Tag: 04.19.05

CanFilm Wants Tougher Copyright Laws

Movie theatre owners are getting better at spotting film pirates who attend premieres armed with tiny video cameras, but in Canada, the law has yet to catch up with the times. In fact, in many cases, those caught trying to create illegal bootlegs of the latest Hollywood blockbuster are charged with nothing worse than trespassing. Now, the Canadian film industry is putting pressure on the government to toughen up the laws and provide some disincentive to the tapers.

A New Season, With Something Missing

When the Colorado Ballet announced last year that it would kick off its stay in Denver’s beautiful new opera house with an $800,000 production choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, everyone wondered where the company would get the money to pull off such a show. As it turns out, the company didn’t know, either. The ballet’s new season was unveiled this week, with no mention of the Wheeldon project, and the company’s artistic director says that the plans to stage the monumental show were hasty and “impractical.” The ballet still hopes to raise the money for the project and perform it in the 2006-07 season.

Spiritual Home Of Renaissance Art

“When the cardinals convene today in the Sistine Chapel, they will be listening not only for the voice of the Holy Spirit but for those of Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli and other titans of the Italian Renaissance, whose paintings and frescoes adorn its walls and ceilings. No place is richer in spiritual inspiration and admonition than this – from Botticelli’s Punishment of the Rebels to Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, the most harrowing depiction of sin and damnation in Western art. The room has a vote.”

Bloggers Band Together To Promote Old-Fashioned Lit

“Marking a departure from the solitary life of reading and writing, about 20 independent literary bloggers announced last week that they will begin working together in hopes of drawing readers to books they feel deserve more attention, while seeking to generate more and deeper public discussions of literature. Calling themselves the Litblog Co-Op, the effort includes the sites the Elegant Variation, Moorishgirl, Rake’s Progress and Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, all of which will continue to operate separately, the bloggers say.”

And For Another $10, Emeril Will Conduct “Bolero”

Serving as music director of an American orchestra, even a small one, is a multifaceted job, and these days, there seem to be almost as many fundraising responsibilities for U.S. conductors as musical ones. Still, the Binghamton (NY) Philharmonic may have a first on its hands with its latest moneymaking scheme: a $10 raffle, with the winner getting the services of music director Jose Luis Novo for an evening. No, Novo won’t be making any music in the winner’s home. He’ll just be cooking dinner.

Kansas City PAC May Find A New Home

The proposed Kansas City performing arts center has hit a number of road blocks since its conception, and the latest is a proposal to move the whole project downtown. Fundraising has not been able to keep up with the PAC’s construction costs, and last fall, voters in the metro area rejected a bi-state tax which would have partially funded the center, leaving the board overseeing the project in a bit of a pickle. The proposal to move the PAC into the city’s downtown loop would mean the renovation of the Lyric Theatre, and the construction of a new concert hall beside it, a considerably less expensive undertaking than the original plan.

Nashville Sym Conductor Dies

Conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn, who led the Nashville Symphony for 22 years and became a local icon of the cultural scene, has died at 75 after a brief battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Schermerhorn is credited with helping to boost the orchestra out of bankruptcy years ago, and with driving it to new professional heights, including major recording contracts and an appearance at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The NSO’s new $120 million concert hall, now under construction in downtown Nashville, will be named for Schermerhorn.

The Animatronic Lincoln Experience

The new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, Illinois offers experience over history. “The blurring of history for the sake of entertainment may not be something new. After all, the village of New Salem, about a 20-minute drive from Springfield, was where Lincoln tended store and began his political career, but the town didn’t survive. So in the 1920’s and 30’s, it was “reconstructed”; it is an invented historical village. But the new museum, because of technological power alone, risks making invention seem like fact. It also enshrines a notion that the best way to know anything about politics and history is to understand personality, and even then only in a simplified fashion. Maybe it will lead to curiosity and further inquiry; maybe not.”

Hollywoods New Movie Moguls

“Hollywood has a long tradition of luring wealthy outsiders to its gleaming lair, from William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper millionaire, in the silent movie era to Paul Allen, the Microsoft billionaire, who is a principal investor in DreamWorks, the 10-year-old studio. What distinguishes the current crop of outsiders is the sheer number who have arrived in the last two years or so, many of them very young and prepared to make the movies themselves rather than relying on studio executives or other insiders.”