15. Russian Glamour, June 2009
Beyoncé's skin looked digitally darkened on the cover of Russian Glamour — and the editors had a guide! A magazine called Joy used the same shot in December 2007. Was something lost in translation? Save your "black Russian" jokes until the end.

14. L'Oreal, August 2008
Beyoncé's skin seemed very light in ads for Feria haircolor. One theory: she was washed out by the strong lighting usually used in shooting hair.

13. Vogue, November 2009
The cast of Nine is chock-full of gorgeous women, but this shot is a mindscramble of random rays of sunlight in hair and dresses with edges so sharp they look like they're for paper dolls. As I wrote in October: "I'm guessing [Annie] Leibovitz shot them each separately and then did a composite, but when you have a person who doesn't cast a shadow on the lady next to her, then that person is a vampire." Poor Kate Hudson looks like she was slapped on as an afterthought.

12. Complex, April/May 2009
Kim Kardashian's waist was cinched, her thighs were slimmed, her skin skin smoothed out and her hairline was cleaned up. Plus, her head appears to be a different shape in the "after" image. Who would have thought a skull could be made "sexier"?

11. Self, September 2009
Kelly Clarkson's "Total Body Confidence" came from digitally slimming her waist and behind. Two Self editors explained that the cover: "is not, as in a news photograph, journalism. It is, however, meant to inspire women to want to be their best."

10. King Arthur poster, 2004
Movie marketers felt they must, they must, they must increase the bust. Ironically, Keira Knightley told the Guardian that she lost her chest, doing archery and preparing for the role:

To fight, convincingly, shoulder to shoulder, she had to do that thing that is so de rigueur, which is totally to change your body shape. "I was about three times the size I am now. It worried me, but it was cool, it was a body that was doing what it should do. I haven't got a clue because I don't weigh myself, but it was all muscle and I was big. My neck disappeared. My chest flattened even more. It wasn't the most feminine thing in the world, but it worked for the part, because there was strength there, and it was needed."

Of course, Hollywood can't imagine a world in which people would see a movie starring an athletic, flat-chested woman. So a digital boob job followed.

9. Redbook, July 2007
The crazy thing about the Faith Hill Redbook cover is not that it was Photoshopped — it's that this is the standard amount of digital altering that goes into a cover. Unlike some true Photoshop disasters, there are no alarming mistakes here to tip you off. That makes it easy to accept the retouched image without even blinking. Faith Hill is a beautiful woman. But she needed 11 different kinds of alterations before she could be on the cover of Redbook. What a world.

8. Campari calendar, 2008
Jessica Alba: Just another woman whose real body wasn't good enough. In this case, her waist needed to be nipped in so she could shill liquor.

7. Vogue, May 2008
RoboGwyneth looks like a robot, or an alien, depending on whom you ask. One thing is for sure: Her head and neck are not in the same space-time continuum.

6. Redbook, June 2003
Jennifer Aniston's head was placed on to Jennifer Aniston's body — from another photo shoot. At the time, her publicist, Steven Huvane, said: "It's a combination of three pictures. If you're going to do it, then at least match her head up to her body, and make the neck look like it belongs to her. I still can't figure out which exact picture the face came from." A Redbook spokeswoman downplayed the changes: "The only things that were altered in the cover photo were the color of her shirt and the length of her hair, very slightly, in order to reflect her current length."

The neck does look alarmingly unreal, and her head and waist are out of sync somehow. Angelina is surely to blame.

5.Redbook, July 2003
The month after the Aniston debacle, Redbook was at it again: According to USA Today, "[Julia's] head comes from a paparazzi shot taken at the 2002 People's Choice awards. Her body, meanwhile, is from the Notting Hill movie premiere [in 1999]." Julia's publicist, Marcy Engelman, said, at the time: "It's a shame they didn't use the body that went with the head, because it was a great Giorgio Armani pantsuit (that she wore to the People's Choice awards)."

4. Newsweek, March 2005
The editors used Martha's head and a model's body, because Ms. Stewart was still in jail when the issue was being put together. It wasn't supposed to be a photograph, anyway, it was art: "The piece that we commissioned was intended to show Martha as she would be, not necessarily as she is,'' Lynn Staley, assistant managing editor at Newsweek, told The New York Times. Staley acknowledged that the cover carried a disclaimer: ''In this case, we identified this piece as a photo illustration." As Martha would say, it's a "good thing" you did.

3. Seventeen, May 2003
Think about all the Buffy plots which could have been orchestrated around Sarah Michelle Gellar's weird wrist appendage over there on the left, if her arm actually looked like that.

2. GQ, February 2003.
Some people saw Titanic over and over again — but they never saw those legs, on the left. Kate Winslet was pissed about being trimmed down on this cover, saying:

"The retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly I don't desire to look like that. I actually have a Polaroid that the photographer gave me on the day of the shoot… I can tell you they've reduced the size of my legs by about a third. For my money it looks pretty good the way it was taken."

1. Ralph Lauren Blue Label ad, October 2009
In which model Filippa Hamilton was turned into a string of spaghetti.

Using scores from Metacritic, Miller-McCune weighted the critical scores of actors' movies with the relative size of their roles in those movies. The final list shows that everyone who was in Lord of the Rings is an awesome actor with great taste in projects, with Elijah Wood topping the list and Viggo Mortenson and Ian Holm (the British geezer who played Bilbo Baggins) making the top four, too. Philip Seymour Hoffman is as serious an actor as you think he is, and Jessica Alba is as big a hack. Bottoming out the list was Freddie Prinze, Jr., followed by someone named Eddie Griffin and a tragic Matthew Lillard who had so much potential, once. Here's an abridged sampler:

Equally interesting was scatterplot showing the relative niceness and consistency of America's 25 most prolific movie critics. We discover that the Chicago Tribune's Michael Wilmington drinks the kool-aid more than any other critic, followed by the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert's perennially upraised thumbs. The meanest critic in America is the Austin Chronicle's Marc Savlov, who gives low scores but deviates regularly. On the other hand, TV Guide's Maitland McDonagh gives low scores and has a relatively low standard deviation from her mean score, meaning she's always stone cold.

[Miller-McCune]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Wait a minute? What the hell is going on here? This is a "secret society" meeting at Yale?! Shouldn't Jessica be getting Eiffel-towered in a pool of goat's blood by dudes wearing Venetian masks or something? What kind of lame-ass "secret society" is this anyway? This looks more like a meeting of the Applewood Magnet High student council at the library than it does a meeting of any sort of "secret society." Dear God does Yale f-ing blow, as does the Ivy League in general, if this is their idea of a "secret society" meeting. Is it any wonder that the presidency of George W. Bush was such an abortion? Bush was a member of the Yale "Skull and Bones" secret society. Maybe if he had experienced a real "secret society" in his youth, the guy wouldn't have sucked so hard.

Seriously, how pathetically lame is this? And to think that all of you Ivy snobs were crying about how disgraceful it was for Obama to be speaking at a public school (Oh, the horror!) like Arizona State's graduation ceremony, instead of say, Dartmouth, or Brown. Say what you want about the twats at Arizona State, and they are twats, glorious, smelly, gaping twats, but I can guarantee you one thing—-If they were to conduct any sort of secret society meeting at that school, they'd do it right and have torches burning, the chantings of Gregorian monks blasting though the sound system, mounds of cocaine laying around all over the place, at least one farm animal being slayed, and people having sex all over the place, dirty, filthy, hedonistic, unprotected orgy sex, because that's how you do "secret society" meetings in the real world, assholes!

I saw Eyes Wide Shut, dammit!

Jessica Alba Visits Yale Secret Society, Members Panic and Leak Pictures from Inside the Hall [IvyGate]

The executives at New Line Cinema can't wait to take more hard-earned cash from women who don't care about storyline and just want to see something about dating and love — again!

That's why there is a project in the works called Valentine's Day. It will hit theaters right before — wait for it — Valentine's Day, 2010. The plot? The plot is iffy. Something about "would-be romantics working their way through a tangle of circumstances in L.A." But that doesn't matter, because Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel and Shirley MacLaine will be in it. And Bradley Cooper. New Line will come up with a way to work a story around these people, since all that matters is that there's money to be made. Apparently, He's Just Not That Into You proved that women want to go see "romantic" movies — with other women or a date — right around Valentine's Day.

I have nothing against romance, comedies, or romcoms. I love stuff like When Harry Met Sally, Flirting, and Amelie — thoughtful films with strong writing and characters who are forces of nature. But He's Just Not That Into You — a movie based on a self-help book based on a catchphrase from a TV show — lacked substance and soul; the characters might have well have been cardboard cut-outs with labels like "The Optimist" or "The Seductress" taped to them. And for every bad review, there was a person who said, "I'm gonna see it anyway." Now the studio has 94 million reasons to pull that shit again.

As I wrote earlier this year, when you go see a movie like He's Just Not That Into You, you're casting a vote, telling Hollywood you want more flicks in the same vein. And this is what HJNTIY's box office bonanza hath wrought: Valentine's Day. As a former screenwriting major, it is painful to read that this project is being dictated by a calendar date — along with a cast and director (Garry Marshall) — and not by an actual story someone was inspired to write.

Who knows? Maybe there will be some surprises! Maybe they'll change the title to Single Awareness Day. Maybe some great writer (writers, plural, probably) will be hired by the studio to come up with a perfectly charming Valentine's Day tale. (I can already guess that one woman, who you think will stay single, will suddenly find a date; one woman, who you think will have a date, will suddenly be single; and one couple will remain together despite going through a dilemma that should tear them apart.) But for now, I'm already announcing that I'm just not that into it.

Hollywood Has Feb. 14 Circled in Red [NY Times]

Earlier: Liveblogging He's Just Not That Into You
Cliché-Laden Chick Flick Tries To Convince You It's Not Full Of Clichés
He's Just Not That Into You: Gay Minstrel Show?
More Reasons Not To Get Into He's Just Not That Into You
He's Just Not That Into You - First Review
There's No Way You'll Be Into He's Just Not That Into You

Us has the scoop:

When a reporter approached her at an inauguration event last week, she tried to turn the tables on him by asking him what Barack Obama's greatest characteristic was. When the reporter said he felt uncomfortable answering because he is a journalist, Alba replied, "be neutral - be Sweden about it."

TMZ.com later called her a "ditz" and an "arrogant buffoon" for saying Sweden instead of Switzerland when referring to the neutral country during WWII.

We confess that we often suffer the same mixup: meaning to ask for a Swiss army knife, we'll be handed a perfectly useless (but tasty!) Swedish fish instead. However, Alba took to her Myspace blog to insist that Sweden is really what she meant to say:

I want to clear some things up that have been bothering me lately. I find it depressing that in the midst of perhaps the most salient time in our country's history, individuals are taking it upon themselves to encourage negativity and stupidity. Last week, Mr. Bill O'Reilly and some really classy sites (i.e.TMZ) insinuated I was dumb by claiming Sweden was a neutral country. I appreciate the fact that he is a news anchor and that gossip sites are inundated with intelligent reporting, but seriously people...it's so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during WWII was Switzerland. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II if you want to see what I was referring to. I appreciate the name calling and the accurate reporting. Keep it up!!

Yes, well, at this "salient time in our country's history," we'll refrain from knocking Alba too hard, only lightly suggesting that perhaps some of those words don't mean what she thinks they mean. We're sure the actress could simply use a vacation—we'd just recommend that she double-check the location on her boarding pass.

• A Few Thoughts and the Inauguration [Myspace]

What resulted was a quick, graceful deflection of every attempt to entrap her, with slights at O'Reilly, George W. Bush, and Fox News delivered for good measure (and with a smile). For most actors, we'd recommend staying out of politics, but it seems to bring out the best in Alba. Forget bombs like The Love Guru—it's time for her to sign for a sexed-up Frost/Nixon 2 (in which Frost's nubile daughter has her own encounter with Nixon—this time, with some very different interrogation techniques).

• 'Kind of an a-hole': Jessica Alba tells the truth about Bill O'Reilly [Crooks and Liars]

The three stars reportedly filmed their appearances today, all of which are featured in a bootlegged Hollywood movie that the Dunder-Mifflin staff attempts to watch during the workday. Few other details are known beyond the high likelihood that ABC's counterattack will still probably win Feb. 1 on the sure-fire appeal of its 2008 hit Inbred Obstacle Course All-Stars: Breasts Edition. Expect guest-star firings by Ben Silverman just for the sake of it.

• Jessica Alba Comes to 'The Office'! [E!]

It's a tough question, but the emboldened Zed wasn't backing down in a press release tossed over the Defamer transom:

Recently, there has been a surge in interest in Sanskrit tattoo designs and symbols among Hollywood and other celebrities. [...]

Rajan Zed has urged Jessica Alba and other celebrities who carry Sanskrit tattoos to go beyond the fashion statement and indulge in serious study of rich philosophical thought, which Hinduism provides. He offered to gladly provide the resources the serious seekers among celebrities need for their study and research. [...] Hollywood celebrities needed to have more patience and go beyond the superficial because Hinduism concepts evolved over thousands of years and needed deep study.

We don't doubt it. As Zed goes on to note, "Sanskrit is considered a sacred language, the language of the gods. Tattoos go back in history to at least since Neolithic times." Alba, Tommy Lee, Rihanna and other namechecked members of the Sanskritted Elite would absolutely do well to figure out what is they're getting into, lest a curse like the one that doomed Love Guru — for which Alba is already doing a few thousand years in Hell — befall their poor choices in skin adornment. And don't forget, gang: Stephen Baldwin is always around for counsel, too, should you decide on a bigger, more contemporary cover-up.

So enough already, Hollywood! After the jump, find eight dos and don'ts to keep in mind when striving for the perfect celebrity PSA. You have four years to practice — on your mark, get set, go.

1. DO let Jonah Hill host more PSA's on his own. As much as we appreciate the condescending, autoerotic flavor of Di Caprio, Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Demi Moore and a cast of elite thousands, this Declare Yourself ad proved that all it takes is an actual sense of humor about drugs, abortion and the economy to stir potential interest in the issues.

2. DON'T leave the Latino vote to Carlos Mencia, Cheech Marin and co. At least with Cheech around, however, Mencia can't steal Jonah Hill's jokes.

3. DO emphasize Justin Timberlake if you have a choice between him and Jessica Biel. He's just funnier, a better singer and there's always an outside chance of him "accidentally" pulling off someone's clothing.

4. DON'T give Hayden Panettiere her own spot. Especially not on Funny or Die, where she's neither funny nor dies nor so much as dings the McCain campaign she attempts to swear off — literally.

5. DO give Hayden Panettiere a spot with Jessica Alba. The "Muzzler" commercials are by far the most effective portion of Declare Yourself's multi-phase campaign to register young voters. Which is to say: We're sure the light bondage practiced on nubile, destabilizingly earnest starlets also compelled older men in the electorate to register their own "young voters" all over their keyboards. Remember, guys — you can only register once! No cheating!

6. DON'T let Anne Hathaway dance. Or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps the worst PSA of the season, this Creative Coalition spot is about as fresh as the bumper-sticker rack at a Wasilla scripture house.

7. DO pit Jews against each other. The Jewish Council for Education and Research brought on Sarah Silverman as the spokesperson for its "Great Schlep" — a late spring break of sorts encouraging young Jews to head off to Florida and convince their Nanas that Barack Hussein Obama is not the anti-Israel terrorist the GOP has allegedly made him out to be. Jackie Mason soon fired back on behalf of the Republican Jewish Coalition, smearing Silverman as a "sick yenta" over a saucy klezmer soundtrack. We hate to see such striking discord under the circumstances, but it's either this, or it's Roseanne Barr vs. Jon Voight. Which isn't a choice at all.

8. DON'T rope Blake Lively and Penn Badgley into a PSA together and not insist they make out for the Obama cause. Especially if we have to sit through the whole pasty cast of Fame: The Remake or Emo High or whatever the fuck just to get to Lively's sign-off.

Of course, this being the United States of Defamer, your own suggestion are more than welcome below. Let freedom ring — or at least be less painful to watch on a quadrennial basis.

The clip, after the jump:

• Declare Yourself: The Muzzler [YouTube]

It's a sure sign we're too old for torture porn-as-voting drive, making us less likely to register than it does to dig out our Dark Angel DVD's and imagine the holy hell that would await anyone who tried this on Max Guevera.

• Jessica Alba Gets Muzzled [Declare Yourself]

To prepare for steamy kissing scenes with bombshell leading ladies such as Hudson, [Jessica] Alba and [Jessica] Simpson, Cook says he's developed a tradition. Before production begins, he nonchalantly asks his co-stars what's their favorite flavor of gum or mint. Hudson's pick? Lifesavers Pep-o-Mint. Stormy breath aside, such scenes still make Cook giddy.

"You tend to go back to how you felt when you were in high school," says Cook. "Even though you're professional actors, you come to those scenes wondering things like: Are you going to be mad if I kiss you? Do I put my hands on the small of your back or can I go lower? Is that too low? Can you draw a map of where I can touch you?"

If such a map exists for any or all of the above-mentioned starlets, we would love to see it — particularly Simpson's, a stick figure with specifically delineated "Romo-Zones" below the waist and a contractually obligated 25-foot proximity to Joe Simpson at all times. A girl can never be too careful

• Dane Cook tries again to cook on the big screen [AP]

Boomp3.com

New mother Jessica Alba found herself momentarily confused while in the dairy section of her local supermarket. Alba was surprised to see how many different types of creamers and non-dairy creamers they have in stock when all she wanted was just to find the one that they serve at her nearby coffee place. After staring at all of her dairy options for nearly five minutes, Alba just blindly selected a creamer and hoped that she would not have to face any more equally daunting decisions for at least another few days.

[Photo Credit: X17]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Matthew McConaughey and frowny-faced pregnancy loather Jessica Alba are the latest celebrities to debut their offspring via fancy photoshoot. But despite the big pay days, both of these deals come with a little bit of scandal.

Instead of swaddling with Shiloh-approved People, both stars stuck deals with OK! Magazine, which means they're now lumped in with potentially crazier, certainly white-trashier babies like Maddie Briann Aldredge. How embarrassing. And while the deal makes more sense to red-neck-empathizer McConaughey, the move is far more surprising for the higher-maintenance Alba, whose baby's name is Honor.

Of course, when dealing with all matters of the heart, these celebrities turn to their accountants to make the decision for them. And it's a good thing McConaughey did, otherwise he'd end up perhaps classier, yes, but even worse, poorer:

His publicist, Alan Nierob, begged him not to work with [OK!] because he’s considered an A-lister. But Matthew hired money man Todd Shemarya, who brokered the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie $4 million People deal."

And because of the deal, wombanizer McConaughey will reportedly receive $3 million for the first pictures of little Wrangler Levi. But alas, Alba will receive only $1.5 million, giving her yet another reason to hate everyone and everything around her. As she wipes little Honor's bottom with $10 dollar bills (baby wipes chafe!), she at least can take solace in knowing that her baby's photo will still fetch more than anyone's baby in Kansas ever will.

And where will Baby's First Millions go? Shirts and an indoor gym for daddy? Acting lessons and attitude checks for mommy? Therapy? The possibilities are endless! Luckily for us, for the next 30 years, we'll all be able to read the latest and breaking news on Levi and Honor from OK! Magazine. Imagine if Honor becomes a lovely, smiling joy? Or Levi, a buttoned-up, sober politician? My god, the horror.

• Matthew McConaughey Sells Baby Pictures For $3 Million [Fametastic]
• Baby Alba Cashes In [TMZ]

Among the quips Alba sounds off on in the mag is an overly candid series of musings on that doggone baby weight: "I never felt less sexy...I mean, I wouldn't have changed it for the world ... but I wanted to get rid of all the weight." And this whole sexy trademark of hers that serves as the sole reason behind her fame? All show and no tell: "I always used to meet the wrong guys – the ones who wanted to hang out for a week and see how far they could get. If you didn't have sex in the first few days, you were either frigid or a lesbian. So I held out." Note to these guys: a simple viewing of Into The Blue is probably just as good as having to have actual sex with the sourpuss anyway. As for her non-pants-wearing hubby No Cash Cash Warren? "I love that he's not an actor. I'm way too high maintenance to be in a relationship with an actor – they're all such divas!" Um, calling yourself a diva in the same breath as calling yourself high-maintenance? Heigl alert!

Maybe because she gave the interview to a Brit glossy, maybe because she's suffering from that silly glib disorder that served as a catalyst for the Brooke Shields/Tom Cruise War of the Mentally Unstable Worlds, or maybe Alba is just, simply, annoying. But her casual remarks on pregnancy and dating have earned her official membership in the two-member High And Mighty For No Reason club proudly presided over by the original unmerited diva herself, "Katie" Heigl.

[Photo credit: X17]

• JESSICA ALBA ON PREGNANCY: 'I NEVER FELT LESS SEXY' [People]

Nicole Richie was back to her old uber-thin self just two weeks after Harlow graced us with her presence earlier this year, and Jamie Pressly openly admitted to losing 42 pounds in 12 weeks by "only eating cabbage soup." The rest?

After having Moses, the current nudie pic exhibitionist says she makes sure all those pounds which initially "horrified" her remain at bay due to her after-hours habit of downing red wine and passing out in the garden. Who has time to eat when you're unconscious? Hubbard Formula aficionado Leah Remini claims to have lost a whopping 80 pounds in only six weeks after ordering something eerily called the 1st Personal Diet. Remini told TV Guide, "It's determined by the metabolic rate of your blood, and then they send you a diet on your e-mail." Why hasn't anyone informed Oprah of her computer's flesh-zapping knowledge?

Jennifer Lopez made a public appearance looking just like J. Lo circa Diddy only a month after popping those expensive twins out, and reportedly managed the vanishing act by shelling out $50k on a home gym, not to mention hiring a team of trainers, nutritionists and Baby Weight Loss experts to presumably make sure she never once stopped exercising. Finally, Gwen Stefani candidly told Elle that she was utterly obsessed with getting her figure back after little Kingston arrived. The only celebrity to go ahead and admit that the ways stars do it is just a bit horrifying, Stefani said she was so adamant about the process that she was still exercising two weeks before giving birth. And cried about it. Live and learn.

[Photo Credit: X17]

• OH BABY! JESSICA ALBA SHOWS OFF HER FABULOUS POST-PREGNANCY FIGURE [Daily Mail]

The Fake-Outs: Mid-2007, before Britney was deemed an American Tragedy, she was on her way by tragically dating the poor man's David Blaine, Criss Angel. And photos of her blonde-weaved sunglasses-at-night self wearing a sparkler set the Britney-hungry gossips ablaze, only to disappoint us when no marriage plans surfaced. Another Bimbo Summit alum, Lindsay Lohan, was rumored to be on the soberific path towards married life with then-beau Harry Morton in 2006 after showing up to a premiere purposely placing a ring-adorned hand on her hip. But we all know how that union turned out. And the most recent and admittedly exciting engagement rumors were sparked after photographs of Kate Hudson wearing a real-life wedding band surfaced just as gossip started spreading that she and Owen Wilson were back on. But a major "D'oh!" was heard loud and clear after realizing Kate was filming this flick called Bride Wars and merely in character.

The Real Things: Beyonce Knowles started wearing massive diamonds on all her fingers ever since she could afford them, but the one she wore this January while sitting next to Jay-Z at a concert ended up being the engagement variety after all. And just days after being photographed candidly in her car with a new rock, Jessica Alba confirmed her engagement to the confusing man of mystery that is Cash Warren. As for Mariah Carey, poor girl sparked engagement rumors by publicly showing off her ring from Nick Cannon, only to learn soon after the actual wedding that it was recycled. Oops.

[Photo Credits: Fametastic, Showbiz Spy, Female First, Babble, Stupid Celebrities, Hollyscoop, Daily Mail]

• NOW CAMERON DIAZ FUELS ENGAGEMENT RUMORS AS SHE FLASHES HUGE SPARKLER ON HER WEDDING FINGER [Daily Mail]