1. The 2011 Golden Globes nominations have been announced, and Black Swan, Glee, The Social Network, and The Kids Are All Right all scored multiple nods, while The King’s Speech leads the pack with seven. View the full list here.
2. Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter — who play a brother and sister on Showtime’s Dexter, which has always kind of creeped us out — are filing for divorce after nearly two years of marriage. [via EW]
3. George Clinton says that his signature was forged to clear a sample for two tracks by the Black Eyed Peas, and is now seeking millions in damages for copyright infringement. [via Guardian]
4. Ethan Hawke is in talks to star in a new show on FOX. “Described as a high octane procedural, Exit Strategy centers on a team of five experts associated with the CIA who are deployed when a CIA operation goes bad to extract the ones involved before it’s too late. Hawke would play the team leader, the architect of exit strategy who also empathizes with the people they extract and would rather die than let them get hurt. Each episode would tackle a different crisis in a different country.” [via Deadline]
5. After an attempt to make a grand entrance via harness went bad, a bleeding Hugh Jackman was removed from the set of Oprah in Australia earlier today. But he’s OK! He later returned and carried on with his scheduled interview segment. [via THR]
Lonely concern trolls and single snarksters, rejoice! Gawker has just announced #gawkerdating, which may well be the world’s first hashtag-based dating service. This suggests an entire universe of sarcastic jokes about nasty comments sections, infamous bloggers, and other media wonkery. So, guess what? We’re going to make all of them. Without any further ado, we present to you 15 pickup lines to use on the new Gawker dating service. Prove you’re wittier than their commenters by adding your own.
1. So, Kanye West performed his new album last night at Bowery Ballroom, and he said some things. Ten minutes worth of things. Namely about George Bush and Taylor Swift. (video) [via The Awl]
2. Not that we usually care about Dancing with the Stars, but we have to admit that we’re thankful that Jennifer Grey triumphed over Bristol Palin. Should we all take this as a sign that Dirty Dancing fans are more powerful than the Tea Party? [via Vulture]
3. Good news for fashionistas/Francophiles: IFC has acquired the rights to Pierre Thorentton’s French documentary Yves Saint Laurent L’Amour Fou, and it will be released in 2011. [via Deadline]
4. Facebook has trademarked the word “face.” At least when it comes to “[t]elecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars.” [via Gizmodo]
5. Gawker has settled their lawsuit with HarperCollins, and agreed not to re-post excerpts from Sarah Palin’s upcoming memoir, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag. [via GalleyCat]
[Editor's note: This post was originally published February 8, 2010.] You know a situation is dire when Gawker puts away the snark and gets serious. And that’s just what they did Friday, in a guest post by film industry expert Edward Jay Epstein in which the author asks the question, “Can Indie Movies Survive?” His thorough, well-considered response, which cites everything from the huge profits major studios need to project to purchase a movie to the rapidly disappearing world of independent distribution, pretty much amounts to “no.”
Reading Epstein’s piece, it occurred to us that while indie film may be in the midst of a crisis, indie music has never been stronger or more vibrant. The number of new and exciting bands out there seems to increase exponentially every few years, bigger groups like Animal Collective and Vampire Weekend are all over the Billboard charts and vinyl sales are growing every year. So what gives? Why is indie film dying while indie music thrives? We’ve listed our best guesses after the jump.
Summer is finally here, and although we are excited (unlike some people), the season just doesn’t feel like it used to. Gone are the times when we could unabashedly run through the fountain at the local town center. Flying down the Slip ‘n Slide guilt- and injury-free without the context or liquid courage provided by alcohol? Not an option. However, we can be nostalgic for those times. So here is a long list of just about all the summer activities we wish we could be doing right now instead of being cooped up in the office. Join us on our trip and receive what Don Draper would call, “…the pain from an old wound. A twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.”
Well, is she? It may seem unfair to ask a 28-year-old writer to carry the entire burden of Gen Y on her shoulders, but that’s how her publisher is selling ex-Gawker editor Emily Gould’s first book, the personal essay collection And the Heart Says Whatever, so we don’t feel bad holding her to it. Still, it’s a harder question to ask than to answer.
Tom Scott’s Stupid Fight compares the last 100 @replies between two Twitter users against one another and analyzes them based on several “stupid indicators.” Points are deducted for multiple exclamation marks and extreme fondness of abbreviations; irony is strictly frowned upon. To test it out, we decided to pit @flavorpill‘s followers against everyone from Lady Gaga’s fans to Team Coco. Be warned: It was not a fair fight.
Are media outlets abusing the word “hipster” in headlines “2 get hits”? Yes. Because it’s hard out there for a blogger. Well that, and love ‘em or hate ‘em, stories about hipsters are usually a juicy read. After the jump, find our second installment of Hipster Headlines, a round up of the most interesting hipster-related stories of the week. Leave links to anything entertaining that we’ve missed in the comments.
There was a time when homosexuality, drug use, infidelity, and a Communist past were considered scandalous. In Eisenhower’s America any one of the above was enough to get your face pasted in the pages of a tabloid tell-all called Confidential. And if you weren’t careful, the coverage could ruin your career. In a media culture dominated by the likes of TMZ and Gawker, those sorts of “indiscretions” can still seem to be quite scandalous. And, with the exception of perhaps homosexuality, all are potential career wreckers. But Confidential was there first, and they were there when things were most titillating.
1. In which Gawker asks: Who is the hipster of the decade? While we love Hipster Runoff’s Carles, we’re going to have to go with Dash Snow. [via Gawker]
2. Quentin Tarantino‘s next project is going to be “smaller, less epic” in scale than Inglourious Basterds, and in a “different genre entirely.” [via Vulture]
3. Zing: Rage Against The Machine have invited Simon Cowell to host the free gig they’re planning to celebrate beating The X Factor to Christmas Number One, which is a big deal in the UK. [via NME]
4. The first trailer for the fourth and final Shrek movie is out; it hits theaters next summer. [via Digital Spy]
5. Def Leppard are pitching a cartoon show starring themselves to networks in the US. [via BBC]
, so we don’t feel bad holding her to it. Still, it’s a harder question to ask than to answer.
