The essential crux of this photo shoot is this: Actors and models are weird. Really. While photographer Steven Klein was shooting these, and a crew hung around watching, the Willises stood naked and stretched in strange positions and, well, that was a Tuesday. To boot, they'd just come back from their food and wine heavy wedding getaway in the Turks & Caicos, so Bruce wanted some barbells around to do last minute toning and who knows what Emma did. The two met at the gym, so we're sure she did something. Bruce said of the shoot, "vanity dies hard," referencing his movie from a hundred years ago before going to stretch out in his black underpants while his new wife straddled him wearing a robot-wolf costume and everyone watched. So, it couldn't be that hard.

She critiques Us Weekly and the other glossy rags on the newstands she whizzes by in a black SUV. She urges that even though, yes, she is a big time celebrity training to play a latex-clad superhero in a big, big movie, she is just like us. And she offers some statistics from the unfortunately named National Eating Disorders Association that are, of course, sobering: 10 million women and 1 million men suffer from dangerous eating disorders in this stupid country of ours.

So, she'd like to dissuade girls from trying to crash diet like their favorite shiny celebrities. (Don't try this at home, we're professionals.) To drive home the point that she works hard for whatever body she does have, but that she does it healthily and that exercise is good for everyone and magazines lie and ohhh We Are One.

Which is all well and good! If a bit self-important. But at the end she adds the little dig that, we suspect, sparked the whole rant:

I'm not normally the type to dignify toilet paper rags with a response, but in this case I feel it's my responsibility to comment. In a way, I'm glad some dummy journalist (and I use the term "journalist" loosely) is banking on my "deflating" so that I can address the issue straight from my healthy heart.

The 'deflate' refers to this post, written by our own Journalist Ryan Tate, who, tipped off by a Page Six item, noticed some shrinkage. Of boobs.

We support your non-crash-dieting advocacy and condemnation of gross fattie-fat-fat stories.

But we were just talking about your cans, love. Your precious, precious, career-making cans.

At least, that's what Star magazine hears. Via The Sun:

[Johansson] has reportedly lost over 14lbs since she began working out with her Iron Man 2 co-star in preparation for the movie.

A source told Star magazine: "The pair have been doing daily workouts with Gwyneth's personal trainer TRACY ANDERSON."

Maybe Johansson can complain further about the extreme weight loss plan (as she did a couple of weeks ago in London) on Paltrow's website Goop, cementing its position as the definitive online shop of body-image horrors.

Though we hear that the movie is darker and stranger than you'd imagine, really that's secondary to the fact that, probably because of The Green Lantern Hornet!! It's Hornet!!! I'm sorryyyy!!!!!!, the once-portly comedian has slimmed down to a more Hollywood size. And now he'll have to talk about it for the rest of his life.

(Thanks go to intern Whitney Jefferson for the clip.)

Ditto has been ruthlessly mocked for her appearance by respected periodicals like the National Enquirer—Bad Beach Bod pictures and whatnot.

So sure you can't see much of her on the Out cover, but at least it's subdued and tasteful enough. And the inside picture is serene and downright elegant. We're not sure why she'd be unhappy with it.

The left halves of these pictures are from Tuesday's event. The right halves are from the Met's Costume Institute Gala in May, nearly a year ago.

Perhaps the actress is prepping for a film role. Maybe she's tired of people talking about "The Johanssons." But the sudden weight loss does make one wonder whether Johansson has changed her opinion about America being "obsessed with dieting rather than focusing on eating well, exercising and living a healthy life."

Particularly if one is insane with jealousy at Johansson's frankly elegant new look.

So says the fashion book's editress, Anna Wintour:

Change was the clarion call of Barack Obama's election campaign, though I don't think any of us at Vogue initially realized that would include the difference that was going to be made by First Lady Michelle Obama's wardrobe.

It's true, though. Michelle wears fun spider-dresses and loud colors and garments by lesser-known designers like Isabel Toledo and Jason Wu. She's a new American hero! In terms of fashion. Which is why she's the first presidential wife to grace the magazine's cover since Hillary Clinton. And, heh, all that means is that poor old Laura Bush got skipped. Probably because she never thought outside the boxy suit. Anna agrees:

It wasn't just that [Obama's] choices projected a simpler, streamlined, more modern attitude, rejecting the ridiculous idea that the only way for a First Lady to dress is in the dreaded White House standard-issue uniform — the boxy, anonymous suit that always managed to look as appealing, and as comfortable, as armor.

The only problem now, though, is that Michelle has to keep this up for four or possibly eight years. A daunting task. How long before she's inevitably downgraded to Redbook covers?

Thanks, Facebook! If you have Gawker Pin-Up nominees, please send them our way.

The reader writes to us:

Usually such skin color is indication of impending liver failure (jaundice), most likely caused by high doses on Nicain. The yellow pigment is from bilirubin, a byproduct of old red blood cells that don't get filtered out by the liver.

Niacin is the vitamin that is used in high doses as part of a Scientology body cleanse detox program that hubby Tom Cruise was pushing on Ground Zero workers after 9/11. And "yellow skin or eyes" is a potential side effect of "prolonged use of extended-release niacin."

So, we found some recent pictures of Ms. Holmes and there does seem to be a slight tinting of her eyes. Or maybe we're just crazy. As for her skin, it could just be another tale of When Spray Tans Attack. Look at some pictures and judge for yourself.

Holmes' Eyes, Jan. 25th (at the SAGs)

Holmes' Eyes, Jan. 21st

Holmes' Skin, Jan. 25th

Holmes' Skin, Jan. 21st

Back then we gawked at his slimmer, more toned physique, and it seems only to have gotten better. Will Barry not only unite the people under a terrific, fiery banner of lip service devotion to gays and eager hand-holding of those that dislike them, but also erase the memory of the long, corpulent national nightmare that was President Taft? Here's hoping. Above is the new pic, from arch political site TMZ, and below is the old one for comparison.

“I do not believe that Serena would go for icky Aaron as he is portrayed on the show,” she says. “He’s so slimy! He’s just … ick.” In the books, she insists, Aaron Rose isn’t so bad. “He smokes herbal cigarettes and eats vegan and has cute mini-dreadlocks,” she says. “He is not an artist. He’s more like a happy suburban hippie. He gets in early to Harvard, infuriating Blair. He and Serena fall in love, but it only lasts for about one book.”

Which, hah. Yes. As silly (but ridiculously enjoyable) as they are, at least the books had the presence of mind to not fashion objects of teen girls' lust after things they would never lust after. A shaggy hippie-dip smoker who is secretly smart? That sounds like a teenage boy that a certain kind of senior in high school would truck for. But a pretentious, rat-faced (it's no fault of the actor's, really, it's just the way he's styled) self-centered artiste type? That boy doesn't really exist in high school. There are some boys on their way to becoming that, but why force an adult-type like that on a (mostly) non-adult audience? That is not what a girl wants.

Sarah Palin's Bridge To Beauty
Wonkette received a tip that the Alaskan governor once got lip liner tattooed on her face, according to a lady from a Wasilla, AK styles salon. The HuffPo picked up on the story and analyzed some photos. It looked legit to them so they put it to a poll. America decided, with a 45% majority, that the pittbull's lipstick was indeed inked. It's pretty compelling stuff, though not more so than the governor's obvious use of the Topsy Tail hairstyling device. I didn't know those even existed anymore. If I find out that she uses a Flowbee too, I might start liking her. Oh and then, heh, there was also that $30,000 governor's mansion tanning bed.

Yeah Dawg, Your Makeup Is Off The Chain, Senator McCain
Hey that rhymed, Randy! Yes, far eclipsing Edwards' Little Lord Fauntleroy haircuts is the Arizonan senator's shameful $5,500 makeup habit. Evidently he has Tifanie White under his employ, who has done the cosmetic work on the hit singing competition (the neighborhood kids tell me), American Idol. Which makes sense. He can be as gurgly and not-make-sensey as Paula Abdul, as silly and shallow as Randy, and is often grumpy, like Simon. Though we've not heard his singing (yet!), we can imagine that he'd blow it out the box, in the style of fellow Arizonan and American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, on "I (Who Have Nothing... But Like Ten Houses)".

Delaware Are Your Wrinkles, Joe?
Say it ain't so! The Post went slinking off to a plastic surgeon the other day, and showed him photos of Senator Biden from a couple of years ago compared with photos of the dude at last Thursday night's big dance debate. "Yes, absolutely, and I would bet my next paycheck," the doctor said when asked if Joey had gotten some Botox on the foreheadal region of his upper face plate (medicine!). Which is fine. If you want to inject botulism into your face, you should be free to do so. And that's what Joe Biden is all about, dammit. Joe Biden says so, and Joe Biden brought you this message.

Masai Gray
Much has been made of Obama's perpetually graying hair. Though, to us, his coif seems to have brightened a bit lately. His stylist or whatever denies ever having dyed. I'd wager that more gray might make him look a little less cubbish, a mite more authoritative. Obama's relative youth works for him on some occasions, but if he looks a little more long in the tooth, maybe people will associate him with experience, thus voting for him. Because if there's one thing you can say about America, it's that we respect our elders.

I mean, it's probably mostly all well and good and I hope it makes people with disabilities feel more recognized and enfranchised. But, sigh, are we the only ones hearing the feint lilt of a carnival freak show organ grinding? Once the victor is done with her four-page spread in the UK edition of Marie Claire, will she be welcomed into the ranks of the modeling world? Or will she just be the girl missing an arm who won that weird show once?

Earlier: Meet the girls.