The annual edition of Vanity Fair's Hollywood issue is out and as these things go, it's only a so-so one. Scheduled for "Oscar month" each year, the VF issue is always a behemoth (this year's weighs in at 352 pages...not the biggest ever, though; that honor goes to 2007 with 500 pages). I've been buying--and keeping--these since 1995.
The new issue--available on your local newsstand right now, and also at Barnes and Noble and--but don't blink, they might be gone soon--Borders--has a couple of good articles, the best of which is Sheila Weller's look back at Thelma and Louise, "The Ride of a Lifetime." This is one thing the VF Hollywood issues do very well: long, focused articles on movies of the past. In fact, they've collected a whole book full of them: Vanity Fair's Tales of Hollywood: Rebels, Reds, and Graduates and the Wild Stories Behind the Making of 13 Iconic Films (whew...that title alone is close to 352 pages, I think).
One thing the VF Hollywood issues do very badly (or very well, depending on your point of view, I guess) is their annual blowjob to some Hollywood fat cat. This year it's the fattest cat of all, the indestructible Harvey Weinstein, a man so totally devoid of personal appeal, he doesn't deserve such treatment (nor a blowjob). Also included in this issue is the usual beautiful photo portfolio of new, old, surprising and not-so-surprising stars and other assorted Hollywood types; a "Hollywood's Top 40" power list. (Didn't this used to be a cover-featured list of 100 people? Has the economy hurt that much that it's marked down 60%?); a really long article about former Tonight Show with Johnny Carson producer Freddy de Cordova's wife, Janet, who died in 2009 (I mean, really...what's the point...she was a nobody even alive...this is the kind of article I had hoped would disappear from the pages of VF once Dominick Dunne died); separate articles about both sex symbols and pudgy funny guys, then and now, plus star-crossed star lovers; a long article by Peter Biskind about Mel Gibson, which doesn't really decide whether he's the asshole of the universe or unfairly maligned; an article on Mark Wahlberg and his producing partner (kind of a handjob compared to the Weinstein one), and a back-of-the-book profile on Lauren Bacall.
So, yeah...there's really only one great article and one good one (the Bacall one). The rest is pretty much "meh." But one thing this issue does remind me of is that there are no really good American movie magazines anymore. The British imports--Empire, Total Film--don't count. I still miss Premiere, which was hit and miss for many years, but at least it was ours. I suppose print is almost dead anyway, so maybe it'll be up to the iPad and similar tablet-based computers to come out with something that includes video along with articles and stunning photos. Until then, we'll always have Vanity Fair in February.
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