Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of the Christ, continues to steamroll its way through the top-ten list of highest grossing movies of all time, and to do so with relatively little traditional advertising. In fact, the word of mouth attached to Gibson’s feast of religious ultraviolence has been so strong that it’s changing the way some Hollywood types think about PR. With pastors, priests, and preachers around the world exhorting their followers to see the movie, this weekend’s Easter celebrations can be seen as the ultimate marketing tie-in, as Passion aims for thate loftiest of moviemaking goals: a $1 billion payday.
Month: April 2004
Detroit Symphony Reduces Its Summer Season
Struggling to cope with a multimillion-dollar deficit, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has cut way back on the concerts it plays at the Meadow Brook Music Festival, where the DSO has traditionally played 15 summer concerts over 5 weeks. In January, the orchestra completed a mid-contract renegotiation with its musicians, who agreed to temporary pay cuts and furlough weeks in an effort to balance the books, but the Meadow Brook cuts will still leave a 3-week gap in the summer schedule, which could be filled by a statewide tour, or an expansion of the DSO’s other summer activities.
Culture Capital Crusader Quits
“The head of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture team has resigned from his £100,000-plus role after just two months. Kevin Johnson, the chief operating officer, cites personal reasons for his decision to leave the post,” and sources say that he was simply tired of commuting from his home in Scotland. Cultural leaders in the city are expressing surprise and disappointment, but with the next Europe-wide Capital of Culture competition nearly four years away, no one on the Liverpool team is panicking.
Greek Court Gives Go Ahead To Acropolis Museum Construction
Greece’s highest court has ruled that work can proceed on a museum at the Acropolis. “Court sources said the Council of State dismissed arguments that construction work would damage ancient building remains found on the plot earmarked for the 94-million-euro museum.”
Christo And Jeanne-Claude In Central Park
Next February, Central Park will be home to a Christo and Jeanne-Claude. “After two and a half decades of refining the work and banging on official doors for a hearing, they are about — thanks to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s approval — to achieve their goal, with a project called “The Gates.” It is logistically one of the team’s most complicated to date, and certainly, at 25 years, the longest in gestation.”
How Do You Judge A Christo?
How do you judge Christo and Jean-Claude’s project to build gates in Central Park? Is it “possible for the project, once completed, to fail aesthetically. Is there a wrong way to arrange 7,500 gates in Central Park? If not, then in what sense is its realization an artistic success? Proposition: If difference in a work of art does not affect its value as art, then maybe it isn’t art to begin with. If Beethoven had written di-di-di-deem rather than di-di-di-dum, the result would have been not merely different but discernibly worse. If Shakespeare had written “Should I or shouldn’t I” rather than “To be or not to be,” the result would have been not merely different but worse. And if Raphael had painted Plato and Aristotle out of proportion with the rest of the figures in The School of Athens, or if he’d painted Aristotle gesturing up and Plato gesturing down, rather than vice-versa, the result would have been not merely different but worse.”
Natural History Staff Charges “Culture Of Fear” At Museum
Staff at London’s Natural History Museum are charging that a “culture of fear” has taken over the museum. “Twenty-five keepers, professors and managers have written to museum trustees reporting a ‘breakdown of trust at all levels’ caused by the suspension and reinstatement of three maintenance staff. They were suspended in December, six months after an internal audit was unable to account for £1.8 million alleged to have disappeared from the museum’s budget.”
The Pulitzers – Is Writing About Cars Real Criticism?
Many were surprised this week when the Pulitzer for criticism went to someone who writes about cars. Is writing about cars real criticism? “Cars are literally what connects the city of Los Angeles. I’m sure some people will clench their fists and decry the award as the end of our culture, but it seems like a completely reasonable choice to me.”
NLRB Ruling On Live Broadway Music
A new ruling by the National Labor Relations Board is being hailed by the American musicians union as supporting the union’s fight to keep live music on Broadway…
Chess: Measuring Artificial Intelligence
“Chess has long served as a touchstone for the progress of artificial intelligence. For years, the best human players retained a clear edge over chess-playing computers. Computers appeared to gain the advantage with the 1997 defeat of the reigning world champion, Gary Kasparov, by IBM’s Deep Blue. But since then, the top ranks of chess have settled into an unexpected equilibrium between humans and computers. The computers and grandmasters are both getting better (and the grandmasters are getting better at playing computers). This is a disappointing state of affairs for enthusiasts of artificial intelligence.”