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Week in Review: All Blart, All the Time

Seems like no matter where we turned this week, everything was coming up Blart.

• Inspired by the dazzling success of Paul Blart: Mall Cop (which likely has a sequel on the way), we coined the term Blarts for films that belie their seemingly pedestrian premises and go on to be huge box-office smashes. Blurt magazine also hopes to benefit from America’s obsession with Blart.

• It’s too bad we probably won’t see anything Blart at the Oscars this year. But between the raging controversies surrounding Slumdog Millionaire, Mickey Rourke’s Wrestlemania faux pas, Baz Luhrman’s involvement, and the hushing of applause during this year’s death montage, there’s plenty of stuff to talk about.

• The only thing bigger than Blart this weekend will be the Super Bowl. Doesn’t matter if you’re into the game or not, because between the commercials (which unfortunately won’t include PETA), Bruce Springsteen, and The Office, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

• We wondered if this year’s Sundance was the best one ever, despite the jury’s insistence on awarding the Best Screenplay prize to a movie without a script.

• The whole world thought Meryl Streep was gonna be on 30 Rock, but then our dreams came crashing down around us.

• And man, oh man, there’s always plenty of beef floating around. Young Jeezy took on Bernie Madoff, Faye Dunaway smacked down Hilary Duff, and Ben Brantley let loose on Jeremy Piven.

• The whole world thought Meryl Streep was gonna be on 30 Rock, but then our dreams came crashing down around us.

• We talked to Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand about everything from Russian Constructivism to how the internet resembles a girls’ locker room.

• Although the mystery of Richard Alpert’s guyliner was solved, there were plenty of other mysteries on Lost to obsess over.

• And, finally, we bid a fond farewell to the dearly departed John Updike.

Week in Review: All Blart, All the Time