Will “boy films” or “girl films” dominate? And also, WTF, Hollywood? – The Guardian (UK)
Tag: 10.31.09
Impresario John Kenley, Who Brought Big Stars To Little Cities, Dies At 103
He was “renowned for taking large-scale productions to small towns and cities and festooning the shows with headliners like Mae West, Gloria Swanson and Burt Reynolds.”
Russian Literature Rises Again
“Once again it has become fashionable to argue that Russian fiction is over, buried under the rubble of the former Soviet Union. Critics have decreed that no classic works of Russian literature have emerged in the past 18 years. That may be true, but green shoots are now pushing through the fallen masonry.”
US TV Ratings Stabilize After Years Of Decline
“Ratings are up 2 percent after falling for several seasons. I’m not suggesting the suits break open 11,000 bottles of champagne, but there is plenty of cause to pop a can of ginger ale. Freshman shows have reinvigorated a medium that once seemed headed the way of the typewriter, or Amy Winehouse’s career.”
José Antonio Abreu Makes The Basic Case For Arts Education
“The distribution in the world of arts education is tremendously unjust. When arts education takes the place in our society that it deserves, we will have much less delinquency and violence, and much more motivation towards noble achievement.”
When Culture Was On TV
“For years PBS has been trimming back its high-culture programming, partly because it doesn’t do well in the ratings and partly, I suspect, because such lofty fare has lost favor with the intellectual elite. The notion of devoting a 13-hour TV series to the glories of Western art would now be thought comical–or contemptible–by those well-placed eggheads who regard the West as the source of all evil in the postmodern world. Among such enlightened folk, “Civilisation” is regarded as an embarrassing relic, painfully slow-moving and politically retrogressive.”
The Year Of The E-Book? Not So Fast…
So far, e-readers mostly provide “static reproductions of the print version,” minus the advantages of hard-copy books that readers have grown accustomed to over the years, such as easily being able to pass a book on to a friend,
Worldwide Mass Thriller Dance Breaks Record
“This was the fourth annual Thrill the World event and interest was at an all time high to honor the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Thrill the World reported that 22,932 people danced to Thriller in 32 countries around the globe.”