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Pop Culture

7 Bitter Fandom Rivalries From Across Pop Culture

By Alison Herman on

It’s no secret that science fiction fans can get a little overexcited about their franchise of choice, but things got heated last Thursday when the local Star Wars club of Norwich, England and a delegation from the Norwich Sci Fi Club, a group of Doctor Who devotees, got into a physical altercation at the Norwich Sci-Fi and Film Convention, hosted by the Star Wars club at the University of East Anglia. Apparently, the two groups had a longstanding feud that came to blows when the Sci Fi Club decided to show up on the Star Wars group’s turf to get a signature from Gram Cole, an actor from the time-travel series that currently stars Matt Smith. Though fandom disputes don’t usually escalate to blows, this is hardly the first time otherwise peacefully geeky communities have run afoul of each other. Here are some of the most prominent fandom rivalries throughout history, from superheroes to science fiction. … Read More

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

10 Mom-Approved Movie Character Crushes

By Alison Nastasi on

Try as you might, mom won’t ever let you forget that she knows what’s best for you. In the spirit of Mother’s Day, we played matchmaker and set you up with a few film characters that mom would approve of. She only wants you to be happy. We chose ten films, guesstimated who you probably have a crush on, and then selected a character from the same movie that mom would prefer you invite over for dinner sometime. Feel free to leave your own mom-approved film character crushes in the comments section. … Read More

Film

Handwritten Screenplay Pages From Film and Television

By Jason Bailey on

“You can’t write poetry on a computer,” says Quentin Tarantino, and he can’t write his screenplays on one either — he does it old school, longhand, in a notebook, putting his words in typewritten form at the last possible second. It may make him sound like a Luddite, but he’s far from the only one; plenty of Hollywood’s most successful scribes prefer to work by hand, at least in the early stages. This week, we found out that Lawrence Kasdan wrote The Empire Strikes Back in longhand as well, and a trip down the Internet rabbit hole turned up several more popular films that were worked out by hand before they made it to the screen. … Read More

Film

Making Movies With Statistics Isn’t Just Artistic Suicide — It Won’t Work

By Jason Bailey on

Sunday’s New York Times included a story that movie fans should find as terrifying as anything since the last 20 minutes of Silence of the Lambs. In it, writer Brooks Barnes introduces us to Vinny Bruzzese, a “chain-smoking former statistics professor” who has “started to aggressively pitch a service he calls script evaluation. For as much as $20,000 per script, Mr. Bruzzese and a team of analysts compare the story structure and genre of a draft script with those of released movies, looking for clues to box-office success. His company, Worldwide Motion Picture Group, also digs into an extensive database of focus group results for similar films and surveys 1,500 potential moviegoers.” In other words, studios write Bruzzese and his company a check, and in exchange, they’re told how to make their movies as bland, homogenous, and predictable as possible. Sounds like the recipe for a golden age of moviemaking! … Read More

Film

Movie Couples We Want to See Reunited

By Alison Nastasi on

Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey have hugged out their differences and will appear at a Wayne’s World panel on April 23 at the Academy’s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters. Excellent! The drama between the SNL buddies started during Meyers’ Austin Powers days. Carvey became cross after he believed Meyers stole an impersonation he’d done of Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels. Meyers apparently used it to create his Dr. Evil character.

Wayne and Garth will party onward, and the news inspired thoughts of other famous movie couples we’d love to see together again. Sometimes, chemistry between actors just can’t be replicated with anyone else. Here are several film pairings we want more of — some as their original characters, and several as actors reunited in different roles. This is one of those endless wish lists, so we’ve left plenty of room for you to add your picks, below. … Read More

Pop Culture

Cool Russ Meyer-Inspired ‘Star Wars’ Figures, Commissioned by Patton Oswalt

By Jason Bailey on

It’s not every day that you hear about a project that brings together (psychically, at least) George Lucas, Roger Ebert, Russ Meyer, and Patton Oswalt, but here goes: when Oswalt was acting in Young Adult, he became interested in Jamie Follis (aka “Sillof”), an “action figure customizer” with a specialty in physical reimaginings of the Star Wars universe. Oswalt liked Sillof’s work so much that he commissioned him to create a series of figures that mashed up the world of Lucas with that of exploitation movie legend Russ Meyer, resulting in the artist’s latest series, Faster, Empire! Strike! Strike! … Read More

Los Angeles

Flavorpill Guide to the Week’s Top 10 LA Events

By Tanja M. Laden on

Famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.” Of course, all this loose change makes for a great variety of cultural events (not to mention an interesting skyline), but it’s not always easy to know exactly what’s going on around town. Fortunately, Flavorpill invites the entire community to make suggestions with its new city-based culture guide — an open platform where our very own editors and curators meet and mingle with artists, gadabouts, and other tipsters for a limitless variety of both ongoing and one-off recommendations. With this in mind, enjoy our weekly list of hand-picked event suggestions here on Flavorwire, and be sure to check out the new Flavorpill. We hope to see you there!  … Read More

Pop Culture

5 Hoaxes That Rocked the Nerd Universe

By Alison Herman on

Earlier this week, dedicated Trekkies (not to mention new-to-the-bandwagon Benedict Cumberbatch devotees) were disappointed to learn that the latest Star Trek Into Darkness poster, showing the Enterprise looming out of an unidentified body of water, was not an officially sanctioned teaser but a fan-made project. As far as fandom hoaxes go, that’s relatively minor; with hardcore dedication comes an equally hardcore rumor mill, and as everyone knows, you can’t believe everything you read. Whether it’s video games or fantasy novels, viral rumors and leaks have often turned out to be just wishful thinking or even elaborate pranks. From Star Wars speculation to a creepy Pokemon rumor, we’ve collected the best (or worst, depending how you look at it) hoaxes and rumors from the nerdy world of fandom. … Read More

Fashion

Fandom Goes to the Beach: 10 Gloriously Geeky Swimsuits

By Julia Pugachevsky on

Now that spring break (and Spring Breakers!) is upon us, we’ve been fantasizing about the beach. What could be better than wading through the water with an air of calm gracing our once-fevered brow? Well, how about doing all of that with the uniform of a comic book heroine printed on our bikini? And what could be a more appropriate adornment for that bathing suit than the image of a favorite action-flick heartthrob? If you agree, click through for our roundup of gloriously nerdy swimwear. … Read More