By Edward Kelly
Consider it Conversation Starting 101. To get a group’s attention you need to know three things: what does everyone like, what do some members of the group like, what do some members of the group dislike. And then make some wild claim as though it were fact. For example: You see a bunch of 20-year-old dudes sitting around a coffee shop table. They are all wearing hoodies, jeans and sneakers. Most of them sport facial hair or at least attempts (deliberate or otherwise) at facial hair. It’s safe to assume that these guys have opinions about Star Wars.
I mean, maybe they aren’t hardcore nerds, but even if they say “it sucks” or “the prequels suck” or “Empire is better than Jedi” then you know that they’ll have a conversation for at least ten minutes. It’s just a fact – a fact because Star Wars is a cultural touchstone. Ten minute debate, easy. If you really want to stir the pot, then you pull Conversation Starting 102 and say, “Y’know, when you think about it… Hayden Christensen was the perfect choice to play young Anakin.” Suddenly ten minutes become an hour.
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by Jay Hathaway
“Maybe the mustache will ultimately prove a useful analog for the music.”
– Chris Cain, bassist
We Are Scientists are known for making straightforward pop-rock, but they’re not known for giving straightforward answers in interviews. I didn’t want to be the millionth person to ask “Are you really scientists?,” so I set out to find the answer on my own. After reading through several conflicting accounts of the band’s various areas of scientific expertise, I finally found the answer. A piece from the college magazine at Pomona, the California school where the band originally formed, revealed that guitarist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain weren’t actually science majors of any sort. Well played, guys.
Needless to say, We Are Scientists like to keep people guessing. They first broke out in the UK with 2005’s formidable collection of indie-pop, With Love and Squalor. The 2008 follow-up, a less upbeat but more lyrically complex record called Brain Thrust Mastery, also climbed the British charts. A predictable band would stick with a major label and put out another album following the same formula. This is no predictable band.
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by Fred Topel
“People’s wildest dreams are about to be answered.”
– Linda Blair
The Exorcist is considered the scariest movie of all time. Generations cowered before VHS copies, and new audiences got to see an updated version which retained the infamous upside down spider-walk in 2000. Now on Blu Ray, both versions of the film are re-mastered in high definition, and are packaged with a bonus behind the scenes documentary about the making of the film.
Linda Blair played Regan MacNeil, the teenaged girl possessed by a demon. She famously floated over the bed and her head spun 360 degrees with the help of old school special effects that still look better than any CGI creation. She then returned to the franchise for the critically panned Exorcist II: The Heretic and, in 1990, a spoof of The Exorcist called Repossessed (Leslie “Naked Gun” Nielsen was the comedy priest.)
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By Matt Dunbar
In a depressingly pointless attempt to integrate the two activities occupying most of my time these days – Politico and Hulu (yes, I’ve excluded pin-up sites and pornography) – I’ve created a crib sheet for the political sympathies of the characters on The Office. Reflecting on the exercise, I am not only ashamed at how unnecessarily nuanced the analysis is, but also extremely disheartened that I actually spent a good hour designing a ven diagram representing Andy’s politicial socialization at Cornell.
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by Nicole Powers
“You can’t keep a good dog down.”
– John Lydon
John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) says he doesn’t like tattoos, but try not to hold that against him. If I’d been calling in on behalf of a golf magazine, he’d probably tell me how much he’s offended by the sport. Not because he’s disagreeable — he really isn’t — but because first and foremost, above all else, the OG punk rocker is a provocateur and contrarian.
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by Blogbot
On October 14th, CSI creator Anthony E. Zuiker will unleash a new Level 26 serial killer. Picking up where his first digi-novel*, Dark Origins, left off, Dark Prophecy follows Special Circs investigator Steve Dark, who this time finds his destiny entwined with that of the Tarot Card Killer.
In the run up to the book’s release, the SuicideGirls community has been invited to participate in a very special mystery. Follow the clues (pictured), and visit this link, and fate may lead you to what Zuiker promises will be “some kind of cool surprise.”
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by Ryan Stewart
“Their relationship is tender, and also drenched in blood.” – ”
– Matt Reeves
Tomas Alfredson’s brilliant Let the Right One In, which made SuicideGirls’ distinguished Top Ten Films of 2008 list, is no less brilliant for having been remade as Let Me In, the Americanized version in theaters this week. In fact, the exquisite direction of the remake by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) has earned it surprisingly good reviews from critics still enamored with the original, and sparked a debate in some quarters about which version is the definitive one. Whichever you prefer, the very fact of this dark story now having been positively received twice in two years is proof of its poignancy and emotional heft. With the action moved from an apartment block in Sweden to the creepy suburb of Los Alamos, New Mexico, Let Me In retells the story of Oskar (now called Owen), a shy, possibly disturbed young boy who is seeking a respite from severe school bullying when a savior appears: a quiet, severe-looking girl named Eli (now called Abby), who teaches him to stand up for himself in exchange for nothing more than his companionship, at first.
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