Patrick Swayze finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer yesterday at the age of 57. Reading some of the obits and tributes posted on the various news sites, it becomes clear that Swayze was the kind of actor/performer who really only existed on film. He had no political dimension, and, until he went public about his illness, no real personal one, either.

From CBC.ca:

“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,” said a statement released Monday evening in Los Angeles by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.

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Loosely based on the 1983 horror cult classic The House On Sorority Row, the Stewart Hendler-directed Sorority Row — starring a cast of Hollywood beauties including The Hills’ Audriana Patridge, Step Up 2 star Briana Evigan, Jamie Chung (Dragonball), Leah Piper (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) and The House Bunny costar Rumer Willis, daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore — has a pitch-black sense of humor that could slay a new generation of  horror fans.

After a seemingly harmless prank goes horribly wrong in Sorority Row and the frat sisters all agree to cover up the bloody death of one of their own, it’s not long before the girls of the Theta Pi fraternity house are gruesomely slaughtered, one-by-one. Willis claims that when it comes to contemporary big screen fright-fests, Sorority Row’s tongue-in-cheek approach to slasher/thriller-killer films elevates it into a class all its own. “What makes it so unique is that while someone is dying, someone else is making a joke about it,” Willis says. “So you’re still kind of freaked out from seeing someone die, but at the same time you start laughing at it … The intensity of the scenes get intermingled, so you never really know what you’re going to get.”

Raised far away from the bright lights of Hollywood on her family’s ranch in Idaho, Willis confesses she always felt the urge to follow in her parent’s footsteps. After small roles in Demi’s Striptease and Bruce’s Hostage, she landed a costarring role in last year’s comedy The House Bunny, which directly lead to her co-leading lady role in Sorority Row. “I don’t care how big my name is on the marquee, I just want be in films that are fun and that I can learn from — and Sorority Row fits the bill,” she admits. “It’s really scary but it also very witty.” And what do her celebrity parents think about the darkly comic thriller? “They haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure they’ll like it, they love everything you do,” Willis explains. “Honestly, the opinion I’ll be looking is from my little sister, Tallulah, who is 15. She’s the most opinionated and brutally honest of the bunch, so if she hates it, she’ll be like ‘Ru, it was terrible, why did you do it?’ But, if she likes it, then I know it’s a good movie.”

Since you are the film’s official screamer, how long did you have to practice until you got your scream perfect?

“Honestly, not much. Do you know what? It just kind of came up one day in rehearsal. We were there in the first week and we were really starting to get into the rehearsals of that first huge scene and I just sort of screamed and then I looked at everyone and I was like ‘Oooh, hey this works okay. Woah!’”

Did your voice get hoarse?

“We were shooting nights for about three weeks and after we shot the very beginning scene, we shot that for probably like two weeks and after every night I sounded a little bit like Kathleen Turner. I didn’t mind it, mind you, but you have to be careful because you if do it too hard you’ll have no voice. You won’t be able to talk.”

Didn’t all the girls have to scream at your auditions?

“Yeah, and it was always a little bit embarrassing when you come out of the room and everyone was like, ‘Oh, that was you?’ You’re like, ‘I’m sorry.’ People are staring at me.”

Were you worried about how sexy the film was going to go?

“No, not me. There’s definitely nakedness. It’s just not me.”

What’s more fun — the funny scenes, the sexy scenes or the scary scenes?

“I like all of it. I don’t know. When I did The House Bunny, I kind of realized how much harder comedy is. You don’t think comedy is that hard. People kind of just seem to come off it so quickly. Comedic timing is hard. I mean, all of the girls, though, the timing is so quick, and fortunately I’m stressing throughout the whole movie, I just have to act like I’m having a mental breakdown. It kind of ends up being funny on accident.”

Do you think the deaths in Sorority Row are pretty gruesome?

“Yeah, they’re pretty gory and brutal. But, they’re not brutal like Hostel, where faces get ripped off. That’s a little too much for me. At one point, I got nauseous for, like, two seconds. I just froze it looked so real. When you’re reading it in the script and then you actually see it with the noise and the sound you’re just like, ‘Ooh. I don’t know about that… Okay. Alright. I’m going to keep watching.’”

How did you react while watching the film?

“It’s really good, right? Girls kicking ass! You rarely see a horror film, especially where it’s the girls are taking charge and it’s not just the men going, ‘Alright, you stay here, I’ll be back with an axe and take care of it.’”

Do you have a favourite horror film?

“I like Alien. I don’t know, movies for me that get too… like, I don’t like bugs crawling under the skin — that really creeps me out. Do you know what I just saw? It scared the crap out of me but I don’t know if I loved it, it was Haunting In Connecticut.”

What are you working on now?

“I’m working on 90210 right now, doing a recurring guest star, so that’s really good. As of right now, I’m going to be doing my third one right after this, so I don’t know how long I’ll be on it.”

Sorority Row director, Stewart Hendler, says he was amazed that given that your parents [Bruce Willis and Demi Moore] and stepdad [Ashton Kutcher] are big celebrities, you didn’t come on the sense with a sense of entitlement. How do you stay so down-to-earth?

“Honestly, I feel it’d be so exhausting to do that, to just not be kind to people. When you’re on a set just because you’re in front of the screen doesn’t make you the most important person or mean that you should be treated any differently. Everybody else there is doing something just as important as you and without them what you’re doing isn’t possible.”

Did you mom and dad stress it as well or did you learn by example?

“I think, yeah, just more watching by example. Also, I didn’t grow up in LA, I grew up in Idaho, so I wasn’t really around that kind of thing…thank God.” [Laughs]

Canadian-born television and film veteran Joshua Jackson (Dawson’s Creek, The Skulls) has been entering homes weekly this past TV season as the star of the soon-to-return sci-fi hit Fringe.

In this chat, Jackson recalls the heatwave that hit his hometown of Vancouver during the Fringe filming season, jokes about having to attend DeVry University to make heads or tells of the fringe science unveiled on the show,  and explains why characters Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham are nothing like Fox Mulder and Dana Scully on The X-Files — a classic series to which Fringe has been compared to. Plus: this week on home video, all after the jump.

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Brooklyn-based guitar goddess Marnie Stern has a hard-earned rep for dazzling finger-tapping theatrics and hypnotic solos; she is that rarest of cases where the phrase “you have to see, to believe” applies. Despite a penchant for sonic Eddie Van Halenisms that lean more Math Rock than Metal — for that matter, more (Philip) Glass than Metal — Stern’s recording catalogue has been edging closer to pop accessibility with each subsequent LP. Her latest, 2008’s labyrinthinially titled This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That, was certainly a solid step in terms of alt.rock accessibility. The fact that she had a kissing booth on the tour didn’t hurt, either.

Your tour schedule is daunting — do you write new sounds on the road?

No. Never. Never. I couldn’t even. I can’t imagine trying to like, sing, with all of the people in the band. I don’t get a chance to. And that’s the one thing that I really don’t like about touring. I miss sitting in front of the computer every day, working. I use a totally different part of my brain when I’m doing a tour. I’m not even thinking about it.

What do you like about touring?

Well, it’s nice to be out and appreciating life. It’s nice to be out doing things.

Had you started playing live when you first started sending out demos?

Oh, yeah, I was playing all over NYC for years and years and years and years and years. It’s just no one was there.

I know that you felt like you were always struggling to find your voice, like that was the one thing that eluded you. Do you think you’ve found it?

I do, but I’m afraid of getting pigeonholed. It takes so long to find it, but then maybe you don’t want to get stuck in that formula.

How has your music evolved?

I certainly am more comfortable on stage now. But everything builds on top of the last thing. I was much more timid when I started, and I looked down the whole time, which I still do a little bit. But I know I feel much more comfortable on stage now than I used to. I’ll tell you, last night we played in Seattle, and people were sitting at their tables, eating dinner, and there were candles lit, and it was like, Vegas or something. I was really nervous on stage. Haven’t been that nervous in a long time.

It sounds like you were booked at a dinner theatre.

Yeah, I know! It wasn’t, but that’s what it felt like. I can’t gauge what everyone’s doing because they’re sitting and eating! Are they liking this, are they hating this… You can’t tell. Sorry. Side-track. What’s the next question?

Your songs are all positive in nature, at least on your two most recent records. Was that the case from the very beginning?

Always. Very intentional.

Why is that?

Because I’m bummed out so much. So I’m trying to pep myself up, and tell myself that everything’s gonna be good, because I like hearing people say that. Ha!

The latest record [pictured below] is much poppier, so now you’re really sending out positive vibes.

I agree, I think so too.

Will your next release be poppier still?

I don’t know. I feel odd about it, to tell you the truth. It just seems so extremely pop to me, but I don’t know. Who knows? I don’t know. You think, I think, ‘No, I’m sick of that, I’m not gonna do that.’ So for a week I’m doing something else, and then a tiny part comes from that week, and the next week, I kind of get back on another train. In the end, it’s all different thoughts coming together over months and months and months. I try not to judge anything because then I’ll filter myself and I can see my thought process going, ‘Don’t do this, you can’t do that,’ and that messes me up. It is what it is.

Marnie Stern images via sexydrugrock (live) and kirstiecat (portrait)

Gutsy axe-meistress Marnie Stern.

Roll model (pun intended) Jennifer Herrema, the driving force behind RTX.

Multi-project princess Amy Millan of Stars and Broken Social Scene, not to mention an upcoming second solo effort.

These women show more contrasts than commonalities — aside from unquestioned musical talent and double-X chromosomes, and the fact that DRIVEN admires each of them. Before you check out our interviews, try to guess which woman recently turned towards pop, which crashed a Jaguar, and which one  calls Europeans “really bad thieves.” (We’re inclined to forgive them these little transgressions, regardless.)

Both as one half of semi-legendary garage-sleaze duo Royal Trux (with then-partner Neil Hagerty) and as the original CKone girl, Jennifer Herrema was responsible for some of the most iconic music and imagery of the 1990s. Her latest project, RTX, embraces those roots while telling a much different story.

It’s been four years since you struck out on your own and formed RTX. Are you happy with how things have played out?

Yeah, it’s perfect. It creeps up on you. I never had an endgame in mind, but there’s always this thing up in my head that’s, like, ‘Let’s do this,’ and then when you look back, you realize that every step was a proper step because this is exactly where we wanted to be. If you keep this thing in your head, it just kinda pans out if you just follow the thing. That thing! [Laughs]

Do you see RTX taking any more experimental turns down the line, more akin to your work with Royal Trux?

Well, there’s never a conscious decision to veer off path. But as it is with genres, I feel like we’re still creating our own. It encompasses a lot of genres that have come before that we love and respect. We’re trying to define our own.

RTX is obviously a much more personal project for you than anything you’ve done before. It almost seems like if you had your druthers, this is what Royal Trux would have sounded like, too.

RTX is more of a product of being in Royal Trux and being me. It’s what I listened to growing up, and all the things that really had profound influences upon me. Those are very different from what Neil [Hagerty] grew up with, my partner in Royal Trux. So RTX takes the diplomacy out of it. It’s more straight-on.

You once compared RTX to [visual artist] Jeff Coons. What other non-musical influences do you channel?

He’s definitely one of ’em. I’m not lazy at all, but when it comes to creating stuff, I get a picture in my head and it’s not like I’m gonna sit there and create it and hammer it out. I like bringing influences together. I produce the whole thing, stage the whole thing. I know what I want the guitar to sound like, but I’m not gonna play it ’cause, fuck, I can’t play like that at all. I feel like a master of ceremonies in many respects, and I feel like that’s very much the way he operates as well.

You’ve done your share of modeling in the past. What draws you to that world?

It started with Steven Meisel and Calvin Klein. I was on the cover of some magazine, and he cast me for the CKone campaign. A couple years later he cast me again for the jeans and stuff, for commercials. I never went to an agency — I never did that — but there were different photographers who were interested in working with me, and they would cast me. Whenever I do that work I get to be myself; the models have to be so professional, everything perfect, toenails, fingernails, they can’t drink on the set… I can do whatever I want. I like that. It works out.

The kind of music that you make — both now, and back in the ’90s — is not commercial (latest album, JJ Got Live RTX, pictured below). And yet, Virgin Records signed Royal Trux to a famously huge record deal that would never happen today.

No.

Do labels still matter?

I think that what we see on MTV and commercials and major radio play, those three platforms are completely driven and run by major labels. Do I think that what they’re putting out there is necessarily relevant? Not so much. It’s only a matter of time before the public absolutely catches onto that. They’ll get tired of being force-fed. There’s not a lot of platforms, still, for independent labels and independent bands. It’s coming up, but as it is right now, the pocketbook rules. But I think it will change, for sure.

Meantime, what ever came of the Jaguar that you reportedly bought with the money from the contract?

The Jaguar got totaled. We were in the mountains and there was this old doctor, and it was late at night, and he ran through a stop sign and crushed the car. Neil was driving, but Neil wasn’t hurt. Yeah. So we got some money and I bought a racing car, a 1972 Monte Carlo with a V8 engine, and a turbo on it. It was super cool.

Very nice.

I totalled that one.

Oh, no.

Yeah! It got like ten miles to the gallon. It was so insane. But yeah, that one got totaled. Then I got sensible and I bought a Saab.

Although best known for her roles in Stars and Broken Social Scene, Amy Millan understandably saves her most personal material for the records that bear her name alone. With her latest solo LP, Masters of the Burial (Arts & Crafts), awaiting release on September 8, Amy spoke about the benefits of having tight-knit bandmates and the perils of striking out on one’s own.

What’s it like being a woman in a band full of men that tours constantly?

Well, we’re all very much like a family. [Co-frontperson Toquil] Campbell and I can get pretty feisty with one another. We probably fight the most out of anyone.

Fight how?

We disagree on things. It’s like you can fight with your brothers or sisters as much as you want, but if anyone else on the outside does anything to attack them you’re the first person to protect them. That’s the feeling that I have with the band. But I’m living as a couple with [bassist] Evan Cranley, so that’s pretty sweet. It’s a sweet shack-up for sure.

Are intra-band arguments the catalyst for branching out as a solo artist from time to time, as you do?

I was very nervous about doing that, but to be honest, my bandmates were the ones who were kicking my ass to get it together and finally get into the studio. I’m always walking slowly backwards while other people are pushing me forwards with my solo stuff. [The brand-new solo album, Masters of the Burial, pictured below.]

With Stars, you released a full-length album online [2007’s In Our Bedroom After the War] before it was available in stores. You guys were early adopters on that trend, weren’t you?

It’s interesting because I really thought we would get more attention as being one of the first bands that did it, but Radiohead did it a couple weeks later and we got really outshined by that. It was an interesting thing to do, though, and you don’t know the alternative of what would have happened. My big fear was that the record was going to be leaked, which is what happens now. And once it’s leaked, the consumer has no option other than stealing it. So I thought it was important that we gave them an option to support the band and buy the record. They just want to hear it. I think it’s important, too, in this atmosphere, with the crumbling CD world, that you come up with alternative ways of releasing records, and imaginative ways of distributing it. I’m proud of what we did, and maybe one day people will know that we were one of the pioneers.

What did you learn from that experiment?

Digital sales are on the rise, particularly in the United States. People in Europe are really bad thieves and… piracy is just deadly there. But you have to move with what’s happening. I think that someday people will be held responsible for that, but right now we’re sort of in No Man’s Land.

Any suggestions for what can be done?

The computer companies should be paying up, and the cable companies should be contributing. These people are making billions of dollars by selling software that makes it possible to steal. It’s like giving somebody a skeleton key, and saying, “I didn’t know they were going to open any doors with that…” I think that eventually, there will be a restructuring of the entire business, but for now we need to stay on our toes and work the internet to our advantage.

Speaking of your audience abroad, Canadian bands have enjoyed a lot of international attention over the past few years. Is the reception still as warm as ever?

Well, one of the most exciting tours I’ve been on in a while is actually going to the east coast of Canada. We went to Norway, Sweden, Copenhagen, and Australia, and Japan, and Singapore, but we’d yet to be to Newfoundland. It was daunting to me that we tried to represent ourselves as Canadian musicians across the globe, without having even seen all of our own country. So we’ve now played every province, which I’m very proud of.

Were you surprised to find you had that kind of reach?

To go that far from home and see everyone sing along, again, that just shows you the power of the Internet. I think it’s important to invest in your own country, and I think the east coast gets ignored a lot because it is quite expensive to get out to Newfoundland. It’s relatively far. My renewed interest is within my own country right now.

With equal doses of pitch-black dark humor and historically-based, skin-crawling tales of the paranormal, plus a few demons, angels, shape-shifters, vampires and Lucifer himself, thrown in for good measure, the fourth season of the Emmy-nominated Supernatural is the funniest, scariest season of the series so far.

Currently filming Season Five in Vancouver, the San Antonio, Texas-born Jared Padelecki (one half of Supernatural’s Winchester brothers team) took a little time away from vanquishing ghosts and summoning archangels to chat about fans’ undegarments, his own superstitions, the paranormal, and a certain species of godless killing machine. Plus: this week’s DVDs and BDs after the jump.

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In an exclusive chat with the ever intense, ever versatile Emile Hirsch, the actor recounts his time working with acclaimed director Ang Lee on Taking Woodstock (opening today). After the jump, Hirsch recalls his conversations Heath Ledger about Lee, explains how he developed his character of Billy by working with real Vietnam vets, defends Speed Racer and discusses his plans to do a rock ‘n’ roll version of Hamlet — with Shakespeare’s original text.

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