by Erin Broadley

Ghost towns have a bad reputation: Shop doors creak, saloons swirl with phantoms of unloved prostitutes, rotting jail cells are haunted by remorseless outlaws, and the dusty streets are patrolled by spirits of hardened deputies.

For some, ghost towns are merely creepy roadside attractions; for others they are American landmarks brimming with history’s shadows and latent inspiration. The abandoned mining settlement of Jerome, Arizona is one of the oldest and largest American ghost towns. Until recently, its roads lay ruined and its doors were boarded up. It quietly waited for some headstrong thrill-seeker to dust it off and polish its potential. Now a vibrant artist community, Jerome is the place that Maynard James Keenan calls home.

[..]

by Alex Dueben

Cameron Stewart is a familiar name to comics fans. He has been working in the industry for years, but it was 2004’s Seaguy, a Vertigo miniseries from writer Grant Morrison, that put him on the map. Since then there have been several more of high profile projects including a sequel to Seaguy entitled Seven Soldiers: Guardian, a story arc on Batman and Robin (also written by Grant Morrison), and the Vietnam War miniseries, The Other Side (with Weapon X writer Jason Aaron).

[..]

by Sash Suicide

[..]

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?

[..]

by SG’s Team Agony feat. Morgan and Fabrizia

Let us answer life’s questions – because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.

Q:So my (ex) best friend had spent these past three years trying to get her ex-boyfriend back, and she did. I wasn’t happy about it because I had so much hate towards him because he did nothing but hurt her. Well two months ago my friend left town for a couple of days and her boyfriend started texting me, and for some (stupid) reason I texted him back. We texted all day, talked all night, and I went over to his house every so often just to talk and get to know him better. I started realizing he wasn’t an asshole like I thought.

Now I realize I was stupid for ever talking to him. I know I don’t deserve her forgiveness, but I at least want her to know that I’m sorry and that even though she hates me I still care about her. I just wanna know how…Any ideas?

[..]

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:

[..]

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?

[..]