Among Eric Rohmer’s most famous critics “was a fictional character: detective Harry Moseby in the 1975 Arthur Penn thriller ‘Night Moves,’ played by Gene Hackman in one of his best roles. Invited to see ‘Maud,’ Moseby demurs, saying, ‘I saw an Eric Rohmer movie once. It was like watching paint dry.’ Moseby could have watched more carefully.”
Tag: 01.12.10
Curator’s Quest: Finding The Greatest Native American Art
In Kansas City, Mo., “the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art unveiled in November a new suite of ‘wow’ galleries in its original building: More than 6,000 square feet of completely redesigned space for what has suddenly emerged as one of our most important museum collections of American Indian art.”
WNO’s Shorter Season Will Be More Conventional, Too
The five operas in Washington National Opera’s 2010-11 season “will be repertory staples that sell tickets…. In short: As the company trims its budget from $32 million to $26.5 million, this is not a season for risk-taking.”
What Happened To The Fresno Metropolitan Museum?
“The museum appears to be the latest cultural victim of the current economic downturn. It joins a growing list of about 20 U.S. museums of various types and sizes that have folded in the last year,” and its demise leaves a void in a city that doesn’t have a wealth of other cultural options.
It’s Official: Sitting In Front Of The TV Shortens Your Life
“Researchers found that each hour a day spent watching TV was linked with an 18% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, an 11% greater risk of all causes of death, and a 9% increased risk of death from cancer.” The risks, which are “irrespective of a person’s exercise level,” have implications for computer use as well.
Two Architects, Now Blind, Navigate Their New Reality
Christopher Downey, a Northern California architect, “said he and Lisbon’s Carlos Mourão Pereira joke that their meeting three months ago was the ‘first-ever International Blind Architects Conference.’ But the questions that engage the men are deeply serious: What makes a building beautiful if you can’t see it, and how can you create beautiful structures if you’re blind?”
Shirley Rich, Casting Agent Extraordinaire, Dies at 87
“Ms. Rich specialized in casting nonstarring roles. She combed her voluminous files of head shots and haunted Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway to find exactly the right person for a part that might comprise just a few lines.” In the process, she gave some actors who would become stars their first big break — and also assembled John Travolta’s gang.
New Chiefs At LA MOCA, Cooper-Hewitt Signal A Shift
In one week, both the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York named new leaders from outside the museum world. Together the appointments “represent a kind of wake-up call for museums in general. They point to a return to basics in American museum culture.”
Google Tries To Pacify Chinese Authors
“Google has agreed to hand over a list of books by Chinese authors that it has scanned in recent years” and “also apologized for any misunderstanding that might have angered authors and said it would work to forge an agreement on digitizing books by early summer.”
Eric Rohmer, A Father Of Nouvelle Vague, Dies At 89
“A former novelist and teacher of French and German literature, Mr. Rohmer emphasized the spoken and written word in his films at a time when tastes — thanks in no small part to his own pioneering writing on Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks — had begun to shift from literary adaptations to genre films grounded in strong visual styles.”