Who killed the movie star? The past year has seen more falling stars than the skies above Roswell. Since 2007, with the notable exception of Will Smith, whose upcoming tent-pole flick Hancock is enjoying some of the best prerelease buzz of any summer film, virtually every star of note has tanked at the box office, sending a collective shiver down the industry’s spine — Radar

From Mao to Wow. Just as many of New York City’s most iconic landmarks rose in breathtakingly brief succession a century ago, Beijing has been re-inventing itself since 2001 with a rush of showstopping buildings by internationally renowned architects. — Salon

Mahmoud the Fauxtographer. Noted document debunker Charles Johnson has noticed something peculiar about one of Iran’s bits of official propaganda following Wednesday’s missile launch. Unless Iranian missile exhaust tends to form remarkably regular patterns, someone’s been busying himself with the clone tool. — Suitably Flip

Gordon Brown, you brooding thing. Move over Stalin and Mr Bean: the figure Gordon Brown most resembles is Heathcliff, the brooding romantic anti-hero of Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights. In an interview with the New Statesman, it was put to the British PM that he reminded women of Heathcliff because of his intensity. “Absolutely correct,” replied Brown, before adding: “Well, maybe an older Heathcliff; a wiser Heathcliff.” — GQ