Though ComicCon may be better known, WonderCon, which wrapped Sunday in Anaheim, Calif., coaxed film studios into releasing trailers for upcoming films. For sci-fi and fantasy films, 2012 looks better than 2011. Now that we leave January and February behind – the dregs of the film year – we can look to spring and summer to [...]

The debut of the old time favorite Barbie was unveiled in 1959 at the American International Toy Fair. A confession most can’t make at first glance— but it is nearly impossible to ignore the darling Barbie doll. Back in the mid-20th century when the doll was first designed, it took almost ten years to develop [...]

She’s got one of the most conflicting images in Hollywood. With her original innocence as Cindy Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas and her good-girl-gone-bad act on Gossip Girl, Taylor Momsen tends to leave audiences confused —her personas are different even as she dazzles with every performance. And when Momsen’s band, The Pretty [...]

The dilemma surrounding music borrowing has plagued the music industry for decades, especially now in the digital age where an artist can pluck a song from halfway around the world, tweak it and release it as her or his own in a new language, in a new market. Being strongly influenced, borrowing melodies and ideas, [...]

Alpha Phi Omega, a USC fraternity, is hosting a Relay for Life benefit concert on March 7 for USC’s upcoming Relay for Life. Relay for Life is a 24 hour American Cancer Society event where people camp out and walk or run around a track to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember [...]

Wally Pfister, the cinematographer who has established himself for his crisp, clean visuals, is planning on switching over into directing  feature films this year. The acclaimed cinematographer has had a close collaboration with visionary filmmaker Christopher Nolan, and the duo have thus far paired together for seven films, which include Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The [...]

With Love at the Bottom of the Sea, released just last week, the Magnetic Fields have returned to that simplistic synth rock aesthetic that first popularized Stephen Merritt and his troupe of musical madmen back in the nineties. After the ‘no-synth trilogy’ which consisted of i (2004), Distortion (2008) and Realism (2010), this is a [...]

Sometimes a good story is enough to push a musician into the forefront of attention. Sometimes the story turns out to be more compelling than the music. The life of Willis Earl Beal would be an interesting story by itself, but when told in tandem with the LP he is set to release on XL [...]

Three years after the release of her album Far, Regina Spektor dropped her latest single “All the Rowboats,” this past Tuesday. For an artist whose work remains largely indefinable by the music world —her albums have been classified in every genre from pop to anti-folk— Spektor seems very aware of her goals for her own music. [...]

Hosting Saturday Night Live Saturday, appearing for interviews on the Today show Thursday and gracing magazine pages, it seems as if Lohan is everywhere. While this may seem like blast from the past, I can assure you that it is actually the year 2012. At this point, everyone knows who Lindsay Lohan is. She was [...]