Today at Flavorpill, we remembered 25 band names designed to confound listeners and irritate copy editors. We watched all five endings for The Hobbit trailer. We laughed at two young brothers in a homemade horror film. We got Cosmo-style tips from famous writers. We discovered secrets about… Read More
The Hobbit
What Do You Think About the New ‘Hobbit’ Trailer?
The hardcore J.R.R. Tolkien fans in our audience are probably already aware that both Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born on September 22nd (aka, Hobbit Day), and as a result, we’re currently in the midst of Tolkien Week. To celebrate, Warner Bros. has released another trailer for the first installment of The Hobbit trilogy, An Unexpected Journey, but try as we might, we’re having a tough time getting excited about the footage. It’s not that it isn’t beautifully shot. It is. The effects are stunning. And we appreciate that this promo has a bit more humor (and more Gollum!) than the previous one. But three movies? Come on, guys. As much as we love some Middle Earth action, it just feels a bit exploitative to us, given the source material — there’s only one major story arc. That said, we’ll probably end up seeing the film when it hits theaters December 14th. How about you? … Read More
Incredible Sculptures Made from Your Favorite Children’s Books
If you spent hours as a child fantasizing about leaping into the pages — and fictional world! — of your favorite book, then these mind-blowing sculptures spotted by Maria Popova should put a smile on your face. “I still have a connection to Stuart Little and the Borrowers,” explains Kelly Campbell Berry, the Oklahoma-based artist behind the work. “Books, for me, come alive… My book sculptures are my way of showing what the words on the pages create in the imagination of the readers.” Click through to check out a few of her loveliest pieces, and take note: many of them are currently available for purchase in her shop on Etsy. … Read More
The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
1. Peter Jackson posted on Facebook that principal photography for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again has wrapped. Now we just have to wait until December 14th for the first film to come out in theaters! [via ComingSoon]
2. Suck on this, Tyson: Jake LaMotta, the now… Read More
Awesome Illustrations from a 1972 Soviet Edition of ‘The Hobbit’
By now, J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters have become highly recognizable cultural icons — who wouldn’t know a hobbit when they saw one? But of course, other countries have their own interpretations, so we’re fascinated by these illustrations from a 1972 Soviet edition of The Hobbit illustrated by M. Belomlinskij, which we spotted over at Retronaut. As might be expected, the characters look quite a bit different than they do in the Western editions — for one, Gollum is frankly silly looking, and Bilbo’s legs are way hairier than we ever imagined — we know they’re supposed to be hairy, but still. Click through to page through the illustrations, and then head over to English Russia for even more from the book. … Read More
10 Beautiful Buildings Inspired by Famous Books
Truly wonderful books have a habit of growing and changing years after they’ve been written, worming themselves into places you might not expect — our decisions, our aesthetic and cultural sense, and even, with the right kind of care, our physical world. Case in point: Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, which opened in Istanbul last weekend, is an extensive museum (reportedly, he spent almost all of his 1.5 million Nobel Prize dollars on it) devoted to expanding on and complementing his recent novel, The Museum of Innocence. Since we can’t make it to Turkey to experience the place for ourselves, we’ve collected a few other amazing buildings born from books — whether inspired by particular novels, stories, or a writer’s entire oeuvre — to tide us over. Click through to see our gallery of real-life architecture inspired by literature from all over the world, and let us know if we’ve missed your favorite literary tribute in the comments. … Read More
The Morning's Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
1. Forbes has released its Fictional 15, an annual list of fiction’s wealthiest characters. This year’s winner is Smaug, the dragon from The Hobbit, whose “personal fortune jumped 16% from last year to $62 billion after wyrm watchers crafted a more detailed analysis of his massive hoard of coins, jewels and antiques.”
What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office
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
Vintage Tolkien Covers from Around the World
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.) … Read More
The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories
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… Read More
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