Potheads and action? Inherently comic, for as most anyone who has lived in a college dorm can attest, stoners are to action as the Tilt-a-Whirl is to driving.

To enjoy stoner silliness is not to advocate an unlawful activity (says one whose post-college pot experience is limited to the Revereware-in-the-kitchen variety). My sentiments about marijuana are pretty much like those about guns. I firmly believe in their control - except on-screen, where they are crucial for entertainment value.

Just as you can be antigun and enjoy Dirty Harry, you don't have to be stoned to enjoy stoner comedy.

We were surprised, however, to not see the Defamer-approved instant classic Pineapple Express on the list of all-time great stoner comedies, headed up by Lebowski, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Dazed and Confused. History will surely remember otherwise — even if, by cruel definition, its core constituency cannot.

• Smoking the funny stuff [Philadelphia Inquirer]

After TONY suggests that the official NPH comeback began not with his critically acclaimed role on HIMYM but with his druggie performance in the original H&K, Neil takes the bait and quips, "I never thought that snorting coke off the ass of a stripper would reinvent my career so well, no." And in case you were wondering, the fake NPH in the sequel has switched mindbenders: "It's mushrooms now." But speaking of strippers, it seems he's seen far more pole-straddlers in his day than you'd expect from a recently outed actor. As he puts it, "I've seen quite a few cans...I like calling them cans. It's fun. Although it's absolutely inappropriate in every way—wrong shape, wrong texture." Though we're not sure what part of that thought is "inappropriate" (the fact that breasts don't feel like beer cans, or that he thinks it's "fun" to call them that), we are delighted to learn that he's grabbed a few in the past. Imagining that is fun, indeed.

• THE HOT SEAT: NEIL PATRICK HARRIS [TONY]

WHAT'S NEW: Baby Mama and Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay will duel for the top spot, with the latter film predicted to ride its franchise basis all the way to No. 1. Its R-rating won't help against the PG-13 Tina Fey vehicle, however, which could lure its core female demographic to an opening take of $13 million. Harold and Kumar's estimates are all over the place — from $11 million to $16.6 million — so wager now for Monday morning bragging rights. Also opening: Errol Morris's Abu Ghraib doc Standard Operating Procedure; the Burt Reynolds gambling drama Deal; and French legend Claude Lelouch's suspenser Roman de Gare.

THE BIG LOSER: Talk about dump-and-run: A-listers Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor, and Michelle Williams are hiding in plain sight in the "thriller" Deception, which we didn't even know existed until Variety revealed Fox was throwing it on 2,000 screens this weekend. And the critics love it almost as much as last week's Pacino-Bomb 88 Minutes; with 6% favorable ratings currently at Rotten Tomatoes, the film "was made to be forgotten," writes Onion AV Clubber Scott Tobias.

THE UNDERDOG: We're of two minds about Helen Hunt's directorial debut Then She Found Me. Yes, the sex in the film is quite terrible, and yes, the story lapses perhaps too eagerly at times into rom-com convention. (First mistake: casting Colin Firth.) But! Hunt's story of an adopted, baby-craving New Yorker (Hunt) whose husband leaves just as her birth mother (Bette Midler) reenters her life has way more going for it than we'd thought — Midler, for starters, whose meddling, mendacious mommy is one of her most modulated performances in years. Paired with Hunt, their timing, vulnerability and overall chemistry are as worthy as any of the Fey/Poehler maternity schtick anchoring Baby Mama.

FOR SHUT-INS: You'd be crazy to stay indoors this weekend, but still: New DVD's include Cloverfield, Charlie Wilson's War, The Savages and the most heavily anticipated TV revival of at least the last seven days, Laverne & Shirley: The Complete Fourth Season.

So are you with Team H&K or Baby Mama in the Battle of the Middling Spring Comedies? Will you roll the dice on Deception? Will you trust us on Bette Midler? Go ahead: Now tell us how to spend our weekend.

The gravity bong expert is none other than big baller Cisco Adler, the couch potato with a preference for apple bongs is Jonah Hill (sooo not surprised), and the lip gloss tipster is original America's Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry. Other star contributers reportedly include Adam Levine, Melissa Etheridge and none other than Kumar himself, Kal Penn. If only Shoe Fairy Neil Patrick Harris would join his H&K co-star and come out of this closet, we'd start pre-ordering ASAP.

• REEFER MADNESS, CELEB-STYLE [NY Post]