Over at the Film Freak Central blog, Bill Chambers has posted a sneak peek of the ingenious cover art for the next FFC annual.

Due out in July, it’s to be a double-sized edition that will combine the site’s reviews from 2007 and 2008, with additional never-before-published stuff. I await it eagerly, and will let y’all know as soon as it becomes available for pre-order. Unless it already is, in which case I expect someone will provide that information in the comments.

Oh, and speaking of friends publishing, dig this: Gwen Hyman, co-author of the most nourishing “Urban Italian“, gets her first solo spine next month with “Making a Man“. Perhaps you might consider pre-ordering that as well.

It’s a smallish week for movie releases, providing a necessary breather for those of us trying to stay on top of everything — honestly, if there had been another ten openings this week, I suspect I might be on the top of a building with a rifle right now.

Lucky for everyone in my neighborhood, there were only five, and these are they:

“Crank: High Voltage”: It’s three months later, he’s not dead any more, and there are plenty of new people to kill. Also, Amy Smart is the best sport ever. Screened at the last possible minute, though I can’t imagine why.

“The Education of Charlie Banks“: Fred Durst’s directorial debut (yeah, “The Longshots” was released first, but produced after this one) explores the delicate relationship between a nervous preppie (Jesse Eisenberg, doing his Jesse Eisenberg thing) and the sociopath (Jason Ritter) who helps him learn about life. The “Raging Bull” poster in their dorm room? It’s a metaphor!

“17 Again”: Matthew Perry turns into Zac Efron, develops radically different bone structure, terrifies his family. I think. Rad liked it; Adam loathed it.

“State of Play”: Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck play a journalist and a politician with a thorny personal history in Kevin Macdonald’s Americanization of the acclaimed BBC miniseries; Adam found it well-meaning but sort of unnecessary.

“Sugar“: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s excellent American baseball movie — which isn’t a baseball movie at all, when you get right down to it — deserves the largest audience it can possibly get. So, sure, let’s call it a baseball movie. Whatever sells tickets.

Right, that’s this week covered. Now, back to the screener pile …

If the movie section of this week’s NOW feels a little frenetic, what with all the film festivals and everything, just imagine what it was like to spend two weeks watching all those Sprockets and Toronto Jewish Film Festival entries, looking for the good stuff. Because there was plenty of stuff that was, shall we say, less good.

My picks for the TJFF were “The Debt” (which is the source of today’s image) and “Run For Your Life“; my Sprockets piece is here.

Also worth a read, in my humble estimation: My interview with Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, whose “Sugar” is a major step forward for the duo after “Half Nelson”. Which was pretty good to begin with, mind you.

The weekend box-office is in, and it is more or less as expected: America embraced the Miley Montana movie and kept going to “Fast & Furious”, while not really knowing what to do about “Observe and Report”.

I don’t know what the fourth-place status of “O&R” will ultimately mean for Jody Hill’s directorial future, or Seth Rogen’s bankability  — not much, I’m thinking, since the disaster that was “Zack & Miri Make a Porno” was largely laughed off by all concerned not six months ago — but even if it isn’t topping the charts, the film has certainly grabbed hold of the critical conversation.

The House Next Door throws a link to Andrew Schenker’s consideration of the movie’s structure over at The Cine File, Tracy Clark-Flory offers a singularly uninformed take on something she didn’t like about the trailer at Salon’s Broadsheet blog and Slate’s Dana Stevens finds that the film just ain’t sitting right.

And in addition to an interview with Hill and Scott Tobias’ review, The Onion AV Club has posted a typically considered A.V. Talk, with its critics batting the movie back and forth in convenient podcast form. As always, don’t forget to read the comments — there’s some great stuff in there.

Obviously, nothing I can produce is going to be able to compete with the news that the U.S. government has finally declassified Area 51. (No aliens, though; the really cool secrets are probably tucked safely away in Area 52.)

But we can still have a little fun, as in today’s Sympatico/MSN gallery, which uses Seth Rogen’s bad behavior in “Observe and Report” to wonder what the world would be like if movie characters were held criminally accountable for their wacky on-screen antics.

Neil Patrick Harris is looking at a whole lot of community service, is all I’m saying …