Just about everyone knows about James Frey's fall from grace and off the best-seller list with his faux memoir "A Million Little Pieces." A public reprimand on Oprah's couch will do that to an author. (Or anyone for that matter.)

But according to Janet Maslin's book review, "Little Pieces of Los Angeles, Done His Way," in the New York Times, Frey's new novel (yes, novel: this time Frey made the smart decision of going with fiction), "Bright Shiny Morning," set in Los Angeles, sounds pretty darn fantastic:

"His publisher called [the new novel] a dazzling tour de force. (Look, somebody had to, if only to create a comeback drama.) But that wasn't so far off the mark...even the stray facts had their artistry. They helped turn this book into the captivating urban kaleidoscope that, most recently, Charles Bock's "Beautiful Children" was supposed to be. Bright Shiny Morning was mobile and alert to layout, tempo, different voices, how words looked on the page. Different visual styles suited different characters. Some got long litanies of brisk, sharp dialogue. Others got dense, descriptive prose. Even the one-sentence page had its use here."

Every parent wants a better life for their children, better than the one they had. It'd be pretty astounding to hear fledgling parents at a dinner party say, for example, that they'd like to put as many obstacles as possible in their kid's path or quote "no pain, no gain" as a mantra of childrearing.

"Oh no, we’d never use rails on Timmy's crib...why, he's going to run a major corporation one day!"

You just don't hear such statements. But if you heard that a Jewish, Stanford-educated physician decided to give up all of life's creature comforts to raise nine kids with his wife in a 24-foot trailer as they toured North America, shunning a traditional school education for a steady diet of surfing, natural foods, and family bonding time, would you call that a triumphant middle-finger gesture to The Establishment? Or would you call it child abuse?

There's a new release out that piled up well over $500 million—that's "Fiiiive Hundred Meeeellion Dollarzzz"—in its first week of release, including a whopping $310 million in it's opening day. What a blockbuster!

But it wasn't the new Indiana Jones movie. It wasn't a Star Wars sequel. In fact, it wasn't a movie at all.

It wasn't a new U2 Release, or Sting, or Beyonce or Bruce Springsteen. In fact, it wasn't even a song or an album.

It wasn't the newest "Harry Potter" story or a Michael Crichton thriller. In fact, it wasn't even a book.

What then, you ask, could possibly gross more that $500 million?

In a summer packed with sequels, the sequel that grossed the big number was none other than "Grand Theft Auto IV."

That's right, a video game!

Jamie Lynn's been under the radar as her belly's been expanding with the promise of new life, staying out of the eye of stalkerazzi, so we don't have to be subjected to photos of her scarfing down Arby's. But according to PerezHilton, the imminently maternal Spears did emerge from deep cover to attend church on Mother's Day.

"Jamie Lynn Spears and babydaddy Casey Aldridge spent Mother's Day at a local church service in Gloster, Mississippi, on Sunday," the site reported, noting that "Jamie's momma, Lynne Spears, is still in California. After spending about an hour inside the church, the family left and went for lunch."

No mention of what Britney did with her kids (or mom) for Mother's Day, but that's ok--Britney has been busy with another maternally themed project: another episode on "How I Met Your Mother." So at least it's related to Mother's Day, sort of.

Laila Lalami, a novelist and literary blogger, has a review of the new indie film "The Visitor" in The Nation that serves as a mini-compendium of Muslim film, and how Hollywood has represented Islam since 9/11.

This summer's upcoming reboot of the "X-Files" franchise after more than six years of living in a Mulder and Scully-less world, rebirth of the "Star Wars" franchise in the form of a computer-animated feature film and television series, and retirement of "Battlestar Galactica," as it (hopefully) finally finds Earth, got us thinking about the great relationship between science fiction and religion.

And so, we give you our list of the ten greatest spiritual characters in science fiction. Some greats had to be left out, of course, and we're sticking to Sci-Fi as a visual medium here. Please let us know your favorites are in the comment space below.

10. Palmer Joss – "Contact" (1997)
Carl Sagan may have been an atheist, but it was in his nature as a scientist to never cease asking questions. As a counterpoint to Sagan's staunchly nonreligious alter-ego, Ellie Arroway, Palmer took a stand for God, and Ellie's attraction and loyalty to him forced her to scrutinize her own take on God and religiosity in spite of her commitment to science and empirical evidence.

In addition to the typical big-name high profile movie fare that usually debuts at the Cannes Film Festival, Sean Penn, this year's Cannes Jury President, has handpicked an unlikely documentary to also make its debut this week.

"The Third Wave" a film by Australian-born director Alison Thompson was created out of footage Thompson and other volunteers took while doing relief work in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami disaster. One of the reasons this film seems an unlikely choice for the high-brow festival is that Thompson is a Christian who has found an effusive supporter in Penn.

For all you "Twilight" series fans (whether or not you prefer Edward or Jacob), if you haven't seen it already, the first trailer for the movie from MTV films just released this week. Check it out here.

As Time Magazine recently dubbed Meyer the world's next J.K. Rowling (see fellow Idol Chatter blogger Paul O'Donnell's post about this), if you haven't read her shockingly fast-paced vampire love stories (with, yes, Mormon undertones), then you'd better get going. Book four, the last in the series, "Breaking Dawn," pubs on August 2 with Harry Potter-like midnight parties.

But don't worry--reading the first three will take you all of three days. They're that addictive. Maybe something fun for Memorial Day weekend?

The movie releases December 12. Sigh. That seems so far away!

Check out our hot off the press list of Reality TV's most memorable Christians. Do you agree with our selections? Disagree? Think we're totally crazy?

Leave your comments below. We want to know what you think!

Today, the documentary "Surfwise" releases, a film about a family with nine children, all-raised in a 24 foot camper, hippie-commune-style, parked along the best California surfing beaches. In the New York Times review, "A Family That Surfs To a Beat: Its Own," reviewer Manohla Dargis makes the movie sound worth seeing.

Perhaps most interesting of all, though (aside from the squishing a family of nine into a 24 foot camper for their entire childhoods), is that Dad and head surfer, Dorian Paskowitz, somehow managed to make this camper into a Jewish household. His two main, fatherly goals seemed to involve raising all the kids both Jewish and surfwise (so to speak).