Meryl Streep

15 of the Greatest Celebrity Commencement Speeches

By Tyler Coates on May 22, 2013 12:30pm

We’re almost through the month of May, and you know what that means: it’s college commencement speech season! While some of us had boring academics speak at our college graduations, there are a lot of other people who get to listen to folks like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Amy Poehler, or Meryl Streep. So if you’re like me and are still annoyed that the creator of Joan of Arcadia was the celebrated guest who spoke while you baked in your black polyester cap and gown, take a short break and listen to these famous (and, generally, hilarious) people give advice to 22-year-olds. … Read More

Pop Culture

27 Awesome Photos of Cultural Icons at Prom

By Emily Temple on May 2, 2013 1:15pm

Now that May is here, there’s no ignoring it: our tackiest American teenage rite of passage is approaching. That’s right, it’s prom season. Whether this conjures up cringe-worthy memories or no memories at all for you, not to worry — hosts of your favorite cultural icons have gone through it too, with varying degrees of grace. Click through for a collection of some of the greatest photos of actors, politicians, musicians, and even writers in their prom-night… Read More

Film

Flavorwire’s Guide to Movies You Need to Stream This Week

By Jason Bailey on Apr 22, 2013 5:00pm

Welcome to Flavorwire’s streaming movie guide, in which we help you sift through the scores of movies streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and other services to find the best of the recently available, freshly relevant, or soon to expire. This week, we’ve got films from Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Michael Shannon, Anna Kendrick, Elisabeth Moss, Will Smith, and Martin Lawrence; check them out after the jump, and follow the title links to watch them right now. … Read More

Politics

British Pop Culture’s Ambivalent Relationship with Margaret Thatcher: A Retrospective

By Tom Hawking on Apr 8, 2013 5:23pm

As you’ve no doubt heard, Margaret Thatcher died this morning, leading to a flood of internet coverage of her divisive years in power and her legacy. The serious commentary is best left to our friends across the Atlantic (if you’re after such, we recommend David Stubbs’ coruscating obituary for the The Quietus.) We’ll limit ourselves to a survey of how the Thatcher era manifested in popular culture — and for all that plenty of outlets have published articles today about anti-Thatcher songs, etc., the truth is rather more nuanced — for every “Margaret on the Guillotine” or “The Day That Thatcher Dies,” there’s a Thatcherite pop star waiting in the wings. Anyway, here’s a brief look at how the Thatcher years and the woman herself have been depicted in popular culture, both at the time and the benefit of hindsight. … Read More

Film

5 Lessons from Jeffrey Tambor’s Acting Workshop at SXSW 2013

By Jason Bailey on Mar 11, 2013 10:30am

AUSTIN, TX: “I’ll just start talking. Hi, I’m Jeffrey.”

And with that, Jeffrey Tambor strolled out onto the stage, bare save for three chairs, at SXSW’s Vimeo Theatre and gave one of his acting workshops, which have become the stuff of legend around here. This is the eighth year he’s flown down to Austin to conduct a session with young actors, in front of a crowd of directors, actors, and fans. And although he is best known for his comic work (primarily as George Sr. on Arrested Development and Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show), and he’s the kind of born entertainer who can’t help but make this audience laugh, acting is a very serious business to Mr. Tambor. … Read More

Film

Meet One of the Lucky Film Students Who Presented This Year’s Oscars

By Alison Herman on Feb 25, 2013 4:15pm

Movie stars aren’t the only ones who help hand out Academy Awards: each year, they’re joined by a cast of presenters who help distribute the statuettes to winners. Previously, these presenters have been gorgeous, skinny model types, but the producers of this year’s show wanted to switch it up: they asked aspiring film students around the country to submit a 30-second video clip explaining how they would contribute to the future of film, then selected six winners from over 1,000 entries. In an interview with the AP, co-producer Neil Meron explained, “This tradition of the buxom babe that comes out and brings the trophy to the presenter to give to the winner seemed to be very antiquated and kind of sexist, too… Why can’t we have people who actually care about film and are the future of film be the trophy presenters?” Flavorwire reached out to contest winner and Oscar presenter Jennifer Brofer, a Marine Corps vet who currently studies at the University of Texas at Austin, to ask about her work and what it was like to take part in the biggest award ceremony of the year. … Read More

Film

Oscar 2013: An Evening in Pictures

By Jason Bailey on Feb 25, 2013 1:04am

More than 30 minutes (and a good dozen Seth MacFarlane-induced cringes) past its scheduled end time, the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony finally drew to a close in the first few minutes of Monday morning. Since a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words — and we’re still too exhausted from last night’s festivities to pen a novella — here’s a selection of our favorite images of the night. Enjoy them — and the 12 or so hours we get until next year’s Oscar race… Read More

Film

15 Acclaimed Actors Who Look Nothing Like the Famous People They Played

By Julia Pugachevsky on Feb 14, 2013 4:00pm

Earlier this week, we learned that BBC4 is set to release its own take on the doomed romance between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton — and fans are already complaining that Helena Bonham Carter, whose been cast as Liz, doesn’t look enough like her. But that doesn’t mean the six-time Golden Globe nominee and winner of Emmy, SAG, and BAFTA awards is doomed to fail at capturing the screen vixen’s famous fire. In fact, there’s plenty of precedent for actors who looked nothing like the real-life icons they portrayed nonetheless managing to convince us. These 15 actors may have presented a challenge for their films’ makeup departments, but they also turned in performances no lookalike could have matched. … Read More

Film

From Bin Laden to Miranda Priestly: Famous Actors’ Reflections on Their Most Villainous Roles

By Chloe Pantazi on Jan 18, 2013 11:30am

Hollywood has always had a flair for creating compelling villains, so it’s only natural that the actors conveying them would covet – or disdain – the experience of being bad. Some actors lose sleep over playing the baddie, carrying their character’s guilt, while others enjoy getting into character perhaps a little too much, and revel in their ability to frighten.

For Ricky S. Sekhon, the actor cast as one of the world’s most hated real-life villains in Zero Dark Thirty – and who wrote about his experience in a recent Times Op-Ed piece – the eight weeks before he took up his role as Osama bin Laden were spent having heart palpitations. Sekhon’s pithy Times piece inspired us to look at other actors’ reflections on playing some of cinema’s most notoriously evil characters. Here’s what we found. … Read More