“Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg’s Beat-era poem ‘Howl’ was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the network with crippling fines.”
Author: sbergman
Revival Revival
Last summer’s New York revival of Gypsy, starring Patti LuPone, was an extremely limited run. But plans are underway to revive the show again, on Broadway this time, at a cost of $9 million. “But a $9 million Gypsy is no slam-dunk at the box office. Potential backers of the show are worried about the cool reception two Times critics gave LuPone’s performance.”
Scorsese Flick On Hold As Hollywood Bickers
“With Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. scrabbling over a suitable co-production arrangement, director Martin Scorsese’s next potential project, The Wolf of Wall Street, remains stuck in its cage.” At the heart of the dispute is a series of insider arguments over the proper way to share production costs and revenues, and there may not be an easy way out.
Canadian Portrait Gallery Caught Up In Political Mess
The Canadian government is floating a plan to convert an Ottawa building into a private center for functions hosted by the prime minister. One problem – it’s the same building scheduled to become the home of the National Portrait Gallery. “It is thought the chief strike against locating the portrait gallery at 100 Wellington is that originally the project was a Liberal initiative,” and the government currently in power is Conservative. Still, many are asking why the gallery couldn’t also be used for official functions.
ROM’s Flawed Crystal
The glittering new addition to Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum apparently has a bit of a structural problem. “Water penetrated the north end of the long window of the C5 restaurant, and puddles have appeared near windows on the third and fourth floors.” The leaks have been patched, “but it’s clear, four months into the Crystal’s life, the new spaces pose huge challenges, and leaks are the least of them.”
Indy’s Secrets Are Safe After Lawsuit Settled
“The producers of the new Indiana Jones movie have settled a lawsuit against an actor accused of breaching a confidentiality agreement by revealing the film’s plot in a newspaper interview… Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.”
Kids’ Music Is Big Business This Fall
“The hottest ticket in the busy fall concert season isn’t any of the superstar reunions by Genesis, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band or Van Halen, but the schizophrenic “Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds Tour,” which kicks off 54 dates later this month… Kids can’t seem to get enough of the soon-to-be 15-year-old pop sensation, and their parents seem to be willing to pay any price to fulfill their dreams of seeing her in person.”
Sony BMG Still Okay With EU Regulators
“The merger of record giants Sony Music and BMG has once again been approved by European competition regulators – after a reassessment of the case. The European Commission cleared the deal to join the two firms’ music units in 2004, but a court overturned this. A new inquiry ruled the merger would not ‘create or strengthen a dominant position in the music markets.'”
PacSym Musicians Approve Huge Raise
Musicians of the Pacific Symphony have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new five-year contract. The outcome of the ratification vote wasn’t really in doubt, since the contract will boost the musicians’ pay a whopping 41%.
Nureyev’s Calculated Celebrity
“Everything he did was designed for the public eye. Whether he was dancing, defecting, duetting with Margot Fonteyn, conducting orchestras when he could dance no more, cruising the boy bars and bath houses or dying of AIDS, Rudolf Nureyev understood as no performing artist had done before him the indivisibility of private and public persona and the ways in which one could be made to serve the other.”