This is probably one of the most exciting Super Bowls I have ever witnessed; it definitely helped that I had a team I was cheering for instead of just blindly watching the game with not caring who wins. Often when I am in that situation I choose the team that has the hottest players or the best colors for their jerseys. My Green Bay Packers attained an impressive victory against the Pittsburg Steelers, winning the Super Bowl 31 to 25. For once in my recollection of Super Bowl experiences, the game was far more entertaining and engaging than the lame ass commercials and less than stellar performances during the halftime show.

A quick examination of the Super Bowl – Lea Michele gave an incredible rendition of “America the Beautiful” which made me question why they then brought Christina Aguilera to sing the National Anthem. As gaytastic as Burlesque was, I still think that you should have gotten Lea Michele to sing the National Anthem – at least that way there is a chance that the rest of the GLEE cast will pop up out of nowhere and perform it with her. Now I wouldn’t have wanted to follow Lea – perhaps that is what contributed to the devastation that ensued. Christina got up there and started working it and I began to sing along with the overtly blonde diva. Close to halfway through the song I noticed that Christina and I were singing different lyrics. Confused – for at this point I had only two beers – I stopped singing and waited to hear where she was in the song. Uncertain at the time of whether she actually screwed up or if I was hearing things – it was confirmed this morning the pop star got caught up in the moment and fudged the lyrics. No honey, I love you, but you forgot the lyrics, and screwed up. Have we learned nothing from the slue of pop cultural icons that have braved to sing the National Anthem only to have their performance fall flat, literally and metaphorically? Without question the best performance of the National Anthem to date is the once great Miss Whitney Houston.

The Packers started off the first half with an impressive domination led by my future husband of life Jordy Nelson. At this point, I began to fantasize what it would be like to be a football wife. The newest addition to the reality show, I imagine myself wearing some large Derby hat and Jackie O suit, schmoozing with the other VIPS, and trying to sneak whoopee cushions on President Bush’s chair. Now, the other joy and thrill of watching the Super Bowl is watching all of the commercials that people will invariably be talking about more than the game the next day. However this year the commercials generally sucked beyond the telling of it. Dominated by a few key sponsors – Bud Light and Pepsi Max – the commercials were not funny at all. Honestly my favorite commercials were the ones that Eminem did and then the car commercial with the little Darth Vadar kid. Disappointed by the lack of ingenuity of the commercials, I anxiously waited for the halftime show – another make or break point for any artist. Featuring the Black Eyed Peas as the act for the show, I assumed the half time show would be absolutely stellar. I left the performance – a compilation of their greatest hits, featuring Slash and Usher – less than impressed and uttering a general “meh” at the end of it. The two most exciting things about the performance were Fergie’s bedazzled shoulder pads – to draw attention away from her voice - and Usher jumping into the splits – to draw attention from the fact that his mic wasn’t on. One technical catastrophe after another made the performance awkward and non-watchable at times.

As we entered the second half it seemed as though the Packers were loosing steam and perhaps unraveling a bit. The Steelers certainly capitalized on the Packers’ injuries and attempted a large comeback. Flashbacks of the Rose Bowl were flooding back to me and I got concerned that we would lose again – and all that trash-talking I did would come back to bite me in the ass. Thankfully that did not happen and my Packers held out and were able to squash the Steeler’s comeback and secure the victory.

After a rather fantastic game, life only got better with the return of GLEE. Featuring incredible musical numbers and a plot line that was both believable and endearing, I am truly pumped for the rest of this season. What was hilarious is that the GLEE episode centered on a championship football game and my roommate and I got way into it cheering and swearing at the screen. Realizing that it was not an actual game and was pre-scripted, we chided ourselves for getting so into it. I gorged myself to excess and am now regretting it today. All in all, it was a pretty amazing night.

I went and saw Burlesque for the 80 billionth time now. Every time I see the film I discover suttle nuances to the picture and fall in love with it more and more.  This is primarily due to the on-screen chemistry between the timeless Cher and the comedically-talented Stanley Tucci. The movie - though not receiving great praise from critics - is slowly and surely becoming a fan favorite. The soundtrack is blowing up the charts and most recently held the #2 ranking on the ITUNES chart. The movie was successful in that they incorporated classic components of a great romantic comedy with undertones of fame and achieving one's dreams and all that hooplah. Those components would be:

(1) Aspiring young blonde talent from podunkville nowhere who use to work in a bar/pizzaeria

(2) Hot man for girl to fall in love with and generally be nude throughout the movie

(3) A brassy club owner with a chip on her shoulder who decides to give the young blonde talent from podunkville nowhere a chance.

Then I realized that with a few modifications this could aptly describe a number of movies. The one that popped into my head the most was Coyote Ugly . The 2000 romantic comedy features Piper Perabo as an aspiring song writer who moves to New York with dreams of fame and success only to find herself working at Coyote Ugly - a bar featuring female entertainment - run by the sassy Maria Bello who decides to give this no-name girl from Jersey an opportunity. Similar to Christina in Burlesque, she is an instant success at the bar but of course struggles with family, work, and relationships on the road to overcoming her stage fright to finally save the day.

Thankfully, movie-goers can be rest assured that you will not find such trifiling crap in Burlesque. Instead of New York in a bar, we find ourselves in LA at a Burlesque club - which is so much better. The movie also leaves out such things as character development and sustainable plot and in lieu of that adds more dance/musical numbers. There were two things that held my attention and captivated me throughout the movie.

(1) Cher - This queen is 80 years old and doesn't have a single line on her. She is positively ageless and looks remarkable in this movie. She even debuts a track in the movie from her upcoming album entitled "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" - how appropriate seeing as how most people thought that after her farewell tour 20 years ago that she would leave the stage for good. Her voice is phenomenal throughout the show however I did notice that Cher doesn't really move at all during the movie. The dance sequence in the beginning features her standing and looking from side to side. Her face also doesn't move which made it really funny to see her do the dramatic serious scenes. I understand that Cher's pioneering efforts put plastic surgery on the map and it certainly shows in this film.

(2) Cam Gigandet - famous for his rather unfortunate brief appearance in Twilight, Cam is the one ofthe main reasons that I continued to watch the movie during scenes when Cher was not on screen. Aguilera's attempt at acting was laughable at best but Cam's rippling muscles and adorable personality - as well as him getting butt ass naked in the movie - managed to hold my focus.

Burlesque is definitely worth seeing - multiple times in fact. As long as you are not one of those movie-goers looking for the answers to life in the framework of a movie. The movie features flashy dance numbers exhibiting outrageous costumes, comedic wit served by Tucci, and I even appreciated Kristen Bell's jealous bitchy character. 

Most exciting though. The premiere of Burlesque, I believe, is going to mark the 3rd age of Cher ... THE RESURRECTION!!!! I see a flood of new movie offers coming her way which will coincide nicely with the new tour that she is developing as well. All Hail CHER!!!  

So, it should come as no surprise that one of my heroes and idols of life is the infamous Cher. I recently learned that Cher is returning to the screen with a major starring role in the movie Burlesque. The movie which also stars Christina Aguilera, Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell, and Alan Cumming is set to premiere in November of 2010 ... which is way way too far away. The basic premise of the movie is that Christina Aguilera is a small town girl from the midwest who comes to LA to follow her dreams. While there she comes across a slightly failing theater called The Burlesque Lounge - run by the fabulously iconic Cher. For pictures from the movie as well as a further description of the movie check out this blog devoted to the movie. Apparently they will not wrap up production of the movie until February so we shouldn't expect a trailer for at least a little while.

This is really the first major role that Cher has had in over a decade - Tea with Mussoilini premiered in 1999. I cannot relate how ecstatic I am for this. First of all it proves all of the haters wrong that believe Cher is a old Jurassic fleshbag and should have retired years ago. I just saw Cher in Las Vegas for her big concert and even though she is 63 years old she doesn't look a day over 25 and still puts on a hell of a show.

The movie Burlesque is a musical drama, which seems to be a running theme in TV and Movies. Musicals have always been popular in their own ways but over the years with many productions being translated to the silver screen AND, let's be honest, the rise of the High School Musical empire, musicals are ever incresingly popular and are now more accessible to the general audience. Musicals move quickly, are generally campy and therefore can get away with a ton of shit, and flashy and thus able to hold of the attention of the average American which at this point is about 5 seconds. I am totally in love with this new trend because in general I believe that life and other productions would be vastly improved if they were a musical - for pretty much the reasons I stated above. So I will keep everyone updated about any new developments with Cher or this new movie!!!!!