Tag: 07.20.06

Baltimore Snubbed By Hairspray Producers

They’re making a movie version of Hairspray. Ah, you say, but there already is a movie version of Hairspray, and in fact, the current Broadway show is based on that earlier film by John Waters. True enough, but they’re making a new one based on the musical anyway, and that’s created a bit of a drama in the city of Baltimore, where the story takes place. The original movie was filmed there, and the city badly wanted to be the site for production of the new version as well. But due to a combination of cost issues and logistical problems, the entire movie will now be shot in Toronto, and Baltimore will have to be content with a few still photos of itself, digitally inserted into the action.

For His Next Trick, He’ll Turn Telemarketers Into Symphonies

Could there possibly be anything good or useful about the scourge of e-mail spam currently clogging up the world’s inboxes? It all depends what you do with it. “When Romanian artist Alex Dragulescu looks at junk e-mails, he sees patterns – bits and bytes that can be manipulated into colorful plantlike images or stark architectural forms.”

Critic Henry Hewes, 89

“Henry Hewes, a longtime theater critic for The Saturday Review and the founder of the American Theater Critics Association, died at his home in Manhattan on Tuesday. He was 89… A past president of the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Drama Desk, and the editor from 1960 to 1964 of the “Best Plays” anthology, Mr. Hewes was also proud of his suggestion to Tennessee Williams that he turn a certain short story into a play; the play was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.“

Mixing It Up

The art of the mixtape – a homemade collection of songs from any number of artists – may have peaked in the early 1990s, but even in the age of the iPod, the phenomenon remains strong, particularly in the hip-hop industry. “These days they often seem less like shady contraband, circulated by samizdat, and more like vital extensions of slick marketing campaigns.”

Creating Monsters

Filmmaker Lee Daniels has built his career on his own terms, tackling controversial plots and taboo subjects that most producers and directors would think twice about loosing on an unsuspecting public. But somehow, the man behind Monster’s Ball and The Woodsman has convinced moviegoers that his twisted plots and startlingly imperfect characters are worth the price of admission.

Who’s Blogging Now?

A new survey of the online blogosphere, as it’s come to be known, reveals that fully 8% of Internet users now keep a blog of some description, and that bloggers in general are “a mostly young, racially diverse group of people who have never been published anywhere else and who most often use cyberspace to talk about their personal lives.”

Stroking Sound

Composers draw inspiration for their work from all corners of their world, and even works with a universal appeal can have highly personal experiences at their core. This weekend, a new music ensemble in Pittsburgh will debut a new work by Brett William Dietz, entitled Headcase, that takes the idea of personal inspiration to the extreme. The piece is a musical journey through a major stroke that Dietz suffered when he was 29. “The composition incorporates recordings of electronic sound and Dietz talking… There are projected images of Dietz’s MRI scans, showing the areas of the brain that were damaged, and pieces of paper given to him in the hospital to write on in an attempt to communicate.”

Bayreuth’s Unique Allure

“The centrepiece of this year’s festival is a new Ring cycle – a great event at any opera house, at Bayreuth something akin to the second coming. The production is in the hands of conductor Christian Thielemann, Bayreuth’s favoured son, and director Tankred Dorst, an 80-year-old playwright who, despite never having directed an opera before, was appointed two years ago when Lars von Trier pulled out. Who says Bayreuth is conventional?”