Misc. Awards Shows

You know, I'd been wondering what Eliza Dushku has been working on lately, so it's refreshing to know the answer at long last:

She's been moonlighting on the other side of the Phantom Tollbooth as Plussy Galore, by day the  High Priestess of Operational Voodoo and leading Symbols player in the Mathmagician's marching band, and by night the Dodecahedron's nimble mistress. No wonder she didn't have the energy to change her clothes.

If you're trying to decide whether a tight, shiny, stretchy turtleneck is a good or a bad idea, allow Kerry Washington to aid in your pro/con list.

Pro: No chance of a nip slip.

Con: Unsightly, unexpected perspiration in the face of flashbulbs. Am I crazy or does it look like her nipples are sweating?

Fortunately for her, it took me a while to notice that little problem, because I was wholly engrossed in the children's book illustration that is her outfit. I keep expecting The Very Hungry Caterpillar to pop out of that thicket and take a greedy bite out of her skirt.

Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.

Bjork's had an actual face. And illusion netting. And an EGG PURSE. Were you even trying?

So, it seems pants were in short supply at the Brit Awards -- by which I mean, trouser-pants, and not underwear-pants, and it's important to clarify this point because of the great and almost impassable cultural chasm between this mighty nation and our parent country. Apparently when they landed here, "pants" took on a whole new meaning that didn't make it back across the pond, and suddenly merely saying something innocent like, "I'm just wearing pants and a sweater to the bar," became equivalent to dropping a ticking time-bomb of accidental nudism onto the kingdom that begot us. I don't know how we have managed to be conversant with them since. Fortunately, our t-shirt works in both languages; thank God we are fluent in both.

At any rate, leg-and-crotch coverings were  at times absent from the proceedings -- Abi Clancy being one instance and Alesha Dixon of girl group Mis-Teeq being the other.

It's here that Alesha learned that "Brit" refers to the country in which she lives, and not to Britney Spears -- and that, ergo, this ceremony was NOT an homage to the fabric-to-flesh ratio our cherished, troubled singer so frequently employs. I am pretty sure that dress is made of the foil lining from a box of Valentine's chocolates. Would that Alesha had shared those with us instead.

TV personality Fearne Cotton, it turns out, is TECHNICALLY wearing something trouser-adjacent. At first I thought it was a miniscule skirt, but no:

In light of this photograph, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that Ms. "Make Up Your Mind, Please" Clancy is: a) a former lingerie model; b) a runner-up of Britain's Next Top Model, dinged by the judges for being too "glamour," which is essentially UK modeling code for "soft-core porn"; c) a WAG, or more specifically, the on-off G of toothy giant Peter Crouch; d) was allegedly dumped once by Crouch via fax; and e) tried to solidify her career by allowing herself to be taken under the musty wing of professional exhibitionist and gold-plated nutter Janice Dickinson, purely for televisual purposes.

Given all that, it may surprise you that she bothered wearing panties at all. Didn't Janice teach her better than that?

This picture of Christel Khalil from The Young and the Restless -- who played the daughter of crazy-hat-wearing Victoria Rowell, made out with her current boyfriend at her own divorce party, and had a whole storyline where she got gonorrhea, although everyone seems to have forgotten about that -- is technically not a scrolldown, because it was better at the bottom than at the top.

So I MADE it a scrolldown.

The color is fantastic, I love the train, the dress has so much potential.... and then, the accessories.

It's hurting my head to look at them this way, so let's flip her over again.

There is something very pretty about this outfit. And something very "Once upon a time, in a far-away land, there lived a prince and his girlfriend."

"They were the happiest couple in the land, or at least in the twelfth grade; she gave him a good-luck pin to wear on his breeches, and she was often to be seen running around the village with his Varsity Jousting Team Cape affixed to her shoulders. The girlfriend would go to all her prince's  tournaments, and in turn he would help run her campaign for class president and show up at fundraisers and let her auction him off for charity to handsy old women who wanted a hot dinner date. It was a match made in heaven, until she caught him making out with her best friend in the spear shed near the castle moat, kicked him in the gauntlet, burned his cape, and then went on to become the owner of the most powerful mead brewery in the country -- which bought his pro jousting team and then fired him. The moral of this tale: Revenge is sweet; capes are not."

The first time around I missed a lot of Mad Men, because I couldn't watch them fast enough to keep my TiVo from replacing old ones with newer episodes. Now, if we're being honest, usually my reaction to heavily hyped stuff that passed me by the first time around is to get kind of overly aggravated by it and ignore it, until my defenses are so worn down that one idle day I sit down with whatever it is and think, "Okay, let's see how TOTALLY BAD this really is," ending of course with me completely on board and secretly admitting it's kind of great. This happened with One Tree Hill some time ago, with Dawson's Creek back in the day, and with wedge shoes. But Mad Men, I knew I wanted to see. And as I've been catching up piecemeal in reruns, the hype is totally not misplaced. It's very well done.

January Jones (who was indeed born in January; she should be relieved she wasn't a September baby), in particular, is great in it. So I really wanted to love whatever she wore to the SAG Awards. And indeed, I love her face, which thankfully she brought with her.

But:

I can't really get behind this. It looks like a homemade Valentine. And while that's great in elementary school, and one might argue that the SAG Awards are an elementary awards show only getting major attention because the Golden Globes were out sick and needed an understudy, I just wish January had gone for a gown that reminded me less of something I traditionally would've accessorized with a doily.

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

What do you think: avant garde...

... or wearable modern art entitled Aborted Straitjacket?

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

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