The Office has finally stopped lollygagging around the Michael-Holly will-they/won’t-they (of course they will) question? and given us what we all expected: The Proposal, albeit coyly buried under the episode’s evasive title “Garage Sale.” But who’s complaining?

In the show’s 145-episode run, it’s deftly avoided cheap sentiment, and though Michael’s erratic behavior can be grating, especially in this last season, Steve Carell knows how to keep it sweet instead of cloying—even when you have the rest of the office bearing candles and ominously asking Holly to marry them in some weirdly druidic ritual (not that I know anything about druidic rituals [though one of the tech guys at my old job was a druid]; it’s just the best adjective to go with “ritual”).

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That’s right this week bring an all new episode of The Flickcast. On this week’s show Chris and Matt take on another bunch of new and recurring topics to amuse, entertain and try to keep you awake for at least thirty to forty minutes.

Some of the things discussed this week include Battle: Los Angeles versus Independence Day, Super 8, X-Men: First Class, Paul, PAX East, Super, SXSW, proper movie marketing and a whole lot more. And this week, virtually no Charlie Sheen. You’re welcome.

Of course, your hosts also made some picks this week including some great things you’re just going to have to listen to to find out. Sorry, we sometimes like to have our secrets.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

We’ve been waiting months and aside from an occasional clip here or there, we’re finally getting the first official look at James Gunn’s upcoming raunchy, real-life superhero comedy Super, which features a huge (and very eclectic) cast. Now that we’re getting an idea of how the film is going to play out, we can see that tonally, it’s going to be quite different than Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass, which seems like a parallel story on paper.

Not only that, the cast alone, which includes Rainn Wilson, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Ellen Page, Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion, should be enough to sell this film to fans everywhere. Here’s the official synopsis:

Rainn Wilson stars as a normal guy named Frank who decides to become a crime fighter when his wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for a drug-dealer (Kevin Bacon), taking on the identity of the Crimson Bolt and agreeing to let a young overzealous comic shop employee (Ellen Page) to be his sidekick Boltie.

Together, they fight crime in the most violent manner imaginable.

There was a worry for a while whether we’d ever get to see this film or not, as things were quiet on finding a distributor. Luckily, IFC Midnight was able to pick up the slack and they’re bringing the film to theaters on April 1st.

Check out the trailer after the jump and join Rainn Wilson as he exclaims, “Shut Up, Crime!”

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I like the dynamic Todd Packer brings to The Office. Among the group of miserable souls who have their own beefs with each other and whose allegiance depends on whatever the week’s plot requires, Packer was always a fun wrench to toss into the cogs and, somehow, make them work better.

Basically, in his earlier appearances, Packer became the one thing towards which every petty person at Dunder-Mifflin could put aside personal differences and rally against. There’s something heartwarming in that solidarity. I also love David Koechner.

Of course, Packer has only made a handful of those appearances (four? five maybe?), but they’ve all been memorable thanks to Koechner, who finds the relishing humor in school-yard insults such as “Michael Snot!” and adolescent put-downs regarding Jim’s sexuality. He’s the missing link in the evolution of the 1^st-grade-bully-to-frat-boy-to-?-to-child-molesting-Uncle-John. Naturally an episode devoted entirely to him wouldn’t work.

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It’s nice to see that among the bevy of Michael send-offs, that The Office took a slight detour to give thanks to the rest of its fantastic cast. “Threat Level Midnight” is a self-indulgent love-letter to the cast that’s very generous with its humor and divvies up the best lines evenly among the current cast and even takes time to fondly remember some of the former performers, including a great cameo from Jan and creepily carnal lines from Pam’s mom and Karen (though the most disturbing one is Goldenface’s “I’m going to dig up Scarn’s dead wife and have sex all over her”).

Michael’s screenplay was first introduced wayyyy back in season 2, when the gang discovered it in Michael’s office and shut down work for the day to hold a reading in the conference room (the episode also had one of the best Michael-defining jokes of the series when it was discovered that Scarn’s bumbling sidekick was originally named “Dwight” until Michael did a search-and-replace to rename the character.

Unfortunately for the real Dwight, it didn’t pick up Michael’s misspelled “Dwigt”–it loses something in the explanation, but trust me, it was funny). I didn’t think there’d ever be more than a passing reference to it, if were ever brought up again, and that it’d go down as one of those things best left to the imagination, kind of like The Office’s own “Rules of Calvinball,” but run with it they did.

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The phrase “it was only a matter of time” seems a bit obsolete if I’m going to use it to describe the meeting between Michael Scott and the original Michael Scott, David Brent. The U.S. Office is in its seventh season, and by now the characters are molded enough that a guest appearance by Ricky Gervais is less a gimmick for a ratings boost than it is a nice little detour on the way toward Steve Carell’s sendoff.

And that’s pretty much what they do. Brent’s not integral to the plot; he just appears in the cold open, shares some banter with Michael, the two hug, and end scene. It’s basically your standard sitcom cameo, but it works a little better than most. For one, and like I said, it’s not a cheap attempt for ratings, and it’s also not punctuated by a score of hoots and hollers from the studio audience (the lack of which has served The Office endlessly well throughout its seven seasons). It’s quick, it’s fun, and that’s about it.

The A plot of the episode deals with Andy conducting a small-business seminar in an effort to boost sales. Essentially his plan is to get a bunch of gullible, budding entrepreneurs into the conference room, have some of the sales team come in and make a few platitudinal, motivational speeches (“Dream big!”), and then hit them with a sales pitch for some business-plan packages.

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“Ultimatum” follows up on Holly’s decision to force her fiancée AJ to either marry her or leave her, and no one’s more excited to know how that played out than Michael, who’s already gone overboard before even hearing the news and prepared (with the ever-adorable help of Erin) two emergency boxes: a happy one for if Holly’s left AJ (including streamers, champagne, a rubber mallet, etc.), and a sad one if she hasn’t (gummy bears, a sponge “to dry my tears,” and two fifths of scotch).

Meanwhile, Pam, taking a cue from the evidently more chipper staff of Bob Vance’s office (am I the only one who wants to see the inner workings of Vance Refrigeration?) sets up a “resolution board” for the rest of the office. The premise is that each member of the office writes down their New Year’s resolutions on a 3X5 card and posts it on the board. Then the board will be hung somewhere ostentatious to keep everyone committed to their word.

Holly shows up, and, after a quick tease as to whether she has an engagement ring (she doesn’t), she tells the nosier element of the office that AJ has not, in fact, committed, but she’s staying with him anyway, which naturally sends Michael into another depression.

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Ever since the first footage of the film crept it’s way through the tubes of the internets, fanboys everywhere have been clammoring for more of James Gunn’s upcoming super hero comedy Super, and it looks like we’re finally going to have a date to drool over.

In keeping with his constant fan service, Gunn gave us the scoop on his official blog, as well as reaching out for people to request the film in their towns.

It’s true: SUPER will be opening on April 1st, 2011.  That first week we will be in only Los Angeles and New York.  However, on the following week, April 8, 2011, we will be in fifteen to twenty of the twenty-five biggest markets in the United States.  Around that same time, we will also be available on VOD.  And, after that, only God knows – perhaps more cities, perhaps not.  It depends a lot on what you guys demand and want.

There you have it. And yes, if you live in a small town and want to see Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Nathan Fillion, and Michael Rooker in this hilariously violent super hero comedy, be sure to keep an eye out and demand that it comes to you as soon as you can.

The Christening introduces an interesting element in the characters of The Office that, given the number of times the gang has visited a church, has curiously not been explored much before: religion.

The plot revolves around Cice’s titular christening, and Jim and Pam (I refuse to refer to the couple as “Jam”) invite the office to the celebration. The context had me dreading that Michael was going to make a scene and embarrass himself in front of everyone else, but, like Niagra, the writers wisely choose to keep him under some restraint—save for a few misplaced Godfather impersonations.

But, as I wrote, the focus is on how each Sabre employee treats religion, which is handled with a lot of humor and, oddly, some profoundness. Angela, the most overtly “religious” character, uses the church, both literally and figuratively, as a free pass to criticize and admonish everyone around her while maintaining an unearned feeling of superiority.

Here she takes aim at Jim and Pam for whatever reason while cooing over Cice (to such an extent that when Cice goes missing,  Jim immediately accuses Angela of baby-napping, and his admission of that mistake is both blunt and very funny). Jim and Pam themselves don’t seem especially pious and treat the christening more as something that is simply done than anything holy.

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I’m always happy to see what the office is going to look like each Halloween: Dwight’s going to be something topical (The Scranton Strangler—check); Angela’s going to be some kind of animal (a penguin—check); Michael’s going to be something hopelessly unfunny (MacGruber—well, you get the idea); and Jim’s going to be apathetic.

The costumes are always fun because they’re great reflections of the characters themselves—Kevin always tries desperately to be cool but never quite succeeds (this year he’s Michael Moore); Creed’s always a step behind the times (Dracula, the Mummy); Pam’s a dork (Olive Oyl—and is it a meta-joke that Jenna Fischer is waaaay too busty to pull off the outfit?), but this year’s standout is the weasely Gabe, who comes dressed, to many a cringe, as Lady Gaga.

On one level I can see him going for the popular choice (never mind the gender differences, or should they matter?) because of his fleeting hope to fit in, but on another, more plausible level, I said it’s because there’s a much darker side to Mr. Lewis.

I haven’t gotten much enjoyment from the season so far, but it was a nice touch to joke around with the characters’ personalities—that’s the kind of humor that made The Office a great show, and it’s either been missing or fallen flat for much of season 7.

But as for the actual episode, the bulk is dedicated to a rising tension between Michael and Darryl, who took an idea to have the warehouse workers/drivers suggest other products when making their deliveries straight to Gabe, bypassing his obligatory running it by Michael first. Michael had previously rejected the idea, and when he finds out that Darryl “Took him from behind” (“Went behind his back”), Michael throws a tantrum and pretty soon has ditched his MacGruber costume to dress up as Darry and ruin the Halloween party by openly mocking him.

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Did I miss something, or isn’t The Office company Sabre now and not Dunder-Mifflin? Yeah? Then why did they keep referring to it as “Dunder-Mifflin” all this episode? Was it part of the ruse? I don’t know. I couldn’t follow this episode too well and am apparently one of the few people who didn’t find it particularly funny.

The basic rundown is that hotshot salesman Danny Cordray (guest star Timothy Olyphant—but wouldn’t it be awesome if it were Rob Corddry?), who apparently is the best salesman in the Dunder-Mifflin company (ah, maybe that’s what was confusing—but then Sabre bought out Dunder-Mifflin, right?) is competing with Jim and Dwight to land an account with a high-profile potential client, so to hit heavy, they bring in Michael, who, despite all his incompetences as a manager, is still a first-rate salesman.

Nevertheless, Sabre still loses the account, so Michael and Dwight set up the titular “Sting” to learn his sales secrets and enlist Meredith to pose in a wired room as a company head and potential client. Danny falls for the bait while Michael, Jim, and Dwight watch from another room, but the plan goes awry when Meredith starts coming on to Danny, prompting Michael to intervene and try to patch things up by offering Danny a job at Sabre (or was it Dunder-Mifflin?).

Danny’s greeted coolly by the rest of the office, who are worried that he’s going to steal their clients, and apparently he has a past history with Pam, which puts Jim on the defensive.

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We may be in between seasons of FX’s Justified, but that isn’t stopping star Timoythy Olyphant from showing his face on TV. He guest stars in tomorrow night’s episode of The Office as the new, good-looking salesman who’s here to take business from our favorite coworkers. From NBC:

When a competing sales associate (guest star Timothy Olyphant) steals a Dunder Mifflin client, Michael (Golden Globe winner Steve Carell), Jim (John Krasinski) and Dwight (Rainn Wilson) decide to set up a sting to find out his sales secrets. Andy (Ed Helms) decides to start a band after finding out a friend from college has a successful music career.

In the very funny four clips we’re bringing you today, Michael, Dwight, and Jim all plan a way to figure out Olyphant’s secret to selling, all while referencing the film The Sting.

Check out the clips after the jump, and be sure to catch The Office tomorrow night at 9pm ET on NBC.

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