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Awesome Illustrations of Pop Culture’s Best Female Characters as Saints

By Jason Bailey on

As we’ve discussed recently, the dearth of strong female characters in mass entertainment continues to be a source of depression, but here’s a little cheer-up: artist Spencer Salberg, who posts his work on his heymonster Tumblr, has created a series of Strong Female Character portraits, which cast the likes of Buffy Summers, Liz Lemon, Leslie Knope, and Zoe Washburn as saints. Check them out after the jump, and buy (very reasonably priced!) prints of each here.  … Read More

Film

30 Behind-the-Scenes Monster Movie Photos That Will Blow Your Mind

By Jason Bailey on

Because it came out in the ‘90s and now people old enough to remember it are running websites, a lot of Internet ink has been spilled recently over the 20th anniversary of The Sandlot, writer/director David Mikey Evans’s 1993 remembrance of baseball, boyhood friends, and the summer of ’62. But the most interesting discovery of all of this nostalgia bathing was the unveiling of three photos (by Mr. Evans himself) of the elaborate puppets they used to create “The Beast,” the giant English mastiff that terrifies that neighborhood kids. Looking at those images (and you can check them out after the jump), we get a little nostalgic ourselves — for a time when computers weren’t the solution for scaring an audience, leaving artists and puppeteers to create the horrifying creatures of moviedom. Let’s take a look at how it used to be done. … Read More

Film

10 Famous Films That Were Abandoned by Their Directors

By Jason Bailey on

Lynne Ramsay is a tremendously talented director, as anyone who has seen her films We Need to Talk About Kevin and Ratcatcher can tell you, which makes the latest ripple in her career quite a bummer: when production began Monday on her latest film, the Natalie Portman-fronted Western Jane Got a Gun, Ramsay was nowhere to be found. Deadline broke the story (so beware; that site is notoriously cozy with studio types who might have it in their interest to paint Ramsay as wildly — and litigiously — irresponsible), reporting trouble right up to the start date. Ramsay still hasn’t issued comment on the matter, but the film’s producers have already lined up a replacement in the form of Gavin O’Connor, director of Warrior and Tumbleweeds (and the pilot of The Americans). Deadline branded Ramsay’s departure a “SHOCKER,” but it’s not as rare as you’d think; despite the intense work of developing a picture and preparing it, filmmakers have frequently walked away from pictures before — or even during — production. We’ve got a few examples for you after the jump. … Read More

Film

The Most Bizarre Tie-In Merchandise from ’80s Movie Classics

By Jason Bailey on

Your Flavorwire resisted the temptation to wade into the recent controversy over those collectible figures from Quentin Tarantino’s Djanjo Unchained, but we’ll say this much: it’s important to remember that those toys were aimed at adult collectors, while we can recall (or have managed to suppress our memories) of some thoroughly strange movie tie-ins from our youth that were aimed directly at kids. After the jump, stroll back to the ‘80s with us, when any movie was marketable to anyone, no matter how bizarre or inappropriate. … Read More

Pop Culture

Famous Science Fiction Heroines Reimagined as Saints

By Caroline Stanley on

Ellen Ripley. River Tam. Replicant Rachel. Kara Thrace. If you’ve spent hours obsessing over these incredible female characters from science fiction’s greatest films and TV series, then you’re definitely not alone. In fact, Las Vegas-based illustrator Jska Priebe has devoted an entire series to these beloved pop culture icons, re-envisioning them as religious icons in bold, mixed media works. Click through to check out her clever visual odes to the leading ladies of sci-fi, which we spotted over on The Mary Sue, and let us know in the comments who you think is the most worship-worthy! … Read More

Film

The Original Names of Famous Film Characters

By Alison Nastasi on

Our friends at Mental Floss published an article yesterday revealing a list of literary characters that almost had entirely different names. We agree that J.R.R. Tolkien’s Bladorthin the Grey wouldn’t have rolled off the tongue as nicely as Gandalf the Grey does and felt relieved that J.K. Rowling, Raymond Chandler, and other writing giants had the good sense to wise up.

The list left us wondering about the original names of film characters. The best fictional heroes and villains aren’t remembered solely for their names, but a creative and original moniker can make an otherwise forgettable figure truly stand out. It’s also a great way to shed an interesting light on a character’s backstory. Click through to find out what disastrous, cinematic names directors and screenwriters evaded throughout film history. If you know of a particular lemon we didn’t cover, drop it in the comments below. … Read More

Film

10 of the All-Time Scariest Movie Trailers

By Alison Nastasi on

Since new horror anthology V/H/S premiered at Sundance, fans of terror cinema and multi-story chillers have been anxious to see more of the found footage collection. Directors like The House of the Devil’s Ti West and Adam Wingard (You’re Next) are featured in the tale about a group of misfits who are hired by a mysterious client to recover a VHS tape from an abandoned house. Once there, they uncover disturbing footage amongst a massive collection of tapes, disrupting their mission in unsettling ways. Last week the movie’s creepy poster premiered, and now Slash Film has shared a red band trailer for the film that gave us some serious chills.

With nerves officially rattled, we wanted to keep the momentum going and decided to dig up a few of the all-time scariest movie trailers. Some of these films may be familiar to you, but these unnerving trailers (several of them rare) probably aren’t the clips you’ve seen dozens of times before. Other films may be new to you, and hopefully these excerpts will entice you to seek them out for a good scare. Watch them all after the break, and confess your fears below. … Read More

Design

Science Fiction Films Cleverly Reimagined as Pulp Classics

By Caroline Stanley on

Thanks to the eagle-eyed editors over at Poster Collective, we’ve been turned on to the work of Tim Anderson, a concept designer for Electronic Arts in Salt Lake City. In particular, we’re excited by his series of illustrated movie posters for science fiction films that have been reimagined as pulp novels, a personal side project that he hoped would push him “into thinking more graphically.” Click through to check out the trio of prints that Anderson has completed so far (which are available for purchase here), and stay tuned for more work in the fantastic series. We’re curious: What film would you like to see him tackle next? … Read More

Film

10 Ill-Advised Movie Prequels

By Jason Bailey on

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus hits theaters this week, and since it’s a kinda-sorta-maybe prequel to Alien, it got us thinking about the prequel itself. It’s a peculiar beast, really — the sequel is (for the most part) a crass commercial form to begin with, but a prequel is basically studio executives and filmmakers admitting, Well, we really want to sell you this product again, but we can’t make a sequel for whatever reason, so how’s about a sequel that takes place before the first one? Will you buy a ticket to that?

The results can be enlightening (The Godfather Part II), entertaining (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), or franchise-rescuing (X-Men: First Class). But as with sequels, more often than not, prequels look like a filmed deal, a blatant cash grab that’s low on ideas but high on cynicism. After the jump, we’ve assembled ten of the least inspiring prequels in movie history; we’ll find out soon enough if Prometheus dodges their fate. … Read More

Film

Famous Films Almost Made by Different Directors

By Alison Nastasi on

After a slam-dunk opening weekend at the box office, Avengers director Joss Whedon has to be giddy over his epic superhero spectacle. We’re sure it’s far more thrilling a feeling than the one the Cabin in the Woods filmmaker had when he pitched a Batman movie shortly before Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins would reboot the caped crusader franchise. According to an interview with the director that Slash Film shared, Whedon’s “morbid, death-obsessed kid” Batman pitch — in which a 12-year-old Bruce Wayne realizes his true purpose — didn’t impress Warner Bros. Nolan’s version of Batman eventually made its way to theaters. Whedon’s story, however, recalls the number of big budget studio projects that were almost made by different directors, and we’ve explored a few of those famous titles past the break. Leave your picks below. … Read More