A.V. Club

Music: Great Job, Internet!: Let Solange and The Lonely Island school you on proper punctuation with their new single,"Semicolon"

Marah Eakin — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:45:00 -0500

The Lonely Island may have just dropped a new clip, “Diaper Money,” on Monday, but the group’s commitment to #WackWednesdays apparently hasn’t waned one bit. The trio just dropped a new collaboration with Solange (a.k.a. Beyonce’s sister), and it’s hot, naturally. “Semicolon,” an ode to the punctuation that not enough people use, both educates and entertains, sort of like a much hipper Schoolhouse Rock for the 21^st century.

The Lonely Island’s The Wack Album arrives June 11 and features guest contributions from Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, and more.

Music: Newswire: Paris Hilton announces sort-of-maybe-long-awaited followup to her debut album

Austin Bernhardt — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:35:00 -0500

Who could have foreseen in 2006 when heiress, reality “star,” “actress,” and “human being” Paris Hilton paid a whole bunch of people to produce her debut album, Paris, that the world would have to wait seven whole years for her to pay Afrojack to produce her second one? And yet, finally, a Hottie, a Nottie, and a Repo! The Genetic Opera later, the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the saying “All that glitters is not gold” has announced that her sophomore outing will be released on Cash Money Records later this year.

The as-yet-untitled house album will feature appearances from hip-hop hams including Drake, Nicki Minaj, Busta Rhymes, and Lil Wayne—all of whom are presumably doing it for love of the music and also enough money to buy their artistic integrity. Hilton plans to promote the launch in Ibiza this summer, where a bunch of Spanish people will be forced to ...

Comedy: Newswire: Get ready for a whole lot more Hannibal Buress on Comedy Central

Kevin McFarland — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:30:00 -0500

Hannibal Buress hasn’t exactly been struggling. He's written for a year on Saturday Night Live, then spent time writing and making occasional cameo appearances on 30 Rock before his second album/special, Animal Furnace, last year. And for those who haven’t seen his supporting role on The Eric Andre Show, it’s some surreal, zany hilarity. But according to a Deadline report, Buress is about to get much more visible for his own work. Buress just signed a new development deal with Comedy Central that includes a new one-hour special, a pilot that Buress will executive produce, a nationwide standup tour, and a recurring role on the Amy Poehler-produced broadcast version of web series Broad City. With all of that work, Buress won’t be able to open his shows with a bit about how nobody recognizes him anymore—though he should be highly encouraged to continue ...

Slings And Arrows, “The Promised End”

Todd VanDerWerff — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:00:00 -0500

“The Promised End” (season 3, episode 6; originally aired 8/28/2006)

In which our little life is rounded with a sleep

(Available on Netflix and Amazon.)

If you are lucky, you will get to be a part of something you truly believe in. If you are lucky, you will find a place you belong. If you are lucky, you will find a person who makes you better than yourself. If you are human, you won’t realize what you had until you don’t anymore. Suddenly, the thing that was at the center of your existence will become its opposite, an absence akin to a star collapsing in on itself and forming a black hole. There will be a chalk outline where once there was a thing, a photo negative where once something brighter and better existed. And your life will be changed, and you will keep chasing that ...

Film: Cannes Film Festival: Cannes, Day Seven: J.C. Chandor makes good, Nicolas Winding Refn goes bad, and Claire Denis gets ugly

Mike D'Angelo — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:51:00 -0500

Ah, so here’s where all the truly distinctive films were hiding. The last three I’ve seen run the gamut from the nearly sublime to the frankly abysmal, but they’re all bold, memorable, risk-happy adventures—exactly the kind of movies Cannes ought to be showcasing. Even the one I despised made me happy, just by virtue of being unafraid to fail. My Leone-style rundown of the past 24 hours:

THE GOOD: If anything, advance word about J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost underplayed the starkly elemental nature of this one-man survival tale. I’d heard that Robert Redford is its sole cast member, which is true, and that he gives an essentially wordless performance, which is also true (just some attempts to communicate via a broken radio and one pent-up, anguished “FUUUUUUCK!!!!”). But I was pleasantly surprised—gobsmacked, actually—by the film’s total rejection of context ...

Music: Newswire: Get Involved, Internet: Help make a documentary about Joe Strummer's old car

David Anthony — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:40:00 -0500

Hot on the heels of the announcement that The Clash will be releasing the Sound System box set in September, and the late Joe Strummer having a small plaza named after him in Granada, filmmaker Nick Hall is attempting to enact some cosmic justice by finding out what happened to Strummer's long lost car. The film, I Need A Dodge!, examines Strummer's time in Spain during the mid-'80s, specifically his falling in love with a Dodge that he lost in a parking garage through some folly of errors (read: cocaine-induced confusion).

With the film nearing completion Hall is reaching out to the Internet in the hopes that he can receive $25,000 in donations so the film can receive the finishing touches it needs. And, with every other facet of Strummer's life already fairly well documented, the film also promises to give a look at his ...

TV: Newswire: Critic's Choice TV Awards nods at The Big Bang Theory, Bunheads, Ryan Murphy, and more

Caroline Siede — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:35:00 -0500

Nominations were announced Wednesday morning for the third annual Critic’s Choice Television Awards. Proving there is nothing television critics love more than nerds and Ryan Murphy, The Big Bang Theory and American Horror Story: Asylum tied for most nominated program with six noms each. HBO and FX lead the network pack with 21 and 19 nominations, respectively.

While Parks And Rec, Game Of Thrones, New Girl, Louie, The Americans, and Breaking Bad were among the shows earning multiple nominations, Modern Family and Mad Men each earned only one acting nod. Modern Family has won the Best Comedy Emmy three years running, and it’s absence in the Best Comedy Series category means this competition is about to blow wide open. Get your bets ready.

The award show will air via live webcast on June 10, hosted by stand-up/Parks And Rec cast member/Twitter VIP Retta.

The full list ...

TV: Great Job, Internet!: The cast of The Middle have their own 10 favorite episodes, thank you very much

Will Harris — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:05:00 -0500

When the decision was made to shine the TV Club 10 spotlight on The Middle, a great deal of thought and consideration went into selection the episodes that would make it into the final list. There was also a great deal of hesitation and procrastination, however, along with many occasions amidst the bursts of uncertainty when the question was posed to others, “So, uh, what are your favorite episodes?”

Among those asked: Patricia Heaton, Neil Flynn, and Eden Sher.

Heaton and Flynn each offered up a list of their 10 favorite episodes, along with a one-liner explaining either what the plot was about or why they liked it. Sher’s enthusiasm, however, could not be restrained to a mere single sentence: not only did the plucky young comedienne quickly whip up her own list of 10 favorite episodes, but she dedicated a paragraph-long love letter to every single one of ...

TV: Interview: Katie Aselton on going from mumblecore to thriller—and directing her own nude scenes

Sam Adams — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Katie Aselton’s second feature as a director is just about the last thing fans of her debut, The Freebie, might have expected—which is exactly why she did it. Rising out of mumblecore—she starred in 2005’s The Puffy Chair—to a spot on FX’s The League, she’s stuck to stylistically subdued, character-driven work, or at least she had until she filmed the new girls-in-trouble thriller Black Rock. Working from a script by her husband Mark Duplass, the movie reunites onetime BFFs Aselton, Lake Bell, and Kate Bosworth for a weekend campout on a Maine islet. But their attempt to work out longstanding grudges in the isolation of nature is foiled by the intrusion of three young military veterans whose time in combat has left them dangerously off-balance. Given that Deliverance was one of Aselton’s models, it’s not surprising that, before long, survival takes ...

TV: TV Roundtable: Boobies, pee-pees, codependence, and grounding the shenanigans with heart

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Welcome to the TV Roundtable, where some of TV Club’s writers tackle episodes that deal with a central theme. The next five installments focus on episodes featuring “interlopers.”

Friends, “The One With The Boobies” (season one, episode 13, originally aired 1/19/95)

In which everyone ends up exposed…

David Sims: When watching Friends—and any show like Friends (Seinfeld, How I Met Your Mother, the original Coupling, a thousand others) where a bunch of people hang out as the premise of the show—a question quickly has to be asked: What’s with these people? They really hang out with each other all the time, have unlimited access to their apartments, eat and drink at the same three places, discuss every minute detail of their lives, and eventually end up sleeping with each other (probably)? It’s what we want to see, but if you sit and think ...

Music: Newswire: R.I.P. Trevor Bolder, bassist for David Bowie and Uriah Heep

Phil Dyess-Nugent — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Trevor Bolder, a musician best known for his work with David Bowie and Uriah Heep, has died at the age of 62, after a bout with pancreatic cancer. The product of a musical family—his father was a trumpet player—Bolder teamed up with guitarist Mick Ronson for his first professional band, Ronno, in the late ‘60s. Bowie drafted the two of them to back him up during an appearance on John Peel’s radio show, then used them on his 1971 breakthrough album Hunky Dory, on which Bolder played bass and trumpet. Ronson and Bolder formed the core of Bowie’s band during his early ‘70s glitter phase, comprising the albums The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1972), Aladdin Sane (1973), and Pin Ups (1973). (They also appeared in the 1973 Ziggy Stardust concert film.)

After leaving Bowie’s employ, Bolder played on ...

Film: Tolerability Index: This week we're barely putting up with The Hangover Part III

Amelie Gillette — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:00:00 -0500

TV: Newswire: CBS no longer just for the olds, according to ratings system skewed toward viewing habits of the olds

Erik Adams — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:55:00 -0500

In a development that’s being trumpeted in newspapers, broadsides, and other forms of media no longer preferred by the viewership of CBS, preliminary reports have the Tiffany Network unseating Fox from the ratings throne it has occupied for eight years. As reported by Entertainment Weekly, CBS will take the Nielsen crown among adults under 50 for the 2012-13 season—a victory that will definitively put an end to years of jokes about CBS being watched exclusively by the old and irrelevant. Yes, this confirms that the network of Blue Bloods, 60 Minutes, and the silver-fox triumverate of Mark Harmon, Ted Danson, and Morley Safer is the choice of a new generation, with their skateboards and hip-hop raps and standing appointments to watch NCIS at a time appointed by CBS. (EXTREMELY RIGID VIEWING HABITS! [Guitar lick.]) The victory certainly has nothing to do with the fact that the Nielsen ratings ...

Music: Great Job, Internet!: The first single off Goodie Mob's reunion album features Janelle Monáe, is totally nuts

Eric Thurm — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:50:00 -0500

Atlanta hip-hop group and original home of Cee-Lo Green Goodie Mob has set an August 27 release date for Age Against The Machine, its first album since reuniting last year and the first to feature the full line-up since 1999. “Special Education,” the just-released first single, sets a ridiculously high bar for the rest of the album. The track features an insane, almost industrial exploding funk beat, a stately chorus from fellow Dungeon Family member Janelle Monáe bemoaning uniformity in music, and a pretty killer verse from Cee-Lo himself.

Savage Love: May 22, 2013

Dan Savage — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Twenty-one-year-old female here. When we were both 14, my first boyfriend took advantage of me. I wanted to explore my sexuality a little, but things went further than I wanted. One day, we were kissing with him on top of me. We were both fully clothed, and he started rubbing up against me. I didn’t realize he was dry-humping me until after he had to leave to clean himself up. He never asked for my permission. Once I understood what had happened, I felt violated. He’d also groped my boobs on another occasion without asking. He broke up with me a couple months later. I haven’t spoken to him in seven years.

For the most part, this hasn’t scarred me too much. I’m comfortable with my sexuality. However, it’s very painful for me to think about what happened. I also avoid having sex with ...

DVD: HomeVideo Review: My Neighbor Totoro / Howl’s Moving Castle

Sam Adams — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

One of the strengths of animation is that there’s no limit to the worlds that can be created. It costs no more to draw a mile-long spaceship than an inflatable kayak. But in the hands of an artist like Hayao Miyazaki, animation can point viewers to the fantastic in the world around them, or bring out the recognizable features of a universe they’ve never seen. In broad terms, Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro and Howl’s Moving Castle, both released in new dual-format editions this week, do just that, whisking moviegoers away while simultaneously rooting them more deeply where they are.

For anyone who knows Miyazaki’s name, Totoro needs no introduction. The title character, a forest spirit who resembles a plump, neckless rabbit, has become the symbol of Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli, as recognizable in the director’s native Japan as Mickey Mouse. But the movie was ...

TV: TV Club 10: What made The Middle one of the best family comedies in years

Will Harris — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

With so many new series popping up on streaming services and DVD every day, it gets harder and harder to keep up with new shows, much less the all-time classics. With TV Club 10, we point you toward the 10 episodes that best represent a TV series, classic or modern. If you watch these 10, you’ll have a better idea of what that series was about, without having to watch the whole thing. These are not meant to be the 10 best episodes, but rather the 10 most representative episodes.

To say that family sitcoms are a dime a dozen is to devalue the dime, but the voluminous number of half-hour comedies revolving around the goings-on among a mom, a dad, and their kids in no way means that all of them stand out in a crowd. If anything, there’s far more of a tendency for such series ...

TV: Inventory: 13 Arrested Development quotes to summarize reactions to the new episodes

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

1. “I’m afraid that I just blue myself.”
It’s been seven years since the last new episode of Arrested Development aired, and in that time, the show’s whip-smart dialogue has taken on a second life, a shared language among the faithful who’ll find any excuse to throw a “Illusions, Michael!” or a “Marry me!” into casual conversation. But with 15 new episodes set to add a fresh volume (or potentially overshadow) to The Quotable Bluths, what’s to be done with all those old, worn-out punchlines? Why not do what Internet commenters have done for years, and couch your response to something new and exciting in an Arrested Development quote—in this case new Arrested Development! Like so many of the show’s oft-parroted non sequiturs, “I’m afraid that I just blue myself” is all context: It’s only innuendo on the surface, uttered as ...

Music: For Our Consideration: Will indie-rock reunions become just part of the plan?

Steven Arroyo — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

On April 29, The Smiths officially became the last hopelessly broken-up indie-rock band when its successor in the uncomfortable-level-of-emotion sweepstakes, Neutral Milk Hotel, announced its first tour in 15 years. Strangely, though, what surely would have been treated as a miracle resurrection a decade ago didn’t feel like much of a bombshell three weeks ago.

That’s partly because the notoriously reclusive Mangum has been performing solo sets regularly for over two years, on increasingly major stages and mostly featuring material from Neutral Milk Hotel’s two albums, 1996’s On Avery Island and 1998’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.

But it also wasn’t surprising because, for anyone who’s interested in this corner of the music world, the announcement probably just felt like the next logical step in a current white-hot streak of indie-rock Hall Of Fame bands “shocking” fans with announcements of amends and ...

Wondermark: May 22, 2013

David Malki ! — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

TV: What's On Tonight?: Another TV season ends with the wacky antics of Modern Family sending us sailing toward summer

Todd VanDerWerff — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Wednesday, May 22. All times are Eastern.

TOP PICK
Modern Family (ABC, 9 p.m.): Season finales are just the time for everybody in the cast to take a trip, but perhaps the Pritchett-Dunphy-Tuckers would rather they not be traveling to Florida for such sad reasons. See, Phil’s mom has just died, and for some reason, the entire family, instead of just the Dunphy clan, decides to head down to America’s wang to pay their respects. Along the way, wacky things will happen, Emmys will be won, and Donna Bowman will bid adieu to this show—and the TV season—until the fall rolls ‘round again.

REGULAR COVERAGE
Don’t Trust The B---- In Apartment 23 (Hulu, 5 p.m.): After this show’s untimely cancellation, Emily Guendelsberger feared she would never see it again. Instead, the ...

Games: The Gameological Society: The scariness of the survival game Don’t Starve comes on slowly but doesn’t let go

John Teti — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:59:00 -0500

Those of you who witnessed my obsession with The Binding Of Isaac last year know that I’m a fan of “roguelike” games whose worlds are generated anew every time you fire them up. I like the improvisational style of play that naturally emerges from learning these games—the sense that you can learn some broader rules of how a roguelike rules, but your most important skill will always be an ability to think on your feet. Drew Toal knows how to think on his feet, and that’s why he returned for this final installment of this month’s Digest. (Also, he couldn’t resist those frog-shaped gummy candies.)

Thanks for watching The Digest this month!

Grimm, “Goodnight, Sweet Grimm”

Kevin McFarland — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:40:00 -0500

It took me over a year to watch the entire first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I watched the first three episodes over the course of one rainy afternoon at the end of a school year and then stalled, catching one here and there, but never really finding anything that grabbed me and kept me interested—except for “Angel.” But I held in there, slowly whiling away that first season, moving into the second, growing more interested as the show began to turn the corner. To be sure, that season had quite possibly the series’ dumbest episode (“Ted”), but it also showed a flair for the two-parter. By the time I got to the season-ending “Becoming,” I was hooked. The buildup, the ending cliffhanger, everything—I knew the second that episode ended that I was pot-committed to finishing the series, and even jumping over to Angel and drudging through ...

Awkward., “Guilt Trippin'”

Myles McNutt — Tue, 21 May 2013 22:50:00 -0500

We all change in high school. Even if not everyone transforms from one thing into another, and even if some people regress rather than evolve, we can still see high school as a space where our identities are fluid. As a result, it’s also a space where there is never a great deal of security in one’s social standing, which can lead people who find their life changing to either retract into their safe space or react out of fear of how this new position has altered your perspective.

Awkward. has been all about change, first in Jenna’s self-transformation in the first season but then slowly extending out to other characters. The challenge for Jenna has been her inability to see that she isn’t the only person who’s changing: She reads Matty’s popularity as confidence, a mistake that led her to look past the ...

Film: Great Job, Internet!: Get Involved, Internet: Help complete an Andrei Tarkovsky documentary based on his diaries

Kevin McFarland — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:00:00 -0500

Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky created some of most visually arresting films of his generation—Solaris, Andrei Rublev, Stalker, The Mirror—in a brief career cut short by lung cancer. But despite influencing contemporaries like Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman, not to mention countless others since then—three of his films made the Top 50 in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll—there has never been a comprehensive English-language documentary on the director until now. PJ Letofsky’s project Time Within Time uses Tarkovsky’s own diaries as its basis, as well as interviews with Tarkovsky’s surviving collaborators and family members to create a complete portrait of the legendary director, from his early life and exposure to nature through secretive communication with his collaborators to avoid persecution from strict censors.

Letofsky even brought in renowned Soviet/American actor Oleg Vidov to narrate Tarkovsky’s words throughout the film. Principal photography is ...

Newswire: So it turns out Shia LaBeouf won't be using his penis in the new Lars Von Trier movie

A.A. Dowd — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:38:00 -0500

Proving that even the guy who directed Antichrist has limits to what he's willing to subject moviegoers to, one of the producers of Lars Von Trier's upcoming, two-part Nymphomaniac told The Hollywood Reporter yesterday that Shia LaBeouf will not, as previously reported, be giving his manhood an onscreen workout. Okay, so those weren't the exact words of producer Louise Vesth, who instead explained that while the sex in the film will be real, it will be performed by body doubles, and digitally melded with the simulated bump-and-grind of the name actors (who also include Uma Thurman, Stellan Skarsgard, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and the very sexy Udo Kier). “So above the waist it will be the star and the below the waist it will be the doubles," she added. Bummed LaBeouf fans should express their disappointment with the appropriate, customary expression of disapproval.

TV: Great Job, Internet!: Here are UPN's original promos for the Buffy The Vampire Slayer finale

Kevin McFarland — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:00:00 -0500

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer series finale "Chosen" on UPN. (Also it’s been more than 10 years since the show made the bizarre jump from The WB to UPN.) To mark the occasion, we thought it might be fun to look back at how the network previewed the end of the series in promos. They detail the Scooby Gang’s prodigious statistics—“526 demons slayed, 1,342 vampires dusted”—and all the returning players in the final season—Angel, Faith, Giles—in such quaint fashion that it undersells just how incredibly influential and still perennially underrated Joss Whedon’s first calling card is today. But considering the entire series is available on Netflix, now is the perfect time to go back and revisit some old favorites—and maybe check back in on Noel Murray’s excellent TV Club Classic coverage.

TV: Newswire: Ricky Gervais' Derek, the show about the mentally challenged man, sets Netflix debut date

Caroline Siede — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:05:00 -0500

Ricky Gervais’ new series Derek will make its Netflix debut September 12. The series, which Gervais writes, directs, executive produces, and stars in, follows a mentally challenged man living in a nursing home. As previously reported, Derek aired in the UK to initial controversy but later garnered generally favorable reviews. All seven episodes of the show will be released simultaneously, giving Gervais fans three and a half hours of cringe comedy to binge watch. A second season has already been ordered in the UK.

While Derek might not have the same buzz surrounding it as Arrested Development, it will almost certainly be better than Netflix’s most recent original programing venture Hemlock Grove, unless Derek is secretly a werewolf and all of the residents of the nursing home turn out to be vampires.

Music: Great Job, Internet!: Listen to a bunch of rappers reference former NBA center Alonzo Mourning

Kevin McFarland — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Sports and hip-hop are a match made in heaven, but sometimes an unusual reference gets used so many times over the years that it stands out. Courtesy of an endorsement from Bethlehem Shoals (of dearly departed but never forgotten NBA blog Free Darko), now there’s a roundup by Vancouver-based Young Braised of many different rappers referencing former NBA star Alonzo Mourning in songs ranging from 1993-2012. Unfortunately, unlike other sports references, where a name gets used because of how great, say, Michael Jordan is at basketball, Mourning is such an ever-present name-drop because he goes well in any line using the word “morning.” You know, instead of highlighting the fact that the guy got a kidney transplant, then returned to the NBA and won a title. The tracks range from the standard name-drop in Fu-Schnickens’ “What’s Up Doc? (Can We Rock)” which featured Shaquille O’Neal, to Wale ...

Music: Newswire: Queen guitarist Brian May says he hates The Voice, surprises no one

Marah Eakin — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Today in “water is wet” news: Brian May hates The Voice. The Queen guitarist says the show—he’s talking about the U.K. version, but his feelings would probably carry over to the U.S. version as well—“is absolutely the dullest, dumbest, most depressing programme on TV,” and is “the ultimate insult to music and performers.” In a post on his blog, May writes that he hopes the show “dies a natural death very soon” and that seeing “young singers busting their guts trying to win somebody’s attention, who is rudely sitting with their back to the singer” makes him feel sick.

May goes on to say that competition is not what music about and that, in fact, it hurts art. He writes:

“When we sing, or play, for real, we are NOT screaming at the top of our lungs trying to persuade someone to notice us ...