The film about Hollywood – perhaps unsurprisingly – looks like it will cruise to an Oscar Best Movie win. Then there’s Viola Davis, “probably the single most purely charismatic performer of all the nominated talent on show at the Baftas, and it is excellent that she has won best supporting actress for her supremely intelligent and sympathetic portrayal of the long-suffering Rose Maxson in the sonorous drama Fences. There aren’t many actors who can stand up to Denzel Washington in full flood and match him in acting power line for line, speech for speech, but that is what Viola Davis does. It is masterclass stuff.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Saturday Night Live Garners Its Highest Ratings In Six Years, Thanks To Its Impressions Of Trump And Spicer
Not only did this weekend top ratings for the comedy sketch show, which starred Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer and Alec Baldwin as the president, but the season overall is doing really well. “Viewership of the show for the season to date is up 22% in total viewers (10.6 million) and 19% in adults 18-49 (3.5) compared to the same period last season. That makes it the most-watched ‘SNL’ season in 22 years, since the 1994-95 frame.”
If You Want To Learn Faster, Speed Up Your Audio And Video Input
You can speed up YouTube videos, Audible books (this is especially useful for those ponderous history readers), podcasts and more. And maybe you should. “It’s a clever adaptation. In an age where more and more information arrives as multimedia, we’re reinventing the noble art of skimming.”
Al Jarreau, Who Smoothly And Gorgeously Spanned Jazz, R&B, And Pop, Has Died At 76
“Although he made his initial mark in the jazz world, Mr. Jarreau’s style, and his audience, crossed stylistic barriers. His music incorporated elements of pop, soul, gospel, Latin and other genres. It was a mark of his eclecticism that he won six Grammys across three different categories.”
Adele – And David Bowie – Is The Big Winner At The Grammys
Beyoncé won Best Contemporary Urban Album for “Lemonade” but lost out to Adele in the other big categories; David Bowie won his first Grammys for Blackstar; Chance the Rapper had a big night – and politics took center stage for some performers, like Katy Perry and A Tribe Called Quest (google “President Agent Orange”).
Harvey Lichtenstein, Who Led The Rebirth Of The Brooklyn Academy Of Music, Has Died At 87
It’s a tale of arts and gentrification, investment and marketing, failures and ultimate successes: “When Mr. Lichtenstein arrived at the academy in 1967, its stately building on Lafayette Avenue, erected in 1908, needed extensive and costly renovation. Portions of it had been rented out, and there had even been talk of tearing down the building and using the site for tennis courts. Many members of Mr. Lichtenstein’s target audience, especially Manhattanites, viewed the neighborhood — the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn — as undesirable.”
Can The New York Times Remake Itself Fully For The Digital Era?
The real question is whether the NYT can make itself “indispensable” to the lives of its subscribers. “The main goal isn’t simply to maximize revenue from advertising—the strategy that keeps the lights on and the content free at upstarts like the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and Vox. It’s to transform the Times’ digital subscriptions into the main engine of a billion-dollar business, one that could pay to put reporters on the ground in 174 countries even if (OK, when) the printing presses stop forever.
Top AJBlog Posts For The Weekend, 02.12.17
Meetings Across Space and Time
Douglas Dunn + Dancers’ Antipodes comes to roost in Danspace St. Mark’s. Paul Singh supports Christopher Williams in Douglas Dunn’s Antipodes. Laura Brenneman at the piano, Mimi Gross’s woodpecker on the pillar. Photo: Ian Douglas … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2017-02-12
AJBlog: SandowPublished 2017-02-10
Bring me the head of Norman St John Stevas
What’s the point of Parliament? If you watched the BBC thriller Apple Tree Yard, you’ll know it’s to accommodate Emily Watson’s illicit shag in the cellars, igniting a slow-burning fuse of suspicion and self-deceit. … read more
AJBlog: Performance MonkeyPublished 2017-02-10
What’s the point of Parliament? If you watched the BBC thriller Apple Tree Yard, you’ll know it’s to accommodate Emily Watson’s illicit shag in the cellars, igniting a slow-burning fuse of suspicion and self-deceit. … read more
AJBlog: Performance MonkeyPublished 2017-02-10
Nicolai Gedda, Swedish Singer Who Rose From Poverty To Become A Star Opera Tenor, Has Died At 91
Gedda’s career lasted well into his 70s, much longer than is usual for classical singers. “Over a quarter-century, he sang 367 performances with the Metropolitan Opera, from his debut in the title role of Gounod’s ‘Faust’ in 1957 to his final performance, as Alfredo in Verdi’s ‘La Traviata,’ in 1983.”
Save This Brutalist Building, Cries The Architecture Critic
The student union building, slated for possible destruction, isn’t ordinary, says Rowan Moore. It’s “a manmade terrain of rooms and spaces – large, intimate, sociable, secluded, high, low, top-lit, side-lit – which, grouped around a plunging and generous staircase, help you see the banks of green on the other side and feel the slopes of the ground. It is a way of being in the gorge while also – as a human being rather than a bird – using the facilities offered to human students.”