In Sam (Spider-man, the Evil Dead trilogy) Raimi’s terrifying and socio-economically topical Drag Me To Hell, opening today, Justin Long plays professor Clay Dalton, the supportive but skeptical boyfriend of Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), an ambitious bank loan officer. Brown and Dalton’s idyllic life together goes to Hell when Christine gets cursed by infernal visions, after denying a desperate old lady an extension on her home loan.
In a funny and frank conversation, Long (the star of Apple’s popular “I’m a Mac” commercials — and Drew Barrymore’s former fiancé) discusses the scatological lengths to which he was willing to go to play the male lead in Raimi’s return to horror.
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Toronto-based fiction writer Ibi Kaslik has today received a Trillium Book Award nomination, for her second novel, The Angel Riots, released in March 2008. DRIVEN’s editorial personnel are unabashed fans of the book; it was an honour when Kaslik agreed to interview 2008 Giller Prize-winning author Joseph Boyden for our December issue (read it here: pp38-42).
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The moment actress Angie Dickinson flashed her Detective Pepper Anderson I.D. badge in the very first episode of the seminal 1970s cop series Police Woman, female crime-fighters would never be portrayed the same way again on the small screen. In separate conversations with Earl Dittman, two of modern television crime-fighters, The Closer’s Kyra “One degree of Kevin Bacon” Sedgwick and Law and Order: SVU’s Mariska “I feel sorry for Tom Cruise” Hargitay, talk about their shows’ respective “Daughters of Dickinson.” Plus, a special crime & punishment-themed edition of this week’s DVDs, all after the jump.
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Cover albums are seldom considered to be serious works. More often than not, they’re rightly viewed as stopgaps, or at worst, pointless vanity projects. Occasionally, though, they serve as defining moments in an artist’s career, boldly charting a path forward by way of carefully chosen footnotes from years past.
When I See the Sun Always Shines on TV is one such album. While it’s far from the first offering by Toronto doom-gazer duo Nadja, which has been regularly dishing out discs since 2003, this eight-song paean to the group’s songwriting heroes is so poised for acceptance that it will probably serve as their entrance music for a legion of new fans.
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The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have renounced violence permanently (as reported by the BBC, hat tip to Doug Saunders in the Globe and Mail), and plan to pursue their goals of Tamil self-determination through democratic means.
Coincidentally, this change in strategy comes at a time when violence has proven to be a spectacular failure for the organization, but the statement does seem more categorical than, say, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams’ comments earlier this year regarding violence as tactic in the conflict Northern Ireland.
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After breathing new life into Bruce Wayne and the Caped Crusader in the Batman film series (with a little help from director Christopher Nolan) the British-born, former child star Christian Bale (Empire Of The Sun) is taking on another pop culture icon, John Connor, in Terminator Salvation.
In a candid chat with Earl Dittman, the intensely private actor discusses why he wanted to become a part of director McG’s revamped vision of the Terminator, shares his thoughts about the franchise’s earlier cinematic incarnations, tells what it was like meeting a certain legendary star-turned-politician, and explains his behavior on the Terminator Salvation set and why he wouldn’t want be stranded on a desert island with either Batman or John Connor.
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One of those reduced-size single-cup coffee makers arrived in the DRIVEN penthouse, and it has drastically changed the office java dynamics.
The Keurig Mini B30 is one of those small-footprint, single-cup makers which take a pre-packaged coffee tub (in this case, called a “K-Cup”) to make a single serving of joe. I have not used such a device before, but around the DRIVEN offices, coffee is often a hot, but more-often luke-warm, topic, and the Mini has improved our caffeine flow considerably.
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Historical-drama veteran Tom Cruise looks to take more than an eye for an eye in Valkyrie, a film based on a true story about a small group of German politicians’ and military leaders’ assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler (out on DVD and Blu-Ray this week). Cruise talks to Earl Dittman about his portrayal of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the controversy surrounding the film’s production in Germany, and the importance of WWII films today. Plus: this week’s DVDs and Blu-Rays, all after the jump.
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This is the second album in the New York Dolls second recording incarnation, and original 1973 producer Todd Rundgren is back in the producer’s seat. Though the youthful exuberance and genre-defying rock’n’roll assault have been lost in a long-forgotten stream of dollar mascara, they have nonetheless been replaced with a headmaster’s maturity and dignity.
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With director JJ. Abrams’ cinematic reboot of the Star Trek motion picture franchise a confirmed success, Trekkies, Trekkers and even mere mortals may want to refamiliarize themselves with the Treks of old. To help in that ongoing mission, Earl Dittman spoke to both Leonard Nimoy and Patrick Stewart about their respective Trek tenures.
You’ll find those chats after the jump, along with the lowdown on several new Star Trek collections out on DVD and Blu-Ray — some comprehensive, some selective — chronicling the intergalactic missions of the crews from the Original Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the first six motion pictures.
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