F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tense, Unhappy Relationship With Hollywood

“The prime chronicler of the jazz age – a term he coined – came up around the same time that the American movie industry did, and spent much of his career linked with Hollywood. But Fitzgerald’s intellectual snobbery and Puritanical prudery made for a strained relationship with the film world, one that began as dismissive and ended as dependent.”

Can Neuroscience Really Say Something About Humanities?

“Neurohumanities has been positioned as a savior of today’s liberal arts. The Times is able to ask “Can ‘Neuro Lit Crit’ Save the Humanities?” because of the assumption that literary study has descended into cultural irrelevance. Neurohumanities, then, is an attempt to provide the supposedly loosey-goosey art and lit crowds with the metal spines of hard science.”

France’s Newest Oscar-Winning Director Slams French Film Industry

“[Michel] Hazanavicius, who won the best picture and director Oscar for his silent comedy The Artist in 2012, took to the pages of Le Monde to lambast what he sees as a well-meaning but outmoded system of French film production. ‘Today our responsibility is to denounce the failings of a once virtuous system that is being devoured by gangrene’.”

Comic-Book Characters Conquer The Culture

“In 2012, comic-book-based movies accounted for a whopping 14 percent of U.S. box office revenue. … They represent a huge chunk of our cultural imagination. … But on the road from Tony Stark’s (pretty racist) origin fighting a bunch of commies to a world where graphic novels can be just as artful as stories without drawings, something remarkable happened. The nerds won.”