by Auren Suicide

Reuben Wu and (Bulgarian born) Mira Aroyo from the UK band Ladytron have been on a DJ tour in support of their newest album, Witching Hour (2005, Ryko/Universal). I called the very hip Jupiter Hotel in Portland to speak with them before a recent gig. When I asked the operator for Reuben Wu, in true hipster form the hipster operator was like “Ladytron! Cool!”

Read our exclusive interview with Mira Aroyo of Ladytron on SuicideGirls.com.

by Fred Topel

One great side effect of the “found footage” movie genre is that we get to discover new stars with each one. If they’re trying to pretend this is footage from someone’s camcorder, whether they’re lost in the woods or running from monsters, the actors have to look like people you wouldn’t recognize on the street.

Project X is a huge Warner Brothers movie and we’ve got an exclusive on the three stars. Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper and Jonathan Daniel Brown play three high schoolers who throw a party to improve their social reputation. The party gets out of hand with naked girls in the pool, people stuffed into ovens, cars driven into the water and a flame thrower.

Mann plays the host of the party, named Thomas after himself. Cooper plays Costa, the bad influence friend who insists the wildest extravagances will guarantee them hot girls, as if he knows. Brown plays JD, sort of the quiet one who goes along with everything, but in real life he did the most talking.

The three actors are working as a set, so I made it a foursome. When they were told a reporter from SuicideGirls was coming, Mann and Brown got excited. Thomas, you’re not old enough for a subscription, you naughty boy, but we appreciate the love.

Read our exclusive interview with Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper and Jonathan Daniel Brown on SuicideGirls.com.

by Fred Topel

If Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s TV show is Awesome, Great Job!, you know their movie has to be even bigger. So their movie is bigger than awesome, it’s Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie. However, the movie is not a collection of sketches like their TV show. Billion Dollar Movie is actually about Tim and Eric blowing a billion dollars filming an unreleasable movie. So to pay back the investors, they have to revamp a mall full of crazy stores to make it a billion dollar business. The film still breaks the fourth wall and takes breaks for weird sketches, but there’s sort of a plot in there.

Heidecker and Wareheim premiered Billion Dollar Movie at Sundance, promising the audience it had been de-Rango-ed, which I didn’t get. They actually had two films at the festival. Heidecker stars in the experimental film The Comedy, which is named ironically. Set in a community of hipsters in Williamsburg, New York, the film is a statement about hipsterism. Wareheim has a smaller part in The Comedy too.

Wareheim and Heidecker were understandably exhausted when they did interviews on Main Street. Not only had they had midnight screenings the night before, but they stayed for the Q&A (where the audience gets a chance to ask them questions) and their own after party. I, at least, skipped the Q&A to get some sleep and prepare questions. Both films were notorious, with many audience members walking out. The Shrim scene in Billion Dollar Movie was probably the breaking point for many. I don’t even want to describe what it is, just look it up.

Read our exclusive interview with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim on SuicideGirls.com.

by Fred Topel

Eric Schaeffer has a history with SuicideGirls. We interviewed him for his book, I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single, in 2007 and then featured him as a “sexpert” for a few weeks on the radio show. The author, TV producer, actor and filmmaker just released a new movie, After Fall, Winter so we got to reconnect.

Winter is the second in Schaeffer’s anticipated quartet, where every 15 years he will tell another story in Michael (Schaeffer)’s life. In Winter, Michael moves to France where he meets Sophie (Lizzie Brochere), who he doesn’t know is a professional dominatrix. Their manipulative relationship shifts as Michael explores masochism separately from Sophie.

A lot has happened for Schaeffer in the last five years. His dating blog tied to the release of his book became scandalous as women publicly challenged it. He’s also produced two more TV series and has another on the way. I’m sorry this interview becomes two guys complaining about dating. We felt each other’s pain, but came to a happy, hopeful place.

In fact, just before my phone call with Schaeffer, he’d reconnected with Betsy Fine, a girl he loved in 7th grade. She found him on Facebook and it turns out she’s a life coach, he’s researching a new show, Eric Schaeffer: Life Coach, so he spoke to her for research. She told him everything he imagines is true. So after Winter, there’s hope for Spring connections.

Read our exclusive interview with Eric Schaeffer on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

As a horror nut I first discovered Peter Jackson when Dead Alive was released on VHS tape back in the early 90’s. After viewing that first film I knew Jackson was destined to become one of the great filmmakers. I immediately saw his other works such as the Oscar nominated Heavenly Creatures and Meet the Feebles. When his first Hollywood film, The Frighteners, was going to be released I thought that the entire world was going to discover him then. But I was dead wrong because that film tanked. But as everyone knows, Jackson beat the odds and created a near perfect movie trilogy with the Lord of The Rings films.

Now Jackson is releasing his interpretation of the movie King Kong. He has kept the film set in the 1930’s and cast Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, Jack Black as a crazed filmmaker and Adrien Brody as the screenwriter whose jungle script takes them to deadly Skull Island. With King Kong, Jackson has created a spectacle that may change the world almost as much as the original Kong did back in 1933.

Read our exclusive interview with Peter Jackson on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

Jack Black is about ready to pop as a major movie star. He of course has his previous hit, School of Rock, but the release of Peter Jackson’’s reinterpretation of King Kong should send Black into the stratosphere. Black has nearly as much screen time as Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts.

Jack Black first came to notice as a character actor in such films as The Jackal, Mars Attacks! and The Cable Guy. But he is best known as one half, with Kyle Gass, of the humorous rock band Tenacious D, who had three legendary episodes on HBO and is set to release their first feature film next year.

Read our exclusive interview with Jack Black on SuicideGirls.com.

by Nicole Powers

“Presently analysing events of tonight at #OccupyLSX. Who needs sleep!” It’s 3:26 AM GMT on Tuesday, February 28, 2012, and John Cooper, Occupy London’s chief legal advisor is awake, on Twitter, and on the case following the movement’s eviction from their marquee St Paul’s Cathedral base.

The eminent barrister and Queen’s Counsel has worked tirelessly to keep the protesters in situ since the occupation began on Saturday, October 15, 2011. The battle the occupiers faced was made all the more complicated by the provenance of the site they were camping on, which straddles land owned both by the Church of England and by the City of London Corporation (a unique and ancient semi-private municipal authority which governs London’s square mile financial district).

When the first tent was pitched, even the most optimistic of Occupiers couldn’t have predicted the encampment would remain in tact over four months later, so Occupy London’s ultimate eviction from St. Paul’s can hardly be considered a defeat. An early attempt to remove protesters was thwarted when the Cathedral’s then Canon Chancellor, Giles Fraser, recognized the occupiers’ right to protest peacefully and asked the police to leave. Fraser’s actions would ultimately lead to his resignation following some rather public infighting between Church officials with conflicting affiliations and agendas.

With the Church distracted by its own internal disharmony and facing a public relations nightmare if it litigated against members of the very congregation it was supposed to serve, the powers that be at St. Paul’s – at least publicly – stepped aside and let the City of London Corporation spearhead eviction efforts through the courts. Following a hearing before Christmas, the High Court ruled in favor of the City on January 18, 2012. The occupation was granted a stay of execution pending a possible appeal, however, on February 22, three Court of Appeal judges declined to give Occupy London protesters permission to do so, setting the stage for this week’s eviction.

SuicideGirls caught up with John Cooper by phone shortly before the final ruling came down. Having butted heads with the UK establishment throughout his career (notably frustrating the ruling class’s thirst for blood sport thanks to a fox hunting prohibition act he penned), Cooper says his raison d’être is representing individuals and groups of individuals against the power of the state. A series of cases brought against the Ministry of Defense on behalf of the families of soldiers who had died in the theater of war due to unconscionably inadequate equipment earned him the honor of being short-listed as Human Rights Barrister of the Year in 2009. More recently, Cooper again gained notoriety in the halls of power when he represented those seeking to open an inquiry into the mysterious death of David Kelly, a Ministry of Defense weapons inspector who had embarrassed his employers by pointing out inconsistencies in their report on Iraq’s WMDs (or lack thereof).

Here Cooper gives an account of Occupy London’s David vs. Goliath fight, and outlines the numerous victories they have chalked up in the face of defeat. He also pragmatically comments on the changes he’d like to see in the law to fortify the battered and beleaguered rights to assembly and free speech.

Read our exclusive interview with John Cooper QC on SuicideGirls.com.