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Film

Exclusive Supercut: Big Hollywood Stars in Their Early Horror Roles

By Jason Bailey on

Many a young actor has come to Hollywood seeking fame and fortune, only to discover that the road to success is a long and difficult one, with plenty of detours and diversions along the way. And many have found that, in their early, hungry days of trying to make it as a working actor, the horror genre always has a (meager, but cashable) paycheck for a rising young talent with stars in their eyes. And as a salute to those young, starving artists, we give you this week’s special, Halloween-tinged supercut, in which we’ve tracked down and collected some of the more entertaining and surprising of those early roles. Check it out after the jump. … Read More

Film

‘Eastern Promises 2′ Might Not Be Happening Now

By Caroline Stanley on

While we don’t always meet sequel announcements with excitement, when we heard that David Cronenberg was working on a followup to his 2007 gangster flick Eastern Promises that would involve both the original films’ stars (Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel) and screenwriter (Steven Knight), we were more than willing to put aside our usual skepticism.… Read More

Film

This Week in Trailers: 'Dark Shadows,' 'Hemingway and Gellhorn,' and more

By Jason Bailey on

Every Friday here at Flavorwire, we like to gather up the week new movie trailers, give them a look-see, and rank them from worst to best — while taking a guess or two about what they might tell us (or hide from us) about the movies they’re promoting. We’ve got seven new trailers for you this week, including new films from Nicole Kidman, Clive Owen, Kate Hudson, and a new Johnny Depp-Tim Burton collaboration. Check ‘em all out after the jump, and share your thoughts in the comments. … Read More

News

The Morning's Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. Chewbacca is making a non-singing guest appearance on the Christmas episode of Glee. Why? According to Matthew Morrison, there’s “a special within the episode that’s a throwback to the Star Wars holiday special and the Judy Garland Christmas special.” [via THR]

2. Martin Scorsese has revealed that his next film project will… Read More

Film

‘Melancholia’ and Our Favorite Cinematic Apocalypses

By Jason Bailey on

Lars von Trier is a great filmmaker, but he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you’d much like to hang out and have a drink with. Aside from all that Nazi stuff, his films tend to traffic in the grimmest possible subject matter: he’s tackled rape, slavery, the death penalty, paralysis, and genital mutilation, so it somehow seems logical that his latest picture, Melancholia (on demand now, in theaters Friday) is about nothing less than the end of the world.

Apocalypses are a popular topic for filmmakers — though most are more interested in the narrative possibilities of the post-apocalyptic world than the event itself. Melancholia distinguishes itself by being something of a pre-apocalyptic picture, delving into the anxiety and fear of those who are awaiting the earth’s possible collision with a foreign object (timely!). After the jump, we’ll take a look back at a few of our favorite cinematic apocalypses. … Read More

Film

10 Actors’ Responses to Their Incredibly Awkward Nude Scenes

By Alison Nastasi on

Hollywood stars make getting naked on camera look easy, but many will confess how incredibly uncomfortable or even boring it is to bare all on screen. There are tricks to overcoming this, of course, but for those who haven’t stripped for their audiences before things can get a little tricky. If you’re starring in a hotly anticipated film — like the one that spent three installments pretending their lead stars didn’t actually have genitals — the pressure is really on. This got us thinking about the most awkward nude scenes in cinema. How did the actors and actresses handle being in the buff? Some stars used awkward nudity for comedic effect, while others looked flawless, but felt terrible — and in a few cases, the unpleasant feelings we had were all in our own heads. Still, we wanted to know: did they find the experience as strange to shoot as we did to watch? Find out past the break where we revisit a few naked nightmares. … Read More

Books

10 Actors Turned Literary Authors

By Chelsea Bauch on

Acting and writing are not so different. Both require discipline, facility with language, and the ability to disappear into a world that is not quite reality. And with more credibility than the all-too-frequent actor/musician vanity crossover, the actor-as-author subset has its own self-congratulatory cachet. With a slew of new books by better known screen personalities hitting stores this fall, here’s a tribute to ten thespians who have taken on the literary arena. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: The Road

By Jason Jude Chan on

Gray, empty, and full of collapsed architecture, the godforsaken landscape of The Road — which opens in theaters today — is true to author Cormac McCarthy’s lean, illustrious source.

Less a trained road warrior than a weary yet determined father, Viggo Mortensen carries this post-apocalyptic film and his family — namely The Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) — on his raggedy back. The plot is as spare as McCarthy’s prose: father and son must rely on each other as they trek across this eerie, desolate world to the sea. … Read More

Film

Viggo’s Beard is Better Than Yours: A Look at the Cormac McCarthy Film Adaptation of The Road

By Stelios Phili on

Viggo is back. He has a frayed, wild look in his eye. His beard is ferocious. He is the lead in the film adaption of the Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road. From the looks of the trailer and today’s newly-screened clips from the film, The Road is shaping up to be equally as gripping as McCarthy’s previously adapted work, No Country for Old Men. Instead of some dude with a freaky haircut shooting people with a cow gun, as is the case with No Country, we are treated with something arguably more frightening: a post-apocalyptic world… with cannibalism galore.

After an unexplained natural disaster, an unnamed family — Viggo Mortensen as the Father, Charlize Theron as the Mother, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the Son — survive. Other people survive, too, but less fortunately as blood-thirsty, sun-deprived people/zombies. The film follows the father and son’s journey to safety. After the jump, we’re going to take you through the clips and back up why Tom Chiarella of Esquire is calling The Road “the most important movie of the year.” … Read More