The Best Foreign Film category’s “apparent magnanimity was said to have emanated out of a desire to celebrate great international works, but many saw right through it: it was at least as much about giving Academy members a specific way of honoring foreign language films so that they wouldn’t necessarily feel compelled to honor them in categories in which Hollywood films were also competing.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Nina Simone’s Music Is More Relevant Than Ever
“For Simone, who lived next door to Malcolm X in Mt. Vernon, New York, and whose first interaction with Martin Luther King, Jr. involved a heated declaration that her activism was on the ‘by any means necessary’ part of the scale, the tune bore none of the turn-the-other-cheek wholesomeness of other protest songs. ‘Mississippi Goddam’ was also an upshot of Simone’s time spent in the care of intellectual co-conspirators like Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and Stokely Carmichael.”
London Is Eating Itself. What Will Be Left?
“The spaces for work that are an essential part of the city’s economy are being squeezed, its high streets diminished, its pubs and other everyday places closing. It is suffering a form of entropy whereby the distinctive or special is converted into property values. Its essential qualities, which are that it was not polarised on the basis of income, and that its best places were common property, are being eroded.”
Public Art: Nuisance Or Blessing (Or Both)?
“Undistinguished work warrants critical drubbing; strong work is a catalyst for dialogue. Isn’t it the presenting organization’s role to stimulate that conversation? Doesn’t diverse opinion fulfill the ambitions of a democracy?”
The Most Controversial Ballerina In The U.S., In Her Prime
“The ballerina Sara Mearns, now 29, has entered her prime. She has surely become the most Dionysiac artist in an Apollonian genre, very probably the most talked-of ballerina in America and quite possibly the most argued-about ballerina anywhere.”
How Art Is Helping Charleston Unite After The Massacre
“People use creativity to make sense of all of this. They use the arts to express these deep emotions of sorrow and pain and loss. … The arts can do that. They can help us heal.”
How Ticket Reselling Is Killing Live Music (And There’s Nothing We Can Do About It)
“Defenders of the ticket resale market will tell you ticket resale is a simple extension of the free market; that the resale market is the best way to learn the true value of a ticket (as opposed to the perceived one asked by promoters, venues and artists); and that if artists don’t like resale (and many don’t), they should set higher prices (in fact, certain top artists, defenders correctly point out, work a percentage of resale profits into their contracts).”
Why Are Movies Having Such A Blockbuster Year?
“It’s been a phenomenal six months for blockbusters, with Avengers; Age of Ultron and Fast and Furious 7 also breaking the $1bn barrier – an achievement that was almost unheard of until a few years ago.”
A Five-Hour Dance Performance Becomes An Endurance Test
“Even watching ‘Still Life’ is an act of endurance. Without a narrative arc or the traditional performance signals of beginning, middle and end, the experience of being in the audience demands a particular focus and attention.”
International Tourists Love ‘Friends,’ And Warner Bros Wants Them On Set
“Once an afterthought, the two-hour studio tour has become a significant and increasingly fast-growing business for Warner Bros. The tour employs about 200 tour guides and support staff, up from a handful a decade ago.”