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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 recovering from the big Netflix “Streamageddon” — but, to their credit, the service did make a healthy chunk of titles newly available (or re-available) for streaming at the end of last week. Included is good stuff from Robert Downey Jr., Reese Witherspoon, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Hemsworth, Woody Allen, John Travolta, Michael Keaton, James Woods, Uma Thurman, Joss Whedon, and Quentin Tarantino; check them out after the jump, and follow the title links to watch them right now. … Read More

Film

‘Iron Man 3,’ ‘The Avengers,’ And the Thrill of Authorial Voice in Blockbusters

By Jason Bailey on

Iron Man 3 opens with an arresting image — the destruction of three Iron Man suits, right in a row, bang bang bang — and a voice over from Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, a bit of business about facing your demons that quickly degenerates into gibberish. “Never mind, I’m gonna start over,” he says, and the screen fades to black, thus concluding the first of the film’s many assurances that, while it is a mega-budgeted summer tent-pole movie, it is also the work of devilishly clever writer/director Shane Black — whose previous collaboration with Downey, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, included one of the most blissfully self-aware narration tracks in all of moviedom (“Don’t worry, I saw Lord of the Rings, I’m not gonna end this like 17 times”). And that’s the key to the movie’s success: beyond all the explosions and action set pieces and 3D wizardry, you can still hear a writer with a distinctive, entertaining voice. And that’s what separates films like this from their blockbuster brethren, which too often were clearly created by a committee. … Read More

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

The Best Insults in Film

By Jason Bailey on

Recently, Flavorwire rounded up some of our very favorite punchlines from our favorite funny movies — which was a bit of a job in itself, since there are so many great lines, and they’re funny in so many different ways. But perhaps the most reliable way to get a laugh is one of the oldest: a great insult. The best can come from anywhere (even a serious drama), prompting not only a quick, dirty, slightly guilty laugh, but also the jotting down of a particularly effective slam in one’s mental notebook. Click through for 25 of the cruelest, funniest, and most effective cinematic… Read More

Film

Five Movie Comebacks That Worked (and Five That Didn’t)

By Jason Bailey on

“RETIREMENT IS FOR SISSIES!” roar the posters for The Last Stand (seriously? “Sissies?” In 2012? But I digress…), the first starring role for Arnold Schwarzenegger since stepping away from the silver screen for a, shall we say, problematic stint in the California governor’s mansion. Its mid-January release date doesn’t exactly scream box-office or critical confidence, but who knows; Mr. Schwarzenegger has been underestimated before, and usually comes out ahead. Either way it goes, we thought it would be interesting to run down some of the other big-name actors who hit rough or absent patches and tried to work their way back into the spotlight with a well placed role; after the jump we’ll take a look at five comeback vehicles that took, and five that didn’t quite get the job done. … Read More

Film

25 Famous Actors Ridiculing Their Profession

By Jason Bailey on

If you needed one more reason to love Jennifer Lawrence (and frankly, between her candid interviews and terrific performances in Winter’s Bone, The Hunger Games, and Silver Linings Playbook, we’ve been sold for a while), get a load of this quote from her new Vanity Fair interview: “Not to sound rude, but [acting] is stupid… Everybody’s like, ‘How can you remain with a level head?’ And I’m like, ‘Why would I ever get cocky? I’m not saving anybody’s life. There are doctors who save lives and firemen who run into burning buildings. I’m making movies. It’s stupid.’” That’s the kind of sound byte that helps cultivate the always sensible “down to earth” image, but there’s more to it than that; Lawrence’s comments fall within the grand tradition of no-nonsense actors not only refusing to romanticize what they do, but often coming right out and disparaging it. After the jump, we’ve assembled quotes from 25 of our favorite actors who, like Lawrence, refused to buy into their own hype. … Read More