D'Angelo released his first studio album in 14 years somewhat unexpectedly Monday morning.

These digital age marketing event releases follow a clear path—an onslaught of superlatives flutter about, circumstances of the release carry the work atop a cresting wave of social media. At least this time, the record is good.

Black Messiah's 12 songs are presented with the covert cohesion of malware that's bundled into an innocuous software download. Upon first listen it feels like producers wisely rolled tape during sessions and extrapolated the most interesting jams. But that's just because every offbeat whim is closely parsed and presented in a bubbling stew. Here's an audit and ranking of each song, after a day spent trying to be productive with this borderline masterpiece on in the background.

12) "The Door"

This is a brick at the charity stripe—a microwave breakfast, sing-at-the-sun melody with whistles and acoustic blues. It sounds infantile and detached, like Randy Newman singles. The track builds to this sparkling, plugged-in guitar solo, and it's an overall pleasant arrangement. 

11) "Back to the Future (Part II)"

The countdown exercise stalls here because this song is two minutes, and it's basically a laborious extension of "Back to the Future (Part I)." But, there's this click track metronome-sounding bleep noise that chimes in every four measures. Once noticed, it's an annoying reminder that no matter how richly organic the sound, there's a Pro Tools technician on the other end tweaking virtual knobs. The bleep in question sounds like a magic wand granting a wish, and I'm betting it's a leftover sample; it strikes me as a rare imperfection (because I don't know why D'Angelo would want it clinking up his record). Sans that picky item, the track's gospel appeal ruminates nostalgically and with enough eroding torrents that eventually you dig words like, "the seasons may come and your luck may just run out and all that you'll have is a memory." 

10) "Sugah Daddy"

This is the first song the public at-large heard from Messiah, making it a default single. It's brightly jazzy and walks down into the wine cellar behind the piano line. Seventy-five-year-old session legend James Gadson keeps time on the drums as Welsh technical mercenary and bassist Pino Palladino (The Who sometimes, John Mayer) makes it rain in the corner. It's holiday cheer, the way your favorite breweries offer up seasonal spirits: with warmth, soul, and punch. But it's also a situation where the track's clean-cut timelessness stalls alongside the edge and bite of Messiah's manic highs. 

9) "The Charade"

D'Angelo has been an obsessive Prince fan since he was a piano-playing 3-year-old. The building hand claps here recall Prince's "Uptown," ditto the stacked falsetto vocal tracks, driving drums; he even tops in a four-note synthesizer line. This Dirty Mind dap is understated but easy to spot. It's one he's been kicking around and testing live for two years, though on the studio mix, D'Angelo has just about hidden any traces of synth.

8) "Till It's Done (Tutu)"

This is maybe the least focused, grumpiest song on the record in terms of message. With lyrics written by Parliament Funkadelic newcomer Kendra Foster, D'Angelo complains about general downers: "In a world where we all circle the fiery sun with a need for love what have we become?" He gets into war, pollution, and perilous dissidence. The bass shines, gliding around and stomping like Michael Jackson in the "Billie Jean" video. 

7) "Back to the Future (Part I)"

There's not much to interpret here. D'Angelo misses the past and is kind of over your speculative fanboy prodding. "So if you're wondering about the shape I'm in I hope it ain't my abdomen that you're referring to," he croons in an obvious nod to his iconic "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video. But that was 14 years ago, and the body image stress coupled with the creative questions have a player getting stoned in Richmond, Va., and wasting expensive studio time by showing up late and playing video games for hours. All we have are memories, man, now let me rip this bong while the strings make my eyes well because I just want to go back to the way it was.

6) "Betray My Heart"

Here, D'Angelo fleshes out an extended ride in the jazz pocket. It's brought to life by astonishingly silky, trunk-popping trumpets that show up at the 2:28 mark and carry us out of D'Angelo's toss-off, post-Stevie Wonder's "As" lyrics about loving through natural forces. As the mix gets louder, the floating-like-egg-drop-soup Rhodes keys get forced out, and you run back to the start to hear them again.

5) "Really Love"

There's a great deal mixed in here (yo, is that a clarinet?) but it's all balanced—even the strings, so often an opportunistic pop decoration, raise the temperature. This is the song about the Spanish-speaking girl in the urban jungle, as evidenced by the Spanish conversation sampled in for dramatic effect ("I loved you but you were so jealous," the breathy muse says). But quickly the pretty plucking gives the floor to hip-hop drums, and we're back at 1998's "Break Ups 2 Make Ups."

D'Angelo has a one-line hook—"Doo doo wah, I'm really in love with you"—but it's great because he knows well enough to let the bass talk. The drums are classic hip-hop Questlove, and if there was a place on the record for a Method Man verse, it would have been here.

4) "Prayer"

D'Angelo is well-versed in gospel, but he's not deferential, and so Black Messiah's most centrally faithful song leaves no traces of The Pilgrim Jubilees. There's an Aaron Hall-inspired sensual tone, but he's singing Bible scriptures over this stomped, flattened, and stretched-apart church bell sample. The sonic cousin here is "Left and Right" from Voodoo. You've heard it, but go ahead and say goodbye to the next five minutes.

Recorded in Manhattan's iconic Electric Lady Studios, Voodoo was bred from patience and from wholesale classic album jams (Marvin, Curtis, Hendrix) that veered off in interesting directions. "Prayer" feels like the kind of halfway-there jam you warm up with for years before compressing it into four minutes.

3) "1000 Deaths"

Late chairman of the New Black Panther Party Khalil Abdul Muhammed gets a great, harrowing intro sample here. His inflammatory Nation of Islam speeches are morally dubious, racially insensitive, but inescapably thunderous in texture. As such, his voice remains a golden trope for rap samples.

"I'm not talking about some cracker Christ," the Muhammad speech sample barks over the filthy, pig-slop bass and jackhammer drums. This is the record's political, indignant apex: "I won't nut up when we up thick in the crunch, because a coward dies a thousand times, but a soldier dies only once," D'Angelo sings. At the five-minute mark, he howls like Detroit gospel legend Robert Blair and gets his Band of Gypsies on, shred-wise. It bludgeons. 

2) "Another Life"

The closing jam is another one D'Angelo has been workshopping live for two years, and it shows. It's a nearly six-minute suite of white-collar piano rolls that obstruct the sentimental, funky insides. "Another Life" also features the record's most transparently sweet lyrics: 

How does one attempt to be
The kind of friend that you would want to keep?
I just want to say to thee
Even though it might be hard to believe
The candy-coated thoughts that drift through my sleep
Let me know it's you that holds the key

But it's fleeting romanticism, as the chorus sobers up: "In another life, I bet you were my girl." He's a big Gap Band fan and throws multiple looks of layered falsetto as a hat tip to early '80s R&B background singers.   

1) "Ain't That Easy"

Look, it's the Side A, Track 1 for a reason. This Sly Stone "Everyday People" groove is a stairway to the food court when you're stoned. And again, it's a jam he's been playing live for two years.

In a recent interview, D'Angelo toasted to his uncle C.C. who weaned him on the childhood funk of the Meters, Ohio Players, and Maurice White. It's a familiar groove about dangerous and dependent love. But D'Angelo's thing is that he sears the tenderloin and you get this caramelized, modern plate. Like he tells it, "Ain't That Easy" is a product of his louder band coupled with his ability to put on blinders and go "deep in the onion" for recording sessions. 

Photo via Jago Bayaha/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

The Philadelphia Phillies may have had a lousy season, but one of their stars made a loyal fan’s day when he surprised her on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Julie Kramer, a 23-year-old cancer survivor and Phillies fan from Tabernacle, NJ, appeared on Ellen's talk show to discuss her fight against stage 4 synovial sarcoma.

Kramer received some decent swag in the form of a $10,000 check from Target to cover her mounting medical bills, but the “get out of her seat and scream” moment came when Phillies second baseman Chase Utley walked onto the set to honor the courageous young woman.

Utley had some cool gifts for Kramer, like a Phillie Fanatic doll, but perhaps the ultimate treat was the news that she would be his special guest at any or all of the Phillies games for the 2015 season.

How did this come together? Kramer’s friends had heard that Ellen DeGeneres was looking for inspiring women to be guests on her daytime talk show. They started the #JulieMeetsEllen hashtag, which gained a lot of social media attention and landed Kramer an appearance on Ellen's couch.

Utley’s appearance touched not only those who knew Julie but also Phillies fans and those whose lives have been touched by cancer. 

Screengrab via TheEllenShow/YouTube

Charlie Todd, the man behind the “No Pants Subway Ride,” is bringing his gleeful brand of surprise-based public performances to Christmas. As a part of Improv Everywhere, a New York City-based “prank-collective,” Todd created and directed a Christmas prank of epic proportions. Armed with a team of no less than 13 carolers and a 20-member brass band, Todd surprised a Bergen County, N.J. family with a caroling visit for the ages.

According to Todd, he’s had this prank in mind for years, but due to the scale and cost of the stunt, he wasn’t sure he could pull it off. When Target approached him earlier this year and asked to sponsor an Improv Everywhere holiday event, Todd pitched the idea. After some logistical tweaking, including renting a house and finding families who would be open to a holiday surprise, the Improv Everywhere team made Todd’s Christmas prank-dream a reality.  

For more on how Todd and his team created this epic feat of caroling, check out the Improv Everywhere website.

Screengrab via Improv Everywhere/YouTube

Frank Drebin fans, he of the puntastic Naked Gun series, will find a new object of affection in the form of Burt Paxton, Private Detective—a clever and hilarious new webseries.

Actor/comedian Burt Grinstead stars as Paxton, an inept L.A. detective who lives in a world that comically mashes up film noir sensibilities with witty dialog of the “don't call me Shirley” genre. The idea for the series, Grinstead tells the Daily Dot, is a proof point for a concept he and writer/director Aaron Fradkin hope to some day turn into a feature-length film.

“I love film-noirs. Aaron loves smart comedies,” Grinstead said. “We both love sophisticated jokes disguised as low-brow humor. We decided we should collaborate on a project that combined everything aforementioned.”

Here’s a sample:

A nosey reporter knocks on Paxton’s door in search of a lead on a headline-grabbing case of missing felines.

Reporter: Detective Paxton, may I have a word?

Paxton: What are you looking for—a verb, a noun, an adjective?

The more serious genesis of Burt Paxton came when he and Fradkin were crafting a skit that was geared to showcase an actor’s ability to take on a wide range of emotions. After workshopping some ideas, the idea of a bumbling detective was born which led to a short film  that the duo produced on Fradkin’s new video equipment.

With the help of comedy writer Steve D’Amico, a pilot episode was created and Burt Paxton’s character took on a life of his own. “We filmed the first episode and again realized we had something worthwhile,” Grimstead added. “More importantly, we each had the time of our lives discovering what we could and could not do with this character, in this world.”

There is a lot of trial and error in the first four episodes of Burt Paxton with an improving sense of rhythm and style apparent as your progress through the initial four episodes. The most recent clip, “Burt Paxton and the Missing Ring” finds the detective in search of his mother’s missing wedding ring. The episode features Allan Wasserman (of Arrested Development fame) as his incredulous father who is totally unaware his wife is a hitman for the mafia. The dialog and sight gags are fast-paced and smart.

As with other writers, directors, and actors, the hope is that YouTube becomes a showcase that will attract money, sponsors, and continued positive reviews. “We also have a feature-length script centered around Burt Paxton,” Grinstead added, ”and we could even see this as a half-hour episodic. Aaron and Steve have an amazing handle on this style of comedy and continue to create hilarious and original material, and I enjoy moving my eyebrows to the tune of this character.”

Screengrab via Burt Paxton/YouTube

It's perhaps the opposite of the hard knock life for YouTube content creators, who are increasingly getting more and more partnership opportunities with Hollywood and television. One such partnership, in support of the Sony Pictures remake of Annie, gave YouTube singers a platform to cover iconic songs from the musical on their YouTube channels.

The film company partnered with multichannel network Fullscreen to feature its creators, including Tyler Ward, whose music video and cover of "It's The Hard Knock Life" already garnered 1.1 million views.

Other covers in the campaign include a ukulele version of "Tomorrow" by  Max Schneider and a pop-punk "You’re Never Fully Dressed (Without A Smile)” thanks to TeraBrite. Overall the Annie-themed covers reached over 5 million viewers across the Fullscreen YouTubers collective subscriptions, a decent dent in marketing for a hopeful holiday blockbuster.

Screengrab via Tyler Ward/YouTube

Pratt's character, Andy Dwyer, performs the song in the show's third season finale. As you can see, this time around he's a little less intelligible, but no less enthusiastic.

Here's the whole thing from last season's finale, with slightly less drunken singalongs.

Screengrab via ParksandRecreation/YouTube

The lawsuit also wants "Drunk in Love" permanently banned, which of course won't happen. While the controversial song is not available online, Ando Drom (a folk group that Mitsou formerly fronted) does have a familiar tune called "Bajba Bajba." Listen to them side-by-side for yourself.

Beyoncé and friends will be hoping for a similar verdict.

H/T Complex | Photo via Bruno Weler/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Ever since Tom Hanks first set foot on FAO Schwarz's larger than life, 15.8-feet-long piano in the movie Big, the instrument has become somewhat of a New York City landmark. While most choose to stomp out a crude rendition of “Chopsticks” during their visit to the $250,000 keyboard, Nick Jonas had a different song in mind. Rather than hopping out an homage to Hanks and the 1988 film by playing “Heart and Soul,” he chose to enlist two friends to accompany him as he crooned his latest single “Jealous.”

Hollywood, if you’re looking to reboot Big, I think we just found your new Hanks. 

Photo via NickJonas/Facebook 

If anyone is a master of resistance, it’s Sir Ian McKellen. As Gandalf the Great, he helped a young, wayward Frodo Baggins resist the urge to become corrupted by the power of the One Ring. The famous actor then took to the halls of Oxford University, where he delivered a rousing warning to students about resisting laziness during exam week. Now, the esteemed Englishman has come to Sesame Street to teach our good friend Cookie Monster about the true meaning of word "resist."

At first, McKellen tried to illustrate his point about self-control using a certain "precious" ring. But since Cookie Monster is self-admittedly not a jewelry guy, the actor whipped out the one cookie to drool them all to teach our furry friend about exercising self-discipline.

It’s always a special occasion when Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake get back together, whether it’s another rendition of “History of Rap” or, in this case, a look back at simpler times.

On Tuesday night's episode of The Tonight Show, the “best friends forever” staged a semi-elaborate scene involving a flashback to a ’90s summer camp, where the two youngsters couldn't sleep because they had a song in their heart. The solution, apparently, was to belt out Third Eye Blind’s “Jumper.”

Screengrab via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube

Ellen DeGeneres is renowned for her generosity. Conan O’Brien, not so much. While Ellen’s audiences are regularly given to gadgets, concert tickets, holidays, and more, Conan’s in-studio fans are more likely to be treated to an extended Tinder session or the chance to buy a couple of wooden emoji. You can see why they'd be jealous.

On Tuesday night, however, one lucky Conan audience got the best of both worlds, as Ellen made a surprise appearance on Conan to poke fun at herself and, more importantly, give away tons of free stuff.

Screengrab via Team Coco

Kendrick Lamar, Tuesday night's guest on The Colbert Report, happened to be Stephen Colbert's last-ever musical performance. To send out the show in style, Lamar, accompanied by a jazz band that included singer Bilal and hip-hop producers Terrace Martin and Thundercat on the saxophone and bass, debuted a brand new and as yet untitled song.

The new track, which was produced by French artist Astronote, features aspects of spoken word, jazz, and the righteous indignation of a Public Enemy or NWA record.

“What the Black man say? Tell ‘em we don’t die! Tell ‘em we don’t die! Tell ‘em we don’t die! We multiply!” Lamar chanted to close the track.

Colbert also asked Lamar what it meant to be the leader of West Coast rap, why he wanted to be called a “writer instead of rapper,” and whether or not he could rhyme the word “Colbert.”

Kendrick replied quickly: “Colbert… um, no hair.”

The 83-year-old Star Trek icon is turning to Kickstarter to help fund his latest tome, Catch Me Up. The book is meant to guide those over the age of 50 through important modern-day technology through interviews with young, technologically literate people. In addition to the book itself, Shatner will launch a companion website that collects success stories from around the web.

"Until just recently I HATED new technology," Shatner wrote on the project page. "My 'smart' phone made me feel stupid. My grandkids had to show me how to use Facebook. I even refused to have an email account. You know what I found out? Without this know-how, I was becoming irrelevant…and a guy like me can’t afford to be irrelevant. So I did something about it."

Backers of Catch Me Up are eligible to receive everything from digital and print editions of the book to a personal meet-and-greet with Shatner himself at the book release party in California.

Shatner has written several books already, both fiction and nonfiction, including an autobiography, several Star Trek novels, and the TekWar science fiction series. While his continued success and popularity would make him attractive to publishers, turning to Kickstarter is actually a smart move. After all, the gist of Catch Me Up is about becoming conversant in modern technology. What better way to continue to hone that skill than by crowdfunding your next project?

Besides, it won't be the worst thing that Shatner ever did for money.

Image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

There's a classic “dirty mind” test in which some people see a cute picture of some frolicking dolphins, while those with baser urges instead see… other things. Anna Kendrick's recent appearance on the Late Show is like that, but with a weird cat toy.

Doing the press rounds to promote her upcoming film Into The Woods, the 29-year-old actress had some strong feelings about one of the Christmas gifts David Letterman had on his show.

An innocent cat toy, you say? Maybe, maybe not.

Marcel the Shell is in the covers business now.

Jenny Slate, the mastermind behind Marcel, has already showed off the tiny snail’s vocal capabilities on The Late Show, but this time she’s demonstrating his sweet, sweet talent to Conan O’Brien in an ode to a classic.

She says she uses the Marcel voice at home even when she and her husband aren’t creating Marcel videos, and she’s found that Marcel can give really good motivational speeches and song covers. The latest one that she’s perfected? Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide,” which she then performs a snippet of. It's nothing short of brilliant.

Screengrab via Team Coco

As a palate-cleanser before the bloated seasonal cheer of Doctor Who and Downton Abbey, White Christmas, which debuted last night on Channel 4, delves back into Black Mirror's characteristically bleak look at the world. In keeping with 2014's overarching theme of everything being terrible, the 90-minute episode builds up to a crescendo of horror. And honestly, it's perfect.

Black Mirror is frequently compared to The Twilight Zone, with each self-contained episode examining some disturbing aspect of near-future technology. One week it's a scenario where an entire society is ruled by reality TV; the next, a tale about recreating a facsimile of a dead lover based on their social media profiles. In a landscape dominated by high-octane space operas and X-Files ripoffs, Black Mirror is a rare example of truly original science fiction that plays to a mass audience.

White Christmas takes the form of three interlocking stories starring Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Oona Chaplin (Game of Thrones, The Hour), and Rafe Spall (Prometheus). It relies on a couple of clever futuristic tech conceits, but wisely spends more time developing the main characters than reveling in technobabble like many sci-fi dramas.

Moving on from Black Mirror's previous explorations of social media culture, White Christmas introduces the idea of a real-life "blocking" function—and a pair of male protagonists lifted straight from the pages of a men's rights forum. One is a sleazily charming pickup artist (Hamm, a perfect casting choice) who uses a Google Glass-like technology to help dweebs get laid, while the other is a miserable guy (Spall) who has been "blocked" by his pregnant girlfriend, meaning they can only see each other as buzzing outlines of television static.

Black Mirror is the work of British TV presenter and writer Charlie Brooker, who is known for his bitingly grim brand of social satire. From his pop-culture criticism to his writing on shows like Nathan Barley (a mid-2000s satire on hipster startups) and Dead Set (a zombie horror series set in the Big Brother house), the overarching theme of his work is a morbid fascination with the dark side of popular media.

Even if you're not aware of the creepy underbelly of the men's rights movement, it's easy to see where Brooker is coming from with the characters played by Spall and Hamm. For one thing, there's the fact that they both get "blocked" by their spouses. There isn't much of a leap between this and the growing demand for more effective blocking functions on sites like Twitter—a demand driven by women who are being harassed and stalked online. The idea of being blocked will be horrifying to some, but might seem very appealing to those who have experienced persistent harassment. 

The sci-fi conceit of Oona Chaplin's storyline is similarly far beyond the reaches of modern technology, but works well as a critique of how we respond to innovation. If a new product makes your life easier, then why bother thinking about what goes on behind the scenes? It's a new riff on a familiar idea (this time Soylent Green is your electronic PA), but illustrated in a way that becomes downright terrifying. 

Black Mirror is often described as technophobic, but that's not really accurate. Rather than being a grim warning about the dangers of technology, it's more of a fictionalized spin on what's already happening in real life. 

Brooker is hardly a technophobe. He's critical of superficial pop culture and the dangers of social media, but always from the perspective of being a consumer and creator of the very thing that fuels his anger. His writing in Black Mirror is effective because he's right in the middle of it all, not because he's some kind of luddite outsider. Unlike the saccharine sentimentality of most holiday specials, White Christmas is all too real.

Photo via Channel4

Like all other theater chains, AMC Theatres has seen a drop-off in ticket revenue as more consumers gather around the warm glow of streaming video. To combat this phenomenon, AMC is embracing the old saying: If you can’t beat ‘em, adopt their business model.

The chain is now offering a subscription service in partnership with MoviePass that will allow theatergoers to watch one movie per day for a monthly fee. It's a clear shot across the bow of Netflix, the reigning king of streaming movies and television.

The new service is partly an attempt to draw younger consumers back into theaters; millennial attendance has dropped off as AMC's ticket prices have continued to rise. Christina Sternberg, senior vice president for corporate strategy at AMC, told the New York Times, “It frankly wouldn't be smart to ignore the success of subscription in other areas of media," referring to services like Spotify and Netflix. 

MoviePass, a three-year-old company, has attempted to find success with traditional theaters in the past, but big chains used to be wary of the subscription model. MoviePass co-founder and CEO Stacy Spikes said the company’s subscriber base is largely in the 18-to-34 demographic, making them the same consumers that AMC is trying to entice back to their venues. AMC took a small step toward millennial engagement last month, experimenting with an unlimited pass for Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.

Next month, AMC theaters in Boston and Denver will roll out the MoviePass partnership, offering a streaming movie each day for $35 per month. The cost for IMAX or 3D is $45 per month. Users will need to download the app to find show times.

Customers will still have to go to theaters to use the service; they can't stream the films at home. The question for AMC is whether the MoviePass partnership will be enough of an incentive to draw people off of their couches and into AMC's theater seats.

H/T New York Times | Photo via Paul Hart (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed

To close out 2014, YouTube celebrated the year in music on the platform by featuring a spate of up-and-coming performers who will likely dominate the mainstream in 2015.

The event at YouTube Space L.A. featured the best and brightest of YouTube's homegrown talent. YouTube has grown to become the dominant force in music online, with an established mix between mainstream artists with major presences like Katy Perry or Pitbull and emerging artists using the platform to build a base before they leap onto the charts. Last night's hourlong event featured some performers who've already made mainstream impressions, like duo Karmin and solo performer Tyler Ward, but it also showcased performers who are the talk of YouTube, bubbling under but not yet household names.

Other standout performers poised for breakthrough in 2015 included Megan Nicole and Kina Grannis, who both performed new original tracks ("Fun" and "My Dear," respectively), despite both also performing covers extensively on their YouTube channels. Another cover artist turned original star is Max Schneider, whose soulful, dance-y rendition of "Mug Shot" easily got the crowd behind him. An earlier version of the single was featured in the Veronica Mars movie this year, and Schneider is also featured on two Hoodie Allen tracks. 

Over the night, the performers boasted a combined YouTube footprint of over 17 million fans, and most of them have never charted a song or had major radio airplay. We suspect that will change in 2015.

Screengrab via YouTube Spotlight/YouTube

Regal Cinemas, AMC Theatres, Cinemark Theatres, and the Cineplex Odeon Corporation on Wednesday afternoon announced they would cancel screenings of the Sony action comedy, directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen and starring Rogen and James Franco.

Earlier on Wednesday, Carmike Cinemas canceled its showings of the movie, following a decision by Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is still reeling from a massive hack, to let theater owners decide how to handle their respective screenings.

Southern Theatres and ArcLight Cinemas, two large regional chains, have also declined to show the film in their theaters.

The companies' decisions were met with universal condemnation, especially given the fact that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Tuesday that it had "no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot against movie theaters within the United States."

The FBI is still investigating the Guardians of Peace. Reached for comment yesterday regarding the threat, an FBI spokeswoman would only confirm that the "investigation is ongoing."

The attack on Sony's motion-picture division, which has spilled terabytes of the studio's emails, memos, and financial documents onto the Internet, is one of the most sophisticated and far-reaching security breaches in corporate history. Journalists have pored over leaked documents for clues to the company's plans and insight into its past decisions. In response, Sony's legal team threatened those journalists with prosecution.

Photo via The Interview

Just when you think it’s finally safe to stay up till 4am watching reruns of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Adult Swim strikes again with another one of their 11-minute journeys through the dystopian land of late-night infomercials. To follow up Too Many Cooks, their trip into the cheesy world of ‘80s sitcom intros, the channel has trotted out Unedited Footage of a Bear.

What begins with peaceful footage of a grizzly in the wild is quickly interrupted by an ad for the latest allergy medication for stuffy-nosed moms. But try as you might to skip the ad for Claridryl, there is no escaping the hell crafted by directors Alan Resnick and Ben O’Brien, members of the Baltimore collective Wham City.

Let your insomnia guide you through this David Fincher-esque suburban thriller, which makes Amy from Gone Girl look well adjusted. Just be thankful this one doesn't come with a catchy jingle. 

H/T BuzzFeed | Photo via AdultSwim/YouTube