“In what is surely the most bizarre commercial endorsement since Eleanor Roosevelt did an ad for Good Luck Margarine in 1959, the ailing pontiff has been recruited, however unwittingly, to help hawk “The Passion of the Christ,” as Mel Gibson’s film about Jesus’s final 12 hours is now titled. While Eleanor Roosevelt endorsed a margarine for charity, John Paul’s free plug is being exploited by the Gibson camp to aid the movie star’s effort to recoup the $25 million he personally sank into a biblical drama filmed in those crowd-pleasing tongues of Latin and Aramaic.”
Tag: 01.18.04
Acropolis Museum – Epicenter Of Controversy
Greece has built a new museum in hopes of getting the Parthenon Marbles back from London. “But the structure intended to settle a controversy has become an object of controversy itself. The design clashes with the setting, some critics say. It jeopardizes an archaeological site, others claim. And perhaps most dispiritingly, the Olympic deadline is hopelessly out of reach. Like an athlete who trains for a lifetime and then sprains her ankle the week before the games, the New Acropolis Museum may have missed its best chance to make an impression. When the Olympic torch is lighted on Aug. 13, the museum will look like something that Athens already has plenty of: a giant excavation.”
How To Win That Elusive Orchestra Job
In any given year there are few jobs that open up in full-time professional orchestras. Winning one of those jobs is a matter of determination, discipline, and sometimes, a little luck…
Foreign Investors Eye Bollywood
Foreign investors are putting money into Bollywood films. The Indian film industry is the most prolific in the world, turning out 1000 movies a year. “The cost of producing and marketing the average Indian film ranges from $2 million to $4 million, a fraction of the average cost of a Hollywood film that ranges from $70 million to $80 million, industry observers say.”
Toronto Theatre’s Diversity Problem
Toronto theatre has a diversity problem “The current population of Greater Toronto consists of 43 per cent visible minorities. In their current seasons, the seven largest not-for-profit professional theatres in the city employed 79 actors from visible minorities out of a total of 394, a rate of 20 per cent. If you add the two major festivals — Stratford and Shaw — to the mix, the figure becomes 106 out of 622, or 17 per cent. That’s a considerable gap, and while everyone agrees the winds of change are blowing, they’re not moving rapidly enough for many people.”
A Theatre Beyond Its Size
Ari Roth’s Theatre J is a small Jewish theatre in Washington DC that is making much more of a splash than its size would suggest. “What he (Roth) puts on the Goldman stage often feels like the product of a much bigger operation than his, which chugs along with a skeletal staff in a cramped suite of offices and a budget of $500,000. Major regional theaters like the Shakespeare and Arena spend 20 times as much. Last season alone, he had several major successes.”
Buy The Music You Like
A Silicon Valley entrepreneur was tired of the contemporary music she was hearing. So she decided to buy some that she did like. She started a commissioning project, but she’s a hands-on patron…
Surge In Music Downloading
The number of people downloading music off the internet has surged again after several months of decline after the recording industry began suing consumers. “The number of U.S. households downloading music from peer-to-peer networks rose 6 percent in October and 7 percent in November after a six-month decline, according to a study of computer use in 10,000 U.S. households conducted by The NPD Group. In a separate, bimonthly survey, 12 million individuals reported getting music on the free networks in November, up from 11 million in September.”
BBC Digital Gaining Viewers
The BBC has been blasted for the ratings some of its new digital channels have attracted (or not attracted). But finally there seem to be some shows that people want to watch. And besides, writes Torin Douglas, complaints or compliments – what really counts is that they’re talking about you.
BBC Broadcasts “Silent” Work
The BBC has broadcast John Cage’s 4’33” – his famous work that includes no instrumental notes. “Despite having no notes to play, the musicians tuned up and then turned pages of the score after each of the three “movements” specified by the composer. The silence was broken at times by coughing and rustling sounds from the audience, who marked the end of the performance with enthusiastic applause.”