F

Flavorwire

Film

Film

7 Other Directors Who Should Adapt ‘The Great Gatsby’

By Alison Herman on

When fans of The Great Gatsby found out that divisive filmmaker Baz Luhrmann would direct this spring’s highly anticipated adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s legendary novel, reactions were mixed. Some film lovers embrace Luhrmann’s sheer excess; it worked well enough for Romeo and Juliet, so why worry about flubs like Australia? Others, however, had different aspirations for the movie that might just get leading man Leo DiCaprio his ever-evasive Oscar. So, what about the Gatsby adaptations that could have been? Read on for a short list of other directors who might have succeeded at filming one of the most acclaimed American novels of all time, from Scorsese to Spielberg. … Read More

Film

Handwritten Screenplay Pages From Film and Television

By Jason Bailey on

“You can’t write poetry on a computer,” says Quentin Tarantino, and he can’t write his screenplays on one either — he does it old school, longhand, in a notebook, putting his words in typewritten form at the last possible second. It may make him sound like a Luddite, but he’s far from the only one; plenty of Hollywood’s most successful scribes prefer to work by hand, at least in the early stages. This week, we found out that Lawrence Kasdan wrote The Empire Strikes Back in longhand as well, and a trip down the Internet rabbit hole turned up several more popular films that were worked out by hand before they made it to the screen. … Read More

Architecture

20 American Mansions Fit for Jay Gatsby

By Tyler Coates on

While The Great Gatsby is filled to the brim with powerful symbolism, houses play a particularly important role in defining F. Scott Fitzgerald’s characters. Gatsby himself built a gigantic mansion at West Egg that purposefully looked classical, giving the illusion of long-standing prominence. Fitzgerald based Gatsby’s mansions on many real-life homes (including the now-demolished Beacon Towers and Land’s End, which both stood on Long Island’s Gold Coast), but there are a handful of castle-like mansions on the Eastern Seaboard that would be perfect for a number of lavish, Gatsby-style… Read More

Film

The Dirtiest Movie Posters of All Time [NSFW]

By Jason Bailey on

Late last week, the Internet collectively furrowed its brow, cocked its head sideways a bit, and then issued a unanimous “Ohhhh” and turned a little red before quickly closing the tab window as Lars von Trier unleashed the dirty/artsy poster for his latest film, the two-part, LaBeouf-enabling, unsimulated-sex epic Nymphomaniac. But how do Von Trier parenthetical genitals stack up against the cinema’s naughtier one-sheets? A roundup of some of the dirtiest movie posters to date after the jump. … Read More

Film

Will Luke Evans Be Brave Enough to Become Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Leading Man?

By Tyler Coates on

When Zachary Quinto publicly came out as a gay man in October 2011, plenty of cultural commentators questioned if the admission (which had been speculated online for years) would hurt his career. Last year’s double-whammy of revelations from Frank Ocean and Anderson Cooper prompted at least one piece in New York magazine claiming that coming out was no longer the career-changing move it used to be. Last June, Entertainment Weekly devoted its cover story to the notion that LGBT entertainers are opening up about their personal lives in such a casual way that no one seems to notice. The shrugging-off of a star’s sexuality does not, however, occur when the actor in question aims for Hollywood leading-man status. Take, for example, the curious case of Luke Evans, who was recently tapped as the lead in the upcoming remake of The Crow, and who in the last three years has casually taken a few steps back into the closet. … Read More

Film

Making Movies With Statistics Isn’t Just Artistic Suicide — It Won’t Work

By Jason Bailey on

Sunday’s New York Times included a story that movie fans should find as terrifying as anything since the last 20 minutes of Silence of the Lambs. In it, writer Brooks Barnes introduces us to Vinny Bruzzese, a “chain-smoking former statistics professor” who has “started to aggressively pitch a service he calls script evaluation. For as much as $20,000 per script, Mr. Bruzzese and a team of analysts compare the story structure and genre of a draft script with those of released movies, looking for clues to box-office success. His company, Worldwide Motion Picture Group, also digs into an extensive database of focus group results for similar films and surveys 1,500 potential moviegoers.” In other words, studios write Bruzzese and his company a check, and in exchange, they’re told how to make their movies as bland, homogenous, and predictable as possible. Sounds like the recipe for a golden age of moviemaking! … Read More

Film

Flavorwire’s Guide to Movies You Need to Stream This Week

By Jason Bailey on

Welcome to Flavorwire’s streaming movie guide, in which we help you sift through the scores of movies streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and other services to find the best of the recently available, freshly relevant, or soon to expire. This week, we’re recovering from the big Netflix “Streamageddon” — but, to their credit, the service did make a healthy chunk of titles newly available (or re-available) for streaming at the end of last week. Included is good stuff from Robert Downey Jr., Reese Witherspoon, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Hemsworth, Woody Allen, John Travolta, Michael Keaton, James Woods, Uma Thurman, Joss Whedon, and Quentin Tarantino; check them out after the jump, and follow the title links to watch them right now. … Read More

Film

The Jazz Age on Film

By Alison Nastasi on

You have until May 10 to practice your Charleston. Baz Luhrmann’s raucous adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, is bound to be a whirlwind, and volumes have already been written about the highly anticipated soundtrack featuring Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey, and more. To prepare for the decadent depiction of lavish parties and millionaire love triangles, we’re going straight to the source. Luhrmann is renowned for adding a contemporary twist to period stories, but the Moulin Rouge director strives for authenticity in his sets, costuming, and other details. That’s why we wanted to take a look at several films that actually premiered during the Jazz Age, to gain an authentic feel for the epoch. Get in the mood for Gatsby by adding these films to your playlist, and see how Hollywood first embodied the carefree spirit of the 1920s. … Read More

Film

The Most Beautiful Vampire Films

By Alison Nastasi on

After we set eyes on the gorgeous, retro-styled poster for Xan Cassavetes’ Kiss of the Damned, which opens in theaters this weekend, our undying affection for the vampire genre was reawakened. It also helped that Kino Lorber recently released several vampy Blu-rays from erotic horror maestro Jean Rollin. Although the vampire mythos remains an immortal box office draw, the stylization of the legend — from the eerie, monochrome silhouettes of Nosferatu to the soft-focus Euro sleaze of the seventies — has consistently undergone aesthetic resurrections. We wanted to examine other visually sumptuous tales in vampire cinema, so we’ve selected ten of the most striking films for vampire lovers. What are your favorites?

… Read More

Los Angeles

‘The Source Family’ Documents a Counterculture Cult

By Tanja M. Laden on

In the late 1960s, the Source restaurant on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip became one of the most successful health-food eateries in the country, catering to free-spirited bohemians and public figures alike. The legendary SoCal establishment was the brainchild of Jim Baker, a force of nature who killed a man with his bare hands before he pulled a 180 and changed his name to Father Yod and later to Yahowa, “the sacred name of God.” It didn’t take long before the charismatic founding father of the spiritually inclined health-food movement attracted hordes of hippies who collectively created a full-fledged cult, not to mention a rock band. … Read More