by Fred Topel

“This film is really my way of saying we’ve had enough.”
- Nadine-Labaki

Nadine Labaki is my kind of woman. A Lebanese filmmaker, Labaki has lived life and experienced war and tragedy, so the perspective in her art is perceptive and philosophical. Certainly not superficial. You would think coming from a conflicted region, Labaki’s films would be serious and perhaps difficult to take. She actually makes comedies. Her first film, Caramel, was a romantic comedy. Her second, Where Do We Go Now?, is a comedy about religious conflict between Christians and Muslims.

How can such a subject be funny? Well, Where Do We Go Now? opens with a procession of Muslim women marching and swaying in rhythm, so you know there’s something different here. The men of their unnamed village are always on the brink of fighting. The women do everything they can to distract the men, from drowning out news broadcasts to bussing in a group of bikini models. With a light touch, Labaki gets people thinking and talking about important matters. Speaking with her in person was equally impressive. Though she was from the other side of the world, she spoke my language both literally (English) and spiritually. We had a gentle conversation about the culture and film making of Lebanon.

Read our exclusive interview with Nadine-Labaki on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

Tristan Taormino is best known for having one of the most famous assholes in the world. She is one of the foremost experts on anal sex and sex in general. That’’s why she was the best person to edit the Best Lesbian Erotica anthology.

Read our exclusive interview with Tristan Taormino on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

In the movies Tilda Swinton comes off very angel-like and that’’s not a pun for Hellblazer fans. She seems very delicate with a strong touch of pathos, though in person she’’s warm, sweet, very funny and all business. But I suppose when an actor has sheparded a passion project for five years like Swinton did with Thumbsucker you need to be that way sometimes.

Swinton plays Audrey Cobb, a woman with two children. At the age of 17 her son, Justin, still sucks his thumb. She wonders how she could possibly be grownup with a son going to college. In her early 40s, she is, like Justin, struggling to find out who she is and to accept her shortcomings. As a mother she knows that she doesn’t have all the answers to Justin’s troubles, and that she is sometimes too busy dealing with her own doubts to help him. Audrey hides from these realities through an obsession with a TV heartthrob, Matt Schraam [Benjamin Bratt], whose TV character seems to have all the neat answers.

Read our exclusive interview with Tilda Swinton on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

To music purists nothing is scarier than when a legendary artist embraces new technology. I still talk to people who think Bob Dylan lost it when he went electric. Certainly DJ Sasha surprised everyone and angered many when he decided that he was going to be doing his live shows using the Ableton Live software with a custom-built Maven midi controller and an Apple G4 laptop. SG got a chance to talk with Sasha about using those tools to play live and how it affected his new album, Fundacion NYC.

Read our exclusive interview with Sasha on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

Jodie Foster is one of the best actors planet Earth has ever given birth to. Her two Oscars, her performances that haven’’t been nominated for anything and the two brilliant films she’’s directed all attest to that.

Now she’s starring in the new thriller Flightplan, which is about a recently widowed woman who is flying her husband’’s corpse back to America in a giant plane she partially designed. Her daughter disappears on the plane and everyone seems to think the girl was never there in the first place.

Read our exclusive interview with Jodie Foster on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

Steve Martin is a god, not the G-d, but a god nonetheless. When I try to remember my childhood, I mostly come up with images of The Man with Two Brains and The Jerk. But in recent years, his work has turned to the more complex with such theater plays as Picasso at the Lapin Agile and the novella Shopgirl.

Next month Touchstone Pictures will release the film adaptation of Shopgirl with Martin writing, producing and starring. It tells the story of Mirabelle [played by Claire Danes] who oversees the rarely frequented glove counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. She is an artist struggling to keep up with even the minimum payment on her credit card and student loans. She keeps to herself until a rich, handsome fifty something named Ray Porter [Steve Martin] sweeps her off her feet. Simultaneously, Mirabelle is being pursued by Jeremy [Jason Schwartzman], a basic bachelor who’s not quite as cultured and successful as Ray.

Read our exclusive interview with Steve Martin on SuicideGirls.com.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

Johnny Depp always has been one of our favorite and best actors, but even he remembers his bad reputation. While we doing our interview a tray of glasses was dropped in another room with a loud crash. Johnny laughed and said, ““You saw me here. I couldn’’t have done it! I’’m going to get blamed for that.””

Even just using his voice in the stop-motion animated Corpse Bride, the power of Depp comes through. The movie is set in a 19th-century European village and follows the story of Victor [Johnny Depp], a young man who is whisked away to the underworld to wed a mysterious Corpse Bride [Helena Bonham Carter] – while his real bride, Victoria [Emily Watson], waits bereft in the land of the living.

Read our exclusive interview with Johnny Depp on SuicideGirls.com.