“A Los Angeles Times study found that academy voters are markedly less diverse than the moviegoing public, and even more monolithic than many in the film industry may suspect. Oscar voters are nearly 94% Caucasian and 77% male, The Times found. Blacks are about 2% of the academy, and Latinos are less than 2%. Oscar voters have a median age of 62, the study showed. People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.”
Month: February 2012
US Senator Raises Questions About Smithsonian Chief’s Travel
On Monday, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) asked the Smithsonian inspector general for the complete documentation of Clough’s travels since 2008, when he became the institution’s top official. Grassley, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said he was concerned that “the Smithsonian may have not learned from previous mistakes” after an online investigative group, JunketSleuth.com, questioned 59 trips.
Do Novels No Longer Matter To Contemporary Culture?
The novel plays a different and a diminished role in our cultural life as compared with even the quite recent past.
Paramount Sues Mario Puzo’s Son Over “Godfather” Sequel
Paramount has sued Anthony Puzo, a son of the novelist, seeking to stop publication of a new “Godfather” novel called “The Family Corleone,” Reuters reported. The studio says that it gave permission for a 2004 sequel, “The Godfather Returns,” written by Mark Winegardner and published by Random House, but not for a 2006 follow-up, “The Godfather’s Revenge,” also by Mr. Winegardner and published by Putnam.
Mike Daisey Makes His Apple Monologue Free
“Mike Daisey has made his critically acclaimed monologue “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” available free of charge under an open license. The move means that anyone who wants to perform or adapt the play for performance can do so without paying royalties.”
Osvaldo Golijov Accused Of Plagiarism In Second Work
Last week critic Tom Manoff said that the composer’s Sidereus incorporated large chunks of music from Michael Ward-Bergeman’s score Barbeich; Ward-Bergeman says the borrowings were made with his cooperation. Now a Brazilian journalist says Golijov used, without attribution, a Brazilian pop sing for the second movement of his string quartet Kohelet.
L’Affaire Golijov: Is It Plagiarism When The Plagiarizee Says It’s Okay?
Anne Midgette: “That people are getting outraged about this simply means that they are unfamiliar with Golijov’s modus operandi. Golijov works this way with other composers all the time, folding their work into his pieces with their approval.”
The Book So Embarrassing That An Alabama Prison Banned It
Last year, a legal aid lawyer sent to an incarcerated client a copy of Slavery by Another Name, “Douglas Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning account of how the South instituted a form of de-facto slavery by mass arresting black men on nonsense charges and ‘selling’ them to plantations, turpentine farms and other places of back-breaking labor.” Prison officials thought the book “too dangerous” to have around.
Twickenham Film Studios Goes Bankrupt
“Twickenham Film Studios, which have been used for films as diverse as Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and current Oscars hopeful My Week with Marilyn, are to be closed just one year ahead of the facility’s centennial anniversary.”
The Trouble At/With English National Ballet
Judith Mackrell, commenting on Wayne Eagling’s sudden resignation as artistic director: “ENB has always had a tricky position to maintain within the UK’s dance culture: funded at a much lower level than the Royal Ballet, for example, and with a remit to tour widely, it has very little leeway for risk-taking.”