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.

Earlier: Oprah's Favorite Things 2007: The Audience Freaks Out!

Thanks go to whiz Mike Byhoff for the video magic.

The clip is a true teaser in every sense of the word: a lushly scored, dialogue-less series of...well, embraces. Still, it's known that Cruz is playing an actress caught up in a love rectangle, and that Almodóvar is looking to channel the spirit of directors like Nicholas Ray in making this film noir. There are three things that seem to bring out the best in Cruz: Almodóvar, Woody Allen, and Fergie's labia. We can't wait.

• Teaser Trailer: Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces [/film]

The Best Supporting Actress nominee likely never would have regaled Jay Leno with such ribald English-learning anecdotes when she was an underdog two years ago for Volver, but with front-runner status and Harvey Weinstein's wind at her back, there's never been a better time than the present to uncork that old, quaint confusion between a blowjob and a blow-dry. Or maybe she's just trying to keep overall pace with Anne Hathaway. You tell us. [The Tonight Show]

· The American Film Institute yesterday named its Top 10 Films of 2008, from which Slumdog Millionaire was actually ineligible because it isn't, well, American. That didn't stop AFI's jury from recognizing pretty much every other laurel-bearer from the last two weeks of Oscar season — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, "Frost/Nixon, Frozen River, Gran Torino, Milk, Wall-E and The Wrestler — with Iron Man and Wendy and Lucy filling in where Slumdog and Happy-Go-Lucky likely would have gone had they not been produced in lesser regions of the planet. That will teach them.

· The Boston Film Critics Association couldn't make its minds up about anything on Sunday, when Slumdog shared its Best Picture hardware with WALL-E, and Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke tied for Best Actor. Then it gave Best Director to Gus Van Sant for Milk as well as Paranoid Park, his skater thriller that mostly made the fest rounds in 2006 before petering out in limited release last March. You know the rest: Sally Hawkins, Heath Ledger and Penélope Cruz claimed the other acting awards; WALL-E took Best Animated Film; and Man on Wire won Best Documentary.

· Among smaller orgs, New York Film Critics Online fell in line behind Boston and pretty much everyone else, mixing it up just enough to honor Danny Boyle as Best Director for Slumdog.

· The ninth-annual Black Reel Awards were announced as well, bucking all convention by naming Cadillac Records its Best Picture and handing out acting awards to Queen Latifah (The Secret Life of Bees), Viola Davis (Doubt), Jeffrey Wright (Cadillac Records) and Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire). Next year, Beyoncé.

And that's not even counting the four Oscar winners on display: Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Marion Cotillard and Dame Judi Dench. And look at Kate Hudson! Even the PA's get to be all dressed up on this movie! Dec. 11, 2009, can't come soon enough!

• Notes from the 2008 American Film Market: Part One [FilmJerk via TFE]

Seeing Cruise move on was tough, however: Her pal Lauren Bacall says that Kidman was "unhappy" on the set of 2003's Dogville. "Tom had taken off for Penelope Cruz or some goddamn thing — one of his more ridiculous moves," Bacall says. Taking a slight jab at the actor, she tells Elle, "Tom Cruise is a maniac. I can't understand the way he conducts his life."

Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren, Lauren. Unless you've personally — personally — walked in the size 8 shoes of the United Artists owner, how can you hope to understand the method behind his mania? When Bacall makes her next trip to Spago hiding knee bruises under her Oscar de la Renta sheath, we won't exactly be surprised.

• Nicole Kidman: Tom Has a "More Profound" Love With Katie Holmes [Us]

Personally I still miss this unmistakable quality, and have to ask, where has it gone? We have no shortage of talent and beauty in Hollywood today, but those stars that come across (to men at least) as having true class, style, and by extension, smarts, seem in low supply. I don't see that rare, ethereal quality in Angelina, Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts, or Halle Berry, capable "actors" all. (Admittedly, Laura Linney comes close, but she has a certain earthbound quality; notwithstanding her obvious acting chops, too often she comes off like everyone's sister, the one you instinctively passed over.)

We wouldn't take it that far, but still, this idea that one contemporary actress is the last classy woman standing got us thinking: Pound for pound, what's Joan Allen got that a handful of others after the jump don't?

Patricia Clarkson: She earned an Oscar nod playing up ailing dysfunction in Pieces of April, but she's a revelation of raw, complex class in underseen indies from The Dying Gaul to Lars and the Real Girl to Married Life. Woody Allen should be sued for her character's forced, egregious wimpiness in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Penélope Cruz: Mostly in Spanish-language films, we're afraid, particularly Volver and All About my Mother. But her strides opposite Ben Kingsley in Elegy help us forget her crossover beard efforts in Sahara and Vanilla Sky.

Vera Farmiga: She owned Down to the Bone, overshot hysterically in Joshua, and settled into a tormented, riveting (and generally unseen) sexiness in Quid Pro Quo. Bonus: She belongs here if only for holding her own in The Departed in what's written as little more than a token role for "Anonymous Person with Vagina."

Naomi Watts: Did class and trash with equal aplomb in Mulholland Drive, then slyly revised the role as rags-to-riches starlet Ann Darrow — the only watchable thing opposite Andy Serkis and a green screen in King Kong. Was as classy as they come in little-seen, forgotten The Painted Veil. (Rent it, John Farr.)

Catherine Zeta-Jones: Versatile and gorgeous, too often overshadowed by her male leads in the likes of the Zorro films, Intolerable Cruelty, No Reservations — not to mention in her own marriage. She's reportedly playing Lana Turner in Stompanato, finally giving her a chance at the lead in a melodrama people might actually see. (Sorry, Harvey Weinstein.)

Who did we miss? We know, we know — besides Dakota Fanning.

• Where Are All The Classy, Smart Female Stars Today? [HuffPo]

There's just one thing: as the two-thirds of Defamer who've seen the movie can confirm, there is an on-screen threesome in Vicky Cristina Barcelona — albeit a tame, brief one. Details after the jump:

Now, keep this in mind: Woody Allen has never been big on the sex scenes. Even the recent, sensual Match Point was all about the foreplay and afterglow, baring nary a R-rated body part. So, too, is Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which features two separate foreplay scenes, each set in the same darkroom: one where Johansson and Cruz lock lips, and one where the kissing actresses coax Javier Bardem to join in. The latter scene doesn't escalate far beyond "You kiss me. Now, you kiss her. OK, now I kiss her!" but it's still fairly steamy for the Wood-man, all things considered. Is it on par with the champagne-soaked menage a trois from Wild Things? Not unless Scar-Jo gets a do-over with Ryan Reynolds and Barack Obama.

• Can Horny Movie Critics Make Woody Allen’s ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ a Hit? [New York]

• Vicky Cristina Barcelona's Big Three-Way Lie [Gawker]

D: So did you actually call Sir Ben Kingsley "Sir Ben" on set?

DH: I did. Absolutely. With pleasure.

D: Yet the viewer gets the sense you have the mandate to continually bust his balls, even off-camera. You also share a fairly shocking moment near the end of the film. What was your relationship like?

DH: It was all written, really. It was a wonderful relationship that seems very real and honest; you can tell the two men really loved each other and respected each other. I think that my character realized that as professors at the university, Sir Ben was probably a little smarter, a little brighter, a little more removed — but certainly not as worldly as my character, who is advising him on having an affair with a younger woman. My character has had many affairs. It's the one moment my character has an up on him. In my career I never had a part that was really seemed like a real person — the emotion, the give and take between Sir Ben and myself were very honest, I thought.

D: Your career is endlessly fascinating: You acted alongside James Dean twice; obviously there's Easy Rider; you've appeared opposite three Oscar-winners in as many films this year alone. Do you ever take stock of how many Hollywood storylines your work intersects?

DH: Yeah, sort of. But not really. I think of my career as a disappointment most of the time. After Easy Rider and The Last Movie, not directing anymore was a really devastating affair for me. And for the last 16 years, trying to direct movies and not getting financing has really been very hard on me. I really want to direct. I know that through the years I've been very fortunate to act; Blue Velvet was wonderful. Apocalypse Now. But if you still always think about directing movies, it's a chore. And I had to take a lot of bad movies at times. Out of 150 movies that I've been in, there are maybe 20 that are really good movies.

D: You've also got TV behind you and in front of you, including an cable adaptation of Crash. It's obviously a pretty polarizing film; will the series follow that same vein?

DH: Well, you'll remember that that was three different stories that sort of all come together in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is still the basis of where it's all happening, though we're shooting in Albuquerque. The writers are the same — Bobby Moresco and Paul Haggis — but the characters are all different. I play a Phil Spector-type music mogul whose always trying to look for the next big move. He's hired a 22-year-old driver from Watts who wants to be a rap star. Their relationship is totally bizarre. But it's wonderfully written and I'm having a good time.

D: But does the world really need 13 more hours of Crash?

DH: These are different characters. But why do they need it? Why does the world need entertainment at all? Do we need TV? We have it. And we do have series, and they're usually 13 in the first run. This is going to be a good 13. I love it because I've never seen such incredible language, and the things you can do on cable television now you can't even get away with in movies. We had an orgy the other day. For me it's a joy.

You see, Penelope has been suffering from a very common disorder among borderline crazy celebrities since she was a wee moth — a troubling situation involving a "monster" living inside her, determined to "sabotage the most beautiful moments" in her life. We can only presume this demon tends to follow the same pattern each and every time she says "Uh oh! Here it is again! Go away and leave me alone!": Flashing its diamond-tipped manicure and next season's skinny men's suit from Marc Jacobs, the pinkies-out being scatters a potent amount of fairy dust on ex-"boyfriends" like Tommy and beer swilling boy-fan Matty McConaughey, distracting their bedazzled eyes from the beard they desperately require. Which is sad, considering one of the nicest things her Secret Lives Of Women director Isabel Croixet had to say about the Spanish star was how the sight of Cruz naked is the "least sexy moment in history." Perhaps someone ought to FedEx a copy of Secrets to those Maxim boys, requiring a "correction" in their next issue?

[Photo credit: The Celebrity Blog]

• PENELOPE CRUZ W MAGAZINE 2008 COVER PHOTO [The Celebrity Blog]

UPDATE (6/14/08 @ 7:20am): Both Ms Hayek and Ms Cruz have released statements denying any connection to Mr Villarreal Barragán, his associated groups or any knowledge of who the house belonged to. In a statement, agents for the actresses said that "the production of Bandidas arranged the accomodation for all the actores, which is common practice in the film industry". The statement also said that "Penélope Cruz chose a hotel but Salma Hayek prefered a house because she was travelling with her pet dogs. Hayek never knew who owned the house or had any contact with its owners or with anything associated with the rented place, which was paid for by the production company."

If you’re among the five or six people who saw Bandidas, the 2006 Bonnie & Clyde: The Girl-On-Girl Edition! bomb co-starring Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek, the first thing you should be is ashamed of yourself. Now that we've scolded you, it's time to learn the possible reason why the “comedy” caper was so downright awful. Yes, Salma and Penelope wore very cute little pink lacy numbers, the film had a scene featuring Hayek jumping spread-eagle on to a horse, and Steve Zahn provided some slight comic relief just by being in the damn thing, but a revelation involving where the two chicas called home while filming may explain why the film went awry: “The stars slept at a [cocaine] trafficker's house for several days during the 2006 shoot. The property belonged to Sergio Villareal Barragán, known as 'El Grande' or the 'Big One.'” We took a look back at the cringy trailer to see if there may be any truth to the suggestive allegations that Salma and Penelope spent some time living the glamorous drug den life while on set.

Despite Salma's painful over-acting and Penelope's seemingly bipolar mood from scene to scene (one moment she's just! so! perky! and the next she's staring into space like a zombie coming down from one very long binge), we highly doubt the ladies were partaking in any of their alleged temporary landlord's stash. Salma tends to overact (Ugly Betty guest spot, anyone?), and Penelope tends to zombie-act her way through roles, the notable exception being her phenomenal role in Volver. So even if the trial witness who made these claims is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (which, mind you, is a trait not commonly found among those embroiled in drug trafficking), we'd still be on Team Hotties. After all, even if they were hitting the slopes while filming, it's not like this disaster of a movie could've been salvaged anyway.

• PENELOPE CRUZ AND SALMA HAYEK STAYED AT DRUG TRAFFICKER'S HOUSE [Daily Telegraph]

What better way to annul your time spent in rehab than by pulling the old “It was just research!” card? That’s what Eva Mendes is allegedly claiming, pegging her January stay at Le Cirque in Utah to an upcoming role in Queen Of The South where she'll play a female drug lord or, as some have termed the character, “the female Scarface.” At the time, so-called insiders came forward saying Mendes was everything from a “closet drinker” to a prescription drug addict. Though it’s a nice thought that Mendes’ month-long stay alongside real-live drunk Kirsten Dunst was just a hush-hush effort to really feel like a druggie, we took a look at the timeline coupled with Mendes’ past, and find the excuse weak at best:

For one thing, Mendes has already appeared in her fair share of drug movies. There was last year’s We Own The Night, where she played the coke-dabbling girlfriend to Joaquin Phoenix’s drug dealer with a heart of gold. And 2003’s Once Upon A Time In Mexico centered around the Mexican president declaring war on a drug cartel, while that same year she played drug money-lover Denzel Washington’s ex-wife in Out Of Time. As for her potentially career-boosting role in Queen, her casting was announced only two weeks ago. Until her stay in rehab, two other names were still circling around the part: Jennifer Lopez and Penelope Cruz were said to be in consideration for the part as well. We only wish they’d gone with Cruz early on and relieved Mendes of the need to method act her way all the way to Le Cirque and scandal; Cruz already nailed the powdered-up girlfriend in Blow so convincingly that we still can’t help looking at her without getting the sense that she’s just itching to snort the dandruff off of whatever guy has currently enlisted her as their Beard.

• EVA MENDES RESEARCHING ROLE IN REHAB? [Starpulse]

"Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," Lee told reporters. "If you reporters had any balls you'd ask him why. There's no way I know why he did that — that was his vision, not mine. But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It's not like he didn't know."

Incidentally, when Eastwood was asked about Lee's comments during Tuesday's Exchangeling press conference, the Cannes moderator reportedly rebuffed the inquiry. But! We digress! Lee also squeezed in a Coen brothers smackdown ("Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life like a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that.") and announced a new documentary about Michael Jordan he's planning to unveil at next year's festival.

Elsewhere, we finally found someone who doesn't like Eastwood's latest, and the Croisette cascades with hype as Steven Soderbergh's two-part, four-and-a-half-hour Che prepares to unspool in its entirety. "From a press and industry perspective, people are definitely talking about the film," writes Karina Longworth, "but everyone seems less interested in what's going to be on screen tonight than in how it'll eventually be seen." All together? Kill Bill-style? Straight-to-video serialization? Buy one, get one free?

Also among the debris:

—Hide the kids! Oscar-fetish grunt and Blurb Whore Hall of Famer Pete Hammond has been hyperventilating over Vicky Cristina Barcelona and co-star Penelope Cruz in particular, and it's all unflinchingly caught on video.

—Sadistic Variety blogger Mike Jones also videotapes a succession of fest attendees mispronouncing the title of Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York. (Don't be fooled — that's a hard "K" at the end of "York.")

—The brilliant if frustrating Argentinian director Lucretia Martel showed off her new film La Mujer sin Cabeza (The Woman Without a Head) on Tuesday; she was rewarded promptly with mystified reviews and the helm of a big-budget film about "alien invaders and their army of giant insects." Like Indiana Jones 4, kind of, but with even less story.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• WATCH VIDEO

''Because it was Penélope and Scarlett and Javier, it got out that there was torrid sex in the picture,'' Allen says. Sorry, that's not the case. There's sex, yes, but it's a discreetly photographed ménage à trois. ''People who come and expect those exaggerations are going to be disappointed.''

Knowing Woody's modesty and unabating horniness, we assume the truth likely reflects an in-between kind of smut featuring Johansson and Cruz in a passionate liplock while Bardem taps each on the shoulder, nervously inviting himself to join in with a succession of one-liners scored to Gershwin. The scene ends with the Spanish hunk sitting up and looking for his eyeglasses, griping about the size of his new apartment while the starlets writhe into the night beside him. We'll take it!

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

• Summer Movie Preview [EW via Vulture]

boomp3.com

While the rest of us may be dealing with the last gasp of winter or stressed over the impending recession and escalating gas prices or wondering why that person we met last weekend never called, Academy Award winner Javier Bardem and Academy Award nominee Penelope Cruz have a best solution to all of our problems, fears and concerns. Just go to the south of France, hang out, and just read a good book. Your cares and concerns will just melt away as you work on your tan. When you look good, you'll feel good, you know?

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

Elton John 16th Annual AIDS Foundation Oscar Party:

Elton John coddled Best Actress winner Marion Cotillard, while model Petra Nemcova and Sean Penn canoodled all night as the newest couple in Hollywood making their big debut on Oscar night.

Harrison Ford (victim of perhaps Jon Stewart's worst joke of the evening) arrived with the (finally) well-dressed Calista Flockhart; Courtney Love managed to clean up her act; Seal turned the cameras on the cameramen.

Kate Beckinsale proved having kids does not a schlumpy mom make; Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres continued their Lesbians Are Cool, Just Deal With It Tour; Jeremy Piven took a break from his yoga pursuits to swing by The Rocket Man's shindig.

Other guests included:
Simon Cowell, Sharon Stone, Diddy, Minnie Driver, Heidi Klum, JC Chasez, Chace Crawford, Len Wiseman, Al Roker, Billy Joel, Chris Noth, Chris O'Donnell, Christian Slater, Faye Dunaway, Tara Reid and Zoe Saldana.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images and Wire Image]