Listen to the man.

If there is anything as hyped up as that new Arrested Development season, it’s quite possibly Anchorman 2. Do we have any reason to believe that Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay will let us down? Not really. And Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, and Rob Corddry make a fantastic team of sidekicks. I was leery at first when they announced this, but new footage of the Channel 4 News Team leaves me yearning for another bottle of Sex Panther.

Please, God No: A Dazed and Confused Sequel!?

Director Richard Linklater hopes to shoot a college-set Dazed and Confused sequel this fall. WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER DO THIS? Because sequels to cult-classics rake in Blockbuster numbers? (Tell that to Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day) Linklater has the financing mostly on lock, but he’s still searching for a distributor. With a now-college-aged group of slackers, will high school girls still be the same age? I shudder to think.

(Paste Magazine)

Dexter‘s End Teased in New Trailer

Huge spoiler warning: If you haven’t seen Season 7 of Dexter – do not watch this trailer! What happens in the aftermath (and bloodbath) from last season’s shocking finale is discussed and teased in this trailer, and holy shit – it looks epic. Overall, Dexter has been a great ride. Sure, Julia Stiles tried to ruin it once (Season 5), and yes, Season 6 wasn’t so strong either. But Season 7 really brought the show back as the end game started getting fleshed out and Deb started getting more involved in the game-changing plot. There’s no question – this show will go out with a bang. Or a stab wound. Or a dead guy. I don’t know – think of something punchy. Pretend I wrote it.

The set is being called Sound System, and is being released in an army fatigue-colored case shaped like a 1980s boombox. I guess Jones is on to something, because the set does look pretty badass. It was designed by bassist Paul Simonon and will be available in the U.K. on September 9 and in the U.S. on September 10.

Here’s what’s inside:

-The Clash’s first five LPs: 1977′s The Clash, 1978′s Give ‘Em Enough Rope, 1979′s London Calling, 1980′s Sandinista!, and 1982′s Combat Rock. (The band’s final full-length, 1985′s Cut the Crap, is not featured).

-Three discs of singles, rarities, demos, and B-sides.

-A DVD containing all of the band’s videos and “unseen footage by Julien Temple and Don Letts.”

-Several reprints; a new issue of The Clash’s Armagideon Time fanzine; plus an exclusive poster, dog tags, stickers, badges, and more.

All of the music is remastered from the original tapes with Jones overseeing the process. “Remastering’s a really amazing thing,” Jones told the Guardian. “That was the musical point of it all, because there’s so much there that you wouldn’t have heard before. It was like discovering stuff, because the advances in mastering are so immense since the last time [the Clash catalog] was remastered in the ’90s.”

You can pre-order Sound System here and see trailers for the band’s upcoming releases, which also include a two-disc Best-Of called The Clash Hits Back. 

It’s a great…and expensive…time to be a Clash fan.

(Spin)

It’s true – Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington is now the new lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots after Scott Weiland’s 1,100th firing last February. Dean DeLeo confirmed this odd news by saying:

“Chester has a one-of-a-kind voice that we’ve admired for a long time. We know Linkin Park will always be his priority, but we thought it would be cool to try something together.  We managed to find the time to record a song and we’re all really happy with the result.”

That new song is called “Out of Time”:

I know what you’re thinking. Go ahead and pretend you’ve never liked Linkin Park. Not even once in your lifetime. Talk shit about Bennington. I can only imagine what the reaction to this might be.  I”ll be one of the first to call bullshit though. Hybrid Theory and Meteora were both really solid albums, and I’ll even go on record as liking Minutes to Midnight quite a bit. Bennington’s vocals are undeniably strong and based on this new track, he seems to fit right in with the STP framework.

(Rock Cellar Magazine)

Though they do have pop sensibilities, the band dives into ska, reggae, psychedelic pop, funk, jazz and more, making their album a unique fusion of worldly beats and indie pop. The album is called Isles – each song represents the feel of a different island.

What else? Oh, they destroy Vampire Weekend.

Check out some cuts below:

But dammit, they nailed that finale.

 [Spoilers from last night’s Series Finale]

The episode took place a year after the Dunder Mifflin documentary aired. Since then, everyone has had the time to let the last nine years of their lives sink in. They reunite to celebrate Dwight and Angela’s wedding festivities, as the film crew returns to shoot bonus footage for the DVD. There’s a bachelor party that only Dwight could enjoy, a kidnapping, a stripper that Dwight mistakes for their waitress, and some other shenanigans with the groom’s freaky-deaky farm friends. The episode is packed with funny insights and assorted hilarity. Aside from all this, the 75-minute-long episode succeeded in two major ways.

First, like any strong finale, the show brought back some familiar faces. Kelly Kapoor and Ryan were reunited at the wedding (I guess true love never dies), and more importantly, Michael returns to be Dwight’s Best Man. Producers were mum on details about whether or not Carell would return, even refuting it at one point, but I was glad to see him and also glad they didn’t make the finale all about him.

Second, it finally showed some much-needed character growth and it did so with so much heart. Andy went from a YouTube sensation/laughing stock to getting a full-time gig at his Alma Mater. Erin finally found her birth parents (Oh, hey Joan Cusack!), and Meredith revealed that she was in college getting her PhD hence her partying.

And then there’s Jim and Pam. These two revisited their budding romance, the Roy days, their courtship, their marriage and parenthood all because of the documentary. Pam’s return sacrifice for Jim was a perfect ending for them, and proved that the couple is finally ready to leave Scranton behind and move on. Pam waxes nostalgic about how the documentary made it difficult to relive all her former mistakes:

“I kept wanting to scream at Pam. It took me so long to do so many important things. It’s hard to accept that I spent so many years being less happy than I could’ve been. Jim was five feet from my desk and it took me four years to get to him. It’d be great if people saw this documentary and learned from my mistakes. Not that I’m a tragic person, I’m really happy now. But it would just make my heart soar if someone out there saw this and she said to herself: ‘Be strong. Trust yourself. Love yourself. Conquer your fears. Just go after what you want and act fast! Because life just isn’t that long!’”

Well said, Beasley.

Jim also has a moment where he thanks the camera crew for capturing his last nine years:

“Imagine going back and watching a tape of your life. You could see yourself change and make mistakes and grow up. You could watch yourself fall in love. Watch yourself become a husband. Become a father. You guys gave that to me and that’s an amazing gift.”

Bravo to John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer for their nuanced performances here, which were simply stellar. Jim and Pam were great characters that I think we all enjoyed rooting for.

The finale pulled at heartstrings in all the right places. Think about the last 9 years of your life. What if you could watch that back, like one long movie? I think almost everyone can relate to how surreal that would be – having a specific time of their lives encapsulated like that, frozen in time. There’s something to it. Life rarely works that way though and as Andy put it: “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.”

So even though I appear to have sipped on chugged The Office Kool-aid, credit where credit is due: Greg Daniels and co. nailed this finale. Despite the last two seasons of suck-dom and the finale’s periodic self-indulgence, these guys and gals finished with a bang.

(That’s what she said!)

Seasons 8-9 Grade: C
Finale Grade: A

Community Has Been Renewed Making Up for the Aforementioned Devastation Lodged In My Gut from Happy Endings Getting Canned

As I’ve already said on Facebook: There is a God.

Losing both HE and Community might’ve been enough to convince me to give up on TV all together. (But maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.) Either way, it’s joyous, dear readers, to hear that the Greendale Human Beings (and their Dean!) will be back for more timeline-hopping, paintball-fighting insanity. It’s a beautiful thing when a show’s unparalleled creativity and its fans’ loyalty is rewarded.

CBS Picks Up New Robin Williams/Sarah Michelle Gellar Comedy The Crazy Ones

This is clearly one of my most anticipated new shows that made a network’s fall schedule. Sure, having Sarah Michelle Gellar back on TV again is like some National Sports League or whatever announcing that they’re returning from a strike or something. But ladies and gentlemen: Robin Williams on a weekly sitcom. That can only mean good things right? OK, so back to Gellar: She’s proven many times that she can do comedy – her SNL hosting gigs were all well-received! It’ll be great to see what this power-duo can do. Williams plays an unorthodox advertising executive and Gellar stars as his daughter/co-worker. It should be interesting! Oh, and Kelly Clarkson is in the pilot. Win-win-win.

Marvel’s Agents of ‘S.H.I.E.L.D. Finds a Home at ABC

It’s looking like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to be the Next Big Thing on TV. I mean, The Avengers only made 239048239487 billion dollars! If those incredibly factual numbers translate to ratings, this could be the biggest thing ABC has seen since Lost. The show will follow the non-superhero humans of that universe and will star Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, whose character was actually killed off in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. According to Gregg, we won’t find out exactly how or why Coulson is alive…at least not right away.

Adds co-star Chloe Bennet: “If you love The Avengers, if you love any of Joss Whedon’s work, you’re going to absolutely love the show. It’s about these people living in a super world dealing with being human. You see these superhero movies and you see the superheroes struggle but you don’t see how humans do in a world like that.”

A little housekeeping: These posts are getting moved to Thursdays. With summer almost here, I’m bound to get lazier on Fridays, and you’re bound to get busier. Good talk.

If you’ve got $55, you can pick up your very own Nightmare on Elm Street toaster over at Urban Collector. Here’s the official word stuffs:

Nightmare On Elm St Toaster is an Urban Collector pre-order. He terrorized your dreams while you slept… and now Freddy Krueger haunts your breakfast when you wake up! But don’t worry — while the Springwood Slasher may have felt the burn, your bread and bagels will only endure the perfect amount of heat, toasting the shape of Freddy’s signature bladed glove into each slice. UL-tested and approved, our collectible toaster includes illuminated function buttons for Cancel, Reheat, and Frozen. The Nightmare on Elm Street logo appears on its stylish, glossy black finish. Watch out – it’s the bastard toast of a thousand loafs!

In all honesty, $55 is a little too steep, in my opinion, for a novelty toaster, but maybe the price will get slashed Freddy-style after its release.

The toaster is currently available to pre-order and is set to be released and shipped in August of this year.

The track was recorded for a special Record Store Day 10-inch that the band released in April. With Screaming Females opening for them at the time, the collaboration seemed to be fated. Shirley Manson’s vocals pair well with Marisa Paternoster’s signature scowl – the perfect crooning ying to Paternoster’s angsty yang.  And that’s not even mentioning the mindfuckingly insane shredding that the Screaming Females frontwoman adds to the track.

Check out the official video for “Because the Night” below:

 
The track is available on iTunes and also on the 10-inch in record stores around the country.