If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: American Psycho‘s über-fit antihero, Patrick Bateman.
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1. Nas is working on an autobiography called It Ain’t Hard to Tell that is scheduled to come out next fall. Says music journalist Touré, who is collaborating with him on the project: “I’ve been talking to Nas about writing his autobiography for 15 years. This is hip hop history. We’ll tell his life & deconstruct some songs.” [via NME]
2. The first episode of Showtime’s new CIA drama Homeland is now streaming online, weeks ahead of its October 2 premiere date. What do you make of Claire Danes’ performance?
3. While it comes as no surprise that Tyler Perry topped Forbes’ list of the highest paid men in entertainment after making a whopping $130 million last year, we were kind of shocked that the only other actor to crack the top 10 was Leonardo DiCaprio, who brought in $77 million between May 2010 and May 2011.
4. Hugh Grant is the latest star to join the ensemble cast of the forthcoming film adaption of David Mitchell‘s award-winning novel Cloud Atlas. Already on board: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon, and Hugo Weaving. [via THR]
5. Is the world ready for a Whitney Houston comeback? According to Rolling Stone, she’s planning to return to the big screen in Sparkle, a remake of a 1976 musical “loosely based on the story of the Supremes.” She’d be playing “the skeptical and unsupportive mother of the three main characters,” which seems like a bit of a waste to us.
Bonus Buzz: 20 Trendy Names To Call Your Grandma
Lady Gaga in drag? Meh. Kanye and Jay-Z bro-ing it up live? Not that groundbreaking. Justin Bieber’s pet snake, Johnson? Blech. Last week’s MTV Video Music Awards didn’t do much for us, but there was one redeeming moment — when we found out that Beyoncé was pregnant. Even those of us who don’t live vicariously through the tabloid-chronicled personal lives of pop stars couldn’t help but be excited for hip-hop’s first couple. Of course, they’re hardly the first pair of musicians who have spawned. Our brief history of kids with two rock-star parents, from Chaz Bono to Kelis and Nas’ son, is after the jump.
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Today at Flavorpill, we discovered that blob jumping was a thing that you can set a world record in. We were glad that we in no way resemble Harry Potter, because it sounds like an incredibly annoying burden. We found it kind of strange that Annette Bening will be playing Kristen Wiig’s mom. We read about some first novels that a few famous authors probably wish we’d all just forget. We danced at our desks to this Whitney Houston cover by Fleet Foxes. We were kind of surprised to see that Phil Collins’ daughter makes such a fine lookin’ Snow White. We thought that this special beer for women — which is “less gassy and lighter tasting” than its non-gender specific counterparts — sounded gross. We decided that paintball looks like its more fun when you’re watching it in slow-motion. And finally, we took a moment celebrate the fallen heroes of the space shuttle program.
“I am on a drug,” Charlie Sheen says. “It’s called Charlie Sheen.” Okey dokey. “It’s not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off, and your children will weep over your exploded body. Too much?” Um, yes. It is difficult to refrain from piling on to the Charlie Sheen nightmare, since this is clearly a sick man —mentally, physically, psychologically — who is losing his reality right before our very eyes. But it is his willingness to do so — to have an Elvis-style damn-the-torpedoes meltdown in the full view of cameras who are, y’know, recording this — that is the real miscalculation. Why doesn’t Charlie just disappear somewhere with his hookers and blow and go buck wild, instead of sitting down for TV interview after TV interview and insisting he’s just fine?
If there’s one piece of delusional behavior that celebrities have never been able to resist, it’s the misguided notion that, in the midst of a PR nightmare, they can “get in front of the story” by appearing on TV and showing themselves to actually be sane and normal and even a victim; that they can close their eyes and make it so with the power of their minds. It seldom works, of course (there’s Hugh Grant and… anybody else?). More often than not, it just makes for a trainwreck. We’ve compiled ten of the most unfortunate examples after the jump.
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Most of us have belted out Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” with varying degrees of success, in the shower or into a hairbrush microphone. But this fellow from the Philippines may well be the only one to have ever lip synced the song in a giant furry cape, horror-movie make-up, a fetching cocktail dress, and a long wig full of baby powder. Just when you think things couldn’t get any weirder, he starts giving birth to demonic robot babies…
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If you’re like us, you didn’t expect much out of last night’s American Music Awards. They are, after all, a second-rate awards ceremony at a time when even the Grammys and the Oscars fail to provide much fodder for water-cooler conversation. But now that we’re living in a post-Kanye-interruptus world, the potential for moments of unscripted magic were enough to plant us in front of our TV sets last night. And, although Taylor Swift took home five awards without incident, it was the evening’s performances — not its winners — that wowed us.
You see, for us, last night marked a sort of changing of the pop guard, with established divas like Jennifer Lopez and Whitney Houston falling on their asses (sometimes literally) as ascending stars Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert turned in jaw-dropping production numbers. (Must be why the show logged its best ratings since 2003.) After the jump, check out Glambert’s hot, homoerotic performance and three other essential AMA moments.
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It’s time to unveil the third part of our list of the 50 greatest albums by female musicians. We’ve featured greats like Joni Mitchell, Tina Turner, and Janis Joplin on our previous two posts and this week our lineup includes an electronic music pioneer, a grunge goddess, and one of the biggest voices of all time. When conceiving the list, we limited ourselves to only one album per artist (no repeats), only considered bands fronted solely by a woman, and aimed to choose works that influenced other female artists in a big way.
Here, selections 21 through 30 (in no particular order) — and don’t forget to check back with us next Friday for part four. Read More »
Rihanna’s rep has come forward today to deny the Daily News’ report that the singer’s been tapped to remake The Bodyguard, starring in Whitney Houston’s career-making role. Wow. So there’s the obvious joke here, about how maybe Rihanna could really use a bodyguard. But then, on a more literal level, with once-adoring fans now questioning her judgment amid rumors of a reconciliation with Chris Brown, she could also probably use a boost, career-wise. Take comfort, however: that same flack was also able to dispel a similarly false story (run by CNN this time), claiming that the troubled pair had just completed a new duet. Turns out, that was recorded last summer, and was never released. Apparently the Pussycat Dolls pounced on that opportunity, recording it for that zeitgeisty wonderfilm, Confessions of a Shopaholic. So, take the good news with the bad, we guess…
