Retard

Because her baduy image has gotten so dreadfully laos -- after the young people realized rather belatedly that she has absolutely no talent and that she's ugly and that there is absolutely no point in dressing up like toys and sugary food -- Jolina Magdangal has decided that the next hip way to go is to become seven years old.

Air and bubbles

It's confirmed. Regine Velasquez has a hormonal imbalance that keeps her perpetually PMS-ed. As in bloated, grumpy, acting like she's seventeen, and with a constant nagging desire to wear bad-fitting, lopsided, filmy, ruffly, pointless fashion. Even her navel is actually trying to disappear from embarrasment into that flabby stomach.

Hopeless

If Aiza Seguerra finally decided she didn't want to be a lesbian anymore and then got married to Oscar the Grouch, this creature would be their issue.

Take note. This photo was apparently taken in a studio, and he apparently took great pains in styling his hair and practicing his "mildly seductive subtle half-smile." Gawd. Why did he even bother?

Why do I even bother?

Not you too, Korina

The first thing to understand when working in front of a camera is that it always makes you look about ten pounds fatter.


The second thing to understand when working in front of the camera is that when you are already chubby off-camera, plus the ten pounds added to you on-camera, wearing a rumpled looking light-colored blouse with a button on the verge of popping and a strange neckline that looks like craft paper shaped to go over a grade-schooler's art project and accentuated by a limp-looking flower-feather-thing over one armpit is simply a mortal sin.

Oh so you think you're a queen-something

I know I should be more supportive of Pops, as she, after all, is the jilted wife who, when she began having romantic affairs with younger men post-jilting and had repackaged herself into a hot performer in midriff tops and bell-bottoms and psychedelic color and an embarassingly large tonnage of beads and glitter, had been condemned to death -- mostly by grandmothers and spinsters -- as if she didn't deserve some fun of her own.

She does, of course. No doubt about that. She's our Demi Moore, and we don't question Demi Moore.

But since we at Laitera have no soul, I am going to bash her anyway. The jacket is Raymond Lauchengco circa 1987. The strange net-like non-blouse is Pilita Corrales' hair protector for when she sleeps. The knitted head-thing is Jolina Magdangal back when people hadn't yet realized that she has no talent. The entire effect is not Concert Queen; it's Japayuki. Take off the black bra underneath Pilita Corrales' hairnet and it's Abante tabloid front cover. Take off the black bra and the jacket and it's Pegasus Pinup Girl.

And the hair! The hair is Kris Aquino about four years ago, dry and damaged from too much rebonding in Hong Kong when Ricky Reyes still hadn't gotten his clutches on the technology and made it available to a million desperate women who are now suffering from massive hair loss, which makes me wonder if Ricky Reyes does have the real rebonding technology right because Kris Aquino's hair, rebonded over and over in Hong Kong, is still intact. Or so I think.

Anyway. Pops. I don't care if you used to go out with Troy Montero. I don't care if you've shagged Brad Turvey. Please stop trying too hard to be young and hip because you're not anymore.

Candidate # 2,543

"I look so sexy. Do you like my breasts? They are so special. They are unique! They are the only breasts in the world that are capable of falling in love. In fact, they have fallen so madly and deeply in love with my collarbones that they are gradually creeping up over my chest to finally unite with the beloved collarbones forever in married bliss somewhere near my throat. I am so proud. I am so happy. I am filled with so much love. And someday, when my collarbones and my breasts, in their married ecstacy, end up throttling me to death, it will be all worth it and I will die happy. I pray for world peace. I Thank you."

Vamos a comer

Strange how in Philippine showbiz where people with bad breast implants run about half-naked, someone as ravishing and natural as Iza Calzado felt at the last minute before leaving her house for the Manila Filmfest Awards that she was too exposed. Why did she have to throw this black mosquito net over a perfectly good gown? I'm sure she has regretted the decision, as she looks a bit ashamed in this photo.

Or is she ashamed because she is standing next to Wendell Ramos, who is dressed in a tablecloth?

A portent of things to come

There's something about this photo that really makes my heart ache with such deep and profound sharpness. It's not the fact that Kris Aquino appears to be wearing nothing but underwear again -- never mind that there's two layers of it -- and that the male model looks like he has a tummyache from diarrhea because he ate too much of the grilled squid that his gay admirer brought from the province, and that he is now wondering whether he has been poisoned or bewitched to love the gay guy and bring him back to his own country and marry him in a same-sex wedding. It's not the fact that she seems to feel no connection at all with the male model. It's not the fact that they both seem to feel cold with all that wind blowing over their naked / almost-naked bodies in the cold, unforgiving light that, if you ask me, seems hardly conducive to the act that their pose seems to be hinting is going to happen shortly. It's not the fact that Kris looks rather uncomfortable in her pose and is in danger of getting a stiff neck. It's not even the fact that she looks either bored or tired.

Maybe it's the fact that Kris once declared on The Buzz that she wants to be a Senator.

Don't hold your breaths for this one

The ten key qualities to being a sultry singer:

1. You should either dye your hair a dark blonde or get highlights. Your hair should be either long and straight or long and wavy or short and wavy, but never short and straight. Whatever. The secret is in the hair color. It should not be your real hair color. (Note that Jennifer Lopez wasn't a sultry singer until she got highlights.)
2. You should show a whole lot of leg.
3. You should show a whole lot of shoulders. Better if you can pretend that a teensy weensy strap has fallen off a shoulder and then pretend that you didn't know it.
4. You should have a french manicure.
5. You should have a cleavage.
6. You should be able to contort yourself into ridiculous poses that forbid you to breatahe during photo ops and make it look as if you were feeling very very comfortable, as comfortable as if you were all sprawled over a soft, pillow-covered bed after breakfast on a lazy Sunday morning while dressed in your favorite ratty pajamas and wearing no makeup and with no one else to see you except your cat.
7. You should be either unattached, or be in a long-term relationship but be able to declare openly that in that long-term relationship you call the shots and you have absolutely no plans to ever have children from this long-term relationship or any other long-term relationships that could come next. You could also be divorced and a mother, which will place you above all the other sultry singers because you have won the battle over stretch marks, sagging breasts, untoned skin, and motherly bearing.
8. You should spend your weekends in Boracay.
9. You should wear a whole lot of glittery waist chains.
10. And oh, yes, you should let out more breathing than voice.

Diyos ko day, Juday

Maybe it's pre-wedding jitters. Maybe she's really, truly blind because she's in love. Maybe it's what Ryan Agoncillo wanted. I simply refuse to believe that Judy Ann Santos was in her right mind when she stuck this royal blue nurse-cap on her head. Maybe it was her stylist's idea, in which case the stylist should be fired. Imagine ruining a perfectly good pictorial with that cap. And the royal blue with fuchsia is just so Cyndi-Lauper-slash-Duran-Duran-slash-That's-Entertainment. But on second thought, if the cap were the same color as the dress, would it look any better?

Hmmm.

No.

This reminds me of Sharon Cuneta and The Sharon Cuneta Show during its Dobie Arana days, when Sharon would be made to wear a perfectly good suit which would be ruined by something really off, like a green track stripe running up the side of the pants, or a vile-looking bunch of tassels hanging off the right breast of an otherwise perfectly acceptable blouse. It's like there was an irresistible urge to uglify what could have been rather nice. Which made me wonder whether Dobie Arana really liked Sharon or was secretly envious of her so she simply had to keep ruining the outfits and justify it as fashion while remaining on the Megastar's payroll. Which further made me wonder whether the Megastar was blind not to see that she was being uglified.

I see history repeating itself in this photo.

Holy

It looks like she woke up in the morning suffering from a combination of a hangover and amnesia and then went out of the house wearing her nightie and then somehow found herself inside Quiapo Church. In the divine presence of the beggars and the geriatric gropers and the vendors of rosary beads, heavy-duty cleaning sponges, and "Pamparegla," she suddenly realized she was, horror of horrors, indecent. In public! So she ran to the nearest saint and stole its dainty and see-through lace veil -- donated by some rich matron who is storming the dieties with material gifts trying to negotiate with them over the soul of her husband who is bedding some starlet -- and wrapped it around her waist.

I'm completely at a loss, however, for the short, misplaced wrap that looks like scrap material. Maybe that's the first thing she stole before the lace veil but decided she didn't want to be too covered up and then draped it over her elbows intead and proceeded to rob the poor lace-veiled saint.

But with hangover-ed amnesiacs, who knows? And what do I know anyway? If anything, this could be just bad fashion design from yet another uninspired gay guy who also owns a beauty parlor called "Eau de Toilette" or "Showers by (name of gay guy)" and hankers, all too predictably, after Piolo Pascual.

Classic

Of course it's absolutely impossible to make lait to Melanie Marquez except in retrospect, when the tides of fashion had already taken a turn towards the next more tasteful level, and previous photos of her wearing fashion from the eighties are now nothing but a bad reminder of how stupid humanity had been to think that shoulder pads were actually cool and the long bulbous blouse with a very wide elastic garter attached to its hem pretending to be some sort of skirt was actually sexy.

That said, we would like to reiterate that we simply loooove Melanie because she is so classically beautiful and ageless and adorable and her brother is not a book and therefore should not be judged.

Bloodline

Remember when Joey Albert used to guest in variety shows in the mid-nineties when she was trying to stage a comeback (which totally bombed, anyway) and all she could ever wear were dark-colored cocktail dresses with shoulder pads, elbow-lenth sleeves, and with unforgiveably stiff flaring skirts with pointed hems that ended around her knees and a stuck out a foot from her body, and anybody who had to stand anywhere near her had to be almost an arm's length away because they all had to abide by the boundaries of her skirt, which, if not respected, will, with its stiff and starched hem, puncture the knees of the disrespectful albeit unfortunate person tasked to stand near her?

Well, this dress is its daughter.

Denial king

"People, I am telling you. I am NOT exhausted. I am NOT sweating profusely from wearing this fake leather jacket that makes me look like one of those callboys in Manila By Night and I am sure you all feel like I copied Avril Lavigne's way of wearing ties and of course I didn't. My beautiful wife Michelle van Eimeren just burned all my collared shirts this morning in a vain attempt to make me admit that I have had a series of affairs, which I DIDN'T, so I figured, why not wear this unwashed puke-colored t-shirt that I found under the couch on which I have been sleeping for months because Michelle won't let me in the bedroom and then use a tie with it, and then maybe I'd look a little bit more decent. And I simply had to wear these fiercely orange sunglasses because I don't have any rose-colored glasses, and at this point in my career and in my life I need rose-colored glasses to delude myself into thinking I still have a marriage but since I don't have rose-colored glasses these orange ones will do, and come to think of it, these orange ones would do even better than rose-colored ones because at least there is the possibility that I could go blind because of the fierce orange glare I have to stare through and then that'll be my punishment and everything will be all over because then I won't be able to see this horrible, horrible world.

"God, I'm exhausted. It's too hot in here."

The fish in the skillet

I don't care if she is young and nice-looking and that everybody seems to love her and that to most people's eyes she is an angel for having a real talent for mimicking Celine Dion's voice which strangely gives her the right to be a higher-level Jolina Magdangal and a thinner and non-butterfly-winged Regine Velasquez (who is, incidentally, generally considered of lower quality for trying to imitate Mariah Carey rather than some higher-pedigreed singer) and that wholesome people admire her for not having revealed her belly button on national television just yet.



But this dress makes her look like a strange tattered fish. The shoes look like the tail of a fish, and it doesn't help that the dress seems to have a short cape-like thing draped over her left shoulder, which makes her look like, well, a caped tattered fish. Hardly something befitting a Celine Dion wannabe. But at least she's not mimicking Celine Dion fashion-wise in this outfit. What a relief.

Everybody please rise

I admit, it's hard to make lait to Assunta de Rossi for the simple reason that we generally like her for her awesome natural beauty, her awesome natural knack for looking good in anything she wears, and her awesome natural lack of breeding.

But just because of she has that awesome naturalness at achieving whatever goal she puts her pretty little head into, including snagging the short and portly and uber-rich Jules Ledesma, doesn't mean she could get away with everything.



After all, one should not decorate a national flag with black lace and then actually wear it to an event. Bad enough that we don't even know what country the flag stands for, in which case we just assume it's a flag decorated with black lace and reworked as a shapeless dress, which is even worse. Better if it had been the Philippine flag, sequinned and beaded and stuck to death with feathers, and then Assunta could have looked more definitive, like Bjork by way of Larry Flynt trying to be Tessa Prieto-Valdez

Ibitin daw siya

Angelica Jones, don't compete with the Christmas tree. You'll never win.

Look Ma, no tail!

If you want to be taken seriously as a sexy starlet, hija, I think the first thing that you should do is to give up wearing schoomarm shoes. This is the most disgusting pair of shoes I've ever seen since the Mary Poppins movie. (Unless that's your point, but somehow I get that it isn't.)

However you should fear for your life because your hideously uneven skin tone might drive the jeepney driver to drive over you, his possible arousal at seeing your exposed bush notwithstanding.

Splat!

It looks like Regine was trampled and pushed over a shoreline cliff by a mob that was desperate for her autograph and then she fell right into a devastating oil spill. Granny Auring, however, will never regret that she ever lent Regine her favourite long dress with 3/4 sleeves and a ruffled neckline. Although it has shrunk a bit, it's amazing that this dress retained its original color. The fabric is definitely water-proof & oil-resistant.

While Regine's hair is soaked in crude oil, Granny's dress is definitely the winner. It survived the Japanese war, the Ormoc landslide, the Pinatubo eruption, this particular celebrity oil spill, and it will survive the next hundred years. Long live the dress!

Now Regine, get yourself peeled off that rockface before you start to grow into it and never have a future of having long and dyed hair and wear gowns with plummeting necklines and ruffled blouses revealing your untoned abs in an effort to look like Mariah Carey, and perform in your concerts barefoot and pretend to be a butterfly.

Oh. I forgot. You're already doing all that now. Looks like you have gotten yourself peeled off that rockface after all.

Running... where?

Eternally stuck in the eighties, this Running Priest probably thinks, among other things, that he is the soul reincarnate of Richard Simmonds who ruled the fitness videos of the 80's.

Frankly, his shorts are too short for a priest. The sleeveless tank-top belongs to Father Grajeda -- and he wants it back! (It holds much sentimental value for Fr. Georgie because that's what he wore during his seminarian days at the Holy Rosary Minor Seminary.) Furthermore, the state of his baseball cap is a disgrace to athletes and baseball-cap-wearing-non-athletes everywhere. The visor is flipped upward -- a proof of bad fitting and insufficient lining.

Maybe the real reason he is running is that he is trying to get away from a looming excommunication because of his atrocious fashion crimes (those shorts are definitely sacrilegious). But then again, if he hadn't begun running in the first place, he wouldn't be wearing this outfit. Which is which? I don't know anymore. I'm so confused. I now have a headache. See? Being a Running Priest doesn't solve problems at all. It only creates more, ah, intellectual suffering.