New Crap That Deserves Your Attention

This is a weekly column (title is a work in progress) where we look at the best the coming week has to offer in the way of music, DVD, television, and movies. Light week this week as the whole world seemingly shuts down for the godforsaken Olympics. Still, we managed to scrounge up a few potential highlights, listed below for your perusal.

CDs

Local Natives/ Gorilla Manor

I’ve been listening to the “Sun Hands” single for a couple of months now and it’s really done a good job of whetting my appetite for this record. For some reason, the record was released in the UK last year despite the fact that the band is from LA but… whatever. It’s here now.

Lightspeed Champion/ Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You

Stupid name aside (still not as horrible as Devonte Hynes’s last band, Test Icicles), this one’s getting some decent buzz and the video for “Marlene” is sufficiently trippy.

DVD

Black Dynamite

Just watch the trailer. It speaks for itself.

The Invention Of Lying

Ricky Gervais is hardly ever not funny and the concept of a man living in a world where no one understands the concept of lying is an interesting one. Not surprisingly, this didn’t do well at the box office. Probably because it didn’t star Robin Williams and John Travolta as middle-aged buddies getting into crazy and embarrassing situations. That shit sells for some reason – the reason being that the American moviegoing public is generally made up of a bunch of morons. But I digress.

TV

Archer

Episode Title: “Skytanic” – I’m going to keep plugging this show until everyone starts watching it. TV Guide’s description says, “A bomb threat jeopardizes a luxury airship’s maiden voyage, sending the ISIS crew into action.” Titanic jokes will abound, no doubt. Worth mentioning again that this is THE FUNNIEST SHOW IN TV RIGHT NOW. Watch it. Seriously.

HBO Friday Comedies

HBO begins an interesting new strategy of airing a comedy block on Friday nights, an anti-TGIF if you will. The night kicks off with an hour of animation as The Ricky Gervais Show (good week for this guy) premieres, followed by the second-season premiere of The Life And Times Of Tim. Gervais = funny as previously stated and The Life And Times Of Tim had a promising first season. Following the animation is the return of the hit-or-miss Real Time With Bill Maher, and the night is capped off with the premiere of Funny Or Die Presents at midnight. Odd that the highest profile show gets shunted to midnight but maybe it’ll just be balls out crazier in that slot. Funny Or Die Presents promises an all-star comedy cast and it’ll be interesting to see how the shorts from FunnyOrDie.com translate to TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXu_cHwDVWE

Anything That’s Not The Olympics

For the love of God, just watch anything other than the Olympics. Ice dancing. Really… you people are watching ice dancing and eating it up with a GD spoon. What’s wrong with you?

Theaters

Shutter Island

Yeah… it looks bad. And Dennis Lehane wrote it so you know someone’s getting molested somewhere, but it’s still Scorcese, right? Right?!