Run! Gnarls Barkley Releases Album Early

Hot on the news that the Raconteurs will rush their CD, it appears that Gnarls Barkley will do the same: Scheduled for an April 8th album release, the band’s second release entitled Odd Couple is now available online and in record stores (this will definitely vary based on store’s ability to keep up). Here’s a statement released by a representative of theirs courtesy of 411mania:

“They felt the timing was right to just go for it…With the shifting seasons, furtive romantic entanglements and fierce college basketball rivalries, the latter half of March can be confusing. People need to be soothed and inspired now.”

Click here to check out the video for ‘Run’

Unsteady, As She Goes: Racounteurs to Release Album Early

No later than a week after the CD was mixed down it appears that you’ll be able to purchase the Raconteurs CD this Tuesday (March 25th). Jack White explains in an interview with Billboard:

“We wanted to get this record to fans, the press, radio, etc., all at the EXACT SAME TIME so that no one has an upper hand on anyone else regarding it’s availability, reception or perception.”

Pretty cool idea, but I do have my concerns. In film, when a movie is rushed out and not given to the critics, it generally means that the movie is so poor that the studios want reviews to come out as late as possible (see: Every Richard Geer movie made in the past 10 years) so the public isn’t made aware that the movie is miserable. Based on the Raconteurs last album, which I thought was somewhat inconsistent, I wouldn’t rule this option completely out.

However, if I was a betting man I’d imagine the real reason is to prevent piracy: The more people that get to have their hands on the album, the smaller the chances are the album is leaked to the internet.

Or there’s the remote possibility that the album is so incredible that they believe Word of Mouth is all it’ll need. Here’s another excerpt from their Billboard interview:

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“We wanted to explore the idea of releasing an album everywhere at once and THEN marketing and promoting it thereafter,” the band says. “The Raconteurs would rather this release not be defined by its first week sales, pre-release promotion or by someone defining it FOR YOU before you get to hear it.”

Source: Billboard

PS: Today is National Record Store Day, so if you’re planning on buying a CD wait til tomorrow, because National Record Store Day is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.

PPS: This is as bloggy of a post as I’ll ever write.

 

Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder Trailer hits internet

Looks like Ben Stiller’s new movie, Tropic Thunder’s trailer has hit the internet. The movie will also feature Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr (as a black man), and features a guest appearances by Tom Cruise, Matthew McCounaghey, and Tobey McGuire. Thunder will be Ben Stiller’s first directorial job since Zoolander.

IMDB lists the summary of the movie as:

“Through a series of freak occurrences, a group of actors shooting a big-budget war movie are forced to become the soldiers they are portraying.”

(It also has one of my all time favorite tag lines, even though I’m sure it won’t be used when it actually starts getting advertised: Shit Blows Up.)

It’s scheduled release date is August 15th, 2008.

ENJOY!

The Office Returns and Gervais Casts

A few bit of office news for ya….

It appears that April 10th has been targeted for the return date of The Office with an episode entitled “Dinner Party.” The show will return with an abridged 6 episode season (with an off chance they’ll do seven), and it’s being rumored that after the initial episode the show might acknowledge the lapse in time and skip ahead to where the storyline would have been if there was no strike.

 UPDATE: Here’s a description of the episode courtesy of NBC.com

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER – Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim (John Krasinski) find they have run out of excuses and are forced to go to Jan (Melora Hardin) and Michael’s (Golden Globe winner Steve Carell) house for dinner. When Andy (Ed Helms) and Angela (Angela Kinsey) are also invited to dinner, Dwight’s (Rainn Wilson) jealousy gets the best of him.

In related news, creator Ricky Gervais is almost finished casting for his movie entitled This Side of Truth. Here’s a summary of the plot line provided by AintItCool:

“Ricky Gervais plays a man who lives in a society where the concept of lying was never invented. No one lies. As a result, there’s no fiction. There’s nothing even remotely like it. It’s a world for the literal minded, and when Gervais accidentally creates lying, it’s like he’s a powerful magician…”

For more information, check out Ricky’s blog

For those who aren’t familiar with the UK version of The Office here’s a quick, hilariously awkard snippet (for those who are, it’s the David Brent Dance.):

And if that doesn’t feed your fix, here’s the disturbingly catchy studio version of Free Love Freeway featuring Noel Gallagher of Oasis… and if you prefer the original, click here:

When You (Death) Wish Upon A Star

I tried writing an intro to this news story about 19 times…. I just couldn’t do it justice. Let’s kick it right to the story:

SLY STALLONE IS IN TALKS TO REMAKE DEATH WISH.

You did not misread that. SLY STALLONE IS SET TO STAR AND DIRECT A REMAKE FOR DEATH WISH

I Know, I know… you think I’m lying. Let’s kick it to the people at Variety:

“We are looking at our library to determine which potential franchise properties make the most sense for us to produce, and ‘Death Wish’ was clearly one of that jumped out,” said MGM chief operating officer Rick Sands. “We hope to get a deal done with Sylvester Stallone to direct and star, and like the ‘Rocky’ and ‘Rambo’ films, we see this as another potential franchise for him.”

For the full Variety Story click here
For those who aren’t familiar with the spectacular Death Wish series, here’s a synopsis courtesey IMDB

“A New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife is murdered by street punks in which he randomly goes out and kills would-be muggers on the mean streets after dark.”

BTW: MGM is also in talks to make remakes or sequels to Robocop, Thomas Crowne Affair and Pink Panther. Don’t all go rush out to buy MGM stock at once!

Arrested Development’s Creator Making A New Show!

Appears that Mitch Horowitz isn’t sitting on his hands waiting for a studio to pick up the highly anticipated Arrested Development movie. Apparently Horowitz will be writing and producing for an animated series on FOX to put in between The Simpsons and Family Guy. The show, entitled Sit Down, Shut Up is an adaptation of an Australian show will “revolves around the lives of seven staff members of a dysfunctional high school in a small northeastern fishing town. Exploits center on faculty members as their own egos and personal agendas trump the students’ needs.” (Variety link).

My suggestion to FOX is to wait for a major sporting event comes back, say the World Sereis, and have it interfere with the show’s scheduling as much as possible: it’s a proven success!

Related, I found this video

If you’re looking to watch Arrested Development there’s sites on the internet like this one . Obviously, the postings are illegal so I by no means endorse them.

PS: If you’re looking for good Arrested Development videos on youtube, good f’n luck.

Lost Boys 2…. honestly?

Ridiculous.

“I’m Edgar Frog, Surfboard Shaper and Vampire Hunter.”

If you’re looking for the director’s credentials: They include a Tremors TV series, two episodes of The Profiler and Sniper 3 and yes, Corey Haim is in it too.

If that wasn’t enough for you, here is 6 videos of Corey Feldman taking himself entirely too seriously.

IF YOU’D ACTUALLY LIKE INFORMATION ON THE MOVIE here’s a helpful link

Source: Kendra Russell.

Absurd Movie News

Normally, I’m not much of a fan of movie remakes. But this one, is just so ridiculous, absurd, and just completely unnecessary that if I had some kind of clever name for “Planet Fun Seal of Approval” (I’ll take suggestions), I would give it just that. The guys from AskNinja (I’ve never actually viewed them) are coming together to write…..

AAAA-TTAAAAACCKK OOOOFFFF THE KILL-LLLER TOOOO-MMAAAAA-TOOOOES!

 

Source: Hollywood Insider. For story click here

If that news isn’t absurd enough for you, try this one for size:

Weeks after rumors of a second Cliffhanger movie entitled The Dam, Sly Stallone continues to shock us: apparently he’s halfway through writing another Rambo movie. But the news gets a little more odd, let’s kick it to Sly for an explanation (that he actually gave to a Swedish Newspaper, not me):

“I Would like to take Rambo to another genre, experiment a little with the character. It would definitely not be another war movie. I can’t go any further with that than what I’ve already done. What it’s going to be like, I’m not going to reveal at this point. But I”m already halfway through writing the manuscript”

I know it might be a bit late, but I figured I might as well make my pitch to Sylvester Stallone for the next chapter of John Rambo:

“After the war, John Rambo finds it very, very difficult to find work in ‘the real world.’ After being unemployed for three months a friend of his named Frank Mason persuades the former war vet to bodyguard for his two kids. Little does John know that Frank wants him to bodyguard his kid because he has recently undergone plans to develop a top secret micro chip and has already recieved some very threatening messages. When Rambo arrives at his house it turns out that he’ll not only have to bodyguard the kid, but also be their nanny, since they scared away ALL of their former ones!!! What he’s about to find out is that HE’S the one that’s going to need the protecting…. FROM THE KIDS!!!”

Morning Videos

Here’s a new trailer from Camp Apatow called Forgetting Sarah Marshall starring Jason Segel (the other guy in Knocked Up apparently also in CBS’ Hottest New Comedy How I Met Your Mother) scheduled to come out April 18th. Which looks pretty funny, despite the fact that it some eery resemblance to Ben Stiller’s Heartbreak Kid.

Will Arnett recently filmed some more stuff with the guys from Human Giant for their second season which aired last night. The premise is that the Human Giant guys try to sneak into a party so they wear a Mary Kate Olsen mask and then meet up with Will Arnett. It’s weird, off beat and everything else you’d expect from Human Giant. BTW: If you’re at work, put on headphones if you’re going to watch it.

And for whatever reason, WordPress won’t let me embed FunnyorDie links, so if you want to see a hilarious video with Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Nick Swardson and Will Arnett you’ll have to click here.

IMEEM: Create / Share Music Playlists

So, I hate to be the guy who has the blog and introduces sites and tells everyone about how cool they are but…..

(Gulp)

Definitely give this site IMEEM a check out. Throughout the site you can do, just as the topic headline suggests, create and share playlists (I’m sure it has a thousand other bits of functionality that I don’t know/care about).

The cool aspects is that the site’s own library is really, really expansive (it had a Rhymefest mixtape that I’ve been listening in that is made up of Michael Jackson samples) and loading up songs have seemingly no waiting period.

What this means for you:

• You can access/check out pretty much any song in the world through the site without ANY loading time
  • If you heard good things about an artist you don’t have to wait to hear them (or waste space)
• You can create play lists and access them anywhere in the world (which’ll help next time you’re at a place w/ terrible music)
• Sharing your music with friends who have similar musical tastes got a lot easier… send them a link, friend them, etc.
• Also, at parties everyone’s favorite play lists are all ready to go without destroying someone’s computer/ipod memory

BTW: Here’s a sick list which is The Official Playlist of Planet Fun

Easily the best party-mix of all time

Anyways, sign up, friend me (Matt Richissin), make play lists, and tell your friends.