In a recent edition of our regular Friday feature “Trailer Park,” we took a look at the trailer for the new Daniel Craig/Rachel Weisz haunted house thriller Dream House, and came to the following conclusion: “this is one of those trailers that gives you, about halfway through, the unsettling feeling that they’re showing you the whole movie.” Apparently, concern for that point was widespread enough that executive producer Rick Nicita was compelled to speak up, insisting to Entertainment Weekly that the revealed twist is “not the ending. The twist happens less than halfway through.” But Nicita’s damage control spotlights the fact that our film culture is increasingly dominated by discussion and fear of “spoilers,” and it’s a phenomenon that is only a couple of decades old. (Ever dive into your DVD special features and check out the original trailers for films from the ’40s? Talk about showing you the whole movie.)
We’re still obsessing over Jonah Lehrer’s fascinating study (and subsequent Wired piece) on the effect of spoilers on literary gratification. (The takeaway: knowing a story’s outcome ultimately does not prevent one’s enjoyment of the work, and may even increase it.) A couple of weeks back, we selected some of the books we still read, knowing full well how they end; now we’ve picked out ten movies that still play, even with precise knowledge of their narrative outcomes.
You can probably put this together yourselves, but just to be safe: plentiful spoilers after the jump.
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When Universal announced last year that an epic adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower was in the works, which would include a trilogy of feature films directed by Ron Howard and a two-season television series, it sounded like a massive undertaking — from both a creative and financial perspective. This week, the studio decided it was too massive and pulled the plug on the project, breaking the hearts of fanboys and King readers the world over.
From the beginning, some had wondered if Howard was the right director for the project — now, unless the filmmaker attempts to set the project up elsewhere (unlikely, as both Howard and his Imagine production company have a long history with Uni), we’ll never know. It seems that we can add The Dark Tower to the long list of proposed book-to-film adaptations by famed directors that never saw the light of day. We’ve assembled ten of them after the jump; add yours in the comments.
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In his film poster series The Ones That Got Away, Los Angeles-based graphic artist and web designer Fernando Reza imagines what would have happened if the unfinished dream projects of several legendary directors — namely Alfred Hitchcock’s Kaleidoscope, Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, David Lean’s Nostromo, and Orson Welles’s Don Quixote — had ever made it off the ground. “There are a lot of projects out there currently that are in limbo, like [Francis Ford] Coppola’s Megalopolis or [David] Lynch’s Ronnie Rocket, but I didn’t want to include those in the hopes that they’ll be released one day. ” Reza told Slashfilm. “You can see a progression through the films of Kubrick or Welles and the omission of these films really leaves a crater not just in their careers but in cinema as a whole.” Click through to check out his posters, and if you like what you see, buy a limited-edition set of four here.
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You might not believe in heaven, but you should believe in development hell. This is a place where entertainment-industry ideas go to die. Since most people are already familiar with the greatest films in movie history, we decided to look at the greatest films that, for various reasons, unfortunately didn’t survive the production phase.
Just recently, Slate published a post on the Worst Movies Never Made. While this might be a good thing, our list is a bit more of a downer if you’re a cinephile. So grab a bucket of popcorn, put your feet up, and witness what you could have been watching this weekend if it was a perfect world.
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1. Orson Welles’ Drunk Outtakes for Paul Masson Wine Commercial [via Pursuitist]
2. Tea Party Poems: The found poetry of Sarah Palin [via Slate]
3. Soviet Hobbit illustrations [via Boing Boing]
4. Make Your Own Mondrian [via Kottke]
5. The Best “Bad Romance” Cover Video Ever [via Urlesque]
6. The Hierarchy Of Acceptable Pigtails [via Jezebel]
7. 500 Days of Summer: The Thriller [via BuzzFeed]
8. One 8-bit desk, please. [via The Daily What]
9. Would You Ever: Sleep On This Roller Coaster Bed? [via Buzznet]
10. The Most Famous Classroom In New York City [via SCOUTING NY
Today at Flavorpill, we stumbled upon some accidental geography. We watched The Real World: DC trailer. We listened to food songs. We didn’t know what to make of Wikileaks’ massive archive of private 9/11 pager messages. We were surprised to hear that the daughters of Lil Wayne and T.I. are forming a pop group. We were primed on all things Orson Welles. We argued over Stereogum’s 25 most anticipated albums of 2010. We were scared silly by the idea of a sequel to The Shining. And finally, we’ll send you out with a recession-friendly Thanksgiving video from our friends, Das Racist. There’s even a Flavorpill shout out!
Note: We’ll be taking a break from our typical publishing schedule tomorrow, but you might hear from us a bit on Friday. It all depends on how deep the food coma is.
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No story of Hollywood excess would be complete without one thing: Robert Evans. And in each of those stories that lovably sleazy Hollywood producer had one thing in his hand: a drink. Long before the silver screen, the dramatic and inebriate arts have been intertwined. After all, wasn’t it Shakespeare who said “Cocktails and Dreams…. I see it in pink neon. Blink, blink, pinkety blink”? (Answer: No.) But has drinking had a positive effect on the dramatic arts? After the jump, we consider the evidence.
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