Evolving from a small, experimental community into a widely used network with some of the best content on the web, Tumblr has quickly proven its worth. For the film lover, there is a vast array of high quality content ranging from behind the scenes thoughts on the moviemaking process, to cinematic art and gorgeous film stills, and creatively curated takes on favorite celluloid moments. We’ve compiled a list of a few essential Tumblrs that cineastes should thoroughly enjoy. See what insightful, inspiring, and fun blogs we’ve shared after the jump, and tell us about your favorite Tumblrs below.
Today at Flavorpill, we learned about one young man’s journey to live “Amish-style” for 90 days. We read about Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut, which will feature Scarlett Johansson. We enjoyed this guide to literary Tumblrs. We followed the adventures of the Devil. We voted for Batman. We listened to what Feminist Frequency had to say about the Lego Friends line of toys targeted to girls. We wanted to talk to all the guys at the male cat lovers meetup. We learned why parsley deserves to be more than just a garnish. We appreciated this call for more “slow reading.” We said happy birthday to Alejandro Jodorowsky. We loved this awesomely designed heart-shaped utensil. And finally, we tried to imagine what David Lynch’s new paintingDuckman’s Injury looked like … and then we found out why he loves ducks so much.
50/50, one of our favorite films of 2011, hits DVD today, so it is our duty — and our pleasure — to encourage you to buy it or rent it or stream it or whatever you do to put movies into your eye-holes. There’s plenty of reasons to like the movie (the story’s real life inspiration, the roguish charm of Seth Rogen’s Kyle, the cautiously sweet romantic subplot), but we’re betting that the main reason it plays so well is because of star Joseph Gordon-Levitt. In today’s hyper-divisive celebrity culture, it’s impossible to find a star that everyone can agree on, and rare to find even a majority consensus, but there don’t seem to be all that many people out there who don’t like JGL. (Either that, or they’re keeping it quiet.) We propose five reasons why after the jump.
Hey, guess what: 2012 is like, four days away. Exciting, eh? Well, aside from that whole Mayan calendar/end of the world business. And that there’s going to be a Presidential campaign all damned year, and the economy’s still in the toilet, and Community is on a “hiatus”… On second thought, 2012 is already looking pretty terrible, and it hasn’t even started yet.
No, wait! There will be new movies! Many, many new movies. And don’t kid yourself: plenty of them are going to be terrible (I mean, there’s a Battleship movie coming out, for God’s sake). But some of them look awesome! So in the spirit of cautious optimism, join us after the jump for a look at ten 2012 releases that we’re genuinely looking forward to.
This holiday season, Patrón Tequila came up with a great way to give something to your friends without emptying your wallet. With the “If” Tag app, you can select from a variety of hypothetical scenarios (such as, “If aliens invade, zombies attack, or the robots rise up, you’d be the John Connor to my Kyle Reese), and then select a friend who gets the honor of being your first choice for the gig. You can add a personal message, and then post the whole award right to your friend’s Facebook wall. We were having so much fun with it, in fact, that we decided to take it one step further and pick our top celebrity choices for a number of the “If” scenarios. Click through to see who came out on top for our editors, and why each pop-culture pick made the grade. And if you want to play too, just choose a scenario yourself and tell us who you want in on it in the comments.
Contrary to what some of the more curmudgeonly folks you might be reading have said, 2011 was actually a very good year for film, in which countless filmmakers either ignored the industry’s distrust of originality entirely, or found new and interesting ways to smuggle bits of revelation and surprise even into formulaic franchise pictures. You’ll see a lot of “best of the year” lists floating around that run down many of the same easy picks for the year’s best films, but since each film is an accumulation of small parts — scenes, lines, pauses, etc. — we thought it would be fun to pick out some of the little, specific moments that stayed in our movie-going memories over the course of 2011. Ours are after the jump; we hope to see yours in the comments. Read More »
We’ve been noticing a growing trend in micro-fiction in recent years, and particularly in recent months: in fact, two of the books on our list of new must-reads for December fall into this category, so we thought we’d better take a look at it.
Flash fiction or micro fiction is usually described as fiction under a thousand words, though much of it is much shorter — in fact, many traditions of flash fiction have self imposed word limits, like the popular 55 Fiction form. There are reigning masters of the field, like Julio Cortázar and Fredric Brown — and of course, everyone knows the most famous piece of micro fiction, supposedly penned by Hemingway: ”For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Though the form has been around for a long time, it seems to be having a moment. This past year, we became obsessed with a literary journal devoted to the form, Esquire held a flash fiction contest judged by Colum McCann, and several books of tiny fiction have caught our eye. Click through to check out some of our favorite examples of micro fiction from the recent past, and let us know what you think in the comments. Read More »
It’s the end of the year, which means we’re all up to our necks in Best-of-2011 lists, and everyone’s behind on their reading. But that’s no reason not to forge ahead and check out the new stuff hitting shelves this month — after all, we know you’re about to have some cozy holiday downtime to catch up on everything. In this month’s reading list, you can look forward to crime conspiracies involving thick liquids, ultra-cute microfictions, translated fables, and teary breakups involving pistachios. Click through to check out our list of the ten most interesting books coming out this month, and let us know which ones you’re most excited to dive into in the comments.
Child actors get a bad rap. In fact, even Flavorpill isn’t immune to making fun. But we have to admit that a good number of them have managed to avoid the stereotypical fate (drugs, nervous breakdowns, reality TV) and carve out pretty inspiring lives for themselves. For this list, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite former child actors who have done awesome things as adults; they aren’t all Hollywood A-listers (although some definitely are), and some aren’t even in the industry at all anymore, but they’re all making a great contribution to pop culture or the world at large. Check out our list — and tell us who we missed — after the jump.
