“A crucial part of the Disney magic has always been its total control over ‘the vault,’ its 80-year-old catalog of animated features that are only released for sale for a limited time before becoming artificially scarce again.” But the studio has been busy remaking many of its classic animated titles – Sleeping Beauty (as Maleficent), Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast (not to mention the 1996 101 Dalmatians) – in live action. Why?
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Art of Literary Expletive Avoidance
“Swearwords pepper modern novels, not least in genres like detective fiction where they lend colour and authenticity to hard-boiled dialogue. But there are times when a writer can say more by not saying them.”
Old Master Paintings Are Almost Cheap These Days
“That $3 million Caravaggio is looking like a bargain compared to an $81.9 million Andy Warhol.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.26.15
Sotheby’s Raises Its Buyer’s Premium. How Much Is Too Much?
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-01-26
Monday Recommendation: Bley, Sheppard, Swallow
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-01-26
Equal Parts Hip-Hop and High Art, Seattle’s Amy O’Neal Finally Tours
AJBlog: Fresh Pencil Published 2015-01-26
Ruff stuff
(David Jays on reviving Jacobean tragedy)
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2015-01-26
AAMD’s Midwinter Meeting: Cultural Property, “Public Trust”
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-01-26
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The Show Must Go On: Blizzards Don’t Shut Down Broadway (Well, Almost Never)
Playbill looks at two decades worth of big storms, and has to go back to 1996 to find one that closed more than a very few shows. (Except for Sandy, which didn’t have any snow.)
But This Snowstorm IS Shutting Down Broadway (Blame Gov. Cuomo)
“Broadway theatres will go dark the evening of Jan. 26 as a major winter weather system bears down on the Northeast, with anywhere from 18 to 24 inches of snow forecast to fall across the New York City area in the next 24 hours. Several productions have already canceled Tuesday performances.”
First Lady Of Arabic Cinema, Faten Hamama, Dead At 83
“For a half-century, she stayed current by taking topical roles in films dealing with social justice and women’s rights. As an idolized national figure, she not only galvanized support for those causes but also helped redefine the Arab woman.” (She was also, by the way, the frequent co-star and erstwhile wife of Omar Sharif.)
Where Science And Science Fiction Meet
“Many scientists and engineers acknowledge that science fiction helped to spark their imagination of what was possible in science (immersion in the genre from a young age might help explain why I now research unconventional computers). And science fiction authors are inspired by future science possibilities. But how do novel scientific ideas get into SF authors’ heads in the first place?”
$150K Play Production Award To Rajiv Joseph’s “The Guards At The Taj”
Joseph, who was a Pulitzer finalist in 2010 for Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, won the 2015 Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award, “which provides $50,000 to the winning playwright and an additional $100,000 to defray production costs for the play’s premiere.”
Hunger Games: Wave Of New Video Games Focuses On Scarcity And Subsistence Rather Than Shooting
“These games subvert the usual arc of heroic triumph … at last breaking away from the technicolour militarist bloodbaths that dog the reputation of computer games. … Finding a mouldy crust of bread to eat is often a higher priority than blazing away at the robots.”