At the beginning it seemed like a boring red carpet: navy blues, blacks, not much else, all safely covering body parts. It was a very business-y feeling Screen Actors Guild red carpet. Then color and asymmetrics started appearing, Sofia Vergara flirted with Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston wore a golden gown slashed down the middle, the men wore fitted, sexy tuxes in black and blue, and a boring office party suddenly felt a whole lot livelier. However, watching the red carpet coverage on E! was not notable for its coverage of the dresses, good or bad, but for the loopy, crazy presentation of Maria Menounos, whose journalistic rigor and lexicon extended to telling everyone and everything they looked “stunning.”
Menounos flattered them, she asked boring questions, she reminded them they all knew each other, she made you weep longingly for the next commercial break. She talked to herself, she talked to air as soon as they walked away, she couldn’t stop talking and saying “stunning,” and “you’re amazing.” And “you’re hot.” She behaved like a malfunctioning Stepford Wife. E! is a bit weird: Everyone looks “great” when an E! presenter stands opposite them on the red carpet, then Monday night on Fashion Police the same actors are all sartorially sliced and diced. Anyway, fashion-watchers plead with E!: No More Menounos. Bring back that tower of intellect and oral brevity, Giuliana Rancic.
Julianna Margulies kicked past so much drab competition—lots of navy blues and blacks—with this beautiful royal blue Giambattista Valli gown.
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Ra-ra glamor with Julianne Moore in green Givenchy. She looked a little lost in it, but also amazing. And it’s Julianne Moore, so we’ll shut up.
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How to Get Away With (Fashion) Murder, and Look Fabulous. Viola Davis was resplendent in a Max Mara white halterneck gown.
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After her Golden Globes fringed, tiered disaster, Keira Knightley in purple Erdem and an earring "cuff" looked beautiful.
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Star wears business-like black trouser suit. Star makes anti-glam effort. Star rules. Star is Julia Roberts. Designer Givenchy.
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SAG Awards winner and wonderful speech-maker Uzo Aduba from Orange Is the New Black shows how yellow should be worn, in this fantastic Angel Sanchez dress.
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Emmy Rossum goes for fairytale chic in Giorgio Armani Privé.
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Michael Keaton had to put up with Rambling Fool Menounos going on about his hot son. We say: Michael Keaton is handsome enough on his own terms, in tighty whities running around Times Square, and also in this tux.
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Actor Ellar Coltrane from Boyhood does handsome young-man tux.
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Hallelujah, 19-year-old Ariel Winter from Modern Family looks like a 19-year-old person, not a starving stick insect, in this white Zac Posen dress. She was funny, too.
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Natalie Dormer’s floral Naeem Khan dress is curious and beautiful. She was also one of the more eloquent interviewees to suffer the hell that was Maria Menounos on the E! red carpet, so as far as we’re concerned, Natalie D wins.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal in Thakoon. She had to endure E!’s Ross Mathews asking what “meritocracy” meant, and to her great credit resisted giving him the biggest eye-roll ever.
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Felicity Jones of The Theory of Everything divided opinion in this baby pink Balenciaga gown. E! thought it “fabulous,” but they’d think someone wearing a bedsheet with mollusk shit all over it was fabulous, so we should ignore them. Alexandra Jacobs of The New York Times called it a “Band-Aid.” Sorry, Felicity, we’re Team Jacobs.
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Joanne Froggatt from Downton Abbey, extremely lovely and in an extremely glamorous and safe and boring Honor frock.
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Sarah Hyland from Modern Family in Vera Wang. Nice, and that was it.
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Good grief, Amanda Peet comes as a Liqorice Allsort in J. Mendel: crepey design, oddly cut, and she still had to run the gamut of the dunce-questioning of the E! red carpet. “Brave Endurance” fruit basket for Ms. Peet.
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Maria Menounos poses for the cameras in Romona Keveza. In front of them, presenting red carpet coverage for E!, she put various celebrities and the viewing public through seven rounds of hell. “You’re stunning,” she said over and over again. “You’re amazing.” “You’re hot.” We beseeched our screens for it to end. But on and on it went.
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Actor Ethan Hawke and girlfriend Heather Rutledge. Ethan, you are our red carpet pin-up: a handsome filler of tux, eloquent, passionate, seemingly lovely.
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Emma Stone wears Dior: Men’s tuxedo meets femme-netting-thingy. It worked (mostly) and not worked (a little), but both with swagger. And she was just so cool and fantastic opposite “you’re-fantastic”-Menounos, we went a little mushy. Still more when we saw her deep in conversation with Meryl Streep on the red carpet. *double swoon*
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