“In a last-minute compromise reached Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown said he would approve legislation that would more than triple the annual tax credits available for movies and TV shows produced in California. The bill is aimed at reversing the loss of location shoots to other states that offer rich incentives to studios and producers.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Ellen Burstyn, Aged 80, To Direct Her First Feature Film
The Oscar- and Emmy-winner “will star in and direct Bathing Flo, … a New York-set story that centers on a man in need of a place to live, who’s given the chance to house-sit in exchange for free rent. He discovers the house is occupied by the man’s elderly mother Flo, who is part of the deal.”
Spiraling Tensions At Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture School
The board of the Wright Foundation has decided not to incorporate its school at Taliesin as a separate entity – an organizational decision that, thanks to a change in the Higher Learning Commission’s rules, means the school will lose its accreditation in 2017. The school’s governors and faculty are, unsurprisingly, unhappy about this, amd they’ve begun rebelling against the Wright Foundation.
Shigeru Ban And The Limits Of Virtuous Architecture
Dana Goodyear considers the tension between the Pritzker Prize winner’s very-high-profile designs for quick, inexpensive temporary structures for use after natural disasters and his very-high-priced work for wealthy clients like the Aspen Art Museum.
William Greaves, 87, Pioneering African-American Documentarian
“Greaves made hundreds of movies, and in the 1960s, he served as co-host and executive producer of Black Journal, among the first TV news programs designed for a black audience.”
An Aboriginal Dance Company Explores Australia’s Cultural History
Bangarra Dance Theatre is Australia’s most famous indigenous performing arts group, popular at home and overseas. Supporters argue that it gives today’s indigenous Australians an important way to retell and process their own history – not to mention providing all-too-scarce employment for aboriginal performers. “[But] some critics have described Bangarra’s liberal use of traditional indigenous dance spiced up with modern moves as a Disneyfication of aboriginal culture.”
Joffrey Ballet Creates Employee Training Videos For Marriott Hotels
“Starting Saturday, employees throughout the luxury hotel chain’s properties will get tips from Joffrey dancers as well as its artistic director on the importance of warming up, proper breathing, flow of movement and connecting with the audience, delivered through a series of four short videos. The aim is to improve guests’ experience.”
Against [Whatever] (Susan Sontag Has A Lot To Answer For)
“In recent years, there has been an ‘Against [X]’ epidemic: against young-adult literature, against interpretation, against method, against theory, against epistemology, against happiness, against transparency, against ambience, against heterosexuality, against love, against exercise, etc. The form announces a polemic – probably a cranky one, and very likely an unfair one.” Exhibit A: Sontag’s “Against Interpretation,” from 1964.
Can A Cartoon Muslim Princess Soothe China’s Ethnic Tensions?
That seems to be what the government hopes, since it has commissioned a 104-episode series about a ten-year-old Uighur princess who works with her Han and Kazakh friends to free her captive father. Problem is, the folk character on which she’s based is seen very differently by Uighurs (who call her Iparhan) and Han Chinese (who know her as “the Fragrant Concubine”).
Sandy Wilson, Composer Of “The Boy Friend”, Dead At 90
The “winsome, nostalgic and tuneful” 1953 musical, which made stars of Julie Andrews (on stage) and Twiggy (on screen), subsequently became a perennial favorite of school and comunity theaters all over the English-speaking world. “He would say that The Boy Friend always held a place in his heart because it gave him the economic means never to work again.”