Yes yes, the latest Annie Liebovitz cut & paste beauty --like everyone is there at the same time! Puhleaze (check out that photoshop shadow behind Benedict's shoulder) -- of shiny celebrities with really good PR teams has arrived and we haven't yet discussed it. My bad. Not from lack of interest, mind. So here it is...
The lucky celebs who made it this year: Amy Adams, Channing Tatum, Reese Witherspoon, Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sienna Miller, Oscar Isaac, and Miles Teller.
You may recall that last year's VF cover was unusually diverse in terms of ethnicity but we're back to the usual collection of whiter shade of pale beauties. But I don't want to get hung up on that issue again. Awards Daily already covered it anyway. Let's talk numbers before we dig in to each fold.
Average Age: 34
Oldest to Youngest: Adams (40), Oyelowo (38), Witherspoon (38), Cumberbatch (38), Isaac (35), Tatum (34), Miller (33), Redmayne (33), Jones (31), and Teller (27)
Most Obviously Missing: Where is ubiquitous Jessica Chastain?
Extremely Arguable Rough Length of Stardom: Witherspoon (24 years), Miller (11 years), Adams (10 years), Tatum (9), Cumberbatch (6), Redmayne (5), Jones (4), Isaac (4), Teller (3), and Oyelowo (2)
Cumulative Oscar Tally: 10 nominations and 1 win -- Half of the nominations are Amy Adams. Hee!
Not Virgins: Reese Witherspoon (1999), Sienna Miller (2005), Amy Adams (2008), and Felicity Jones (2012) have all been on the Hollywood Issue cover before.
This magazine cover is dedicated to anyone who ever dreamed of hauling Amy Adams around on their shoulders like a sack of flour. Since Amy needs and Channing both need to be in a musical poste haste this image is doubling as a pitch meeting for a reboot of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But problem: Amy and Reese are a few years older than Channing Tatum so it's totally easier to imagine them being cast as his mother rather than his love interest. Oh Hollywood. Never change.
(There is something weird about Reese's boobs in this image like they're two high and round and I'm only thinking this because they looked so great and natural in her nude scenes in Wild.)
Amy, Chan and Reese are all at the top of their careers so this is obviously one of those Hollywood covers that's not trying to predict the next wave but to illustrate the now. And that's even more true of the fold since all four of these actors have basically just come into their full star power
Eddie Redmayne and his screen wife Felicity Jones are doing a little swinging on this cover because you'll notice it's Benedict Cumberbatch getting cuddly with the Mrs.
David Oyelowo is nearly as shoved into the background on this cover as Miles Teller is (sigh) but at least he gets to touch Eddie Redmayne. Redmayne has played so many gay roles in his career that when I look at this photo of Alan Turning holding his wife I keep imagining that it's just a Savage Grace situation and they'll carry on without her once Felicity joins the Star Wars and Comic Book film franchises.
I'd be most worried about David Oyelowo's career of everyone on this cover except for the fact that somehow Sienna Miller is still kicking around Hollywood and she made the cover again. After years of being a "rising star" she's still more famous for being famous than for any role. Even American Sniper, as huge a hit as that is, can't change that since she's stuck with the ever dull "longsuffering wife" role.
Remember when Oscar Isaac's hair was so super short when we first got really familiar (Drive / W.E.) and who knew it was so curly? You KNOW that Sienna Miller ran her fingers through it at least once while they posed. If they were in fact in the room together. Miles Teller is so isolated in the background (he's the only one not touching anyone) that maybe he wasn't in the room with anyone.
What do we think of the Errol Flynn mustache? From a distance it's cute but I don't think I'd like to see it up close. He's too young for it (the moustache and the Reed Richards role)
AND NOW I'M JUST BABBLING. Let's predict whose career will still be just as healthy in ten years time. I'm going to say Cumberbatch and Tatum as "Most Likely To Keep Succeeding" (and not because they're my favorites of the ten... though I do love Chan and have since She's the Man). I'm not going to predict whose career will be over because that's mean. But maybe you won't be as cuddly in the comments.
Do you like the cover? Don't you wish they would really switch it up one of those years. Like having everyone in bed together a la Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice or in action or group dance pose or something. It's very much the same each year and the only thing they do as variations is whether its co-ed or all girls and whether it's established or "Future Stars". The only radical departures are those awful years when they just put like 3 people on the cover.
No! Ensembles Forever.
My dream cover of the moment (it changes monthly) is all Gallic divas: Deneuve. Binoche. Ardant. Seydoux. Cotillard. Huppert. Etcetera. With honorary Frenchies Scarlett Johansson (she married in) and Jodie Foster (she's fluent). Last months' dream (in honor of Luise Rainer) was an all double Oscar-winning beauties cover: Streep, Blanchett, Foster, Jane Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Sally Field, Maggie Smith, Jessica Lange, and Dianne Wiest. If I'm forgetting someone, don't feel the need to remind me.