The Friday Hot Sheet

Christ, is it Friday already? When did that happen? Feels like just yesterday I was telling people that Pineapple Express was gonna tank, and LOOK WHO'S CRYING NOW, APATOW?

Of course I also said the Olympics were stupid and that no one would watch or care, which clearly hasn't really been the case at all. Here I thought we'd all be glued to the utter genius that is MTV's new reality hit From G's to Gents -- but no, it's speedo shark week on NBC, and really -- who wouldn't want to see that all day every day in glorious high definition?

So before I go blind -- here's the risers and fallers from this week, and the buzz as it looks from here.

	Belly Lovin'	Remember like 4 weeks back, when you'd kinda lament about your love handles, and all the women in your life would all be like, "Don't worry about it -- Most girls actually prefer a man to have a little belly on him. It's better for cuddling, and to be honest -- skinny guys don't really do that much for us." Remember that? Yeah well here we are two weeks of staring at Michael Phelps' naked abdominals later, and where the hell did all of that go? Right to the bottom of the pool along with the dignity of the Spanish Basketball Team, that's where.
	Clone Wars	To say it was a bad movie sorta defeats the point, doesn't it? I mean seriously, was anyone really expecting this to be any good? Still, my son (who is a huge Star Wars fan) was really jazzed to see it, and he'd never been to the usual madness that is a SW premiere, so we bought our tickets and headed out to the midnight show. To be honest, I was expecting it to be a lot worse than it actually was -- but that's not really saying much. I will say this though -- Christopher Lee is clearly the most loyal actor in Hollywood. He really didn't have to lend his voice to this (almost none of the other original actors bothered), but there he was -- slugging through his lines without missing a beat, and kicking ass in every scene.
	Clone Wars Nerd Turnout	By my count, of the approxamately 50 people who showed up for the premier screening, 5 of them bothered to dress up or bring lightsabres. I gotta be honest here, I was really dissapointed in the geek turnout for this thing. I mean, I know everyone already kinda knew the movie was gonna suck -- but there's a full garrison of local dudes in this town who regularly dress up like Stormtroopers and march in parades (and I should know, one of them is my bartender).
	Jezebel.com	Last week I seriously considered giving this site a brickbat, because despite the fact that I love their approach to article writing and enjoy the discussions that follow -- it was hard to ignore the fact that lately things were starting to get a little ..bitchy. Recent personnel changes in the editing staff and what seemed to be a growing rift between cliques of commenters led to almost every article turning into some kind of flame war, rendering the site less and less entertaining as a whole. But during the last week editors and readers alike seem to have gotten back to the business of having a good time, even when they were locked in firece debate.
	America Ferrera	I've never seen a second of Ugly Betty, and it will be a cold day in hell before I even begin to give a crap about The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants -- but if this clip is any indication of what you're really like when the cameras go off (or perhaps better said, when you forget they're still on) -- then you're cool with me.
	Brett Farve	Your arm is tired. Your arm is tired? Well gee, I guess it's time to retire then.
	Rage Against the Machine @ the RNC.	Part of me wants to know where the hell were you guys four years ago when we really needed you, but I'd be straight up lying if I didn't say it was good to have you back.

[Listening to:  Nonpoint – "Hive" ]