“The problem, Eisner said, is that the Writer’s Guild is lobbying for a bigger cut of the profits from digital distribution–and according to the former Disney chief, those profits simply aren’t there.”
Tag: 11.07.07
At The Met – Display Of Patronage Disguised As Art
“What is unseemly about The Age of Rembrandt is the jingling sound of money audible throughout and the subliminal appeals for more of it to replenish the museum’s coffers. The title of the show is a misnomer and a ruse.”
A Famous London Venue For New Voices, Reinvented
“What is the Royal Court for in the modern world? Its monopoly on new writing has long been challenged by rival venues. So how, in a crowded market, does the Royal Court establish its unique identity?”
Changeability – A Good Trait For Critics?
“Critics are also expected to deliver pronouncements that are valid for all time, which makes a nonsense of the complex relationship any of us has to the art in our midst. For myself, I stand by my opinions, even as I stand by the right for them to change, as our lives do.”
Chilean Government Returns Looted Books To Library
The government of Chile has returned 3,778 books that its military had taken from Peru’s national library 126 years ago. “Chilean soldiers pillaged the library in 1881 after capturing the Peruvian capital, Lima, during the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific.”
BookTV – A Really Really Bad Idea?
“Mercifully restricted to weekend broadcasts, it is quite possibly the worst channel in the US – worse than the KKK phone-ins and home-made comedy shows on cable access, worse even than C-Span, the non-stop live feed of all the men and women in Congress striving so selflessly to improve the lot of the rich. It’s bad. Really bad.”
Magic On The Fourth Plinth
Thomas Schütte has created something unique in Trafalgar Square. “At once, you see that Schütte has taken this list and inverted it to produce a statue that is transparent, colourful, and horizontal. Whereas everything else in the square is heavy and inert, the new piece is as light as air and suggestive of movement.”
Cultural Elite Pushes Wagner To Step Down In Bayreuth
“Germany’s cultural power-brokers yesterday piled the pressure on the 88-year-old grandson of Richard Wagner in the hope of persuading him to step down from the helm of the Bayreuth Festival.”
Bad Sign – Design For London’s Olympic Stadium
“In years to come, historians will use the architecture of the 2008 and 2012 Olympics as a cunning indicator of the decline of the west and the rise of the east. The newly unveiled designs for the main stadium [for the London games] sink the spirit. It’s our own fault.”
Hollywood Covets Bollywood’s Fans
So Tinsel Town takes aim. “With minimal publicity and with fewer than 50 prints, the box-office receipts and screen averages of a big Bollywood film outstrip by far any of their other foreign-language counterparts – and sometimes even Hollywood blockbusters.”