Gawker: defamer, photo gallery

What Does Arianna Huffington Really Look Like?

Ryan Tate — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:57:36 EDT

The Huffington Post has brought back its old trick of posting embarrassingly high-resolution photos of celebrities, Portfolio.com notes, to much controversy. HuffPo defends its pics as "playful spin on our... fascination with celebrity images." OK, let's "play." With your founder.

Arianna Huffington has allowed her editors to run ultra-close ups of the aging body of Vogue's Anna Wintour ("what does she really look like?") and now actresses Lindsay Lohan ("unedited" and splotchy) and Elizabeth Hurley (a bit sweaty). It's a case of her unprofitable company's need for monetizable, non-political Web traffic (read: cheap celebrity clicks) running headlong into Huffington's need to suck up to celebs, who write for her site and come to her parties and help her seem very glamorous.

We won't lecture Huffington on her company's too-often-shoddy attempts to make money in the online publishing racket. At least, not in this post. But we will keep her honest: If Huffington is going to run unedited pictures of others, it's only fair there should be some unedited pictures of her out there.

Click any of the images below to pop-up large, hi-res versions. (Warning, this may slow down your web browser and ruin your lunch.) We've played by HuffPo rules: Posed, red carpet pictures with no editing. We've also excerpted a highlight, as Huffington did with Wintour.

UPDATE: Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky notes that the first chapter of Huffington's book On Becoming Fearless is about positive body image. Plastering someone's picture on HuffPo is certainly one way to nudge that person toward becoming "fearless."

Melrose: The Place Where Disbelief Dies

Andrew Belonsky — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:30:51 EDT

The new Melrose Place is darker, grittier and perhaps even a bit sexier than its predecessor. It also tests America's ability to suspend its collective disbelief. And it wins.

Television — and the entertainment world as a whole — require viewers to ignore reality and focus on the flashing images. Obviously no one believes Vampire Bill exists or that an ugly girl like Betty Suarez would get hired into the wild world of fashion. Those premises require a standard amount if disbelief, an amount that's given a little leeway when dealing with soap operas, where the unbelievable becomes a regular occurrence. But Beverly Hills, 90210 and its popular spin-off Melrose Place largely eschewed aliens, evil twins and the like. At least they gave us some wiggle room to pretend the happenings were, well, happening.

Tonight's premiere, however, pushed the envelope and successfully shattered our childlike ability to believe, if only for a moment, that the idiot box speaks the truth. The reality of this remake's quest to dazzle becomes abundantly clear. But we suppose that's the place to which the entertainment world was meant to land.
Laura Leighton as Sydney Andrews. Avid fans immediately scratched their heads at the news. Sydney, of course, was run down on her wedding day by a run away car driven by Jo. It was all very sad and she was very dead (see photographic evidence, above0. The unbelievable explanation put forth in this evening's episode? Michael Mancini helped her fake her death. Now, why would he do that? She was about to get married. But, never mind, because all this — and SoapNet reruns — reminded us that Leighton once played another character in the same universe, the original 90210's "Sophie." This brings us to our second point... " title=" First and foremost, there's the well-publicized return of Laura Leighton as Sydney Andrews. Avid fans immediately scratched their heads at the news. Sydney, of course, was run down on her wedding day by a run away car driven by Jo. It was all very sad and she was very dead (see photographic evidence, above0. The unbelievable explanation put forth in this evening's episode? Michael Mancini helped her fake her death. Now, why would he do that? She was about to get married. But, never mind, because all this — and SoapNet reruns — reminded us that Leighton once played another character in the same universe, the original 90210's "Sophie." This brings us to our second point... " align="left" hspace="2" vspace="2"/>Jessica Lucas appeared on 90210 last season as undercover cop Kimberly. 90210 and Melrose exist in the same fictional universe. Yet, here we are, less than a year later, and Lucas is playing a new character, Riley. For shame, producers! Yes, we know this is make believe, but at least make an effort to make our lives easier and not reuse the same actresses, especially since Kimberly's love interest on 90210 will reportedly be making the move to Melrose. Surely there must be more actresses in Hollywood. Oh, wait, there's Ashlee Simpson-Wentz. " title=" Actress Jessica Lucas appeared on 90210 last season as undercover cop Kimberly. 90210 and Melrose exist in the same fictional universe. Yet, here we are, less than a year later, and Lucas is playing a new character, Riley. For shame, producers! Yes, we know this is make believe, but at least make an effort to make our lives easier and not reuse the same actresses, especially since Kimberly's love interest on 90210 will reportedly be making the move to Melrose. Surely there must be more actresses in Hollywood. Oh, wait, there's Ashlee Simpson-Wentz. " align="left" hspace="2" vspace="2"/>Puh-leaze! " title=" It's here that the viewer pushed to very nearly abandon any shred of disbelief they may still possess. No, we won't rag on her sub-par acting ability, for we doubt we could do any better. But that's hardly the most glaring problem in this casting call. Not only are we forced to look past young Ashlee's previous life as a pop star, but we're meant to swallow that tripe they call her nose. Puh-leaze! " align="left" hspace="2" vspace="2"/>

Gov. Schwarzenegger's Arsenal

Ryan Tate — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:10:22 EDT

Arnold Schwarzenegger has us direly concerned about the future of California. Set aside the Republican's policies, and turn your attention to the growing cache of weaponry he keeps right there in the governor's office.

First it was that huge knife he pulled out, at random, on a video posted to his Twitter stream. Now he's admitted to keeping his sword from the Conan the Barbarian movies in his office, as well, and even uploaded a picture of the thing. We thought we'd seen it all in California politics but, honestly, who does this? Is it supposed to frighten his political opponents? Awe fans of 1980s muscle flicks?

We shudder to think what other implements of death the governor might be keeping in that office. This is the guy who starred in Predator, after all. We've let our imaginations run wild in the photo gallery below, showing a logical progression in gubernatorial arms.

The knife Schwarzenegger brandished in July. It CUTS fat from the budget, like education funding. Ha ha, get it??

The Conan sword Schwarzenegger just disclosed. He can really take a WHACK at spending with that thing!

Why not a grenade launcher mounted under an assault rifle? The governor could blow holes in the status quo with that thing. "Today, I am here to LAUNCH a new initiative. I think you'll find its potential is EXPLOSIVE."

A Gatling gun would be great for mowing down the naysayers in the press, right Arnold? "I've put a few new issues into the ROTATION, guys. I hope you don't mind if my answers sound a little CANNON-ED."

Heidi and Spencer, Snout and About

Ryan Tate — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:59:58 EDT

Capping the disaster that is the Heidi Montag/Spencer Pratt wedding, the plastic Hills couple had to wear oh-so-romantic face masks during their Cabo San Lucas "pre honeymoon."

The follows a generator failing during the ceremony and no magazines wanting to buy their stupid wedding pictures.

The masks are necessary, of course, because Mexico has been infected by grubby, pasty-skinned creatures who shamelessly breed and wallow in their own mess, making nearby people sick. Also, some kind of influenza thing involving hogs.

(Top photo from People by Pacific Coast News; second and last photos from Bauer-Griffin; third photo from X17.)

The Raging California Wildfires

Richard Lawson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:19:00 EST

The Prop 8 fight isn't the only battle raging in California right now. As we complain about the cold here in New York, huge wildfires are quickly gobbling up large swaths of Southern California. Some 30,000 people have fled their homes, and a reported 1,000 houses have been destroyed. It's pretty apocalyptic looking. As one Flickr member noted, there are scenes of scorched earth and sky that remind us of Cormac McCarthy's end of the world novel The Road. We've put together a gallery of some of our favorite images from Flickr after the jump. Harrowing stuff.

Mary-Kate Olsen Party Candids

Richard Lawson — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Once again, some noble crusader has invaded Photobucket and dug up some scurrilous photos of young celebrities at play. In today's batch, one of the Olsen twins (we suspect Mary-Kate) is partying with some friends, most of whom are dressed in flannel, including famous rich person's daughter Nicole Richie and her man friend, rocker Joel Madden. The kids are pictured in some sort of wood-paneled mansion, playing with a piñata and smoking cigarettes. It's unclear when these were taken or whose birthday (it's a birthday, right?) they were celebrating, but Nicole Richie seems to be making a point of showing that she's not drinking in one of the photos. So perhaps it was while she was pregnant. Do your own sleuthing around the big brown mansion in a photo gallery, after the jump.

The Great Burbank Fire Of 2007: The Photo Gallery

Mark — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 21:50:00 EDT

Sure, we all know what wildfires look like by now, but it's rare for one to appear that affords us such a tantalizingly accurate vision of Hollywood's much-anticipated End of Days, give or take a quartet of Apocalyptic horsemen galloping through the streets to harvest what's left of the souls of those who toil in the industry. And so we've quickly thrown together this photo gallery of the Great Burbank Fire of 2007 for your enjoyment, containing both the images from our earlier posts about today's spectacular, sky-darkening conflagration and some new ones. Enjoy, and happy Friday.

Click on the thumbnails below to go to the gallery:

[Thanks to everyone who sent in their pictures. When the real Armageddon arrives, your generosity will be repaid a thousandfold.]

The Great Burbank Fire Of 2007: More Photos, Reactions [Defamer]
Breaking: Burbank Is Burning! [Defamer]