"The real sport of the Hunger Games is watching the tributes kill one another," says protagonist Katniss Everdeen in the first book of Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy. The real sport of The Hunger Games, Gary Ross's compulsively entertaining cinematic adaptation, is breezing by those murders without offending delicate sensibilities.

Hunger Games mania is upon us. The Young Adult trilogy-turned-blockbuster is due out this weekend, and some of you out there still have no idea what these crazy Food Games are all about. Fear not, as we have compiled a detailed Hunger Games explainer, just in time for G-day. Be you screaming tween, good-sporting parent, or disgruntled old timer, this explainer will guide you as we as a nation prepare for the newest (and unavoidable) pop-culture phenom.

Arena: A vast outdoor arena rigged with Panem's high-tech TV cameras as well as traps and challenges to test the tributes fighting each other to the death in the Hunger Games. An arena may contain anything from "a burning desert to a frozen wasteland." After the Hunger Games, the arenas become popular tourist destinations for Capitol citizens.

Before the movie even began filming there was talk of The Hunger Games all over Twitter, at middle school lunch tables, and on the cover of what seems like a zillion issues of Entertainment Weekly. The first trailer even got a premiere on Good Morning America today. What's the big deal?

Those of you who weren't converts already will gaze at this one image, this first image from the movie (sorta) and you will realize. Also today: TNT does something wholly new and exciting and Ben Affleck's outta the Hamptons.

One living person beloved by children is attempting to sully the work of a dead person beloved by children, and only one can be victorious in the end. Also today: Matthew Fox is going to kill you, Darren Aronofsky thought better of it, and we might officially have our Katniss.

Here's a trailer for this summer's X-Men prequel (sort of?), X-Men: First Class, about what went down when Professor X and Magneto first got together and built their mutant school and stuff. It looks surprisingly good?

Lindsay Lohan says the jewelry store that filed grand theft charges against her keeps changing their story. Scarlett Johansson is supposedly diddling Sean Penn, Jennifer Aniston wants to move to New York, and Pete Wentz is getting divorced against his will. Thursday's gossip makes bad decisions.

After getting some flack for a rather homogenous cover of white actresses last year, Vanity Fair's new Hollywood issue is mixing things up. There are 1.5 African-Americans on the cover! That's up from .25 African-Americans last year.