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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 Lousiest Christmas Movies Ever Made

By Jason Bailey on

If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many (for the love of all that is holy, so damn many) Christmas movies, the answer is the same as for most of what happens in Hollywood: Money. Holiday movies are money lying on the ground, to be picked up every single December; a good Christmas movie that becomes a tradition can generate more continuing revenue than even the most beloved of catalogue releases. But there’s the rub — it also has to be a movie people actually want to revisit year after year. Making a good Christmas movie is harder than it looks; the delicate balance of humor, warmth, and schmaltz has to be just right, and for every Christmas Story or Christmas Vacation, we usually end up with three or four Santa Claus: The Movies. After the jump, a few would-be holiday “classics” to keep the hell off your Netflix queues and cable boxes; add your own cautionary tales in the comments. … Read More

Film

10 Movies We’d Actually Like to See Remade

By Jason Bailey on

In his 1996 review of Cop Land, Roger Ebert wrote that a reader once asked him “why they only remake the good movies, not bad ones. Good films don’t require remaking… but what about ‘promising concepts which were poorly executed for one reason or another?’” It’s a question we ask ourselves every time Hollywood decides to remake a perfectly good movie. This week, for example, we have the big-budget, Colin Farrell-fronted remake of Total Recall, a perfectly good Schwarzenegger/Verhoeven picture from 1990 that marries Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” to the boom-crash action aesthetic of the period, and which stands up just fine these days, thank you very much.

But Ebert and his reader might be on to something — if the suits are going to insist on spending all of their time and money developing remakes, why not remake some movies that didn’t turn out so well, and try to get them right this time? Or better yet, good movies that no one saw, so you’re not doing the original any damage by taking a chance on a copy? With those parameters in mind, we put together this list of movies we frankly wouldn’t mind seeing remade; check it out after the jump, and contribute yours in the comments. … 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

On Ferris Bueller, Advertising, and the Fourth Wall

By Jason Bailey on

The good news, I suppose, is that he’s not actually playing Ferris Bueller. Still, there’s no question that the two-and-a-half minute Matthew Broderick-fronted, Todd Phillips-directed Honda CR-V Super Bowl ad that we told you about last week is positively loaded with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off references and iconography — more than two dozen of them, according to Honda’s “brand manager” (ugh), Tom Peyton. The ad went online Monday, with the predictable response pattern: snarky rage on Twitter, hand-wringing online, and then the required contrarian “In Defense of…” piece. It’s shaping up to be the big game’s most controversial ad (at least until Sunday, when we get the full-frontal assault of “women are nags” spots, but I digress).

So why do we care so much? It’s no longer a surprise to see pop culture icons shilling for big business; hell, I’m old enough to remember the giant controversy that followed the licensing of a Beatles song for Nike ad. (That uproar seems positively quaint these days, when a commercial deal is a giant coup for musicians of all stripes.) The commotion over Broderick’s Honda ad speaks not to “selling out” in general. It’s about the selling out of this character — and not just because he didn’t condone any “–isms” (including, presumably, capitalism). It’s about our connection with Ferris Bueller, who wasn’t just a protagonist. By taking us into his confidence and guiding us through his world, Bueller made us his co-conspirator. … Read More

Film

Matthew Broderick to Play Ferris Bueller in New Super Bowl Ad?

By Judy Berman on

Ferris Bueller is living pretty well in 2012, if the teaser for the Super Bowl ad for an as yet unidentified product is any indication. He’s in a posh-looking (hotel?) room, wearing a fluffy, white robe, and he asks us, “How can I handle work on a day like today?” That’s all we know so far, but it sure looks like Matthew Broderick is going to be giving us an update on the now-40-something Ferris come Super Bowl Sunday. Vulture is already speculating on what Bueller could be selling; we’re more curious about how he’s spent the past few decades, having recently hazarded a few guesses. Anyway, if watching commercials for commercials is your thing, you can watch ten precious seconds of Broderick as Bueller after the jump. … Read More

Theatre

Anderson Cooper Is Headed to Broadway

By Caroline Stanley on

But it’s not what you think. Cooper has been cast as the narrator in the upcoming revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (which stars Daniel Radcliffe and begins previews on February 26 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre), a role that was previously filled by Walter Cronkite in 1995 for the Matthew… Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. The trailer for Red Riding Hood, director Catherine Hardwicke’s follow-up to Twilight has dropped, and naturally, the wolf that is tormenting Amanda Seyfried is a really hot dude. [via Vulture]
2. MTV has broken down all two and a half minutes of the first Green Lantern trailer frame by… Read More