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Another Man Has Died After Being Pushed in Front of a Subway Train in New York

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Another Man Has Died After Being Pushed in Front of a Subway Train in New York Well, this is starting to get a bit weird. For the second time in the span of a month, a man in New York City has been killed after being pushed in front of a subway train. The image above is the now infamous front-page of the New York Post from Dec. 4, when a freelance photographer working for the paper caught the imminent death of a man named Ki Suk Han. Tonight an unidentified man in Queens was pushed in front of the train by an also unidentified woman. Here is more or less what we know right now, courtesy of the New York Times' Ravi Somaiya.

More on this as it develops, but maybe you New Yorkers should consider taking the bus for the rest of the year.

[via Ravi Somaiya]


Don't Cry For George Zimmerman, Who Got Screwed By a Security Firm That is Now Suing Him

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Don't Cry For George Zimmerman, Who Got Screwed By a Security Firm That is Now Suing Him George Zimmerman — who you may remember as the man who accosted and then shot a teen named Trayvon Martin for the crime of being black and wearing a hoodie — is in a bad place as the calendar slides towards 2013. Well, you knew that, but here's just one example of the pit that Zimmerman is currently in: he's being sued by a security firm that says he owes them $27,027 for services rendered. The response from Zimmerman and his attorney?

Zimmerman's attorney tells TMZ his client felt "the billing got out of hand quickly. We trusted them to be efficient with their work and they weren't." He claims Zimmerman dropped the security team because of concerns about the bills.

In other words: Zimmerman hired security guards to protect him and they allegedly charged the shit out of him (well, out of his supporters who were footing the bill) before he got the sense to fire them. This development is undeniably satisfying from a schadenfreude perspective, but it's also a comment on the nature of the modern celebrity — and Zimmerman is a celebrity as much as he is a criminal. On account of murdering a black teenager, Zimmerman was thrust into a world that he was never prepared to enter, one that ultimately left him with very few places to hide. Actors and singers hire security guards so they can run errands in relative peace. Zimmerman hired security guards so he could run his without getting killed.

It sounds like a terrible life, but it's better than the alternative fate that befell Trayvon Martin. Though I wonder if Zimmerman has found himself debating that exact conclusion at any point over the last 10 months.

[via TMZ, image via Getty]

Adorable Toddler Flubs the Word 'Banana' Rather Spectacularly

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Little Payton has the word "apple" pretty down pat, but "banana" might take a while longer. In the meantime, the two-year-old should probably stick to doing what she does best: Initiating her mechanical dad's humor sequence.

[H/T: Guyism]

Three Officers Shot Inside New Jersey Police Station by Person in Custody

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Three Officers Shot Inside New Jersey Police Station by Person in Custody

A man being booked on domestic violence charges at the Gloucester Township police station in New Jersey this morning managed to shoot and injure three police officers before being killed when other officers in the area returned fire.

According to Gloucester Township Deputy Chief David Harkins, "a violent struggle occurred while the suspect was being processed," and he ultimately obtained a firearm which he used to injure the three cops.

Two of victims sustained "very minor" injuries and have since been released from the hospital. The third victim was struck below his bullet-proof vest and was rushed to Cooper University hospital.

He underwent surgery and is now in stable condition.

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation into the incident, and additional details will be released later this afternoon.

[screengrab via CBS 3]

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

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The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 LongreadsSometimes, instead of writing 40 words to go along with a viral Internet video, we write many words. Thousands of words, even. Since we do this somewhat frequently, those pieces can be easy to miss. With that in mind, we've collected our favorite Gawker longreads from 2012. No one's really working this week, so please print these out (just kidding, use your smart phone), kick back, and indulge.

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Finding Goatse: The Mystery Man Behind the Most Disturbing Internet Meme in History

For years, Johnson has been rumored to be the Goatse man, based on their similar frame, skills, and matching moles on both Goatse's and Johnson's ass. Reader, I examined the moles. They match. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance

Not sure how or if I've helped many folks say yes to life but I've definitely aided in few folks dying slowly in America, all without the aid of a gun. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

The New York Times Profiled the Brant Brothers Because the New York Times Hates You

We at Gawker have warned you previously that the New York Times Style section exists solely to introduce you to society's biggest shitheads, and yesterday's profile of the Brant Brothers is no exception. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Kid Rock Is Soul-Fucking America

There are lots of opinions about Kid Rock. Many of them are that he is fucking terrible. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

A Portrait of a Portrait of an American Family: A Day With the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Clan

"Reality TV don't last more than three years," June said. "People have a good run for about three years. Some people fizzle out within a couple of weeks. We've had about 10 weeks and if it stays for the next three years, great." Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

The King of Porn Gossip: Meet Mike South, the Man Who Got to the Bottom of The Industry's Syphilis Outbreak

"I've never claimed to be objective; I'm not a journalist—my site is an op-ed piece and it's my opinion." Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Unmasking Reddit's Violentacrez, The Biggest Troll on the Web

There are many sides to Violentacrez, and now that I had Michael Brutsch on the phone I hoped to find out where the troll ended and the real person began. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Sexile in Guyville: Lady Writers and the Male Celebrities They Profile

Not every girl can cook dinner or have a boozy night with a famous dreamboat, but at least she can read in a magazine about someone who did. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

My Kasual Kountry Weekend With the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

Welcome to the national headquarters of The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. I hope you're white. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Giving the Elephant a Pink Manicure: A Night Out With Mindy Meyer, the Internet's Candidate for Senate

Mindy's all-pink mini-gala was the single closest real-world re-enactment of viral culture I've ever witnessed. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Who Needs a Log Flume When You Can Get a Blow Job In a Theme Park Bathroom Instead?: My Family Vacation

There is no cuddling in this story, but if you turn back now, know this, at least: Grindr offers the kind of rides that theme parks don't. What I experienced was an entirely different kind of 4D. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Among the Junketeers: 90 Hours in Vegas, Selling Out Hard

"Journalists from ESPN, Esquire, LA Times, and FOX are already on board," promised the email. "So this is legit." Journalistic duty fairly demanded that I attend. To observe. To report. To junketeer. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

I Used to Love Her, But I Had to Flee Her: On Leaving New York

I've never felt more important than when I lived in New York. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

I Went to the Pre-Oscar Celebrity Gifting Suites and All I Got Was This Sense of Disgust

I was there in search of free stuff. Foolish. In Beverly Hills, nothing is free unless you absolutely, positively don't need it. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Please Don't Infect Me, I'm Sorry

As a gay man in New York with an active, multiple-partner sex life, the chances are that I have hooked up with an HIV-positive guy or five and didn't know it. Maybe I didn't know it because he didn't know it. Maybe I didn't know it because he was a liar. Maybe I didn't ask. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

A Girls Writer's Ironic Racism And Other ‘White People Problems'

Was there ever a chance that Girls would get race right? (Or even get it at all?) Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

The Dog Whistle Has Sounded: How the Right Talks About ‘Thugs' Like Trayvon Martin

The most important effect of race-baiting through the dog whistle, however, is that it really does function as bait. When you conspicuously label black kids as "thugs" and white kids as "unruly teens," you bait someone else into noticing it and responding. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

How to Get Away With Murder and Other Things the Killing of Unarmed Black Teen Trayvon Martin Teaches Us

Tell them you shot him because you were afraid for your life. When the police tell you that neighbors heard someone cry for help, tell them that was you. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Our Father's Not in Heaven: The New Black Atheism

Black America's religious problem isn't that it's highly religious-most of America is religious-it's that, in my experience, it's highly religious to the point of exclusion, as if black people living their lives without God don't count. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

What's 50 Grand to a Revolutionary Like Me?: Watch the Throne and the New Black Power

It's one of the strangest celebrity phenomena of the past couple years: Jay-Z and Kanye West styled, by themselves and others, as voices of revolution. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

The Internet's Best Terrible Person Goes to Jail: Can a Reviled Master Troll Become a Geek Hero?

Internet trolling is typically the haphazard pursuit of idiot teenagers who mindlessly rack up outrage with spam or obscenities. But membership in the GNAA is exclusive, and members take pride in pissing people off creatively. Like Auernheimer, they consider themselves artisanal trolls. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

The Bain Files: Inside Mitt Romney's Tax-Dodging Cayman Schemes

Bain isn't a company so much as an intricate suite of steadily proliferating inter-related holding companies and limited partnerships, some based in Delaware and others in the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and elsewhere, designed to collectively house roughly $66 billion in wealth in its many crevices and chambers. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Andrew Breitbart: Big Deal, Big Coronary, Big Corpse

Provocateur, website founder and collector of America's largest wads of spittle Andrew Breitbart died last Thursday morning, when some sentient shred of his cardiac organ kamikazed out of an exhausted sense of justice. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

‘Celebrities With Big Dicks' and Other Tales from the Weird World of Wikipedia Books

When we talk about the future of book publishing we talk about ebooks and the move from print to digital; here in front of me is the stunted result of a move in the other direction, an analog artifact of a weird moment in the history of publishing. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

From Otherkin to Transethnicity: Your Field Guide to the Weird World of Tumblr Identity Politics

There aren't many people undergoing the exact same struggles as Draven (a pseudonym taken from goth classic The Crow), though: unlike most teenagers and 20-somethings, Draven isn't, he claims, human. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Even for a Minute, Watching Hulk Hogan Have Sex in a Canopy Bed is Not Safe For Work but Watch it Anyway

Hulk strips down. His tan line is exposed and his hairline is vulnerable and silly without the do-rag, but there is sex to be had regardless. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Audacity: Losing My Fear of Outside

My rape story makes me feel guilty. I will tell it as simply as I can. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Exorcists, Empty Suits, and Granny Starvers: The Gawker Guide to Mitt Romney's VP Picks

Paul Ryan's economic model is a disease whose existence is proved by any symptom proximal to it. Welcome to The Gawker Guide to Mitt Romney's VP Picks. Read »

The Year We Found Goatse and Visited the KKK: The Best of Gawker's 2012 Longreads

Have You Heard the One About the Religious Woman Who Stops Being Religious in College?

Have you heard the one about the religious person who stops being religious in college? You have; excellent, I will be brief. Read »

All images by our brilliant Art Director, Jim Cooke.

This Is the Woman Who Fatally Shoved a Man Onto Subway Tracks in Queens

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The NYPD is still searching for the woman suspected of shoving a man in front of a Flushing-bound 7 train at the 40th Street station in Sunnyside.

To help with their manhunt, the police have released surveillance footage of the suspect fleeing the scene after allegedly pushing the unidentified man onto the tracks.

"This lady, she just pushed the guy on the tracks. Then she ran away," a witness told the New York Post. "I was screaming and closing my eyes."

According to the five people who were on the platform around 8 PM last night, there wasn't enough time to save the man from certain doom.

The woman was described by NYPD spokesman Paul Browne as Hispanic with a "heavy-set" frame, approximately 5'5", 190 pounds, and between the ages of 20 and 25. Her hair is short, dark, and curly, and she was wearing a blue, white and grey ski jacket and red and grey Nike sneakers.

"She was acting weird and crazy," a law-enforcement source close to the investigation told the Post, adding that witnesses saw her sitting alone and mumbling to herself.

She would occasionally get up to pace around, but had no interaction with the victim prior to the incident.

A surveillance camera located on the street caught the suspect running away from the scene, but her direction remains unknown.

[video via Gothamist]

Will This Latest Violent Incident Make Humans Stop Liking Violent Entertainment?

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Will This Latest Violent Incident Make Humans Stop Liking Violent Entertainment?The Washington Post bills Ann Hornaday's essay on movies today ("I don't know where this national discussion will wind up," is her unproductive conclusion) on the front page of its website like so: "Have audiences had enough of guns, violence and blood at the movies? After the Newtown tragedy, will screen violence still be considered entertainment?"

Will This Latest Violent Incident Make Humans Stop Liking Violent Entertainment?Perhaps this rhetorical question would be better phrased as, "After the Newtown tragedy, and the Virginia Tech massacre, and the 2006 Amish school shooting, and the Columbine massacre, and the Kent State shootings, and the 1966 University of Texas sniper shootings, and the 1968 Orangeburg police shootings, and the thousands of violent deaths attributable to street gang warfare in American cities dating back to the 19th century, and the thousands of violent deaths of Americans in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Somalia, and Vietnam, and Korea, and in WWII, and in WWI, and in the Philippines, and in the Spanish-American War, and in the Civil War, and in the Mexican-American War, and in the War of 1812, and in the war against the Barbary pirates, and in the Revolutionary War, will violence, a staple of popular artworks since antiquity, enthusiastically embraced by the ancient Greeks and by artists and writers in all of the world's major religious traditions and societies, not to mention by crowds who have enjoyed it firsthand since the days of the Roman gladiators, still be considered entertainment?"

Yes.

[WaPo. Photo via]

'PIZZA, BRO! DO THE PIZZA': Is This Ski Bro Flinging a Child Down a Mountain Doing It Right or Wrong?

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'PIZZA, BRO! DO THE PIZZA': Is This Ski Bro Flinging a Child Down a Mountain Doing It Right or Wrong?There comes a time in every parent's life when he must thrust his child from the comforts of home into the cruel real world. For some people that means requiring your teenager to get a job for pocket money; for others, like the man in this video, that means hurling your youngster at full speed down a snowy hill with only shouts of "PIZZA, BRO! DO THE PIZZA!" to guide them.

I wouldn't do this with my child—were I ever to be cursed with one—but Gawker Managing Editor Emma Carmichael says that this clip closely resembles how she was taught to ski. Hmmm!

So, what say you? Is this responsible, extreme-sport parenting, or should this guy consider taking it down a notch and heading to the bunny slopes for a bit? Either way, we, like the ski bro, are glad the little guy survived, dude.

[via Hypervocal]


What Were the Year's Best Podcast Episodes?

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What Were the Year's Best Podcast Episodes?

You're all too forthcoming with your BEST OF 2012 OR FIGHT ME ✌ Spotify playlists, but can you offer us something actually useful, like a working list of podcast episodes that were pretty great this year?

To us, the best podcasts feel like eavesdropping on thoughtfully honest conversations, dialogues that're far more organically insightful than any stilted panel circle jerk or punchline-constructed televised banter. (Though sometimes, adversity can be entertaining, like when Gallagher stormed out on Marc Maron last year.) But many many many podcasts suck donkey, which is why we only bother with these things sparingly, and only commit to sure things, like, say, Alec Baldwin's Here's The Thing conversation with Lorne Michaels.

(Yes, we already know John Cook and Hamilton Nolan talked to Richard Rushfield, Julie Klausner brought Max Read and Adrian Chen on How Was Your Week, and Adrian also turned up on Longform—though if you didn't, by all means, help yourself.)

Surely you, as members of that coveted educated online consumer market, have other recommendations from the past year. Kindly leave them below. We need something to offset this glacial week.

[image via RTimages /Shutterstock]

Japanese Porn Star Solicits Bottles of Semen from Twitter Followers for Upcoming Film (NSFW)

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Japanese Porn Star Solicits Bottles of Semen from Twitter Followers for Upcoming Film (NSFW)

So you're making a sequel to the seminal porn film Semen Collection, but you just don't seem to have enough semen on hand to justify calling it a "collection." What do you do?

Solicit your Twitter fans for a few dozen bottles of baby batter, of course!

Japanese Porn Star Solicits Bottles of Semen from Twitter Followers for Upcoming Film (NSFW)

Japanese adult video idol Uta Kohaku — best known for her uncanny resemblance to former AKB48 member Atsuko Maeda, was asked by the AV studio RADIX to help procure 100 bottles of ejaculate needed for the production of Semen Collection 2.

She posted the request on her Twitter feed, and, within two short weeks, the cum quota was sufficiently met. The containers were delivered to RADIX care of Uta, with each "sample" properly labeled with the donor's name.

"The semen from my fans! Awesome!" tweeted the 20-year-old Uta. "I will care for them as if it were my own child."

As one Farker put it, if you're wondering what Japan is coming to — it's this.

FYI, Semen Collection 2 started shooting last week. Expect to find it behind the counter in the back room of your neighborhood fetish dungeon in the near future.

[H/T: Huff Post, photos via Twitter]

The Grierson & Leitch Best Films of 2012: Nos. 5-1

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The Grierson & Leitch Best Films of 2012: Nos. 5-1It's the final week of 2012, so we're wrapping the year up the way movie people are supposed to wrap the year up: Lists! Wednesday, we each gave our five worst movies of 2012. Yesterday, we each counted down our No. 6-10 best movies of the year. Today, we finish off with our top fives.

Just to remind: Here are our Nos. 10-6 from yesterday. As we established yesterday, as you read our top 10s know that neither one of us will be reading each other's. This is the first—well, the second, counting yesterday's—blog post that requires spoilers for the people who wrote it.

Here goes.

Grierson

5. It's Such a Beautiful Day, directed by Don Hertzfeldt.
Celebrated independent animator Don Hertzfeldt spent about five years handcrafting this story about an ordinary guy named Bill, whose depressed life takes a turn for the worse when he gets a discouraging diagnosis from his doctor. Consisting of three shorts bound together for an hour-long feature, It's Such a Beautiful Day starts off as a biting, droll riff on the misery of modern life before transforming into an extraordinary, heartbreaking musing on the mysteries of the universe. (Even then, though, it's still remarkably funny.) If you've never heard of this film and are a fan of animation that goes beyond the typical Pixar/Dreamworks template, Hertzfeldt is a guy whose work is definitely worth seeking out.

4. Compliance, directed by Craig Zobel. One of the year's most divisive films, Compliance talks honestly about power and obedience, drawing from true stories to craft a nightmare scenario in which a small-town fast-food manager (Ann Dowd) comes to believe that one of her employees (Dreama Walker) has stolen money out of a customer's purse. Writer-director Craig Zobel, working with a top-to-bottom excellent cast, never lets us feel superior to his characters, sincerely asking us to see how we all are guilty of blindly following authority and refusing to help others so as to escape trouble ourselves.

3. The Master, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Joaquin Phoenix's incredible, volcanic performance has been so praised that it's easy to overlook the great work that Philip Seymour Hoffman also brings to this wonderfully enigmatic movie. My favorite thing about Hoffman's portrayal of Lancaster Dodd is that it never once asks me to actually believe him as a charismatic leader. What's great about Dodd is that, really, he's not all that persuasive: His pompous patter is bullshit from the beginning, and yet Hoffman makes the guy's steadfast insistence that it's not bullshit weirdly touching. The Master may not be a clear-cut masterpiece like Paul Thomas Anderson's last film, There Will Be Blood, but even if the different parts of his new film don't all seem to quite fit, they seem like they fit if we just think about it hard enough. And I know I sure want to—for years to come.

2. Elena, directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev. In the last 25 years, Woody Allen has made a few dramas about morality in a godless world (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point), but none of them are as bracing as what Russian writer-director Andrey Zvyagintsev brought to bear in Elena. It's a really simple story: A middle-aged housewife named Elena (Nadezhda Markina) is disappointed that her rich, older husband (Andrey Smirnov) won't help support her lazy adult son and his family. What Elena decides to do to fix the situation sets in motion a thought-provoking character study about personal responsibility that offers no easy answers. I've seen the film twice now, and I'm never quite sure who we're supposed to root for, which is entirely the point.

1. The Turin Horse, directed by Bela Tarr and Agnes Hranitzky. The problem with raving about The Turin Horse, Hungarian director Bela Tarr's purported final film, is that there's no way to do it without making it sound bleak, long and depressing. Well, you know what it? It is bleak, long and depressing—that's sorta the point of the film, which closely studies the lonely ordeal of an aging father and his daughter as they try to survive on their farm in the middle of nowhere. But once you submit to Tarr's slow, meticulous rhythms, The Turin Horse has an apocalyptic intensity to it that's frightening in its simplicity. (This is a movie whose principal villain is the wind.) Defiantly bare-bones and mysterious, this movie weaves a spell so powerful that you feel like it will suffocate you. That might still be a better fate than awaits these two characters.

Leitch

5. Amour, directed by Michael Haneke.
Haneke has made his name with obnoxiously cynical (if undeniably effective) dark comedies about human suffering, but here, he strips all his techniques bare in an attempt to quantify true human suffering: As Grierson said, it's a story about how death waits for no one. Even the just. Especially the just. The aged couple of Amour loves one another and truly displays what "better or worse" really means, but it's up to you to decide whether or not Haneke finds the "love" of his title ironic or not. I'm still not sure the subplot with the daughter quite works, but this is as gripping, and brutal, and sad, as movies get.

4. The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon.
Turning away from the majestic-but-sometimes-oppressive darkness of the Nolan Superhero Movie, director Joss Whedon brightens things up in perhaps the most grand, deliriously entertaining fan service vehicle imaginable. Whedon obviously loves this sprawling collection of comic-book heroes and, more important, understands them: He gets in a way no other comic-book-film director has why fans love them, and why it's so much fun to throw them in a bowl and mix. His television background is perfect here, basically turning this into to the biggest-budgeted, eye-poppingest episode of Cheers or Friends ever made. (Superfriends?) Whedon's giddiness is infectious: This was the most purely entertaining movie I saw all year. I'm telling you: The top young filmmakers in 20 years are going to talk about this the way we talk about Star Wars. (Original review here.)

3. Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg.
I think what I love most about Lincoln is how much Steven Spielberg trusts Tony Kushner's script: I don't ever remember this much talking in a Spielberg film before. Kushner studiously outlines the story—Lincoln's relentless push to pass the 13th Amendment—and Spielberg makes sure the movie always keeps moving; the man's inherent, almost subconscious need to entertaining keeps bubbling up in every scene. The movie's funnier and breezier than you think it'll be, but, like its protagonist, it never wavers from its fundamental premise: This was a man who did whatever he could to change history. It's anchored of course by Daniel Day-Lewis' revolutionary performance, giving us a Lincoln who feels both familiar and breathtakingly new. They've made hundreds of Lincoln movies, but this'll be the one that lasts. (Original review here.)

2. Oslo August 31st, directed by Joachim Trier.
His name is Anders, he's in his mid-30s, and he's spent most of his life as a drug addict. After a year in a rehab facility, he's released for one day to go on a job interview, but he spends it, instead, wandering around his city, visiting old friends who have moved on and only know him as an addict, struggling with his urges and the pain he's caused and occasionally pausing to try to commit suicide. Anders, basically, has blinked and noticed that he's lost more than a decade of his life, and realizes, with the weariness of someone smart enough to know what he's truly lost, that starting over is going to be impossible. Then again: As he looks around to his old associates, it's not like their lives have turned out all that great. Sad, but wise, and clear-eyed about what it means to drift through life until it's suddenly too late to turn back. I think this might be the great Generation X movie I'd been waiting for.

1. Zero Dark Thirty, directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
One of the great moviegoing experiences of my lifetime. Lost in the polarized, perpetually uninformed debate about whether the movie is For or Against Torture—a movie is not public policy, particularly not this one—is that this is a movie about loss, about the desperate desire to make things right ... even if they never, ever can be. Jessica Chastain's Maya is driven to the point of insanity, but she never loses focus, even when everyone is begging her to move on. The movie keeps pushing, pushing, pushing, tightening and closing in us, until, by the end, we're screaming for some resolution, some justice. It's difficult to imagine how this movie would have ended had real life not interceded with its own finale: It would have been Zodiac in desert camo. But that's not how it turned out, and the half-hour long raid on bin Laden's compound might be the most riveting action sequence I've ever seen. In a great year for movies, this was 2012's crowning achievement. (Original review here.)

Also, to be completist, I ranked my top 25 films of the year. Here they are. There are still a few films I didn't get to (Polisse, The Sessions, Promised Land), but I got the bulk of them, I think.

1. Zero Dark Thirty
2. Oslo August 31st
3. Lincoln
4. The Avengers
5. Amour
6. Looper
7. Killer Joe
8. The Master
9. Moonrise Kingdom
10. Argo
11. Haywire
12. Your Sister's Sister
13. The Kid With a Bike
14. Jeff, Who Lives At Home
15. Cosmopolis
16. Dark Horse
17. Skyfall
18. The Silver Linings Playbook
19. Holy Motors
20. How To Survive a Plague
21. Dredd 3-D
22. 28 Hotel Rooms
23. Take This Waltz
24. Flight
25. The Raid: Redemption

Grierson & Leitch is a regular column about the movies. Follow us on Twitter, @griersonleitch.

Cop Who Busted Fred Willard in Adult Theater Catches Nick Stahl 'Committing Lewd Act' in Sex Shop

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Cop Who Busted Fred Willard in Adult Theater Catches Nick Stahl 'Committing Lewd Act' in Sex Shop

Nick Stahl was arrested last night after LAPD vice officers working undercover allegedly caught him pleasuring himself inside a sex shop in Hollywood.

Police say the actor was inside the store's private porn-viewing booth committing a lewd act. He was taken into custody and booked on misdemeanor lewd conduct.

Stahl was released a short time later, only to be confronted by TMZ cameras outside the police station.

The Carnivàle star, who went missing a number of times earlier this year before reuniting with his wife in July and entering rehab for substance abuse, claimed the entire thing was just a "misunderstanding."

TMZ also notes that one of the cops who brought Stahl in was also responsible for interrupting Fred Willard's visit to an adult movie theater in mid-July.

[photo via Getty]

America's Strategic Supply of Million-Dollar Homes Is Dwindling

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America's Strategic Supply of Million-Dollar Homes Is DwindlingThe Great Recession of the past several years took many things from America: our jobs. Our financial resources. Our pride. But as the economy returns to its former glory, we now face a new peril: our national supply of mansions is getting dangerously low.

The WSJ reports that sales of high end luxury homes roared back this year (and let us take this opportunity to congratulate you all on your million-dollar home sales in 2012—finally!). Good news? Sure—for the Soviets. How many terrorists, communists, and socialists enemies of this nation are rubbing their hands together in glee, waiting for us to deplete our precious Mansion Reserves before they strike?

At the current sales pace, it would take nearly 12 months to sell the supply of million-dollar properties available for sale in October, down sharply from 21 months one year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. The supply shortage is becoming particularly acute in the West, where the supply of million-dollar homes stood at just six months in October.

We have backed ourselves into an untenable position in which a single Avatar sequel could create enough new millionaires to buy up every last mansion in California. And what do we expect America's rich to do then? Live in apartments? Mr. Obama, THIS NATION NEEDS MORE MANSIONS. Our unity is our strength.

[WSJ. Photo: Flickr]

Current Congress Is the Laziest in a Lifetime

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Current Congress Is the Laziest in a LifetimeSure, the U.S. Congress is the butt of its fair share of jokes. People call it corrupt, out of touch, and a plague on the very concept of democracy. But give Congress its due: it's also incredibly unproductive.

Amanda Terkel at HuffPo says the current Congress has passed just 219 bills so far this session, with only a week left in the year. They are about to win an award!

The 104th Congress (1995-1996) currently holds the ignominious distinction of being the least productive session of Congress, according to the U.S. House Clerk's Office, which has records going back to 1947. Just 333 bills became law during that two-year period, meaning the 112th Congress needs to send nearly 100 more bills to Obama's desk in the next few days if it wants to avoid going down in history — an unlikely prospect, considering that both chambers are squarely focused on averting the "fiscal cliff" before the new year.

The less those motherfuckers do, the better.

[HuffPo. Photo: AP]

The Story Behind the Stories You Loved This Year: Jay-Z Meets an Adorable Old Lady on the Subway

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The Story Behind the Stories You Loved This Year: Jay-Z Meets an Adorable Old Lady on the SubwayWhat happens behind the scenes at Gawker? We know you ask yourselves this question every single hour of every single day, and we don't blame you. We are fascinating. Sometimes we order sandwiches for lunch, and sometimes we order burritos. Sometimes we listen to music while we blog, and sometimes we do not. Sometimes Max Read picks his nose, but not always. With all this in mind, we're sharing with you our official "behind the blog post" backstories for all of the posts you clicked the shit out of this year. Next up: Jay-Z explains who he is to an old lady, world goes awww.

Jay-Z Rides the Subway, Adorably Explains Who He Is to an Adorable Old Lady

Originally Published: Dec. 4, 6:50 p.m.

Total Pageviews: 1,218,168

Posted by: Rich Juzwiak

The Backstory, from Rich Juzwiak:

I had spent the greater part of the day researching and writing at length about Ke$ha. I was vaguely aware of a Jay-Z documentary about his 8-show Barclays stint but I didn't have time to check it out. Emma reminded me toward the end of the day.

Emma: just watch that train convo
me: I'm right on top of that, Rose!
Emma: it's almost worth doing it's so adorable
me: Ooh nice
I will do it...
Emma: i mean, you decide
i think it's adorable

I excerpted that 50 seconds, threw it in our player, linked to the original, collaborated with Emma on the headline, and banged out a paragraph. The entire post took me less than 20 minutes and it received probably 10 times more traffic than anything I've done for Gawker by a lot. I'm still way prouder of the Ke$ha piece, though.

Adorable.

To revisit the time Jay-Z and Ellen Grossman won over the world, click here.


It All Makes Sense Now: Kate Winslet's Marriage to the Man with a Clown Name Earned Her a Trip to Space

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It All Makes Sense Now: Kate Winslet's Marriage to the Man with a Clown Name Earned Her a Trip to Space Remember when elegant British superstar Kate Winslet married a man who, like an idiot, changed his name to "Ned RocknRoll," and the whole world let out a collective, "Huh?" Today comes news that clarifies everything: Winslet's wedding gift, courtesy of RocknRoll's billionaire uncle, Richard Branson, is a trip to space. See? Doesn't this all make a lot more sense now?

According to the U.K. Sun, Branson intended to gift Winslet a seat aboard the outer space flight after the actress rescued his 90-year-old mother from a house fire at his Necker Island property last year. However, RocknRoll suggested Branson use the ticket as a wedding gift, which the Virgin tycoon has done.

I'd marry pretty much anyone for a trip to space, even someone who actually believes it's rebellious—and not eminently pathetic—to change your last name to "RocknRoll." Good for Kate, who will share her trip to space with, amongst others, Ashton Kutcher and Russell Brand. Ha ha. That part actually sounds terrible, but still: SPACE!

[Image via AP]

As If Dentists Weren't Scary Enough: Dental Drill Comes Loose, Falls Down Patient's Throat

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As If Dentists Weren't Scary Enough: Dental Drill Comes Loose, Falls Down Patient's Throat

A 60-year-old woman undergoing dental implant surgery at a Swedish hospital learned the hard way that visits to the dentists never end well when the dental drill being used on her came loose and slid down her throat.

"She tried to spit it out, and was made to cough, but she'd already swallowed," Västmanland County Hospital's medical chief Per Weitz told The Local.

The 1.1" drill subsequently became lodged in her right lung, requiring an emergency bronchoscopy to remove it. "A pinky-sized tube was sent into her lung with a small camera and pliers to grab hold of the drill," Weitz said.

The procedure was successful, and the unnamed patient was discharged the following day. She was able to fully recover within a month.

The hospital has since instituted some changes to its protocol the prevent future incidents.

"What we've done at the clinic is to make sure everyone double checks that the drill is attached properly, and we've also introduced a routine of testing the drill in the air. That should be done before every procedure now," said Weitz, who could have left well enough alone, but decided to conclude by adding, "Unfortunately, drills are going to be dropped every now and then."

Oh, and here's a fun fact: Sweden practically invented modern dental implantology, so there's another comforting thought.

[photo via Shutterstock]

Hobby Lobby Willing to Pay a Million Dollars a Day to Avoid Providing Employees with Coverage for Emergency Contraception

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Hobby Lobby Willing to Pay a Million Dollars a Day to Avoid Providing Employees with Coverage for Emergency Contraception

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the craft store chain Hobby Lobby and its sister-company Mardel must provide employees with access to copay-free contraception as part of its health-care plan while it continues its legal battle to be exempted from the federal mandate on religious grounds.

Back in September, Hobby Lobby's conservative Christian owners filed a lawsuit in federal court asserting that the Obamacare provision requiring the company to provide employees with no-cost coverage for emergency contraception such as the so-called "morning-after pill" violated their freedoms of religion and speech.

"We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate," Hobby Lobby founder and CEO David Green said then.

Following the Supreme Court ruling this week, an attorney on behalf of the Green family released a statement saying the company plans to defy the law, even if that means racking up as much as $1.3 million a day in fines.

"They're not going to comply with the mandate," said Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty general counsel Kyle Duncan. "They're not going to offer coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in the insurance plan."

Asked about the possibility that Hobby Lobby would be required to pay significant fines for disregarding the mandate, Duncan would only say, "we're just going to have to cross that bridge when we come to it."

It's worth noting that the morning-after pill does not induce abortions.

[H/T: ThinkProgress, photo via AP]

Woman at Center of India's Gang-Rape Scandal Dies in Hospital

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Woman at Center of India's Gang-Rape Scandal Dies in Hospital

The 23-year-old woman who was savagely gang-raped by a group of men aboard a bus in South Delhi died early Saturday morning at a hospital in Singapore.

The victim — nicknamed "India's Daughter" by the local press — had undergone three operations in a Delhi hospital before being flown to Singapore for additional treatment.

Sadly, she remained in extremely critical condition since being admitted to Mount Elizabeth Hospital, and eventually succumbed to severe physical trauma.

The gang rape which led to the woman's fatal injuries occurred on December 16th in the Indian capital.

The woman and a male friend, returning home from seeing the Life of Pi, boarded a nearly empty public bus and were confronted by six drunk men who proceeded to beat them both.

The men raped the woman for an hour, and at one point reportedly inserted an iron rod into her body, which caused massive internal damage.

The two victims were eventually stripped naked and thrown from the still-moving bus.

Police later apprehended six men in connection with the attack.

News of the horrific crime led to daily demonstrations and calls for stricter sexual assault laws in a country where violence against women is rampant and often unreported.

[photo via AP]

Boobs, Feuds, Freakouts and Fahts: 2012 In Trashy TV

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Above is a five-minute clip reel of many of the things that aired on TV this year that made me almost pee myself. These are over-the-top and entirely out of context, so if you want a little more background, you can check out the original posts (or, in the few cases that a clip was not yet posted on this site, the source material). Full list follows:

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