• by Larry Dobrow , Featured Columnist, November 1, 2005

As best as I can tell, the intended appeal of Us Weekly is best captured by one of its regular features, "Stars--They're Just Like Us!" In it, we're treated to photos of a post-jog Matthew McConaughey resting in the sun, Jay Leno gassing up one of his 62,275 roadsters and Ben Stiller's wife shopping for what appears to be some sort of ornate walnut bangle. Each of the photos is helpfully appended with blurbs like "They Chill Out On Steps!", as if to say, "See? It's not all film premieres and Frosted Lobster Flakes for breakfast." By deflating and--cough! cough!-- humanizing celebrities, then, the magazine helps make Janey and Johnny Lunchpail feel better about their minimum-wage gig at the sardine cannery.

So, to answer your question: no, of course it's not possible to take Us Weekly seriously. Its common-man pretentions aside, the magazine does little beyond document, in snapshots and really small words, the week in unflattering celebrity photography. No hints, tips, advice or lessons are imparted; you can practically feel yourself getting dumber with each turn of the page.

As a vacuous Boswell of All Things Celebrity, though, the title remains as passably and dependably diverting as a "Law & Order" rerun. And let's be honest: if you don't know what you're getting into when you pick up a copy of Us Weekly, you're probably not fit for jury duty in the first place, so to speak.

Headlined by a beatifically grinning Katie Holmes, the November 7 issue delivers precisely what one might expect. There's the requisite Brad-and-Angelina update, a skimpily attributed report on Jennifer Aniston's reunion with her long-estranged mom and grainy stills of celebs in pre-stardom horror flicks. Throw in PG-rated "Love Lives" reports and a few snarky "Fashion Police" asides (which, as best as I can tell, consist mainly of comparing celebrity duds to curtains), and you've got a splendid companion for those harrowing eight minutes between arriving at the gate and boarding the plane.

The Holmes/Cruise cover story merits a few giggles, what with its straight-faced commentary from a Beverly Hills fertility specialist (on how far along Baby Scientology likely is) and from two "body language experts" (who opine that recent shots of the pair embracing signify that Lloyd's of London has agreed to underwrite any couch-trampolining-related trauma... OK, not really). Generously, the mag credits 14 journalists (one writer, 13 reporters) with the story's prodigious output of around 2.5 pages of text and captions.

From there, Us Weekly reveals that Mary J. Blige enjoys "24" (no!) and chronicles the "mommy styles" of six celebrities--one of whom, former "ER" gal Ming-Na, appears actually to have spoken directly with somebody at the magazine. That's actually what galls me most about Us Weekly: I realize that 12 junior staffers lose their jobs every time the magazine gets beaten to a scoop by the competition and that celebs aren't exactly forthcoming with news about their personal lives, but come on. At least pretend that the information you convey comes from a source more reputable than the nanny's barista. Somebody has to realize how silly it looks when an innocuous quote like "Kate [Hudson] held [her son's] hands and let him hop across all the lounge chairs" is attributed to "a witness." Yeah, I can see why a budding celeb-spotter wouldn't want his or her name attached to such calumny.

Great--now I'm all mad and stuff, just like Jay-Z must've been after he learned that he'd been gently zinged in "She's Dressy, He's Messy!" Enough. If you're into exclamation points and delighting in the successes and failures of people who wouldn't deign to remember your name, Us Weekly is the mag for you.

Lots of people love this crap. I don't. I'm going to go dunk my head in the sink now.