Bill Hanstock

What would Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River" sound like if it were covered by this crew of magical Scots? Well, this: (They're really good at this cover-song game, aren't they?)  ... More »

In the summer of 1998, writer-director Mark Christopher’s 54, a clumsy cinematic paean to New York's legendary disco club Studio 54, was released to dismal reviews, a lukewarm box office, and then promptly forgotten — at least by most of us. But just last week a director's cut of the ... More »

Billy Joel is the closest thing Madison Square Garden has to a sure thing — certainly more than the Knicks or the Rangers or the Liberty. It’s been 21 years since Joel released a new pop album, yet he sold out the arena 12 times in 2014 alone, and he’ll ... More »

The Better Call Saul hype machine is hungry, so AMC fed it another amuse-bouche. The network launched a digital comic book earlier today that serves as a prequel for the show, premiering in two parts Sunday and Monday at 10 p.m. Writers from the show penned the issue's story line, ... More »

A beautiful thing is happening: Marvel and Sony have struck a kindergarten-y-type arrangement in which they'll share Spider-Man. According to a late-night press release from Marvel, a "new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film" sometime soon (no word on which one), firmly placing the venerable character in the ... More »

You often don’t get much context for "Weekend Update" characters. There are no origin stories. They are usually so specific and focused that their bits can start in the middle. But that wouldn't do for Bobby Moynihan, who has apparently developed a Unified Theory of "Weekend Update" Characters. You won't ... More »

In stores today is New York TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz's handsome new book, The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel, published by Abrams, the follow-up to last year's similarly sumptuous The Wes Anderson Collection, which dives deeply into the making of Anderson's new Best Picture–nominated film, dissecting every angle and influence ... More »

Sorry, Jamie Dornan. ... More »

“Weird Al” Yankovic will be setting his accordion to the side for a new team-up with The Jim Henson Company.  No, it’s not “Gettin’ Piggy With It”.  It’s a new TV show.

Recently, Al tried his hand at writing a children’s book, and it was a hit.  So now, The Henson Company is helping to translate the best-selling books When I Grow Up and My New Teacher and Me!, both of which feature the same lead character (“Billy”, a version of Al’s younger self), into a new series.  According to Kidscreen, the show (which does not have a name yet) will be animated, 11 minutes per episode, and will likely take place at a school.

We’ll keep you guys updated on how this show is coming along, but for now, let’s marvel at the potential of a Yankovic/Henson production!

Click here to eat it on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com

On Wednesday, January 14, at 3 a.m., sleep-deprived Saturday Night Live writer James Anderson asked a fellow writer, Kent Sublette, “What about this idea?” Anderson, recently obsessed with the video game Dragon Age: Inquisition, proposed a sketch about a medieval castle beset by a huge fire-breathing dragon and the ­castle-dwellers ... More »

This post originally ran January 2015. We are rerunning it with Listen to Me Marlon out this weekend.Marlon Brando died more than a decade ago. And Marlon Brando when he was alive wasn’t known for being particularly open; indeed, for much of his life, he was considered fairly reclusive. And yet ... More »

Saturday at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour, Fox confirmed that the network hopes to reboot The X Files the way it did with 24. The follow-up would star the original duo, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. So far they've just been talking ... More »

A while back I posted about the Snackadium created by Pillsbury, and although it was completely ridiculous, I decided to make one for last year’s Super Bowl. Pillsbury supplied instructions on a more tame version, which suited our crowd a bit better than the masterful displays of engineering you may see around Pinterest and blogs this time of year.

Here is what we came up with:

I feel it isn’t bad for our first try. I didn’t have a large enough “vessel” that resembled a stadium and I certainly didn’t have the time or materials to build one. This year I have come into possession of something that I think will do the trick so stay tuned for the post-mortum entry on SNACKADIUM 0H’ 15. For last year’s stadium, I made homemade guacamole for the field, which I highly recommend. I don’t really have a recipe for this because the proportions of ingredients change every time I make it. You just have to keep tasting until it is right. Basically, it is avocados, limes, red onion, jalapeno, cilantro, SALT. I live in Southern California so decent avocados are plentiful and cheap pretty much year round. I really dislike store bought or packaged guacamole, but if that is all you have then I suppose you are stuck. Costco has a decent packaged guacamole if you are in a bind. Protip: if you care about how photogenic your snackadium is, put the guacamole out last.

Our other snacks featured are mini crescent dogs (recipe here; I cut the crescent triangles in half with a pizza cutter, not thirds), store bought chicken tenders, baby carrots, different types of chips (one being the Garlic and Black Bean Tostitos, which are way better than they have any right to be – highly recommended), hummus, salsa, and 15 assorted sandwiches. When I decided upon making so many sandwiches for the perimeter I thought two things: everyone loves sandwiches, and how long could it possibly take to make 8-10 sandwiches? As it turns out, a very very long time. I think I cut all the onions and and tomatoes and such earlier in the day to save me some time later, but I didn’t start making the sandwiches until everyone had already arrived. This was a huge mistake. I guess I could have just slapped some meat and cheese between two pieces of bread and called it a day, but that would have been too easy. The sandwich making seemed to go on forever and was horribly laborious and I will not be making sandwiches for this year’s snackadium. I would like to point out that Pillsbury suggests baking their refrigerated french loaf dough for the bread portion of the sandwiches. THAT IS INSANE. I bought sandwich rolls at the grocery store for like $3.50 a sack and they were perfectly fine.

This year’s snackadium will be a group effort and my contribution will be the mini crescent rolls, Sriracha lime chicken wings, and mini wraps of hummus, bacon, tomato and lettuce wrapped in a spinach tortilla. My dad will be making bacon wrapped scallops, which are always a crowd pleaser. I will try to get pictures and the recipe from him, but I think it is just scallops wrapped in bacon with tobasco and lemon pepper that you pin together with a tooth pick and grill. You can also use shrimp. Anyway, I hope you all have a delicious Super Bowl

Remember when you thought that Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" sounded an awful lot like Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down"? Well, you're not alone. According to The Sun, a court ruled this past October that the two songs are so much alike that Smith will start paying Petty (and ... More »

Your fondness for Backstrom will depend on how eager you are to watch yet another TV series about a miserable asshole who's so great at his job that people forgive him for walking all over them. The title character, played with commitment if no special insight by The Office's Rainn ... More »

There are hundreds and hundreds of behind-the-scenes photos from the Muppets’ long history.  But one thing I always lamented (just a little bit) was how many of them are in black-and-white.  Sure, it’s more artistic, but the Muppets (and their performers) are best seen in color, practically popping off the page or screen or handheld digital tablet.

ToughPigs friend Meagan Barbeau must’ve thought the same thing, because she’s been taking it upon herself to colorize some of the best-known photos from Muppet history.  Don’t worry, this isn’t a Ted Turner situation where we’ll be considering the new pictures as replacements for the originals.  They’re strictly for funsies, and to show how great they could’ve looked.

Check out a few of Meagan’s colorized photos, and then scroll down for her explanation of how she managed to do it, along with some in-progress images!

Here’s Meagan to explain her colorization process:

One of my favorite things to do is bringing color to previously black and white photos; it’s like a coloring book. So, I thought you might like to hear how I go about doing that. Then go crazy and color your own photos of Muppet performers or vintage cars or exploding socks or whatever.

I use Photoshop for my photos, and many of you familiar with Photoshop know about the main tool used for coloring photos: the color replacement tool. It allows you to paint over areas of a photo with a color like you would with a brush while keeping the shadows and tones of the photo. So not only can you add color to colorless photos, but change colors in color photos. If you’ve ever wanted to know what Frank Oz would look like with a pink mustache, or what Gonzo would look like as an orange “whatever” instead of a blue one, this is the tool for you. To begin with, I choose my photo, careful to choose a higher quality one that’s easier to color. The more details in the photo, the longer it’ll take. Mine can take anywhere between 10 minutes and 10 hours.

Then I choose the color replacement tool and pick the color I want to start with (usually considerably darker or lighter than the actual color, as you’ll see it’ll look much brighter on the photo), then simply color in the photo like you would a coloring book! It’s important to color everything (even white, black, or grey things), otherwise that part will stand out more than the others (in a bad, unfinished way).

All done? Great! Now what you’re probably thinking is “That doesn’t look realistic, the colors look flat and my people look like zombies”. So, unless you colored zombies, the fast way to fix that and make the colors of the photo look realistic is to put some filters on the photo. Most people stop after they’ve colored it in Photoshop, and I used to as well, but then I realized how beneficial filters really are. So save your photo as a .jpg, then go to a site like PicMonkey (which I use, because I’m cheap and it’s free), and add a few filters. In PicMonkey, I usually at least use “Dusk” and “Yester-color”. Play around with a few to see which ones make your photo look better. Because I color my photos this way, I know how certain colors are going to look after the filters, and can take that into account while coloring. For example, if I want something to look metallic and silver, I’ll color it light blue.

And that’s it! Congratulations, you’ve got a brand new photo that’s all colorful and pretty! Keep an eye on my Muppet blog on Tumblr for more of my photos, and feel free to shoot me an ask if you’ve got any comments or questions. I’d love to hear from you!

Many, many thanks to Meagan for sharing her story and her pictures!

Click here to add a splash of color to the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com

And they’re just… Just watch. NSFW, unless you work at Babeland.

Transcript below the jump. And if you want some real feminist sex tips, don’t miss our new series Fucking With Feministing.

Transcript:

I’m the oldest – I’m the second oldest of five kids, and I’m really close with all my siblings, but I’m especially close with my little brother Sam. My little brother Sam is about ten years younger than me, and the thing about Sam is, he’s only ever known me as a comedian. So, it kind of has shaped my life, being a comedian. I’m very honest, I’ve never told him a lie, and I always thought that was pretty cool about our relationship until pretty recently when I found out that we don’t have boundaries. And those are important. And this is how I found out. A couple months ago my younger brother and my younger sister were living together at the time, and I walked in on one of the weirder conversations for an older sister to walk in on. I walked in on my little brother telling my sister those funny sexual position jokes. Do you guys know what I’m talking about? They always have a title like The Rusty Trombone. It’s always something fucked up like “you come in her eye and it’s called The Pirate.” Shit like that. So this is the one I walked in on: it’s a dude fucking a girl from the back, then he leaves, and another guy starts fucking her, but the first dude goes in front of a mirror and waves to her, and it’s called The Poltergeist. And he’s laughing, and he’s laughing, and he’s like “isn’t that funny? You’re a comedian, isn’t that funny, that’s so funny?” I was like “nooooo.” I’ve been in a male-dominated field for 12 years and I’ve heard every fucked up thing you can do to a woman, and it’s always something that ruins her hair, and I’m not OK with it any more. I really care about my hair. So I decided as someone who travels the world and basically does spoken word that it’s my responsibility to spread feminist sexual positions. I have a lot of free time,  I came up with three. Position number one is a dude going down on a girl, she squirts in his face, he learns to respect women, it’s called The 19th Amendment. Position number two is a woman riding a dude, she gets him about 30% away from an orgasm, but then she gets up and leaves – it’s called The Equal Pay Act. Position number three is my favourite, it’s just a woman masturbating in a kitchen, a dude walks in sad – it’s called Make Your Own Dinner.

Kyle MacLachlan will not just appear in, but star in, Twin Peaks' limited-series return to Showtime as Special Agent Dale Cooper. Deadline reported that MacLachlan, damn good coffee and all, made the announcement at the network's Television Critics Association panel on Monday — and the show's director David Lynch quickly ... More »

If you've ever wondered why Nancy Grace's HLN show still exists, here's your answer. Tonight the rapper "known as 2 Chainz, also Tauheed Epps, also Tity Boi," as Grace delightfully put it, appeared on the program for a debate about marijuana. The living TV anchor parody repeatedly showed clips of ... More »

Vulture is speaking to the screenwriters behind 2014's most acclaimed movies about the scenes they found most difficult to crack. Which pivotal sequences underwent the biggest transformations on their way from script to screen?  Today, we talked to Phil Lord, who wrote and directed the animated hit The Lego Movie with ... More »

There are few directors with a visual style as distinctive as Wes Anderson's, and to find out just what goes into his carefully composed shots, you'll want to talk to Robert Yeoman. The 63-year-old cinematographer has shot every one of Anderson's films (save for the stop-motion Fantastic Mr. Fox); though, ... More »

Fifty-year-old Russell Crowe has an opinion on why it becomes so hard for actresses to land good parts as they get older. His theory: It's all their fault. As Crowe tells Australian Women's Weekly, "I think you'll find that the woman who is saying that [the roles have dried up] ... More »

Two decades after starting the writing process, self-proclaimed "worst procrastinator in the world" Jennifer Saunders is done with the script for the Absolutely Fabulous movie. The co-star and creator of the sitcom told the Sunday People she wants the project made by the end of 2015. The film is reportedly ... More »

You know you've made it when the director of The Exorcist declares your first feature the most terrifying film he's ever seen. Earlier this week, Oscar winner William Friedkin offered to host a screening of Australian horror film The Babadook after observing the film's limited U.S. release. Since playing at ... More »

National treasure and minuscule-mustache man John Waters will kick 2015 off with a new video art piece at Marianne Boesky in Chelsea. The 74-minute film, called Kiddie Flamingos, is essentially going to be a censored table read of Pink Flamingos featuring little kids with wigs, instead of the 1972 movie's ... More »

Christmas number ones in the UK since 1973.

http://flipflopflyin.com/christmas/numberones/index.html

This post originally ran in December 2014. We are rerunning it because it's finally October 21, 2015. This fall not only marked the one-year countdown to October 21, 2015, the date on which Back to the Future II’s Marty and Doc arrive in the future, but it saw the announcement ... More »

Goths all over the world are crying into their Christmas pudding (more than usual) with the news that Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter have broken up. As Carter's rep tells People, the pair "separated amicably earlier this year together and have continued to be friends." Together since 2001, Burton ... More »

Spouting off to an empty chair at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Clint Eastwood looked as if he were slipping into doddering dementia, but he’s shrewder and more focused than ever in his Iraq War picture American Sniper. It’s a cracker­jack piece of filmmaking, a declaration that he’s not yet ... More »

professionally-dead:

This makes me so happy