May 2008 Archives

JESSICA: Speaking of old men, did Noth have something done? He looked different to me.
HEATHER: He looked freakishly well rested. Like he'd just woken up from the world's longest, most rejuvenating nap.
JESSICA: I prefer my Mr. Big to be more facially rumpled.

LAUREN CONRAD: Lo?

LAUREN "LO" BOSWORTH: Hmmm?

LC: What do you think about these jeans?

LO: About Marines? I loooove Marines! So handsome! And patriotic!

LC: No. My JEANS.

LO: Beans? I love beans.You know, they are extremely good for you.

LC: JEANS. MY JEANS. MY JEANS THAT I AM WEARING.

LO: You have lovely genetics, sweetheart! What about that Spencer, huh? What a meanie!

LC: LO. I am trying to get an honest opinion from you. On the subject of my dungarees.

LO: Look over there! ELVIS!

LC: Lo. Please.

LO: Honey. I love you. You are so pretty. And your hair has been looking AMAZING lately...

LC: But?

LO: Maybe not entirely the most flattering jeans you ever wore? I saw that US Weekly article about your beach body, so I know you are a tiny little thing composed solely of muscle. But they're maybe making you look just...a little....hippier than you usually are? You know? Just a little. But in a hot way! You're still hot! I promise!

LC: So these jeans make my butt look big? Is that what you're saying?

LO: Big? No. Not BIG. BiggER than you actually are? Maybe.

LC: I knew it. Damn you, fashion!

I am not a fan of that bag -- it's cute, but a little bit too Welcome to Junior High! May I Slam Your Head in a Locker? for me -- but I have a weird obsession with bright pants, and I think I might....really like these. Listen -- I hear you. I do. They're very 80s and sort of the color of pistachio ice cream and they're kind of silly and I RECOGNIZE that my fondness for bright pants is maybe a little bit ridiculous and....look. I know. She's wearing sea foam green pants and she's NOT swanning around the country club, twirling a strand of pearls around her index finger and eyeballing the tennis pro. She's wrong. They're wrong. I'm wrong.

Because there is nothing okay with this -- except for maybe the color -- unless you are on the set of I Dream of Jeannie: Miami Beach Mambo. And even then, she'd still have some explaining to do.

But if people would just stop WEARING those kinds of garments, we wouldn't HAVE to dip into that over and over again. Do you hear me, Jill Hennessy? Thanks to outfits like yours, I am so far down the damn well, People magazine is going to have to do a tragic story about my plight and eventual dramatic rescue just to recharge its karma after paying millions (or so I assume) to J.Lo and C.Ag and N.Rich and all their ilk for exclusive rights to their fresh spawn, and for spending, like, three months last summer relentlessly calling Britney's oldest son "Preston" even though that's actually his MIDDLE name.

So please, Jill. Stop this right now. Don't turn me into People's obligatory (and, okay, FINE, usually touching -- there, I said it) story of tragedy. Leave the curtains on the window.

If the afore-complimented Jennifer Hudson is the yang of gold metallic fabric, then Christian Siriano (whose personality, along with Chris Marsh's, totally salvaged Project Runway's last season for me) is her yin.

Seriously, there is "fierce," there is "ferocious," and then there is, "This was shoved on me by a FIERCE salesgirl at Groom And Doom's Discount Tuxedo Emporium, FEROCIOUSLY marked down to $5." I am pretty sure this shirt falls into the latter category.

Dear Andre Leon Talley:

[Photo: Splash News]

THIS is how to make Jennifer Hudson wear a metallic. Not some tweaked gold bolero with a popped collar that looks like it was made out of Wonka Golden Tickets.

Kisses,

Heather

P.S. Okay, so maybe her makeup is a little too shiny in combination with the dress, but otherwise, I think she looks great. Much as revenge is a dish best served cold, her cleavage is a meal best served HOT.

P.P.S. Also, the figure she cuts is totally badass. If J.Hud were almost any other young star, she'd have wasted away to a size two by now -- even America Ferrera keeps needlessly shrinking -- so I'm thrilled she's healthy and sexy and wearing clingy clothes.

P.P.P.S. And I love her sassy bob.

P.P.P.P.S. "Sassy Bob" sounds like the name of a really terrible hair salon that has a karaoke bar in the back. Which actually automatically makes it a hilariously amazing hair salon. Can someone please open that?

Look, ordinarily I would have second thoughts about posting a photo of Lily Allen when she is probably out running errands. Because -- and I know I've said this before, but still -- we have ALL been there, where we realized there was no Jif and no Diet Coke and nothing in the house with salt in it and PEOPLE SHOULD NOT LIVE LIKE THAT and so we ran out to Ralph's with no regard to what we had on or whether we had shaved our legs. It's just life.

However, we don't usually do any of those things in sweatpants overalls.

[Photo: INFDaily.com]

And I might even have let this slide as an off day (yes, I DO realize she's carrying a Nobu bag, but the image provider caption claims she was using it as a purse, so... yeah, never mind, it's still weird), if Lily hadn't recently caused a stir in Cannes by getting so drunk she couldn't hold up her head. It's all making me wonder if the booze and the peroxide are seeping into her mind somehow, and she's become convinced she's a nine-year old circa about 1987 who believes she's going to grow up to marry Richard Marx, and that they will hire an entire STAFF of people who are to do nothing but make sure her romper legs are rolled up evenly. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Jay Manuel a walking testimonial to the perils of turning your hair an alien silver hue? Please tell me his common sense did not die in vain.

Or, What She Should Have Worn To the Premiere:

Parenthetically, does anyone else suspect that Kristin Davis has got a portrait of herself shoved under the bed, doing all the aging for her? Because she looks about six months older than she did that time she cracked her head on the side of the Melrose Place pool and then proceeded to haunt Billy for like 36 hours, until she got bored. That was twelve years ago. (You know, just in case you were feeling spry.) At the very least, her moisturizer deserves a high five. Or even a congratulatory chest bump.

Far be it from us to let Cynthia Nixon be the only Sex and the City star to escape our microscope.

Nicole Kidman taught us all a lot of valuable lessons about fair skin and blonde hair and white dresses that look like nightgowns. I wish Cynthia had been paying attention. She looked so good at the other events, and while this isn't, say, a DISASTER, it also looks like she's waiting impatiently at the bus stop for her friendly son Casper to get off the Ghost Bus and tell her all about his day at school.

I secretly -- except not, apparently, since I just said it on my blog -- love Sarah Jessica Parker's dress.

I know it looks a tiny bit like spacesuit material, or that it's been covered in cling film, but she just looks so pretty in it. Everyone is watching; why NOT go big, right? There are photos where she's walking around while playing with the skirt and stretching it out, and dammit, I would do the exact same thing if I were Princess For A Day in that gown. [Incidentally, I would also take Matthew aside and be all, "Listen, Ferris, would it KILL YOU to act like you are proud to be with me?" His left meathook is plopped onto her waist like it's radioactive, and his facial expression is saying to me, "Shoot, there's that girl whose best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend who heard from the guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw me pass out at 31 Flavors last night. She is totally going to bust me for being here instead of being at home dying of some mysterious wasting disease. How much longer do I have to do this?" SNAP TO, BRODERICK. Or else, to put it in WarGames parlance, you are going to be at DEFCON1 when you get home.]

But while she gets to swan around like the bride, it's a tad unfortunate that Kristin Davis is stuck in something that makes her look like Sarah Jessica's eternal handmaiden:

Every time I look at this, I feel differently about it.

She looks great! She's over 50 and she's still got it! Good for her! versus The hem looks like someone attacked it with tape twenty minutes ago and the trim on her dress was inspired by an armoire versus But it's a hot armoire! Good for her for working the taped hem! Live it up, lady! Great cleavage! versus I think I need a drink versus It's barely lunch time. Should you really be drinking? versus Shut up. Don't judge me. I can have a drink if I want versus I think I need to stop looking at this dress.

I do at least get what Ashley Olsen was going for here...

[Photo: Splash News]

... but I can't help feeling like she might have pulled off the whole female-tuxedo thing better if she'd, say, washed her hair. And removed and replaced last night's eye shadow. And not worn the cummerbund. And hemmed the pants. And picked a blazer that fit. Or, say, not picked a blazer at all. She seems to be aiming at business-chic, but jerked her arm at the last minute and hit the "exhausted blackjack dealer at The Champagne Pit" spot on the target instead.

But, you know, she's an Olsen. Should she get points for having a clear intent that doesn't involve evoking the homeless? Do we give points for that sort of thing? Personally I don't like grading on a curve. But I know a lot of people who'd have flunked freshman chemistry without one, so let's give it a whirl here.

So, for those of you who don't watch Gossip Girl, Lydia Hearst here showed up in the final episode as the highly unrealistic impetus for smitten skeeze Chuck Bass to ditch out on Blair Waldorf and screw his way back into ill-repute. Aside from him doing a total 180 in the span of five minutes of TV, thereby making it feel slightly pointless to get him together with Blair in the first place, it was also a really unsatisfying ending -- and totally unrealistic, because seriously, Blair Waldorf could eat this chick for lunch, if Blair Waldorf ate anything but yogurt.

I mean... that corset looks like the rat traps all got set off before Cinderella's party posse finished making her dress. Should this ever happen to you -- and really, who hasn't had their army of tiny tailors accidentally tempted by fatal peanut-butter traps? -- my advice is to wear something else, rather than divert attention from your unfinished bodice by attaching every piece of costume jewelry within a two-mile radius to your boobs and then hoping for the best.

Maybe this is a spoiler for next season -- maybe Lydia's character returns, and Blair Waldorf exacts sweet, hot-glue revenge on her entire wardrobe. (And then, I pray, packs her off with Georgina Sparks to that reform school, never to be seen again.) The lesson here: Do not fondle Chuck's turtlenecks or you WILL pay.

You guys? I think I'm over the Sex and the City movie already. And I really liked the show. I mean, I'll totally still go see it -- if only for the clothes -- but right now I feel like I can not escape it. Its endless media onslaught is crushing the sides of my skull in a sparkly, pink vise and I am about to crack. I feel like I'm two minutes away from Kristin Davis showing up on the cover of my neighbor's copy of Bonsai Today, about 90 seconds from opening my door to find Kim Cattrall standing there to personally remind me to pre-order my tickets, a minute from Cynthia Nixon appearing as a vision on the back of my morning Pop Tart and approximately 10 seconds from Sarah Jessica Parker ripping open my shower curtain while I'm in the middle of deep conditioning to inform me that Carrie Bradshaw's story isn't over yet. I KNOW. I KNOW THE MOVIE IS COMING OUT. I SWEAR I WILL GO SEE IT. LEAVE ME ALONE. GOD.

It seems, however, that Giuliana DePandi/Rancic is feeling no such tiresome waves of ennui:

She was so stoked to find out what happened with Mr Big that she ran out to the premiere without even noticing that she's totally covered in toilet paper! I feel like that has got to go against all the tips in her dating book. Did you know Giuliana has written a dating book, by the way? I didn't either, but the internet has set me straight. Apparently,  it's called Think Like a Guy: How to Get a Guy by Thinking Like One and while I have not read it, Amazon has tagged it with, "Key Phrases: granny panties, Paris Hilton, Angelina Jolie, Ultimate Love Jams," so it has to be doing something right. I mean, Ultimate Love Jams are awesome. Very SATC:TM, no? 

This is just sad, I'm sorry. I mean, I guess I'm kind of glad to see her trussed up in something new -- even if it is pleather leggings and a vest and hideous lipstick and a painfully fake-ass pouty expression -- but COME ON. ScarJo. You are not a rock star. We all know that this album of yours is nothing but a vanity project.  Period. If it isn't, then why does the video to your first single basically seem to be about how depressed and truly pensive you are while people are putting eye make-up on you? Ooooh, poor  sad angel clown. Life is so hard when you're the center of attention. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS YOUR PAIN. There, there -- dry your professionally made-up eyes with a hundred dollar bill. It IS hard to be a beautiful, successful millionaire. You feel all ALONE, despite being newly engaged to someone totally dreamy.  You just sit alone and stare at your reflection in your black AmEx card and you cry cry cry in your lonely heart, I get it. But can't you just make these little videos and dress up like an erstwhile emo frontwoman and prance around with instruments in the privacy of your own backyard and leave the rest of us free to live in peace without having to likewise pretend you can sing?

Don't kid yourself. Don't kid me. I know what you've been thinking. I know what was on your mind this entire weekend. It wasn't, "am I allowed to eat potato salad for breakfast?" It wasn't, "I wonder if that cute boy will call me." It wasn't even, "Oh my god, what am I going to do without Lost for the next six years or however long I have to wait for the season after this one." It was, "I wonder what that Phoebe Price person wore to Cannes?"  The good news is, dear reader, that I have answers to all those questions, and they are: yes, he better, cry, and this:

Not bad, considering her past, right? A little Most Expensive Gift Bag at The Container Store, but in comparison to her usual get-ups, kind of nice and understated.

But she was just warming herself up.

One of my favorite things about all these photos is how totally uninterested the photographers behind her are. If you look at pictures of like, Angelina and Brad, ALL photographers within a ten mile radius are screaming hard enough to induce a stroke. These guys are thinking about lunch. Or maybe just looking away from her kissy-face because they've heard the old French proverb, "If P-Squared thee kiss, thy wallet ye will miss." (How else do you think she affords the vast amount of patterned silk required for her Cannes wardrobe? It's all artful pickpocketry of one kind or another.)

This one is just eye-crossing, but I must applaud her artful use of the bikini top at a red carpet event. Clearly, she's avoiding the bottoms due to recent bathing-suit-related traumas:

But this -- though she clearly should be commended for artful recyling of Steven Tyler's old mic stand scarves -- was just the warm-up for the P-Squared Cannes Pièce de Résistance:

Apparently Mischa Barton had a busy night this weekend. She started off in this:

[INFDaily.com]

The head-to-toe matchy brown thing doesn't really ice my cake, particularly, but the dress might be cute and the cut of the jacket is really flattering to her waist. If I changed anything, I think it'd be the tights.

Mischa disagreed with me, evidently.

I'm pleased Lindsay Lohan is apparently booking a few jobs that give me headline material for whenever we want to feature her. And I think I'm supposed to settle for being pleased that she is not wearing leggings here.

However, I'm distinctly NOT pleased that she's forsaken the Spandex Scourge in favor of looking like somebody dug her out of their attic, shampooed her, and then brought her to Antiques Roadshow to find out if Marie Antoinette ever sat on her at a state dinner.

I would suggest that maybe her mom could stop gallivanting around being gross and trying to turn her youngest kid into a new meal ticket, but alas, I'm pretty sure Dina's influence would only cause Linds to streak on some leg bronzer and throw on some even CLUMSIER makeup, all part of the Lohan Matriarch's effort to make sure her kids look so prematurely old that she could pass as their younger sister. Sigh. Maybe Lindsay learned her lesson about unflatteringly short skirts when she wasn't allowed to sit down anywhere without a cater-waiter performing a panty check; however, in the wrong hands that could be interpreted as a dating strategy, so I should probably just give up hope and go meditate on lunch.

Today, dear readers, is a very special, precious, glorious day. Not only is it the kickoff of Memorial Day weekend here in America, and thus the official beginning of summer, it is also marks the 75th anniversary of the birth of one Ms Joan Collins, a woman from whom we have learned everything there is to know about dramatic entrances, giant hats, cutting remarks, and blackmail. In celebration of this glorious event, we leave you with the following instructional photographs:

1) When forced to wear hideously twee earrings and giant puffy sleeves (perhaps at a wedding), the best way to keep from screaming is to grit your teeth and throw your champagne flute at the help.

2)  If you suspect your ex-husband plans to attempt to choke you out, make sure your bracelets match your earrings for maximum accessorial impact during the big moment.

3) And, most importantly over the long holiday weekend: There is no lady-like way to eat fried chicken.

Have a good one, readers! See you on Tuesday. Bring your bitch pants.

Catherine Keener, taking one for the team and proving once and for all that there IS such a thing as too much houndstooth. And too-giant bell sleeves. And not enough lipstick. Thanks, Catherine! I think we've all learned a valuable lesson from this, don't you? Now, go back to the hotel and change before you knock someone unconscious.

And what's more:

[Photo: Splash News]

YAWN. Check, please.

Much as Gwyneth got roughly to third base with her obsession with microminis, Natalie Portman has been doing heavy flirting with ruffles this year at Cannes. And I'm doing a lot of waffling on whether I think they're pretty and flirty, or kind of crazy. Don't get me wrong, I love waffles. Just not mind waffles. So you, dear readers, need to put on your special baby-soft clicking glove of judgment and prepare to be the jury.

Exhibit A for the prosecution:

The defense argues that this is quite pretty and elegant on her, and is an amazing color. But the prosecution wants you to know that the ruffle flipping up around her chest could have been a valance in another life. Or in this one, until twenty minutes before Natalie left her hotel.

Exhibit B:

The prosecution whispers furiously with each other -- one of them was heard to say, "You're telling me you wouldn't try that on if you had her figure? PLEASE" -- and then feebly suggests that a strong breeze would expose Natalie's portman to the world. The defense raucously chest-bumps each other and stars singing "Livin' On A Prayer."

Exhibit C:

The prosecutors are momentarily at a loss for words, because this is another really lovely color, but they're about to recover long enough to note that this is the sort of thing -- and, indeed, the red number as well -- would ONLY look good on someone as tiny as Natalie Portman. Anyone with an inch to pinch and real-woman hips would look like a very cold Christmas tree.  Meanwhile, the defense is making margaritas and toasting the fact that, really, who cares how it would look on a normal person if Natalie looks cute in it? The prosecution responded by passing them a note that said, "STOP LAUGHING AT US. It's sort of old-looking! Right? What if she's giving someone bad ideas? Also, can you pour us one on the rocks with salt?"

And finally, Exhibit D:

According to our friends at IMDb, our beloved Bai Ling here has completed photography on SIX FILMS coming out over the next two years, is filming another, and is in pre-production on yet another. Girlfriend works her ass off. When does she have time to create/procure the likes of this?

Wait! I want you to see the back (speaking of asses, especially):

Whee! It's like....a leotard with the human equivalent of saddle bags attached? At least she has somewhere to store her lip gloss, her house key, and her copy of The Interplanetary Guide to Human Interaction: Intrigue, Involve, Inveigle.

What happened to Alanis Morissette?

[Photo: Splash News]

She used to be kind of an edgy rocker type, or at least, someone who seemed sort of amused to get to play an edgy rocker type. Now she's your coworker at Kinko's who wears polyester pants and sensible trainers with her large vests, and keeps guilt-tripping everyone into coming to see her wicked-awesome Bangles cover band, Ovarian Love Bracelet, only to get them all to a show and then humiliatingly dedicate "Eternal Flame" to the dude who takes the passport photos. I've got one hand in my pocket, Alanis, and the other is covering my eyes. ZING. Thank you, good night! Tip the kid replacing the ink in Copier #2!

Edited to add: Yes, I know the rumor is that she's pregnant, but that's beside the point. I know plenty of pregnant women who don't wear that outfit. Particularly those pants. ESPECIALLY those pants.

So, as you can imagine, we were STOKED about the new 90210. What's not to love? But judging from the recently released promo for the spin-off/sequel/update/remix/whatever we're calling it, it's going to be more of a case of, what's not to love to hate? First off, the clothes are terrible, albeit in a potentially hilarious way. For another, it already feels deeply boring:

"Not even Tristan Wilds, a.k.a. Michael from The Wire, can explain why his character is interesting except for "the way he adapts to Beverly Hills." (Couldn't he have tossed off something like, "Oh, just the way he sold a baby for a Dior phone"?) On 90210: Days of Yore, Emily Valentine slipped drugs into Brandon's drink, then poured gasoline on a parade float and threatened arson when he dumped her. You want this to be appointment television? Give us the sense there's something comparable up these people's designer sleeves."

Join us in predicting what we're going to hate about the show after a mere 120 seconds of exposure to it over at NY Mag.com!

PS: Just so we're clear -- we're obviously going to watch it. You know that, right? We haven't suffered identical head injuries or anything.

I don't know about you, but every time I see an ad for Denise Richards: It's Complicated, I fly into a foaming rage. It's NOT complicated. You had a brutally wretched and acrimonious divorce during which both you and the MaSheen said incredibly disturbing things about each other, and then you hopped into the sack with your best friend's husband before either of you were even legally single. That isn't complicated. Physics is complicated. Brain surgery is complicated. Figuring out what color shoes to wear with a navy blue dress is complicated.  I would have accepted Denise Richards: It's Embarrassing, or Denise Richards: It's Awkward or even Denise Richards: I'm Disgusting, but Denise Richards: It's Complicated I reject wholly. Don't pretend your life is gloriously and fascinatingly complex in a way that wasn't totally engineered by your own actions, and I won't pretend I don't hate your hat: 

I hate your hat. And those shoes with that dress. And this entire look. And the fact that someone decided we all wanted to watch Denise Richards in her day-to-day life. Not everything needs to be on camera, and I say that as someone who actually watched all of Paradise Hotel 2.

There are times when I wonder if Cate Blanchett is actually incapable of bowing her head, because she always looks so supremely confident in everything she wears. On occasions like this, I keep expecting her to snap to consciousness and do what any of the rest of us would do: look down at herself and jump ten feet in the air and go, "AAK! DISCO BATHROBE!" and then borrow the doorman's coat and hide at the open bar. But no.

[Photo: Splash News]

Instead she's standing there quietly transcending it, like she does with everything she wears: "Yeah, I'm awesome-looking. And talented. I could be wearing a mother'f'ing disco bathrobe and it wouldn't matter. Wait, I am? Whatever. Have you seen my skin?" Not that I think Cate Blanchett is a cocky beeyotch -- just that, you know, she COULD be. I would be.

GUY: Um, Madge...

MADONNA: Yeeeeees? Will this be quick? I'm busy. I have to look happy, and married. I would advise you to do the same.

GUY: Aren't you forgetting something?

MADONNA: It's a bit too late to tell me you don't like my dress.

GUY: That wasn't what I was going to say. But also, I don't. Up close it's see-through, and you look like a chocolate-dipped disco ball.

MADONNA: But, like, a happy disco ball? A happy disco ball who is married, and happy about it, and happily married?

GUY: It also looks like someone was changing the color and got bored halfway through and just quit on you.

MADONNA: ... because I'm so happily married and you were jealous of his work?

GUY: And the necklace is too much, and the shoulder cutouts are ridiculous. It's like what you'd wear in an overly formal aerobics video.

MADONNA: Aerobics for people who love being married!

GUY: Listen, if you want people to think we're so happy, you could've at least remembered to wear your wedding ring.

MADONNA: I... really? I did? How do you know?

GUY: I've seen other pictures.

MADONNA: What a weird thing to say.

GUY: Let it go. The point is, people are going to NOTICE that you're not wearing your goddamn wedding ring if you're so happily married.

MADONNA: ENOUGH. Touch me. SELL IT.

GU: Fine. FINE. And your face does at least look nice.

MADONNA: SEE? SEE, PEOPLE? EVERYTHING IS FINE. LOVE! SO MUCH LOVE.

GU: You've still got it. You even almost sell the crazy dress. Maybe I DO still love you. And maybe I even love that dress.

MADONNA: Now shut up and smile.

If we had a GFY Suggestion Box, it would have been stuffed to the brim this morning with little pieces of paper suggesting, "CARRIE UNDERWOOD ON AI LAST NIGHT!" See, I was irritated with American Idol this morning. Not because of who won -- in fact, I really like Cook -- but because when I fired up the old TiVo and fast-forwarded through all the yadda yadda to get to the big reveal, this is what greeted me:

RYAN SEACREST: "And the winner...of American Idol... 2008....is.... David......" DING! Would you like to delete this recording? ACK! What? NO! SHOW ME MORE! I NEED TWO MORE MINUTES! (I actually think Seacrest is very good at his job, but the dramatic pausing is going to get him killed. POTENTIALLY BY IRRITATED TIVO OWNERS.)

Anyhoodle,  I was in no mood. But I crabbed to Heather, "I guess I need to look at Carrie Underwood," and she said, "Oh, no. YOU WANT TO."

And I did:

As ever, I apologize for the poor quality. You'd think the combination of me kneeling before my ancient television with my camera would produce better photos. Clearly, I need a 60 inch flat screen HDTV immediately. IT'S FOR WORK.

But yes. That is....a floaty shawl-like item attached only to the sleeves of her jacket and flittering around behind her like some kind of twee, toilet-paper-cape-esque accessory. Confused? Me too. Let's take another look at it:

In fairness, she IS singing about a drunken Vegas wedding, so perhaps we can excuse as being a rather literal costume. After all, you'd have to be drunk to wear it.

I think I've mentioned how much I love Greek before. And I do. It's so funny. Just this week it actually featured a "Donna Martin Graduates!" joke that made me laugh out loud. Seriously, it's like my favorite new show. Other than The Amazing Adventures of Chuck Bass, I mean. Anyway, Spencer "Spawn of Kelsey" Grammer here is the female protagonist and she is really very charming:

But while I actually think the dress is quite summery and fun, I don't know if I would have quite gone so matchy-matchy with the shoes.  On the other hand, I like a bright shoe. On the other hand, there's a lot going on in the dress itself. On the other hand, I need to stop dithering here.

Damn, Julia Ormond is back to looking like a total bombshell.

[Photo: Splash News]

Of course, the last time we shone our fug light on Julia she was sporting a crocheted bathing cap, so -- short of hemming this at the ankle and putting on jeans underneath -- things had nowhere to go BUT up. Hopefully she's given up the dream of land-based synchronized swimming in homemade knitwear once and for all.

It seems famed lingerie model Eva Herzigova might also be the unofficial Gams of Cannes. With the exception of last year, in which she was pregnant, Eva generally always shows up at the French film festival at least once in something that openly begs for your vote for the coveted Gams d'Or.

Like, say, this little number from 2006. Or this, from now:

Not that she doesn't have the bod, and I congratulate her on her consistency. But I'm a bit less enchanted by the fact that I suspect these are the widow's weeds the Playboy bunnies will wear when Hugh Hefner is finally, irreversibly tempted by the big pillowy sex swing in the sky (where I hear you can get super-strong Viagra without a prescription -- so, like Mexico, but without the threat of dysentery). Why steal their thunder, Eva? They're going to be sad enough as it is.

I guess.... sigh. There's nothing crazily, glaringly, bikini-waxer-promoting, panty-compromisingly, Leggings McCameltoe-ishly wrong with this.

But... she appears to have had some trouble with the lining bunching up under there, and it's not doing her hips any favors. Also, I know we mention bed linens a lot, but it's distressingly apt again here: I swear, I knew a girl in college with this exact duvet set on her bed, and it's not such a great idea to walk around like the embodiment of the thing 18-year olds crawled under to devour an entire box of (fat-free!!!) Snackwell's cakes, barfed on after a case race, and balled up in the bottom of a cardboard box every year when she packed up her room for the summer.

Okay, if that's how you want to play it, Aubrey:

Personally, I would have gone for something a bit less Malibu Barbie Whips Up a Little Something Apres Shower and Decides to Wear It Out, but what do I know? I'm not even wearing shoes right now.

When I saw this dress from afar, in a wee photo thumbnail, I expected that when it enlarged I'd see a wig-wearing Phoebe Price in it:

Because if there is anyone in this world likely to wear a gown one of the nominees would sport at the Circus Animal Tamers Banquet and Awards Gala -- or CATBAG -- it is our girl P-Squared, who has never met a cutout she thought was too small. Or maybe Bai Ling, whom I imagine actually does wrangle leopards in her spare time. This does not bode well for Corinne Touzet, whose reasonably long resume indicates she might be an actual working actress, and therefore would probably prefer to avoid speculation that she is secretly operating an old-timey brothel -- which, if you think about it, is not that different than lion-taming, but possibly with a smaller whip. Then again, she did wear the dress, so maybe she WANTS people to think she's about to run off and publish a salacious semiautobiographical novel called Petting Zoo.

I thought Hilary Swank was making a movie about Amelia Earhart, but it seems I was wrong. She's clearly making a Lifetime movie about a small town local news anchor with big dreams of becoming the next Katie Couric:

But of course her well-ordered life of supremely sensible hair and cotton-blend pantsuits is turned upside down when her fiance, the local police chief (played by Grant Show), is arrested for murdering a young prostitute who turns out to be the child Hilary Swank gave up for adoption years ago, and her comfortable suburban life goes up in FLAMES! It's called But First: Reporting Live: Not Without My ING Sweater Set: The Mary Katherine Elizabeth Houlihan Story and it's premiering right after they show both Menendez brothers mini-series in an eight-hour block. I can't wait!

And so another season of One Tree Hill comes to an end. I can barely see through my tears. You think I jest, but I actually mean it. Well, I'm not really CRYING, but this was a seriously satisfying season -- full of: near-drownings; kidnappings; people being left at the altar; people finding out they need a heart transplant and then proceeding to stalk the comatose body of the person ahead of them on the transplant list and also purchasing for themselves a giant headstone (complete with headshot!) proclaiming them to be a great husband, father and brother when in fact they were none of those things and then also arranging to have themselves buried next to very grave of the brother they murdered -- a grave they also accidentally set on fire that one time; shirtless bartenders beating up junkies; and people who were just paralyzed because they were lazy. And, of course, a rich and varied history of REALLY BAD DUDE HAIR. What am I supposed to do all summer without copious infusions of man bangs?

At least the finale took that history of crappy man 'dos and BROUGHT IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

For one thing, we opened with this:

Okay, so no one is even looking at his hair. But CMM drinking shirtless next to a dog that has its own drink is simply too awesome to ignore. And apparently once you go drinking with a Labrador retriever, you might wake up with this:

We have gotten A LOT of email about this one:

I don't full-on hate it. Other than the fact that her expression is totally blank and she's kind of working the Dead Eyes and she appears to be mid-sentence, I have to appreciate the fact that Vogue's Photoshop henchmen didn't completely erase all of SJP's wrinkles the way every other magazine covering the Sex and the City movie has. Just, you know, a vast majority of them. Look, SJP is hardly a wrinkly old hag. But she's got a line here or there -- because of something we call aging -- and you'd never know it from all the covers she's landed on lately, in which she looks as smooth of forehead and supple of cheek as a wee baby.  I think my main issue with this cover, actually, is that it's sort of unflattering and boring and if ever there were an occasion to stick Sarah Jessica Parker in a giant hot pink tutu, a gold-plated bodice, knee-high lace-up moonboots covered in fur, and a giant, peacock-feather headdress, THIS IS IT. Why'd you let me down like that, A Dubs?

She's not in Cate Blanchett territory -- at least not for me -- but despite my general boredom and underwhelmed feelings when it comes to Gwyneth Paltrow, I have to admit that she is good at pulling off clothes that are unusual. So I've been staring at this picture throughout an entire One Tree Hill rerun (seasons may change, but Chad Michael Murray's accidentally vacuous Squint Of Deep Thought is forever) trying to decide whether this is a good risk or a bad one. And so far all I've come up with is that I'm not quite sure, and that I hope Sophia Bush really is dating James Lafferty, because he's way dreamier than her skeevy ex.

Pros: I love navy. It's very sleek and streamlined. And the neckline is sort of sweet.

Cons: The seam in the front bisects her weirdly and I keep thinking it's because someone cut open a jumpsuit sewed it into a skirt; it's pulling around her groin; she looks SO barely-there-slim that she's almost a bobblehead, and the bow tie and ribbony bits actually seem to walk the very wobbly line between "sweet" and "twee," and may have passed out in a whiskey-sodden stupor on the wrong side.

Has Sigourney Weaver got Tilda Swinton on speed dial?

She was on the right track with the dress, but then it's like the little alien that's usually on Tilda's shoulder crept over to Sigourney and told her that nothing would class up a navy evening gown QUITE like a neon satin nightshirt in the same hue as lead-based pea soup -- ESPECIALLY without a lick of eye makeup. Honestly, you'd think Sigourney had enough experience with aliens to know when they're pulling her leg.

Something about this is SO WRONG, it's come around to being awesomely right, by which I mean, totally hilarious:

I mean, what can I say that will add to the hilariousness already inherent in this dress? That it looks like something a starfish would wear to a formal dance in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants? That it's a item of clothing that will provide hours and hours of gleeful chuckles and bad jokes to the drunk? That it appears to be a sartorial salute to the body's major arteries? No. You have to just look upon its majesties and enjoy.

CRISS ANGEL: You seem to be having a good time.

POPPY MONTGOMERY: Sure! I just had a baby and I look great! I have no idea what I'm doing here, but at least I look good doing it. Why are YOU here?

CRISS: I'm MAGIC.

POPPY: No, really.

CRISS: I AM MAGIC.

POPPY: Do you have a show on CBS now, or something?

CRISS: A MAGICAL SHOW.

POPPY:...okay, then can we talk about what you're wearing?

CRISS: Is it not magical?

POPPY: It is not. Unless "magical" is a synonym for "frighteningly reminiscent of the contents of a hormone-fueled nightmare I once had about being chained to Nikki Sixx at a biker bar while being haunted by Lord Voldemort's Dark Mark." In which case: totally.

Oh, Carrie Underwood. I know I spent years and years railing about your habit of wearing formal shorts to perform, but I have to say, I rather prefer the shorts to this:

You're adorable and in great shape and very young. Now is not the time to dress like you're the headliner on Carnival Cruises' Nifty At Sixty Salute to The Golden Girls as interpreted by someone with a long-term Barry Gibb fetish. You are doing your bum a disservice -- which is not to say that your bum looks bad, merely that your bum would probably prefer to be encased in something less agonizingly cheesy. But maybe the front is better:

Note to Sara Evans:

You're allowed to go up a size.

I am mildly concerned that Dania Ramirez appears to be wearing a dress cobbled together from wrapping paper I saw at Target and a hot pink tutu.

And I am really rather perplexed by the fact that her right boob apparently needs to be thrust up so much farther than her left. Did it win something?

But above all, I can't help being VERY worried that her presence at Upfronts parties this spring means we are stuck seeing more of her annoying character on Heroes. And I can't handle that. I would take an entire season more of Ali Larter and/or Lovestruck Hiro Mooning Around Feudal Japan (Not To Be Confused With 'Mooning Feudal Japan,' Which Would Be More Of An HBO Show) if it meant not having to watch Wonder Twin #1 act like a complete idiot and then gasp awkwardly while the special-effects guys turn her eyes black. Granted, none of that is necessarily Dania's direct fault, but she is the one who dredged up all those feelings by attending Happy Fun Fall Schedule parties in a dress that I'm pretty sure is something Paris Hilton would've worn to a birthday party -- or, indeed, even as pajamas -- when she was ten. And possibly twenty.

Jenny McCarthy has kind of grown on me. I must be mellowing with age, but whenever she's on The View -- I know, I KNOW, but the squabbling is sort of addictive -- she usually makes me laugh, and I dig the blonde bob she's been working lately. Her coif is a foul temptress, the kind of hair that cruelly entices me to consider chopping mine off likewise, until I remember that it would end in tears because we have very different hair, so while she looks sleek and cool, I would look like Carrot Top.

Or sort of like this:

It's not that the curly bob is so bad, actually. It's just that this ENTIRE look feels ripped from Va-Va-Voom: The Jessica Simpson Story, about that awkward time when Jessica was so desperate for us all to LOVE HER that she over-bronzed and wore horrible curly short wigs that probably cost $1 and tight plunging necklines, to the point that if anyone asked you what color her eyes were, you'd say, "Uh... boobs." (I know that sounds like every time with Jessica Simpson, but it is one PARTICULAR phase more than any other.) Jenny McCarthy deserves better than to make me think of Jessica Simpson when I look at her.

And more than that, Jenny deserves better than to make me think she's a hungry cougar. Seriously, I half expect her to announce that she's spending the summer at the Catskills, where she'll have rowdy sex and do the cha-cha with her hunky dance instructor during the week and then coo over Jim Carrey when he comes up for his weekend poker games. By which I mean, it's retro in a creepy/desperate kind of way -- you know, that special, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner, but they are more than welcome to put you there, and in fact, I would encourage it, especially because we all know Baby's sister caught you in bed with her waiter boyfriend" aura.

A lot of people have e-mailed us asking why the hell Phoebe Price gets invited to Cannes every year. One of our pet theories is that people are egging her on, because laying bets on what percentage of her body will be exposed is both fun and lucrative, and also everyone just wants to see if The Crimson Nutbar can top herself.

I'm starting to think Lady Victoria Hervey falls into that category as well.

[Photo: FlynetOnline.com]

Like, I'm pretty sure next year someone will say, "Hey, do you think Lady Victoria Hervey will be wearing anything that's actually sewn together?" And someone else will reply, "Who's that, again? Princess Sparkle Panties? Nah, she clearly hates a seam." Say what you will about Victoria Beckham and her love of the skimpy and dramatic, but she does stop short of bedazzled illusion netting. (SO FAR.) If we could just get Lady Hervey, Phoebe Price, and Bai Ling together in a movie, we could call it Fuglie's Angels -- plot TBD, and also, totally beside the point -- and then maybe they could all show up at Cannes for an actual REASON sometime.

"Oh, CRAP," Gillian Anderson seems to be thinking, "I'm still wearing my towel, aren't I?" I'm sorry, Agent Scully, but it seems that you are. But take heart! It appears to be a very, very expensive towel, and you can just tell everyone that you were forced to wear this as part of a black ops government experiment involving  black oil, guys with bionic arms, super soldiers, your ova, a chip in the back of your neck, a guy with a wicked nicotine addiction, and a variety of little green men. That sounds like a pretty good excuse to me.

At first, I thought Paris Hilton might have been allowed to attend one of the many global horse-racing events that encourage crazy hats and wonky poses like you are deeply drunk on Pimm's Cups.

But, no. She's just promoting her fragrance, "Can Can," which a) I am afraid might be so named because it smells like Paris does after a night of dancing at the clubs, and b) is apparently aimed at girls who piss off their cousins by going to their country weddings wearing white dresses and hats that resemble a contemporary-art take on bird excrement; cozying up to the cute young vicar at the reception after pouring vodka into his tonic; and then dragging him under the head table to make out until they are discovered midway through the father-daughter dance, at which point he's got lipstick on his forehead and his pants are on his head.

Sigh.

There is nothing Eva Longoria loves more than a nice, subtle understatement.

Although there is a part of me that appreciates this drama -- kind of the way I thought it was deeply ridiculous in a HILARIOUS way that Celine Dion gave all her wedding guests a large photo album full of glamour shots of herself, and then a while later had a second wedding that I believe involved riding elephants -- I just can't help wondering if Eva thinks that every time she sets foot in France, she needs to remind us all of her lavish wedding. Cannes is a big, fancy deal, sure, but did she really need to deprive every ballet academy in Europe of its tulle supply? I would suggest Eva is the female embodiment of Bobby Trendy, but frankly, Bobby Trendy is already sort of the female embodiment of Bobby Trendy. And somewhere out there, looking at this photo, he is having an aneurysm of pleasure.

In total fairness, I bet this IS comfortable:

Like my grandma's housedress, or a hotel robe, neither of which I would willingly wear out of the house. In addition to that fact that it's a vaguely Hammer-Pantsian jumpsuit romper, it looks like a rather cheap Hammer-Pantsian jumpsuit romper. The sort of thing you grab when you're in Urban Outfitters picking up some wacky summer sunglasses and hold up and wave at your friend while making a, "can you believe they're selling this?!?!" face, and then she makes a "Whoa!" face and then you both go back to trying on sunglasses and end up buying ones that you suspected would make you look like an asshole, but it turns out are actually kind of cute. But no one really BUYS that Hammer-Pantsian jumpsuit romper from Urban Outfitters. It ends up in the back left corner of the store under deep, deep discount along with the hemp culottes and the fringed hotpants. And if someone DOES buy the Hammer-Pantsian jumpsuit romper, she probably just wears it around the house. OR SHE SHOULD.

We have really awesome, big-hearted readers. Seriously, go hug yourselves. Because since we posted about our National Doodle Day drawing on eBay, with all proceeds going to charity (if you missed it, click here for details), our strange but sketched-with-love drawing has managed to work its way up to a $255 price tag. Take THAT, Goldie Hawn's Doodle! Eat our dust, David Cassidy! How do you like the truth that's out there NOW, Chris Carter, huh?

No, no, I jest. It's so thrilling to see so many bidders on ALL these doodles coming out and doing something generous for charity; we're just blessed to have a blog with supportive and lovely readers. And have we mentioned you're attractive? Because you are. Very much so. And you will look even MORE attractive next to this:

Bidding ends on Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern, so you still have time to scour the sketches (there are some really good ones) and see if there's something that catches your fancy. Hey, it's for the children!

And because we're so delighted that our... let's call it "rare" ...  piece of artwork is able to contribute to this great cause, we've decided to match as much of the winning bid as we can, in a separate donation to Neurofibromatosis Inc. Which basically means we're matching all of it -- unless there's a mysterious benefactor out there about to slap down $5,000 for it (and if there is, you are both deeply fantastic and possibly blind), I'm pretty sure we can swing the whole amount.

So go forth and bid while you can! We're coming for you, Candice Bergen... oh yes, we are.

Most of Rachel Bilson is at a party for Target.

[Photo: Splash News]

But her feet are at a brown-bag-themed high-school party, where everyone is required to swig their wine coolers, Long Island Iced Teas, or Colt 45 from a bottle hidden in a paper sack. But monitor them carefully, Rachel -- you don't want them to end up drunk in the bathroom, wailing for a friend to come in and help them re-snap the crotch piece of their spandex bodysuit. Because I've seen that party before, and it always ends with vomit in the bathtub.

"You know, screw it. So WHAT if I lost the coin toss and had to be the one separating Sarah Jessica and Kim. BIG DEAL if Kim's fingernail is making my back bleed because she is digging into it, thinking it's Sarah Jessica's hand. Who cares? I look fantastic. AGAIN. This is my revenge for how they never let Miranda be as fabulous as the other three. Although, Kristen and Sarah Jessica look nice, too, but WHAT is going on with Kim? It's like she has a satchel sewn to her hip, and the dress is all pulled and strange... I wonder... I mean, I don't want to point fingers, but I DID see Sarah Jessica's assistant trying to bury a hot glue gun in a planter, although Kristin told me Patricia Field was just trying to decide whether it would work as a last-minute headpiece. But she might have been kidding... Oh, whatever, I can't keep up with who hates whom these days. All I know is, if I look like a million bucks one more time, they're all going to hate ME. And I'm going to LOVE IT, because I EARNED THIS, bitches. Take that, breast cancer. You lose, and I am hot, and every man here is bummed I'm not into putting sausage on the grill. RECOGNIZE!"

Oh, Vicks. There IS a reason why your dBv trousers aren't selling:

I mean, honestly, darling. Would YOU buy your pants if you weren't already contractually obligated to do so? Obviously not, as you can't even be bothered to hem them.

Apparently, this dude, Jesse Brune, is a trainer on Work Out. I don't watch the show, so I have no beef with him.

But I will, if he keeps wearing this shirt around Hollywood. What if Kirsten Dunst sees him? PLEASE, sir, think of the boobs.

LUCY: I kind of wish I wasn't standing here.

ANGELINA: Hmm?

LUCY: I mean, you have no right to look that hot. You're having twins!

ANGELINA: Mmm-hmm.

LUCY: And you're wearing a color! You almost never wear color. And it's a GREAT color.

ANGELINA: Mmm.

LUCY: I thought I looked pretty cute, but seriously, no woman in her right mind should ever put herself next to you.

ANGELINA: Mmm.

LUCY: I kind of want to make out with you.

ANGELINA: Mmm!

LUCY: Damn right.

Well, ANTM X is officially in the books, and although there was nary an endearing/terrifying/jaw-dropping nutter like C6's Jade in the bunch -- tranny-lite Dominique came closest, but get back to us when she's writing beat poetry in the confessional -- the cycle yielded three fairly well-matched finalists who actually TALKED to each other instead of sitting around eating breakfast in sullen silence. Over at New York's site, we debated the merits of the big finale.

Jessica: I especially enjoyed the moment when Miss J was like, "OF COURSE WHITNEY HAS ISSUES! SHE SO FAT!" And Tyra had to step in and be like, "She is only MODEL FAT. Not REALLY fat."

Heather: Now that's a PSA in the making.

Jessica: I do think I've learned a valuable lesson. I'm not sure what it is, but I know it's valuable.

In a show of love for our overseas readers, we won't say who won, because we're feeling charitable today. But if you want to catch the rest of our impressions of the victor, her two bounced competitors, and the overall episode, click on over to read the full column.

Coming soon to a stage near you:

Jena Malone IS Little Orphan Velma, the plucky girl whose passion for jazz and betting her bottom dollar prompt her to poison the proprietress of her Chicago orphanage and convert it into a casino/nightclub. Follow her as she serves prison time for sneaking into the White House to leave a demo tape with the president and "accidentally" murders his housekeeper! Root for her when her fellow orphans testify against her on the stand! Weep with relief when a wealthy billionaire springs her from the pokey in exchange for agreeing to live in his guest bedroom and tap-dance on his back patio three times a week! Co-starring Donald Trump.

Dear Hilarie Burton:

Love the dress, but you are starting to worry me.

Seriously, that would be so much prettier if it didn't look like it was falling off your frame. Listen, I know the noxious fumes from Chad Michael Murray's pomade are generally enough to scare away any girl's appetite, but please do not let that keep you from exploring the wonders of carbohydrates. You are too pretty to waste away. Just have one of your other co-stars make you a cheesecake sandwich, or something, and then maybe invest in some scented noseplugs so that further CMM-related air-quality issues are less likely to cause nausea. After all, that Chocolate Fudge Ripple hoagie needs time to stick with you.

Naomi Watts' belted toga makes her knees look like they're about two inches above her ankle bone, and gives the impression that she's hunched over in bladder-suppressing agony.

I'm telling you all that now because once you see the picture, it's entirely possible your eyes will not travel far enough south to notice the rest of it.

She really should have sold ad space on those nipple flowers.

Oh, Julianne Moore! Part of me is just in love with this. I love it when you go all John Singer Sargent on us:

And part of me feels like there's just too much happening on the bodice, in a way that screams, "I literally just walked off the set of the film I'm currently making, based on a previously undiscovered Henry James novel, in which my character makes a lot of minor but horrifying social errors, eventually marries a mean nouveau riche man for money in the hopes of making her enemies pay, but still suffocates under the far-reaching demands of Polite Society and instead of running off to Italy, eventually drowns herself in a lake." Plus, then it's sheer from the knee down. THE SCANDALE!

Do you think Cate Blanchett ever wakes up and thinks, "Damn. I am awesome"? She should:

If nothing else, I wish she'd teach a class at the Learning Annex called, "How To Wear A Dress Exactly The Same Color As The Rest Of You Without Looking Like A Whacked-Out Blood-Thirsty Zombie." I need to know her secrets.

We KNOW you're prepping for tonight's Top Model finale the usual way: plucking your brows, practicing your fiercest walk and preparing your signature eggplant dip, Banksa ghanoush. Care to make it....interesting? Yeah, that's right. Are you, like Kenny Rogers, a Gambler? Because we're laying odds at NY Mag.com:

"You know Tyra has been itching to anoint a girl with curves, and frankly, we're similarly rooting for Whitney to pull the upset — if for no other reason than to imagine the outrage from beanpole advocates like ex-judge Janice Dickinson. After all, if the show can’t produce an actual top model, the least it can do is stir up a little tabloid drama."

On the other hand, do we really think she'll win? Not entirely. See how the handicapping shakes out at NY Mag.com. (But BE WARNED: The comments to this post already contain alleged spoilers, so don't scroll down to read them if you want to go in fresh and clean!)

"Hello. My name is Janet, and I'll be your hostess tonight here at Ombre's Fabulous Caftan and Sushi Emporium.  Your table is ready. We have two specials tonight: a spicy tuna roll with avocado and mango, and this spectacularly fabulous/totally f'ing crazy caftan-gown which handily doubles as a parachute if you happen to get pushed out of a plane and yet is still dramatic enough to work if you wake up in an alternate universe where you are starring in Dynasty:Intergalatic. It also transforms into a really fantastic window treatment. Can I get you folks a drink to start?"

This is Shenae Grimes,  who has been cast as the Brenda-esque character in the 90210 sequel:

And just when I thought we were running out of starlets to talk about! I think it's fair to say that a backless micro micro-mini with side boob and a mysterious rib-cage tattoo is perhaps just a wee too much skank for a CW promotional event. 

In fact, I feel the 90210-Redux ast may soon inspire their own category, as Grimes' castmate AnnaLynne McCord (whom you may recognize as Portia DeRossi's freaky wackjob daughter from Nip/Tuck) appeared at upfronts in this:

I know Posh didn't write the book on wearing Marc Jacobs, so it's not like Lydia Hearst donned this with the intention of walking a mile in Lady Becks' hot pants.

But Posh did at least contribute a series of short stories to the book on swanning around town in bizarre designer gear while looking  hungry and sultry, like you are game for a meal IF AND ONLY IF medium-rare man-flesh is on the menu. Still, Lydia deserves some credit for packing some brass balls underneath her "Sex In The Kitchen" Barbie apron (now with buttered rolls and "Restaurant Closed" sign!).  Because it takes balls to repeat an outfit that Victoria not only wore on the red carpet, but famously donned for an actual Marc Jacobs ad campaign -- especially when that outfit makes you look like a pep squad leader for a high school whose team is called The Fighting Pink Togas.

I just don't know, Genevieve.

[Photo: Splash News]

Except that's a lie, because I totally do know: YIKES. The shirt would've had a chance with different pants, but oh, MY, those trousers are a sad mess. Not only do they appear to be pleated around the stomach, but they look like expensive knockoffs -- a phrase, by the way, that is fundamentally plain wrong -- of the kind of elastic-waist track slacks that grandmothers wear back and forth to their water aerobics classes. There's even a weird dark patch around her groin that could work as a disturbing "before" shot in a Depends commercial. You were already the socialite people thought could be lying about her age and whose mysteriously gotten riches are the source of some curiosity; you don't want to add the word "incontinent" in there anywhere.

This is a gorgeous deep purple, and being as Charlize Theron is the tallest drink of water this side of the Schlitz pitcher on my coffee table, this dress's best chance of succeeding is definitely on her body.

[Photo: Splash News]

She's at least got the neck to carry off that much ruffle -- whereas, say, Hilary Duff would look like her head was being served up in the middle of a purple cabbage salad. But I'm not even 100 percent sure all that hoo-ha is doing Charlize that many favors, either. I mean, that is a LOT of business going on up there, you know? A little around the neck can be pretty; a lot walks a very fine line between "dramatic" and The Estate of Carmen Miranda Presents: The Search For The Next Carmen Miranda: Copacabanalicious.

Riddle me this: if you didn't know it was Jessica Alba on the cover of Allure, would you waltz past it in the supermarket and think, "Hey, there's Jessica Alba!" or would you think, "is Allure using random models now? Hey -- is that the last bag of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos? UNHAND THEM, YOU FOOL!" She looks pretty, but she doesn't look like herself. She actually looks sort of like Leighton Meester to me, crossed with someone who blinks really, really slowly and is excessively Photoshopped. In fact, she looks so sleepy here, I wouldn't be surprised if her eyes were closed in the next few snaps.  Which I understand -- she's pregnant! of course she's knackered! go take a nap, Jessica! -- but it maybe isn't the MOST awesome choice for a magazine cover.

On the other hand, I freely admit that I'm sort of looking forward to reading Where the Hair and Makeup Pros Shop. I hope it's, like, True Value Hardware and the medical supply stores, because otherwise I think I can guess.

First and foremost, I must congratulate Selma on her bangs. They are most fetching. Second, I must wonder aloud: is this a scrolldown fug, or not?

Because I rather like it -- certainly from the waist up it's very flattering in that effortlessly minimalist, "I just threw on this little $1200 number on my way out the door" kind of way. But the skirt seems a rather awkward length, a little too close to Molly Ringwald Called: She Wants Her Pretty in Pink Wardrobe Back joke territory. And I'm saving those for the surely soon-to-come day when Paris Hilton marries Benji Madden wearing a deconstructed prom dress.

It's not that I don't agree -- or didn't, two weeks ago when people still cared about this "scandal" -- but since when does Janice freaking Dickinson have to resort to message tees to get attention? It's called a low-cut wrap dress, girl, and you mastered it before I was born. Why mess with success?

KRISTIN: Oh... my!

CYNTHIA: Wow, it's so... wow!

KIM: I seriously cannot believe this bitch.

SJP: Why, hello, photographers! I'm here! Can you believe our little show blossomed into a movie?

KRISTIN: I'm not stuck sitting behind her, am I?

CYNTHIA: Nah, I'm sure they gave that seat to Kim.

KIM: Seriously, NO ONE is looking at me, and that is not normal. Hello? Everyone? I'm the naked sex maniac! I'm the one that supposedly hates all these clowns! LOOK AT ME!

SJP: It's amazing what the show has done! I mean, you plant a seed, and it just grows and grows...

KRISTIN: At least this way no one's noticing that Kim and I are in the same color, or that her hair is kinda pointy.

CYNTHIA: Or that your boobs look kind of strange in that.

KRISTIN: Hey, whose side are you on?

SJP: ... and you can either cut off the flower and put it in a vase to die, or you can let the bees get into it and spread the pollen, and create a garden of comedy...

CYNTHIA: I'm hypnotized. Kim is going to cut her.

KIM: I AM GOING TO CUT HER.

SJP: ... and you water it, and suddenly it blossoms into a mature flower...

KRISTIN: Ten bucks says Kim snaps in five minutes.

CYNTHIA: Double or nothing says it's two.

KIM: Oh, I'll snap. I'll snap her like a twig. There is a GIANT living up there and it's called HER EGO and so I have to CHOP DOWN HER BEANSTALK.

SJP: ... and I will NOT put Carrie Bradshaw in a vase! She's too remarkable. I needed the world to keep holding the hosepipe that waters the garden of Carrie.

KIM: I am going to water her head-garden with a little hose I call THE TOILET BOWL.

KRISTIN: You know, I might be okay with that.

CYNTHIA: At this rate we'll have to film the sequel in separate rooms and splice it together.

KIM: That's assuming she doesn't wear an entire POTTING SHED on her head at the U.S. premiere...

SJP: Oh, hi, guys. When did you get here?

KIM... in which case, there will be no sequel because I will have shoved a pitchfork up her nose.

CYNTHIA: And that's $20 to me, please, Kristin.

Recently, Heather and I were thrilled and honored to be asked to contribute a doodle to USA National Doodle Day. Doodles like ours are being auctioned on eBay from now through May 18th to benefit NF. Inc, an organization which helps people and families impacted by neurofibromatosis, one of the most common genetic disorders in the United States. NF causes tumors to form on your body's nerves -- any time, and anywhere. There is no cure. But funds raised from Doodle Day auctions will help support education and research that could change all that. So how could we resist putting pen to paper?

It turns out that Heather and I have... limited artistic ability, shall we say?

I have been working on that Lady With Chin In Profile through YEARS of math classes, and only seasonal restrictions prevented me from sticking her head next to the only other thing I can draw: a Christmas tree. Heather, on the other hand, shows some rudimentary skill at sketching my bangs. ["But I am paralyzed by the inability to sketch anything that isn't a stick figure, with the lone exception of the blazingly true-to-life five-legged horse I drew in elementary school." -- Heather] But it's all in the name of a very good cause! So if you'd like to take our masterpiece home, eBay has made it just as easy as bidding on a pair of Louboutins in the middle of the night after a few cocktails. Bid! Bid! Bid!

And if if turns out you'd rather take home a mermaid doodled by Winnie Cooper, a seriously stellar drawing by Seth Green, or a deeply awesome sentiment aptly expressed by Wanda Sykes, or one of many, many other groovy doodles...well, we understand. I mean, if we'd thought of writing "I love butter too, y'all," we would have. Because we do.

So, it seems that LiLo's leggings line is actually happening. I swear to God, I thought the whole thing was a joke. I am going to continue to believe that, actually, if only to save my own already fragile sanity. But at least she's stopped showing up places wearing them ALL THE TIME:

I don't hate the top, I love the shoes, I am amused that her jeans are as leggings-esque as possible, and I am not going to talk about the tan, the blonde Dina hair, or the so-1998 "Lindsay" charm necklace. Maybe she's just wearing that because she's really stoked about the Sex and the City movie, and tomorrow we'll see her out and about with a giant flower pinned to her label and a tutu skirt, making out with a picture of Chris Noth. She looks... fine. I guess. I don't know. I'm in that place with Lindsay where I am psychologically conditioned to care but kind of don't anymore. I think they call that closure.

It's been almost a year, but my fascination with Alison Goldfrapp's name has not waned. It's started to infect my thought process -- the other day, as I filled up my car, I actually thought to myself, "Gas prices have totally goldfrapped this year," and then later lamented that it's not actually in the dictionary and therefore doesn't count in a Scrabble or Boggle game. Perhaps I need to start a push to put it into the lexicon. Or at least name a baked good after her -- chocolate-dipped goldfrapp sounds like it has real potential.

Anyway, as you can imagine, when I stumbled across this picture I almost goldfrapped all over my computer screen:

It's like she's only now realizing that she skipped the day in Clown College when they covered pants.

There is something to be said for a celebrity who is willing to show up places with the kind of image makeover that makes you snort, "you have got to be kidding me." Like Whatshisnuts McGillicudy here from Desperate Housewives:

Jesse Metcalf! Phew, I knew his name would come back to me. Kind of like a bad seafood platter. Let's take a look at the close-up, shall we?

For those of you who are not afflicted with the sickness of turning on She's All That whenever you notice it's airing on cable, Rachael Leigh Cook rose to fame as the "freak" whom Freddie Prinze Jr.'s friends picked for him to turn into an unlikely prom queen, blind to her obviously hot bod, big boobs, and pretty face because she dared to wear paint-stained overalls (WHOA!!) and glasses (NOOOO!!!!!!!!).

Today, I yearn for those overalls.

This unflattering, blah satiny thing feels so department-store dated, like she dug it out of the sale rack three years ago to wear to an Easter brunch with her parents, and only brought it out again because she forgot to pick up her dry cleaning. And combined with the new haircut -- which resembles the output if you chucked Christina Ricci and Britney Spears into a blender -- she's so washed-out and plain. It's like a reverse makeover. Maybe there's a sequel called She's All That: Well, Not So Much, Actually, in which someone dares the school nerd to take the prom queen and turn her into wallpaper.

Obviously, one doesn't look to UK celebrity nudist Katie "Jordan" Price for fashion tips. And yet:

My question is, considering that this is the woman who once said she wouldn't wear any skirt longer than 9 inches, does she think this gold item is a belt, or a skirt? I feel like it might be the latter. And that scares me. 

As does the fact that she's starting to resemble a wax figure more than ever --- which I didn't think was possible -- but that's a frightening tale for another day.

Maybe my heart is just soft because the drama of a sudden wedding is supremely soapy, or because Mimi has turned both her bodyguard and her new husband into frantic wranglers of gargantuan umbrellas. But I think she looks fantastic here.

[Photo: Splash News]

How cute is that? I don't CARE if the wedding may have been a giant publicity stunt to help her single, or to remind the world that her video co-star Nick Cannon still exists (I had, as a matter of fact, happily forgotten). She seems happy, and I like my Mariah smiling and divalicious, not tragic and sad and fatigued and speaking in tongues. So I choose to believe it's real, and that in ten years the Carey-Cannons will be cuddling adorable babies and skipping down Rodeo Drive shopping for shoes -- and possibly purchasing and coaching a youth soccer team they can call the Carey Cannons,  because it sort of works -- instead of subjecting the reality-TV audience to copious icky conversations about the functionality of her bowels (Whitney and Bobby, I will never, ever forgive you).

Also, I want that coat-dress. It's WAY better than the one her fellow big-voiced diva Patti LaBelle recently whipped out on-stage:

Face it: An event isn't really an event unless someone is handing out awards. So you're welcome, Met Ball. You're welcome. Sure, the awards we're handing out this week on NY Mag.com are totally facetious, but aren't those the most fun? For example:

"Best Befuddlement: If life were The Hills, Maggie Gyllenhaal's dress would be the Justin Bobby to our Audrina: Even though it felt wrong, we kept going back for more."

Read more -- including who is in the Least Alluring Rut, who presented the Best Application for AARP Membership, and  who put her Worst Face Forward -- over in the cozy, loving confines of NY Mag.com.

Poor Roisin. I hope that thing turns out to be benign:

[Photo: Splash News]

It's starting to interfere with the part of her brain that usually knows well enough to leave Sophia Petrillo's Easter Sunday dress in the closet.

So, it's Friday, which means it's Embarrassing Admissions Day here at GFY. Usually, this is where I talk about something horrifyingly shameful, like how I sometimes give myself a beehive when I'm home and bored, or how I cry at Whirlpool commercials sometimes, or how I sat through all of I Know Who Killed Me this weekend (DON'T DO IT TO YOURSELF [though Lindsay still has some residual charisma in it. (but it is EMBARRASSINGLY bad [and not even in a funny way (most of the time)])]).

Today, I admit to you all that I think I am in love with Sarah Brightman. I mean, look at her:

She is crazy. And awesome. And tiny. And probably a total wackjob. But how can you not love a woman who attends a classical music awards event covered in multiple pelts -- one of which is spectacularly poofy-skirted -- and thigh high leather dominatrix boots? I'm not being sarcastic. That coat is fabulously over the top even without the boots, but this combo makes her look CRAZY and RAD. I don't know what movie she thinks she's starring in, but I want to see it.

I guess none of ScarJo's "Five Dads" taught her to avoid looking like a bizarrely coiffed alien on the cover of magazines? Huh. You'd think one of them would have covered that.

Oh, Nicholle Tom. Whatever crimes your breasts committed -- being difficult to fit into a button-down shirt without the top few buttons gaping, for example, or being prone to itching in business meetings -- do they really deserve to be thusly confined in a prison of fabric?

PS: I think you might be wearing this backwards.

Oh, Oksana. Welcome back.

I missed you and your flair for the obvious, your fondness for anything shiny and flimsy, and your uncanny ability to wear things that nobody else has seen at any store in the world, ever. Did you make this? Did you wake up one morning and scream, "It's a SPORTS EVENT! I should design a SILVER DISCO TRACKSUIT," and then slave away at your sewing machine for two weeks until you finally made it as synthetic as possible? That's really quite sweet. A love story, if you will, between woman and machine. When Lifetime has to resort to Celebrity Project Runway -- in about six months -- you'd make a wonderfully unique contestant. I can't wait for the episode in which you and Kellie Martin are paired up in the Design New Prison Jumpsuits For All The Murderesses Susan Lucci Has Played In Our Movies challenge, and you come to blows with Tori Spelling and Yasmine Bleeth over the right to a bolt of paisley terrycloth. Suddenly Lifetime seems like it might be the best thing to happen to Project Runway since Laura Bennett.

[Photo: Splash News]

"...Yeah, you know what? This is bad. Really bad. WHY, again, did I think I should do Spamalot with my own hair? That's what WIGS are for, dammit! Instead I'm wandering around looking like a middle-aged Manilow wannabe wearing a sweater made of airport carpet. How did it come to this? Where are my frosted tips? Whither the spikes? WHY AM I SO FRUMPY? I'M A GODDAMN HEARTTHROB TO GRANDMOTHERS EVERYWHERE! You know what? Get me Ryan Seacrest. He'll fix this. He fixes everything. Oooooh, and tell him to bring donuts."

In the Criminal Justice System the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The fashion photographers who investigate crime and the bloggers who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

CHUNG-CHUNG.

Not only do we have to cuff Angie Harmon for this, but Rihanna as well, for aiding and abetting a fashion felony. To think I'd been worried about the CHILDREN being impressionable, when all along it was Angie Harmon who was at risk. You'd think someone in her home might have stopped her, but maybe this actually WAS made from her kitchen wallpaper, so nobody noticed until it was too late that her Spring Explosion wide-legged jumpsuit made her torso look absurdly long. Sam Waterston would take one look and push for a life sentence.

I have to admit that I suspect I kind of don't get Lake Bell. When she was in that terrible movie with Paul Rudd and Eva Longoria,  where Eva Longoria was dead, or something, I just kept thinking that it looked like something that ought to be on ABC Family Channel. At like 2 in the morning. I'm sure she's delightful and probably saves babies from burning buildings and donates all her extraneous organs to the needy, but I don't entirely understand what Hollywood Purpose she serves, other than being kind of The Poor Man's Amanda Peet.  But she's at the Met Ball anyway:

I...don't care for this. I get that the lightening bolts are all very Superhero POP ZOW WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA'AM and all that, but from the waist up, this feels seriously like something an old woman would have worn to a charity function in the 80s -- maybe a fundraiser for a down-on-their-luck rhythmic gymnastics team, since this was clearly inspired by one of their uniforms -- and from the waist down,  like something that old woman's grandchild hemmed in the car with a pair of nail clippers.

Even though she's been at major events in New York City, Camilla Belle is still essentially an up-and-coming starlet to the rest of the world -- we'd seen her at Fashion Week for two years without knowing what her deal was, because 10,000 B.C. hadn't come out yet. And while I think I'd be tempted in her position to show up in something with maximum wackitude just for the hell of it, I still think she made a very savvy choice with this dress.

It's elegant but not boring: The icy color is gorgeous on her, the cut is romantic, and the extra flourishes are unusual without being scary. Now someone just needs to put her in a major movie that doesn't force her to wear glorified loincloths and the aura of body odor.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I rather like this. She looks like an elementary school Valentine, the kind you would make with red construction paper and paper doilies and Elmer's glue. Except, you know, less smeared with fingerprints, graham cracker crumbs, and glue detritus. Presumably. On the other hand, why is her bodice so m-f-ing crooked? I want to run over to her and yank it up and to the right.

KARL: Hustle, pet. Tonight we RIDE.

KATE: I'm coming, I'm coming, I just... people want photos...

KARL: Photos are lens vomit. You pose for ART. It's like I told Victoria: "You are a still life with melons. BE THE BOWL."

KATE: Okay, "art," then. They want me to let them take some art. How does the dress look?

KARL: Like a swirl of pain. Agony on a cracker as painted by a drooling child. But SHINY. I would drink you if you came with a bendy straw.

KATE: Only a bendy straw?

KARL: Do not pester me. There are stupid questions, and tonight the answer is YOU. How is my jacket? Does it gleam like a gun-toting seal?

KATE: Actually, it kind of does.

KARL: LOOK ALIVE. I think he's got real bullets. Do you need your hair, or can the maid have it for a casserole?

KATE: Ha ha, um, why don't we go inside? These shoes aren't super comfortable. I'm not sure about this plastic stuff. My boyfriend always says...

KARL: Pish. Your boyfriend is life's dental floss. BRUSH.

KATE: He's great, though. He just doesn't like the shoes.

KARL: Poison him and make a necklace of his teeth.

KATE: I trust his opinion.

KARL: Trust is a drunk driver's highway, darling. TAKE THE BUS.

KATE: An open bar will help. It MUST help.

We got a lot of e-mails suggesting that, by wearing blue shoes with an orange-red dress, Katie Holmes might have taken leave of either her vision or her senses.

To me, the color scheme actually makes weird sense with the theme of the event. Wonder Woman certainly didn't shy away from mixing primary colors, for instance, and Superman and Spider Man could never be accused of favoring subtle palettes either. What gives me greater pause is the way this is executed: The pointy, high-cut shoes are a bit clunky for my taste, appearing almost like an afterthought and akin to those heavy old pumps of the 80s that her mother probably gave away fifteen years ago, and she's got the same problem Nicole Kidman had at the Oscars, with the long necklace hooking like a noose around one boob. As for the dress, it photographs with a strange plastic sheen --  like Katie had it made at one of those factories that makes the fake grass you put in Easter baskets, and strands of which, if you have offspring who are anything like I was, you will still be finding down the side of the sofa and stuck to the curtains four months later because the aforementioned kids liked to run around the house wearing the green tufts like fright wigs. (True story. And for added drama, Easter baskets sometimes make great fake bonnets. In case you were wondering.)

I think my problem can be boiled down to: I don't love Mrs. Holmes-Cruise in strong reds, or at least, not when she's got such a chiseled, structured haircut that competes with the dress for total domination over her face. That gown is screaming so loudly for attention that the rest of her becomes mute. Which she's probably used to in her family life, given that she spawned one of the cutest celebrity kids in recent memory and is married to a couch-surfing zealot, but which she shouldn't have to put up with when it comes to her wardrobe. Her pretty face deserves better than to be an afterthought.

INTERN GEORGE: Hello, Giorgio. Julia, you look lovely.

JULIA: So do you, George. Happy birthday!

GIORGIO ARMANI: BIRTHDAY! HOW DELICIOUS! LIKE CHOCOLATE FROSTING ON SKIN!

GEORGE: Funny you should mention that, because... I mean, are you WEARING chocolate frosting? You look awfully tan. Like, abnormally tan even for you.

JULIA: Actually you both look sort of unusually brown tonight.

GIORGIO: I AM A CHOCOLATE-FROSTED CAKE OF A MAN! PUT A CANDLE IN MY EAR AND BLOW ME OUT! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

GEORGE: Yeah, Sarah bought me some bronzer for my birthday. I'm not sure why.

GIORGIO: Because you are PALE! LOOK AT YOU! YOU ARE WASTING AWAY BEFORE MY EYES! SOMEBODY PLEASE BURNISH THE GEORGIE!

GEORGE: Is he talking to himself now, or me?

JULIA: Sometimes I can't tell.

GIORGIO: GOOD BOY!

JULIA: Go on, George. Go with the man.

GEORGE: Pipe down, Roberts. Maybe he's talking to YOU.

GIORGIO: QUICK, SOMEBODY, SQUEEZE SOME SUMMER ONTO HIS FACE! PUREE A YACHT AND SPREAD IT LIKE PASTE!

GEORGE: Oh my GOD, if I put on any more bronzer, people will start calling me Leatherhead for REAL this time.

JULIA: Let's just back away and go get some champagne. We have much to celebrate. You're looking great, everyone's forgotten about your last movie already, and you have an exciting internship that affords you new and wonderful mail-answering, foot-rubbing, and mixology opportunities every day.

GEORGE: Perfect. On three, let's escape. 1....2...

GIORGIO: WHEEEEE!

GEORGE: Close enough. RUN!

Dear Piper:

Bai Ling and Bjork are undoubtedly super and in many ways heroic, but creating a Bjorkling cocktail with a splash of Sharon Stone and a shot of Arquette -- while an impressive feat of mixology -- is a REALLY loose interpretation of the Met Ball's chosen inspiration. If it turns out that you're not observing the theme but are, rather, simply living out your passion project of giving Princess Leia a Gatsby-esque upgrade... well, you might sell it better if you smiled. And blotted your lipstick.

MISCHA: DUDE!

MARGHERITA: Hello!

MISCHA: Aren't we an awesome pair?

MARGHERITA: Could these sacks we're wearing BE any more festive?

MISCHA: What, so you're Chandler Bing now?

MARGHERITA: Who was your tailor? One of the Olsen twins?

MISCHA: Who was yours? Dolly Parton's bedding designer?

MARGHERITA: Is that bodice oozing down your front?

MISCHA: Did you know I found last night's panties hidden behind that dustruffle on your chest?

MARGHERITA: Did YOU know those sleeves are illegal in 30 states?

MISCHA: How did your dress get its manslaughter charges dropped?

MARGHERITA: What's your superhero theme -- the She-Hulk?

MISCHA: Feeling blind today,  Blunder Woman?

MARGHERITA: This was fun; want to do it again next year?

MISCHA: Should we agree to get our dresses fitted next time?

MARGHERITA: Would there be ANY fun in that?

MISCHA: Does this at least mean I can eat the canapes tonight?

MARGHERITA: Do you have to ask?

Bless that Victoria Beckham. She continues to fuel my suspicion that all her nutty getups are merely a ploy to make people look at her, because she knows otherwise we'll all be gazing lustily at the prime cut of man-loin she married.

I'm not entirely sure where the theme comes into play here -- what is she evoking? Nightie Girl? Captain Bedjacket? I Wonder How She's Keeping Her Bits And Pieces Hidden Woman? Not that the superhero shtick was mandatory; just that you'd think wearing a glorified bathrobe wouldn't be Vicky's first choice unless it meant something. Which is precisely why I hope it means absolutely NOTHING except that our girl Vicky wanted people to stare at her all night while they tried to interpret her translucent whim. Naturally, the whole thing only makes me love her more. Pop a veil on her head and she could skulk around Salem for MONTHS on Days of our Lives, haunting the evil Stefano and dropping strange clues at very public places without anyone noticing, despite her unconventional garb. If we have to lose Passions and its castrating serial killer/drunk surgeon reattaching certain organs backwards/Erection of Doom storyline, then at LEAST promise me Posh hurling poisoned paper airplanes at Roman Brady. It's the least the Fates can do.

And things had been going so well!

I am perplexed by the fact that she seems to have her wrap tucked into the top of her gown as some kind of impromptu sleeve, which is making her look weirdly wider than she actually is (which is:  not at all), but it doesn't help that she looks INSANELY cranky. What happened in the car on the way over? Did she and Josh argue over the last of the Flaming Hot Cheetos? (Understandable. I can't stop eating those things even though they've been scientifically proven to make my stomach hurt. I am convinced they're dusted with crack.) Did the driver ask her if she's knocked up yet? (Also understandable, yet none of our business. Doesn't he know that you just closely study the waistline/drinking habits of every woman of child-bearing age and then speculate behind their backs?) Did Anna Wintour beat her in a footrace to the open bar? What up, Fergie Ferg? I secretly kind of love you now! Look alive!

ASHLEY: People will get this, right? That I'm going as a superhero's VICTIM? With the ripped clothes?

CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN: POW!

MARY-KATE: You know who'd have loved this? Frankie Sinatra. Oh, he was a card.

ASHLEY: What?

LOUBOUTIN: ZAP!

M-K: It all reminds me of the time I did Carson with a lit cigarette in my hair. How McMahon did laugh! He was all hands, that Eddie. And what a tongue!

ASHLEY: I don't understand.

LOUBOUTIN: KER-BLAM!

M-K: Somebody get me a scotch, neat, and make it a double. God, that reminds me of that night with Carol Channing and the Hardy Boys. I've got stories about that hussy that would make your toes curl.

ASHLEY: How is it that we're related? Sometimes I think this whole thing is a bizarre accident.

LOUBOUTIN: WHAMMO!

M-K: It's like Bette Davis used to say: "If you can't take off your clothes, then it's not worth having dinner." Or was that Paris Hilton?

ASHLEY: The worst part is, people might think you're ME. Clearly I have to dye my hair again.

M-K: You want to talk about buying new drapes? Let me tell you about the day Phyllis Diller came over for canasta and absinthe -- we'd both been having these WICKED hot flashes, see, and...

LOUBOUTIN: SPLAT!

ASHLEY: Time to go.

Note number one for Eva Longoria Parker:  You have GOT to blend your makeup a bit better. Your forehead is way paler than your shoulders and it is weird, like you've got the forehead of a vampire but the neck of a marginally talented actress. You've got to make your Makeup Bitch blend! Blend! Or is it possible that you've crossed your Makeup Bitch one too many times and she's now making you pay by doing you up like the Cranky Undead? In which case: e-mail us, Makeup Bitch. We'd like to buy you a box of wine.

Otherwise, I have a query for you:

Oh, Rachel:

Why so Amish? Why are you hiding your lithe little light under a bushel? (I am including your bangs in the bushel, by the way.) Have you contracted a terrible disease which makes your skin shrivel up should Anna Wintour gaze upon it? Have you taken a vow of extreme modesty? Are you in the midst of a secret but terribly steamy love affair which has left your entire body riddled with hickeys? Are you just really cold?  I HAVE to know.

The theme for this year's Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala (or, as it is known by nobody, MMACIG) was "Superheroes." And if there is one working actress today whom I'd expect to take that theme and wring it out like a disobedient washcloth, it would be Tilda Swinton -- or as I like to call her, Most Likely To Arrive In The Actual Iron Man Outfit, Complete With Helmet.

And yet:

She has the helmet part on track, thanks to a stylist with four cans of hairspray and an itchy trigger finger. Her makeup artist even got the metallic sheen down pat. So why is the rest of her dressed like she's on her way to her cousin's third wedding in the garden of the vicar's cottage? Tilda Swinton is the person who'd show up as Catwoman Wearing Her Wonder Woman Costume, with a jacket made of Plastic Man and Flash Gordon's head on her lapel. Unless that orange brooch turns out to be some kind of poisoned throwing star that decapitates demons from hell, this is depressingly tame.

At the very least, I'd have been satisfied if Tilda had turned up in something like this:

Everyone has different good-luck traditions. Some people wear pins, some have a special pair of underwear, and others who are Sharon Stone wear animal feet.

And some people, like Rose Byrne, wear Morticia Addams' right sleeve.  How macabre! If she takes delivery of a box of flesh-eating plants tomorrow from a mystery suitor, we'll know it worked.

So this got needlessly complicated:

That is a whole lot of curtain-inspired, rumple-y sheeted, fabric-y business going on from the hips down and while I appreciate the concept of a cape -- in any form! so dramatic! so glamorous! who doesn't love superheros! -- I feel like there is no way this thing isn't getting constantly stepped on and caught on door knobs and table corners and walking sticks and other sticky-out-y things (especially after a few cocktails) and therefore accidentally strangling Minogue The Lesser at a rate of approximately nine strangles an hour. Which is approximately seven too many strangles for anyone not starring in some kind of overly-dramatic soap opera, don't you think?

I guess Abi Tucker is an Aussie singer/actress? Our image provider seems to think she's Abbie Cornish, but all things being equal, I'm pretty sure she's relived she isn't. Even if she IS wearing the following:

I think I speak for us all when I say that this is not flattering. Capris made of what appear to be shantung are best saved for your kicky Grandma who's dressing up for shuffle board because she's got her eye on a sexy new resident at the retirement home.  In fact, this whole thing is weirdly stodgy and droopy and matchy-matchy, in a way that feels sort of like it was originally the bridemaid's outfit for a misguidedly faux-casual wedding. Maybe we should be glad the shoes are not dyed to match.

You make the call regarding perennial Fug Fave, crazy, gorgeous (and sometimes crazy gorgeous) Sharon Stone, who may or may not have had yet another run-in with the vicious, clothes-hating animal so prone to shredding her clothes that we accidentally ended up dubbing the woman Rapid Beaver. For so many reasons. Some of which are very, very juvenile. But some of which stem from the fact that she often looks like she's fresh from a tangle with a toothy rodent so evil it prompts me to make terrible typos:

And yet, I kind of love it. Is that wrong? Tell me what to think:

In the wake of news that Project Runway's first season for Lifetime will be shot in Los Angeles, I am concerned that Paris Hilton is putting together a portfolio of pieces for her audition.

I am not sure how else to explain this, except that Paris dared herself to create an outfit from nothing but an existing dress and the contents of Candy Spelling's wrapping room. Which might be spectacularly prescient of her if Macy's pulls out and Tim Gunn is forced to remind his designers to make full use of the Hallmark Gold Crown Store Accessories Wall, but otherwise makes me hope the maid will sneak into Paris's room at night and disable the hot-glue gun.

Recent events on The Ghost Whisperer can not be ignored. No, I don't mean how they Rapidly Aged Camryn Manheim's son so that he can now date girls who have vindictive ghosts attached to them, or how Melinda seems to have abandoned the hilariously over-the-top nightgowns, bed-jackets and ballgowns of yore and now argues with the vindictive ghosts attached to the girlfriends of her employees while looking generally attractive and youthful and well-dressed-ish (for god's sake, please don't anyone actually LISTEN to us when we mock your beehives and bed-jackets. Don't you know by now that when I say,  "Dude, she's WEARING a LACE NIGHTGOWN to BINGO with a BOX on her head and a CUCKOO CLOCK for a PURSE!"  it actually means, "I love you"?).  No, this time I am speaking of something that was brought to my attention by several readers and at least one close friend.

Picture it: Southern California, 2008. I am wearing a box on my head, having just come home from bingo, and am settling in for a Sunday night marathon of all the episodes of Greek that have built up on my TiVo.  Just innocently looking forward to spending some quality time with that delightful Spencer Grammar and some moonshine. Then I check our GFY email to find several missives regarding Nikki Cox's appearance on The Ghost Whisperer this week, which inspired the following from your fellow readers:  several instances of "WTF??!!!?", a few folks wailing, "WHYY?!?! Right?", a brief but apt note opining, "IT'S LIKE THEY ATE HER HEAD," several comments indicating that the individual in question could neither look directly at her NOR look away, and one person who simply said, "OMG."

And I read these emails and I thought, "Nikki Cox is really cute! What's going on? And how bad could it be?"

Then I turned on the TV to this:

[Photo: Splash News]

ASHTON: Hey, Cameron! Nice to see you here! You look fantastic.

CAMERON: Hi, Ashton! You... are also here!

ASHTON: Oh, you're so funny. But seriously, I know you've had a really tough time lately with your father passing away and everything, so I just wanted to tell you that you look beautiful and we're all here for you.

CAMERON: That's so nice, thanks, Ashton. I... like your tie.

ASHTON: ... That's it?

CAMERON: You also have good teeth, I think.

ASHTON: Come on, man!

CAMERON: What? I'm just telling it like it is. 

ASHTON: Okay, I'll let it slide this time, because I meant what I said. We love you and we're all happy to see you back and feeling better and looking fantastic.

CAMERON: Aw, thanks. And I don't TOTALLY hate what you're wearing. I just wish you didn't look like you forgot to shower after hiking Runyon Canyon.

ASHTON: ...Yeah, fair enough. Let's go watch the movie and then send Justin some cameraphone pictures of your legs.

CAMERON: Ooooh, and can we do one of me dancing in my underwear and shaking my butt at the camera?

ASHTON: Duh! That's, like, your signature move!

CAMERON: AWESOME!

Wait... somebody DID tell Zachary Levi that the strike ended, right?

Or he just getting an early jump on his SAG-walkout-beard? Because unless his character Chuck has quit the Buy More to live under the 101 Freeway, I'm pretty sure he'd never be on board with being just a few crazy gold medallions shy of Barry Gibb.

"God, I am going to kill Joss Stone. She picks TODAY to scrap the barefoot nutjob shenanigans and show up looking kind of clean and normal? Next to her, I'm going to look like a bloody throw-pillow. Bollocks. I can't keep pretending there's something wrong with my purse. Maybe I can fake a concussion. As interpretive fashion goes that's kind of what my dress looks like anyway. Or invent a dying relative whose last wish was to design my... no, bad karma. Damn, damn, damn. I'm going to have to go out there. Mount Shouldermanjaro up here looks like it's erupting and there's nothing I can do about it. THIS is why I should never accept the free champagne at clothes fittings. Oh well. At least I it'll only take one vodka-tonic to convince Joss to flush her shoes down the loo. That will help."

How can you not fall in love with this?

I know. It's crazy. It's complicated. It's custom-made. It's the costume from the show-stopping closer to Act One of Kiss of the Spiderwoman II: This Time, It's Way Less Metaphorical! It might also be shorts.

And it appears Bai is wearing her Message Band-Aids again. Let's take a closer look at them, shall we?

I was all set to make this a "Fug Or Fab" -- you know, thinking, "It's really FASHION-Y!" -- and then I actually looked at it and realized it was also really kind of crazy:

Whitney, Whitney. There's so much to love about you: You seem like a legitimately nice girl; you appear to have an actual real job; you haven't said anything mean about poor Audrina and her Justin-Bobby obsession to her face OR behind her back; you have very pretty hair; you are smart enough to remain totally divorced from all the drama L.C gets herself into, other than being a shoulder to cry on and the person who asks, "So, what happened last night?"; and I'd bet money you've read a book in the last three weeks. In short, I have faith that when The Hills is over and done with, you will be a-okay. But while I sort of like the skirt in an esoteric kind of way, any shirt that marries Baby's wardrobe from Dirty Dancing with a metallic lamé is just asking for trouble. And you've been so good at avoiding that up to this point.

So, despite our fears that we're prematurely crotchety, it turns out we're not changing our byline to "The Fug Crones" just yet. (Emphasis on YET.) While everyone else in the world seems to be freaking out about spying Miley Cyrus's bared back on the cover of Vanity Fair, we're left scratching our heads and yawning and wishing everyone would just relax, already. For one thing, this is totally a teen-dream rite of passage --I mean, Britney wrote a whole SONG about being not a girl, not yet a woman, AND wore her panties on Rolling Stone -- but for another, compared with what's come before Miley, is this picture really so scandalous?

A simple backless portrait taken in the presence of her parents or minders by a respected female photographer -- without a single nip slip or sultry licked lip in sight -- is practically a Puritanical achievement [by Young Hollywood standards]. Plus, Miley herself isn't pregnant, smoking crack, tattooing the name of an unwashed rock-star boyfriend on her boob, or licking bananas at a lad-mag-sponsored shindig. The public freak-out just doesn't fit the crime.

If you want to read our full defense of Miley, then browse on over to the full article: "Calm Down, Everyone: Miley's Just Following The Script."

Sometimes I wish I could only see this much of Thandie Newton.

Seriously, she is so pretty it hurts. That is some great DNA right there. Unfortunately, sometimes things go a bit haywire with the clothes:

This is the story of why Liya Kebede switched dry cleaners.

Of course, a good, old-fashioned righteous rage loses its edge if you go ahead and wear the shrunken suit anyway. But at least she'll be in decent shape if the bathrooms flood.

Wait. WAIT. Stop the presses.

Does Isabella Rossellini know what her daughter is doing to herself? When Irina Pantaeva pulled this trick in such elaborate, Seussian fashion, yes, it was scary, and sure, I thought maybe I'd accidentally spiked my Diet Coke with absinthe. But its saving grace was that the outfit was SO insane, clearly nobody would try to force it upon me in any real fashion. It didn't threaten my own pelvis in any real way. But now that similar pants appear to be making the rounds in a more fashion-industry-baiting black, I'm frightened. What if, unsuspecting, I walk into Bloomingdale's and get assaulted by the visual of them on a mannequin? What if Lucky or Elle suddenly tries to convince the world that nouveau Hammer pants are slimming and that we totally should pay $300 for a crotch that sags to the knees and doubles as a place to stash twenty flasks?

Wait, dang, I almost talked myself into it with the flask thing. I need to remind myself that, flask conveniences aside, nobody, BUT NOBODY, needs to walk around town looking like a refugee from a new performance by Cirque du Soleil -- really, the Dr. Seuss of live theater -- that's called something like "Morbidiste," and is set entirely to a marathon of C.S.I. episodes.

I may need to call for backup on this one.

Do we REALLY want to accept formal overalls? Aren't overalls for when you are five? What's next, a dressy onesie for twentysomethings that snaps at the crotch? Oh, wait -- we had those already, we called them bodysuits, and they were the terror of every party-going girl in the 1990s.

Oh my god, you guys. I was just looking for a photo of Natasha Bedingfield on American Idol last night -- I thought she was wearing weird-ass gloves, but it turns out they were just her sleeves; these are the mistakes you make when you watch the results show on fast forward -- and I found THIS, from while we were on vacay:

It's like she KNEW we were going out of town, and was like, "YES! At last, I can wear my Vegas cocktail waitress backless halter  tuxedo top! Those wicked bitches will NEVER KNOW! MwhahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAH! "

Poor Natasha. Honey, we ALWAYS find out.

Oh, GWYNNIE. You really took everyone squawking about your ultra-mini mini-dresses to heart, didn't you?

And, on a personal note, I'd just like to say that I am going to miss you when your PR obligations for Iron Man are over and you go back to transcribing macrobiotic meal delivery menus into calligraphy so as to make them appropriately upscale before you stick them to the front of your refrigerator, or whatever it is you're doing most of the time now. No one can find exquisite, expensive, super-high fashion clothing that almost succeeds, yet still brings with it a strong stench of total wackadoo the way you do. It's been fun, don't you think?

So, at this point, even though I watch The Hills (the world's most uneventful show, considering its soapy reputation, although Lauren Conrad should seriously reconsider the way she lets them portray her -- she and Lo come off terribly bratty lately), I am ALSO really sick of it and wish it and its cast would go away for a while so we could see if we miss them.

Tops on the "Please Just STOP" list is Heidi Montag. Not only did she finagle her way to the White House Correspondents' Dinner (along with her apparent physical idol, Pamela Anderson), but she somehow got herself on Letterman. And what did she choose to wear? Why, a filmy slip that's falling off and exposing her bra, of course.

[Photo: Splash News]

With the slip, strap, thrust-out chest and gladiator booties -- which I accidentally typed first as "gladiator boobies," which actually is also eerily accurate, and might be how I refer to her in my head from now on -- this all feels a bit like Heidi is auditioning for the Victoria's Secret catalog. Although it would also make an excellent Paris Hilton costume for Halloween, as the whole thing has the kind of inexpensive and tarty ring of a line of nighties P.Hil might "design" and hawk at Wal-Mart or something. But if you are an overexposed and annoying reality star, it's probably a good rule of thumb NOT to to strut around town evoking a reality star who is even MORE overexposed and annoying than you are. But then again, nobody ever accused Heidi of making great decisions (ahem, Spencer).

Also, with a recent history of being forced to listen both to Heidi blathering about L.C. and Spencer and sex tapes AND Paris Hilton puking up wooden platitudes about lessons learned in prison, I'm sort of shocked Dave hasn't ripped of his ears and/or taken to dropping heavy furniture from a great height onto his talent bookers. Stay strong, Dave. Things have to get better. Right?