“The move gives shareholders – and 21st Century Fox – fewer avenues to press the company into a potential deal with Fox, which recently made an unsolicited $80 billion offer to combine the companies.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
At A Woody Allen Press Conference, Avoiding The Only Questions People Really Want To Ask
“The problem is, the only thing newsworthy about Magic in the Moonlight – an unexceptional, oddly slack late-period Allen picture – is that it’s his first release after decades-old allegations of sexual abuse resurfaced last winter … And now we were all being told to pretend like this ubiquitous scandal never happened.” Jason Bailey eased up to the issue, sort of, and Allen answered like a practiced politician.
When Will Scholars Get Around To Actually Studying Tutankhamun’s Tomb?
“‘The real curse is that too few scholars have devoted attention to the contents of the tomb,’ says [curator] Paul Collins, … [who] believes that specialists have shied away from serious study of the boy king’s tomb because he ‘so quickly became imbued with glamour and mystery’ in the public imagination.”
My Buddy Picasso
“Lucien Clergue befriended Pablo Picasso in 1953. Over the next 20 years, he took intimate portraits of the artist in his studio, at bullfights and on the beach.”
The Strangest Temple In Thailand
“Wat Rong Khun, or the White Temple, is one of over 33,000 Buddhist temples in Thailand. But it’s the only one that features a mural depicting a plane hitting the Twin Towers as Spiderman and an Angry Bird look on.”
This Dancing-Kim-Jong-Un Video Has Made North Korea Very, Very Angry
“North Korea has asked China to stop the spread of a video clip lampooning leader Kim Jong-un. … [The DPRK government] feels the clip, which shows Kim dancing and Kung-Fu fighting [with various world leaders], ‘seriously compromises Kim’s dignity and authority’. Beijing was unable to oblige.” (includes video)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.22.14
And Here’s Another New Contemporary Art Museum
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-07-23
Foot Music
AJBlog: Dancebeat | Published 2014-07-22
Footloose and Fancy Free
AJBlog: Dancebeat | Published 2014-07-22
The Composer as Cripple
(alias, Musicology as Schadenfreude)
AJBlog: PostClassic | Published 2014-07-22
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The Decline Of Harper Lee
Boris Kachka offers a notably sympathetic account of how the 88-year-old author of To Kill a Mockingbird, so feisty – and so beloved by her friends and neighbors – for so many years, came to her enfeebled, embattled, litigious current state.
Novelist Thomas Berger, 89
“The reclusive and bitingly satirical novelist … explored the myths of the American West in Little Big Man and the mores of 20th-century middle-class society in a shelf of other well-received books.”
The Surprisingly Savvy Weird Al Internet Machine
“So as we try to make sense of Mandatory Fun, Al’s fourteenth studio album – and as we round into the fourth decade of his career – it’s becoming clear that his old-school/new-school media business playbook is a little genius. In many corners of the English-language Internet, this week has been Al-saturated, his new music videos and songs unavoidable. How does he do it? Where will it lead? And will this be his media strategy forever?”