Sony Pictures settled a lawsuit last week over the imagiary critic it invented to say good things about terrible films, agreeing to pay $5 to anyone who claims to have seen one of the flicks because of the supposedly good review. This is madness, says Jeremy Dauber. “Isn’t it the case that anyone who is willing to be convinced under any circumstances to see the Rob Schneider picture ‘The Animal’ deserves what they get? You would think they might be thankful for the lesson.” Besides, how is what Sony did any worse than the common studio practice of twisting a critic’s words into a positive statement with the clever use of ellipses?
Tag: 08.10.05
Apparently, Only The Name Is Evil
“[The] Texas-based concert, radio and billboard giant Clear Channel Communications announced Tuesday that its Chicago music operations will now be called Elevated Concerts… Chicago remains one of the few major markets in the United States that still boasts a powerful local concert promotion company,” and many musicians and venues prefer any alternative to working with the monolithic Clear Channel. That poses a problem for the company, and the Chicago name change is being seen as a test of whether Clear Channel’s image as a near-monopoly can be pushed under the carpet. If it works, you can expect more of the same in other cities across the U.S.
A New Oxford Dictionary Of English
“The dictionary contains many more insulting words than compliments. It has 350 ways of insulting someone, but only 40 compliments such as lush [meaning very good]. There are 50 ways to describe attractive women, including eye candy and cutie, but only 20 ways of describing good-looking men; Greek god being an extremely handsome man.”
Coveting The Geeks
You might expect a show entitled “The One-Man Star Wars Trilogy” to attract a bunch of costumed nerds and one-track-minded sci-fi geeks, but… oh, okay, you’d be right. But though Charles Ross’s tour de Force “may seem like just an oddball summer gimmick, it is in some ways the logical extension of where commercial theater is headed. The crowds at ‘Spamalot,’ a highly polished imitation of old Monty Python skits, laugh before the punch lines. And the many jukebox musicals – which, don’t fool yourself, are not going away – preach to the converted. The element of surprise matters less than the comforting pleasure of seeing something familiar. The geek audience has become highly sought after by Broadway producers. And everyone else, if they want to be in on the fun, has no choice but to join in.”
Minnesota Fringe Gets Naked
The Minnesota Fringe is the biggest festival of its kind in the U.S., boasting 25 venues and hundreds of performances in a single two-week period. And while many fringe festivals have embraced politics this year, the Minnesota Fringers have gone a different way. Specifically, a shocking number of this year’s productions are focused, laserlike, on sex, which wouldn’t be surprising in, say, New York, but which seems a tad out of place in the buttoned-up Midwest. The Fringe’s director has an explanation: “A lot of it is the Teen Fringe. We don’t censor the teens, and it turns out that when you let teens talk about whatever they want, they talk about sex.”
Vote For Your Most-Hated Building… Then Knock It Down
A British TV show is soliciting votes for viewers’ most hated building. Then it proposes to knock the building down. “Many of the buildings that have been put up for the TV experts to knock down for us on Channel 4 will be ones that some love, others hate. More will be of the sort that simply need to hide away until fashion, or a truly streetwise property developer comes to their rescue.”
Orange County In The Black Yet Again
Southern California’s Orange County Performing Arts Center has reported a $359,000 surplus for its 2004-05 season, the center’s 19th consecutive year without a deficit. The PAC is undergoing a $200 million expansion, which is 60% complete, and managed to hit a new high for contributed income even as construction continued.
Comics – Not Just For Kids Anymore
“Enjoying a quiet mutation for the past 30 years, comic books have morphed into something bigger and more complex than the hulking icons of the mid-century. The phrase ‘graphic novel’ is now commonly used to distinguish longer and more complex works from the teen travails of Archie et al” and they’re finding big adult audiences.
Vivaldi Find Last For Australian Researchers?
A long-lost work by Vivaldi discovered by an Australian researcher gets its premiere. “It is rare that a university music department can boast a research breakthrough of world importance. Those headlines usually go to the doctors, scientists and engineers. But new Federal Government research guidelines limiting research in the humanities mean the 35-minute work unearthed by Melbourne University’s Janice Stockigt at a German university in May could be the last Australian discovery of its kind.”
Russia’s New Contemporary Art Galleries
Russia’s gallery scene is booming, and contemporary art is selling well. “Europe’s second-most-populous city, Moscow has one of the highest concentration of billionaires in the world — 27, according to Forbes magazine. Oil and metals income, boosted by prices at record highs, has transformed the Russian capital into a construction boomtown and the new rich want art to furnish their houses and apartments.”