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Film

Exclusive Supercut: “The Early Roles of Your Oscar Nominees”

By Jason Bailey on

Here at Flavorwire, nothing delights us more than the creative archaeology of an actor’s early years: the opportunity to observe raw talent in its embryonic form, to marvel at how far they’ve come, to observe the humble beginnings of bit roles and low budgets. For this exclusive supercut, we dug up some of the early film and television performances of the ten nominees for acting Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards. One of them, of course, has a much more slender resume (her early role is her Oscar-nominated one); the rest have decades of little breaks that brought them to Oscar night. Check them all out after the jump. … Read More

Film

Flavorwire’s Guide to Indie Flicks to See in December

By Jason Bailey on

Indie releases tend to thrive during the months when the multiplexes get dumber — in other words, every month until October, when big studios start putting their muscle behind intelligent Oscar contenders and act like that’s the kind of stuff they’re turning out all year. Point is, our indie preview is a little thinner than usual this month, since quieter movies are basically gunning for the same audiences as your Zero Dark Thirtys and Life of Pis and so on, but there are a few small releases worth tracking down. We’ll run them down for you after the jump. … Read More

Fashion

The Fug Report: Highs and Lows from the Week in Fashion

By Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan on

Editor’s note: Welcome to The Fug Report! Each week our fashion blogger friends Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the sartorial geniuses behind Go Fug Yourself, will feature some of the most memorable looks of the week in this space. We hope you enjoy it!

This week, on Go Fug Yourself, we closely examined two delightful… Read More

Film

Flavorwire’s Flick of the Week: ‘The Master’

By Jason Bailey on

The first close-up in The Master, the sublimely grand and wonderfully eccentric new film from Paul Thomas Anderson, holds tightly on the eyes of Freddie Quell, the troubled seaman played by Joaquin Phoenix. Anderson’s camera fixes on those eyes—fixates on them, really—and challenges us to understand what’s happening behind them. For a good long while, it’s anybody’s guess; Freddie is an opaque and worrisome protagonist, an aimless troublemaker and desperate alcoholic who puts himself into questionable situations with nary a moment’s hesitation. Throughout the film’s first act, those eyes are a blank, the actor following the lead of a director determined not to show his hand. And then he meets The Master. … Read More

Film

This Week in Trailers: ‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ ‘Trouble with the Curve,’ and More!

By Jason Bailey on

Every Friday here at Flavorwire, we like to gather up the week’s new movie trailers, give them a look-see, and rank them from worst to best — while taking a guess or two about what they might tell us (or hide from us) about the movies they’re promoting. We’ve got nine trailers this week, featuring the likes of Clint Eastwood, Paul Rudd, Amy Adams, Gerald Butler, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Justin Timberlake, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Biel, Leslie Mann, Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Elizabeth Olsen, Josh Radnor, John Krasinski, and Olivia Thirlby. Check ‘em all out after the jump, and share your thoughts in the comments. … Read More

Film

This Week in Trailers: ‘Man of Steel,’ ‘Cloud Atlas,’ ‘Bachelorette,’ and More!

By Jason Bailey on

Every Friday here at Flavorwire, we like to gather up the week’s new movie trailers, give them a look-see, and rank them from worst to best — while taking a guess or two about what they might tell us (or hide from us) about the movies they’re promoting. This week’s nine new trailers include new films from Ang Lee, Tom Tykwer, and the Wachowskis, and feature the likes of Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Halle Berry, Hugh Laurie, Catherine Keener, Isla Fisher, Allison Janney, Oliver Platt, Gerald Butler, and Juno Temple. Check ‘em all out after the jump, and share your thoughts in the comments. … Read More

Film

Video Essay: “Threequel: Even More Famous Faces in Their Film Debuts”

By Jason Bailey on

Well, I’m sorry, but we just couldn’t resist. After our first two “Famous Faces in their Film Debut” video essays took the Internet by storm, we found that with a bit more digging, we could unearth enough new goodies to warrant a third (but final, probably) entry in the series. So check out a squeaky-voiced Tom Cruise, a little tiny Angelina Jolie, an even tinier Robert Downey Jr., and a young (but somehow still old-looking) Tommy Lee Jones, among many other oddities, after the jump. … Read More

Television

TV’s Most Notoriously Short-Lived Shows

By Jason Bailey on

While perusing today’s new DVD releases, your film editor was nearly prompted to a coffee spit take by one particular title: Warner Archive’s release of, and I quote, “Emily’s Reasons Why Not: The Complete Series.” You see, I remember Emily’s, ABC’s well-publicized 2006 Heather Graham sitcom that aired exactly one time before being unceremoniously yanked from the air. “Ha ha,” I thought to myself. “31 bucks is a lot of money to ask for a thirty-minute disc,” and I laughed and laughed. That’s not the whole story, of course; there are actually seven episodes of “the complete series” (though that’s still a pretty hefty price tag); six more where already in the bank when ABC pulled the show due to poor reviews and low ratings. (Funny thing: its 6.2 million viewers would be a pretty comfortable debut in today’s slipping TV environment.) But it was far from the first show to get tossed in the dumpster before it could find an audience. After the jump, we’ve compiled just a few TV series that were put out to pasture notoriously early in their runs. … Read More

Film

This Week in Trailers: 'Dark Shadows,' 'Hemingway and Gellhorn,' and more

By Jason Bailey on

Every Friday here at Flavorwire, we like to gather up the week new movie trailers, give them a look-see, and rank them from worst to best — while taking a guess or two about what they might tell us (or hide from us) about the movies they’re promoting. We’ve got seven new trailers for you this week, including new films from Nicole Kidman, Clive Owen, Kate Hudson, and a new Johnny Depp-Tim Burton collaboration. Check ‘em all out after the jump, and share your thoughts in the comments. … Read More

Film

Watch the First Real Trailer for ‘The Muppets’

By Caroline Stanley on

Yes, it’s another trailer for The Muppets. But this one’s different, we promise! It’s not another hilarious movie spoof. Instead, what we get this time around is a much better idea of what we can expect from the actual film, which opens on Thanksgiving Day. The plot is nothing incredibly inventive, but it’s not like that really matters in a Muppet movie anyway, right? A rough synopsis: The Muppets have become Hollywood has-beens and there happens to be an oil deposit sitting underneath the Muppet Theater. They’ll need to raise $10 million in order to save the place from an evil oil baron (Chris Cooper) — which Kermit plans to do by reuniting the old gang and staging “The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever” with some help from their biggest fans (Jason Segel and Amy Adams), a couple from Smalltown, USA. Our only real issue with this adorable trailer is that there’s way too much of Manny from Modern Family — and quite frankly, we’re a little suspicious of the newest Muppet, Walter. Click through to check it out now! … Read More