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Film

Surprising Early, Alternate Versions of Iconic Movie Posters

By Jason Bailey on

Movie posters, as we’ve discussed before, are a tricky business, and a great movie poster must serve many functions: it must capture the essence of a movie, it must be aesthetically pleasing or interesting in itself, and it must sell the product in question. Unsurprisingly, the quest for that balance can result in reworking, re-imagining, and revisions galore, which is why the new Daybees online exhibit The Iconic Movie Posters That Never Were is so fascinating. In it, the designers behind some of Hollywood’s most memorable posters share their early drafts and alternate versions of classic posters; check them out after the jump, alongside the final drafts that became part of movie history, and visit Daybees to learn more about their creators. … Read More

Theatre

The Most Unlikely Film-to-Musical Adaptations

By Alison Herman on

We’ve always known Patrick Bateman was into Journey, but over the weekend we learned that the banker turned serial killer will be the protagonist of an American Psycho musical based on the the hit novel and its movie adaptation. It’s not exactly an obvious choice for the Broadway (or in this case, West End) treatment: will Bateman belt out a power ballad on the trials of scoring an 8:00 dinner reservation? Isn’t Sweeney Todd the end-all, be-all of dramatically scored murder sprees? Still, there have been stranger movies to be retrofitted for the stage, including a rumored transformation of Mean Girls. Here are the most head-scratching screen-to-stage adaptations of beloved movies, from A Clockwork Orange to Silence of the Lambs.  … Read More

Art

Playful Fingerprint Portraits of Pop Culture Icons

By Alison Nastasi on

Dito Von Tease is an Italian artist who uncovers famous features hidden within the human finger. His funny fingerprint portraits, which caught our eye on My Modern Met, reveal the digit-ized version of pop culture icons and other celebs. Each finger has its own costume, backdrop, and expression — a playful, minimalist nod to the famed figures. The artist’s name “Dito” translates to “finger” in Italian. Although fingerprints are used to identify us, Von Tease is an elusive artist who chooses to remain anonymous, which adds to the quirkiness of his creations. See more in our gallery after the jump. … Read More

Pop Culture

10 of the Greatest ‘Simpsons’ Movie References

By Matthew Bower on

Whether through homage or satire, there’s a rich tradition in cinema — fueled by the likes of cinephile filmmakers such as Godard and Tarantino — of making inside references to other filmmakers. But perhaps even more than the directors enjoy making movie references, audiences love picking up on them. It makes us feel like we have a specialized, albeit useless, expertise. Apparently the writers of The Simpsons have indulged in their share of cinephilia over the years as well, and the Movie Simpsons Tumblr — which launched earlier this year — has been posting animated gifs of famous movie scenes reconstructed, referenced, or otherwise alluded to on the show. We’ve put together ten of our favorites here. … Read More

Film

Amusing Behind-the-Scenes Photos from ‘A Clockwork Orange’

By Judy Berman on

Along with all the stylized rape, murder, and moloko with knives, there are a whole lot of incredible shots in Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange. And unless you’re in it for the photos with visible boob, what’s most enjoyable about the collection of behind-the-scenes snaps Dangerous Minds has dug up is that many of them reveal the crazy positions the surprisingly flexible Kubrick got himself into while capturing them. Of course, there are also just some fun images of the filmmaker and Malcolm McDowell chatting, smoking cigarettes, and cracking up while the latter has that brainwashing device on his head. Dystopic bromance! Click through for a few of our favorite shots, and visit Dangerous Minds to see the rest. … Read More

Design

Illustrations of Classic Movies in Miniature Style

By Caroline Stanley on

What do you get when you combine the iconic imagery of classic films like Star Wars and The Godfather with the style of Ottoman miniature? Istanbul-based illustrator Murat Palta decided to explore this unlikely juxtaposition as part of the portfolio that he created for his thesis project, and we find the resulting images incredibly entertaining.

“It all started two years ago with an experiment to blend traditional ‘oriental’ (Ottoman) motifs and contemporary ‘western’ cinema,” he explains. “After a positive response to Ottoman Star Wars, I decided to take the theme further, and developed more film posters using the same technique. Combining global with local, traditional with contemporary, and adding a bit of humor made it a fun and rewarding experience for me.” Click through to check out the series, head over to The Curious Brain to get a look at each of the pieces in even greater detail, and then let us know in the comments what kind of marks you’d give his work. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office

By Alison Nastasi on

Today at Flavorpill, we learned that raccoons hate Hannah Montana. We liked the 1960′s Spider-Man meme. We celebrated the history of the bikini. We listened to contemporary audio recordings made on old wax cylinder phonographs. We dug Mark Englert’s Walking Dead poster. We watched the making of Stanley… Read More

Books

Anthony Burgess Explains the Meaning of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ in This Week’s ‘New Yorker’

By Judy Berman on

We recently took issue with the sizable, baffling group of A Clockwork Orange cultists who seem to think the novel’s “ultraviolent” protagonist, Alex, is the height of cool. To idolize this character is to seriously misunderstand the story Anthony Burgess is telling — but what did the author actually want readers to get out of… Read More

Pop Culture

10 Fictional Characters People Need to Stop Idolizing

By Judy Berman on

We all need idols, and considering how central books, film, and TV can be to our lives, it makes sense that so many of us count fictional characters among our role models. But not every charismatic protagonist is an Atticus Finch — or even a Leslie Knope. After the jump, we take a lighthearted look at some of the outsize personalities that never should have become cult heroes or objects of popular worship. These aren’t villains we relish for their cartoonish evil, but irreparably flawed (and sometimes downright sociopathic) characters people think are cool and/or strive to emulate, from a teenage rapist to pop culture’s ultimate kept woman. … Read More

Film

Hypotheticals: Kubrick’s ‘Napoleon’

By Jason Bailey on

Here at Flavorwire, we love to engage in what Marcellus Wallace called “contemplating the ifs” — imagining a pop culture landscape filled with movies that never happened, adaptations that never came to pass, and performances that were not to be. In “Hypotheticals,” our new, semi-regular feature, we’ll hone in on a single project that never was (a film, a television show, an album, a book, anything really) and explain why it went away, and what we might’ve missed. First up: Stanley Kubrick’s long-gestating, never-realized film version of the life of Napoleon. … Read More