The University of Texas is attempting to take its film studies program where none has gone before, joining forces with investors to create an actual working, albeit tiny, movie studio. “No American film school has ever tried such an ambitious foray into commercial filmmaking, and the project is being watched with great interest, and great skepticism, in academia and Hollywood.”
Tag: 06.02.04
Moore Gets Distribution Deal
“The independent studio Lions Gate Films will distribute Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which has gained wide notice for its critique of President Bush and was spurned for distribution by the Walt Disney Company. It will be released on June 25 in about 1,000 theaters.” Lions Gate, a Canadian company, has distributed other Miramax pictures in the past which Disney found too controversial.
NY’s Power Couple Du Jour
A cultural scene as vast and diverse (and expensive) as New York’s could not survive without major benefactors, or without benefactors who are proficient at attracting other benefactors. And in a city where figures like $1 billion are thrown around as fundraising targets without anyone so much as batting an eyelash, the generosity and fundraising talent of such philanthropists are in high demand. The cultural “power couple of the moment” in the Big Apple consists of Jerry Speyer and Katherine Farley, who between them hold the key to many of Manhattan’s most ambitious cultural projects.
Embassy-In-A-Box (America’s Dull New Embassies)
There was a time that American embassies around the world were architecturally interesting. “Unfortunately, the general artistic quality of recently completed embassy compounds, as well as the two-dozen or so now in the pipeline, is not high. We’re looking at a new generation of embassies that resemble American office parks. The unsatisfying design and generally exurban settings reflect the government’s need to quickly replace a huge stock of functionally obsolete and insecure facilities.”
The Bohemians Won
The Bohemian lifestyle, romanticized in Victorian times, has been absorbed into the mainstream. “We have to recognise that many of our present assumptions about life have originated from people who, sometimes in very small ways but motivated by revolutionary ideals, hope and defiance of convention, challenged the establishment 100 years ago. In a way, we’re all Bohemians now. We can conduct relationships with people from any social class without fear of ostracism, while deploring oppressive, stratified societies.”
Ye Olde England In China
“In a small corner of the giant construction site that is China, something rather quaint is happening: modern skyscrapers are giving way to Georgian terraces, concrete squares are being discarded in favour of English village greens, and instead of the usual eight-lane superhighways there are winding cobbled lanes. That, at least, is the ambitiously low-rise plan for a giant new satellite-city near Shanghai that aims to recreate the most picturesque elements of a British town to lure homebuyers from China’s newly affluent middle class.”