First of all: What happened to this month's Vanity Fair? Not "what happened editorially" or "what happened to its high standards of quality" or "what happened -- it was right here a minute ago," but rather, where is it? What happened to it?

Can this spindly pamphlet before us actually be the January 2003 issue of Vanity Fair? Are we sure it's not some promotional literature that simply teases the contents of the actual, much fatter, real issue to come?

We know that magazines bloat and shrink with the seasons, fattening up on pre-Christmas ads before fasting through the lean winter months. But this seems ludicrous. This issue is only 142 pages long. 142 pages! There are issues of Vanity Fair where the table of contents doesn't come until the 142nd page.

Whatever the reason, this is the thinnest issue of Vanity Fair in recent memory. This magazine is the width of a coaster. It's adorexic.

It's not, however, thin on content. Yes, you heard that right -- this is actually a pretty jam-packed-with-goodies installment of Vanity Fair. Don't believe us? Let's head inside, and you can see for yourself.

But first, we direct your attention to the silvery cover. It's Cameron Diaz in a silver dress on a silver background. How silvery! And how unflattering a dress!

Before we proceed, we feel compelled to say something about Cameron Diaz. She's a comely lass with comedic chops, and we've enjoyed many of her movies. Okay, several. Okay, Being John Malkovich. But no disrespect to her. We hesitate to even bring this up. But we've been noticing it for awhile now, and we're genuinely concerned.

How to put this?

Homegirl look rough.

We don't mean "rough" like a Cadillac Escalade. We mean "rough" like "just arrived for the photo shoot off a three-day bender."

Not that we have anything against three-day benders, especially those enjoyed by people with limitless funds and lots of free time. Bend away, we say.

But we figure that, if you look like you've just arrived from a three-day bender on the cover of Vanity Fair -- the shoot for which no doubt employed the nation's most talented stylists, makeup artists, and commando-quality bender-hiders -- well, then we're guessing that you might have been on something more than a three-day bender. Maybe a six-day bender.

And it's not just Vanity Fair. Sure, Ms. Diaz often looks a bit post-bender at various award shows and industry galas, but hey -- that's what award shows and industry galas are for. No one wants to be cogent during a Fred Durst acceptance speech.

But this VF cover called to mind another recent cover featuring Ms. Diaz -- the April 2002 issue of Esquire. Ah yes, here it is. And you know what?

Homegirl look rough.

Not so much like "just flew in from three-day bender" rough as "just awoke from pleasant nap taken to counteract effects of recent three-day bender" rough. But still.

Anyway, that's all we'll say on that matter. She does, admittedly, look quite comely inside Vanity Fair, and not quite so bender-ravaged. Maybe it was the lighting. Maybe silver just isn't her colour. And that dress ain't helping.

Onward.

Since this is Vanity Fair's Tiniest Issue Ever, everything's here, but smaller. "Fanfair, 31 Days in the Life of a Culture"? Four pages. That's 1/8 of a page per day in the life of the culture. What do you want? It's January. Let's move on.

Columns? How about just one. No Hitchens (too busy eviscerating his former co-workers at The Nation), no Wolcott (too busy eviscerating Jonathan Franzen). Just one lonely column, but it's a good one: David Margolick on Israel's policy of targeted assassinations. If you've ever wondered, Wait a second -- is that legal? (The U.S. pulled one of these recently too; or, rather, publicly admitted to pulling one of these recently, too), then you should read this article. It's good. Plus, it's the kind of hearty oatmeal article that Vanity Fair still reliably provides, as balance to its frothy shake of celebrity fun.

Speaking of which: May we present Ms. Cameron Diaz. Or, as the magazine so cleverly announces: Buenos Diaz!

Now, if you're looking to learn anything new about Cameron Diaz, you probably won't. If you're simply looking to look at Ms. Diaz, you definitely can. Like most VF cover profiles, this one provides six glorious pages of photos, virtually uncluttered by any text. What few words there are scamper unobtrusively between the photos like timid church mice searching for shadows.

Of course, this photo-to-word ratio -- and VF's general policy of balancing celebrity froth and self-serious journalism -- means you sometimes get delightful and unintended juxtapositions. Like this one: the writer, Bruce Handy is describing a scene in Gangs of New York that contains "a fight between a dog and a sack's worth of hungry rats" as an analogue for "Scorsese's savage vision of a young America..." Turn the page....

And voilà! No more article (that continues a couple of pages on) but rather a full-page photo of Cameron Diaz in a bikini, having apparently just discarded her spent boy-toy on a nearby deck chair like a soggy beach towel. Wait -- what happened to our savage vision? What happened to our sack's worth of hungry rats?

The rest of the article dispenses the usual wisdom on Cameron Diaz: She's hot, but she likes to burp! She beat 'N Sync in a belching contest on Nickelodeon! People always compare her to Carole Lombard! All of these points were covered in Esquire a few months back, as well as in virtually every piece about her since There's Something About Mary, the film that forever saddled her with a now-requisite descriptor: "a guy's girl."

This is not to say there's no value-added morsels in the Vanity Fair piece. Handy soldiers on valiantly, forced into such painful (though not, in the pages of VF, unfamiliar) segues as "It's a long way from the Five Points to the Chateau Marmont, in Hollywood..."

Or such celebrity-profile shortcuts as analyzing each facial twitch for its clues as to the star's basic essence, as when he writes: "When she smiles, her eyes and teeth react to the hazy, early-afternoon light with the same electricity you might have thought cinematographers and lighting designers spend hours to confect." Her eyes, maybe -- but her teeth? Her teeth react? What is she -- walking around with a mouthful of tiny vampiric chompers? Each one squealing and recoiling at the slightest glimpse of the sun? Shut your lips, Cameron! Must...shut...your...lips!

Handy also emphasizes Diaz's hearty appetite, a must in all female-celebrity profiles. He quotes one associate recalling a time when Diaz "ate like a truck-driver." The associate asks, "How many actresses would eat a two-course lunch when they know they have to spend the rest of the afternoon in a bikini?" This prompted us to wonder: What exactly is a "two-course lunch"? Does soup and a salad qualify?

Sadly, Diaz doesn't mow down on one of these two-course smorgasbords for the benefit of Handy. Instead, she "plays against type by ordering soup and an artichoke." Wait a second -- that's two courses right there! Handy continues, noting that she "then, true to form, scarfs nearly a whole basket of bread." Nearly a whole basket of bread! Call The Glutton Bowl!

Just a few other notes, before we leave the vociferous Ms. Diaz to feast in peace. Handy remarks that Diaz has "secured a place in cinematic history -- and in future Oscar-night nostalgia clips -- three times over: (1) for her delightfully off-key karaoke rendition of 'I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself' in My Best Friend's Wedding; (2) for the 'hair gel' scene in There's Something About Mary; and (3) for her completely gratuitous and utterly winning 'booty' dance in Charlie's Angels."

The hair-gel scene we're willing to concede. And while we doubt that the "booty dance" will go down in "cinematic history," we do admire Ms. Diaz's ability to transform the rather mundane act of a starlet shaking her ass while wearing underpants into something the world regards as revolutionary and brave.

But we really must object to the idea that a single scene from My Best Friend's Wedding, not even the most delightfully off-key ones, will ever, ever make it into an Oscar-night nostalgia clip. And if one does, we'd like to know just what the clips are nostalgizing.

At this point, the article leaps from the colourful middle pages of the magazine to the grey, type-heavy back pages, and we're forced to finish the piece without the distraction of visual aids. We should say, it's not a bad article, on the whole. We don't mean to be unkind. While it mirrors its Esquire predecessor quite closely in its facts, it does not, thankfully, mirror it in its style. Otherwise, you'd have to read sentences like the ones in Esquire -- sentences like: "She is the kind of girl who gets you thinking that you know exactly what kind of girl she is. She's like that, this one is." Thanks for the preamble, granpappy -- now can we get on with the article?

Vanity Fair also serves up a number of enticing options in addition to the Diaz piece. There's a very good piece on the strange and brief friendship of crazy-genius actor Marlon Brando and crazy-non-genius director Tony Kaye. The article is worth reading for two reasons. First, it reveals that Brando nearly bankrupted Mutiny on the Bounty by "repeatedly storming off the set, refusing to learn his lines, and splitting some 50 pairs of pants." (Fifty pairs! You go, Marlon! And there's the name for your definitive autobiography: Marlon Brando: Splitting Some 50 Pairs of Pants.)

Second, it makes Marlon Brando -- at least in contrast with the half-crazy, half-fake-crazy, and all-annoying Tony Kaye -- seem sane and humane.

So the issue is lean, but not without its charms. It should, at least, tide you over until the magazine balloons out again come summer. Or, at least, until next month's cover story in GQ: "Mon Diaz! Mon Dieu! The Babe Who Loves To Belch."