Indy Film Finds A Haven On The No-Longer-Idiot Box

“This year IFC will release about 100 films ‘on demand’, meaning they can be called up for a fee in most households that get their television via cable or satellite. … Later this year IFC plans to launch a new on-demand channel to showcase documentary films. Cinetic, a powerful independent-film broker, will also get into the game this summer. Most radical of all is Magnolia,” which will release the Jeff Daniels comedy The Answer Man on cable four weeks before its theatrical opening.

U Michigan Gets A Better Deal From Google

“The new Google-UM agreement (.pdf) gives the university a digital copy of every book on its shelves, regardless of whether Google scanned its copy or another library’s. The school gets more rights to distribute its copies of the digitized works, and, most importantly for Google public relations, a way for the school to protest the pricing scheme of full-text institutional subscriptions to the millions of digitized books.”

How The Internet Changed The Music Business

“The biggest problem a band has is getting its music heard. For years, the music industry was confined to four multinational corporations that dominated the revenue stream of 70% of the music coming in, and four or five radio conglomerates that controlled what music was going out. Now all that has been broken up into millions and millions of little pieces and subcultures and niches that are serving small, really dedicated communities of music lovers.”

A Push To Rescue Marcel Marceau’s Stuff

“Marcel Marceau is at the centre of a row over France’s cultural heritage. A Paris court has ordered that the extraordinary contents of his rural home be auctioned off at bargain prices next week to settle his debts. The mime, who died two years ago aged 84, had gone into receivership after ploughing all his money into theatre projects. The French arts world is up in arms and begging the government to buy Marceaus’ mime paraphernalia to ­preserve it for history’s sake.”

Beijing’s Empty Bird’s Nest Stadium Looks To The Arts For Help

Since the Summer Games ended in August, Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium has suffered a fate that is all too common among former Olympic venues around the world: neglect. A lack of bookings means the stadium (designed by Herzog & de Meuron) remains empty most of the time. Business is so meager that there are even plans to turn parts of the structure into a shopping center. So today’s news that Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou will restage his famous production of Puccini’s “Turandot” at the stadium in October comes as a noteworthy development.

Minnesota Gets Kushner-Mania

“Tony Kushner is revered in the theater world and has been anointed a Great American Playwright. But despite a career that has in recent years expanded into screenwriting, his name is not as familiar as past Goliaths of the nation’s theater such as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller or, more recently, Edward Albee, David Mamet or the late August Wilson.”