Fug the Cover: Scarlett Johansson

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.

Fug Or Fab The Cover: Julianne Moore

I have had many a conversation over the past week or so about this cover, and they all go something like this: "She looks hot! But the whole thing is sort of unseemly. But it's FRENCH! But it's just TOO MUCH. But maybe it's SEXY. But it's also sort of creepy. But that color is great. But I don't need to see her in this S&M panties-coordinated-with-belt thing. But at least it's interesting! But it makes me feel sort of uncomfortable. But maybe that's the point! But I hate it. No, I love it. No, it's terrible. No, it's AWESOME. No. Yes. No. I don't know. GOD, WON'T SOMEONE PUT IT TO A VOTE?!"

Your wish is my command, dear reader:

polls by twiigs.com...

Fug Or Fab The Cover: Gwyneth Paltrow

This is the day of the week where I admit something embarrassing, and today, it's that I am that person in America who loves Gwyneth. I know, I know: She's got a rep for being snotty and snobby and icy and whatnot, but I can not help it. I love her. Even when her head is apparently floating a full foot in front of her neck:

I know. She has a floating head, and I suspect she's able to "simplify everything," as she says on the cover, because....oh, I don't know....maybe because SHE'S LOADED? Money can't buy everything,  but it CAN pay for someone to water your lawn and buy your Mini Wheats and fold your underpants and I bet we'd all be able to more easily juggle our families and our jobs if we didn't have to run to the laundromat and the corner store all the damn time.  Ergo, I can understand why some people out there in the wide world might read this and kind of want to kick old GP in the shins. But I can't help it.  I just look at her and WANT TO BUY THE MAGAZINE. I don't even know WHY.  It's like that weird thing I have with Lohan, except for how Paltrow is like THE EXACT opposite of Lohan. On the other hand, I do wish there was an article in here explaining how I, too, can have that floating head.

polls by twiigs.com...

Fug The Cover: Amanda Bynes

So, riddle me this, Seventeen: Is one of the "amazing style secrets" of Amanda Bynes that you're suggesting we steal, "Put on more makeup than the inaugural victim of an unskilled, blind-ish Avon lady, and then ADD SOME MORE"?

Yeah, that's what I figured.

Fug the Cover: Lauren Conrad

We've been so mean to LC lately and I totally don't even mean it. Sure, I thought her fashion line sort of sucked, but she seems like a nice girl, and I look forward to seeing her in one of our Blame Spencer tees. (Buy early, buy oftblah blah blah blah).  But she's got some problems, you guys: Her taste in men is questionable at best, for one thing. For another, Mark -- that teen/tween magalogue from Avon -- is out to get her:

She doesn't look bad there, per se. But she also totally doesn't look like herself. To the extent that I recently spent like twenty minutes trying to figure out if that WAS LC, or just some rando model.  I kept putting this thing down and then picking it up again. I really went back and forth like nine times. And you know how, if you write the word "turnip" or whatever multiple times, it eventually loses ALL MEANING? Ten minutes into my existential Is This Lauren Or What? crisis, her face lost all meaning and context to me. It could have been Engelbert Humperdinck up on there.  Though I don't know how well he sells perfumes to teenagers.

Fug Or Fab: Fug the Cover?

I just don't know anything anymore.

Is this good? Is this bad? Has Renee always used that accent over the second E in her name (Wikipedia says "yes," IMDb says "sometimes," I say, "huh, I never noticed")? Also, why is In Style using the same accent over the E in "decor"? I mean, if Elle Decor doesn't need an accent, why does In Style? Is it just to seem FANCY?! And why do I care? The real question is: does Renee look better than usual? That color is nice on her. But that haircut, it's excruciating still. Right? RIGHT?

polls by twiigs.com...

Fug the Cover: Kate Bosworth

Okay, first of all: WHY ARE THERE SO MANY WORDS ON THIS COVER? I can't FOCUS. I apparently should be: crying at work; eating more; worrying about organic foods scamming me; worrying about my sister secretly being a porn star; trying twenty-five new beauty products in the hopes of changing my life; worrying if dudes secretly hate my outfits, leading to my -- it is implied -- dying alone and under a bookshelf; worrying also about what my look says about me; worrying about whether or not I am a snob about my boyfriend's job; running out and buying a spring dress (that my boyfriend, it seems, will secretly hate), strappy sandals and a big bag; ALL while wondering what the deal is with Kate Bosworth and her quarter-life crisis. That is a TALL ORDER, people. I have a lot going on. I can barely read those many words, much less concern myself with all of them. But most importantly, can we finally please call a stop to the Famously Skinny Starlet Looks Sexily Exhausted And Hungry-style cover? I can't imagine Kate Bosworth wants people to look at her on this cover and think, "man, she looks really stressed and mildly resentful."  Unless this photo is supposed to be representative of how she looked mid-quarter-life crisis: beautiful, but very unhappy to be photographed. In which case, well done.

Fug the Cover: Gabrielle Union

Okay, I have a confession. You guys already know about my secret, shameful love of The Ghost Whisperer, but that's merely the tip of an iceberg called Embarrassing Things I Secretly Love, which also includes Flaming Hot Cheetos and the MacGruber skit on Saturday Night Live. This time, I must confess to you that I secretly love the low-rent city-centric magazines you get for free at the airport. Like this one:

(Las Vegas boasts like eleven of said magazines, all of which you can find in your hotel room and all of which also feature an interview with either Rita Rudner, Danny Gans, or Carrot Top.)  Anyway, while I generally prefer snagging these sorts of rags while on vacation, I haven't been to Vegas recently, so this little delight comes courtesy of an eagle-eyed reader who rightly noted that Gabrielle Union -- on whom I have a total crush, if you must know. She's really pretty! -- appears to be checking to make sure she shaved her armpits this morning. You know, in a really photogenic way, but still. What is this saying about the fine, fine city of Las Vegas? VEGAS: DON'T FORGET YOUR PITS! Or, VEGAS: DON'T WORRY! WE HAVE LOTS OF VENUS RAZORS IN OUR FINE HOTEL GIFT STORES! Or, VEGAS: HEY, RELAX. WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR BODY HAIR. BUT YOUR RIGHT BOOB LOOKS LIKE IT MIGHT BE ABOUT TO POP OUT. THAT'S OKAY, TOO!  I guess, when it comes right down to it, all three of those things are true.

Fug or Fab The Cover: Hilary Duff

We've gotten several emails about this cover, but I have to admit that when I got it in the mail the other day, I didn't really think much of it, other than, "The orange and pink together is SO Lucky. Is that Hilary Duff? I wonder what she's been up to. Do we have any ice cream?" Now that I look at it more closely, of course, I must concur with the kind reader who pointed out that her lipstick appears to be a new shade from Revlon called Dead Like Me. As for the rest of it, well...what do you think?

polls by twiigs.com...

Fug the Cover: Mariah Carey

Over the last few years or so, something interesting has happened: I have started to like Mariah Carey. I don't know why. I think I must find her amusing or something. It certainly helps that her most recent video features Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock.  And EVERYTHING is better with some Kenneth the Page mixed in. In fact, I think this cover could have used some Kenneth:

See? All better. Now I'm not fixated on her dragilicious eye make-up/possibly painted-on eyebrows anymore, nor do I find myself listing uncontrollably to the side to match her head positioning. Kenneth the Page has anchored the whole operation. Bless him.

Fug the Cover: Madonna

Call me crazy, but I feel like there comes a point in a woman's life where she needs to put away unflattering droopy-diaper shorts and freakishly low-cut corset-esque sports bras and move on. Even if that woman IS Madonna.

Fug The Cover: InStyle and Eva Longoria

Admittedly, I haven't bought or read InStyle in a long time, because it's a little too rich for my blood -- I don't walk by Banana Republic and think to myself, "Aw, how sweet, a bargain-basement store" -- but this past weekend I snapped up the March 2008 issue with Eva Longoria on the front, because it was wickedly hideous and I had to have it.

Inside she says, "It makes me feel old, but I love it," and she's referring to being called "Mrs. Parker" when they're in Texas, but it might also refer to the cover photo.

Seriously, that doesn't even really look like her face to me. It's so... sharp. In my mind's eye, that's actually a Miami Beach socialite in her late thirties who just got fresh cheek implants, and is about to start a gig on a cruise ship opening for Kathie Lee Gifford at the Lido Deck Lounge.

Even InStyle clearly felt so concerned that you wouldn't recognize the pursed lips and cocked brows that the designers chucked any reference to the story inside (a peek inside her closet, which offers almost nothing interesting or surprising except MAYBE that she owns an entire wall full of black shoes and a minimum of $7000 in Louboutins), in favor of slapping her name over the picture in the biggest font size possible, as if to be like, "No, SERIOUSLY, it's HER. WE'D GET SUED FOR THIS IF IT WEREN'T, SO IT HAS TO BE." Although frankly, if I were her, I might sue them for it anyway.

Fug the Cover: Lindsay Lohan

The Setting: The offices of Paper Magazine

The Players: Two staffers: a stylist, and an editor

The Topic: Lindsay Lohan's upcoming cover shoot:

THE EDITOR: Do you really think she'll wear this?

THE STYLIST: Sure!

EDITOR: Is this a robe, or a tunic?

STYLIST: Sort of six of one, half-dozen of the other.

EDITOR: It's knee-length...

STYLIST:...with this crazy high-slits up the side. Cute, right?

EDITOR:  Yeah. I'm just worried it might be too...

STYLIST:  Modest?

EDITOR: Yes. Considering the subject.

STYLIST: Have you ever worked with Lindsay?

EDITOR: No.

STYLIST: Oh, honey. Don't worry. She'll find a way to make it look like she hasn't got any pants on, come hell or high water.

EDITOR: I don't know whether to be relieved by that or not.

Fug the Cover: Drew Barrymoore

So, this went badly:

So, let me see if I've gleaned the correct message from this cover: this Spring, it will be the height of chic for women previously renowned for their cute, off-kilter spunkiness and sexy regular-girl charm to re-envision themselves as stoned-looking, moderately greasy mannequins with quasi-80s hair, wearing a scrunchie as a top? Good to know.

Fug the Cover: Rachel Bilson

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

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

Fug The Cover: Zac Efron

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

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

[Photo: Splash News]

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

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

Even Claire Danes is all, "Really, kid? Jordan Catalano? Because I KNOW Jordan Catalano. I've kissed Jordan Catalano. I've angsted over Jordan Catalano. And you, pipsqueak, are no Jordan Catalano."

poll by twiigs.com

Fug The Cover: GQ

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

[Photo: Splash News]

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

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

Fug The Cover: Reese Witherspoon on Marie Claire

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

[Photo: Splash News]

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

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

Fug the Cover: Fergie

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

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

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

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

Fug the Cover? Uma Thurman

When I originally pulled this Bazaar cover with Uma Thurman, I remember thinking, "Oh, UMA. No."

But now that I am looking at it again, I don't know that my first instinct was right. (Bear in mind that I hadn't had any coffee at that point. What was I doing, making judgment calls?) Sure, she looks a bit orange and I don't know that this is the most flattering pose for anyone (it looks more and more uncomfortable the longer you look at it, though it's ostensibly casual), but....you know, she's hot. And she looks recognizably like herself.  And I kind of appreciate the fact that "TEN LEG LIFTS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE" isn't splashed over her forehead.

And then I saw the OTHER Bazaar cover (I guess one is for subscribers and this one is for newsstands):

This cover girl looks like she was created in a lab using the DNA of Uma Thurman and Heidi Montag. So what do you think?

polls by twiigs.com...

Fug the Cover: Mischa Barton

Could someone please explain to me what the deal is with Mischa's teeth here?

Right? I mean, she looks generically lovely here -- although not entirely like herself -- but....a bit rabbity, no? And I don't think I've ever thought that about her, not in all the years I spent complaining about how wooden she was on The OC. She almost looks like she's got a retainer in. And other than prompting me to waste twenty valuable minutes that I should be spending wrapping gifts or quaffing wassail on deep thoughts about Mischa Barton's dental situation, this cover has also led me to waste hardcore cookie-eating time on thinking about the 10 MASSAGES THAT'LL CHANGE MY LIFE. For one thing, that sounds dirty. For another, are there really TEN? I can't help imagining the poor writer assigned to this story, stuck on massage number seven and frantically asking her co-workers if they can think of ANY life-changing massages, AT ALL, so she can finish this thing and head down to the pub with everyone else. This wassail's for you, Tatler staffer.

Fug the Cover: Keira Knightley

I am really looking forward to Atonement, the project Keira Knightley here is currently flogging. The book is great, and I hear the movie is just fantastic. God knows, I'm a sucker for British period pieces in which women in great outfits run through beautiful fields crying about men. But if Keira has any sense, right now she's running through the streets of London crying about the make-up they put on her for this cover:

DUDES. Last time I checked, K. Kni wasn't a moderately depressed topless mime-clown, nor does she play one in the film, nor are moderately depressed topless mime-clowns all the rage.  So what gives? Did KK accidentally run over Interview's editor-in-chief's dog with her car? Did she burn down the photographer's house? Did she steal the styist's place in line at an open bar? Because to me, this cover looks like revenge.

Fug the Cover: Christina Aguilera

Well, this is one way to officially confirm your pregnancy:

As well as your tragic addiction to bronzer, last night's eye liner and those bitchin' cropped jackets of fashion's proudest decade, the 80s. There IS something hilarious about this photo being juxtaposed with the headline, "Tanning, bleaching, botox: ARE YOU OBSESSED?" as Xtina here looks to be deeply in thrall to at least two of said vices. I'm just not quite sure what either Our Lady of the Bleach or Marie Claire were thinking: Christina's been nothing if not sexily classing it up since marrying her baby daddy, and while there is a less tacky way to pose nude on the cover of a magazine...this ain't it.

Fug the Cover: Julia Roberts

Here's what I want to know, looking at this cover:

Does Julia's MOST INTIMATE INTERVIEW EVER! include tips and tricks on how she manages to turn her head around 270 degrees? Because that, I would be interested to read.

Fug the Cover: Jessica Simpson

Wow, since when did Jessica Simpson lose every single line in her face?

Please please please please tell me this is what we old fogies used to call air-brushing (every time I use the phrase "air-brushing," I get an email which reads, basically, "IT'S CALLED PHOTOSHOP YOU IGNORANT OLD BAG!!!!" and I do understand that almost no one actually "air-brushes" anymore, but it's just such an evocative phrase that I like to keep it circulating) and J. Simp didn't get an eyelift and beaucoup Botox. I spent ten minutes at my corner market today staring at this cover, Diet Coke in one hand and a bag of half-off Halloween candy in the other, trying to figure out if she looked good here or not. And then I realized, if I have to think about it, the answer is probably no.

polls by twiigs.com...

Fug the Cover: Scarlett Johansson

Cute dress on ScarJo here, but what's the deal with her face?

Look: I know what this girl usually looks like. And she's really, really good-looking. So how is it possible that ScarJo's been plonked on the cover of Elle looking (facially, anyways) like a moderately bloated, totally cranky college freshman who's just been informed that the cafeteria ran out of fat-free cream cheese? There is no way someone at Elle didn't look at this shot and say, "dude, what happened to her neck?" and then someone else probably said, "You've been watching a lot of Top Model, eh?" and then the first person was probably all, "NO. I...I love it! No one has necks for fall, haven't you heard?" And now, when all poor ScarJo wants to do is read the article about the benefits of alcohol (whoo!) or "What One Woman Did to Save Her Butt" (which I admit that I SHOULDN'T want to read -- because seriously, how bad could her butt have been? -- but I totally do, because HOW BAD WAS HER BUTT? I have to know!) but she is constantly greeted by the image of herself making an uncharacteristically generic bloaty face, kind of looking the way the rest of us do when we stumble into the bathroom after a night of beer and wings. Although thinking about wings makes me think about my own butt and in doing so, I am pretty sure I just discovered the method to this mad, mad cover: ScarJo is merely helpfully illustrating the face that woman made when she realized what she was going to have to do to save her butt.

Fug The Cover: Mariah Carey

When I went out and got my mail the other day, I shifted through the usual mish-mosh of bills, and SPECIAL OFFERS entreating me to subscribe to Dry Cleaners Union Weekly, and random coupons for auto detailing, and menus from Thai food places, and magazines, I saw this and thought, "Since when am I getting Cosmo?"

From the pink background, to the classic Cosmo model pose, to the breathless promise of TOTALLY BRAND NEW sex tips (which is a lie. There hasn't been a new sex tip in a magazine in ten years), to Mariah's kind of fascinatingly upscale(ish) yet trashy(ish) tight little frock that appears to have very large rhinestones affixed to it and therefore seems like it might be uncomfortable to sit down in because all you will feel are those stones digging into the delicate flesh of your posterior, I flicked this thing open fully expecting to find a spread on the latest Fun, Fearless Female and was instead greeted by....Glamour.  Surprising. I was relieved to learn that I haven't developed the magazine-ordering version of that disorder people get where they get up in the middle of the night and eat an entire chocolate cake, and that I won't be getting, like, American Cowboy and Inside Triathlon all of a sudden. But, while I'm sure Mariah is pleased with what the photoshoppers, and her trainer, and the dude who does her hair extensions hath wrought, I wonder if "Looking Exactly Like Cosmo" was the best way to go this month.

Fug the Cover: Keira Knightley

I LOVE fashion magazines from other countries. Probably because they feel like a new treat, rather than the same-old same-old I'm accustomed to (when you subscribe to like 10 glossies, you start to get burned out at some point), and also, you get to do fun math to figure out the currency conversations on all the stuff therein (please note: the "fun math" I did last time I was in Great Britain involved me just deciding that everything was priced in dollars so that I didn't get too bummed out by my TopShop receipt). It's also fun to see what is au courant in other places.   Apparently, our Canadian friends are currently wearing make-up the likes of which makes them appear to be burning with the supernatural flush brought on by the fevers of galloping consumption:

K Kni is lovely indeed, but she looks so feverish and overly warm here that I feel the urge to fluff up her pillow, dab her forehead with a cool cloth and then spoon lukewarm broth into her mouth, whilst murmuring soothing things like,  "no, no, no one wants to strangle you. That's just your dress," and "Johnny Depp will be here at 4."

Fug the Cover: Lindsay Lohan

Do you think the folks at Maxim looked at the proofs from this frankly embarrassing Lindsay Lohan photoshoot and just shrugged and said, "well, everyone knows she's totally strung out. Why pretend otherwise?"

At least, let's hope that's the thought-process behind running this extremely glazed-eyed photo of a girl with very well-publicized substance abuse problems. Because otherwise, it sort of seems like they might as well have subtitled it, "Nothing's Hotter Than a Vulnerable Girl With Daddy Issues Who's Only Marginally Capable of Giving Consent Thanks To Her Massive Drug Problems. She's A Mess, and That's Awesome!" And while I'm not the biggest Maxim fan in the world --   it's like Cosmo for men, and just as silly (I mean, seriously. "Clothes That Seal the Deal"?)  -- I'm pretty sure they're not actually making the argument that the sexiest girls are the ones who can't stand upright and are prone to throwing on other people's coke-lined trousers. I mean, at the very least, she's NEVER going to offer to be the designated driver.

Fug the Cover: Sienna Miller

Oh, Vogue. Why you gotta play me like this?

I'm not even going to mention the Giant Heavy Brows -- which aren't at all flattering to her, although I personally think a heavier brow is often nicer than a too-thin Kelly Taylor Circa I Choose Me brow. So it's not like I am leading some kind of Anti-Brow Brigade, I just think that what looks good on some faces looks positively Crayola on this one -- or the ridiculous fact that EVERY SINGLE HEADLINE is alliterative ("Fashion's Feistiest Icon" and "Perfect Political Partner" and "Fearless Fashion" AND "Magician of Makeup"? Was there no room for "Piles of Positively Peerless Pants" or "Scads of Seriously Sexy Skirts" or "My Mailman Refuses to Deliver This Because It Weighs More Than Some Babies"? Wait, that last one doesn't have any alliteration. My bad). Or the fact that she's dressed like an ostrich. I mean, it's Vogue. Someone has to be dressed like a bird or Anna won't let them go to press. But what I primarily take issue with here is her terrible, terrible, terrible hair. This is what my hair looks like when I get back from the gym (we're pretending that I go to the gym this week). This is what my hair looks like when I'm trying that thing you do where you give up shampoo in the hopes that your hair "gets used to" being washed less often and you only have to wash it like once a month and it's still all full and shiny (this usually lasts approximately three days before my hair starts looking like...this. And then I wash it). I find it very hard to believe that Vogue couldn't do a more flattering up-do. Something a bit less Shit My Poli Sci Paper Is Due Tomorrow And I Haven't Even Started It and something a bit more I'm The Best God Damn Dancer In the American Ballet Theatre! Who The Hell Are You?

I mean, Vogue IS supposed to be aspirational, right?

Fug the Cover: Gwyneth Paltrow

I feel like I make an embarrassing revelation in this space about every three weeks. The whole Ghost Whisperer thing being the most embarrassing thus far.  But here's another one: I like Gwyneth Paltrow.  I know she's been accused of snobbery, pretentiousness, being an unbearable beeyotch, being annoyingly obsessed with macrobiotics, being the first major celeb to widely publicize the Brazilian and thus dooming legions of women to the agony of ripping out every hair they have with hot wax, etc, etc, etc and I don't doubt that all these things are true. But I think she's pretty, and I (used to) love her hair (would it kill her to get a trim?), and Apple was my most favorite celebrity child until Suri Cruise came along and bewitched me with her adorableness, and her outfits in The Talented Mr Ripley are AMAZING.

Which is why I was rather stunned to see her looking like this on the cover of W:

She is literally unrecognizable. I know her name is right there, splashed across her chest, but I am still not entirely sure that this is her. I feel like it might actually be a dude. A totally fierce dude, yes, but a dude just the same. And while I actually long for the day when a totally fierce dude lands on the cover of W, I really don't think Gwynnie wanted people to have to stare at her face for twenty minutes, reconfiguring it in their minds, so as to convince themselves that it was actually her. If this is the way she's gearing up for a comeback, as the cover promises,  that comeback is going to crash and burn.

Fug the Cover: Lindsay Lohan

Which do you think Elle is feeling more red-faced about today?

That they're promoting the successful rehabilitation of poor little Lilo -- maybe the pull quote should have read, "I'm glad I went to rehab -- I needed to get away from everyone and I didn't know now. In fact, I think I'll go back!" -- or that they've made her look exactly like Dina "The 'Everyone' Lindsay Needed to Get Away From" Lohan?

Fug the Cover: Anne Hathaway

Um, here's the thing. I've seen lots of pictures of Anne Hathaway in my time, right?

Did she always look so...rabbit-y? I'm pretty sure the answer is no.  Which makes me wonder if perhaps her rather over-bite-y expression here is not actually due to some kind of magical Two Front Teeth Extra Toothifying Serum that she accidentally took, mistaking it for mouthwash, but rather to the fact that maybe a certain famously bobbed editrix made an off-hand comment in the Conde Nast elevator to the effect that maybe it might be, shall we say, hilariously devilish if Ms Hathaway didn't exactly look her very best while splashed across America's newsstands. Just this once.

Fug the Cover: Sarah Michelle Gellar

"God, I wonder if we can we stop for a second. I'm getting a nasty crick in my back. I'm sitting here rubbing my freaking BACK in the middle of a photo shoot and nobody even cares. Whoever told me to lean against this wall for this entire shoot is going to be FIRED by the end of the day. My... OW! MOTHERF&%*ER! My ass is falling asleep, I chugged two Diet Cokes and now I kind of have to go to the bathroom, and now my freaking KNEE IS GIVING OUT and I can't even focus my eyes in the same direction. Deep breath, Sarah Michelle, stay calm, stay on top of it, try to make it look like you're giving yourself sexy massages... Okay, shit, this position is really uncomfortable. I'm pulling the muscles in my neck and all the tension there is giving me a migraine, and now my sternum looks two feet longer than it should somehow, and yet this person is STILL TAKING PICTURES OF ME LIKE THIS?!? This photographer will never work in this country again. Yes, that's right, ass-clown, I'm going to get you canned so hard your GRANDCHILDREN will be unemployed for eternity. Oh, it's going to be so sweet, I can almost smile through the rage. I'm coming for you. Buffy is going to vampire-slay your sorry ass into the next dimension of Hell. And send you my frickin' medical bills."

Fug the Cover: Winona Ryder

Because apparently, 2007 is the year that we learned all August covers are painful:

Loving the color of the dress -- though maybe not on Winona, actually -- but if I were her, and planning on making some kind of comeback (which I assume she is, as the cover tells us she's STARTING OVER AT 35, like this is SO VERY VERY CHALLENGING because 35 is SO VERY OLD OH MY GOD I BETTER GET STARTED ON MY LIVING WILL),  this isn't exactly the way I'd want to kick it off.  She doesn't look 35 to me. She looks....older. Tired. Mildly to moderately anemic. Like her allergies are kicking up in this field and she is stifling a sneeze. Hungry. Fighting back from the heartbreak of scoliosis.  As though she used whipped egg whites in the place of hair gel. What's the deal? Did she lift something from Anna's office?*

*Sorry, Wino, but I couldn't resist. Loved you in Heathers.  Hate to see you looking like you just chugged a mug of Drano.

Fug the Cover: Jessica Simpson

And she's back! After a brief hiatus while she was dating John Mayer and simultaneously was accosted with my favorite headline ever, namely, "IT'S NOT A FAT SUIT," my nemesis Jessica Simpson is BACK.  (I like to have a nemesis at all times. For a while it was a woman I worked with [NOT HEATHER] who used to correct my grammar all the time, except she'd change it so that it was WRONG. Another time it was my landlord, who charged me for DEPRECIATION ON THE WASHING MACHINE. That ass. And then, of course, there was Paul Giamatti. HE KNOWS WHAT HE DID.) But Jessica Simpson is my favorite nemesis, because she's always doing totally dumb stuff.  Sure, I suppose it's exciting to have a brilliant, Lord Voldemort-y nemesis, because it challenges you and all that, but I'm lazy. It's so much easier to have a nemesis who's likely to hoist herself on her own petard. In fact, I suspect her petard is exactly what Jessica is hoisting in the cover shot below:

Why else would she have her arm all stuck up in the air like that, in what might be the most AWKWARD-looking cover I have EVER SEEN? The good people at Glossed Over (also not fans of this cover) swears that J Simp is holding a bundle of balloons, and I'm sure that's true. What's also true is that they appear to be about ready to rip her arm right out of its socket.  It doesn't even look like HER arm. Hell, it barely looks like AN arm. She looks like she just happened to wander in front of a narrow, flesh-colored pillar. (There's a dirty, easy joke in there, isn't there? I'll give you a moment to make it to yourself.) She also sort of looks like she's got fangs, a development I never noticed before. With the new darker hair and the new sharper teeth, is she a vampire now? And shouldn't that information be on the cover? Hell, I'd totally buy a magazine that promised "A Look Inside Jessica's Dark New Blood-Sucking World."

Fug the Cover: Julia Stiles

You'd think Cosmo could have found a shot of Julia Stiles in which she wasn't making a "what the hell? I'm leaning against this wall anyway. Guess I might as well pose for Cosmo. Hurry up and take the picture, though" face.

You'd also think they'd run out of "Sex Extras," tips on how to "be closer to him," and stories about girls who got killed in a way that will probably ALSO HAPPEN TO YOU if you don't read the article, but that's apparently not the case.

However, I do have to give them props for juxtaposing the triad of "Her Boyfriend Killed Her For Breaking Up With Him" right next to "Why He Just Won't Propose,"  and  "Guys Uncensored: Their Get-Naked Fears Will Make You Laugh Out Loud."  Maybe he doesn't want to marry you because you're laughing at him when he's naked, honey.  That could make anyone feel a little bit homicidal.

Fug the Ad: General Hospital: Night Shift: Could I Have More Colons In This Headline?

I have not yet watched General Hospital: Night Shift, the GH spin-off that's currently airing on SOAPnet, although sources tell me that Billy Dee Williams is on it! This is exciting to me for reasons I can't quite pinpoint -- maybe I have unresolved Lando Calrissian issues? At any rate, I feel like I don't watch General Hospital very often, but of course I am aware that it features or has featured BOTH Luke and Laura  AND Dr. Rick Springfield, and every time I read a synopsis of something that's happened in the last five years, I find myself thinking, "oh, I totally remember when that happened to Carly!" In other words, GH watchers, I get where you're coming from, I salute you, and I suspect I may have a televisual version of that thing people get where they eat in their sleep, except I'm watching soap operas. Anyway, I hear from reliable sources that GH:NS is sort of entertaining, but what I want to know is why no one realized that they accidentally replaced Kimberly McCullough, who plays Dr. Robin Scorpio (who, Wikipedia tells me, not only originated the role as a child, but also sang back-up on "Toy Soldiers" by Martika[!!]) with Jennifer Love Hewitt. Behold:

The GH:NS ads:

Versus everyone's favorite Ghost Whisperer:

I mean, it's fairly obvious that J Lo Hew's got  Kimberly McCullough locked away in a cage in a mine shaft while she takes over her life so as to enact some terrible revenge because they're secretly twins who've been kept apart their whole lives and J Lo Hew is tired of people coming up to her and a) asking her about Bailey b) asking if she can tell their dead grandmother hello c) starting sentences with the phrase, "well, I don't know about you, but I CAN'T HARDLY WAIT...."

Frankly, I can't believe no one has caught onto this yet, but I just hope J Lo Hew will find herself so busy with wig wrangling when the next season of Ghost Whisperer goes into production that she lets poor Kimberly out.

Fug the Cover: Emma Watson

The coverage of the Harry Potter kids has been out of control lately -- which  makes sense, given that the most recent of the films opens this weekend, and the final book comes out on the 21st (not that I've had that marked on my calendar since February or anything). And, with only a few be-feathered mis-steps, Emma Watson's mostly been looking adorable in Chanel at all the various associated events. Which is why she needs to sue Parade magazine for dressing her in this:

Unless I blacked out during a section of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in which Hermione decided to chuck the whole wizarding thing and become a winsome tap-dancing orphan, this just makes no sense at all. I get the books -- since Hermione is brainy -- but what's with the top hat? She's not a MAGICIAN. She's a WIZARD. It's DIFFERENT.

Although I don't know why I'm all that surprised. Parade magazine is noteworthy mostly because it's so bad (sorry, Parade staffers. It's not your fault. I blame the crappy newsprint you're forced to work with). When I was a kid, my mother would read the Letters From the Readers section every weekend and get enraged because all the questions therein were SO STUPID and clearly chosen/faked because the person charged with answering said letters had some kind of beef he really wanted to passive-aggressively address that week. Like, one of them would be all, "Dear Parade, Could you please explain to me why every young actress in Hollywood today is a PANTY-LESS WHOOOOORE? When I was young, our actresses WERE PARAGONS OF VIRTUE. I AM APPALLED."  (This would run like three years after the panty-free fad had passed, of course.) And the answer would be like, "I WISH I KNEW. You are so right, reader. The youth of today DISGUST ME and I WEEP FOR THE FUTURE. It's the fault of all those dirty hippies who had children in the 70s. LOOK TO THE GREATEST GENERATION FOR GUIDANCE."  And then after my mother would complain about how Parade Magazine is totally out of touch, my father would complain about Marilyn Vos Savant ("she's clearly a fraud. What is the likelihood that the person with the world's highest IQ is named SAVANT?") and then we'd all eat pancakes.

Great, now I want pancakes. Thanks a lot, Parade.

Fug the Cover: Mischa Barton

So, here's the thing. Mischa Barton is quite lovely, without any help from anyone. So why did British Elle feel the need to Photoshop her into looking like an entirely different woman?

I mean, this lady is very pretty, too, but she looks sort of like she might be Mischa's older cousin, who was once fresh and promising but who suffered a traumatic failed love affair with a quasi-royal man who promised her marriage in exchange for the pleasures of her body, but who then promptly left her to marry a less attractive but more highly born woman to whom he'd secretly been betrothed for years.  And instead of just pulling herself up by her bootstraps and getting an incredibly glamourous job as, say, a model/photographer/ad copywriter and making him regret his treatment of her for all the days of his life, this Mischa just sunk lower and lower into a downward spiral, becoming a high-class escort, then a sort of mid-class escort, then getting addicted to something that's bad for you but doesn't totally ruin your looks, and then dying in, like, a fire started by one of her Cigarettes of Tragedy. In other words, THIS woman is a secondary character in a Judith Krantz novel, the one who's having all the kinky sex but who is also sort of weak-willed and unhappy. While the actual Mischa Barton is obviously a primary character in a Judith Krantz novel, the one who bounces back from terrible treatment at the hands of a handsome but douchey man by growing ever stronger and maybe just a little bit emotionally stunted, but in a way that a handsome, non-douchey man can break through in order to love her that much more perfectly. Catch a clue, British Elle.

PS: Nice bracelets. Presumably you can also use them as weights.

Fug The Cover: Harper's Bazaar

Here's my question: If you have made the decision that you want Anne Hathaway on your cover, why not make sure she LOOKS like Anne Hathaway?

I'm not saying you can't be avant-garde with the styling, but something about her face in this photo just doesn't seem right. It compels me to take deep breaths every time I look at it, because her expression reminds me of having a cold and being unable to breathe through my nose.

Actually, even worse, it's giving me disturbing flashbacks to when I was young and I would squeeze Barbie's head at the ears and laugh at how her face got all narrow and distorted (I was not a Barbie Girl -- I only had one; my true love was My Little Pony, even if I did sometimes yank their tails out and give them the occasional bad haircut). I guess that bit of dementia made me a bit like an ahead-of-my-time Kids In The Hall sketch, except that guy was crushing actual people's heads only in theory, whereas I was pinching a doll's head for real. And, I've said too much.

So, before I reveal anything else that's weird about a childhood toy, let's sum up: It's not the dominatrix look to which I object, so much as the fact that the photo looks like it's been vertically stretched. Not a great picture, and kind of a distracting choice for the cover. Also, I gave away that Barbie a gajillion years ago, so nobody has to worry about it suffering any more cranial torture at my ghoulish hands.

Fug The Cover: Katherine Heigl

Now that my new issue of Entertainment Weekly is (theoretically) about to arrive on my doorstep, I can finally chuck last week's -- which is a relief, because the cover photo of Katherine Heigl was giving me a severe case of what doctors call "the creeps."

Not that this is Heigl's fault. She's turned into a terrific actress, for one thing, and she's also completely adorable. To all those haters on message boards who say she's fat just because she isn't a twig like Ellen Pompeo, I say, A POX ON YOU. That is CRAZY TALK. We should all be so lucky as to be as "fat" as Katherine Heigl, what with her perfect curves and her pretty face and her completely NORMAL, healthy body (not to mention the fact that she's probably still a size 4 or something, because this town is totally dysfunctional).

Just look how nice she looks inside EW:

See? She's cute! She's playful! Her eyes are open! She looks sober, or at the very least, mildly buzzed enough that she's still fun but not in danger of drooling on the pavement and flashing her privates before accidentally deigning to go home with Calum Best like everyone else does!

You'd think those last two wouldn't be important distinctions, but they are when you consider the photo they used on the actual COVER of EW (a really unfortunate acronym for the mag, come to think of it, but also sort of apt in this case).

Is it just me, or does her head look way too big for her body? Methinks somebody went a little crazy with the airbrushing. Because in watching two hours and nine minutes of Knocked Up, three seasons of Grey's Anatomy, and more episodes of Roswell than I'd like to admit, I've NEVER once thought to myself, "Aw, how nice, they hired a bobblehead." I have ALSO never once thought, "Aw, that Heigl girl needs airbrushing."

Plus, they picked a photo in which she looks sleepy-drunk, her hair isn't as cute, and they've painted Renee Zellweger's cheeks onto her with makeup. Weren't there better options? In fact, what's wrong with the one they used on the inside? It's playfully sexy -- remember? The movie's a comedy! -- and she looks ten times better. It's got to be that we can see more of her boobs on this one; I assume that's sort of newsstand Golden Rule: "Flash unto others as you would have them flash unto you." Assuming those others are pretty actresses; presumably they wouldn't slap Rip Torn in a corset on the cover. Although, actually, I confess I'd totally stop and read that article. So maybe it does apply to every situation.

Fug The Cover: Fergie

Photography, at least in The World According to Tyra Banks, is all about angles. [Supplementary cautionary texts for the lesson: All my personal albums.]

So in theory, for a magazine cover shoot, one would want to find the best angle possible on the subject's face, so that when the photo is blown up on a cover and gazing at the masses from newsstands everywhere, the aforementioned masses do not immediately become huddled masses yearning to breathe free of the fearsome visage of Celebrity X.

Unfortunately for Fergie, I think the Seventeen photographer who shot her for the June cover flat-out gave up on her.

First, though, consider the Rolling Stone cover she graced last fall:

I actually like this picture -- yes, the hand positioning looks really unnatural and uncomfortable, like a finger-gun she's about to lock and load, but overall she looks kind of dirty-hot. Her nose looks delicate. She's pouty. She's got the smoky-eye thing going on, and her hair looks fantastic. In all, it's a pretty solid effort, and she makes me wish I had cause to wear tiaras more often.

Now have a gander at what Seventeen did to her.

Presumably, one of the 725 Ways To Look Hot (and Have Fun) did not include, "Pose for our cover photographer." Poor old Fergie-Ferg. Her head and face look puffy, her mouth seems almost rabbity, and at this point in a Top Model judging, Miss J. Alexander would be waving his finger around with eyes spinning in horror as he caws about how she's a "no-neck monster," after which he would trill something incomprehensible and then bang his forehead on the desk. Regrettably, not hard enough to knock himself out, but just enough to make Fergie snivel about she's going straight home to practice in front of a mirror -- while secretly wondering if the photographer had it out for her. 

To be fair, this is not the worst cover photo I've seen of her -- this is -- but it's still bad, and makes the Rolling Stone cover look like the work of Annie Leibovitz. The lesson here is that maybe Fergie doesn't have an angle. You'd think the photographer would've picked up on the fact that she's better off not turning her head to either side, but then again, maybe he/she did have it out for her.

Except, the real problem might be that she's not exactly a Seventeen kind of girl. You may be shocked to learn this, so if your jaw shatters when it hits the floor don't sue me because I have delivered fair warning: Fergie isn't a fresh-faced ingenue, and she's not trying to peddle sunshine with a mild dark side that has all the edge of a butter knife. Rather, she's a former meth addict who sang about her lovely lady lumps and her London Bridge going down, and she once peed herself on stage in the middle of a concert. (She also wears high-waisted overalls that eat her feet and make her look like an extra in Huckleberry Finn: Let's Get Jiggy, but that's a whole other problem.) Rolling Stone captured all her naughty in a sweet-sultry hybrid photo, but Seventeen tried to make her a clean-cut beachy Girl Next Door -- and that's ridiculous, unless you live next door to, like, The Viper Room.

But the real moral of this story is that Fergie should write it into her contract that Tyra gets to look through her film and pick her best shot. Because as it stands, the most applicable cover line of all is the tiny one in the white circle: "Don't Let This Happen To YOU."

Fug The Poster: Michelle Williams

Based on this description, would you go see this movie?

"A Gainesville Florida auto upholsterer attempts to transcend his mundane life by taming a wild, red-tailed hawk. He chases his passion while caring for his autistic nephew, and becoming caught up in an abstract and uneasy relationship with a young psychology student." [Source.]

I can tell you right now that I would run, not walk, away from the theater. I mean, obviously, it's incredibly relatable to try and spice up your life by taming a rare bird, but I am guessing the random insertion of the young psychology student came because whoever developed the script turned to the writer and said, "Where are the boobs in this movie? Where is the illicit tongue? People like illicit tongue more than they like birds." Incidentally, that is a valuable lesson for everyone to remember. Otherwise, the whole thing seems rife with depressing and potentially pretentious discourse about growth, plus annoying metaphors about wildness versus obedience and the spreading of one's wings. And bird feet. Lots of bird feet.

Next question: Does this poster make you any more inclined to see the movie?

Problem No. 1: It's Giamatti, which means the movie description left out the important detail that the Gainsville auto upholsterer is a sad-sack Gainesville auto upholsterer. He may be a great actor, but that doesn't mean I haven't reached my limit of watching him be short-but-deep streak of misery.

Problem No. 2: Michelle Williams has no eyebrows in that picture. Seriously, that girl is lovely, and yet she looks consumptive -- as if they left out from the description that the young psych student is being devoured from within by her own inner demons, and also, possibly some kind of rare and debilitating navel cancer. Who did that to her? Did the old Dawson's Creek hair and makeup people take over the production of this movie poster? She reminds me of my other official Eyebrow Nemesis: whoever was responsible for Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed, where they got bleached clean off the planet.

Problem No. 3: It reunites DC's Jen Lindley with her greasepig freshman boyfriend Henry, a.k.a. Michael Pitt. Down that road, agony lies.

Problem No. 4: No, seriously, what did they do to Michelle Williams? Do humble students suffering through abstract relationships with sad-sacks never go to the drugstore to spend $2 on some Wet N Wild lip gloss and some Maybelline Great Lash? I object.

In sum, I really don't understand why they would decide Michelle Williams is one of their most important marketing tools for this movie, and then make her look as if you will spend the whole time wishing you could take her to Rite-Aid and/or crying over her sensitive wisdom while she dies all over the place, or falls in love with the autistic nephew, or makes out with Giamatti.

No. She should be a selling point, but she's not in that picture.

Fugged!

It is well and truly established that I am quite fond of Miss Mandy Moore. She seems like someone you could be friends with -- actual Go Out For Beers With, Complain About Work To, Talk About Boys With, Borrow Going-Out Tops From Friends, as opposed to being someone who has solely Snort Coke With, Steal Parts From, Cheat On Boyfriends With, "Accidentally" Spill Wine on Your Favorite Top Hollywood-Style Friends.  And, apparently -- at least according to Elle -- she is both a lover AND a fighter, and who doesn't appreciate that in a girl? 

And, sure, maybe she's a lover and a fight with sort of unusually straw-like hair, according to his cover, but she looks cute and beachy in that dress, no? Imagine that with slightly healthier-looking hair. It works -- right? Sure. It works. Everything is working out fine for Mands. Let's take a gander at her on the inside, shall we?

Um.

That's... not such a great picture. In fact, I feel like if Mandy and I were Friends Friends, and I snapped that on my digital camera, she would squeak and force me to delete it. She doesn't look sultry as much as she looks sort of...well, let's just say that this is very, VERY similar to the look I had on my face last weekend when I was exhausted and hungover and the nice lady at the Coffee Bean told me that it would be about ten minutes before my coffee was ready because the coffee flux capacitor had blown a gasket (or something).

Mandy, I don't know what you did to the folks over at Elle, but -- as your friend -- I think you need to find some way to make it right. Now, can I borrow that white dress this weekend?

Fug The Cover: Kirsten Dunst

Oh, W magazine. It's been a long time since Kirsten Dunst played a vampire; it seems unfair to style her for this cover to optimize the illusion that she's spent all her time since then sleeping in a coffin. You've also managed to give her a wonky eye and a wig that looks like something Ken Paves scraped out of a gutter and then rejected for looking "too cheap." Well done! Here's hoping the article within does not reveal that she found herself at your photo shoot.

Fug The Cover: Washington Flyer

We recently took a trip to our nation's fair capital for a wedding. It was mighty cold in DC, but the city greeted us warmly, and when we took our leave, it was with the satisfaction of a weekend well spent.  When waiting in line for security at Dulles, I spotted one of those freebie magazines you find at places like airports. I am, if you must know, a huge fan of the SkyMall. Where else can you find the Pop-Up Hot Dog Cooker [awesome], the Basho The Sumo Wrestler Table [classy!] AND the extremely unsettling Poison Oak Tree Sculptures, as well, of course, as an assortment of change counters and accessories for your dog? And so I expect this particular magazine to perhaps be trying to sell me a new robotic can opener. But what it is REALLY trying to sell me on is the possibility that the cover model is actually Alec Baldwin:

At first, I thought this publication was called Washington Fever (a rather catchy name for a magazine, I think), and that Alex Baldwin HAD one, which is why he looks so very orange. Frankly, he doesn't look like himself at all. Let me refresh your memory:

See? That's Alec Baldwin. Crinkly, amusing, ready to attempt to sell us some Schwetty Balls, and probably willing to show us his actual ones. We like it. Washington Flyer Alec, on the other hand, appears to coming directly from a Men's Warehouse print ad shoot. In fact, I'm not convinced that that's all Alec at all. I think maybe his eyes, nose, and mouth may all have been placed on the face of another oranger, less eye-bagged, even smarmier model in the hopes that exhausted travelers wouldn't notice that El Baldwin looks -- well, weird. But not us. We know the real Baldwin when we see him, and he's generally not the color of a mango margarita.

Which reminds us: we need to order that Margarator.

Fug The Cover: Janet Jackson

We've been fugging a lot of covers lately, begging the question: What is up with January magazine covers? Traditionally, January issues are thin and flat -- like a bad hair day -- presumably because mag staffers are exhausted from putting together the December issues, which generally could be used to weight down a body. You know, if you were that kind of a girl. So I guess it's not too surprising that a lot of January covers are kind of lackluster. And yet I could not let Janet Jackson's appearance on Singapore's Harper's Bazaar pass without comment:

To be blunt about it: Is there some law that Janet Jackson can not appear on the cover of any major magazine in pants? Remember her W cover? This is almost exactly the same concept. I mean, it's more Wholesome 80s Super Model Going For a Dip in the Pool After Some Refreshing Tab, while that one was more...freaky.  But, seriously: We know, you lost a whole lot of weight. Your body looks nice. Excuse me, according to the cover, it is "killer." (And I don't think the use of the phrase "the skinny" on the cover is a coincidence, either.) But would it kill you to CONSIDER PANTS on occasion? EVEN THIN PEOPLE WEAR PANTS. We'll still KNOW that your ass is smaller than it used to be. You can PUT IT AWAY NOW.

Fug The Cover: Billie Piper

Did Billie Piper burn down the Glamour UK offices?

Because from everything I've seen her in -- admittedly, we're talking mostly British tabloids and chat shows, since I don't watch Doctor Who -- she seems bubbly and fun, and while she is wearing something that you need to be bubbly and fun to pull off (hey, sequins on a January cover? Works for me, since gold sequins are basically what champagne would look like if it were fabric), her face looks like she's just received a Botox facial and a death kiss from Vlad the Impaler.  Get this girl some lippie!

In fact, I noticed when I was London over the summer that many British women's mags actually give away REAL ITEMS with each purchase (one of them actually included an actual bikini, which I think is brilliant. Why don't they do this in the United States?). Maybe the Gift With Purchase with this issue is a tube of a gloss that includes actual color, thus allowing readers to avoid the cover look, in some kind of nifty reverse psychological trick. Nude lips are well and good, you know, but they sure are hard to pull off without looking like you just stumbled from your cold, dark grave in search of warm virgin flesh upon which to feast.

So basically,  I'm just saying, that if you are a British Glamour staffer, and you run into Billie Piper in a dark alley or a wine cellar, or near any kind of crypt-like thing, just get out your garlic, okay?

Fug the Cover: Nicole Kidman

So, I have a long and tortured history with Nicole Kidman.  Or, more accurately, with her hair. See, I love her red Moulin Rouge hair. I spent a goodly portion of that movie thinking, "Man,  Ewan McGregor is cute. Her hair is FANTASTIC.  Ooh, he can sing, too! No, seriously, I want that hair to be coming out of my head." And so on. I mean, come on:

She's the prettiest consumptive ever! I would kill you to have that hair. I'm sorry,  I'm sure you're perfectly lovely and I do appreciate your readership, but I need to have long, shiny, wavy red hair.  When I have that hair, finally I will be happy.

And when Nicole stuck to that hair color (or an approximation thereof)  in real life? Oh, it was a delight!

Pretty!

Pretty! (Hi, George.)

Pretty!

Then, of course, we went through that long, painful blonde period. God, that was hard. Why, I asked myself, would someone with pretty, pretty red hair decide to wash herself out like that? Why? For one thing, what kind of example are we setting for Lindsay Lohan? (Remember when our biggest concern about Lindsay Lohan was her hair color, and not the fact that she NEVER WEARS PANTIES ANYMORE? I wish I'd known how lucky we were.)

So, when I got December's Vogue, my first thought was, "THANK GOD, WE'RE BACK TO THE RED!"

My second thought was, "ACK!" Because either Anna Wintour wants us all to stick our fingers in an electrical socket before we leave the house, or Nicole Kidman cut in front of Anna Wintour in the cocktail line recently and only now is Anna enacting her sweet revenge.

Listen, I can handle the kooky futuristic chain mail mini-dress because, you know, it's Vogue, and they go there sometimes, but if this is the future of hair, we all best sell our shares in VO5 and get ready to style our hair with those little blow torches they sell for creme brulee.

Fug The Cover: Kylie on Vogue

We weren't going to say anything about this, because Kylie Minogue has been through a lot and we are surprisingly soft-hearted when we forget to take our meds. But then we slowly realized that what has happened to her on the cover of Australian Vogue is not Kylie's fault. Therefore, we can show you the monstrosity without guilt.

Without further ado, except for the ado of adding another preceding sentence rather than just tossing it up:

What have those wizards of Oz done with the nation's favorite pert-bummed princess? Her skin isn't pale, it's pasty; her eyes are all askew, she's dressed like a warrior princess of yore who just discovered Like A Virgin, and they have gone to great lengths to enhance whatever innately rabbity qualities her teeth may have. In fact, overall, she looks completely hammered. Off-her-tree plastered. And I think a woman who just survived breast cancer deserves a little better, wouldn't you say? Something classy, something sexy, something that proves she's still every bit the bombshell she was before she grappled with the disease. Instead she got an audition photo for Terminator 4. And as much as I'd like to see her out there working, that's not exactly what I had in mind.

Fug the Cover: Jessica Alba

There is no doubt that Jessica Alba is a pretty, pretty girl.  (We've also heard that she's a crazy bitch, but who are we to judge her for that? In fact, it sort of makes us want to get a beer with her.)  So why does she look like this on the cover of Elle?

There are several possible explanations:

a) She's a huge Janet Jackson fan, and instead of, say, getting a nice military-inspired jacket, or randomly flashing her left boob at nationally televised events, she decided to pay homage to Janet's disastrous W cover.

b) Nina Garcia hates her, and this is her revenge. (Okay, okay, we know that Nina Garcia probably doesn't have the final say on Elle's cover, but don't you love the idea of her sitting in her office -- twirling her highlighted locks like a more feminine version of a handlebar mustache -- and saying, "AT LAST, Alba! Your neck is MINE. MWHAHAHAHAH!" ? And while we're on the subject of Nina Garcia, now that she's pregnant -- contrary to popular belief, we are not entirely cold-hearted and actually love babies, especially fashionable ones, so we're totally pleased for her -- we're worried that she might not have the energy to get around to sneering at everything she'd like to sneer at.  In which case, we're here to offer our sneering services: Call us, Nina.)

c) She got some incredibly bad beauty advice from a hack plastic surgeon, who advised her to get a neck-ectomy, because "shoulders are HOT for fall."

d) She's in full-on Method acting mode for the lead role in a gender-bending version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, called Hottie Hunchback.

e) Tragically