Today at Flavorpill, we smiled after learning about John Lennon’s crazy cat lady side and members of his kitty family, including Elvis and Jesus. We were impressed with and giddy over this documentary about VHS culture and couldn’t wait to get home to watch a few tapes. We got hungry reading BuzzFeed’s list of taco-related crimes. We thought this Neil LaBute exhibition sounded appropriately subversive. We tried to imagine a world with a nationwide tooth-brushing law and lots of ponies after reading Time‘s story on Vermin Supreme. We wondered about The New Yorker‘s article on women in fashion that got under Refinery29′s skin. We wished Liquipel had been around last time we spilled coffee on our phone. We saw what happens to our luggage once it leaves our hands at the airport. We watched The Hobbit get sweded. We wanted to live like Downtown Abbey for a day. We imagined what it was like for an agoraphobic to hit the road and meet 325 Facebook friends. And finally, we loved time travelling in San Francisco with this impressive interactive map.

It would have been the late JRR Tolkien’s 120th birthday today, and with the film of The Hobbit on the horizon, the great man has been on our mind a bit of late. So much so, in fact, that we dug out our battered old copy of The Lord of the Rings and started thumbing through it again over the holiday season. It’s one of about a gazillion different editions of Tolkien’s books that have been published around the world since The Hobbit first appeared in 1937 — so to celebrate its author’s birthday, we’ve put together a gallery of some of the most beautiful and/or weird cover artwork that’s adorned Tolkien’s work over the years. (Many of these come from the exhaustive gallery of covers here and/or from the Tolkien Library, both excellent resources for Tolkien completists.)

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1. The Library of Congress has selected 25 movies to be added to the National Registry in 2011. Among the diverse choices are Bambi, John Cassavetes‘ Faces, Robert Rodriguez‘s El Mariachi, Billy Wilder‘s The Lost Weekend, The Silence of the Lambs, Stand and Deliver… and, um, Forrest Gump. [via LA Times]

2. In a new interview, Sinead O’Connor says that her 16-day marriage to fourth husband Barry Herridge was like “living in a coffin. It was going to be a coffin for both of us, and I saw him crushed… The whole reason I ended it was out of respect and love for the man.” Also, crack was involved. [via People]

3. Kanye West is tweeting again, which means it’s just about time for him to attempt yet another name change. ”If you book me you have to put YEEZY WORLD PEACE on the E-vite. Or I ain’t spinning,” he announced yesterday. How much do you think a DJ set by Mr. WORLD PEACE goes for these days? [via Vulture]

4. The top five most-watched cable networks of 2011 were: 1. USA, 2. Disney Channel, 3. ESPN, 4. TNT, and 5. History (which grew by a whopping 21 percent this year). Meanwhile, critical-darling channels didn’t fare nearly as well — AMC was #17, Comedy Central was #19, and Bravo came in 20th. [via Deadline]

5. Peter Jackson discussed the ways in which his new film will diverge from his previous J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations in an interview with Total Film: “The Hobbit is very much a children’s book and The Lord of the Rings is something else; it’s not really aimed at children at all. I realized the characters of the dwarves are the difference. Their energy and disdain of anything politically correct brings a new kind of spirit to it. And that’s why I thought, OK, this could be fun!” [via io9]

Bonus link: The top scientific discoveries of 2011

Welcome to “Trailer Park,” our regular Friday feature where we collect the week’s new trailers all in one place and do a little “judging a book by its cover,” ranking them from worst to best and taking our best guess at what they may be hiding. This week’s seven trailers include several big-franchise sequels and (sort of) prequels (we think); check ‘em all out after the jump.
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The road to Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit has been a long and rocky one, with Guillermo del Toro once on board to direct, but passing on the project when MGM’s financial woes plagued the production. Some good did come out of the development delay, as Peter Jackson returned to Middle Earth to take the directorial reins. The trouble continued, however, when the filmmaker was admitted to a hospital for stomach ulcers, and union boycotts over contract mishaps loomed over the fantasy feature. Somehow the J.R.R. Tolkien adapted story rose from the ashes, and we (finally!) have the trailer to prove it.

The clip has the epic look of the Lord of the Rings movies, but also seems to capture the more lighthearted tone of The Hobbit novel. The dwarves help. Gollum appears all the way at the end, but we get tons of cool shots of Gandalf looking totally badass. Dig the song, too. Hit the jump to watch in full.

The Hobbit is the two-part prequel — shot back to back — to Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Several actors will reprise their roles, including Elijah Wood as Frodo, Sir Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis as Gandalf and Gollum, respectively. Martin Freeman from BBC’s The Office will star as the reluctant hero Bilbo Baggins, who is swept up in a quest to reclaim a lost treasure from the dreaded dragon Smaug. An Unexpected Journey hits theaters on December 14, 2012, while The Hobbit: There and Back Again arrives December 2013. Keep an eye out for the trailer in theaters too, where it’s supposed to make an appearance before the Peter Jackson-produced Adventures of Tintin releasing tomorrow. Read More »

When The Hobbit first hit shelves 75 years ago, it featured a handful of illustrations by JRR Tolkien. Now, in honor of the now-classic fantasy novel’s diamond anniversary, HarperCollins is releasing The Art of the Hobbit, a collection of his sketches, drawings, paintings, and maps, on October 27. Over two dozen of the included works have never been published before, and were only recently discovered buried in Tolkien’s archive at Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

“It includes his conceptual sketches for the cover design, a couple of early versions of the maps and pages where he’s experimenting with the runic forms, as well as a couple of manuscript pages,” explains publisher David Brawn. “It shows that Tolkien’s creativity went beyond the writing, that it was a fully thought out conception… Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist. He was a great admirer of Arthur Rackham and you can see a little bit of that style coming through.” Head over to The Guardian now to check out a slide show featuring a few of the earliest images from the collection.

Okay, we’re about to completely reveal our secret (not so secret?) geekiness here, but we’re pretty darn excited by this just-released second production video from the set of The Hobbit (watch the first one here). In it, we fly with Peter Jackson over hill and dale, searching for the perfect spots in the Southern alps for the 80% of filming they have left to do. Not all of the video is amazing — at the risk of being indelicate, we can’t say we’re overly interested in what each cast member is doing with their break — but it’s a rare chance to get an insider view of what location scouting is like. Plus, you get to watch Peter Jackson flop around on the rocks and talk about keeping Gandalf away from the port-a-loos. Priceless.

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Today at Flavorpill, we met the incredible voice actor behind some of our favorite cartoon characters (including but not limited to Doug Funnie and Philip J. Fry). We fell in love with this print featuring the Tri-Lambs as American Apparel models by Casey Weldon. We tried to imagine what Arrested Development would have been like if Andy Dick had been available to play the part of Tobias Fünke. We discovered that while alcohol doesn’t kill brain cells, it does prevent new memories — which is possibly way scarier. We got haboobed. We appreciated this A.V. Club “Gateways To Geekery” feature on how to approach George R. R. Martin’s large body of work. We wanted to own one of these heavy metal quilts. We listened to “We Miss You,” the latest track from Nicki Minaj, which is presumably a tribute to her recently killed cousin. We got a good look at the three brother dwarves Nori, Ori, and Dori in a new promo photo from The Hobbit. And finally, we questioned the wisdom behind ABC’s decision to bring on Elizabeth Smart as the network’s “permanent abduction expert.” What do you think?

Today at Flavorpill, we wanted to take a bite out of this incredibly tiny gay wedding cake by food artist Jessica Hlavac. We couldn’t believe the news that MySpace just sold for $35 million after News Corp. paid $580 million for the site back in 2005. We learned more details on Wilco’s forthcoming album, The Whole Love. We judged Lenny Kravitz and his cell phone. We were totally amused by this photo of the Pope using his iPad. We enjoyed watching The Fug Girls take on the Julia Roberts canon. We were impressed by James Brown’s performance of “Miso Up” in this ramen noodles commercial from the early ’90s. We saw two more images from the set of The Hobbit. And finally, we decided that we fully endorse the idea of pedal-powered school buses, as spotted in the Netherlands.

1. After spending the past seven years fighting Mark Zuckerberg, the beefy Winklevoss twins have decided not to take a challenge to their $65 million 2008 settlement to the Supreme Court. Facebook’s rather glib response to the news: “We’ve considered this case closed for a long time, and we’re pleased to see the other party now agrees.” [via Consumerist]

2. James “Whitey” Bulger, the legendary Boston crime boss who inspired Jack Nicholson’s crazy character in The Departed and was one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted, has been arrested in Santa Monica after spending more than 15 years on the lam. [via Gawker]

3. Last night’s 100th performance of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was canceled when a 29-year-old stagehand died from a heart attack that police are saying was related to a drug overdose. [via NYT]

4. According to Digital Spy, Emma Stone has been offered the lead role in the Craig Gillespie-helmed film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Natalie Portman, who was previously rumored to be playing Elizabeth Bennet, is still a producer on the project.

5. Here’s the first photo of Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, courtesy of this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly. Tolkien fans: Is it everything that you’d hoped it would be?

Bonus link: J.K. Rowling’s mysterious “Pottermore” project, explained