Can Australians Save Hollywood?

“Can Australia save Hollywood? Hollywood studios are suffering their longest box office slump in five years with attendance at American cinemas diving eight per cent and revenues down almost five per cent so far in 2005. Tinseltown has its fingers crossed that Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Heath Ledger, Julian McMahon, Miranda Otto, Simon Baker, Richard Roxburgh and director Robert Luketic can help stop the rot.”

Curiouser And Curiouser (And That’s Good For The Arts)

Curiosity, says Robyn Archer, is the key to healthy arts audiences. “Anyone who approaches art, or virtually anything, only wishing to defend their own tastes, anyone who won’t look at something because they fear it won’t be to their liking, anyone who bags something before they’ve seen it, might as well be dead already. They’ve lost their sense of curiosity. They’re winding down.”

Book Smart? Or Video Game Smart?

Are we getting smarter? A popular new book tries to make the case, but Malcom Gladwell wonders what kind of “smart” we’re talking about. “Being “smart” involves facility in both kinds of thinking—the kind of fluid problem solving that matters in things like video games and I.Q. tests, but also the kind of crystallized knowledge that comes from explicit learning. The real question is what the right balance of these two forms of intelligence might look like.”

Regulator: Airing Springer On TV Was OK

The UK’s media regulator says the BBC’s airing of Jerry Springer the Opera did not violate broadcast standards. “More than 7,940 people complained to Ofcom before the hit stage show was broadcast on BBC Two in January, followed by a further 8,860 afterwards. ‘Ofcom recognises that a large number of people were deeply offended by the transmission.’ But it said the show was ‘an important work and commentary on modern TV.”

From A Room Descends A Novel? In A Month?

This week, three novelists will seal themselves in a small room and write for a month. “The goal is for each to complete a novel by June 4. The purpose is to consider the private and public aspects of writing. No cameras will record this voyeuristic experiment, though visitors can peep occasionally (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m). The potential for public humiliation comes not from the perils of constant surveillance, but from the more familiar writers’ problem of failing to meet a deadline. Make that deadlines. They will give weekly readings of their works in progress.”