Tag: 03.21.03

Movies – What Are Today’s Classics?

Are there movies being made today that will be judged as cinematic classics? Yes. But it make take years before they’re recognized as such. “The great movies tend to have a level of complexity to them that isn’t entirely obvious to the viewer at first glance. Sometimes there’s this stealth factor at work. A movie just plants a seed in you. And you don’t realize it until you’ve gone home, and you’ve tried to forget about it – and you can’t.”

Book-Of-The-Month Club Going Global

“The popularity of books tends not to cross borders as easily as movies and pop music. Many readers prefer homegrown writers and resist what could be called literary globalization.” Still the Book of the Month Club is planning to launch a “global marketing initiative” for its selections. “For the first time, it’s offering an International Book of the Month, recommending the same title to readers around the world.”

Rattle At The Top

Is there a bigger star in classical music than conductor Simon Rattle? “Rattle’s career path has been a perfect, shooting-star arc from the National Youth Orchestra to Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra to his mould-breaking 10 years with the City of Birmingham Orchestra. At 48, he is very young to be a conductor of international repute and he remains, to many, the perennial high-achieving golden boy of British classical music. He certainly seems to be much too amiable and accommodating to have survived and thrived in one of the notoriously brittle areas of the arts.”

English National Opera Fails To Get Bailout

The English National Opera, which is thought to have asked the Arts Council for a £10 million bailout because it is “on the verge of bankruptcy, has been turned down, offered a smaller funding package instead. “The package is believed to contain £2 million to pay for seats which tilt back, and a system for surtitles – a surprise request for a company founded to produce operas in English.” Martin Smith, the company’s chairman, “claims that the company will be £4.2 million in the red by January, and insists a fifth of its workforce of 500 will have to go if it is to survive. The number of productions will also have to be cut.”

Steal-To-Order Ring At Australian Museum?

An investigation into the theft of tens of thousands of objects from the Australian Museum suggests that many of the artifacts may have been stolen from the museum’s mail room. “The Independent Commission Against Corruption, which has recovered a ‘substantial amount’ of items pilfered from the mammals collection, is looking at the possibility that a steal-to-order racket, with foreign links, has been operating at the museum and some zoos for years.”

Competing Against The Superstores

When superstore bookseller Borders came to Carlton Australia, local independent bookstores feared business would go down 15-30 percent, as it has elasewhere where Borders entered the market. But after a few months business is down only one percent. Why? One theory is that there’s a new kind of customer developing – the “neo-consumer.” These are people who are looking for public spaces to connect with. “Many people are seeking a home away from home, a place to hang out, and they are finding it in cosy bookshops, cafes and bars.”