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Woody Allen

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Flavorwire’s Guide to Movies You Need to Stream This Week

By Jason Bailey on

Welcome to Flavorwire’s streaming movie guide, in which we help you sift through the scores of movies streaming on Netflix, Hulu, and other services to find the best of the recently available, freshly relevant, or soon to expire. This week, we’re recovering from the big Netflix “Streamageddon” — but, to their credit, the service did make a healthy chunk of titles newly available (or re-available) for streaming at the end of last week. Included is good stuff from Robert Downey Jr., Reese Witherspoon, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Hemsworth, Woody Allen, John Travolta, Michael Keaton, James Woods, Uma Thurman, Joss Whedon, and Quentin Tarantino; check them out after the jump, and follow the title links to watch them right now. … Read More

Film

Flavorwire’s Endearingly Exhaustive 2013 Summer Movie Preview

By Jason Bailey on

It’s the first weekend in May, so you know what that means: there’s a new Marvel movie in theaters, and the summer movie season has officially begun. It’s a tricky minefield to navigate, rife with sequels and reboots and sequels and adaptations and sequels, but Flavorwire is here to help: our summer movie guide takes you through the entire season, month by month, spotlighting the films that might be worth seeing (Might! Maybe! No promises!) and delicately averting your eyes from the certain dogs. Take a deep breath and put on your 3D glasses; here we… Read More

Film

Behind-the-Scenes Photos of Iconic Filmmakers Directing Their Stars

By Alison Nastasi on

There’s nothing more exciting to a film lover than learning how their favorite movies were developed and executed. When we saw some fantastic behind-the-scenes photos from famous films on Every Day I Show, by way of Cinephilia and Beyond, we were blown away. The snapshots of iconic filmmakers directing their equally popular stars offers a peek at the history of cinema in the making. Head to our gallery for a look at directors in action and actors preparing their characters, collaborating on some of film’s greatest stories ever told. … Read More

Film

10 Louis C.K. Movies You (Probably) Haven’t Seen

By Jason Bailey on

The new season of Mad Men is underway, the Breaking Bad premiere date is set, so as soon as the new season of Louie gets going, our summer viewing needs will be all taken care — oh hell, that’s right, Louie won’t be back until next spring. His new special has already aired, his promo tour for it is over; how the hell do you get your Louis C.K. fix these days? From YouTube, of course. Strangely, not many people are aware that Louie worked his way up to writing, directing, editing, and starring in Louie with two decades of short and indie film work; a quick tour of his early films offers a tantalizing glimpse at the development of his considerable… Read More

Film

Woody Allen’s Classic Leading Ladies and Their Contemporary Counterparts

By Chloe Pantazi on

When Freud wrote of female sexuality as “a dark continent,” he might as well have been writing about Woody Allen’s murky understanding of women. The director’s female characters invariably have abundant daddy issues, a slew of neuroses, and affairs with artists, professors, married men. They seek advice from therapists and fortune tellers, they’re tempestuous and stubborn; though they’re sometimes incredibly narrow, they’re often appealingly complex. Allen’s female characters are so obviously amalgamations of his fantasy woman – or rather women, plural – that one might contend they’re part of an ongoing, experiment in understanding women. Following this week’s news that Emma Stone is set to star in the next Allen film, we’ve conducted a little experiment of our own, looking back at the ladies of his canon, matching the women of his classic era with their contemporary counterparts. … Read More

Film

The Best Books by Great Filmmakers

By Jason Bailey on

Movie fans, rejoice: The Friedkin Connection, the new memoir by French Connection and Exorcist director William Friedkin, hits bookstore shelves today, and it’s terrific. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise when a great filmmaker writes a great book; good movies are all about storytelling, and some of our favorite filmmakers have proven equally adept at telling stories on the page as on celluloid. Some stick to their primary area of expertise, with tomes on the craft and life of the filmmaker; others take the opportunity to widen their scope a bit, with fascinating results. After the jump, we’ll share some of our favorite volumes by great moviemakers. … Read More

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Film

Movie Couples We Want to See Reunited

By Alison Nastasi on

Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey have hugged out their differences and will appear at a Wayne’s World panel on April 23 at the Academy’s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters. Excellent! The drama between the SNL buddies started during Meyers’ Austin Powers days. Carvey became cross after he believed Meyers stole an impersonation he’d done of Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels. Meyers apparently used it to create his Dr. Evil character.

Wayne and Garth will party onward, and the news inspired thoughts of other famous movie couples we’d love to see together again. Sometimes, chemistry between actors just can’t be replicated with anyone else. Here are several film pairings we want more of — some as their original characters, and several as actors reunited in different roles. This is one of those endless wish lists, so we’ve left plenty of room for you to add your picks, below. … Read More

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Film

The Best Punchlines in Film

By Jason Bailey on

A couple of weeks back, we perused the entirety of film history and pulled out our very favorite break-up lines — the meanest, the sharpest, and the funniest. For a follow-up, we decided to focus on the latter: selecting some of the best punchlines ever uttered in movies. By definition, a punchline isn’t just a funny bit of dialogue or an amusingly awkward moment: it’s the payoff to a setup, whether in situation or dialogue, and thus must be carefully teed up and smoothly executed. We think these 25 examples do just that, with panache. … Read More

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Film

Memo to Peter Bart of ‘Variety’: Don’t Tell Jon Stewart Not to Make a Movie

By Jason Bailey on

Memo To: Peter Bart
From: Jason Bailey

Hope you don’t mind me adopting the format of your incoherent and inexplicable “Memo to Jon Stewart” from the March 26 issue of Variety, but it seems another round of what you call, rather politely, “unsolicited advice” might be in order. You see, Mr. Bart, there’s a whole lot to unpack in your piece, which begs Mr. Stewart to abandon his three-month sabbatical from The Daily Show, during which he will write and direct his first feature film. It’s full of oddball assumptions, boxed-in thinking, and smug condescension. But first, and most distressingly, it’s just plain wrong about basic film history. … Read More