Fug File: Fug The Cover

Fug the Cover: Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan on Entertainment Weekly

Nov 18, 2013 By Jessica AT 1:00 pm

I have thoughts. So many thoughts. So many, many thoughts:

1) I am unfamiliar with Jamie Dornan but he’s hot, and because I think this movie is going to be a total shitshow disaster, I feel bad for him.  By the time this thing comes out, people are going to be well over 50 Shades and onto something new, because I feel like 50 Shades is the kind of thing that burns brightly and then burns OUT, because the reasons it’s popular have nothing to do with actual quality and more to do with some weird zeitgeist thing that, for some reason, made everyone decide they really needed a little light bondage in their lives, ideally from a love interest who made the heroine sign a 7-page contract about their sex life. (I’m not making that up; I can’t believe I need to clarify this, but paperwork is rarely sexy, people.) He also already looks like he regrets this. Very, “Wait, you want me to do WHAT with this tie? Shit, I thought Charlie Hunnam was just kidding.” GET OUT NOW, DUDE.

2) Please don’t get me started on a book that involves an interior monologue which says things like, “My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves.” I literally have second-hand embarrassment for the English language just reading that.

3) I love Dakota Johnson. She was so charming and good in the underrated Ben & Kate and I am pretty sure she just signed up for the Exit to Eden of our generation.

4) The good news is, this cover shot makes her look like a greasy Alexis Bledel, so maybe she can just DISAVOW entirely. Forever. Although Alexis Bledel might not appreciate that much.

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Fug the Cover: Lea Michele on Elle

Nov 15, 2013 By Heather AT 11:00 am

I have to think Lea Michele would’ve wished for something better than this:

It’s her big Life After Cory interview, and she looks, to be blunt, totally freaky. It’s like she’s wearing ten extremely expensive chastity chains– placed right next to a red-tinged cover line about SEXUAL AWAKENING — and then a demi-trench whose belt is flapping around and confusing things. Her hair looks greasy and stiff, like she styled with butter, the eyeliner is as if she’s been on a massive bender and hasn’t removed last Friday’s makeup yet, she looks aggressive and kind of angry rather than sultry and alluring, and worst yet, NONE of this flatters her face at ALL. She is SO MUCH cuter than this. Rather than reassuring me she’s doing well and finally revitalized after that hellacious loss, it makes me nervous that she’s about to go crackballs. NOBODY WANTS CRACKBALLS.

[Photo: Elle]

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Fug the Cover: Kerry Washington on Lucky

Nov 14, 2013 By Heather AT 8:00 am

This cannot have gone according to plan.

I am sure the plan was, “Let’s put Kerry Washington on the cover because America is obsessed with her right now,” and not, “Let’s put Kerry Washington on the cover and make her look like she’s suffering through menstrual cramps and an extreme cobweb attack while someone blows a wind cannon at her that’s making it impossible for her to open her eyes.” Like, I am fairly sure that even on the set, while making this pose, Kerry Washington looked more like Kerry Washington than she does right here on the cover. That right there is crazyface. Olivia Pope would take one look at this cover and then accept Kerry Washington as a client, and set about ruining the lives of the slanderous hobos who made this happen. Also, does ANYTHING about this make you feel festive? Do you at ALL want to dig into holiday shopping, drink a hot cocoa spiked with something devilish, scream the incomparably catchy and badmazing “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in your car while imitating all the overwrought performances of those ill-conceived lyrics (I don’t know if “the only water flowing is A BITTER STING OF TEARS” or “the Christmas bells that ring there are the CLANGING CHIMES OF DOOM” is my favorite, but let me tell you, by the time Bono comes in all lecturey with “TONIGHT THANK GOD IT’S THEM INSTEAD OF YOU,” I am in FULL performance mode)? Does it make you want to make stuffing and a turkey and eat pie, and watch football and wear cute coats and things? No. It MIGHT make you want to wear a scarf, but only because you are pretty sure you would wear it better than she has been told to wear this one. That is a perfunctory scarf. That scarf says, “Shit, we totally dressed her for spring — quick, throw a scarf on her neck. INSTANT WINTER.”

And for what it’s worth, the parenthetical on the cover line is annoying me, too. “Perfect, Glowy Skin” did not need “all winter long” to be in parenthesis. It reads like a disclaimer: “Yeah, we can’t actually promise you good skin beyond, say, February, but listen, we’re here for you until then.”

In sum: Unlawful Crazyface mixed with Unseasonal Tomfoolery plus Unnecessary Parentheses = I am wearing three pairs of crankypants.

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Fug the Covers: InStyle with Julianne Moore and Taylor Swift

Nov 1, 2013 By Heather AT 8:00 am

In noticing and being horrified by the latest InStyle cover, I realized I forgot to put up the October issue featuring Julianne Moore. Let’s remedy that first:

Her hair looks amazing. It’s too bad the text is stepping all over it, but I guess that’s the rub of being on the cover. I love her in the sexy green shirt, too, but I keep wanting to reach out and straighten her necklace. There’s something stiff and absent in her face — she’s radiant, but she also seems like this is the fiftieth shot and her facial muscles were getting tired. In all, though, it’s VERY InStyle,  exactly what I would imagine this magazine’s core reader would want, and it makes the next one look even worse by comparison:

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Well Played Cover: Nicole Kidman on Vanity Fair

Oct 30, 2013 By Heather AT 11:00 am

I am very curious what the story pinned to the top headline turns out to be, because my pet peeve of the whole Kristen Stewart scandal is that the media relentlessly batters her with it and never once takes Rupert Sanders to task for being a) the grown-up, effectively; b) her boss at the time; c) the one who was married with children, and d) one half of the two it took to do the naked tango.

So whether that’s about Liberty Ross or something else, the headline certainly feels like it’s meant to vilify Kristen over old news, or make you think she’s being smacked down about it again, and I find that gross. It’s been well more than a year since that unfolded, exploded, and the dust settled. LET IT GO. And stop being so one-sided in where you cast the blame, media. There is plenty to go around, and much of it should be pushed at the person whose name, I’ll wager, very few people even remember because nobody ever mentions it (Sanders).

But, the cover subject: Nicole. She looks tremendous. She’s either in her Grace Kelly garb, or meant to look like she is, and it’s fabulous on her: Her hair looks vibrant, shiny, thick, and lush, in a way that it hasn’t in a long time on the red carpet, her make up is great, and there’s a softness to her that’s been missing the last few years. The dress is an afterthought thanks to the size and design of the cover text, and I’m fine with that because it’s all about her head. Ever since Diana turned out to be such a hot mess of a muddle (it’s not even out yet, but based on previews and the UK reviews, its fate as a disaster feels assured), I’ve been wary of Nicole-as-Grace, and whether I will be able to lose myself in the movie or sit there thinking, “Yep, that’s Nicole Kidman playing Princess Grace.”  The cover is doing its job of making me curious enough to see it, and also reminding me that she’s Nicole F’ing Kidman and not just Keith Urban’s fan club president.

And let’s not even pretend I’m not looking forward to the cheerfully presented “COITUS DISRUPTUS” story. The deployment of TWO exclamation marks means it must be very dishy indeed.

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Well Played Cover: Miley Cyrus on Cosmo

Oct 29, 2013 By Jessica AT 1:00 pm

Well. I definitely don’t plan to “twerk [my] ass off” this holiday season, but I DO think this cover is totally festive. Every magazine in the world which chose to feature Miley WITHOUT her tongue flapping all over creation must be thanking the sweet heavens right now, because seeing her smiling (and, it must be said, very well made-up) feels completely refreshing. Obviously, if she were to wear this dress out into the universe, I would wonder how hard Katy Perry was crying into her coffee about missing out on it — it looks like it was designed by the makers of Candy Crush — but it’s undeniably charming for a holiday magazine cover. And now if you will excuse me, I’m going to have some Jolly Ranchers for breakfast.

[Photo: Peter Pedonomou/Cosmopolitan]

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