Features :: Paste

Catching Up With... Battlestar Galactica's Edward James Olmos

By Tim Regan-Porter on 9:31 AM on October 27, 2009

Admiral Adama talks about directing Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, nuclear annihilation, God and how bloggers influenced the series. read more

High Definition: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan

By Josh Jackson on 8:45 AM on October 27, 2009

Today marks the release of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan on DVD and Blu-Ray, and for a couple of hours, the show’s fans can relive the best sci-fi show in TV history from the perspective of the Cylons who almost completely annihilate humanity. Without answering the series’ biggest unresolved questions (like, what exactly was Kara Thrace?), it certainly adds a layer to the show’s first two seasons.... read more

Ears We Trust: Brendan Benson

By Paste staff on 7:00 AM on October 27, 2009

In this long-running feature, music-industry tastemakers tell us what they’re listening to and loving. Today’s columnist: Raconteur and solo artist Brendan Benson. Harry Nilsson, Nilsson Sings Newman: Imagine it; one genius doing another genius’ songs. Both in their prime and both seemingly mad as hatters! Great studio banter too!... read more

Best of What's Next: Princeton

By Justin Jacobs on 6:00 AM on October 27, 2009

Twin brothers Jesse and Matt Kivel have been making music together since they were 15-year-olds... read more

Listen Up: Welcome to the New Folk Revival

By Rachael Maddux on 8:00 AM on October 26, 2009

Alela Diane Menig, the Portland-by-way-of-California singer-songwriter who released one my favorite albums of this year, To Be Still recently got a haircut... read more

Catching Up With... The Swell Season's Glen Hansard

By Kate Kiefer on 7:30 AM on October 26, 2009

The Irish musician and star of Once talks about Strict Joy, Anvil: The Story of Anvil and how there probably won't be another Swell Season album... read more

Catching Up With... Devendra Banhart

By Justin Jacobs on 6:00 AM on October 26, 2009

Today, Devendra Banhart is excited about carrot juice... read more

Catching Up With... Antichrist's Lars von Trier

By Steve Dollar on 5:00 PM on October 23, 2009

In mid-September, Danish director Lars Von Trier appeared-via a Skype video chat-at a press conference for the New York Film Festival, which screens his controversial new shocker Antichrist. The film, which Von Trier has said was born out of a terrible depression, is the story of an unnamed married couple (Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe) who take refuge at a cabin in the wilds after their toddler son has died in a fall.... read more

Spam E-Mail or Bob Pollard Song?

By Steve LaBate on 2:16 PM on October 23, 2009

Ever since solo artist and former Guided By Voices frontman Robert Pollard arrived in the late ’80s with GBV’s first album of note, Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia, he’s been the undisputed king of arcane titles. So arcane, in fact, that they often resemble the non-sequitur gibberish of spam e-mails that advertise replica watches and male-enhancement pills.... read more

Film Friday: Your DVDs Are Rotting

By Robert Davis on 8:00 AM on October 23, 2009

Like the autumn tomato left on your window sill or the miniature pumpkin forgotten on the mantel until November, your DVD collection is rotting. Maybe not physically deteriorating like fall fruit (although some people worry about that, too) but deteriorating in the way that all media seems to: by sitting still as technology marches past. You can’t easily play the video games of your youth, peruse a defunct web site, listen to an 8-track tape found in the attic, or, at this point, even play an audio cassette or a VHS video in many households. The DVD is headed for... read more

Best of What's Next: Kurt Vile

By Joel Oliphint on 6:00 AM on October 23, 2009

Kurt Vile—yep, that's his birth name—has had a pretty good year... read more

Salute Your Shorts: Mira Nair's Short Films

By Sean Gandert on 5:34 PM on October 22, 2009

Salute Your Shorts is a weekly column that looks at short films, music videos, commercials or any other short form visual media that generally gets ignored. Criterion’s new DVD/Blu-Ray release of Monsoon Wedding offers not just a beautiful new print of one of the most successful foreign films ever released in America, but also a majority of its directors short films. Its seven shorts span the length of Mira Nair's career, from just out of school to last year. Perhaps moreso than her feature work, which has included some films that seem made more obviously for pay rather than personal... read more

Community's Donald Glover: Class Act

By Rachael Maddux on 1:30 PM on October 22, 2009

Hometown: Stone Mountain, Ga. Show: Community For Fans Of: 30 Rock, Upright Citizens Brigade, Encyclopedia Brown Donald Glover has never personally experienced the world of junior colleges laid out in NBC’s new sitcom, Community, but the 26-year-old wunderkind—who plays dim-bulb jock Troy—finds the premise familiar. “It’s about forcing people to interact with each other that you normally wouldn’t hang out with,” he says. “That was college for me.”... read more

The Booky Man: The Fellowship of the Reads

By Charles McNair on 8:00 AM on October 22, 2009

Opera seems an unlikely portal to a new column on books. Still, a recent evening at an Atlanta production of The Elixir of Love, Donizetti’s long and silly little love song, left me thinking more of reading and readers than of bel canto, lovely as it is. As a writer, observance is blessing and curse at once. Forget immersion in most any moment—lovemaking, gardening, sports events: The Writer perversely takes notes in the midst of overwhelming pleasures and the humdrum alike. How pretty her eyelashes. The earth feels warm here, like freshly baked bread. Fourth and goal, why is Saban... read more

How DJ Hero is Changing Music Forever

By Justin Jacobs on 7:30 AM on October 22, 2009

Video may have killed the radio star back in those dark and desperate times known as the '80s, but... read more

Best of What's Next: Choir of Young Believers

By Emily Riemer on 6:00 AM on October 22, 2009

Choir of Young Believers is an experiment, a shape-shifting band helmed by musical multi-tasker Jannis Noya Makrigiannis... read more

Catching Up With... Wilco's Nels Cline

By Travis Atria on 12:15 PM on October 21, 2009

It has been nearly four months since Wilco the band released... read more

?uestlove Talks Jimmy Fallon, Declares Love of Yacht Rock

By Jay Sweet on 11:40 AM on October 21, 2009

For our Fall Guide to Good TV, we spoke with Roots co-founder and drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson about his group's seemingly unlikely gig as Jimmy Fallon's house band... read more

Start Press: The High-Score Scourge

By Jason Killingsworth on 8:00 AM on October 21, 2009

Videogames are fun. This is not breaking news. When we play games, we’re transported to different worlds and set free to explore. When we play games, the clock’s minute hand slows, blurs and then disappears entirely. Our brains are tickled, challenged to solve the puzzles and master the challenges presented to us by the game’s developers. There’s nearly unlimited potential for rhapsodic pleasure in a well-designed game. But lately I’ve been swearing at my games with unusual frequency, spitting out combinations of expletives that, to borrow the words of author Anne Lamott, would “make Jesus want to drink gin straight... read more