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Film

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

By Jason Bailey on

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’re in Iron Man 3 mode, with noteworthy flicks featuring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, and Ben Kingsley, plus additional titles featuring Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, Elliot Gould, Zac Efron, Edgar Ramirez, and John Cusack; check them out after the jump, and follow the title links to watch them right now. … Read More

Film

‘Stoker’: Park Chan-wook Pays Grisly Homage to Hitchcock

By Jason Bailey on

It’s certainly no coincidence that Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), the enigma at the center of Park Chan-wook’s Stoker, shares the name of the murderous uncle in Hitchcock’s classic Shadow of a Doubt. That’s not all the films have in common; both take place in seemingly idyllic, isolated communities (the family’s house is less a home than an island), and leave us with the impression that quiet evil can lurk behind every door and around every corner. But from an emotional standpoint, Stoker is like an inversed Shadow. In that film, a young woman who loves her uncle unlocks his past and is repulsed. In this one, a young woman who loathes her uncle unlocks his past, and responds with a bit more moral ambiguity. … Read More

Fashion

11 Artful Fashion Shoots Inspired by Famous Paintings

By Raquel Laneri on

Fashion month is in full swing! To capitalize on the runway spectacles that are happening in New York, London, Milan, and Paris, tons of museums — from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Allentown Art Museum in Pennsylvania — are opening exhibitions related to la mode. Art and fashion have had a long relationship, with major glossies inviting artists from Salvador Dalí to Barbara Kruger to direct or shoot their editorial content. But by far the most fun art-fashion fusions are the dozens of photo shoots replicating famous paintings by the likes of Klimt, Vermeer, and Lichtenstein. Here are 11 hilarious, odd, and sometimes even magical examples of fashion editorials inspired by art. … Read More

Film

The Year in Film: 2012′s Sexiest Scenes [NSFW]

By Jason Bailey on

There was a remarkable disconnect happening this year between pop culture and political culture, with the former getting kinkier (the ubiquitous 50 Shades of Grey on bookshelves, the Presidential handjob-heavy Hyde Park on Hudson on movie screens) while the latter threatened to get more prurient and Victorian. Points for trying, but good luck — movies were plenty sexy this year, and after the jump, we’ve assembled ten of the year’s hottest moments. … Read More

Film

The Saddest Comedies Ever Made

By Jason Bailey on

As we move into Thanksgiving week, DVD players and cable networks across the land will be cuing up our favorite turkey day movie, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. One of its viewers may very well be Flavorwire favorite Emma Stone, who recently told Entertainment Weekly that Planes is the movie that made her want to be an actor — specifically, Steve Martin’s late-night motel “Chatty Cathy” tirade. Miss Stone explains, “You go from laughing hilariously at Steve Martin to your heart breaking for John Candy in that one scene, and that was, I think, the first time that I saw that you could do both.” Planes, Trains wasn’t the first movie to prove that you could “do both” — i.e., mesh the funny and the sad with equal effectiveness. But it’s one of the best, and after the jump, we’ll take a look at that and a few other very sad comedies. … Read More

Film

10 Great Actors Who Did Trashy Well

By Jason Bailey on

Tomorrow, Lee Daniels’ Precious follow-up The Paperboy hits theaters; it’s a film that’s received a lot of attention since its Cannes premiere last May, not all of it positive. And make no mistake, the movie is a mess, but Kidman goes all out in her portrayal of a bleach-blonde sexpot who gets hot and bothered for dangerous men. In honor of Kidman’s risky performance, we took a look back at some of our favorite instances of terrific actors indulging their trashy side on film. Our top ten are after the jump. … Read More

Film

The Riskiest Performances in Film

By Alison Nastasi on

Audiences at the 50th New York Film Festival will get an eyeful of Precious director Lee Daniels’ Florida noir The Paperboy tomorrow evening. The film gets a limited release this Friday. Well before its Cannes debut, the filmmaker was promising a multitude of moments in his story — about a reporter who returns to his hometown to investigate a case involving a death row inmate — featuring stars Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, Matthew McConaughey, and Zac Efron “getting down.” The big tease resulted in one of Nicole Kidman’s riskiest performances, which we talk more about past the break. Who else made bold moves in their career? We explore other stars’ riskiest roles, below. Let us know who you’d add to the list. … Read More

Film

Watch Nicole Kidman in the Trailer for Park Chan-wook’s ‘Stoker’

By Caroline Stanley on

“You know I’ve often wondered why it is we have children, and the conclusion I’ve come to is we want someone to get it right this time,” Nicole Kidman tells Mia Wasikowska in the trailer for Stoker, the English language debut of Old Boy director Park Chan-wook. “But not me. Personally speaking, I can’t wait to watch life tear you apart.” Yowza. The film, which looks to be a Hitchcockian thriller chock full of gorgeous visuals, features Kidman as a widow who takes up with her husband’s estranged brother (Matthew Goode), a man who may or may not be a serial killer and/or have a Humbert Humbert thing for her daughter. While it might lack the punch of Park’s Korean films, we can see Stoker — the first in a planned trilogy — doing extremely well with American arthouse audiences. Click through to watch the first full-length trailer for the film, and be sure to let us know in the comments if you’re as excited for this one as we are! … Read More

Film

This Week in Trailers: From Bond and Brad to Who-Cares Horror

By Jason Bailey on

Every Friday here at Flavorwire, we like to gather up the week’s new movie trailers, give them a look-see, and rank them from worst to best — while taking a guess or two about what they might tell us (or hide from us) about the movies they’re promoting. This week’s six new trailers include new films with Brad Pitt, Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Diane Keaton, Matthew McConaughey, Robert DeNiro, Susan Sarandon, Javier Bardem, John Cusack, and Zac Efron. Check ‘em all out after the jump, and share your thoughts in the comments. … Read More

Film

The Actors With the Worst On-Screen Love Lives

By Jason Bailey on

One of our favorite movies of the year, Sarah Polley’s heartbreaking Take This Waltz, hits theaters this Friday (but, heads up, you can watch it on demand right effing now, and should). In it, Michelle Williams plays a writer who jeopardizes her seemingly happy marriage when she falls for the handsome fellow down the street. Thinking back on the movie, we couldn’t help but muse that Williams seems an actress particularly unlucky in love on screen; in fact, she’s one of many actors who seem to have made a specialty of playing characters who are perpetually getting screwed, romantically speaking. After the jump, we take a look at the unlucky cinematic love lives of Williams and nine of her contemporaries (to keep it simple, we stuck with modern actors). Some spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk, etc.; agree, disagree, and add your own nominees in the comments. … Read More