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Ever since I read and wrote about The New Yorker's expose of Scientology, I've half-expected Tom Cruise to surprise me in the night with a gang of Samurai-suited henchmen, and lock me indefinitely in some secret location for my sins again L. Ron Hubbard. So I was relieved to hear that Cruise is keeping busy with his acting career, and probably doesn't have time to partake in such kidnapping ventures (Besides, he's done enough kidnapping for one week). I was also excited to hear that Cruise will be playing a Bon Jovi-esque rock star in the forthcoming film adaptation of the Broadway show, Rock of Ages, because he is completely unsuited to the role and it should be hilarious.

You know what I like about the X-Men franchise? It takes itself very seriously, like it's about Batman or something. Forget the Downey Jr.-ness of Tony Stark, or the goofy antics of a horny Chris EvansFantastic 4; the X-Men do not fuck around. To witness: check out the trailer for X-Men: First Class, a prequel that details the origins of Professor X before he was Patrick Stewart, and of Magneto before he was Sir Ian McKellan. Now they're played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender respectively, and they're damn handsome. There's a sense of gravitas to the whole thing, one that was definitely lacking from director Matthew Vaughan's previous superhero bonanza, Kick-Ass. The clip seems to imply that Xavier and his school of mutants had some impact on the early days of the Cold War, and we're totally buying it.

To anyone who feels Weezer hasn't done anything of merit since Pinkerton, I offer you the following video of a jingle the band recorded for a State Farm Insurance ad. It is, admittedly, no "Sweater Song" or "Say it Ain't So," nor will it win the band any awards in the integrity department. But this track does bring to mind the Blue Album's playful catchiness, and is certainly a stronger showing than most of what the band's produced over the last ten years. Plus, it could be that, deep in their punk hearts, they're only endorsing the insurance company ironically." We're almost willing to believe. You decide after the jump.

I've always related to Jesse Eisenberg, what with us both being Jewy, nerdy, and good at speed-talking. But now I realize we are kindred souls in another sense: We both dig the band Ween. Ween had their moment in the early-to-mid-nineties, when the duo of fake brothers, Dean and Gene Ween, managed to pump out a few novelty hits for Beavis and Butthead to joke about. But the band was really too weird for mainstream success, though they did develop an obsessive cult-following of college stoners like me and Jesse Eisenberg. Truthfully, I'd kind of forgotten about Ween until I read this interview with Eisenberg on Spin.com.

Now that Desperate Housewives has breathed its last, sultry breath, show creator Marc Cherry is moving on, and his new project is a pilot called Hallelujah. The show is set in Oklahoma and will feature singing, dancing, and "battles between good and evil." Cherry has referred to the show as, "Glee for conservative Republicans."

There's a really fascinating and incredibly long article in this weeks New Yorker about the cult of Scientology, and writer/director Paul Haggis's brave escape back into the world of secular sanity. In the piece, Haggis and other defectors speak with shocking candor on an institution whose inner workings have always been shrouded in secrecy. Before reading it, I'd considered Scientology stupid, creepy, amusing, and mostly harmless. After reading the piece, I now understand that this institution is all those things, but also evil, violent, and incredibly powerful. Read the piece for free in its entirety on The New Yorker website. But for those of you who don't have the time or energy to devote a couple hours to Scientology, I've provided a synopsis after the jump.

Justin Taylor's debut novel, The Gospel of Anarchy, hit stores today, and I recommend you go out and buy it immediately, then head over to Word Bookstore in Greenpoint tonight at 7 for the launch party. Gospel is a beautifully written, insanely intelligent, and ultimately moving novel about both a very specific group of people in a very specific setting -- sexed-up Anarcho-Christian stoner punks in Gainsville, Florida at the turn of the millennium -- and also an entire generation of young people searching for meaning within a spiritually compromised America.

Yo La Tengo have always pulled weird stunts -- an eight nights of Chanukah concert run, a radio call-in show in which the band played any song requested live on air -- but this is by for the weirdest. At a show in Chicago over the weekend, Yo La Tengo did a staged reading of an entire episode of Seinfeld.

Before there was The Lightning Thief and Harry Potter, there was Redwall, and it was awesome. No appropriated Greek myths or penis-bearing Daniel Radcliffe's in these children's books, just good old-fashioned rodents living in castles. I used to stay up with a flashlight reading the Redwall books, and remember them (though very few specific plot details) being great. Sadly, Redwall author Brian Jacques passed away today.

The apparent "truce" between Glee and Lindsay Lohan ended last night. In a special post-Super Bowl episode of the beloved song-and-dance show, guest star Katie Couric made a barbed swipe at Lohan's mom, Dina, referring to her and her dog as "losers." Lohan is calling it slander, but in defense of Glee and Couric, Dina Lohan is a humongous loser. More importantly, why should a TV comedy have to apologize for lightly mocking celebrities?