1. Based on “public safety and quality of life concerns,” Hoboken mayor Dawn Zimmer has rejected a permit request from MTV to shoot upcoming episodes of a Jersey Shore spinoff featuring J-Woww and Snooki in her town. Smart lady. [via Fox News]

2. In other MTV-related news, the network is teaming up with Logo on It Gets Better, an hour-long special on the struggles of LGBT teens; hosted by Dan Savage, the show will chronicle the stories of three young people and include appearances by celebrities like Zachary Quinto, Margaret Cho, and Chaz Bono. [via EW]

3. Rumor has it that after the stock market closes today, Facebook will submit its paperwork to regulators for a $5 billion IPO, making it one of the biggest market debuts in US history. (For reference, Google’s IPO was a mere $2 billion.) [via The Daily Beast]

4. Taran Noah Smith — aka gawky Mark, the youngest and most forgettable of the Home Improvement brothers — was arrested last night and charged with a DUI and possession of hash. This is what happens when you’re a child star who grows up in the enormous shadow of Jonathan Taylor Thomas. [via Gawker]

5. It looks like Ridley Scott is interested in directing The Counselor, Pulitzer-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy’s first attempt at a spec script; given that the “disturbing and powerful” story features two women in its leading roles and is set in the Southwest, we think that the Thelma and Louise helmer could be an excellent fit. [via Vulture]

Bonus Buzz: NASA Engineer Reveals Secret Of Space Cats

The producers behind the Cormac McCarthy adaptation of post-apocalyptic drama The Road have made a deal with the author to produce his first spec script, The Counselor. The writer’s agents were apparently waiting for his next novel, but he delivered a screenplay instead — which is being described as a dark legal drama set in the Southwest. If you know McCarthy’s work, then you’ll already understand this won’t be some terrible John Grisham throwaway thing. Producer Steve Schwartz spoke to Deadline about the project, centering on a respected lawyer who gets sucked into the drug trade and fights to survive the ordeal:

“Since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.”

The Road didn’t have the same command over audiences as the book, while No Country for Old Men remains the greatest adaptation of a McCarthy tale yet. Will a screenplay written by the scribe make it more difficult to translate on film? Some have suggested that McCarthy may be unfilmable, like Faulkner, but he’s vehemently disagreed with that sentiment in the past. When the Wall Street Journal asked the writer if his critically acclaimed Blood Meridian — which follows a teenage runaway amongst 19th century bounty hunters in the American Southwest who are recovering Indian scalps — was impossible to put to film, McCarthy had this to say:

“That’s all crap. The fact that’s it’s a bleak and bloody story has nothing to do with whether or not you can put it on the screen. That’s not the issue. The issue is it would be very difficult to do and would require someone with a bountiful imagination and a lot of balls. But the payoff could be extraordinary.”

Here’s hoping they find the right filmmaker for the job. Care to speculate who might be right? Share your thoughts below.

As we all know, the world is supposed to end this year, dropping us all into a huge pit of who-knows-what. In an effort to be prepared, we’ve been thinking about what kind of post-apocalyptic world would best suit us — and since the end-date is a fantasy, we think it only fitting that the only resultant post-apocalyptic scenarios we consider be just as fictional. In our pop-culture focused minds, it just seems like it ought to work out that way. Accordingly, we’ve sifted through the many post-apocalyptic worlds in literature and film to find the best and the worst possible outcomes, at least in our eyes. But to each his own — would you rather live in Zombieland than in the Matrix? Or is your worst nightmare or best case scenario not represented here? Let us know in the comments.

Read More »

[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 May 18, 2011.] Jezebel-writer Anna North’s debut novel, America Pacifica, is out today. The story centers around an impoverished teenage girl who is struggling to survive on an increasingly toxic island in the Pacific Ocean after a future Ice Age sets in and freezes the mainland. Though the writing can be a little clunky — especially with respect to class issues — North provides good lens into the many ways an aggrieved soul can turn against the world, and how difficult it is to get back our dignity once we’ve lost it. With this in mind, we decided to run a post on books that expose the darker side of humanity — a roundup of the most disturbing novels and short stories through time, if you will.

Read More »

Recently, it was drawn to our attention that there exists an online bookstore whose wares are meant for dudes and dudes alone. Yes, it’s The Man Cave. As the site suggests, “guys do read – they like it, in fact.” Well, we knew that. What we did not know was that the kind of books guys like to read are things like manuals treat them like children (How Do You Light a Fart?) or scream Urban Outfitters bargain table (Sweet ’Stache: 50 Badass Mustaches and the Faces Who Sport Them) or are basically just pictures of scantily clad ladies (100 Sexiest Women in Comics) — actually, maybe we knew that last one. Our disappointment at the Man Cave’s offerings led us to create a pop-up bookstore (of sorts) of our own, a list of books that will ensure your own Man Cave shelves are covered in the very manliest of literature. After all, in our minds, there’s nothing more manly than a guy who reads good books. Maybe while sporting a thick moustache, but that’s not strictly necessary. Obviously there are hundreds of books that could fit into this category, so after you peruse our list, be sure to let us know which other manly reads you would have chosen in the comments.

Read More »

This week, the always excellent Everyman’s Library released a gorgeous new printing of Phillip Pullman’s epic fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials. Not only is it a beautiful edition, but it’s the first time that the three books have been published in one volume, so it is quite a neat little package. Inspired by Pullman’s wonderfully evocative new cover, we’ve collected a few other utterly gorgeous book cover redesigns for your viewing pleasure. Many of these are full backlist redesigns — after all, there’s something magical about a set of books designed to be together — but all of them are, we think, rather glorious. Click through to feast your eyes on these redesigned books, and let us know if we’re missed any of your favorites in the comments! Read More »

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 »

Something about October always seems to bring out our desire to be frightened. Maybe it’s all the hoopla over Halloween, or the bite in the air, or night coming at 6:30, or the beginning of the season associated with death, or all of these, but October is definitely the creepiest month. So if you’d like to embrace that chill in the air, we’ve put together a list of terrifying books guaranteed to keep you up at night. Though ’tis is the season for spooky literature, for this list we decided to opt out of the horror genre. After all, the books that terrify us most are the ones that show us what humans — not vampires or werewolves or zombies — but the people you meet on the street, are capable of in their darkest moments. Click through to read our list of some of the most terrifying books out there, and let us know which novels chill you to the bone.

Read More »

Earlier this year, we reported that James Franco was planning to adapt and direct a film based on Cormac McCarthy’s classic novel Blood Meridian. However, when asked on the progress of the project by a fan at this week’s Toronto Film Festival, Franco responded, “We shot a 20 minute test of it (Blood Meridian) that turned out pretty well… we were gearing up to do the feature but that for various reasons it’s on hold, but we are going to make a movie based on his (Cormac McCarthy’s) third book Child Of God.”

Of McCarthy’s ten books, three have already been made into films, with varying degrees of success — 2000′s All the Pretty Horses was a critical and financial failure, but No Country for Old Men won an Oscar for Best Picture in 2007, with 2009′s adaptation of The Road hovering somewhere in between. Though we’re still not sure if Franco has the chops to adapt a McCarthy novel, we’re just not going to worry about it too much more. After all, he gave up on the last McCarthy project, so who’s to say he won’t frolic away from this new idea just as soon as the mood strikes? [via Paste]

The world of celebrity baby-naming is an odd and occasionally alarming one. But we have to say, the latest trend is one we can get down with: Both Neil Patrick Harris and the Beckhams named their baby daughters Harper, after the author of To Kill a Mockingbird. And it got us thinking about other literature-inspired names that might be sweeping the ranks soon. Maybe Eudora will make a comeback in homage to Miss Welty? Perhaps Huck will sweep the naming registers? After all, the current number one names — Isabella and Jacob — have the Twilight series to thank. Below, our abridged list of literary baby names and what they mean.

Read More »