“Actors can chew scenery, but sometimes, the scenery chews back.” Two Argentines and a Canadian have filed a complaint in Federal court alleging that The Zero Theorem, starring Matt Damon and Christoph Waltz, “violates the copyright they hold on a large-scale mural titled Castillo on public display in Buenos Aires.”
Tag: 08.13.14
To Avoid “Blasphemy”, Sony Is Altering Seth Rogen’s Kim Jong Un Assassination Comedy
“Sources say the studio is digitally altering thousands of buttons worn by characters in the film … because they depict the actual hardware worn by the North Korean military to honor the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, 31, and his late father, Kim Jong Il (showcasing military decorations would be considered blasphemous to the nuclear-armed nation).” North Korea has already described the movie as “an act of war.”
China’s Young Rival Kings-Of-All-Media
“China’s culture-watchers have pitted Han Han and Guo Jingming against each other since they were teenagers. The two men, both now in their early thirties, make for a tempting juxtaposition, a sort of Mailer-Vidal rivalry” – except that Mailer and Vidal didn’t write million-selling Young Adult novels, record pop albums, and direct hit movies.
BBC Radio Raises Writers’ Pay Rates By Exactly One Percent
Accusing the network of “undervaluing” writing talent, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain “reluctantly” accepted the offer, which is effective as of August 1, to avoid months of bargaining and the ensuing difficulty of backdating freelancers’ contracts.
Frans Brüggen, Pioneer Of Period-Instrument Movement, Dead At 79
The Baroque flute and recorder soloist of choice for many of the pathbreaking recordings by the likes of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt, Brüggen went on to a busy career conducting both period and mainstream orchestras. In 1981, he founded the Netherlands-based Orchestra of the 18th Century, with which he did hundreds of concerts and dozens of recordings over the next three decades.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.13.14
Improving Lives “vs.” Arts Mission ??!!
AJBlog: Engaging Matters | Published 2014-08-13
Watching Art Be Made
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-08-13
Perverting the Young, Microtonally
AJBlog: PostClassic | Published 2014-08-13
My encounters with Lauren Bacall
AJBlog: About Last Night | Published 2014-08-13
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Britain’s National Gallery Re Selfies: We Give Up!
“The gallery relaxed its strict no-photography policy last month after staff found it ‘increasingly difficult’ to distinguish between guests using free wi-fi to research paintings and those trying to take pictures with mobile phones.”
Why Should Some Books Be “Guilty Pleasures” And Others Considered Like Spinach?
Rebecca Mead: “The distinction partakes of a debased cultural Puritanism, which insists that the only fun to be had with a book is the frivolous kind, or that it’s necessarily a pleasure to read something accessible and easy … [or] that literary works, especially those not written last year, are placed at the opposite pole to fun.”
The Recording Industry’s “Antilabel” – And The Niche Musician’s Lifesaver
“For more than 325,000 recording artists, in genres ranging from folk and rap to polka and bhangra” – and yes, classical, too – “CD Baby has become a vital lifeline. For a fee, the company not only sells copies of their CDs and digital versions of their songs, it can also track, collect and distribute royalties for musicians who don’t have – or don’t want – a big record label or song publisher behind them.”
Lauren Bacall, 89
“[She] was one of the last surviving major stars of the studio system, which flourished from the silent-movie era to the dawn of the television age. … [Her] husky voice and smoldering onscreen chemistry with her husband Humphrey Bogart made her a defining movie star of the 1940s … Decades later [she] won Tony Awards in the Broadway musicals Applause and Woman of the Year.”