Cannes Red Carpet: Well Played, Cate Blanchett

 

Do you think Cate Blanchett ever wakes up and thinks, "Damn. I am awesome"? She should:

If nothing else, I wish she'd teach a class at the Learning Annex called, "How To Wear A Dress Exactly The Same Color As The Rest Of You Without Looking Like A Whacked-Out Blood-Thirsty Zombie." I need to know her secrets.

You Know You Fug Me

 

Of all the new shows slated for fall, I think I might most be excited about Gossip Girl. The books are a delightful guilty pleasure - like an even soapier Sweet Valley High, but with way more sex and drugs and swearing and name-dropping and monkeys-- and everyone knows that Josh Schwartz can pull off at least one awesome season of a soapy teen drama, before devolving into meta-statements via comic books and cage-fighting (okay, the cage-fighting was kind of awesome).

The stars of the show look JUST as stoked as I am, no?

Hmmm. Maybe Taylor Momsen just looks cranky because her stylist decided to make her look as beige and monochromatic as possible, or maybe the panel has somehow gotten around to talking about how -- while she's obviously a really cute girl -- she's a very strange casting choice for the role of Jenny Humphrey, whose very (she feels overly) ample breasts, curly brown hair and intense adolescent distress at not being petite and blonde are mentioned about ninety times per book.  Momsen is adorable in her own right, obviously, but it's sort of like casting Britney Spears as Mother Theresa.

On the other hand, Blake Lively here seems like an excellent choice for blonde goddess, Serena, while the actress whose name I always forget (....Leighton Meester! Thank you, IMDb) looks just smug enough for the role of Blair, and seems as charmingly shifty and plotty as Blair is, seeing as she's somehow gotten her counterpart here to attach a miniaturized cream window treatment to her bosom:

I likewise appreciate that the actors playing the adults in the series are out of focus and in the background, as they should be in a teen drama. Remember how boring it was every time 90210 tried to get us to care if Cindy Walsh had an affair? Can't we learn from that?

I also can't wait until the series premieres, and I hate everyone I thought I'd love and have to eat all my words and end up starting TaylorMomsenIsPerfectAsJenny.com 

You Know You Fug Me

 

I'm willing to bet Taylor Momsen spent most of the night with her fingers wrapped around the hem of this "dress," tugging it south.


[Photo: Splash News]

She's only 15; her crotch should NOT be a spectator sport. And yet here we are, under serious threat of being flashed because of an ill-designed shiny silver bag with loose straps stapled to it. It's bad form when you're a character on a hot teen soap that's always in the spotlight for its fashion, yet you're stepping out in something that's ripped straight from that terrible Project Runway challenge where the models bought the fabric and none of them picked out enough, resulting in a lot of very fancy napkins. Maybe this is promoting a plot point of the season in which Taylor's character, the horribly annoying aspiring designer Jenny Humphrey, has decided to use her internship with Blair's mother to come out with her own line of glamorous gynecological smocks. Good luck with that, Little J.

Fugsip Fug

 

MAX AZRIA: Hello everyone! I am here with Taylor Momsen, the hot twenty-eight-year old star of Gossip Girl!

TAYLOR: Actually, I'm fifteen.

MAX: Nonsense! Come on, Taylor, talk about this look. Inspire the crowd!

TAYLOR: Do you really want that? Really?

MAX: Out with it, darling! Tell the world!

TAYLOR: Okay. I look like Pat Benatar.

MAX: We belong to the night!

TAYLOR: Crossed with Debbie Harry and one of the chicks from Heart.

MAX: Oooh, barracuda!

TAYLOR: With a bit of Bret Michaels and Kim Cattrall from the opening scenes of Mannequin.

MAX: Yes! Talk dirty to me! Nothing's gonna stop us now!

TAYLOR: Times someone whose mouth has been erased.

MAX: Right! Wait... um...

TAYLOR: And a dash of E.G. Daily.

MAX: You're losing me... Um... er... smelly cat!

TAYLOR: Close, but I had another one in mind.

MAX: Hmm. You'd be better off dead?

TAYLOR: Bingo.

FugX, XFug, Fug Girl

 

Just when you think Little J couldn't get any more annoying...

[Photo: INFDaily.com]
...they have to go and put her in a teeny, tiny, miniature little hat. Poor kid never had a chance.

And Who Am I? I'll Never Fug

And Who Am I? I'll Never Fug

 

Poor T. Mom:

Her stylist haaaaaaates her and/or has her confused with some other Taylor -- one who is old enough to vote. Elizabeth Taylor, perhaps, as she appears to be dressing her like an oft-married film star with fake hair. (PS: That is NOT her left nipple poking out of her dress, just in case you were worried. It's a stray bit of tulle from the flowers on the bodice. THANK GOD.)

On the whole, I think this dress is rather pretty. It's just...a lot. A lot for a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL. I know we're always squawking about how young she is, but think back to when you were fifteen. Fifteen is rather young for this much cleavage. My mother would have screamed if I'd tried to wear this at 15, and then shoved me back into the house and wrestled me into a cardigan. And on the other side of the coin, in addition to being so low cut, it's so LONG. Wouldn't a high school sophomore be better served in a cute, short, kicky cocktail-length dress that had a bit more coverage upstairs? Why doesn't anyone just ASK ME THESE THINGS?

Fug or Fab: Taylor Momsen

 

Actually, I'll be honest with you: I just don't particularly care for this.


[Photo: FlynetOnline.com]

All objections to the hair aside -- and there are still a lot of them to file away somewhere -- the dress is doing very little for me. It feels lazily constructed and totally unremarkable for anything other than its smallness. Seriously, stick a feather duster in Taylor's hand and, voila! She's Santa's chambermaid.

[Photo: FlynetOnline.com]

Maybe if this were a Come As Your Favorite Clue Character shindig, I could get behind it -- but not before warning her that Yvette MAY OR MAY NOT have been one of Miss Scarlett's call girls who MAY OR MAY NOT have been photographed in a compromising position with Colonel Mustard, and that (spoiler!) she ended up throttled on top of a pool table without control over whether anyone could see up her tiny, tiny skirt.

And it IS short. Even the dude in the background is all, "Look away. She's fifteen. Look AWAY. She's FIFTEEN. AWAY. FIFTEEEEN." Not that fifteen-year old girls can't sometimes wear miniskirts, but I think both that man and I are more afraid of an ill wind than she is.

She did have at least one admirer, though:

Continue reading Fug or Fab: Taylor Momsen.

Little Fug

 

"Oh, whatever, look at me all you want -- this is totally all a dream. I would never actually chop off my hair with a weedwhacker, I would never be allowed to run around town looking like I hadn't slept in three days, and I would TOTALLY never follow up an episode of Gossip Girl where my character tricked Vanessa into wearing a see-through dress by wearing a semi-transparent one myself. Like, I'm SO SURE. As IF I would let people see through to where my tights stop and my torso starts. You people are hilarious. There's no way I am conscious right now. I just fell asleep doing my Algebra homework and had a nightmare about getting my hair caught in the disposal and my subconscious is turning it into a 25-part series where I had to learn from my mistake and grow out my hair, and... well, although, I will grant you that this has been a really LONG dream... I am going to have some wicked morning breath when I wake up. But I will wake up. Because that is THE ONLY WAY this makes sense. Now pass me some mouthwash."

Golden Globes Post-Party Fug: Taylor Momsen

 

"Hi. I'm Taylor Momsen. I'm one of the stars of the CW mega-hit Gossip Girl. And I'm here to talk to you about one of the most serious issues facing teens today. It's something that my character, Jenny Humphrey, has been dealing with all season. And it's something I've had to deal with in my own life. It's a bad haircut. And it can happen to anyone.

It starts so innocently. Someone you trust comes up to you and says, ''let's do something funky with your hair! Something to match your eyeliner. Something ROCK AND ROLL!' And you think, 'that sounds fun! Why not?' But what starts as a kicky, layered hipster cut turns into something that people on the internet feel is essentially a mullet. And at first, you're in denial. You're like, 'no. I can handle this.' But then you wake up one morning and you realize that YOU NEED HELP. Professional help. Because it is a mullet, and you can't handle it.

But what you don't realize is that the road back from a bad hair cut is a long, long, long one. And it's hard. People say, 'it's just hair. It will grow.' But, dude. It grows really slow. And sometimes the emotional scars take even longer to heal. Look at me: my hair is truly on the way back from Mulletville, but I'm too scared to let anyone near my bangs. And you can tell from my expression that I may never fully recover from what my hair did to me this year. I'm full of resentment. And a little hate. And I can never get back my innocence. It's gone, even more surely and more completely than any residual love you might have had for my character, that annoying little Jenny Humphrey.

So think about that, friends, when someone from craft services comes up to you wielding a pair of pinking shears and promising to just take a little off the top. Your hair might grow back, but your spirit dies forever.

Thank you for listening. Please watch Gossip Girl, Mondays at 8pm on the CW. I heard that some people have a pool for how and when Schwartz is going to kill me off. I put $50 on season three November sweeps, being mauled by lions at the Bronx Zoo. Cross your fingers."

Good Morning, Upper East Fuggers -- Fugsip Girl Here

 

You know, if Little J fancies herself an up-and-coming clothing designer (which... does she, still? They kind of dropped that plotline a bit), she might not want to cut a swath through the Upper East Side wearing this:

If I could have reached through the TV with a pair of scissors and whacked off that single, measly, scraggly, pointless braid limply flirting with her collarbone, I would've done it. I don't know how the Gossip Girl crew resisted. As for the outfit, I wish it were a better photo; alas, my skills and my TV set are conspiring against me. But in the moment, those of us watching in my living room seriously wondered if it was some kind of elaborate antique support garment that she mistakenly donned over a turtleneck.

You may wonder why a strapless (or at least invisibly strapped) dress appears to be giving her polterwang. The answer is: That is not a dress. It's a CULOTTE ROMPER.



Oh, child, NO. First the show insists on bringing back awful, awful Georgina -- seriously, Entertainment Weekly and I are in a major fight over its continued pimping of that character (center of the bulls-eye, my ass) AND its recent assertion that 90210 is gripping and soapy -- and now this? Remember when all we had to worry about were Blair's headbands? Those were such innocent times.

Fugler Momfug

 

The other day, after we once again expressed our displeasure with leggings, we got an e-mail complaining that we are boring, and saying that no one cares about our stupid rants about them. Clearly, based on the frequency with which celebrities still don them in public, that's at least partially true. So maybe we need to develop some kind of safe word -- an otherwise banal term with no real negative connotations, which we can use so that upon its mere mention, it automatically encapsulates all our usual feelings of enraged betrayal and grief that come with spotting someone out and about in The Spandex Scourge. Something like... zucchini. Or boggle (which, by the way, is really fun to say over and over again). Or Altoids.

Let's try it out:


[Photo: Splash News]

ALTOIDS.

And not just regular Altoids. Hot Altoids. Burning Altoids. Fiery, SCALDING Altoids that have been bedecked with glitter and feisty primary colors, like they're some kind of wearable personalized bowling ball airbrushed by a dude with a mild arson fetish. Altoids I would gladly attempt to knock some sense into by rolling them down a lane toward ten hard pins. Altoids being worn with the kind of tank top you usually see on burly dudes with waxed chests who are flexing in the mirror at the gym between grunting bicep curls. Altoids that still, unfathomably, won't grow out their horrible haircut. ALTOIDS. ALTOOOOOOIDS.

Phew. Okay, that sort of worked. Whenever we use our words around the office -- screaming "ARUGULA" every time the Internet cuts out at an inopportune moment, say, or yelling "PANTS" when we are out of Diet Coke -- they don't usually come with speeches. More like weeping and head-pounding. Still, we're new to this whole choking-back-the-leggings-rage thing. Eventually all we'll need is the one word and you'll feel the flames on the side of our faces.

You Fug You Love Me

\

OH GOD MOMSEN:



This dress is lovely; WHY ARE YOU SO GLUM? Also, seriously....who is doing your face and hair? Who? And why are you letting them do this to you? Remember, a few weeks ago, when Eric Van Der Woodsen complimented you for losing the raccoon eyes, and you were all, "I know, right?" APPLY HIS CRITIQUE TO YOUR REAL LIFE. You're so very young. Even if you ARE strung out, you shouldn't LOOK strung out. It's like the best part of being young: the ability to string yourself out and still look delish. Not that I think you're actually strung out. You know what I'm saying. But you HAVE inspired me. It occured to me, looking at this photo, that VH1 would be well-served to start a new show, along the times of Rock of Celebrity Tools Rehab Academy, or whatever those shows are all called, in which a variety of troubled starlets have to live together in a ginormous mansion and improve themselves whilst occasionally having catfights and pouring beers into one another's weaves. Momsen could be there to have some stern taskmaster wash her face and cheer her up; Miley Cyrus could learn that she needs to never pose for photos, ever (seriously, I feel like she's had about nine scandals over various snaps in the last six months); Lilo can be there as a cautionary tale; and so forth. God, I want to set my Tivo for that RIGHT NOW.

New York Fugshion Week, Day 6

New York Fugshion Week, Day 6

I feel like I've said all there is to say, for now, about The Hair. And how Taylor Momsen seems to be glaring at the camera in most photos as if it has offended her on a deeply personal level. So instead I will say that I don't hate this outfit, which she wore to the Marchesa show on Wednesday. It's young and funky and fits the aesthetic she's going for -- which, presumably, is Disaffected Rocker Teen Who Wants You To Think She Doesn't Care Even Though She Totally Does, And Is Not Going To Tidy Up Her Room Because That's Why We Have a Cleaning Lady, Mom, DUH -- and I figure, give credit where credit is due. Half the time she's trying to prance around in that hair with fancy ball gowns that are totally out of place on her, or else she's in terrible leggings or a sack dress, so all in all I will accept this as a mark in the "win" column for Little J up there and hope that she adopts a new coif in the Gossip Girl off-season.

Momsen also showed up at Anna Sui, just two hours after she fled Marchesa:

Continue reading New York Fugshion Week, Day 6.

Spotted: Little Fug

 

Just when you thought Little J's hair could get no worse:

[Photos: Splash News]
She quite literally looks like a cocker spaniel. What DID she do to the hair and makeup wizards to provoke this years-long assault, from which there appears to be no relief in sight? Did she turn firebug and torch someone's summer house? Did she steal someone's dim-witted (and sight-impaired) boyfriend? Did she run over a beloved pet? Did she lace someone's latte with roofies and then steal their treasured collection of rare costume jewelry while they were incapacitated? 

Even Rufus and Dan can't look at the poor child:

Continue reading Spotted: Little Fug.

Fugler Momsen

 

 

FERGIE: Listen, Taylor, we should talk.

TAYLOR: Can't talk. Need to look sultry.

FERGIE: Honey, listen. I'm wearing a harness. You see that, right?

TAYLOR: Sure.

FERGIE: A harness, AND a really long fake braid that looks like someone cut off a horse tail and sewed it to my bun.

TAYLOR: Whatever.

FERGIE: But nobody is going to care. You know why? Because of you. Because of THIS:

Continue reading Fugler Momsen.

Little Fug

 

Wow, the hits from Little J just keep on coming.


[Photo: WENN.com]

On the one hand, I appreciate her consistency -- the kid wants to be leather-and-lace, so to speak, and she's sticking with it come hell or high fuggery. But if someone told me The CW was giving Jenny Humphrey a spin-off in which she escapes to Europe to open a Hell's Angels ballet company, I'd believe it. And pray they hire one of the ZZ Top dudes to be the choreographer.

Unfug It Up: Taylor Momsen

 

Aw, Little J.  I sort of miss you gallivanting about my TV screen on Monday nights, while I am bracing myself for whatever crazy-ass shenanigans are about to happen on One Tree Hill in the next hour. I never thought I'd say that, but complaining about your character's behavior -- and, often, the behavior of the entire Humphrey clan -- truly proved to be a valuable addition to my cardio routine. There's the running, doing the sadistic Santa Monica stairs (on mornings when I want to vomit), and the vigorous complaining about Gossip Girl. I only complain, of course, because I love. And I ALMOST love this:



Personally, I just hate the shoes. I GET the thought process there, and she certainly doesn't have to wear what I would wear with this outfit (something open-toed), but I feel like if you're going to do the cowboy boot thing, wear taller ones. Because these somehow manage to look like she's doing the wall of shame home from a party and couldn't find the shoes she wore out, so she's shuffling to the car in her gentleman caller's shoes. Although I would fug these on a dude, too -- they're just so...clonky looking and not in an awesome way. I mean, go 90s and do the 8-eye Doc Martens here if that's the look you want. Even Converse. Just...not these? You know?

YOU know what to do. Have at it in the comments. Keep it clean!

Fug or Fab the Cover: Taylor Momsen

 

So, as I think I've said before, I kind of totally love Teen Vogue. For one thing, I love its handy size. It fits right in my purse. (Well, my purse is huge. I could fit the OED in there. But TV fits inside it EASILY.) It's always a treat to flip though on a plane. And I like that they haven't tried to tamp down Taylor Momsen's....Momsenness. I mean, say what you will about her look -- and we have -- she certainly does have her own style and it's nice that they're attempting to working with it. Giving her some kind of wholesome fluffy look would probably be about as successful as trying to shove a grapefruit through the eye of a needle, so props for not even trying. I love her trench. And I honestly think the styling here is pretty great. But...let's talk about her makeup. MUST even TEEN FREAKING VOGUE leap on Momsen's I Just Woke Up From A TOTAL Bender Wearing Heavy Eye Makeup AND Red Lipstick look? Could they not go the old Jane route and give the poor kid a mild make-under? Just a small one? A teeny one? A tiny one? One that she would barely even notice? Couldn't they even just try? I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO WASH HER FACE A LITTLE BIT. Not even the whole face. Just part of the face. The lips. Or the eyes. Or ONE eye, even. Or just her lower lip. Do something, Teen Vogue. Do anything. Don't be part of the problem.

Fugler Momsen

 

When I found this image, the photographer's caption said something like, "Taylor Momsen makes a surprise appearance" at whatever Sephora event this is. But it neglected to mention which PART of Taylor threatened to make the most surprising arrival of all.



On most people, that shirt would be used as a poncho rather than as the ENTIRE outfit. I don't even care that her shoes are veering toward being a very fancy kind of orthopedic brace, because her shirtcho was freaking me out so badly during the 10 minutes in which I thought it was a dress. My unholy research has concluded, however, that I may detect in there somewhere the fringe from a pair of denim cutoffs, which unfortunately are SO cut off that they're basically denim panties, and now my nethers are so upset that they're threatening to go on strike unless I take a vacation.

Also, let me tell you, nothing feels ickier than feeling like it's your job to stare at the XOXO of a teenager to try and figure out what, exactly, you're seeing dangling there. I almost reported myself to the authorities.

The Scandalous Lives of Manhattan's Fuglite

[Photo: PacificCoastNewsOnline.com]
Wow. I guess I always just thought they'd save Little J's teen prostitute storyline for season five.