In today’s media-saturated market, who has time to invest in watching and reading everything out there? Not us — and we assume that we devote more time to pop-culture consumption than most. But you don’t have to feel left out of your friends’ conversations about Harry Potter, Doctor Who, or even The Bold and the Beautiful. Luckily, there’s a way to catch up the television shows, movies, and other classics that everybody’s talking about — and it’s much more fun than reading the summaries on Wikipedia. We’ve put together some of our favorite video condensations of famous franchises to keep you up to date.
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We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay’s critically acclaimed indie drama, expands into a (somewhat) wider release this weekend, and if you live in one of those ever-elusive “select cities,” it’s worth checking out; it’s a tough, frightening picture that gets into your head, and it features not only the by-now-expected brilliant (if overlooked by the Academy) performance by Tilda Swinton, but a bravura turn by Ezra Miller as the title character. He plays Swinton’s son, a teen boy with, um, some problems. We’ll leave at that, in case you haven’t yet had the exact nature of his wickedness spoiled for you yet; suffice it to say, he’s a bad kid, which got us wondering how he’d stack up in the rich history of evil cinematic teenagers (and pre-teens). After the jump, we’ll take a look (with some spoilers of years-old movies, so consider yourself warned).
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Movie mavens IMDb have revealed their top ten most-viewed/searched-for stars, movies, TV shows, and anticipated in-production titles over the past decade. The lists celebrates ten years of the company’s industry database IMDb Pro and offers some surprising — and not so shocking — looks at trends centering on our film tastes. The Dark Knight Rises grabbed a number one spot as most-anticipated project, which shouldn’t be news to you, but the number two film of the past ten years — Donnie Darko — was a bit of a surprise.
We zeroed in on the top stars list and provided some subliminal insight into where movie audiences’ minds must have been for the last decade. Give us your explanations below after you check out the list past the break.
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Graffiti artists aren’t particularly known for their bookishness. After all, when you spend your nights out on the street as a graphic art vigilante, you’re missing important time that could be spent snuggled up in bed with a book. So after we saw this spectacular Isaac Asimov portrait, we decided to go hunting for graffiti with a distinct literary bent — and in fact, the world abounds with bookish street art, from portraits of favorite authors to stenciled and scribbled quotes to representations of beloved characters. Click through to see twenty five of our favorite finds, from the reverent to the blatantly mocking, and let us know which author’s likeness you’d most like to stencil onto the walls of your city in the comments — or get out there and contribute to our collection.
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Today at Flavorpill, we wondered if the Disney marketing team really knew what they were doing when they made this Joy Division/Unknown Pleasures tee. We tried to imagine how many terrifying Mark Jenkins sculptures we’ve seen in our lifetime without really knowing it. We were disappointed that the new Cormac McCarthy Twitter account was a fake. We were mesmerized by this dance of a thousand arms. We learned we’ll have to bite our tongues for another month until the Razzie nominees are announced. We were glad that Tracy Morgan feels up to returning to work on 30 Rock tomorrow. We were spooked by this island of Megan Foxes. Yes, plural. We wondered if we missed Buffy enough to buy this 1995 Chrysler LeBaron that Sarah Michelle Gellar used to own. We discovered what it takes to be a secret agent. We thought this snowy photo of a church in Switzerland looked like a dollhouse creation. We envied Harry Potter’s iElf app. We adored this illustrated Harold and Maude poster. And finally, we concluded that even if the critics didn’t like Steven Tyler’s rendition of the National Anthem, Wayne and Garth probably did.
Sometimes you love a book — or an author’s body of works — so much that you need an outlet that allows you to express that love. Sure, book club might help a little, but if you’re a truly die-hard fan, you might find that you need a little more tradition (or maybe full-on period costumes) to really inspire you. After all, nothing makes literature come to life like actually incorporating it into the modern-day world, whether by holding nonstop readings, visiting grave sites, or carrying around special tokens of appreciation and winking at other insiders. So if you’ve wondering how best to salute your favorite authors and novels, click through to read up on a few literary traditions ripe for the joining, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites in the comments!
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Earlier this week, we discovered a set of lovely golden Lord of the Rings-inspired nails over at io9, and we have to admit that we’ve been daydreaming about our perfect literary dream manicures ever since. After all, we’ve already gushed over (and failed at trying to replicate) these awesome Twin Peaks nails, so it’s only fair we give a little love to the literary side of fingernail-based super-fandom. Because if you’re serious about being a literary nerd, why not extend your love of books to the very tools that let you turn the pages and proclaim your great taste in reading material to the world all at once? Click through to get inspired by a few of our favorite works of literary nail art, and let us know which books you’re dying to have at your fingertips in the comments!
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Last night, Daniel Radcliffe hosted a mixed-bag episode of Saturday Night Live with musical guest Lana Del Rey in her late night television debut. Del Rey’s performance was rather lackluster — both of her songs were performed standing in one place, in the same dress (a lack of costume change is very unusual for SNL musical guests), in the same tone of voice. Radcliffe, on the other hand, was relatively great: he did seem nervous and stumbly half the time, but he more than made up for it by being energetic and clearly game for anything. Click through to watch clips of the best and worst sketches of the night, and let us know if we left off your favorite in the comments.
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Beside every great hero is a great sidekick, and if pop culture history proves anything, it’s that we love to watch animals fight the good fight alongside their human companions. One of Hollywood’s most famous and faithful animal buddies, Cheetah — Tarzan’s chimp co-star — recently passed away, after appearing in 12 films with the ape-man. Cheetah managed to become a true blue star before the age of CGI, which would have replaced him completely or been used to curtail his beastly behavior.
While the loss of the 80-year-old primate is a sad one, audiences have been taking notice of other animal sidekicks — like Steven Spielberg’s Snowy from The Adventures of Tintin or Joey from War Horse. We felt inspired by this menagerie of critter helpers and decided to take a look back at some of pop culture’s coolest animal sidekicks. Hit the jump for more, and tell us who gets your vote below.
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[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published June 19, 2011.] Sigh. Authors just don’t insult each other like they used to. Sure, Martin Amis raised some eyebrows when he claimed he would need brain damage to write children’s books, and recent Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan made waves when she disparaged the work that someone had plagiarized, but those kinds of accidental, lukewarm zingers are nothing when compared to the sick burns of yore. It stands to reason, of course, that writers would be able to come up with some of the best insults around, given their natural affinity for a certain turn of phrase and all. And it also makes sense that the people they would choose to unleash their verbal battle-axes upon would be each other, since watching someone doing the same thing you’re doing — only badly — is one of the most frustrating feelings we know. So we forgive our dear authors for their spite. Plus, their insults are just so fun to read. Click through for our countdown of the thirty harshest author-on-author burns in history, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites in the comments!
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