“There were shocks and surprises – and even talk of a renegade jury – at the closing ceremony for the 69th Cannes film festival. Few of the perceived favourites picked up prizes, while some movies derided as turkeys triumphed – and the one-award-per-movie rule also appeared to have been torn up.”
Tag: 05.22.16
This Week In Audience: Audience Blackmail Edition 05.22.16
TV and movies are shape-shifting. How to ruin a critic? Make her worry about the art. And is that what happened to jazz? | Why are we fascinated by a dancing football star? And is it fair to blackmail audiences who want “Hamilton tickets?
Five Stories From Last Week’s AJ: Likes And Dislikes Edition
Why aren’t the arts something we can all get behind? Maybe it’s somewhere in the psychology of how we like what we like? Revealed: nobody reads arts reviews anymore (says an editor who hates to run them but wants to “support” the arts). Where the money is in music (hint: not for musicians). And is “This American Life” undermining public radio?
Have We All Been Misreading Jasper Johns, All Along?
“The commonly accepted reading of Johns’s career – that he rejected subjectivity, which we associate with Abstract Expressionism, in favor of detached objectivity – overlooks his interest in intuitive responses to life and art.” (This is Part One; read Part Two here.)
The Woman Who Runs Universal TV
“She wanted to work in entertainment — but not in front of the camera. ‘It wasn’t like I was immersed in American entertainment, but I always liked the idea of storytelling on a big scale.'”
The Peabody Awards Are Like The Oscars, Except For ‘Electronic Media,’ And Not #SoWhite At All
Aziz Ansari “thanked the Peabodys for recognizing titles that other awards groups didn’t. ‘Let’s be honest: So many awards shows f— up,’ he said. ‘They don’t give people awards that probably should get awards and the Peabody is great because it seems like you guys actually watched all of our shit and decided it was good.”‘”
When You Close Two Libraries ‘To Save Money’ And Then Spend More On Security To Guard The Buildings Than It Would Have Cost To Run The Libraries
“The two sites – the Carnegie library in Herne Hill, south-east London, and the Minet library nearby – closed their doors on 31 March before planned works to turn each one into a “community hub”, a combination of a largely unstaffed library and a private gym. The council said this was the only option to keep both libraries open amid massive central government cuts to local authority budgets.”
The Women Of Classical Music’s Past
“Under certain circumstances, in the right place and the right time — particularly if there’s a really powerful female monarch in place who wants somebody to justify their rule and their power, [and] might want a kind of poster girl for female talent — you could succeed.”
How A Ballerina Gets Back Into Shape After Maternity Leave
“In the ballet world, pregnancy is no longer the secret that a dancer has to hide from the boss. It’s no longer a potential career-ender. But the question remains: How hard is it for a new mother to turn back into a ballerina? The experience is different for every dancer, but in the case of Maria Kowroski, the statuesque New York City Ballet principal, it’s been humbling.”