Keeping in mind the amount of gratuitous violence and rape that goes on in David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, India’s decision to bar the film from showing there is easy to understand, albeit unfortunate from a creative standpoint. But the highly publicized decision got us thinking about some of the less obvious justifications some countries have used to keep foreign movies from their theaters. We’ve rounded up a handful of the oddest bannings from around the world for your consideration after the jump.

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Today’s sci-fi film posters can be baffling, their shadowy silhouettes lending no clues about the movie’s premise. Artist Dean Walton, aka Mr. Shabba, realized this and set out to create a series of illustrations that utilized the main characters’ outlines in a different, more illuminating way. The result is a collection of five kaleidoscopic works of art that hint at the cinematic narratives of films such as Avatar, The Matrix, and District 9 by recreating scenes from each film’s plot within the main character’s silhouette.  Check out Walton’s visually stunning collection below, and purchase the limited-edition prints over at his website.

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Today at Flavorpill, we weren’t surprised to see that Avatar topped this list of the Internet’s most pirated movies. We were shocked, however, to hear that indie filmmaker Patty Jenkins (Monster) has signed on to direct Thor 2 — maybe this means we’ll see more character development? We examined some of the architecture found in different comic book cities. We wished Paul Simon a very happy 70th birthday. We found this exploration of what a independent band stands to make from services like iTunes and Spotify rather sobering. We wondered where all the Leos, Tobeys, and Jakes have gone. We craved apple pie cookies. We learned that we never ever want to work in a haunted house — no matter how sexy they seemed back in middle school. We questioned Nerve’s decision to put Chasing Amy at the top of a list of Kevin Smith’s best movies. We looked at how the ratings of some of our favorite canceled TV shows stack up against this season’s current crop. And finally, we were pretty impressed by this photo of Al Capone’s Eastern State Penitentiary cell in Philadelphia. Other than the peeling walls, his digs still look pretty swanky, right?

In an April 1987 essay for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction about the then-hot topic of “colorization” (the repugnant trend of slapping computer-generated color over black and white classics, ostensibly to render them watchable to a younger generation that disliked b&w), science fiction author Harlan Ellison wrote of the process, “We don’t really need it… It’s like going to see a club act in which a whistling dog performs ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.’ Once, it’s interesting; more than once it’s merely a curiosity. That has very little, if anything, to do with art. And pandering to the corrupted taste of a generation of kids for whom movies are nothing more than a prelude to getting laid is loathsome in every way.”

Can we all agree that we’ve reached that point on the 3-D fad? Three new 3-D movies opened last weekend (two remakes and a sequel, for what it’s worth), and all three tanked at the box office. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World opened in third with $12 million, Conan the Barbarian came in fourth with $10 million, while Fright Night came in sixth (behind the fourth week of The Smurfs!) with just under $8 million. The top spot went to The Help; in second place was Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a well-performing summer tent-pole movie that is continuing to bring in audiences with solid word-of-mouth; it’s a genuinely good movie, people are telling each other, with interesting characters and a script that does not appear to have been written by seven-year-olds. You know what else ROTPOTA has going for it? It’s not in 3-D.

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For film fans, the must-read article of the week — to hell with that, the year — is Mark Harris’ brilliant think piece for GQ on the state of the current cinema, “The Day The Movies Died.” Harris, whose book Pictures at a Revolution is the single best piece of film writing of the last decade, despairs of a Hollywood that, in the words of a studio executive, “doesn’t tell stories anymore”; instead, it cranks out endless sequels and adaptations and remakes and reboots, more concerned with built-in brands than quality or craftsmanship.

“As you read this,” Harris writes, “the person who gave the go-ahead to Fast Five, the (I hate to prejudge, but…) utterly unnecessary fifth installment in the Vin Diesel–Paul Walker epic The Fast and the Furious, is sleeping soundly right now, possibly even at his desk. On June 10, 2011, he will bestow on several thousand screens a product that people have already purchased four times before. How can it miss?”
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1. Although the New York Post reported that Lady Gaga was banned from Yankees clubhouse Saturday after drunkenly fondling herself in front of players, it turns out she is still welcome. Sort of. [via EW]
2. Toy Story 3 earned the biggest opening day of all time for an animated film. [via LAT]
3. John Lennon‘s handwritten lyrics to “A Day in the Life” have sold for a whopping $1.2 million. Fun fact: The infamous refrain “I love to turn you on” was a late addition. [via NYT]
4. Hustler is filming a 3D porn version of Avatar. [via Digital Spy]
5. Amanda Bynes has retired from acting at the ripe, old age of 24. “I don’t love acting anymore so I’ve stopped doing it,” she told fans on Twitter. [via PopEater]

Bonus link: What do vampires see in Sookie?

Today at Flavorpill, we decided that our company mascot should be the punk rock penguin. We were excited to hear that Gabourey Sidibe will be hosting an upcoming episode of Saturday Night Live. We found Shaq’s texts to his mistress much less entertaining than his tweets. We decided that if the options are Terry Richardson or Olivier Zahm, we wouldn’t rather. We loved this slideshow of the greatest writer villains in film. We worried about Avatar fans who are learning how to speak Na’vi. We got pumped for the new season of True Blood thanks to this racy poster, and in other vampire news, we were touched to hear that proceeds from Stephenie Meyer’s new novella will benefit charity. We cringed over this compilation of 160 Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes. We couldn’t wait to watch A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas in 3D. Stoned. And finally, we found this image from the Second Avenue Subway dig oddly reminiscent of the underground treasure cave from The Goonies. Does that make the MTA the Fratellis?

Today at Flavorpill, we finally got that Avatar is Pocahontas trailer that we’re sure you were anxiously awaiting. We realized how much the Toyota Trucks logo looks like Frank Zappa’s mustache. After watching these spoiler clips from The Office, we wondered if it’s lame if it makes us cry when Pam Beasley finally gives birth next Thursday night. We were deeply, deeply disappointed by Carly Simon’s big reveal — and then we found it wasn’t true! (Side note: Does anyone else find the fact that this story involves playing a record backwards totally insane?) We encountered some rather Jersey Shore prejudice from da club of all places. We enjoyed Jezebel’s take on how classic children’s books might be updated for “today’s young MySpacerati.” And finally we met the terrible rock bands who lurk on the album charts for years at a time. These are also known as the bands VH1 likes to play when we’re at the gym in the morning.

Today at Flavorpill, we chortled over the fact that James Cameron is working on a prequel novel to Avatar that should be finished later this year. We were creeped out by Robert Smith’s cover of “Very Good Advice” for the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack. We wanted to buy some of The Lost Art of Inglourious Basterds — Quentin Tarantino, Upper Playground and the Weinstein Company have all teamed up on the poster project, and it benefits Haiti. We wondered if making our own music video for “You’re So Vain” could be our claim to fame. We found it funny that Madonna waited until now to launch her own fashion line. We peeped the winning photographs from the 2010 World Press Photo Contest. We made a mental note to tell you to read this Roger Ebert interview in Esquire (also, if you’re not already following his journal, you should). We were sad to hear that the lead singer of the Knack had died, but happy to meet his Sharona. And finally we watched the first episode of HBO’s latest, The Ricky Gervais show, which premieres on Friday. You can download it for free now on iTunes.

Yesterday James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar became the top-grossing film of all time. As Entertainment Weekly notes, more North Americans saw Phantom Menace in the theater than have seen Avatar so far, and it currently ranks 26th all-time when you adjust for inflation. But who’s counting, right?

So we’re going to run with the idea that even though there of plenty of people who think this film is just Pocahontas in a different color palette, you’ll be glad to hear that the sequel is already in pre-production (Cameron wants to make it a trilogy). Before you get too excited, remember who we’re dealing with here: “According to the source, some behind the scenes technical crew have signed on for three to five year contracts, just in case it runs long.”