First off, we have to admit: we stopped reading Vanity Fair a long while back. Yes, it sounds like heresy given that this site is, you know, dedicated to celebrities and Vanity Fair is, you know, the Gutenberg Bible of starfucking.

We'd always had a love-hate-love relationship with VF and we're not sure what finally put us off for good: Christopher Hitchens's long-winded missives from Blowhardsylvania, as he was sent out like an errand boy to revenge Graydon Carter's petty grudges. (We remember one sad article awhile back where Hitchens did a bunch of stupid things that are now outlawed in New York, like sitting on a crate by a fishmonger's, then crowing about how absurd it all was, while all we could think was, Dude, you're sitting on a crate. Christopher, Graydon, we get it: YOU LIKE TO SMOKE. Get over it.)

Or maybe it was because James Wolcott, the tart critic we always enjoyed, was gradually given free rein to write about any old obscure dusty film he happened to exhume from the video store that week, and subsequently morphed into some sort of movie-buff Andy Rooney. Or maybe it was simply Dominick Dunne. Poor, old, strange Dominick Dunne, who wears olde-tyme glasses and cufflinks because he's a serious writer just like Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Except Dunne writes about Gary Condit and Robert Blake and whatever else he finds while rooting through the dumpster out behind the Enquirer's offices.

But whatever the reason, we stopped. Stopped lugging that three-pound perfume-strip delivery system of a magazine home from the newsstand; stopped spending eight minutes ripping out card-stock ads to whittle the magazine down to the ten percent or so of its pages that held actual editorial content; stopped subsidizing Graydon Carter's fetish for old movie stars and photo spreads of sun-bleached tropical destinations that only the super-rich will ever visit -- people like Graydon Carter.

We like celebrities. But we don't like them that much.

Yet, ever your trusty advocates, we sit down each year, even now, with the monstrosity that is the Hollywood Issue. We apologize that this year we're a couple of weeks behind schedule. We had to fit in a few extra squats at the gym just so we could lift the damn thing. Then it took another eighteen hours to find the table of contents.

So strap on your goggles and doublecheck your oxygen tanks. Rope the horses to the post and give the babysitter an extra twenty.

We're going in.

Let's start at the starting: the cover. Really, it's the best part each year anyway. This year, though, it feels both oddly familiar and curiously uninspiring. The women are draped at odd angles and in awkward postures. We adore Cate Blanchett so much that we TiVo her every talk-show appearance, but here she looks like she's been posed by a slightly pervy, hands-on teacher at a life-drawing night-school class. Head just so...this arm back...let me just tuck in that breast...perfect! Now hold it for eight hours! Kate Winslet looks great, even though...well, we won't get into the weight thing here. We liked her then, we like her now, God bless, so long as you're happy. Uma looks like her neck's been broken. Head just so...oops! Then we unfold the cover to find that Claire Danes has been murdered. Even more brutally, her killer stuffed her into a dress she clearly doesn't have the cans to fill out, then gave her a bad dye job. Vicious. Scarlett Johansson clearly has the cans to fill things out. Rosario Dawson, making what feels like her third or fourth or fourteenth Vanity Fair cover appearance, has hands-down the best publicist in Hollywood. Kate Bosworth just woke up and may as well go back to sleep. Sienna Miller could be a hundred other women, including that model from Troy. Ziyi Zhang and Kerry Washington both look fine, though they both look like they're wondering why the hell Rosario Dawson is on the cover.

All right, in we go.

Page 200: Yes, 200. What happened in the first 199 pages? Please don't ask. Suffice to say, it smelled flowery and a lot of it featured Sarah Jessica Parker in khakis from the Gap. On page 200, however, we get to meet hotelier Jeff Klein. Have you ever wondered why hotelier Jeff Klein might -- no, neither have we.

Page 206: Lord knows we love us some Amy Poehler. But we wonder why her Night Table Reading quote about a Bill Hicks biography -- "[his] unflinching and painfully honest comedy seems as relevant today as ever" -- sounds like it was either (a) written by a publicist, or (b) delivered by a jury forewoman in a trial involving Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.

Page 214: Hey, I'm Christopher Hitchens! Whatever you think is right is wrong! I'm a contrarian! I don't hew to any party line! Rinse. Repeat.

Page 220: It's James Wolcott on The Americanization of Emily, "a witty celebration of cowardice [that] must be rescued from obscurity." Timely! Speaking of things that need to be rescued from obscurity, do you remember when drinking straws were made of waxed paper, not plastic? Who decided we needed a fancy new drinking straws?

Page 240: "Moore's War," about Michael Moore. A good primer on Michael Moore, both for and against. For: He's the only Democrat with balls! Against: He's fat and rich! Discuss.

Page 280: Poker is hot! Celebrities like to play poker!

(Honestly, you won't believe how long it takes for this article to say just that, and only that.)

Page 330: You know what this magazine needs? More photos by Annie Leibovitz. Which is good, because we happen to have some extras right here.

Page 354: George Wayne interviews James Lipton, and earns our undying love for this sentence: "Well, there's one thing to be said for James Lipton: He's mastered the art of celebrity anilingus!" Seriously, chipwiches all around. Vanity Fair is, to our knowledge, the only major general-interest magazine to publish the phrase "celebrity anilingus" in at least forty years, or since the heyday of The Saturday Evening Post.

Page 360: Hey, look! My DKNY newspaper comes wrapped in a magazine!

Page 361: What we've all been waiting for. The crowning achievement. The highlight of the issue: Vanity Fair's 2005 Hollywood Portfolio. With "Portraits by Annie Leibovitz and Other Top Photographers." Thanks for joining the fun, Other Top Photographers! Annie can't be everywhere, you know!

Page 362: Another in the rich tradition of Hilary Swank's "Look everyone, I'm a girl!" photos.

Page 364: We don't know why Joe Pesci isn't in this photo and, frankly, we don't want to know. We do think, though, that if you can't get Joe Pesci, you don't do the Raging Bull reunion shot. Even if Jake La Motta already said yes.

Page 366: Jamie Foxx: The Man. And, hey, this year he is. This photo, though, is emblematic of the problem in this entire portfolio. It's not bad, it's just...bleh. You know, nice lighting, sharp clothes, flattered star. But where's David La Chappelle to set something on fire? Where's someone willing to look ugly, or wrestle a dolphin? Where are the hermaphrodites?

Page 368: Shirley Maclaine: Screen Legend, Plastic Surgery Aficionado.

All the pages up to Paul Giamatti: Boring.

Paul Giamatti: Cool.

Imelda Staunton: Nice, but come on. She would have looked so much cooler dressed as Evel Knievel, with some hermaphrodites nearby.

Liam Neeson in black and white in a park! Gael García Bernal standing on a street! Some other people standing around! Marc Foster surrounded by fake vultures!

Okay, we admit we weren't expecting the vultures.

A-ha! Here we go! This is more like it! "The Young Hermaphrodites"! And look -- there's Zach Braff! Who knew?

Oh, wait. It's "The Young Hyphenates." Oh. And it's a bunch of actor/directors in suits striding toward the camera like they're the Reservoir Dogs. Which, we imagine, is the one thing young actor/directors like to do more than anything else. And no one, apparently, enjoys it more than Zach Braff.

Or maybe he's hiding something?

Like his 'n' hers sex parts?

Leonardo DiCaprio in black and white, on a runway. You know, because of The Aviator.

Okay, Joan Allen is hot. And it's not just the ice cube. We would be attracted to her even without the his 'n' hers sex parts. We're not saying she has those. We're sure she doesn't, unlike Zach Braff.

Ellen Barkin?!?

We repeat: Ellen Barkin?!!? Who is she fucking? Oh, right: Ron Perelman.

This photo titled "The Bright Young Things," in which cover stars of tomorrow, like Bryce Dallas Howard and Rachel McAdams sprawl about in gowns like junior debutantes, training for the day when one of them might unseat Rosario Dawson (and any one of them, this year, could have unseated Rosario Dawson -- seriously, wouldn't Bryce Dallas Howard have made more sense?) reminds us of Central Park in the summertime, when they have this big circle of roller-bladers dancing to loud disco, and then, off to the side, there's a smaller circle of people practicing because they're hoping to join the big circle. And every so often, one of them breaks away and joins the big circle and we swear, it's just about the most heartwarming thing you ever did see.

Page ???: Where are we? We're totally lost. And we've landed on a page with Annette Bening dressed as a Harlequin clown. There's a word for portraits like these, and that word is: Error. We know it's supposed to be classy and indicate that she's got real chops and she's not about the glamour, but the fact is she's dressed as a Harlequin clown. And she looks ridiculous.

Also ridiculous: The title is "The Thoroughbred." Which sort of sums it up, because that's obviously also supposed to sound regal and classy and not totally insulting, which unfortunately it kind of does. Has any woman ever enjoyed being referred to as a thoroughbred?

Wait! Whaa--? Why is Laird Hamilton in the Hollywood Portfolio? Oh, we've been wading through AmEx ads for, like, six pages or so.

And that, friends, is that. Sure, there are more words and more pictures and a final page on which the editors pay Olivia De Havilland the ultimate screen-legend courtesy, which is, they photograph her from another room. Not too close with that camera, Graydon! These lights are so unforgiving!

The Hollywood Issue is now as much an Oscar-season tradition as the Oscars themselves. And, like the Oscars, the Hollywood Issue seems appealing at first, like a good night's worth of guilty fun, but winds up just as long, bloated, and boring as every other year, leaving you bleary-eyed, with a back ache, and the vow: never again.

Until next year. Who knows what Rosario Dawson will be up to then?