by Garrett Faber

Scottish author Irvine Welsh is so cool that he had the audacity to stand up David Bowie, twice. Think about that for a second. Welshy has an imagination like a hydrogen bomb; He is the brilliant mind behind such classics as Trainspotting, Porno, Glue, Filth, The Acid House, and my personal favorite, Maribou Stork Nightmares. But he is not the bad-boy that his reputation might suggest. He’s smooth as a con-man – witty, wise, sarcastic, and cunning. Plus, he once survived falling down a fire escape… what’s not cool about that? He’s a great guy, an honorable man and it was a pleasure to interview him. His most recent book is a sweet collection of short stories, titled If You Liked School You’ll Love Work. Seriously, is there anything he can’t do?

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by Blogbot

“I like horror movies, that’s all I really wanted to do,” said filmmaker turned Millionaire Matchmaker Destin Pfaff when SuicideGirls first spoke to him just over a year ago. “I was so against getting sidetracked. And she sidetracked me – magically,” he said of his reality TV star boss, Patti Stanger.

However, 2011 is the year Pfaff gets seriously back on track. His first full-length feature film, Sushi Girl, has just gone into production, and he was kind enough to invite SuicideGirls onto the Universal Studios set.

Co-written and produced by Pfaff, the title of the film refers to the female that serves as the centerpiece of a reunion dinner for members of a gang who we’re involved in an ill-fated diamond heist. The title role is played by newcomer Cortney Palm, who will be featured shortly in a special SG/Sushi Girl photo set.

The cast also features an eclectic and surprising mix of names, which includes Mark Hamill, a.k.a. Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, Noah Hathaway, who played Atreyu in Neverending Story, and Sonny Chiba, whose breakout role was that of Takuma Tsurugi in the martial arts classic, The Street Fighter.

Chiba is the stuff of legend, perhaps being one of the greatest living exponents of the fighting arts. A personal hero of Quentin Tarantino’s, The Street Fighter found his next generation audience as Hattori Hanzo in Kill Bill Vol 1. Unlike Bruce Lee, who shrouded his work in mysticism, Chiba has never been shy about showing extreme aggression.

In Sushi Girl, Chiba plays a sushi chef with an agenda that goes way beyond slicing seafood and moulding rice. Though holding back on the specifics of the twist in Chiba’s fishy tale, the filmmakers promise us the method in which he dispenses with his enemies will have more kick than a wasabi rush.

The day of our set visit, Friday March 11, also coincided with the tragic Tōhoku earthquake that devastated Japan. It was therefore with very mixed feelings that Chiba, who lives just south of Tokyo in Japan’s second largest city Yokohama, walked on set.

We met up with Chiba in his trailer for a brief chat, which was conducted with the help of a translator:

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by Fred Topel

We all know product placement happens in movies. You see the results when a can of Coke is seen in a shot instead of a generic soda, or a corporate logo comes into focus in a scene played out in Times Square.

The existence of product placement is not a mystery or scandal, but Morgan Spurlock wanted to put it to a real test. Big budget movies like Iron Man can command huge numbers for fast food endorsement deals. But could Spurlock finance an indie documentary on product placement alone?

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by Fred Topel

Director Tom Shadyac is playing up the fact that the director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective has made a philosophical documentary. It shouldn’t be such a shock to people. Anyone deserves a voice in matters of humanity, and someone who’s already in touch with how to inspire laughter and happiness doubly so.

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by Keith Daniels

Dr. Steven Novella eats, sleeps, and breathes science. An academic clinical neurologist by day at the Yale University of Medicine, he spends much of the rest of his time promoting science and rationality through the massively popular weekly podcast he hosts, The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, his own blog, Neurologica, and the influential blog he founded, Science-Based Medicine. He is also the President and co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society.

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by Jay Hathaway

While so many music icons seem to fade away without dignity or creative energy to speak of, David J has plenty of both, and he doesn’t look to fade away any time soon. David is best known as the bassist for the influential British bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. But with Bauhaus coming to a well-publicized end (their final album, Going Away White, came out this month), David is setting off in a new direction.

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by Erin Broadley

[Above: Video Exclusive Part One]

It was the summer of 1976 in Los Angeles and The Ramones were playing second bill to the Flamin’ Groovies at The Roxy. Across the pond, The Sex Pistols were still months away from achieving everlasting infamy by calling their host a “fucking rotter” while live on British TV. Meanwhile, in a Kentucky Fried Chicken parking lot off Third Street in LA’’s Fairfax District, an 11-year-old Marc Canter caught his fellow classmate, Saul Hudson (a.k.a. a just about teenage Slash of Guns N’’ Roses), suspiciously eyeballing Canter’s mini-bike parked outside. “In those days there was a lot of bike stealing. “I was one of the thieves, I know, ” Slash laughs. “”It’’s quite possible I was thinking about taking off with it because I used to be like that back then. Anyhow, that’’s how [Marc and I] met and we’ve been friends ever since.””

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