1. New York Times reporter Anthony Shadid, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for his work covering the Middle East, has died in northern Syria following a severe asthma attack. His photographer, Tyler Hicks, carried his body back over the border into Turkey; the two had snuck into the country under a fence to document the unrest there. [via The Wrap]

2. Here are four sets of Downton Abbey paper dolls created by Kyle Hilton for Vulture. You’ll be pleased to see that the Dowager Countess comes with a variety of emotions — from judgmental to pleased.

3. If anything would make us want to watch a “futuristic reboot” of Zoro, it’s casting a dreamboat like Gael Garcia Bernal in the lead role. [via Variety]

4. “The Don/Joan dynamic is something that we do explore, and don’t take this the wrong way, but we do explore as the show goes on. They have worked together for a long time, they know one another very well and I’ll leave it at that.” – Jon Hamm’s recent comments about the upcoming season of Mad Men just made our morning.

5. There are certain signs that Chris Brown might be the featured performer on Rihanna’s upcoming remix to “Birthday Cake.” Or maybe it will be Christina Aguilera. It’s not entirely clear. [via Vulture]

Bonus Buzz: Spike Lee’s Top 10 Lintriguing Tweets

1. In the wake of its recent success at the Golden Globes, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellows is said to be mulling over the idea of doing a feature film version of the TV series. Yes, please — provided that Maggie Smith is on board with the idea. [via The Mirror]

2. YouTube has announced plans to partner with the Venice Film Festival and Ridley Scott’s production company on Your Film Festival, a new online film festival/global competition aimed at shorts that offers a $500,000 prize. [via ArtsBeat]

3. Rihanna and Coldplay will be performing “Princess of China” together live at next month’s Grammy Awards; Chris Martin says that her appearance on the album is his favorite bit of Mylo Xyloto. [via MTV News]

4. According to the results of a new Harris Poll, Johnny Depp is America’s favorite actor for the second year straight, followed by Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood. How much do you want to bet that some studio exec is currently trying to figure out how to get them all in one movie together? [via Deadline]

5. Bruce Springsteen’s “angry” new album has been appropriately titled Wrecking Ball, and is due out in the US on March 6th. Check out a full tracklist, as well as the cover art, here.

Bonus Buzz: 11 Bacteria Photos Presented As Abstract Art

1. Tyler, the Creator — who, along with his Odd Future cohorts, made our list of the year’s most controversial cultural icons — is in trouble again. The rapper was arrested in Hollywood last night for destroying sound equipment at the Roxy, where he had performed. Also, his mom was there. [via TMZ]

2. South Carolina can’t afford to run a Republican primary in 2012, so an unlikely Charleston native has stepped up to foot the bill: Stephen Colbert has announced that his Colbert Super PAC is willing to provide the $500k the party needs. But state GOP officials seem less than thrilled about taking contributions from the comedian, and it’s unclear whether it’s even legal for a PAC to fund a primary. [via AP]

3. The creators of Jersey Shore are targeting an (in our opinion) infinitely more interesting subculture with their next reality show: nerds. Called Fandom Rising, it’s described as an “experimental documentary series that takes a deeper look at the lives and relationships of people who love fantasy, fiction, cosplay, comics, gaming and science.” [via Jezebel]

4. Today in dirty, sexy Christmas presents, Rihanna has released the music video for “You Da One.” According to Vulture’s Willa Paskin, it’s pretty steamy, even by RiRi standards: “Possibly no male performer has ever grabbed his crotch this much in a concentrated period of time, and they certainly haven’t done it in leather overalls, fishnets, and shorts, or in Clockwork Orange-homage gear.” Watch it here.

5. We’ve been a bit worried about Cameron Crowe‘s comeback film, We Bought a Zoo, which comes out today. Now the reviews are in, and at 59 percent on the Tomatometer, it looks like critics aren’t loving it.

Bonus video: The history of glitter

1. This year’s Golden Globe Award nominations were announced earlier this morning, and while we’ll have more to say about the picks in a bit, in the meantime, you can peruse the full list here.

2. This should be interesting: NBC has announced that Howard Stern will be joining the panel of judges on its summer competition series America’s Got Talent. Stern, who’ll be stepping in to fill the spot recently left vacant by Piers Morgan, still plans to continue doing his radio show. [via Deadline]

3. Lady Gaga, who made an estimated $90 million last year, has topped Forbes’ new list of the top-earning women in music. Rounding out the top five: Taylor Swift ($45 million), Katy Perry ($44 million), Beyonce ($35 million), and Rihanna ($29 million). [via NME]

4. George Whitman, the American-born owner of the beloved Paris bookstore Shakespeare & Company, died yesterday at the age of 98. His West Bank shop, which hosted readings by some of modern literature’s biggest names, was also a place where aspiring writers could find shelter in exchange for a little work. [via NYT]

5. Courtney Love might be getting kicked out of her West Village townhouse. Why? A minor fire last spring, some wall paper she wasn’t supposed to put up, and $50,000 in unpaid rent. [via Daily Intel]

Bonus Buzz: Animated Remake of ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’

About this time last year, we ran an overview of some of the more interesting music videos of 2010, videos that would never have been shown on MTV, but nevertheless represented some fascinating and innovative filmmaking. At the time, we noted that “now that we get so much of our entertainment online, and MTV barely airs music videos anymore, the rules have changed.” In 2011, that’s more apparent than ever — and so, we’ve repeated the dose this year, looking at everything from a short film that barely features and music at all to a video that features men with heads for penises. Some of these are raunchy, some of them are disturbing, and some are just plain weird — but they’re all noteworthy, and they all make for interesting viewing. (And, just in case it’s not clear that a post entitled “The Year In NSFW Music Videos” is NSFW… well, it is. So don’t blame us if your boss catches you watching these.) Read More »

Recently, we found out that Sacha Baron Cohen is slated to play Monsieur Thénardier in The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper’s upcoming film adaptation of popular Broadway musical Les Misérables. Now, we love Sacha Baron Cohen as much as the next guy, and we know he can sing, but we can’t help but think he’s altogether too goofy for the role. Other than Cohen, so far Eddie Redmayne is signed on for Marius, Anne Hathaway for Fantine, Hugh Jackman as Valjean and Russell Crowe as Javert — all adding up to a group that we have mixed feelings about at best. To soothe our souls, we decided to put together a dream cast for the Les Misérables movie, and just for fun, we’ve decided to pick only from proper singers, and just resolve to hope that they can act. Click through to see our picks for Cosette, Javert, Fantine and the rest, and let us know which musicians you’d love to see in the classic roles in the comments. Read More »

Today at Flavorpill, we tried to imagine a world where Ringo Starr didn’t end up as one of the Beatles. We thought that Jillian Tamaki’s “Have a Sexy Halloween” illustrations for The Hairpin were laugh out loud funny. We watched Rihanna puke out a bunch of ribbons in her new music video. We were excited by the news that a six-minute prologue to Dark Knight Rises will play before Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol in IMAX — but we’re not excited to pay for that ticket. We found it a little funny that Salman Rushdie likes Entourage, but thinks that Game of Thrones is “very addictive garbage.” We wondered if Chris Martin is a secretly a furry. We wished the legendary Divine a very happy birthday. We watched Devo hawk Honda scooters in this fantastic 1984 commercial. We were happy to see Peggy Olson looking so happy in this photo from the upcoming season of Mad Men. We wanted to buy a copy of this teeny tiny newspaper. We couldn’t wait to see French Stewart play “the best French Stewart celebrity impersonator of all time” on Community. And finally, we were intrigued to hear that according to a new study, people with more Facebook friends have denser grey matter in the regions of the brain linked to social skills than those who don’t. Crazy, right?

Today at Flavorpill, we learned a few things from Gawker’s guide to New York City’s 1% — specifically, the addresses of some of the world’s most powerful CEOs. We were shocked that we couldn’t remember what flavor combo made up Hi-C Ecto Cooler. We wondered if we should be worried that scientists are 95% sure that Bigfoot lives in the Russian tundra. We were glad that we’ve never bitten anyone in a job interview. We found Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen in Snow White kind of impossible to believe. We were excited to hear that Fox has bought the rights to a project starring one of our favorite up and coming comedians, Hannibal Buress. We were kind of bored by both versions of Rihanna’s new album cover. We couldn’t wait to see Matt Damon and Michael Douglas (who incidentally both had hilarious guest appearances on Will & Grace) play lovers in Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic — which is wonderfully titled Beyond the Candelabra. And finally, we hoped that this whole “crafting with cat hair” trend never catches on. Can you imagine?

It’s sad to say it, but yesterday’s news that the ever delightful Beyoncé Knowles is being accused of stealing dance moves for her new video (again) didn’t really come as a great surprise. Now, as ever, we’re well aware that there’s nothing really new in this world, but we’re also aware that there’s a fine but fairly clear line between taking inspiration from something and just, y’know, taking it. There are arguments to be made that all the videos we’ve listed after the jump fall on the wrong side of that line. And also, we can’t help but noticing that the people doing the copying are generally ultra-successful megastars who a) should know better and b) can afford to pay battalions of lawyers to make potential problems disappear. Funny old world, eh?

Read More »

Today at Flavorpill, we laughed out loud several times while reading this hilarious take-down of Kanye West’s runway show at Paris Fashion Week by the Fug Girls. We were thrilled to see that Mindy Kaling’s blog is back in business. We watched people other than Melissa McCarthy chug ranch dressing and like it. We were impressed by the results of Rihanna’s Marilyn Monroe-inspired cover shoot for the October issue of British Vogue. We imagined that this visualization of complimentary flavors by David McCandless and Willow Tyrer will come in handy the next time we’re experimenting in the kitchen. We saw what Seattle would look like if the Space Needle was a spaceship. We paid a visit to the virtual museum of 8-bit video game title screens. We were surprised to find out what the reason why people yawn is. And finally, we decided that heading home to watch all 100 minutes of this weekend’s Arrested Development reunion for free sounded like the perfect way to spend a Monday evening. What do you think?