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Film

The 50 Greatest Movie Villains of All Time

By Jason Bailey on

The true nature of Star Trek Into Darkness’s villain has become perhaps the Internet’s worst-kept secret, but don’t worry — you’ll not have it spoiled here. Suffice it to say that the film’s antagonist is fiercely intelligent, physically brutal, and hellbent on revenge. In other words, this is a great movie villain. But what makes a truly memorable one? Sifting through the scores of iconic movie bad guys and girls reveals that villainy comes in all shapes, sizes, and levels of intensity; ranking them against each other is a tall order, but your Flavorwire was willing to give it a… Read More

Film

The Best Directorial Debuts by Famous Actors

By Alison Nastasi on

This was a big week for actors we never thought would venture into the directing pool. Keanu Reeves will debut Man of Tai Chi in China this summer, honoring his Matrix martial arts trainer, Tiger Hu Chen. Michael Cera’s short film Brazzaville Teen-Ager, starring “Milkshake” singer Kelis and Charles Grodin, saw its YouTube premiere. Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock was just a little hasty when he recommended that all actors should be treated like cattle. … Read More

Film

10 Notorious Leaked Screenplay Scandals

By Jason Bailey on

Earlier this week, we told you about Xavier Macafee, the New Mexico man who was arrested on suspicion of burglary after allegedly breaking into Bryan Cranston’s car and stealing, among other things, the script to one of Breaking Bad’s final episodes. While we still don’t know if it was a coincidental act or the work of a brilliant BB superfan, this isn’t the first time a swiped script has created havoc in Hollywood. Here are ten tales of leaked screenplays, and what happened to the films… Read More

Film

Memo to Peter Bart of ‘Variety’: Don’t Tell Jon Stewart Not to Make a Movie

By Jason Bailey on

Memo To: Peter Bart
From: Jason Bailey

Hope you don’t mind me adopting the format of your incoherent and inexplicable “Memo to Jon Stewart” from the March 26 issue of Variety, but it seems another round of what you call, rather politely, “unsolicited advice” might be in order. You see, Mr. Bart, there’s a whole lot to unpack in your piece, which begs Mr. Stewart to abandon his three-month sabbatical from The Daily Show, during which he will write and direct his first feature film. It’s full of oddball assumptions, boxed-in thinking, and smug condescension. But first, and most distressingly, it’s just plain wrong about basic film history. … Read More

Theatre

A Brief History of Unconventional Takes on ‘Macbeth’

By Alison Herman on

The Robot Shakespeare Company is apparently a thing that exists, and last week they released The Tragedy of Macbeth, a CGI-animated, fun-for-the-kids version of the classic Shakespeare play, complete with plain-English subtitles. As bizarre as the project, which is available in full on the RSC website, sounds, it’s not the first unconventional twist on the dark story of ambition, murder, and court intrigue. Perhaps that’s because the original play was itself an adaptation: the Bard found his inspiration in the story of Scotland’s King Macbeth, documented in the 1587 historical volume Holinshed’s Chronicles. Or maybe it’s because, like most of Shakespeare’s material, the themes of Macbeth are universal; just as it’s easy to compare Romeo and Juliet to any story of star-crossed lovers, all a Macbeth adaptation needs is a goal, a slightly disturbed protagonist, and a seriously twisted power couple. We compiled the best of Macbeth‘s unorthodox reinterpretations, from the story of a Pennsylvania burger flipper to the choose-your-own-adventure style take of an experimental theater company. … Read More

Film

10 Impossible-to-See Movies Starring A-List Actors

By Jason Bailey on

Hey, Game of Thrones/Community/True Blood/Firefly fans: how’d you like to see a major motion picture starring Peter Dinklage, Danny Pudi, Ryan Kwanten, and Summer Glau? So would we! Would you be surprised to learn that such a motion picture not only exists, but has been sitting on a shelf for two years? So would we! Such is the strange tale of The Knights of Badassdom, director Joe Lynch’s horror comedy that’s been the subject of much discussion and confusion this week. Badassdom, which was previewed at the San Diego Comic-Con clear back in 2011, is hardly the first film that sounded like a good bet, only to sputter in post-production and after due to unforeseen difficulties in financing, distribution, or rights. After the jump, we’ll take a look at ten movies that you’d think you would have heard of, and be able to see, based on the personnel involved — but you can’t, for all sorts of strange reasons. … Read More

Film

10 Supporting Characters Who Totally Deserve Their Own Movies

By Jason Bailey on

Judd Apatow’s This is 40, out this Friday, is — as its ads carefully note — a “sort-of sequel” to his 2007 hit Knocked Up. It doesn’t concern that film’s leading characters; Seth Rogen’s Ben is only mentioned in passing, and Katherine Hiegl’s Alison is absent altogether. Instead, Apatow focuses on supporting couple Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) and their two kids — played by Apatow and Mann’s real-life offspring. The idea of making a spin-off instead of a sequel is a fairly rare one; there are a few examples, like U.S. Marshalls (from The Fugitive), Get Him to the Greek (from Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Beauty Shop (from Barbershop 2) and Puss in Boots (from Shrek 2), but overall, it’s not all that common. Which is funny, because we think it’s a more interesting way to continue a franchise than the standard sequel, so after the jump, we’ve got suggestions for supporting characters we’d like to see bumped up to leads. (Warning: Some spoilers follow.) … Read More

Film

Awesome Photos of Filmmakers Hanging Out Together

By Jason Bailey on

In honor of the launch of the purty new Flavorwire 2.0, we decided to return to one of our most popular features: images of your favorite people together. We’ve previously rounded up pictures of great comedians, musicians, and writers killing some leisure time in each other’s company; today, we’ve assembled 25 shots of filmmakers chewing the fat. Again, some of the match-ups are surprising (Warhol and Hitchcock? Get outta here), some less so (spoiler: Lucas and Spielberg hang out a lot off-set too). There are even some special guest stars (BOWIE ALERT). With our thanks to the tons of Tumblrs and blogs that collect such things — especially the heroes over at Awesome People Hanging Out Together — we present this latest gallery; check it out after the jump. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office

By Alison Nastasi on

Today at Flavorpill, we read a 1967 Playboy interview with Orson Welles about his experiences as a  fortune-teller. We discovered 100 things to do when you’re stuck inside. We previewed Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Henson Journal written by the late puppeteer’s daughter, Lisa. We saw the world’s largest coven of… 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