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Imaginative Ads for Pop Culture’s Most Famous Fictional Products

By Jason Bailey on

Few institutions hold the key to our pop culture-obsessed heart like Gallery 1988, the dual-location Los Angeles art gallery that showcases art celebrating our favorite films, music, and TV. The latest exhibit for the Venice Gallery is Product Placement, consisting of imagined artwork for fictional products from all points of the pop culture universe. Join us after the jump for a preview of the show, which opens Saturday and runs through March 30th, including inventive ads for Red Apple cigarettes, Soul Glo hair products, Dapper Dan pomade, and more. … 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

Film

Christmas Movie Kids: Where Are They Now?

By Jason Bailey on

Christmas movie season is in full swing, and if you’re like us, you’ve got holiday films blasting from your television and Netflix window 24/7. “Timeless” is the term that gets thrown around for the good ones, and it’s often true — except in one respect. Those cute and cuddly kids so often at the center of yuletide tales have, in the years since they staked out a permanent place in your heart, grown up. Some have gone on to successful acting careers. Some dropped out once puberty hit. And one even, God help us, did porn. After the jump, our roundup of the after-Christmas lives of our favorite holiday movie kids. … Read More

Film

The 10 Most Lovable Movie Monsters of All Time

By Emily Temple on

This past Friday marked the theatrical release of Frankenweenie, Tim Burton’s full-length animated adaptation of his 1984 live-action short of the same name (which he was fired from Disney for making). We loved the original (we’re pretty sure we wore that VHS tape right out), so we’ve always had a soft spot for Sparky that hasn’t been the least bit dampened by his, ahem, reanimation. As a side effect (there are always side effects for these kinds of things), the film’s release has had us meditating on some other cute monsters from cinema, so we’ve put together a list of the most lovable movie monsters of all time — according to us, of course. Click through to saw “aww” at some adorably grotesque faces, and if we’ve missed your favorite, be sure to add to our list in the comments! … Read More

Film

Our 10 Favorite Anti-Christmas Movies

By Jason Bailey on

With the holiday season in full swing, it’s easy to get burned out — cable stations are running crappy movies like Jingle All the Way and The Santa Clause 24/7, saccharine holiday music is blasting out of every speaker, and you’ve still got like half your list to buy, and what the hell do I get these freaks?

Calm down. Have an eggnog. Put some rum in it. And enjoy some of our favorite anti-Christmas movies — not films that hate the holiday, per se (though a couple of them do), but ones that cut through all that warmth and good feeling and get at the darkness underneath. Our contrarian Christmas viewing list is after the jump. … Read More

Film

The 10 Darkest Children’s Movies

By Caroline Stanley on

Inspired by The Independent’s recent roundup of 10 of the bloodiest bedtime stories, we decided to take a look back into our own childhoods, and came up with this list of 10 of the darkest children’s movies. From more subtly disturbing films like Bambi to the truly gruesome ones, like Watership Down, check out our picks after the jump, and be sure to add your own sources of childhood trauma in the comments. … Read More