A major theme in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series involves women trying to take power for themselves, in the face of a male-dominated hegemony. And this has been going on for a long time, judging from our first glimpse of Martin's new Westeros story.
    
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Well, technically, these two supercuts from NextMovie encompass every movie reference The Simpsons dropped in seasons 1 through 10, but it might as well be every movie reference The Simpsons ever made since the show has been inarguably over since season 11.
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Curious about the age differences between competing Star Trek casts? Thanks to Bonnef's Tumblr we now have Star Trek InfoGifs, that show us the various ages of the cast whilst on stuck in a smirk, gulp or smile loop. It's actually pretty cute — plus they made one for the height comparison as well.
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Dmitry Balandin, a scifi enthusiast and crane operator from Ukraine, has built a life-sized robot fashioned from 500 pieces of plywood.
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BossclaireshortyOMFG
Baton Rouge police officers have been going undercover and arresting gay men for agreeing to have consensual sex, charging them with an "attempted crime against nature." The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated this crime more than a decade ago.
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BossclaireshortyWant. To. See.
Cate Blanchett is genius at demonstrating a veneer of icy sophistication slowly cracking. You can see glimpses in her eyes, her jittery jaw, her wringing hands, in the birdlike suspension of shaky limbs held akimbo. In Blue Jasmine, Woody Allen's latest film, her character Jasmine is a woman in the midst of a nervous collapse. Her real-estate swindler ex was imprisoned for stealing millions, and as a result, she's been torn from her Park Avenue penthouse. She’s holding on by a Chanel suit string, subsisting solely on Stoli, with a constant blur of mascara smudging her lower eyelid.
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BossclaireshortyThis guy is insane. I just started following his tumblr.
I was born during that blackout a few years back so it was pretty dark in the hospital and no one really knew what was going on. Hence the horrific forceps scar on my face and the screwy spine and the weird foot. Doc used his zippo to see which gender I was and that didn’t work out too well for me either.
When I started junior high, kids couldn’t decide how to make fun of me so they went with calling me Just Generally Gross.
Last summer I got a job acting in a commercial for Coke White, a milk-colored soda that Coca-Cola hoped would resonate with the Caucasian market. All I did was sit there while the narrator said the famous slogan: Feel like this asshole looks? Maybe Coke White will turn shit around for you, I dunno. Then I sipped some through my special medical straw and was transformed by video trickery into an erotic white lady. That made me about $27,000 after taxes.
I used the money to pay my classmates to shorten my nickname to The General, and it mostly stuck. It’s a little thing, but names are important and I think it’s changed the way that one girl Melissa sees me. The winter dance is coming up and I really wouldn’t mind going with her. I’m not the greatest dancer but I can see us hanging out on the back steps, talking about our teachers, maybe I loan her my coat, maybe we can see some stars, maybe somebody says something funny.
BossclaireshortyOh Hanna.
If you've missed the latest Amanda Bynes news, the troubled former child star is currently hospitalized for a mental health evaluation after she set a fire in a stranger's driveway on Monday. She was detained by police after an utterly bizarre incident in which she started a fire, incinerated her left pant leg, ran pantsless to a nearby liquor store to try and rinse her gas-soaked Pomeranian in a back-office sink, screamed at a witness not to touch her or she'd call 911, and attempted to flee in a cab. Unidentified sources says Bynes is exhibiting signs of schizophrenia and that her parents plan to seek a court-ordered conservatorship.
In other words, if there was a single worse time to publicly make fun of Amanda Bynes, Pretty Little Liars actress Ashley Benson couldn't have picked it if she had hunkered down for hours strategizing Bynes-based probability density functions with Nate freaking Silver.
On Wednesday, Ashley Benson posted the following photo to Instagram:
She included the caption, "Doing my Amanda Bynes look this afternoon." Because, well:
Now, from my perspective, the problem with Benson's joking impression is one of timing. If she'd posted it in May, right about when Bynes was grabbing all sorts of headlines for her strange behavior but it hadn't yet become completely obvious that something was medically wrong with her, I'm sure it would have received plenty of laughs. If Benson had posted it even a week ago, the reaction may have been an uncomfortable chuckle or two.
However, to post it not 48 hours after Amanda Bynes was involuntarily brought in on a 5150 psychiatric hold? Yeah, that's a little insensitive, to say the least.
Benson's getting plenty of negative backlash for the mocking photo, so I'm guessing we'll see it quietly disappear from Instagram at some point. Or maybe Benson will stick to her guns and point out that if Amanda Bynes can call everyone from Drake to the Obamas "ugly," one little joke photo isn't hurting anyone.
Of course, it's sounding like one of these parties may be legitimately and severely mentally ill. I'm not sure what Benson's excuse will be.
What do you think of this photo from Ashley Benson? Poor taste or fair game?
Image via Instagram
Vince Gilligan's exquisitely developed Breaking Bad is so unassailably good that even the show's promotional bonanza is terrific. The premiere is two-and-a-half weeks away and we've already seen a generally endearing Bryan Cranston GQ cover profile, an Aaron Paul late-night "bitch" tribute, and particularly excellent Comic-Con stunt in which Bryan Cranston went incognito in a latex mask of his own face.
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BossclaireshortyW.T.F?
A squirrel in Los Angeles County tested positive for the bubonic plague yesterday. By our calculation, that still leaves 24 hours before the top of Gwyneth's head comes off.
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Anthony Bourdain hoodwinked writer David Simon into sitting down for a CNN segment with the promise of a cronut, New York's most in-demand food trend. Sadly, that cronut never materialized, and now Simon wants his just desserts: "Tony Bourdain, you lying sonofabitch, you owe me a motherfucking cronut."
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Gone Girl fans, cast your mind back to when you first read Gillian Flynn's bestselling novel -- when you picture Amy Dunne, who do you see? I imagine a blond woman who has the ability to look beautiful and sweet, yet can turn ice-cold in the blink of an eye. Just based on looks alone, it seems like British actress Rosamund Pike is a pitch-perfect choice to star in the Gone Girl movie.
Amy's character in the film adaptation has reportedly been quite the hotly-pursued role by a number of 30-something Hollywood actresses, including Olivia Wilde, Charlize Theron, Natalie Portman, and Emily Blunt. I would have loved to see Theron land the part, but Rosamund Pike seems enormously promising as well -- and according to The Hollywood Reporter, Pike has officially moved from a top contender to nailing the gig.
In other intriguing Gone Girl news, did you know Ben Affleck will star as Nick Dunne? And just wait until you hear who's rumored to be in the running for a supporting role.
If you haven't read the book, I won't ruin it for you, but here's the general plot: a woman disappears on the day of her fifth wedding anniversary, and her husband becomes the prime suspect. Of course, things get a little more complicated as the book goes on, and the can't-put-it-down story is told in a nonlinear fashion from both Nick and Amy's point of view. Gone Girl, which is Flynn's third novel, has been a massive publishing success: this Sunday will mark its 52nd week on The Washington Post bestseller list.
The movie version of such a buzzy book was bound to get a lot of attention, and it's been a hot topic ever since the story was optioned by Reese Witherspoon. Here's what we know for CERTAIN about the film version of Gone Girl: it's being produced by Reese Witherspoon, Gillian Flynn is attached to write the screenplay, and it's being directed by -- HOORAY! -- David Fincher, who did Fight Club and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Now to the as-yet-unconfirmed-by-the-studio territory: earlier this month, Deadline reported that Ben Affleck was in negotiations to play the husband, and today brings the news that Rosamund Pike (Jack Reacher, Die Another Day) has the offer to play Amy.
Oh, and get this: supposedly, Neil Patrick Harris is being considered for a supporting role. How awesome is that? And OMG WHO COULD HE BE PLAYING? (Please let it be Amy's creepy ex-boyfriend Desi!) Other roles that I'm very very interested in hearing about: Nick's sister Margo, and the student with whom [redacted for spoilers] has an affair.
I don't know much about Rosamund Pike but she definitely looks the part, and I almost always think Ben Affleck does a great job. I'm just grateful to hear Reese didn't cast herself as Amy, because I think aside from hair color, she would've been all kinds of wrong.
What do you think about Rosamund Pike as Amy in Gone Girl? Are you looking forward to the movie?
Image via Splash News
BossclaireshortyI cannot watch this at work today, but OMG I'M SO HAPPY I COULD SPIT!
"I just want to say it’s great to be back in California, I feel safe here now that you’ve gotten rid of Proposition 8. I’m looking for a husband... It’s great to meet you, Michael."
At yesterday's San Diego Comic-Con Breaking Bad panel, Bryan Cranston shocked fans when he revealed that the man who was walking around the convention center wearing a lifelike Walter White mask was actually Walter White.
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Moscow, March, 1886
My little Zabelin,
I've been told that you have taken offense at gibes Schechtel and I have been making. The faculty of taking offense is the property of noble souls alone, but even so, if it is all right to laugh at Ivanenko, me, Mishka and Nelly, then why is it wrong to laugh at you? It's unfair. However, if you're not joking and really do feel you've been offended, I hasten to apologize.
People only laugh at what's funny or what they don't understand. Take your choice.
The latter of course is more flattering, but—alas!—to me, for one, you're no riddle. It's not hard to understand someone with whom you've shared the delights of Tatar caps, Voutsina, Latin and, finally, life in Moscow. And besides, your life is psychologically so uncomplicated that even a nonseminarian could understand it. Out of respect for you let me be frank. You're angry, offended...but it's not because of my gibes or of that good-natured chatterbox Dolgov. The fact of the matter is that you're a decent person and you realize that you're living a lie. And, whenever a person feels guilty, he always looks outside himself for vindication: the drunk blames his troubles, Putyata blames the censors, the man who bolts from Yakimanka Street with lecherous intent blames the cold in the living room or gibes, and so on. If I were to abandon the family to the whims of fate, I would try to find myself an excuse in Mother's character or my blood spitting or the like. It's only natural and pardonable. It's human nature, after all. And you're quite right to feel you're living a lie. If you didn't feel that way, I wouldn't have called you a decent person. When decency goes, well, that's another story. You become reconciled to the lie and stop feeling it.
You're no riddle to me, and it is also true that you can be wildly ridiculous. You're nothing but an ordinary mortal, and we mortals are enigmatic only when we're stupid, and we're ridiculous forty-eight weeks of the year. Isn't that so?
You often complain to me that people "don't understand" you. But even Goethe and Newton made no such complaints. Christ did, true, but he was talking about his doctrine, not his ego. People understand you all too well. If you don't understand yourself, then it's nobody else's fault.
As your brother and intimate, I assure you that I understand you and sympathize with you from the bottom of my heart. I know all your good qualities like the back of my hand. I value them highly and have only the greatest respect for them. If you like, I can even prove how I understand you by enumerating them. In my opinion you are kind to the point of fault, magnanimous, unselfish, you'd share your last penny, and you're sincere. Hate and envy are foreign to you, you are open-hearted, you are compassionate with man and beast, you are not greedy, you do not bear grudges, and you are trusting. You are gifted from above with something others lack: you have talent. This talent places you above millions of people, for there is only one artist for every two million people on earth. It places you in a very special position: you could be a toad or a tarantula and you would still be respected, because talent is its own excuse.
You have only one failing, the cause of the lie you've been living, your troubles, and your intestinal catarrh. It's your extreme lack of culture. Please forgive me, but veritas magis amicitiae. The thing is, life lays down certain conditions. If you want to feel at home among intellectuals, to fit in and not find their presence burdensome, you have to have a certain amount of breeding. Your talent has brought you into their midst. You belong there, but...you seem to yearn escape and feel compelled to waver between the cultured set and your next-door neighbors. It's the bourgeois side of you coming out, the side raised on birch thrashings beside the wine cellar and handouts, and it's hard to overcome, terribly hard.
To my mind, civilized people ought to satisfy the following conditions:
1. They respect the individual and are therefore always indulgent, gentle, polite and compliant. They do not throw a tantrum over a hammer or a lost eraser. When they move in with somebody, they do not act as if they were doing him a favor, and when they move out, they do not say, "How can anyone live with you!" They excuse noise and cold and overdone meat and witticisms and the presence of others in their homes.
2. Their compassion extends beyond beggars and cats. They are hurt even by things the naked eye can't see. If for instance, Pyotr knows that his father and mother are turning gray and losing sleep over seeing their Pyotr so rarely (and seeing him drunk when he does turn up), then he rushes home to them and sends his vodka to the devil. They do not sleep nights the better to help the Polevayevs, help pay their brothers' tuition, and keep their mother decently dressed.
3. They respect the property of others and therefore pay their debts.
4. They are candid and fear lies like the plague. They do not lie even about the most trivial matters. A lie insults the listener and debases him in the liar's eyes. They don't put on airs, they behave in the street as they do at home, and they do not try to dazzle their inferiors. They know how to keep their mouths shut and they do not force uninvited confidences on people. Out of respect for the ears of others they are more often silent than not.
5. They do not belittle themselves merely to arouse sympathy. They do not play on people's heartstrings to get them to sigh and fuss over them. They do not say, "No one understands me!" or "I've squandered my talent on trifles!" because this smacks of a cheap effect and is vulgar, false and out-of-date.
6. They are not preoccupied with vain things. They are not taken in by such false jewels as friendships with celebrities, handshakes with drunken Plevako, ecstasy over the first person they happen to meet at the Salon de Varietes, popularity among the tavern crowd. They laugh when they hear, "I represent the press," a phrase befitting only Rodzeviches and Levenbergs. When they have done a penny's worth of work, they don't try to make a hundred rubles out of it, and they don't boast over being admitted to places closed to others. True talents always seek obscurity. They try to merge with the crowd and shun all ostentation. Krylov himself said that an empty barrel has more chance of being heard than a full one.
7. If they have talent, they respect it. They sacrifice comfort, women, wine and vanity to it. They are proud of their talent, and so they do not go out carousing with trade-school employees or Skvortsov's guests, realizing that their calling lies in exerting an uplifting influence on them, not in living with them. What is more, they are fastidious.
8. They cultivate their aesthetic sensibilities. They cannot stand to fall asleep fully dressed, see a slit in the wall teeming with bedbugs, breathe rotten air, walk on a spittle-laden floor or eat off a kerosene stove. They try their best to tame and ennoble their sexual instinct... What they look for in a woman is not a bed partner or horse sweat, [...] not the kind of intelligence that expresses itself in the ability to stage a fake pregnancy and tirelessly reel off lies. They—and especially the artists among them—require spontaneity, elegance, compassion, a woman who will be a mother... They don't guzzle vodka on any old occasion, nor do they go around sniffing cupboards, for they know they are not swine. They drink only when they are free, if the opportunity happens to present itself. For they require a mens sana in corpore sano.
And so on. That's how civilized people act. If you want to be civilized and not fall below the level of the milieu you belong to, it is not enough to read The Pickwick Papers and memorize a soliloquy from Faust. It is not enough to hail a cab and drive off to Yakimanka Street if all you're going to do is bolt out again a week later.
You must work at it constantly, day and night. You must never stop reading, studying in depth, exercising your will. Every hour is precious.
Trips back and forth to Yakimanka Street won't help. You've got to drop your old way of life and make a clean break. Come home. Smash your vodka bottle, lie down on the couch and pick up a book. You might even give Turgenev a try. You've never read him.
You must swallow your pride. You're no longer a child. You'll be thirty soon. It's high time!
I'm waiting...We're all waiting...
Yours,
A. Chekhov
A few months back, I wrote about Dear Mr. Watterson, which at the time was set to premiere at Cleveland’s International Film Festival. Well, fans of Calvin and Hobbes will be happy to learn that the Bill Watterson documentary has just released its first teaser trailer. Look for the flick to hit theaters this November.
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BossclaireshortyThe snail...on the burning boat...WANT.
BossclaireshortyOH HELL YES.
There's not many times in my life I'll be able to reference Game of Thrones and Boyz II Men in the same sentence, but this is one: The GoT panel at Comic-Con opened with this fantastic "In Memoriam" video, paying tribute to every character that's died in the show so far, set to the dulcet tones of Boyz II Men.
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BossclaireshortyNEVER.
There is something in my eye.
Okay, when I say "tons" I really mean "about 30 seconds or so," but you should still watch this quick featurette anyways, because it also includes director Joss Whedon and star Clark Gregg explaining why Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to be the best.
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Check out the first teaser for Firefly Online, a "a multi-user, social online role-playing game" for smartphones and tablets, which is being announced at San Diego Comic-Con. Will there be a "kick the mercenary into your engine" button?
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