Turns out that, in the wake of all of the sexual harassment accusations, at least one sketch just isn’t that funny. However: “Do you believe you are going to come to the Palladium and see Dick Whittington and not have a joke about dick? That would be a sad day I think, as you can’t get too hung up on it.”
Tag: 10.08.17
What A Difference It Makes When A Woman Director Films A Sex Scene
Uta Briesewitz, who was David Simon’s director of photography on The Wire and is now directing episodes of his current series, The Deuce, talks about filming a masturbation scene with Maggie Gyllenhaal and explains how she can tell just by watching whether a sex scene was directed by a man or a woman.
What Newspapers Sacrifice When They Get Rid Of Their Arts Critics
Peter Preston, who was editor of The Guardian for 20 years (1975-95): “If a film critic, say, has real value, then it’s in the build-up of recognition and trust between them and the reader. Week by week, you share the critic’s views and check them against your own cinema-going experience. … [Critics’] eye on the arts, day by day and week by week, adds richness and information to the mix. They have the possibility of authority that blogs or compilations in the Rotten Tomatoes style lack.”
Are We Becoming Addicted To Distraction?
“Checking phones or tablets for the next message, the latest tweet, a new Skype meeting request, the email we’re waiting for, has become for us the new fidgety, anticipatory normality. These devices, and the systems and knowledge to which they give us access, addict us to the (short-term) future. And ‘addict’ is not a ill-chosen word. Such technologies underline for us that even the most recent past is out-of-date, and might as well be forgotten.”
Canada’s Proposed New Cultural Policy Sidesteps Cultural Issues
Canadian private broadcasters such as CTV and Global are regulated by a series of interlocking responsibilities (such as providing Canadian content) and protections (such as being allowed to drop their ads into competing U.S. signals). The requirement that they be majority-Canadian-owned means they don’t have to compete directly with American broadcasters. Without it, Canadians would simply have been watching ABC North or CBS Canada since the early days of TV.
What Has Happened To The Nobel Literature Prize?
“Something funny has happened in Stockholm over the last three years, a period that has coincided with the Swedish academic Sara Danius becoming chair of the Nobel Committee for Literature, replacing Peter Englund. The Nobel has become, well, fun. It opened up the definition of literature to include 2015 laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s oral histories and 2016 laureate Bob Dylan’s off-kilter folk songs. Kazuo Ishiguro, the 2017 laureate, would appear to be a far more conventional choice—his prevailing theme is memory and he has returned on multiple occasions to World War II.”
How Donald Trump Came To Star In A Series Of Bizarre Victorian Novels
“In July, a flock of internet detectives discovered the books. The Travels and Adventures of Little Baron Trump and His Wonderful Dog Bulger was published in 1889, and quickly forgotten thereafter, as was its sequel, Baron Trump’s Marvelous Underground Adventure. They are not timeless, and were quickly overshadowed by more compelling contemporary entries in the fanciful-travel-stories-for-children genre, like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and The Wizard of Oz. Their author, lawyer Ingersoll Lockwood, appears in history mostly for his role in a financial tangle that occurred in the aftermath of an elderly woman’s death on the railroad tracks near Philadelphia.”
$998 To See “Hello Dolly” On Broadway?
The high “Dolly” ticket, which is for weekend performances, reflects strong demand to see Bette Midler’s Tony-winning turn before her run ends on Jan. 14. And the front row provides an opportunity for fans to be quite close to her: She performs the title song on a passerelle, a walkway that arcs in front of the stage, and she often reaches out toward audience members, sometimes shaking their hands.
How Skiffle Gave Us The Music Revolution Of The 1960s
Lennon and McCartney are writing their own songs because skiffle has empowered them. And I don’t think there was that equivalent in the United States. There was no mass movement of school-aged boys playing three-chord blues songs in the United States. Skiffle was less like the punk scene and more like — do you know what a fidget spinner is?
The Art Of Embarrassment – Authenticity On Display
Part of the appeal of live art is the chance that it could go wrong. There is also a perverse pleasure in observing the authenticity of a mistake in a contrived setting — for instance, actors “corpsing” can prove exhilarating in small doses. The trend of confessional art (and one may extend the point to reality television) offers similar authenticity within an artificial environment, if not to the same extent as an onstage mistake. As playwright and actor Tim Crouch puts it, “To see someone fail and to be embarrassed is a very real thing, and we like it real and unmediated.”