It’s like Lifetime! Or Hallmark! But wait, it’s got prestige movies! And hey, there are documentaries! And animated movie! And … whoa, Netflix, what are you even doing? A lot. “The number of annual Netflix film releases climbs to about 90. To compare, Universal, one of Hollywood’s most prolific traditional studios, releases roughly 30 movies a year.” – The New York Times
Author: ArtsJournal2
A Writer On His Year Of Reading Fiction By African Women
At last year’s The Guardian holiday party, one of The Guardian‘s journalists realized that he was years behind in reading books by African women. So he dove in – and found stories of polygamy, migration, politics, and much more. – The Guardian (UK)
How Did Peter Jackson Make 100-Year-Old Black And White WWI Footage Look New?
The director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was given about 100 hours of film from the time period – some of it sped up, some of it in terrible disrepair, all of it black and white. First, he and his team restored all of the footage. Then, they “retimed the footage, speeding up the frame rate, adding extra frames digitally and smoothing out the movement.” – The New York Times
The Artist Who Put Lighted Massive Slugs Outside Tate Britain Says She Wants To Keep People’s Morale Up
Monster Chetwynd wanted to undermine saccharine holiday art – and work with bioluminescence. “If you let people believe they can do something, it’s more likely to happen. Depressing people stops them taking action. A lot of what I do is deliberately uplifting for that reason.” – The Observer (UK)
Is A Caravaggio Nativity Painting Stolen In 1969 About To Reappear?
Or is it an elaborate hoax by the Mafia? “New testimony from some inside the Sicilian mafia has led investigators to believe the Nativity can be recovered, and soon. They have followed leads to Switzerland and – it emerged in the autumn – to eastern Europe.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Fine Arts Of Working-Class Immigrant Women’s Fashion
While the men were at synagogue, the women were finding community elsewhere. “The dresses my grandmother sold were often showy, long, filmy, shiny concoctions, with sequined necklines and lace sleeves. They were priced for working-class people with fairy-tale aspirations, and they came in nylon and sateen and other cheaper fabrics; the skirts often swirled, and the waists had big stiff bows.” – The New York Times
Vijay Gupta To Leave LA Phil And Concentrate On Street Symphony
The violinist, who won a MacArthur “genius” grant this year, has decided to leave his seat as one of the orchestra’s first violins. He said, “The L.A. Phil saved my life when I was a 19-year-old kid. It was the way that I was able to continue being a musician and to continue growing as an artist. … And I’m really excited to take that artistry beyond Los Angeles and beyond the work of being in an orchestra.” – Los Angeles Times
Minnette De Silva Was One Of The Most Famous Architects In The World, And It’s Time To Re-Remember Her Work
A pioneer of Sri Lankan modernism, de Silva was the first Asian woman to become an associate of The Royal Institute of British Architects. With Sri Lankan independence, she launched her own architecture firm in Columbo, and “her trademark was to develop modernist architecture in harmony with the landscape and traditional craftsmanship.” But her studio, home, and many of her projects have fallen into disrepair and even ruin. Will there be a revival? – The Guardian (UK)
The Elena Ferrante Books Are Explicitly Political – Something People Are Finally Catching On To With The TV Shows
Maybe some reviewers were, shall we say, confused by the idea of books that were about the friendship of two women also being about politics. Ferrante was never unclear, though. The author’s point: “Elena and Lila were alienated from history in all its political, social, economic, cultural aspects — and yet they were part of history in everything they said or did.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
Does Princeton Have ‘Stolen’ Eastern Orthodox Manuscripts?
The church seems to think so, since it sued the university for access. On Thursday, the church “said the manuscripts were stolen and demanded their return, asserting that they had been taken during World War I from a monastery in Kormista, a village in northern Greece.” – The New York Times