Misc. Awards Shows

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There's a lot I don't understand about Alicia Keys. Like, say, why I am so sick of all her songs, or why she's on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and I still can't muster up the energy to read anything more than the headline on her story before I flip ahead to the big ol' dishy piece on Gossip Girl (although I'll grant that last one probably says a lot more about me than it does about Alicia, and parenthetically, if that show would just give in already and hire Joan Collins to be some kind of grande dame of English society trying to infiltrate the Upper East -- possibly as man-whore Chuck's unexpectedly British grandmother -- I would die happy).

Chiefly, though, I don't understand why Alicia would decide to change out of this:

[Photo: Splash News]

To this:

Listen, we all know Beyonce is bodacious -- or bootylicious, if you want to get into quoting Destiny's Child, which I'm sure Those Other Two Girls would appreciate since otherwise they're not getting a tremendous amount of love these days. And I remain eternally pleased that, rather than keep to the Dreamgirls-era stories of "How Beyonce Gave Up Fried Chicken" and "Beyonce's Sexy New Body," Miss B has in fact put the ten pounds back on and returned to her sexy OLD body, because she is not mental, and thereby understands that a life without fried chicken is not a life anyone should have to lead.

Still: Why satin, B?

This woman should look glorious in everything, all the time, and instead she gravitates toward the kind of grandiose satiny confections that end up buying property and building a mansion on the trashy side of divalicious. Also, Beyonce, you're all lovely and curvy, so don't detract from that by wearing a dress that bunches and pulls like it's a size too small an your mom struggled to sew you into it an hour ago, and told you not to DARE drink or eat anything, or else GOOD LUCK GOING TO THE BATHROOM.

Not to mention that the poor, brave halter strap is doing heroic work up there. I hope she's encouraging it with a lot of compliments and other positive reinforcement, because the second it feels bitter and taken for granted, it's going to pop and then the club won't be the only thing that's bouncin', bouncin'. (You're welcome AGAIN, Those Other Two Girls.)(Edited to add that, apparently, they won't be thanking me because the club is "jumpin', jumpin," which is a whole different chestal-region issue indeed. Oh well. You get the point: They're going to fall out of there, and I don't like Destiny's Child.)

Apparently sartorial tragedy runs in the family -- no surprise since mama Tina Knowles fancies herself a designer and stylist. Check out what that other forgotten girl, Beyonce's sister Solange, decided to wear:

Oh my god, Rihanna:

I'm pretty sure this is...supposed to be layered over something. Like an actual shirt, say.  In a way, I have to commend you for going all-out with your theme here (apparently, it is Clothing Items Which Are Missing Whole, Vital Pieces of Themselves LIKE FINGERS Or A THIRD OF YOUR BOOBS) and I appreciate how fresh and relaxed your hair and make-up is, but...okay, listen. I'm going to cut the complimentary crap for a sec. Sure, you're cute and young and have a huge hit song and are probably now richer than God, but all that means that you have FAR MORE resources than the rest of us schmoes (like money, and advisors, and the best reflective surfaces said money can buy and the best handypersons available to hang them) , and, ergo, should not find yourself out in public with a quasi-vest non-shirt that comes complete with clear plastic straps designed to prevent your nipples from making a desperate run for it.

For someone who seems like kind of a classy girl -- she doesn't talk much about her personal relationships in the press, she seems to wear all the appropriate undergarments, and she can certainly wail -- sometimes Carrie Underwood shows up places looking like she just raided Tabitha's Tack-o-Emporium and Ice-Dance Fire Sale:

I mean, okay, I'm glad she's not showing off her traditional Bustier-With-Train-Over-Jeans look, and, sure,  her legs look fantastic, but Lil' Miss Before He Cheats here also looks like she's about fifteen seconds away from strapping on ye olde figure skates and showing us all how to perform a proper double axel.

Dear Kid Rock:

WE GET IT. We didn't love it when you did it in stained tank tops and a quasi-mullet, we didn't care for it when Keith Urban took on the partial version of this look, and we STILL think it's stupid and vain even though you have cut your hair and borrowed Timberlake's fedora. The brunette, who looks like she's wearing a matching sling on her back for you to slide your hand into when it's cold, is not helping either. We GET that apparently you want us to look upon your life as one long beer commercial, okay? POINT MADE. Now can you please INVEST IN A SHIRT? Seriously. LOOK INTO FABRIC. YOU ARE MAKING ME SHOUTY. LOOK HOW LOUDLY I AM YELLING NOW.

A keg would quiet me down, though, I think. I'm just saying. It's not that I can be bought -- it's that I can be made too blurry and confused to notice that your chest is not a shirt.

On first glance, everything seems normal with Jewel.

I mean... she's Jewel. This is what she does. She has the wavy hair and the cleavage; the hands that are small -- she knows -- but which are not yours, they are her own; and the constant threat that she'll break into a poetry recitation at the slightest provocation.

But... wait, jump back to the cleavage for a second.

Usually, Eve looks pretty age-appropriate, so I can't figure out what possessed her to show up at the Teen Choice Awards -- where, presumably, teens are trying to tell us what they like, because 184 million viewers of High School Musical 2 still felt ambiguous -- in what amounts to cocktail pajamas:

Granted, I covet the shoes a trifle, but overall the effect is less "young vixen" than "Cougar salivating over her prey as she lasciviously licks caviar off a cracker." Or she's simply wearing the uniform of a long-lost martial art in which she's a black-belt -- say, the kind where she can slice off your head with a well-timed leg spin without so much as spilling her bourbon. Rrowr.

Still, I can see one advantage: The only hint of her Anklet of Legal Woes is in the bunching of the evil pants' drawstring hem, so perhaps she thought cloaking herself in fug would distract us from the Lessons Of Her Past. No dice, though, Eve. Also, The Lessons Of Her Past would actually make a great Lifetime movie if you added a few colons in there, like The Lessons Of Her Past: I Drink, Therefore I Can't: The Eve Jihan Jeffers Story.

I might have to eat all those words with a side of paté, however, because here she is demonstrating the more current fashions of the day and I'm not sure it's an improvement:

JESSICA ALBA: I want to die. Why am I here? At least I can wear this shade of yellow. Even in my doldrums, my own beauty comforts me.

DANE COOK: I'M HILARIOUS!

JESSICA: I hate him. And I hate his shirt. It looks like someone threw up on him.  I hate everyone. I hate myself.

DANE:  I SLEPT WITH THAT GIRL! AND THAT GIRL! AND THAT GIRL! I'M A STUD! A COMEDIAN STUD! SEE MY NEW MOVIE WHATSITCALLED WHEN IT OPENS WHENEVER!

JESSICA: Maybe I shouldn't have broken up with my boyfriend in order to pretend that I'm maybe sort of seeing Loudmouth over here, for publicity. But he was boring, anyway. Was that wrong?

DANE: YEAH! AW YEAH! BOO YEAH!

JESSICA:  Sigh. I have to stop this. Thinking gives you wrinkles.