In what may be the best reason to show up to St. Louis a week early for fall 2011 classes, Loufest, a new summer music festival in Forest Park, just announced the lineup for its two-day August event, and boy, is it impressive! Headlining Loufest 2011 are The Roots and TV on the Radio.

Their most recent album, “The Grande Theatre: Volume 1,” features songs specifically designed for concert play (all were composed in a weeklong session in a Dallas concert hall). Considering that the veteran band still denies rehearsing for live shows, this may be the best time to see the Old 97’s in their preferred element.

Though you might be tempted to explain away your friends’ erratic behavior as mid-semester stress, it could very well be “Reefer Madness.” The musical reenacts the ruin of dopey Jimmy Harper, who strays from his high school sweetheart Mary Lane for an enticing hit of a marijuana cigarette.

Kuumba.tv, launched this past Saturday, hopes to change the way we view the artistic achievements of those who, for all we know, could be sitting right next to us. Kuumba, Swahili for “creativity,” provides a platform for people within the Washington University community to showcase their creative outlets, whatever they may be.

Oliver Stone’s metaphors could use some work. His new movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, is really a cry for help: the stock market is like the cambrian explosion. No, it’s actually a tulip, a vengeful woman, nuclear fission.

“Dexter” premieres its fifth season on Sunday. The show follows Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst for the Miami police.

Filmboard is showing “Toy Story 3” at 7:30 tonight in the Edison Courtyard outside the DUC.

Now that you’ve been utterly convinced, please direct your attention to either “Freaks and Geeks” or “Undeclared.” They’re among the best shows to only last one season, and, more importantly, they’re both on YouTube.

In “Zombieland,” a lighthearted movie that you could easily confuse for a video game, the world may look like a wasteland, but it’s really more of a play place. Highways are littered with abandoned cars ripe for the taking, convenience stores are fully stocked, and extra guns and ammo are always close at hand. But, as any Chuck E. Cheese veteran knows, the ball pit still has its rules.

A metaphor: do you remember the second Jurassic Park movie when the hunters banded together and captured a giant T-Rex from the island and brought it to San Diego? Well it ran amok: it ate pets and knocked over cars and caused as much hysteria as it did stalking weaker dinosaurs and unlucky jeeps back than in that ill-designed amusement park.