[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published August 10, 2011.] Earlier this summer, a shocking number of our readers flocked to read (and amend) our list of the harshest author-on-author insults in history. But you know who is even more childish, trifling, vindictive, and nasty than your favorite scribes? Your favorite filmmakers. These directors may not have quite the same precision with the written word as those rancorous authors, but when it comes to pettiness, they can’t be beat. After the jump, we’ll run down 30 of our favorite slights, slanders, and cheap shots from filmmakers both classic and contemporary; we’d love to hear yours in the comments.

Read More »

If you’re a fan of Tim Burton’s goth aesthetic, then you’re going to fall in love with the work of Boston-based illustrator and printmaker Daniel Danger, whose dark, beautiful paintings we spotted over on My Modern Met. Given the fact that he only works with three colors at a time (and two of those are always black and white), the results are incredibly striking and complex. According to his personal statement, Danger’s goal is to “remind you of something you may have said to someone, or something someone may have said to you; back in that time period that’s just too far away to remember clearly, but not so long ago you forgot about it completely.” Click through to get lost in his haunting, shadowy world of empty streets, old abandoned houses, and creepy railway bridges. Read More »

Ever since “Hansel and Gretel” came on the scene two centuries ago, gingerbread houses have been a staple of the season — whether or not the Brothers Grimm are directly responsible, or just fueled the trend with their cautionary fairy tale, is still up for debate. But regardless of their origin, these cookie cottages have come a long way since they first appeared. Before you set the oven to 350 degrees this year, you might want to consider giving your classic construction with a more modern update. Check out some of our favorite pop culture homages in gingerbread, which range from an ode to surprisingly adorable miniature version of CBGB to a delicious looking take on Doctor Who’s TARDIS, after the jump. Read More »

Whether you’re an artist or an aficionado of the arts, there’s no question that peering into the sketchbooks of lauded virtuosos is a valuable experience. They serve variously as illustrated diaries or catalogs of casual drawings, paintings, and musings — lending a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the inner thoughts of beloved artists. From a reprint of Frida Kahlo’s diary full of vibrant drawings and writings to the silkscreened lips of Andy Warhol’s portrait subjects to Tim Burton’s sketches, our roundup of adored artists’ sketchbooks is sure to give you some insight into the creative process. Read More »

It’s hard to imagine that the definitive icons of literature could have been subject to the same iciness of the high-gated publishing-house “no” machines that we know all too well. Of course, even down-to-earth publishers can miss a great work sitting on their desks; with thousands of titles of varying merit clogging editors’ mailboxes, it’s impossible to skim every page of every slush-pile manuscript, let alone give it its proper consideration. Furthermore, some of our most adored geniuses churned out well-spotted crap before maturing into the artists we remember.

Prescience is no hard science, but hindsight can be a kick in the shins nonetheless, especially for the editors who sent these rejection letters to writers who would later become the bestselling, influential giants of their day — and ours. Read More »

No one brings a dark children’s story to life quite as vividly Tim Burton. (Except maybe Guillermo del Toro.) (OK, let’s forget Alice in Wonderland ever happened, shall we?) So it’s exciting to hear that the director is in talks to direct a film adaptation of blogger/filmmaker/author Ransom Riggs’ YA novel Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, which came out earlier this year. The story follows 16-year-old Jacob on a journey to the mysterious, distant Welsh island that houses the bizarre orphanage where his newly deceased grandfather grew up. The descriptions of the freakish — and potentially dangerous — children Jacob’s grandfather knew seem particularly ripe for Burton’s interpretation. Although the director hasn’t necessarily wowed us in recent years, this sounds like the perfect project for him to get his gothy groove back. [via Deadline]

As you may have heard, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith is making a new Beetlejuice movie. Although the script isn’t even written yet, and the general assumption bad been that it would be a reboot, he and co-producer David Katzenberg recently clarified in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that it will be an honest-to-goodness sequel. Not only that, but Grahame-Smith said he would only make the movie with Tim Burton’s blessing… and if Michael Keaton agrees to reprise the title role. “[T]he star of the movie has to be Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice, and it’s a true continuation 26 years later,” he told EW. ”Not just throwing him in as a cameo going, ‘Hey, it’s me. I endorse this movie.’”

Now, before you get excited, keep in mind that, because the film is still in the concept stage, Grahame-Smith and Katzenberg haven’t actually talked specifics with Keaton yet. But assuming that they hold their Michael Keaton-or-bust line, we’re much more excited about this Beetlejuice sequel than we were before. [via The Mary Sue]

1. Entertainment Weekly has your first look at stills from Tim Burton’s reanimation of his 1984 short film Frankenweenie — which Disney executives originally found “too weird” and actually fired him for making at the time.

2. Patti Smith, Ke$ha, and Adele are among the artists contributing Bob Dylan covers to a new charity compilation album that will benefit Amnesty International. [via NME]

3. Watch Beyoncé throw an amazing, technicolor trailer park party in her newly-released music video for “Party,” which features cameos by Solange, Kelly Rowland, and a dumpster swimming pool. [via Vulture]

4. Oliver Stone has signed on to direct a movie for HBO that will be based on Robert Caro’s 1974 Pulitzer-Prize winning book about how famed urban planner Robert Moses reshaped the face of New York. [via THR]

5. Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked the question that many of us following the Occupy Wall Street movement have been wondering: What the fuck happened in Oakland? [via Gawker]

Bonus Buzz: Fox And Friends Bash Grinnell College’s Gender-Neutral Housing Policy

1. This year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will feature a new balloon designed by Tim Burton; according to the character’s crazy origin story, he was created “from the leftover balloons used in children’s parties at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London” and is “forbidden from playing with other children because of his jagged teeth and crazy-quilt stitching.” [via ArtsBeat]

2. Sarah Silverman is putting together a comedy fundraiser in Ricky Perry’s home state of Texas that will be titled, “Live From N*****head: Stripping The Paint Off Of Good Ol’ Fashioned Racism,” and plans on donating all proceeds to the NAACP. [via EW]

3. Michael Bay has signed on to executive produce Outsiders, an hour-long drama for The CW that follows a “quirky [male] sociology professor” who teams up with a young female detective to “solve crimes involving youths and subcultures in Los Angeles.” And, we’re guessing, things that go boom. [via Vulture]

4. Hot on the heels of last night’s Season 4 finale, MTV already has your first look at Season 5 of Jersey Shore, which sees the cast returning to Seaside Heights and their beloved club, Karma. [via Perez]

5. If you can’t wait for it to hit shelves, here are some details from Walter Isaacson’s highly-anticipated Steve Jobs biography, including the fact that Jobs initially refused potentially life-saving surgery on his pancreatic cancer because he felt it was too invasive. [via Huffington Post]

Bonus Buzz: Vampire Moths Discovered In Siberia

Here at Flavorpill, we’ve learned (and continue to be reminded, on an almost daily basis) the pros and cons of making a good list. On the plus side, people love to see pop culture artifacts piled up and stacked against each other; it starts conversations and stirs passions. On the minus side, selecting and ranking beloved films, television shows, albums, books, musicians, etc. is just asking for trouble — what begins as starting conversations and stirring passions can become a melee of second-guessing, judgment, and sometimes even name-calling. So our sympathies and admiration go out to the fine folks at Popmatters, who have spent the past several weeks compiling a list of “the 100 essential directors,” and thus opened themselves up to the inevitable Monday-morning quarterbacking of film fans, a notoriously hard-to-please bunch.

The site’s editors wisely avoided the most bitter arguments by running the list alphabetically rather than in a ranked order; it’s a move that also spread out the angry “What about…” comments throughout the series’ run, rather than all at the end. But now that we’ve had a chance to look at the whole thing, as you have, there are some, well, puzzling choices.

Read More »