Norman Foster is Britain’s most famous working architect, with a string of successes. But when his Millennium Bridge across the Thames opened last Saturday, it swayed and wobbled and terrified the crowds pounding across it. “What an embarrassment,” he tells Hugh Pearlman. – The Sunday Times (UK)
Author: Douglas McLennan
NO MORE PLOP ART
In the past seven years, Britain has erected some 7,000 pieces of public art sculptures. The kinds of art being put up is changing though: “Younger artists, in particular, prefer to make works that involve people and real life. They are not interested in parachuting in a big bit of sculpture.” – The Telegraph (UK)
HOW THE NEA LOST AN INCREASE
National Endowment for the Arts chief Bill Ivey is still scratching his head trying to figure out how the NEA lost out on a $15 million funding increase that looked like it would pass last week. – Washington Post
RAISE THE RED CURTAIN
Chinese director Zhang Yimou (“Raise the Red Lantern,” “Ju Dou,” “To Live”) is considered one of the world’s greatest filmmakers. At age 48, with nearly a decade under his belt of clashing with Chinese authorities over the politically explicit nature of his work, his renown even more startling considering he’s been banned from all international coproductions for the last six years. “He was cut off from the foreign finance, technology and even film stock that enabled him to create his indelible images. A man who may be the world’s greatest active filmmaker thus spent the second half of the 1990s cut off from world cinema, busying himself with cheap domestic productions and directing operas.” – The Telegraph (UK) 06/16/00
BANNED IN ONTARIO
The Ontario Film Review Board has banned a poster for an Israeli art film because it contains some nudity (though not enough to prevent the poster image to be printed in the newspaper). The film’s distributor calls for the dismantling of the review board. ”I’ve come to a point where I think this is completely archaic. This kind of control does not make any sense in this day and age.” – National Post (Canada) 06/16/00
MOVIE RIPOFF
Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Time Warner and Twentieth Century Fox, are among seven companies taking legal action against RecordTV.com. alleging that the internet site has been recording their films and TV shows and illegally retransmitting them over the web. – BBC 06/16/00
NO, NO I-FILMS
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences decides that no film shown on the internet before playing in theaters will be eligible for an Oscar next year. – CBC 06/16/00
SAVING JOYCE
“Weary of the Dublin authorities’ failure to save the setting for Joyce’s short story The Dead, Brendan Kilty has decided to do it himself. He has bought 15 Ushers Island, a derelict Liffey quayside house, and intends returning it to the way it was in the writer’s day.” – The Times (UK)
FEAR NOT THE BIGS
After seven months of study, a Canadian government commission studying the publishing industry concludes “that bookstore giant Chapters and its wholesale outlet Pegasus are not the problem that some of the small bookstores and publishers have alleged.” – CBC
THE PROOF’S IN THE PIRATING
One in five music CDs sold throughout the world last year were pirated versions, according to a new London-based study. That means more than 500 million pirated-music CDs were sold last year alone, and at least 25 million pirated files are currently available for download online. Illegal music sales outnumber legal ones in 19 countries. – The Age (Melbourne)