LAW TO BE WATSON TO DOWNEY JR'S HOLMES? "In what has become a guessing game that may have piqued the interest of the great detective himself, the latest name to surface in the who-will-play-Watson merry-go-round is Jude Law. Variety reports that Law is negotiating to join Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s 'Sherlock Holmes' after a host of other names like Russell Crowe, Gerard Butler and Colin Farrell were tied to the project via Internet rumors."

Start your day off with some brutal awkwardness here, where you can listen to what happens when a radio DJ interviewing recovering junkie/alcoholic Robert Downey Jr about his new film, Tropic Thunder, asks him who he'd most like to "have a brew and smoke a blunt with." Oh boy! (Answer: "I think it would be regrettable if I did that.") It just gets worse from there.

Unfortunately named director Bret Ratner has tapped Robert Downey Jr to play Hugh Hefner in Ratner's biopic about the porn king, obviously titled Playboy. Perfect timing for Hefner's probably intentionally childless girlfriend, Holly Madison, to get that sperm donor she's waited for literally her entire past week.

Here's the trailer for Tropic Thunder, the upcoming comedy starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Nick Nolte and Robert Downey Jr, who, as you can see, is featured in blackface.

We've been worrying for a couple weeks that the blackface element might ruin a perfectly bad movie, but – and we're loath to admit this – we kinda, sorta don't mind it anymore. We even giggled at the line, "Man, just because it's a theme song don't make it not true."

Crisis: what to hate on now? Where's our steadfast indignation? How about we get disgusted about a war comedy during actual wartime? Yeah, that's the ticket. War isn't funny.

Though we're still not sure we're 100 percent at ease with it, there are two mitigating factors to consider before getting angry about Robert Downey Jr's turn in blackface in the upcoming film Tropic Thunder: 1) he looks authentically black, not cartoony and 2) when not in blackface, he's practically in whiteface. See what we mean after the jump.

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Robert Downey Jr is in blackface for his new role in the Ben Stiller comedy Tropic Thunder. Before you summarily condemn him, note that unlike the Afrocentric Angelina Jolie's turn in A Mighty Heart, Downey Jr isn't portraying a character of color; he's playing a white actor named Kirk Lazarus who's stupidly cast as a black soldier. To us, it's almost as if Thunder is making fun of Jolie. Whaddya think?

Robert Downey Jr as a superhero? Our doubts were major, especially with Jon Favreau helming the picture. Yeah, Swingers and Made were great, but Iron Man is a completely different, nerdier beast. One that can't fall back on Vince Vaughn's ad-libs.

But now we've watched the trailer, and it makes us feel like complete nincompoops with no vision at all.

Vanity Fair is this month running yet another celebrity photo shoot and, guess what? For once, it's cool!

The concept was to recreate famous scenes from Alfred Hitchcock films and some of the resultant shots are beautiful. Finally, an idea good enough that it makes Annie Leibovitz and her dozen assistants seem interesting.

It used to be a man could get his kicks mainlining speedballs until he was puking on the strippers, but then we let the PC liberals into office, and they promptly closed the Fun Store and opened rehab in its place. Now all that's left is hair bleach and virgin daiquiris. Oh, Robert Downey Jr! The glimmer in your eye is gone, friend.

After the jump, more sober fun with Blondie.

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• Billy Joel's daughter alleging Perez Hilton of being exploitative. [Radar]

• Beyonce alleging the media plays up cat fights between black women. [PopSugar]

• Robert Downey Jr alleging some cops are power hungry dicks. [Glitterati]

• More people alleging Britney Spears is having a comeback. [HT]

• Jennifer Esposito alleging irreconcilable differences. [ICYDK]

• Katie Holmes alleging she can't be completely controlled by her husband. [Yeeeah]

• Isaiah Washington still alleging he's not a homophobe. [SH]

• Tommy Lee alleging he knows how to do "research." [HR]

Seeing Christina Aguilera perform is spectacular, but hearing Rachel Ray explain how to make gaspacho: priceless. And that she did last night at the Entertainment Weekly Must List party. The guest list was hot (New York humidity'll getcha). Here's some MollyGood exclusive pictures from the event. I'm willing to bet that Terrence Howard and Gilbert Gottfried don't often run in the same circles. Everyone was beautiful and well-behaved. Hell, even Robert Downey Jr. looked startled at his own sobreity. Also, Neil Patrick Harris doesn't so much go by 'Doogie' anymore, who knew?