Movieline's Hollywood Life (November 2003)

At first I thought this was a spin-off magazine from the original Movieline, with a tighter lifestyle focus. But it's the same magazine repackaged with a new name and slightly more upscale design. Maybe a few more capsule descriptions of the luxuries of the rich and famous, beyond that just the same old same old.

I'm pretty much dead to the Movielines and Premieres of the world. They're too old-school and not at all honest. Really, do we need another photo spread of some bored-looking starlet splayed across the inside of a hot new club that serves designer martinis? Who exactly does that serve? Certainly not me.

Wouldn't we be better off reading something more interesting, like that starlet's journal stolen from the bulimia clinic? Or, better yet, knowing absolutely nothing at all about someone whose only claim to fame is that her face is pleasantly symmetrical and she has the ability to memorize and repeat 6-7 lines of dialogue per hour.

Hey, starlet, I got an idea, shut uppa the face and call me when you aren't getting free plasma TVs messengered to your house. Then we'll have something to talk about.

Am I bitter? Why, yes I am!

This particular issue features the stunning Cate Blanchett on the cover, and a decent interview inside. Her photo spread is a bit unflattering, unfortunate since she's so goddamn luminous. And the interview doesn't shed any light on what we'd really like to know: when is she planning to dump her frumpy husband for a more glamorous mate, like Colin Firth or Colin Farrell?

There's a piece on Smallville's Tom Welling, a bunch of photos from Jeff Bridges (the candidly personal star photo is very 1999), a right-on-the-money complaint about movie trailers ("They suck!"), and the annual "Most" list which tries to be clever and pandering, not a good combination. Plus your usual one-page up-and-comer bio with sexy photo, a totally pointless fashion spread at a bowling alley (starring Buffy's Marc Blucas and The Gilmore Girls's Lauren Graham … not worth it), and pages of expensive gew-gaws no one who reads the magazine can afford.

And the patented, utterly space-wasting "X and Y Files," nothing more than a "Separated at Birth" with two celebrity "parents" creating an unrelated but similar-looking celebrity "child." Ha ha ho-hum. That stuff was cool when, like 1989?

I mostly skimmed. The whole thing felt very tired, like they cut and pasted old text from past issues into a "fresh" design.

If you're going to bother with Hollywood rags, in my humble opinion it's trade magazines or tabloids all the way. Movieline's Holywood Life is so patently just a PR machine, they might as well end the articles with lines like: "Lauren Graham smokes Capri Superslims and eats Healthy Choice Chicken Dinners."

Review by Crimedog