by Daniel Robert Epstein

“The more uncomfortable someone is with something, the more uncomfortable I have to make them.”
– Selma Blair

I figured that Selma Blair would be a pretty cool chick. She’’s not some bloated and pretentious movie star that only does movies set in the 16th century or biographies of the first women to walk on the moon. Instead Blair does nutty independent films like Storytelling with Todd Solondz. Her big budget studio film Hellboy has the added factor of geek director, Guillermo del Toro. Plus any woman who gets married to a Zappa in Carrie Fisher’s Beverly Hills mansion has got to have an awesomely cool aura. Her latest flick is A Dirty Shame, in which she plays the big titted go-go dancer Ursula Udders who has fallen under the spell of Ray-Ray the sex god of Baltimore.

Read our interview with Selma Blair on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

“It hits me as a filmmaker because when you are allowed to make a film with a lot of control it’’s a very intimate experience.”
– Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne is the handsome young director of the films Citizen Ruth, Election and About Schmidt. His latest picture is Sideways, starring Paul Giamatti and Payne’’s wife Sandra Oh.

Sideways is the story of Miles Raymond [Paul Giamatti], a failed writer who teaches junior high school English. He takes his best friend, former hot actor Jack [Thomas Haden Church] on a weeklong drive up to wine country in California. There they explore the nature of their failures and question their relationships. Jack, who’s about to get married, has an affair and wonders whether he should call it off. Miles, recently divorced, questions whether or not he made the right choice.

Read our interview with Alexander Payne on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

“As long as we enjoy playing music together, then that’s what I want to do.”
– Gary Powell

The Libertines have had a tough time during the past couple of years. After breaking out with their first song, “What a Waster,” they quickly descended into a Behind the Music-like hell when their frontman Pete Doherty became a heavy drug addict, nearly causing the breakup of the band.

But that’s all behind them now; They’’re releasing their latest self-titled album and it’’s their best one yet. I got a chance to talk with Libertines drummer Gary Powell.

Read our interview with Gary Powell on SuicideGirls.com.

A.J. Focht

CW’s show Arrow based on the Green Arrow from DC comics will be premiering next week on October 10. Before it premiers, catch a first look at the story of Oliver Queen’s return after five years exiled on an island. There is also a first look at Kelly Hu as China White. Jessica de Gouw, who is playing The Huntress, talked about the difficulties with the role, citing she researched the comics for her role.

Thor is Marvel’s premier fantasy based title. The movie blended the fantasy element with reality, and the sequel, Thor: The Dark World, is set to delve even deeper into the fantasy side. It has recently been announced the film will take place across all nine realms, not just Earth and Asgard. Producer Kevin Fiege hopes the studio’s choice to go with Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor will pay off in bring out the fantasy element. Thor: The Dark World is scheduled for November 8, 2012.

Superman is returning to the silver screen on June 14, 2013 in Man of Steel. “What Christopher Nolan and I have done with Superman is try to bring the same naturalistic approach that we adopted for the Batman trilogy. We always had a naturalistic approach, we want our stories to be rooted in reality, like they could happen in the same world we live in. It’s not that easy with Superman, and actually this doesn’t necessarily mean we will make a dark movie. But working on this reboot we are thinking about what would happen if a story like this one actually happened. How would people react to this? What impact would the presence of Superman in the real world have?” – Collider

A few months back, I reported there were talks of remaking The Munsters into a new show called Mockingbird Lane. It’s sad news with Halloween around the corner, but it looks like the series will not happen after all. The pilot was directed by Bryan Singer and starred Jerry O’Connel, Portia de Rossi, and Eddie Izzard as the Grandpa. NBC axed the show reportedly due to its ‘high-concept premise.’

On a final note, Stan Lee, in an effort to be more like Tony Stark, has had an electronic pacemaker put in. Lee took a short break from his convention schedules last week, and announced the news on Twitter. Lee comments that the pacemaker is “to insure that he’ll be able to lead thee for another 90 years.” I for one am glad the Generalissimo is doing well, and hope that whatever incidents that led to this (besides wanting to emulate Tony Stark) are now all fixed.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

“I love the idea that masochism is a reincarnation of prudery.”
– Bill Condon

Bill Condon is the Oscar winning screenwriter and director of Gods and Monsters which was released to great acclaim in 1998 and launched Ian McKellan as a legitimate film actor. Since then Condon wrote Chicago and finally brought to light his long gestating project, Kinsey, which is a look at the life of Alfred Kinsey, a pioneer in the area of human sexuality research, whose 1948 publication Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was one of the first recorded works that saw science address sexual behavior.

Read our interview with Bill Condon on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

“I like to work a lot but I like it even better when I’’m not working.”
– Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek is one of the most beautiful women on earth.

I was very pleased to find that not only is Salma what I wrote above but she is also highly intelligent, and, even though she struggles with her English sometimes, she is very articulate. Certainly more articulate than homegrown Americans like Marisa Tomei and Abel Ferrara.

Though she’’s been in straightforward comedies like Kevin Smith’’s Dogma and the romantic comedy Fools Rush In, After the Sunset is the first time she has ever mixed her beauty and comedic skills perfectly. When we spoke I asked her about watching a movie and she started to talk about how she analyzes the technical side of a movie. I remembered that this is a multi-talented woman because she stars in one or two movies a year but then in 2003 she directed the film, The Maldonado Miracle.

After the Sunset begins where most action capers end – with master thieves Max and Lola [Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek] escaping to a tropical paradise to enjoy the spoils of their labor. The thieves are content to settle into their new life after crime, until their nemesis from the FBI [Woody Harrelson] tracks them down, convinced that their “retirement” is actually a cover for their true intentions of pulling off a million-dollar heist on a nearby “diamond cruise.” The allure of the alleged scheme captures Max and Lola’s attention and sets off a cat and mouse game of friendship, suspicion, and thievery.

Read our interview with Salma Hayek on SuicideGirls.com.

by Damon Martin

Over the past four seasons, Sons of Anarchy has been a show that has developed its cast along with its storylines. Creator Kurt Sutter has always created formidable villains inside and outside of the outlaw motorcycle club, but for Season 5 he upped the ante when introducing all new big bad Damon Pope.

Described as the biggest gangster in Oakland, Pope’s name was first introduced at the end of Season 4 when enforcer Tig Trager took out his daughter accidentally when gunning for the leader of a rival gang. Now, Pope wants payback and he’s getting it with devastating results, with all of the members of SAMCRO falling victim.

Veteran actor Harold Perrineau, who portrays Damon Pope, has worked for some of the best show-runners and directors in all of Hollywood, but he knew he had to be ready when stepping onto a set headed up by someone with the presence of Kurt Sutter.

“I’ve been saying this all along that I need to show up and know my lines because Kurt Sutter, he writes the shit out of that show. I’m really glad everybody really liked it, but that first episode Damon Pope is no joke,” Perrineau said in a recent interview with SuicideGirls.

The first episode officially put a face to the name Damon Pope, and his reaction when coming head-to-head with the man who killed his daughter was nothing less than incendiary.

With his enemy Trager tied up in chains, Pope revealed that he had kidnapped his daughter and put her in a pit alongside several other victims. After dousing her with gasoline, Dawn Trager awoke, but only for a few seconds, before Pope stared at her father and said, “Know my pain,” as he tossed his lit cigar into the pit, burning the young girl alive.

In his veteran career, Pope had seen a lot and acted in some very tough and even disturbing scenes, but even he was taken back when he read the script to the first episode he would appear in as the ominous Damon Pope.

“Kurt and I had the conversation after I got the job, and he said ‘listen, your character’s going to do some heinous things. Don’t judge it, hopefully just go with us.’ I was like, ‘I was in prison in Oz, on Lost on the island, you probably couldn’t scare me with anything,’ and that first thing I was like ‘Oh my god!’. I was flipped out as soon as I read it. I was like here we go,” said Perrineau.

We’re now well into Season 5, and Pope hasn’t slowed down with his systematic destruction of the Sons of Anarchy. Perrineau promises that burning a girl alive may seem harsh, but that’s nothing compared to what’s ahead.

“Without giving away anything, he’s definitely a different character. It was really interesting when I got the gig, and people asked me if I knew how to ride bikes, and if I looked really cool on a bike. I said ‘You won’t see Damon Pope on a bike.’ When you do see Damon Pope you’ll know why,” Perrineau stated. “So this is a different kind of monster for SAMCRO and it’s going to be tough for them to deal with him. All I can say after the first episode is it just gets worse.”

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