I am pleased (?) to report that the Bafflement Trend of 2012 is still going strong. As usual, some people got the memo about it and some people just chose to look amazing, but that means there’s something for everyone to make faces at one way or the other, which is what a red carpet is all about.

Let’s open on a Full Baffle:

Kristen Wiig deftly avoided the choker+low-neckline Saloon Girl ensemble mistake (recently made by Jennifer Lawrence, sartorially breaking my heart every time she leaves the house). However, she instead chose a lovely dress with a neckline so high that it bangs against the choker when she walks, which has to be a red flag that you have chosen the wrong accessory for your dress. But that’s putting aside the even bigger flag that, amidst all the ’90s trends that are coming back, the choker is not one, for a very good reason, and that is because LOOK AT IT, KRISTEN. LOOK AT IT.

Moving on.

With Kristen leading the way as Unfortunate ’90s Bride, let’s just tackle all the brides at once, shall we?

BRIDAL DIVISION

Tilda Swinton, So Chic It Doesn’t Even Bother You She Didn’t Wear a Belt Bride.

Rose Byrne, So Chic You Decide Not to Laugh at Her Hair Bride.

Zoe Saldana, Got Her Bridal Portrait Taken in a Delightfully Ramshackle Designer Field Bride.

Viola Davis, Everybody Gasps Bride.

Judy Greer, Such Amazing Accessories You Can Just Tell You Wish She’d Fought Her Mom for the Grey Dress Instead Bride.

Kaley Cuoco, I Missed My Chance to Be a Debutante, but Not This Time, NOT THIS TIME Bride.

Julianna Marguiles, For My Second Wedding I Traded Up and I Am Ecstatic About It Bride.

Octavia Spencer, The Top Half is Actually a Great Cockail Dress and This Skirt Comes Off for the Reception Bride.

Kelly Osbourne, Oh, This Old Thing? I Found it at a Vintage Store, it Belonged to Jean Harlow Bride.

But of course, there were those who eschewed the bridal action in favor of the official color of New York City.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK DIVISION

Tina Fey, looking awesome.

Archie Panjabi, in a drapey bib I can sort of let slide, and some insets of a different texture that nearly put her in Bafflement except I liked her earrings so much she lives here instead.

Emma Stone. The dress is sort of wearing her, but it’s an adorable dress, so that’s not as big a problem as it could be.

Melissa McCarthy. I like the sequin inset and the drape of the bodice quite a bit. After Judy Greer, though, I sort of wanted a more colorful clutch purse here.

Emilia Clarke, who could have removed about three design elements before she left the house, except that without the platinum hair she’s not recognizable yet and she was trying to get her picture taken, so, mission accomplished. (The tendrils of hair getting snagged on her high collar have no such excuse.)

Amber Heard. I think it’s nice that she honored her love of comic books with a Strategic Bosom Cutout. (I love the rest of this look, but that chest fissure reminds me of every fight Rogue ever got into.)

Of course, a lovely color is more likely to be photographed, and no one’s in this for their health, so a lot of ladies went with color. Sometimes there’s only one color that happens over and over (looking at you, Yellow at the Golden Globes), but this time around there was actually a nice variety, and almost everyone looked good! Almost.

ROY G. BIV DIVISION

Michelle Williams. I actually really like the bodice details here, but if you’re going to have an asymmetric hem that shows your shoes, you should probably pick better shoes.

(Note: No yellow dresses. Nobody wanted to have the Golden Globes thing happen again.)

Emily Blunt. Man, were two-shoulder dresses subject to a fine this year? I’m honestly asking.

Ellie Kemper, who paid the $200 for a symmetric dress (in a really great color).

Jessica Chastain…existing inside this dress. (I really do not think there is a lot to her acting, and I cannot get behind this Keira Knightley-esque ubiquity.)

Diane Lane, in a gunmetal blue dress on which she did not have to pay the Two-Shoulder Fine.

Julie Bowen. The color is great, the tassels are great, the idea of the design is great. However, when the visual width of the shoulder treatment is about twice that of the skirt, it makes you look startlingly thin, and that’s pretty much all I take away from this outfit.

Regina King, in a dress so girly that Giselle from Enchanted stopped by to ask her to tone the ruffles down a little. (However, the color is amazing on her and she looks like she loves it, so it’s a win.)

Sofia Vergara. This is where the clutch comment comes back to bite me, because I wanted more interesting clutches, and she brought one, and the jade green is amazing, but the snakeskin is…pass.

Speaking of passing, passing right by this swarm of relative whippersnappers are the grand dames who have been playing this game long enough to either do it right, or not give a fuck. Both of these things are awesome.s

THE PLEASE, NEWCOMERS, PLEASE DIVISION.

Jessica Lange, wooing me effectively with sequins.

Glenn Close, working Full Glam to great effect.

Meryl Streep, “Oh, sorry, is this dress a little weird? I couldn’t quite hear what you said about it because I’m Meryl fucking Streep.”

People who do not deserve to stand within fifteen feet of Meryl Streep include everyone in:

THE GLEE DIVISION

Lea Michele, we know your vagina is famous. Put it away.

(Pictures of her always make me laugh, and then make sort of a sad face, because her public persona is Former Vegas Showgirl Trying to Prove She’s Still Got It, and I do not know why someone who is barely old enough to rent a car by herself needs that.)

Dianna Agron, in a beautiful color and classic shape.

Naya Rivera, who manages to make Bombshell look a lot more natural than some people whose names rhyme with Blea Schmichele, and who is singlehandedly subsidizing the double-sided tape industry this evening.

And Jane Lynch, who looks great in this. She has a tendency to pick a lot of dress and then look uncomfortable, but this is simple, nicely tailored, and the perfect color for her.

And of course, stranger even than Glee’s success, there is…the Bafflement.

BAFFLEMENT DIVISION

Gretchen Mol. The more I looked at this dress, the more I wanted to like it, and wish someone else had worn it, because for whatever reason, on her that collar just looks like Weightlifter Neck.

“I am going to this fancy acting event,” said Busy Phillips, flipping through her collection of beachy cover-ups. “If I wear a dress that’s only nice, no one will take my picture. And yet, I want them to! What am I going to do? WHAT am I going to do…?”

Heather Morris IS an extra from the wedding scene in Children of Dune!

Jennifer Carpenter. The thing about her dress is this: I completely see and accept the bodily-interior theme of the beading. Ribs and sternum outline? I’m with you. Boob flowers? If you insist. Pelvis flowers? Sure thing. But if you’re going to do that, you cannot stop at the knee. I want glittering tibia and fibia, I want another big circle with anchoring flowers at the side of the knee, I want the works. If you cut it off at the knee, it’s just a too-casual cocktail dress with pelvic flowers, and that, Jennifer Carpenter, is nobody’s friend.

So many dresses, yikes! And yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Head on over to Yahoo! (from whence these photos came) to check out the full spread!

For the Golden Globes, many people decided to keep the baffle in the details, so mostly-lovely garments are supplanted by a single rogue element that was clearly designed to make my heart hurt.

And no one was immune from Baffle Fever. Not even Tilda Swinton. NOT EVEN TILDA.

I could not love 80% of this more – the shoulders, the sleeves, the tailoring, the silhouette of the skirt are all great. A case could even, maybe, be made for the color, though I would have liked to see it a greyer, less Easter Egg pale. But something about the skirt-matching sash disaster make her look like a mother of the bride from SyFy’s Children of Dune, and that is no place you want to be, Tilda. Trust me.

Other people’s attempts to baffle me with their outfits under the cut!

But lest you think the whole red carpet was flooded with tailoring issues last night, it’s not true!

LOOKING AWESOME DIVISION, where everyone’s a winner!

Connie Nielsen, who manages to look like every movie where a lady in a dressing gown has excused herself for two minutes and come out casually saying, “Will this be all right?” and the strings section goes batshit with glee.

Kelly Macdonald. The sequins had such depth of color, and I am a sucker for this silhouette (which Amy Poehler also wore to great effect last year).

Viola Davis! This is a very strange pose (as if people were shouting, “But does your dress have a slit in it? IT’S IMPORTANT, WE NEED TO KNOW” until she gave in), but in normal poses this was a great goddess dress.

Julianna Marguiles, who is wearing a gorgeous smoky-purple dress, amazing emerald earrings, and exactly the expression I would be wearing if I looked like Julianna Marguiles.

Taissa Farmiga! I could do with a slightly more purple shade of fawn (I bet this looked lovely in person but photographed a little flat), but there’s texture in the bodice, she’s not standing in a puddle of her own skirt, and it looks like she can breathe. Proceed!

This could be any photo of Kate Beckinsale from the last seven years, when she discovered light neutrals and her makeup artist, but why fix what’s not broken, I guess!

See also: Sofia Vergara, who I have rarely seen without this silhouette. However, the skirt has gorgeous texture and movement, which is what a skirt like that is for, and the color is great, so it works.

However, many more ladies this year received Bafflement Memos than not, and most of the rest of the dresses had something about them that made me tilt my head like the RCA dog.

In fact, there’s an entire division that we should just get out of the way.

YELLOW DIVISION

I have nothing against yellow. Michelle Williams wore mustard in one of my favorite Oscar dresses ever. Cate Blanchett wore a daffodil yellow once that was lovely. However, this year, the only yellow dresses to be had came in Tweety Bird Delight, and that was it. And the Tweety Bird lobby was powerful enough that it was EVERYWHERE.

As much as it pains me to say it, I think Maria Menounos did it best – a color like this should probably speak for itself, and keeping the lines clean was a nice call.

I also like how Lauren Miller handled it:

I enjoy the detail at the bodice, though her little standee flap in front was a Stump Everyone entry, because surely in your dressing room you turned from side to side, saw that it looked ever so slightly like the prow of a ship, and went, “You know what? Perfect.”

Paula Patton looks like the prettiest half-melted crayon in the box!

Missi Pyle saw what was happening from the glitzy hotel room in which she was getting ready, looked at her own yellow dress, and said, “I’m going to look different from those other yellow dresses, dammit!” Then she yanked the gold sheer curtain right off the window, twisted a rosette in the limo, and wandered in front of a thousand cameras.

I actually think I might have liked that dress best right up until it imploded. But Missi Pyle was far from alone in this; many a dress last night was playing a game of One of These Things is Not Like the Others.

THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS DIVISION

Laura Linney. The color is gorgeous, the folding in the bodice looks interesting and not like the dress wilted, which can be tricky on this kind of dress, and the bell shape works with the fabric, but the fold at the waist that runs down part of, but not all of!, the skirt looks like every seventh-grade sewing proejct where you accidentally sewed your sleeve to the skirt when all you were trying to do was hem the collar and now you have to pick out eight thousand stitches.

Jodie Foster. What a lovely color on you! I like this silhouette! I am a fan of sequins! The bead trim is…okay, I guess, if I don’t have to think about it long! But what, exactly, are you trying to draw the curtain back on?

Kelly Osbourne. I love the hair, and I actually love the bodice, too (hopefully those darts are only unfortunate from this angle), and there would be nothing wrong with the skirt except that, when you have a stiff fabric and the dress is six inches too long, you are standing in a puddle of what instantly looks like upholstery.

Freida Pinto, this color is lovely. Does it come in dress fabric?

Octavia Spencer. Good length, good fit, good amount of glitzy on the front without being overwhelming. Wish she’d pulled the sleeves a little more off the shoulder.

Emily Watson, this necklace is lovely. Are you shitting me with this dress color?

Nicole Ritchie, who has great herringbone texture on this dress, and a swimsuit neckline that ruins it.

Morena Baccarin would like to remind everyone that she has breasts.

Zooey Deschanel would like to remind everyone that she’s a retro darling.

Nayta Rivera, stop trying to make smocked turtlenecks happen. They’re not going to happen.

Amy Poehler, the next time Emily Watson gives you dress advice, don’t listen.

Elizabeth McGovern, wearing the top of a nice dress, and the bottom of a very questionable one.

Local medalist in the “Too Much of a Good Thing” subdivision, Dianna Agron, whose bodice is AMAZING OH MY GOD, and whose skirt is a semi-transparent performance piece about the Christmas decorations at the Norwegian Cultural Center in Springfield.

Michelle Williams, this is a lovely dress that looks great on you. Whoever told you to wear that headband is not a real friend.

Emma Stone. I like this dress, actually. I like it a lot! I just question the engineering of side of the bodice where the material is just randomly unsecured and getting scrunched up everywhere. Did she need ventilation?

Tina Fey, in a lovely color, demonstrating Too Much Skirt in about three ways.

In thumbnail, I loved this for the same reasons I loved Kelly Macdonald and Sofia Vergara’s dresses. But when I opened it up, all I could picture was Evan Rachel Wood desperately plucking enough exotic birds to give as gifts to the many PR people keeping her career afloat, and then looking at the pile of feathers and thinking, “I might as well do something with these, I guess.”

KateWinslet, in two great colors for her, and a bodice that literally looks like the sleeves ripped along the top seam when someone yanked the front shut for that awkward knot.

Julianne Moore, who liked the hem of her skirt so much she asked if they could repeat it, and is, in this photo, wishing she had been more specific.

Rooney Mara, who looks like she was one fitting short of a great dress. (You’re in a puddle of your own skirt, Rooney, and unless those tulle poufs are pockets, let them go.)

Love this right up until the skirt. Accordion chiffon is nobody’s friend, Glenn Close.

THAT SKIRT IS NOBODY’S FRIEND, HELEN MIRREN. WHAT IS THIS. The rest is great.

THE MASTER POSERS DIVISION

Winner, and still champion:

Lea Michele, who you can just tell walked the entire length of the red carpet with teensy steps, her chin surgically taped to her shoulder to make sure her angles were good all the way into the building.

Trying a different tack, Angelina Jolie:

See also:

Still, at least there’s nothing wrong with that dress in and itself, which is more than these people can say!

TOTAL DISASTER DIVISION

Madonna. “Yes, perfect, I wanted all the Basketcase puns I could get, excellent decision, make this dress something that I wear outside the house in front of a thousand photographers, that will work well.”

Meryl Streep, who could have saved this whole outfit by not having the world’s worst cutouts. No such luck.

Oh, Charlize Theron, I needed that laugh, thank you.

Piper Perabo, it’s great you had fun. In a translucent tarp dress, not everyone would!

I’ll just leave this here.

SHAMELESS HEARTSTRINGS DIVISION

Uggie, you adorable jerk.

Believe it or not, this is only a sampling of the horde of celebrities that descended on that carpet last night. A more extensive photo gallery is over at Yahoo, from whence these photos came.

Since it’s early days, everyone’s still warming up and trying their B-roll getups, and the theme of the season has yet to really coalesce. However, looking at an even dozen of these looks, I’m going to make an early call that this year’s Hollywood prom theme is Stump Everybody. I sort of dig it, except when I just can’t even.

First up, the People’s Choice Awards, where Jennifer Lawrence, wonderful actress and hilarious behind-the-scenes person who looks wonderful every time she’s on a talk show, continues her nearly unbroken streak of looking like a disaster on the red carpet. I’m not sure what the disconnect is, because her talk show outfits are always fine, and often cute! But you tell her it’s a to-do, and she chokes.

Jennifer, I love that you love color (and this one looks lovely on you). I love this silhouette. But Saloon Mermaid is not a good look on anyone, and you seem like you know that, so I have no idea what’s happened.

The cringing continues!

Nina Dobrev, who won an acting award diplomatically titled “Favorite Actress,” seems like a very nice person, and despite the fact that she looks like she’s riding out stormy seas underfoot, I actually like this dress. The sleeves are well done, and I appreciate the continuation of the detail down the bodice, which keeps the sleeves from looking tacked-on.

Speaking of:

Another seemingly-lovely person who cannot manage to leave the house without making a series of very determined and very unfortunate decisions about her clothing. It’s almost admirable that she didn’t stop at looking like a bad Barbie dress; she wanted to look like a bad Barbie dress an eighth-grader made by hand using the pattern that came with Fashion Dreams Skipper. (She’s the Chair of the Board of Stump Everybody.)

Speaking of:

Chloe Moretz, vying for Underage Starlet of the Year. The dress is actually cute, and I appreciate the minimal accessories, and at first I thought she was just about to sneeze when they took this picture, but the more pictures of her I saw, the more I realized this was her Sexy Face, and I didn’t even know what to do with that except close all the pictures with swiftness and make a Liz Lemon face for a second.

Speaking of:

Tine Fey did not appear. (Sorry, some segues just don’t work.) However, Lea Michele did, and as usual, she wants to make sure you know she did, so she wore the most diva outfit her stylist could find, because if flapper fringe on a dress is good, a dress made bafflingly and entirely of fringe is even better. Next year she’ll try to outdo herself by eating only ONE grape a day, and will show up in a dress made out of a single length of draped dental floss, looking even more carefully posed than she does right now.

Speaking of:

Even though it looks as though Cobie Smulders is in for a super-embarrassing time as soon as she sits down, this is on the verge of being a really great look. That necklace is a stunnah, and that’s three-quarters of the right dress for it!

And if the People’s Choice Awards seemed like a random red carpet, the Critics’ Choice Awards had an even more motley crew. Luckily, some of them were old hands at this, and managed to show up looking both Awesome, and Like Themselves. Exhibit A, as always in this division, Tilda Swinton:

She and Cate Blanchett are two of the best red-carpet dressers you can come by, I think. (In case you’re in the market for someone to walk a red carpet for you.)

However, many of the ladies who appeared on this red carpet seemed determined to bemuse all those who looked upon them, and they ran that shit like it was a Bafflement Contest.

Not Viola Davis, of course. Viola Davis knows better, and just decided to show up looking great instead. I love this color on her.

But Michelle Williams is in on it. Her styling from the shoulders up is really nice, the neckline is lovely, and I can get behind a retro-Hollywood wrap silhouette any day of the week. But did she put on a cocktail dress over an unrelated long black skirt? Honestly asking, because otherwise I don’t understand the decisions at work here, even though Michelle’s smile is taunting me to guess. Michelle, what do you know that I don’t know?!

I DO know what Elle Fanning might not have known: this dress might have looked lovely in, say, the initial ad campaign where it was shot in a wheat field with sunlight filtering through it, or on a model in a stark white studio with her hair askew and looking like an effigy for Free Love, but if you can’t control the light, you can’t control this dress. Points given for age-appropriateness, and immediately removed for tablecloth-resemblance. It’s a wash.

Chloe again! She’s dropped the Sexy Face (good news!), probably because she’s distracted by the Muppet pulling across her sleeves and choking her with her own collar (bad news!).

But the winner of this round of Bafflement Wars is clearly Kirsten Dunst:

It’s so confusing I sort of have to hand it to her. “Here, this dress has a layered skirt that’s sometimes opaque and sometimes not. And ribbons that look as though they were sewed on at random on a dare. Then I belted them. DID YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT IT.”

And no, I have not a word. You enjoy your award, Kirsten; you’ve earned it.

Pictures via Yahoo.com and the Hollywood Reporter, for anyone who wants some extracurricular bafflement.

On the heels of the Snow White and the Hunstman trailer comes the trailer for “Mirror Mirror,” from on-notice director Tarsem Singh!

The good news is that the costumes look gorgeous, and he’s got a serious handle on that color story. (I could also, potentially, be talked into the Bollywood musical number. We’ll see.)

The bad news is that, while I’m glad to see this is a different approach to the tale and employs Singh’s usual visual flair, this also looks like it’s careening past Tenth Kingdom Boulevard towards Cringetown Way.

But don’t take my word for it – enjoy Dog-Prince Armie Hammer and Royal Assassin Nathan Lane for yourself!

I am a huge fan of the yellow robe-type outerwear, and I really love how it’s cut to fill the frame.

Some of the rest of it…well.

Things get interesting.

The first photo from this movie showed a too-innocent Snow White in a wonderfully acidic setting that hinted at a subversive take on the story. This set leaves me with a little less confidence, both for the story (which I was prepared for – Snow White can get a bit gummy), and, more importantly for me, in the visuals (and it is something I have always felt in his previous films; no matter what else might go wrong, I am never at a loss for gorgeousness).

The big reveal here is, I suppose, the previously-unseen Wicked Queen, here played by Julia Roberts in what I feel comfortable guessing is some serious miscasting:

That is some seriously determined cartridge-pleating in the skirt, and I dig the court gown influence:

(photo source)

And while in theory I also dig the “JE SUIS LA REINE” feeling of this dress:

I just flat-out do not like it, and the close-up doesn’t help, because while I like the gauntlet sleeves more, I like the fabric less, AND this picture also shows another angle on Snow White’s first dress that I also don’t like. This picture crushes dreams!

(Maybe the whole film will have acidic, super-saturated lighting and everything will immediately look great. This is my hope.)

The kids’-cartoon feeling I get from these two dresses does not diminish whatsoever when one takes a look at the Queen’s second-in-command (who is apparently the one she sends into the woods to kill Snow White, which is smart, because in a kingdom full of huntsmen and soldiers and knights and mercenaries, this is definitely the person I would send to do some cold-blooded killing).

Check out the chevron effect on his bias buttonholes! That’s a nice detail.

The Prince makes out slightly better in the dude-clothing department, in what looks like a changeable-taffeta riding coat with a little steampunk-buckle action in front:

Meanwhile, Snow White has been hanging out with her seven outlaws/miners/supporting companions, whose costumes completely baffle me. Are they supposed to be crusted with dirt? Are they lava monsters? I know nothing. (Nice colors on Snow, though that doesn’t really balance out the questions this picture poses.)

At least she gets to practice a little swordplay, it looks like. You kick some ass, Snow!

And of course, no fairy tale is complete without the heroine being overdressed at a formal event!

It seems remiss not to mention this dress when looking at the dress above:

However, Bjork looks a million times cooler than poor Snow up there, partially because Bjork can carry off whatever she feels like, and partially because when it came to this outfit, even Bjork was like, “You know, let’s stay away from hats.”

However, as we iris out on this whole event, we see that Snow White is not even the most unfortunately-dressed person at this party.

The lady to her left, dressed as Pink Marshmallow Pavlova, has it worse. So, so much worse. That is going to be an awkward party for her when the society pages come out.

I honestly don’t know what to think here; Tarsem Singh has never turned in a dull-looking movie, so part of me wants to wait to see these in motion (and with the acidic lighting, or something) before I make a call. On the other hand, I dislike more of these costumes than I like, and Nathan Lane, Assassin for Hire, is giving me pause. But let’s be honest, if this is a great movie I will probably enjoy it, and if it’s a terrible movie I will probably also enjoy it, so I’m going to luck out either way on this!