To the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Institute Gala on Monday, May 5, themed “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy,” Gossip Girl star Blake Lively wore black gloves and a snug black Ralph Lauren gown involving feathers. She said that her favorite superhero was “Spider-Man. Cause he’s awesome! He gets to swing around, and, I don’t know....” Accompanied by her onscreen (and rumored offscreen) boyfriend, actor Penn Badgley, Ms. Lively had come straight from a photo shoot and had done her hair in the car. “I have no idea what I look like,” she said, adding: “I’ve always seen pictures growing up, being a teenager, and thought, ‘I’d love to go to that, a night just to dress up in ball gowns.’ And here I am!”

Here everyone was, at least in fashion and showbiz and society circles. Oh, to have the superpower of invisibility and be able to flit up the stairs and into the great halls beyond!

Vogue editor and hostess Anna Wintour was the first to arrive, at 6:33 p.m., wearing a Chanel gown adorned with what appeared to be seahorse tails and accompanied by daughter Bee Shaffer, who required two men, including the formidable Vogue editor at large André Leon Talley, to carry the train of her voluminous blue Nina Ricci dress up the stairs.  read more »

Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Wilkinson will tag team as evil CEOs of a pharmaceutical company in Duplicity, a drama written and to be directed by Tony Gilroy. Mr. Wilkinson received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for Michael Clayton, which Mr. Gilroy also wrote and directed. Mr. Thornton (who last starred in... Mr. Woodcock) and Mr. Wilkinson (the rich uncle who gets Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell in trouble in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream) join Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, who play corporate spies, in the movie, according to Variety.

Ed Koch just sent out his review of Charlie Wilson’s War, the new film featuring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Koch, served in congress with Wilson before being elected mayor, offers this interesting anecdote that, unfortunately, is not in the film:

We were on a junket in Israel where he was inspecting the Israeli Navy. He became involved with a female Israeli Naval officer assigned to our party. The Israeli Navy did not approve and reassigned her. Charlie was beside himself with anger. I went to a government official and said, "You are dealing with Israel’s most important non-Jewish friend in the Congress. If you make him angry, that could change. I urge you to return that naval officer to our party." And they did.  read more »

This weekend, across the country, discerning film-going audiences were able to choose between two types of history: the real kind and the fake. Guess which one won?! National Treasure: Book of Secrets (no. 3), which follows the Indiana Jones-like Ben Gates as he tries to clear his family’s name in connection to the Lincoln assassination, raked in over $45 million and easily earned the top spot in the country. But here in the city, it lost out to Mike Nichols’ Charlie Wilson’s War (no. 2), about an obscure congressman and his even more obscure fight to help the Afghans defeat the Soviets during the Cold War, which outearned the Nicholas Cage actioner by $5,000, while playing on one less screen. Cue Cindy Adams: Only in New York, kids!  read more »

Last week, celebrity life coach Patrick Wanis, PhD, wanted to tell our readers his list of the Top Ten Celebrity Meltdowns of 2007.

Today, on the phone with the Daily Transom, he got a little more daring.

First up: recent news that Lindsay Lohan has started to use the paparazzi to her own advantage, setting up and pocketing proceeds from snaps of her own mug.

“I say kudos to her!” he said. “I was thinking last week, Why don’t celebrities just use their brain?”  read more »

Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt think stripping for the camera—any camera—is poor form. But Keira Knightley sure doesn’t seem to mind. For Interview’s December/January issue, the Atonement star says sayonara to her fashionable frippery. (Never mind that she looks like actress Famke Janssen’s evil, thigh-clamping character in GoldenEye on the cover; at least the poor thing doesn’t have Tom Ford chewing on her ear.) But, hey—that’s okay! Human beings are deeper, more complex than just a two-dimensional photo or a clip of their bosoms-n-bums. “People are many different things at once,” Ms. Knightley told the floppy pub. “We can be complete wankers one minute and totally fantastic the next.”

Next! At just 22 years old, Ms. Knightley—who must by now have more magazine covers under her, um, garter than Cindy—thinks of her present self as enjoying a “Hollywood-glamour phase.” Gone are the days, the actress said, of her “girl next door” persona, and thank God for that! “I think it’s wonderful to have those aesthetic fantasies [of Hollywood-glamour]. Those films pretend that you can wake up in the morning with bright red lipstick and perfect false eyelashes and hair,” she said, seemingly forgetting about people like the singer Eve, who needn't pretend at all. “I have always loved being transported to another time and place, and I love to be carried away in a fantasy.” Yup, that is pretty fun.

Those who want to be hauled off to Lala Land by Ms. Knightley, can take a trip to director Joe Wright’s Atonement, which opens on Friday.

Julia Roberts is not a fan of showing her naked bod in front of the camera. But those who enjoyed getting a good, long look at the actress’ legs peeking out of a bubble bath in Pretty Woman (all “nude” scenes came compliments of a sultry body double) will want to see director Mike Nichol’s forthcoming Charlie Wilson’s War. In an interview with E!, Ms. Roberts makes her serious sentiments on skin known, saying, “Listen, there's a reason why you don't see me naked me in movies, you don't see me running around in bathing suits in movie”—that is, until Charlie Wilson’s War opens on December 21—“It’s just not my thing.”

It’s not Ocean’s co-star Brad Pitt’s thing either. After all, the dreamy do-good actor told the BBC last week that he would forego any future nude scenes. The reason? “I don't want to be embarrassed when my kids get old enough to see my films.”

Okay, so baring her own bum has always been off-limits for Ms. Roberts, 40, but apparently kissing Don Johnson on an episode of Miami Vice has not. When an interviewer recently raised the face-blast-from-the-past to the actress and mother of three, she demurred, explaining why the on-screen smooch never happened. “Let me tell you something: I was falling ill while in Miami and ended up with spinal meningitis. Got sick down there, the sickest I've ever been in my life. There's a little-known fact." And we can see why, frankly.

MONDAY

Monday’s future just got a little bit bleaker. Dancing With the Stars (ABC)—whose finale last Tuesday earned the network its best ratings on that night in over seven years—cha-cha-cha-ed out of our lives. CBS canceled their December 10th debates, as the Democratic nominees balked, fearing the bad publicity of a protest by striking news writers. (CBS is hurting: How I Met Your Mother is in repeats, as well as the rest of the network’s sitcoms.) And NBC announced this week that Chuck (NBC, 8 PM) will be replaced by American Gladiators—the original was obviously before its time—on January 7th.  read more »

It's a bird...It's a plane...It's Anna Wintour! “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy,” the name of a forthcoming exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, will also be the theme of the museum's annual Costume Institute gala, where guests are likely to encounter quite the spectacle, reports WWD. Nathan Crowley, who is probably best known for his set designs for movies like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Batman Begins and The Dark Night, has been hired as the museum’s creative consultant for an exhibit, which will launch on May 5, the same night as the costume fête. The exhibit’s superhero theme will also dictate the look and feel of the party—the aesthetics for which Mr. Crowley—along with Raul Avila—will decide. Giorgio Armani will be the gala’s honorary chair, alongside co-chairs George Clooney, Julia Roberts and, of course, Ms. Wintour.

Julia Roberts, mother of three, is worried about the environment and Britney Spears, who she wants to put in her guesthouse and “just take care of.” Ms. Roberts, who will grace the cover of the December issue of Vanity Fair with a rose clamped between her megawatt chompers, tells the magazine:

“You can’t help but be aware, because now we are a home of five people. We make a lot of garbage. How can we make less garbage? This is our plight. I use Seventh Generation (chlorine-free, non-toxic) diapers for Finn and Hazel, and then I was turned on to the (plastic-free, flushable) diapers [for Henry]. It is flushable, but you’ve got to stir that thing! If you don’t really break it all the way up, it doesn’t go all the way down.”

Julia Roberts – “Vanity Fair” December 2007 [Just Jared]