Cate Blanchett

Just yesterday, my friend Grant and I were talking about how gorgeous Cate Blanchett looks in the ads for Benjamin Button. And she does. There's a huge billboard of her face at one of the stoplights on my way home and I am regularly kind of transfixed by it. This is likewise transfixing:

Based on the sheer number of e-mails we had about this outfit when I rolled out of bed and changed into my blogging pajamas, I expected to see Cate Blanchett wearing a lantern and a pair of Spanx on her head. In fact, I was actually surprised and disappointed to see her only wearing this:



Now, don't misunderstand: That is nuts. It's like she squeezed herself into a one-legged unitard and then had her stylist -- via an elaborate pulley system and/or a crane operator -- lower over it a dress made from glassware they sell at Pier 1 Imports. But Jessica and I were discussing that after doing this for so long, our reaction to this is, "Oh, Cate. OF COURSE." Because our girl loves a metallic, the shinier and more reflective the better, and she REALLY likes looking like a very attractive alien who has dropped by for a champagne cocktail while she contemplates whether she should turn our planet into a skirt.

So, yes, a big part of my brain is saying, "How can she walk in that thing without chafing her thighs, and also, why does she look like a Barbie that someone's little brother decided to partially mummify?" But another part is saying, "Step it up, Cate. We've been here. Elevate your loony glory to NEW levels of farcical folly." If anyone can, it's her.

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.

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.

ABBIE CORNISH: Yep, still a serious actress. A SERIOUS ACTRESS. Not anyone's Other Woman.

GEOFFREY RUSH: Let's see. I can't look at Abbie, because I called her Kate the whole time we were shooting because someone told me she was Kate Bosworth and then someone ELSE told me she was Tom Cruise's wife and what the hell do I know...

CATE BLANCHETT: I'm just proud of my work!

ABBIE: But seriously, what is Cate doing down there? I'm here in a suit, and she's wearing, like, a sparkly denim bag with strips of shiny crap studded with a bunch of buttons. It's the worst thing I've ever seen. It's like that chick from Pretty In Pink discovered a new color palette before anyone could cut off her hands.

GEOFFREY: ... but I can't look at Blanchett either, because I am allergic to things that look like a three-year old made them in pre-school...

CATE: Yep! Proud of my work and my hair! Life is good!

ABBIE: This is making me so mad. I have ONE series of suspicious moments with Ryan Witherspoon or whatever his name was, and nobody will talk to me; she wears THAT thing and all anyone can say is, "She's so talented!" I seriously need an Oscar. That thing is a free pass.

GEOFFREY: I kind of miss being in the pirate movie. With Depp and Bloom, I never had to avert my eyes ANYWHERE.

CATE: Abbie looks pretty. Geoffrey's shirt makes me crave celery. I'm having a very pleasant day.

ABBIE: It's not even a LEAD ACTRESS Oscar, either, though, so it doesn't even COUNT. She's in, like, Marisa Tomei-land. Which is practically a made-up place.

GEOFFREY. My eyes hurt. I have nowhere to go. This is so awkward. I need a whiskey.

ABBIE: Maybe Cate really IS pregnant again. She kind of looks like it. And it would explain the tent dress. Does pregnancy make you blind, though? Because seriously, she has to be blind, right? How sad. Maybe I can play her in the movie. And win a REAL Oscar. IN A REAL DRESS. God, it'll be sweet.

It feels like 90 percent of the time we flip the Fug or Fab coin, it's because of something Cate Blanchett has worn -- which is one major reason we love her; the woman is never boring, nor is she afraid of anything. Not even our fictional Fug or Fab coin. Which, if it existed, would probably have either Intern George or a pair of Louboutins on one side, and leggings or a picture of Sienna Miller's closet on the other. Maybe there are two coins. Maybe we flip one of them to decide what goes on the other. Or maybe I need to climb out of this wormhole before it gives me insomnia.

Anyway: Cate. She's crazy. Or is she? Yes, she is. Unless she isn't.

Gorgeous face. Love the blowout. She glows. And you can't deny that dress has major drama, even if it does leave an odd amount of room for her to have a full pelvic cast tucked away under there, or perhaps a pony keg. But the bodice scares the bejeesus out of me. It feels a tiny bit like Lil' Kim gone couture, as if one of Cate's breasts MIGHT pop out with a pasty on it that's patterned after an Elizabethan ruff.

It is a rare day indeed when Cate Blanchett and Lil' Kim get to appear in the same post, but now that we're here, maybe we should take it a step further and arrange a rollicking tea party so that they can discuss the acquisition and application of matching high-fashion nipple covers, the appropriate length for a slit up your leg, and the underlying thematic similarities of She's All That and Elizabeth. You know -- Queen Liz the First got a makeunder and became one of the greatest monarchs England has known; Laney Boggs took off her glasses and bought high-heels and became... a really sort of marginally better-than-awful artist with nice cleavage. They're practically the same story.

If anyone else showed up in this, I would be all, "Nice toga, LOSER."

Okay, except maybe for J.Lo, who -- wouldn't you agree? -- is practically The Block's answer to Cate Blanchett anyway. But Cate Blancett is cool, and possibly from the future, and I feel like she kind of makes her High Fashion Night With Polyphonic Spree thing work. I mean, maybe it'll turn out that we're all wearing fantastically colored togas in the future....right?

We still question the wisdom of an already incredibly slim woman losing more weight just for a role, which is evidently what Cate Blanchett's game has been. But we're pretty sure she's going to do it no matter what we say, on account of the fact that we don't know her, have never talked to her, and suspect she hasn't had time to play around on the Internet since back when it was called the "information superhighway" and we were all making hilarious acceleration, speeding, and traffic puns.

Ergo, I'm at least pleased to see Cate finding some work-arounds that downplay the fact that her collarbone is about a day away from breaking skin.

With her shoulders covered, she looks distinctly less like a starving alien who's come to Earth to feast upon our amusingly primitive blood. It's much more relaxing.

It's not the dress, per se.

The dress is fine. It's certainly no surprise to see Cate Blanchett in a very unusual yet very metallic frock, but hey, the lady knows what she likes, and usually she has me dripping with envy. That skin! Those eyes! The clothes! Fab.

Today, though, she has me dripping with sandwiches. There's something off about her in the dress, and I can trace it to her weirdly emaciated torso. It makes me immediately want to slather with Jif any carby material I can find -- French bread, Ritz crackers, a throw-pillow -- and shove it into my mouth. Her left shoulder is particularly odd, the way it doesn't quite fit with the bodice.

Take a closer look. If you dare. Warning: may cause zombie paranoia and/or an immediate craving for potatoes.

Our love-hate relationship with Cate Blanchett's fashion sense is rather well documented in the GFY archives, so we're always excited to see what she's going to wear on the red carpet -- adore it or abhor it, we're never indifferent, and that's at least one victory right there.

This year, "love" won. And so I present a series of affectionate haiku-style poems dedicated to her achievement.

Cate loves metallics
like I love potato chips.
But, can't wear those. Boo.

Sexy iron sheath
makes Camelot wish chain mail
could look this gorgeous.

She's a tall, frosty
steel-wool milkshake, minus the
wool. Plus chocolate.

Fair skin is in, yay!
Ditch the bronzer, orange freaks.
Cate proves paleness rocks.

Out of Diet Coke.
Sad. Tortured. Crushed. Off-topic.
Cate: Bring me one? Please?

Guess it's errand time
For Intern George. Cans, please, love!
Plus, I should post this.