“The very nature of Bollywood films is changing. Though big-budget films are by no means extinct, such productions are increasingly viewed as financial gambles that must compete with the wider range of high-quality options available to viewers. Even if quite a few Bollywood releases have sold more tickets by virtue of their wider releases, it’s the smaller, more critically acclaimed releases like Newton and Hindi Medium that were among 2017’s most profitable films. This apparent shift has been underway for the past decade—it’s the sense of panic gripping the industry that is new.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Elementary School Teacher Fired After Allowing Students To See Pictures Of Classic Art Including Nudity
“The saga began when Mateo Rueda had fifth and sixth grade students do a color study exercise. In the last few minutes of class, Rueda had students go to the library and look through art books and boxes of postcards so they could select which paintings best exemplified the color relationships they had been studying. That’s when Rueda realized that some of the postcards, which he claims had been in the library long before he started teaching there, included some nude paintings, including Iris Tree, by Amedeo Modigliani, François Boucher’s Brown Odalisque, and The Valpincon Bather by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.”
A New Golden Age For Soul (And What That Looks Like)
“For much of the 2010s, the charts have been dominated by pop stars who weren’t necessarily delivering the most personalized, introspective music. Big productions and a litany of guest appearances on every release undermined the impact of singer-songwriters, as artists like Jazmine Sullivan and Bilal remained on the fringes of the mainstream. But this year, the pendulum swung for sincerity. Black singer-songwriters once again are redefining popular music and reshaping contemporary soul.”
Gia Kourlas Learns To Look At Dance Differently
“The dance world tends to compartmentalize itself: There is uptown dance (code word for ballet) or downtown dance (the more experimental variety). I follow both and everything in between. What am I looking for in terms of any kind of performance? Imagination. To see how a choreographer thinks, how a dancer responds and how the art of theater creates an atmosphere.”
“All Of A Sudden We Can Do The Same Kind Of Analysis On Images As We Can On Text”
“For the first time, helped by recent advances in artificial intelligence, researchers are able to analyze large quantities of images, pulling out data that can be sorted and mined to predict things like income, political leanings and buying habits. In the Stanford study, computers collected details about cars in the millions of images it processed, including makes and models.”
Advice 13 Artists Would Have Given Their Younger Selves
This falls into the category of what you’ve learned that you wish you’d known when you started out as an artist.
Alphabet Mystery Writer Sue Grafton, Dead At 77
Husband Stephen Humphrey said Grafton had been struggling to find an idea for “Z’’ while undergoing treatment and losing weight. “Nothing’s been written,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “There is no Z.” He added with a laugh, “Nobody in this family will ever use the letter Z again.”
What Would A Self-Aware Machine Be Like?
“Most computer scientists think that consciousness is a characteristic that will emerge as technology develops. Some believe that consciousness involves accepting new information, storing and retrieving old information, and cognitive processing of it all into perceptions and actions. If that’s right, then one day machines will indeed be the ultimate consciousness. They’ll be able to gather more information than a human, store more than many libraries, access vast databases in milliseconds, and compute all of it into decisions more complex, and yet more logical, than any person ever could.”
The Top-Grossing Actor Of 2017: Vin Diesel
Vin Diesel has been named the top-grossing actor of 2017 by Forbes. His global ticketing receipts were listed at $1.6 billion, largely in part to being the face of the “Fast and the Furious” franchise.
A Comeback For CDs?
“David Bakula, who oversees Nielsen’s industry insights operations, said the changes in digital habits mean the CD is representing a larger share of the declining album sales market. He believes that writing the obituary for the CD is premature as labels look to bolster album sales however they can, while older listeners stick to their usual buying habits.”