“An amazing number, but Avatar isn’t exactly a business model. Hollywood can’t live on a ginormous hit once a decade. And if the studios chase the success of Avatar, they’re [liable] to throw a lot of bad money after good.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
In New York, $5 Theatre Tickets For The Truly Broke
“The Jewish Theater of New York announced Monday that anyone on food stamps or Medicaid can see its upcoming production for just $5. Full price tickets are $50.”
Banksy: Not Too Famous For A Street Fight
“The aerosol painter from Bristol stands accused of disrespecting a graffiti legend by modernising a 24-year-old work by ‘King Robbo’ in Camden, North London. On Christmas Day, a few days after Banksy’s latest spray paint spree, Robbo responded in kind by obliterating the artist’s work with 3ft high silver letters spelling out his name.”
Holidays Are No Holiday For Sugar Plums, House Managers
“London alone is home to more than 50 Christmas shows, including a pair of Nutcrackers, four Cinderellas and five Christmas Carols — not to mention the 25 or so musicals that stop only on Christmas day. That means doormen, box-office staff, actors, dancers, directors, musicians and many more who worked until late on Christmas Eve….”
Art Energy In ’09 Found At Small Venues, Not Big Museums
“With the major museums gasping for cash like whales beached on a dropping economic tide, and the federal government tightening the reins on culture spending, it was the little fish that were still swishing their tails and swimming free.”
McNally-Robinson Booksellers Declares Bankruptcy
“McNally-Robinson was celebrated as a rare success story in the independent book world, expanding when other stores were closing, and even being named 2009 Bookseller of the Year by the Canadian Bookseller Association.”
Doomsayers Proved Wrong: Tech Isn’t Making Us Illiterate
“A large-scale study by the University of San Diego and other research universities revealed what some of us have long suspected: We’re reading far more words than we used to as we adopt new technologies.”
Remembering Stars Broadway Lost In ’09
Karl Malden, Natasha Richardson, Dom DeLuise, Larry Gelbart and Bea Arthur in their own words.
On Music Site, The Price Of A Download Is Watching An Ad
FreeAllMusic.com “will allow users to download songs, which may be copied and shared — unencumbered, in other words, by digital rights management restrictions.” With two of the four major labels signed on, the site “hopes to draw ‘casual pirates who, for whatever reason, are not paying for music.'”
Why Da Vinci Code Is Decade’s 2nd-Most Important Work
“In terms of craft, the best that could be said for The Da Vinci Code was that it cleared the basic hurdle of activating a reader’s desire to know what will happen next.” Many books did better artistically — but Dan Brown’s novel had a cultural and commercial reach that others couldn’t even approach.