Remember Joaquin Phoenix? Or, more specifically, remember his anti-social publicity campaign to promote an apparently burgeoning hip-hop career? It was a poorly kept secret that Casey Affleck was shooting a mockumentary about Phoenix's rap foray, and today, we have an actual film trailer to scrutinize.

American auteur Darren Aronofsky returns to theatres this year with Black Swan. The film stars Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as a pair of ballerinas competing for the leading role in a New York production of Swan Lake. The trailer has just been released, and the film looks like ghoulish fun.

Someone named Shamantis has created a rather unusual remix of Justin Bieber's chirpy tune U Smile. Shamantis slowed the song down, and not just a little - it's 800 times slower than the original. The results are pretty spectacular.

There's talk today that Ricky Gervais, co-creator of The Office and all-around hilarious bloke, is consulting on a new Chinese version of the iconic comedy. That would make it the eighth adaptation of the original BBC series. We decided to take a tour of the increasingly multi-cultural takes on this original British concept. The similarities are striking; the differences, uproarious.

Last night, Jimmy Fallon sang a hurtin' ballad to commemorate Steven Slater's heroic feat of insouciance. The refrain ("You've gotta get two beers and jump") is not only ridiculously catchy, it's laden with timeless wisdom.

Nardwuar the Human Serviette isn't acknowledged as one of our premier music journalists, and he damn well should be. For proof, just watch the way he gets Drake to open up in this new video interview.

When images of BP CEO Tony Hayward first spread in the days after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I was struck by how much he resembled the great Welsh actor Michael Sheen. It then struck me that Tony Hayward is just the kind of character Sheen excels at playing.

The nominees for Britain's Mercury music prize were announced earlier today, and while the organizers tried to skew a bit more populist this year, the short list is still exciting.

The G20 protests that rocked downtown Toronto on June 25, 26 and 27 have had some lingering effects - hand-wringing about the hooligans who smashed store fronts and criticism of the police for the gratuitous detention of legitimate protesters.

And then there's this visceral new video by Toronto indie supergroup Broken Social Scene.

It's a Monday in the dead of summer. No one in pop land has done anything particularly outrageous or egregious, so we're left with this: Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino, putative star of the reality series Jersey Shore, has signed a book deal.