When you’re partying during what feels like some pretty dark times, take inspiration from the French existentialists of the 1940s. “Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre spent a lot of time partying: talking, drinking, dancing, laughing, loving and listening to music with friends, and this was an aspect of their philosophical stance on life. They weren’t just philosophers who happened to enjoy parties, either – the parties were an expression of their philosophy of seizing life.” – Aeon Magazine
Tag: 07.26.19
MoviePass Changed What Customers Expect – And Now Regal Is Stepping Into The Ring
MoviePass is limping along with 225,000 customers compared to its high of 3 million in 2018 (whoa), but the big chains felt the pressure, and now there’s a new Regal Cinemas app. Caveat: “We’ll be suffering the from the same overload of theater subscription programs as we are with streaming services, but it feels more like a win for everyone. Many people live in an area where a Regal is their only moviegoing choice.” – Gizmodo
Rock And Roll Ended The Classic Hollywood Musical – But Gave Movies Something Entirely New
Hollywood changed rock, and rock changed Hollywood – and television, and records, and … well, see for yourself: “Rather than disguising rock ‘n’ roll’s commercial production by proposing it as folk music, these narratives emphasized all its various industrial components, and usually they culminated in a televised grand finale in which stars lip-synced to their hit records and where rock ‘n’ roll was positioned as a subsector of broadcast TV. This created a media hierarchy dominated by Hollywood: rock ‘n’ roll is contained in television, and television is itself contained in cinema.” – Berkeley News
Neil DeGrasse Tyson Will Stay On At American Museum Of Natural History After Investigation
Tyson was accused of sexual misconduct by two women, and the museum launched an investigation. It now says the investigation is closed, that Tyson will stay on as director of the Hayden Planetarium, and that it will have no further comment. One of the women, Katelyn Allers, a professor of physics and astronomy, “said she did not find the results of the museum’s investigation surprising — ‘This is kind of the way the world works,’ she said — but added that there was no good possible outcome either way.” – The New York Times
Artist Defaces Poster For Tarantino Movie With Cut-Outs Of Jeffrey Epstein And Roman Polanski
The artist Sabo retitled the new Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time … in Pedowood and imposed the faces of Epstein and Polanski over Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Why? The street artist wrote: “I’ve never prayed before a project, but I prayed before this one, in the names of all those children harmed by these monsters. I hope they all get caught and put behind bars.” – Los Angeles Times
The Beast Is Back
That is, Boris Johnson – now the Prime Minister of the UK. – Jan Herman
No One Remembers The Actual Point Of ‘Fight Club’
And that’s too bad, because the movie meant a lot more than jokes and memes. It’s really too bad when a certain group of believers gets ahold of it. “The ‘manosphere’ thinks Fight Club is telling us we need to reprogram ourselves. The weird thing is they’re half right, but it’s like they’ve all watched the movie on mute.” Why does everyone get the movie (and the book) so wrong? – LitHub
Two Big London Drama Schools Are Leaving The Arts Consortium One Of Them Founded
Both the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art are ducking out of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama. Why? They both say that becoming independent institutions will help them because “higher education policy has changed significantly” since RADA helped found the Conservatoire. – The Stage (UK)
A New York Times Art Critic Weighs In On Those San Francisco Murals: Keep ‘Em
Roberta Smith says it’s not a good idea to just paint over art that makes us uncomfortable. “These are among the scars on this country that every American — schoolchild or adult, of any race — should learn about in detail, keep learning about and never forget.” That said, she’s fine with adding more info, commissioning more response murals, covering them up with removable textiles – just not whitewashing them out of existence. – The New York Times
A San Francisco Ballet Principal Makes Connections By Cutting The Hair Of Unhoused People In His City
Benjamin Freemantle started cutting his own, and his friends’, hair out of necessity when they were all lowly, and low-paid, dance students. Then he grew into both dance and haircutting, and eventually, after extending that skill to a guy who slept in his alley, “‘I had the idea—it was a little scary—to go into the Tenderloin, which is our homeless district,”‘he says. He brought a stool, his haircutting set—basic shears from Amazon, combs, a brush and a spray bottle—and a sign that read ‘Need a Haircut?'” – Dance Magazine