Most stars have their own trademark pose on the red carpet. Think Renee Zellweger with her pursed lips looking like she just took a shot of lemon juice, or Lindsay Lohan's classic blowing kiss move. As for Keira Knightley, with her wildly perfect facial features and oddly appealing underbite, she's patented "The Pout." As she puts it:
The Economist, the smartest magazine in the world, may not be the smartest magazine in the world any more. Oh, the articles are just fine (we assume. We haven't read it since that free trial subscription ran out). We're basing our judgment on the magazine's new ad campaign. Which is utterly baffling. What, exactly, is the message here? Is the clown-and-stuffed-animal motif too clever for me to comprehend? Quite possible, but the campaign still reeks of a weeded college student breaking into the ad agency one night and replacing the real ads with these. Disturbing. Two full-sized pics of the inexplicable things [via Copyranter], below.
Communism. It sounds like it's all fun and games, until you see what the Soviet definition of "fun" is. Witness the freako attractions at children's playgrounds across the former USSR!
It's tough to remember (or believe) that once upon a time, Nicole Richie was merely Paris Hilton's chubby, recently-rehabbed, dread-locked sidekick. She made a name for herself by starting fights in clubs and providing a crude antidote to the far more glamorous Paris during the first season of The Simple Life. Fast-forward five years later (just like in Lost!); Richie has managed to outshine Hilton's star status not by doing anything in the way of "work," but instead by transforming into a style icon with a fiance and baby to boot. And lately, Paris seems to be doing everything in her power to copy her former lesser half's life, from her choices in fashion and boyfriends to her recent and sudden slim-down.
As everyone knows by now, watching Lost is akin to having Damon Lindelof mount a stepladder week in and week out, and proceed to engage in vigorous intercourse with the squishy contents of your skull. Last night's episode was no exception, offering us [spoiler alert] a flash-forward to Matthew Fox's Jack, who, in a shower-reveal scene reminiscent of a gender-reversed "Bobby's return" from Dallas, is shown to be living with Kate back home. This Jack, however, sported not the rabbi-envy-inducing beard teased in Season Three's finale. Now bear with us, if you will, as we tumble even further down the manscaping rabbit hole:
Today, People has revealed that Kate Hudson will appear as the cover girl for their 2008 Most Beautiful People issue, and we'd certainly like to send out a hearty congrats to the recently divorced single mom who's currently nursing Owen Wilson back to health. But after taking a look back at the list of stars who've previously nabbed the annual issue's cover spot, we fear there may be a curse accompanying the glossy honor. Sure, Leonardo DiCaprio (1998) and Julia Roberts (2000, 2005) haven't slipped up since having their smiley visage top the list, but a sizeable chunk of the winning alumni eerily saw their public and private lives undergo a downward spiral following their appearance on the issue's cover. We took a closer look at the possible curse-laden honor after the jump:
It took her long enough, but the eldest spawn of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore is finally putting her pedigree to good use. Rumer Willis reminded the world of her burgeoning acting career at last week's premiere of From Within, the horror flick she's starring in, and was spotted posing for her first ad campaign for Wal-Mart's newest surfer fashion brand OP (formerly Ocean Pacific). And while the extensions she wore for the premiere coupled with the bikini body she displayed alongside Pete Wentz for the photo shoot do admittedly evoke memories of a younger version of her iconic mom, are Rumer's recent career choices really going to jumpstart a Demi-like fame trajectory? Or will she soon be on MTV's third season of Rock The Cradle?
Until now, most onlookers have been noting just how much little Lourdes Ciccone Leon looks like her mother, the vitamin-injecting, leg-spreading Madonna. And while she does have her mom's naturally dark hair and piercing eyes, we think the 12-year old mini-Madge looks much more like another pillow-lipped celebrity you may have heard of. Particularly when we place Lourdes' current visage next to the star-in-question's glamour shots when she was just a teenager herself:
When news that Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer got together for a "touchy, feely" lunch date and dinner in Miami over the weekend broke, the entire community of celebrity observers and glossy magazine readers let out a big ol' collective yawn. Aniston has been linked to (and we're roughly estimating here) seven hundred or so possible paramours since her split with Brad Pitt, and Mayer has pulled what Liz Phair would call the all-too-common "fuck and run" on so many starlets that he earned Us's "Cad of the Year" award. But just because the gossip is yawnworthy doesn't mean there isn't a larger issue here: mainly, is Aniston really dating or trying to date all these guys-of-the-month, or is this charade her publicist's idea of spinning her post-divorce life into an unglamorous version of Sex And The City?
From 1962 to 1972 adman George Lois created some of the most iconic magazine cover art of his era. Thirty-one of them are part of a new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and the New York Times is offering a handy preview. My faves after the jump.
Santiago Calatrava's improbable residential skyscraper on South Street, a tower of boxes as unsteady as Jenga blocks at a late stage of the game, is dead. And the Port Authority is scaling back the Spanish architect's daring design for the financial district's PATH station. The architectural critics will no doubt bemoan the loss of New York's civic ambition, and wonder why rival world cities such as Shanghai and Dubai have taken up the mantle. (Oh, yes: authoritarian regimes, unbridled capitalism and cheap labor, but let's not go there.) Truth is that the drawing boards are littered with visions of Manhattan that were never realized. Here are my dozen favorites.
Hillary Clinton spent Saturday appealing to blue collar voters in Indiana. Which means drinking like a frat boy, obv. At a little neighborhood place called Bronko's in Crown Point, Indiana, Senator Clinton hoisted a mug of beer and then partook in a round of shots with the assembled locals. A shot of whiskey! A shot of blended Canadian whiskey. Dammit Hil, America makes the best whiskey in the world—who's reponsible for ordering Crown Royal? Wolfson? An Associated Press photog was there and captured the whole sad scene. We've got a charming gallery of hot Clinton party photos after the jump. Blue states truly lost.
Tee-hee. The Amadeus Net author Mark Rayner is hosting a photoshop contest at his blog that's yielding giggly results such as this one. More examples after the jump.
Remember when cover art was fun and freaky and had nothing to do with the Hamptons or Manolo Blahniks? Well, me neither, since I wasn't alive then. But apparently, there was such a time. More examples after the jump.
Lady Gaga goes Little Bow Peep in 2009
OMG everyone who's psyched for 60 Minutes this Sunday! CNN hearththrob Anderson Cooper is going one-on-one with "football" superstar David Beckham!!! There's a minute-long clip on CBS that we've embedded after the jump. But if sitting through an ad is too much work, you can just gaze upon our screenshot gallery of The Coop and Becks broing out on the "football" field (turf? some other word?). Anderson admires Beckman's powerful leg, then does a manly job defending the goal. This is gonna be the best profile ever!
If Mark Zuckerberg is the new Steve Jobs (hint: yes), then the Facebook creator's Adidas flip-flops are the heir to the Apple founder's black turtleneck. Nearly every news item about the 23-year-old fratrepreneur mentions (among other signs of youth) the black and white sandals, which Mark wears with every outfit. The Globe and Mail barely avoided predicting he'd wear them to the mogul summer camp soon taking place in Sun Valley. (Answer: he's not going.) But we've heard bad news about Mark's favorite sandals: they're getting discontinued. Here's a photographic retrospective on the love between a boy and his flip-flops.
You didn't get the latest must-have on iDay? That's okay, neither did I. And frankly, that's fine. There are still some left in the store, and Apple always does better on the second try anyway. Why not wait til Christmas for iPhone 2? And why not check out ten highly anticipated, highly-sought must-haves of the past? Most of them look pretty stupid now, no? Some of them (like Windows Vista) built buzz beforehand but bombed on launch day. Some are even sexier as retro toys than they were when brand new. They're all reminders that the iPhone isn't the first, or the last, geek toy you'll want on Day 1.
