Just a few weeks ago, EW chose to accompany a Q&A with Angelina Jolie with a very, very close close-up of what we previously considered one of the most gorgeous faces in Hollywood. But the mag's effort to showcase Jolie the actress, rather than Jolie the pregnant actress, resulted in the very first photo to make her infamous lips look unsavory. And Scarlett Johansson suffered a similar fate on the cover of artsy mag Paste, turning her trademark chest away from the camera and posing like an effervescent candidate for the role of E.T.'s girlfriend in E.T. 2: Sex And The Extra-Terrestrial.

Maxim somehow thought Jessica Simpson looked sexiest with a frumpy 50s housewife hairdo on a cover from last year, while Vogue recently photoshopped the hell out of Gwyneth Paltrow's head, essentially decapitating her in one swift crop. Sarah Jessica Parker fell victim to the cooking and cleaning obsessives in aprons over at Good Housekeeping, reverting to her frizzy-haired, good makeup-challenged self from the early 90s.

Mariah Carey's attempt to look soft and angelic backfired on this Allure cover, where the queen diva appears washed out, completely devoid of her naturally tawny skin. Back in the heady days of Lindsay Lohan comeback covers, Maxim tricked the then-straight star out in a very cleavage-y, feisty spread, but Lohan's sullen facial expression suggest a dire need to strip off the ridiculous Victorian outfits and down the nearest bottle of perfume. And then there's poor Fergie, who apparently provided an outlet for one very miserable Cosmopolitan eyebrow plucker's rage.

[Photo credits: Go Fug Yourself, Jezebel, We Heart Angelina]

• .666 AVERAGE [NYP]

Show: On The Lot, 2007
Network: Fox
Wizards: Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, producers. Carrie Fisher, Garry Marshall, and Brett Ratner, judges.
Fate: Lasting only one season, the extremely low-rated show pitted unknown directors against one another based on three-minute film submissions. Despite winner Will Bigham's "directing" aspirations, Will is currently and unsurprisingly pounding the pavement as a (still-unknown) actor.

Project Greenlight, 2001-05:
Network: HBO (two seasons), Bravo (one season)
Wizards: Alex Keledjian and Eli Holzman, creators. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Chris Moore, producers, backed by Miramax Films and LivePlanet.
Fate: HBO dumped the series to Bravo after two seasons in which the winning screenwriters' films each grossed under $300k in national releases. Bravo's winning duo turned out the little-remembered horror movie (oops) Feast that, despite the best efforts of GULAGER, went quickly to limited release, and even more quickly to DVD.

Grease: You're The One That I Want, 2007
Network: NBC
Wizards: BBC fashioned the US show after Andrew Lloyd Webber's successful format for casting Broadway unknowns in How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? in the UK. Billy Bush hosted.
Fate: As with so many series borrowed by the Brits, NBC's gamble followed in the footsteps of The Office and American Idol, turning out big ratings and even bigger interest (at first) on Broadway once the winning leads took the stage.

It Factor, 2002
Network: Bravo
Wizards: Nicole Torre, Alice Peck, producers.
Fate: Though the show lasted just two seasons, the documentary following actors trying to get their big break did turn out two working stars. Sure, one got a gig as a 7Up spokesman, but Michaela Conlin went on to become a regular on Bones.

Show:Fight For Fame, 2005
Network: E!
Wizards: Adam Lieblein and Greg Meyer, producers and Acme agents.
Fate: Another documentary-style program, featuring five wannabe actors competing for a deal with Acme, the show suffered due to a boring format (monologues began each episode) and predictably low interested in real-agents-as-stars. Had Ari Emanuel been in charge, it would have been another story. The SF Gate summarized the one-season snoozer by including it in a piece entitled "Some Shows So Bad You Can't Be Paid To Watch."

• VH1 GREENLIGHTS 'SCREAM QUEENS' [THR]