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10 Mom-Approved Movie Character Crushes

By Alison Nastasi on

Try as you might, mom won’t ever let you forget that she knows what’s best for you. In the spirit of Mother’s Day, we played matchmaker and set you up with a few film characters that mom would approve of. She only wants you to be happy. We chose ten films, guesstimated who you probably have a crush on, and then selected a character from the same movie that mom would prefer you invite over for dinner sometime. Feel free to leave your own mom-approved film character crushes in the comments section. … Read More

Film

The 10 Best “Credit Cookies” in Movie History

By Jason Bailey on

Iron Man 3 is out in theaters tomorrow, and it should come as no surprise that those who are willing to sit through the end credits — and seriously, they run something like ten minutes and include more names than a small-town phone book — will be rewarded with an extra (and very funny) bonus scene. Some call these little bonuses “credit cookies,” others call them “stingers.” In Roger Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary, Serdor Yegulalp dubs them the “Monk’s Reward,” defined thus: “A surprising final line or image, tagged on after the credits have finished rolling… so named because it usually takes monk-like devotion to sit through the credits to get to it.” The previous Marvel movies made a regular habit of including credit cookies, mostly as preparation for The Avengers, but they’re not the only movies to throw in a little something extra for those who stick around to find out who the unit accountant was. (Warning: minor spoilers ahead, but all for movies that have been out for a year or more.) … Read More

Film

The Best Insults in Film

By Jason Bailey on

Recently, Flavorwire rounded up some of our very favorite punchlines from our favorite funny movies — which was a bit of a job in itself, since there are so many great lines, and they’re funny in so many different ways. But perhaps the most reliable way to get a laugh is one of the oldest: a great insult. The best can come from anywhere (even a serious drama), prompting not only a quick, dirty, slightly guilty laugh, but also the jotting down of a particularly effective slam in one’s mental notebook. Click through for 25 of the cruelest, funniest, and most effective cinematic… Read More

Film

Awesome Vine Trailers for Modern Classic Movies

By Jason Bailey on

As you may or may not have noticed, your Flavorwire didn’t bother covering this week’s maddening, seemingly frame-by-frame unveiling of the trailer for The Wolverine, a movie we’re not all that worked up over to begin with (seriously, didn’t we already do that once?). It was bad enough when we started getting 30-second teasers for movie trailers — an item that is, when you break it down, a commercial for a commercial. But Wolverine director James Mangold went a step further, first putting out a six-second Vine “tweaser” (yep, that’s what he called it), then the teaser, then the trailer, meaning that the Vine was a commercial for a commercial for a commercial and good God make it all stop please. But one good thing did come out of it: trailer editing house Tokyo got the nutty idea of recutting the trailers for eight modern classics into six-second form and posting them on Vine. The results are oddly captivating; check them out after the jump. … Read More

Film

10 Romantic Movie Couples Who Were Actually Hopeless

By Jason Bailey on

Valentine’s Day is upon us, so it’s time to grit your teeth, load up your Netflix queue, and sit through a romance or two. Don’t get us wrong—they’re not all terrible, and some offer some very good advice. But too many hinge on hard-to-swallow coincidences, dated gender stereotypes, and insufferable cutesiness. What’s worse, even the good ones often ask us to buy a “happy ending” that puts together a couple who we all know isn’t going to last five minutes past the credits. After the jump, our votes for the movie couples least likely to actually make it — contrary to what the films that tell their stories insist. Be warned: minor spoilers are ahead. … Read More

Film

10 Movies We Wish We’d Seen in Their Original Form

By Jason Bailey on

A fascinating little movie that you not have heard of hit DVD and Blu-ray this week—its debut in either format. A New Leaf was the debut directorial effort of Elaine May, half of the comedy team Nichols and May (with Mike Nichols, who would go on to direct The Graduate, Silkwood, The Birdcage, and many others). She wrote, directed, and co-starred with Walter Matthau; a notorious perfectionist, she went over schedule on the picture, and when she finally turned it over to Paramount, it ran a full three hours. Studio head Robert Evans recut the film, softening its darkly comic tone and shortening it to 102 minutes. (It was an arbiter of things to come; though she had no difficulties with her second film, The Heartbreak Kid, she went over budget and over schedule on Micky & Nicky and the notorious boondoggle Ishtar, her final directorial effort to date.) May tried to both stop the film’s release and have her name removed, to no avail. It’s a pretty great movie, odd and funny, with peculiarly winning performances by May and Matthau; the disappointment is that the new video release has none of those deleted scenes, which studios frequently tossed or lost in the days before bonus features and director’s cuts.

Our longing for the original, extended cut of A New Leaf got us thinking about other films whose longer versions have either vanished or been suppressed. After the jump, we’ve gathered up what we know about ten of them; add your own in the comments, won’t you? … Read More

Film

The Best Beatles Cues in Movie History

By Jason Bailey on

Happy 70th birthday, Sir Paul McCartney! (Oh, he’s a big Flavorwire reader, you didn’t know? Comments a lot. Really bad about the “first!” thing. ) The Beatles have been on our mind a lot lately, after their song “Tomorrow Never Knows” was used so hauntingly in the “Lady Lazarus” episode of Mad Men. Much of the subsequent chatter about the song’s appearance on the show was centered on its hefty price tag ($250,000), and indeed, the high cost of using Beatles songs is part of the reason why you hear so few of their original recordings in movies and on television (at least compared to, say, The Beach Boys). Producers will more often go the cheaper route of using covers or even sound-alikes, but a few films have made the effort to use the original Fab Four tracks, and to great effect. After the jump, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite Beatle moments in modern movies. … Read More

Film

The Real Places Where John Hughes’ Movies Were Shot

By Jason Bailey on

Anyone familiar with the filmography of the late John Hughes has heard and seen quite a bit of Shermer, Illinois, the North Shore suburb of Chicago where many of his films were set. However, as Jay and Silent Bob found out in Kevin Smith’s Dogma, Shermer isn’t a real place at all — it was a fictional suburb created entirely by the filmmaker. “The whole notion of Shermer came out of that heterogeneous kind of society, very extreme,” Hughes explained in a 1999 interview. “I mean, at one point I went from a school with 1100 students to one with thirty. I remember this one kid, an eighth-grader, who had his teeth rotted out. Eighth grade. It was like Deliverance. But then at the same time, you’d have the richest kid in town in your school as well, so even in this tiny setup, you had both ends of the economic spectrum, real extremes. I’ve always wanted to write a history of Shermer, because it’d be kind of the history of postwar America. Haven’t got around to it yet, though.”

Unfortunately, he never did. But Shermer has remained a point of fascination for Hughes fans and ’80s kids, and recently, film critic and Hughes enthusiast Brian Orndorf took a pilgrimage to the Chicago area to seek out the sights and sounds of Shermer. He’s posted photos of the locations from several Hughes films, as they are today, on his blog (along with stills of comparable shots from the film). After the jump, we’ve collected a few of our favorites; check out all of them here. … Read More

Pop Culture

What Does It Mean if Duckie from ‘Pretty in Pink’ Was Gay?

By Caroline Stanley on

I love John Hughes movies, but I’ve always been more of a Sixteen Candles or Breakfast Club girl than a diehard Pretty in Pink fan. That said, it’s a film that I both own and have seen countless times on TV. But never in all my years of watching have I ever stopped to wonder about whether or not Duckie, Andie’s angsty, Otis Redding crooning, bicycle riding BFF (who, now that I do think about it, was an obvious predecessor to My So-Called Life’s Brian Krakow), was gay. According to Molly Ringwald, he was one of the many gay characters who Hughes included in his work — even if it wasn’t something that the two ever discussed directly. … Read More

Film

10 Romantic Comedies That Aren’t Terrible

By Jason Bailey on

Well, kids, it’s Valentine’s Day, and those of you who aren’t looking to go out and spend a fortune at a swanky restaurant (read: those of you who are married or in relationships that have been going long enough that you’re not trying to impress each other anymore) may very well choose to stay in for the holiday, cuddling up on the couch and enjoying a nice romantic comedy. Except, ugh, they’re all terrible.

Or so it seems, in this Heigl/Hudson/Hugh/Sarah-Jessica saturated cinematic marketplace. But believe it or not, there are some genuinely great romantic comedies out there — smart, tender, funny movies that make you laugh and warm your heart. No, seriously! We’ve not only managed to collect ten of them, but even an alternate choice or two for each. Snuggle up and enjoy after the jump. … Read More