On June 12, the U.K.-based cinema giant had called off its planned $2.1 billion takeover of Cineplex, which would have created one of the world’s largest cinema companies with more than 11,200 screens globally. Cineplex, as a once friendly takeover attempt has hit the rocks, claimed that Cineworld “breached its contractual obligations and its duty of good faith and honesty.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Author: Douglas McLennan
Extraordinary Times: A One-Time Wealth Tax Would Help Fix Things
Extraordinary times need astonishing remedies. In this very rich country, private wealth has soared to six times the value of annual GDP. So take a deep breath and jump in. A once-in-a-lifetime windfall tax of 10% on all wealth would yield £1 trillion – enough to pay for all the things we regard as essential for civilisation. – The Guardian
Why Humor Has Eluded Philosophers
Humour can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the purely scientific mind. – Aeon
Pompeo Says US Is Considering Ban On TikTok
TikTok — which is owned by Beijing-based startup ByteDance — has been repeatedly criticized by US politicians who accused the short-form video app of being a threat to national security because of its ties to China. They allege that the company could be compelled to “support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.” – CNN
Quibi Was Going To Reinvent Video. But Is Anyone Watching?
Quibi, the brainchild of Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former Disney studio head and DreamWorks co-founder, had promised to reinvent television by streaming high-quality content in ten-minute-or-less chunks to “the TV in your pocket.” – New York Magazine
The Frustrations Of How To Think About “Hamilton” In 2020
How can one story simultaneously broadcast a contemptible message of myopic reverence for America’s Founding Fathers to some, while others take from it an equally powerful repudiation of everything those founders represent? Unraveling this question requires understanding Hamilton as the messy, mutable product of two masters: its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the constantly roiling cultural context in which it’s been viewed, especially in 2020. – Vox
So You Want To Direct Our Play (We Have A Few Changes…)
Congratulations! Your MFA in directing is about to be put to good use, effectively proving your father wrong about your job prospects. Your firm grasp of Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory, not to mention your dissertation on the dramatic relevance of Aristotle’s Poetics, will give you the edge you need to pour into your cast of laypeople like the eager, empty vessels they are. – McSweeney’s
Time For A Rethink In How The Arts Are Delivered
Of course, Zoom is not the answer to saving the arts for the digital generation, but it does pose the question: Why don’t we have better alternatives? For many institutions, fear that improving the virtual performance would threaten the health of the physical one has kept them in a state of pseudo-Internet denial. But the international health crisis has forced organizations to confront a generational sea change that has been brewing across the arts since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. – The American Scholar
Michelangelo: Portrait Of The Artist As An Old Man
When Michelangelo turned seventy, as he does at the beginning of Michelangelo, God’s Architect, he had nineteen more years to live, every one of them spent at work. As dear friends died and his body weakened, he took on a remarkable series of huge, daunting projects, fully aware, as William Wallace emphasizes, that he would never live to see them completed. In his deeply spiritual vision of the world, his own limits hardly mattered; God had called him, and he had answered. – New York Review of Books
A Need To Redefine Black Music
If Black lives matter now more than ever, hearing Black liveness in classical music also matters. The alternative is an addiction to exclusion that ends, as addictions often do, in impoverishment. – The New York Times