see the other 26." But with the busyness and the slip strap crawling down her arm -- which she'll spend all night trying to get back in place, over and over again -- and the way the midriff adds about five pounds of bloat to her that I bet she doesn't actually have, I think the only appropriate response is, in fact, to say, "Wow, if that's the one she chose, I'd hate to see the other 26." I guess sometimes the hacky instinct is also the right one. Just ask Carrot Top -- which is, in itself, the hack version of the joke about someone who's made a living being hacky. So apparently I am brimming with hack myself. If this post had an audio file of a rimshot, or perhaps a record scratch, I'd be a veritable Hack of Clubs up in here.

I know you've all been wondering what Phoebe Price has been up to in 2008. The answer is a simple one:

Emulating Paris Hilton with an expression of mild resentment on her face.

Certainly, there has been no shortage of moments in Katie Holmes' life in recent years that have made us go, "Wait, SERIOUSLY?" And that's just from the couch-jumping and the engagement and pregnancy and wedding and fashion-embracing and Posh-befriending; it doesn't even include anything that's happened behind closed doors. Not that we're implying her husband is odd or anything. He's totally normal to us. Everyone we know leaps onto their living-room set at least twice daily. Furniture is a thrill.

At any rate, all things considered, nothing should surprise me with her any more. Yet somehow I still caught myself saying aloud this morning, "Wait... SERIOUSLY? Since when did Katie Holmes become someone who could pull off a TOGA?"

Bear with me here, as we got a lot of e-mails from people who could not have hated this more -- and who will, in fact, greet this with a, "Wait, SERIOUSLY?" of their own. So let me clarify: The dress itself does nothing for me. It definitely has the whiff of bedsheet about it, like maybe her exuberant husband grabbed one off the bed and ran around her twice and then screamed, "GLORIOUS,"  before hitting his head on the four-poster and passing out cold.

But Katie IN the dress... this I like. Granted, her first best move was to realize that America loves Suri, and that she should reinvent her cranium in her wee sprog's image. They are seriously ever-more the spitting image of one another. As for the dress, though, it kind of takes on a Quality on her body. It's still kind of boring to me on its own merits,  and I think on a lot of people I'd be wailing and pulling out my hair. Katie, though, looks really rather pretty. The makeup is tasteful, her bod looks amazing -- I would very much like to borrow her shoulders, if she's looking to broaden her range of charitable acts -- and although the shoes are fairly standard, they ALSO appear to fit her, make her legs look fabulous, and don't overshadow the overall look. As a result, I glance at the dress, but inevitably my attention turns to her hair, her face, her skin, her figure, and the fact that I am pretty sure she is eleven feet tall. And that's how it should be. The dress isn't wearing her; she, bluntly put, is wearing the shit out of it. So you go, Suri-Kate Holmes-Cruise. In my eyes, you won this one.

And feel free to have another kid, because you did a bang-up job the first time. I'm just saying. Think of our needs.

I don't know about you, but the first thing I thought when I saw this picture was, "HOLY [REDACTED FOR THE CHILDREN], BRAD HAS HAIR!" I totally forgot that newsboy hat of his isn't permanently attached to his head.  (That being said, as you probably already know, Brad is now selling versions of That Newsboy Hat of His through his charity Make It Right, which is helping rebuild the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, which got hit badly by Hurricane Katrina. In addition to being a very worthy cause, there is a video of Brad posted on that site in which he a) wears that newsboy hat of his and b) is simultaneously screamingly hot and all CARING about HUMANITY and stuff, which is really hard for me to resist. And! Since I'm already going all parenthetical on you here, do you think it's possible that Lindsay Lohan could possibly see the success Brad has had selling his hats and start selling a line of leggings to benefit something she really cares about? Like...the care and upkeep of Kitson or something? Here's hoping.)

What was I talking about? Ah, yes -- Brad and Angie and Brad's lush head of hair and luxurious display of gray-toned checks:

I don't know.  There's something about this suit that squeals, "sexy English professor who will peer at you intently as he takes off his glasses and mutters something like,  'Your understanding of Yeats is unparalleled.  I never thought to find such a brilliant mind in such a beautiful woman. God, this is so unprofessional of me -- SO WRONG -- yet I MUST KISS YOU,' and then you guys run off to Capri, where he writes things and you do a lot of standing on the balcony in glamourous tunics drinking Kir Royales whilst being flatteringly backlit." I can't resist that. I LOVE Kir Royales.

As for Angelina, while she often wears black, I also suspect that her look could be a preview of the It Wouldn't Be Right To Be All Wildly Gussied Up At An Event During The Writers Strike epidemic that may currently be sweeping closets all over Hollywood.  Jewel-toned cocktail frocks languish in closets throughout the 310! There is a mad run on somber dresses and black shoes! Starlets compete to look The Most Seriously Appropriate! And I guess that could be fun, too. You just know Bai Ling will show up somewhere in a nun's habit, and everyone wins when that happens.

Sometimes I would dearly, dearly love to be a fly on the cavernous, chilly wall of Paris Hilton's cranial attic -- some might call it her "brain," but I tend to think of it more of a "head-space."

[Photo: Splash News]

See, I love that Paris's way of braving the chill and the rain in L.A. was to wear a tiny leather jacket, stretched-thin footless tights, a miniskirt, a halter top she bought the last time she felt it was a Chico's kind of day, and a fedora to fend off approximately three percent of all the precipitation. And so it all makes me want to read her mind-leaflet, to better understand whether she checked herself out in the mirror and went, "Hott, I look like a sexy-awesome person who might suddenly give away a bunch of money to charities to make the world a better place, or might do body shots off your nape." Because MY first thought when I saw it was to check if she's currently starring in a mall production of Guys & Dolls: South Pacific.

You guys, we have a serious situation with Lindsay Lohan here. No, it doesn't have anything to do with substance abuse, bad taste in men, bad taste in movies, or her mother. It's the leggings. I know, I know: I just wrote about the Leggings Issue the other day. But it's only as of today that I have been able to step back and take a long view of the Leggings Situation as a whole, and, friends, what I have seen has chilled me to the very bone. When I said earlier that Lindsay only wears leggings, I was being hyperbolic, kind of like when I say things like, "I would rather vomit all over myself and wear THAT out in public than wear XYZ,"  or "that guy makes me so mad, I want to rip out his heart and use it as a hat," or something. But here's the thing: while I would never really wear vomit as a dress or use vital organs as millinery, LINDSAY SERIOUSLY ONLY DOES WEAR LEGGINGS.

To wit:

Yesterday, at Bristol Farms:

[Photo: Splash News]

Leggings.

The day before that, coming home from Italy:

[Photo: Splash News]

Leggings.

Insert here The Leggings of My Previous Post, which were interspersed (THANK GOD) with a dress on New Year's Eve.

Then, prior to the New Year, we had:

We've gotten a few emails this morning, wondering what the verdict is on Drew Barrymore's dress for the Palm Springs Something Something Film Something Something Awards. I believe some of these emails used the word, "seat belt," and some used the phrase "Girl Scout Merit Badge Sash." But a few of them also used the words, "I dunno. I still kind of like it."

I don't know, readers. Maybe my brain is waterlogged from all the rain we got here in Los Angeles over the weekend (and, word to the wise: in inclement weather, be VERY MINDFUL of whether you are hitting the "interior car light" button, or the "open sunroof" button, or you may be in for a wet surprise), but despite having a strong whiff of Bondage Night Toga Party about it, I kind of like it.

So, Monday night, Heather and I were watching some sort of New Year's Eve Countdown Blah Blah Blah Thingie, on which Fergie appeared, and we confessed to each other over our champagne flutes that she has been looking SO adorable lately and has hardly shown up wearing tartan hot pants to anything, and now I guess it turns out we kind of like her and think she's cute.

Well, Australian Cosmo is trying its damnedest to undo all that goodwill:

A) How OLD is that picture? B) How MUCH do they hate her? C) Going down on him could give me WHAT?

All that sex-related rumor-mongering aside (apparently, in addition to giving us cancer, our boyfriends are all tracking us on some creepy website. Is one of the suggested 10 Ways to Feel More Confident Naked, "don't read any other article in this magazine"?), Cosmo's agenda this month is clearly squashing Miss Fergie Ferg's stylistic upswing like a nasty little silverfish. This picture doesn't look remotely like her, AND she's been dressed like a cashier at Forever XXI, but without the benefit of getting fifteen percent off clothes that are already essentially free. Look, I know old Fergs is busy calling all the people who made fun of her for peeing herself and for the meth thing and cackling about her impending nuptials to Josh "Smokin'" Duhamel  and all the mad piles of cash she made this year and how good her legs are (I'm sure my phone will ring eventually), but once she's done with that, maybe she should call her lawyer and see if she can sue for this sort of thing. It's certainly caused ME some emotional distress.

On the morning after poor Britney released what was left of her marbles to the four winds and got carted off for Ye Olde Psych Evaluation, it's somewhat of a relief to realize that Lindsay Lohan's most pressing problem (other than that swig of champers she allegedly took the other night, but sobriety is a process, right?) is her stubborn unwillingness to wear anything other than a pair of goddamn leggings:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

GIRL. It's not 2006. GET YERSELF SOME PANTALOONS.

Although, Obsessive Fixation on Leggings notwithstanding, otherwise you look pretty hot. Don't tell anyone I said so. GOD, WHY CAN'T I QUIT YOU?

(That joke's come back around, right? Whatever, it's Friday.)

So, here's the thing: I know Lydia Hearst was wearing this to a costume party, but I can't figure out what exactly she's alleging to be.

The Cold Miser's favorite call girl? Santa's beard? Carol Channing in Planet Of The Bumbles? Help me out here, Lyds.

Remember last year -- so long ago! -- when Paris went to prison, and when she came out she vowed to completely change her life by eschewing all that embarrassing public partying and club-crawling, in favor of abandoning her dumb-skank reputation and using her fortune and notoriety to make the world a better place?

[Photo: Splash News]

I wonder how that's going for her.

I caught bits and pieces of Robin Williams' appearance on Letterman last night.

[Photo: infdaily.com]

What I didn't realize is that he apparently parachuted there straight from a clearance sale at Tommy Bahama.

Everybody loves a makeover. Even the terrible ones on America's Next Top Model. There are few things as satisfying for celebrity voyeurs -- or Biggest Loser addicts -- as a good before-and-after shot to show how far someone's come. Hey, it worked for Katie Holmes last year, right? Nobody even TALKS about Teaching Mrs. Tingle any more (not that we've forgotten about it, KATIE and HELEN MIRREN -- we have memories like elephants). All anyone wants to discuss is what she's wearing and whether the haircut works.

So this week in our "New York Fugging City" column, we suggest stars who could use a little extra style mojo to propel them through 2008:

"It says something about Jessica Simpson that we can't remember anything about her wardrobe except that it's generally too small for her. If anyone needs the restorative power of some flattering new outfits, it's a woman whose last two movies were both deemed too heinous for wide release."

Check out the rest here: "The Fug Girls' Official Celebrity-Style Mandates For 2008."

I love a good sequined dress. There's an adorable one hanging sadly in my closet because I have no occasion to wear it, and I may have enabled Jessica awhile back into purchasing a really hot one -- which, tragically, she has not had occasion to wear either, because we don't often throw ourselves formal parties and we're not big Los Angeles party girls. We'd generally rather eat red velvet cake -- or drink a Black Velvet, belt out "Black Velvet" in the car, watch Blue Velvet, or gently pet a velvet Elvis -- than contend with any velvet ropes.

That said, there are times when the mighty sequin backfires.

[Photo: Splash News]

One such time might be when you are Carrie Underwood, and you are wearing a dress that Liza Minnelli would employ as a blouse. The angel on my shoulder keeps saying to the devil that's dancing on my collarbone, "But look! It's so shiny and pretty!" And the devil breaks into "New York, New York," at which point the angel mutters something about Lucille Two and how Arrested Development was amazing, and the devil pulls out a photo of David Gest, and suddenly the angel is doing shots of Jim Beam. It's a confusing time.

Sometimes I wonder if Pamela Anderson forgets that she's not actually constantly playing handmaiden to Vegas magician/possessor of the world's most fun-to-say name Hans Klok:

Great shoes, cute hair (in a sexy Cousin It kind of way), awesome....shirt? I love a fringe-y, spangly, short anything, but this is REALLY SHORT. It's a bit awkward, a bit unflattering, just a bit too "shoot, my Roxie Hart costume shrunk in the wash!" for my taste.

[Photo: Splash]

PARIS HILTON: Hello, LOVERS!

NICKY HILTON: I'm just going to look over here.

PARIS: And people think I am NOT SMART. I am smart enough to go out on the drunkiest night of the year with my NAME scrawled in the general area of my area, so if people forget my name --

NICKY: -- or if you forget your own name.

PARIS: TOTALLY. What was I talking about?

NICKY: You're smart enough to prepare for the eventuality of forgetting your own name, or for the very likely possibility of your hook-up being too drunk to remember it, so you purposely wore a dress with it scrawled across your gut in sequins.

PARIS:  Oh, right. You sound smart tonight.

NICKY: Just in comparison.

PARIS: Huh?

NICKY: Exactly.

What does it say about someone when he's got a legitimately famous father (Rod Stewart),  a marginally famous-for-being-famous sister (Kimberly Stewart), and once had his own TV show (the singularly unflattering Sons of Hollywood, which the NY Post compared to "the equivalent of having [your] face shoved into a toilet"), and yet has NO WIKIPEDIA ENTRY?

It means it's time to get out there in front of the cameras wearing a tie and no shirt, that's what it means:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

Having no Wikipedia entry to detail the provenance of your tattoos, or to outline your many failed engagements is like NOT EVEN EXISTING for a marginal public figure such as your average celebutante child-of-privilege. No wonder the poor boy felt obligated to trot outside in the Kid Rock Special.  He's just looking for validation. Sadly, Sean Stewart, you are no Kid Rock. In fact, I would venture that you are not even any Kid 'n' Play. Look into marrying Pam Anderson and/or getting an awesome hi-top fade and get back to us in six months.

I have just accepted the fact that crazy-ass Sharon Stone rocks my world. I wish she went out every night, because I feel like that would lead to an ever-increasing stockpile of photos such as this one:

[Photo: infdaily.com]

Why is she wearing a beret and the tail of a now surely peevish beaver, toasting Intern George with a golden cup at the opening of the world's largest Nespresso store? (Which is located in Paris, if you're hankering for some Nespresso, which you will be after you hear the super-porny music on their home page. Apparently, that vaguely General Foods International Coffee-like item just wants to lay you down by the fire and make sweet, sweet caffeinated love to you. Which I guess explains the rakish presence of Cloons. And I guess the "Paris" part explains the beret. Perhaps she also has a baguette hidden in the tail of that there scarf.) 

And why is she out wearing this?

It seems MTV has replaced blandly pretty, exotic-adjacent brunette veejay Vanessa Minnillo with blandly pretty, exotic-adjacent brunette veejay Lyndsey Rodrigues. I'm sure this is a very exciting time for Lyndsey, and I wish her nothing but the best in her ensuing weeks of feigning interest in hordes of interview subjects and squalling kids by day, while by night trying to date local baseball players and get her picture in Us Weekly, all the while resisting the urge to weep in quiet moments about the fact that her new boss pays Tila Tequila actual money to do things.

The correct response to such depression, though, isn't to attend an event at which Tila herself is more fully clothed than we've ever seen her while you are in costume as Mistress Knickers von Bang, sex-shop proprietress and part-time pirate's wench:

It's a fake masquerade, girl, not an invitation to Tila's rejected paramours to come up with the best scurvy-related pick-up line they can muster. Get back to me when Pillage My Village With Lyndsey Rodrigues is airing somewhere.

After a week of bathing in spiked egg nog and wondering why someone as hot as Robin Wright Penn stuck with gloomy-guts and reported asshat Sean Penn so long in the first place, it feels good to be back again in the warmth of GFY HQ. In honor of our return to action -- and the fact that real celebrities aren't doing much besides vacationing or fretting about whether they need a Golden Globes outfit or not -- I'm launching us into 2008 with a callback to the hideous trouser-beasts we linked to in our farewell post. Unfortunately, the link is now broken, so you'll have to take our word for it if you never got around to ogling them for yourselves.

I don't think they're the same in reality (for one thing, these might be actual pants rather than leggings), but in spirit -- evil, malicious, Monistat-baiting spirit -- they are as one:

It's a real testament to the pants that I'm not even commenting on the bustier. Well, that's also a testament to the fact that Ice-T's wife, CoCo, is so often to be seen gallivanting around town with her boobs hanging out -- and in fact looking somewhat like Anna Nicole Smith's doppelganger -- that COCO'S CUPS RUNNETH OVER; ELASTIC STRAP LAUDED AS WORLD'S MOST COURAGEOUS MATERIAL is hardly a noteworthy headline. But the pants... the PANTS. Will no one think of the children? Or the labia? Or the horror other pants might experience when they realize they share sartorial DNA with those monstrous mutants? Even Ice-T back there seems to be all, "Listen, lens monkeys -- step off. I TOLD her not to wear them, told her she'd be BEGGING me to cut them off her with a cocktail toothpick after ten minutes of that kind of chafing, but she did it anyway and she's HERE and we're stuck so PLEASE don't encourage her to contort her body in any other ways, or else there won't be a salve in the world to fix the blisters. Also, get me a Jack and Coke."

Yes indeed, Happy Fug Year, one and all.