Blog

Star Power

Do big stars really matter to the movies? “If carefully tended, thoughtfully managed and brilliantly used, stars can still make a movie work as an almost dizzyingly proficient entertainment. If mishandled, they throw the project out of whack so that it putters along like a toy car with a wheel missing.”

Jane Jacobs, “Down-to-earth Cassandra”

“Jacobs’ long run as a complex, down-to-earth Cassandra: a woman who wore comfortable shoes while dishing out uncomfortable truths, who kept her ear to the ground while trying to topple giants. What Jacobs hated most — what she saw in Robert Moses, and what she always tried to avoid in her own public appearances after she gained a measure of fame — was what she called the “Olympian vantage point” of the planners who were trying in the postwar years to apply the spare, muscular forms of Modern architecture to the design of entire cities, hollowing out old neighborhoods and running giant overpasses along waterfront promenades.”

Diamond With Seven Edges

This year’s New York City Ballet Diamond features seven chorographers. “Now in its sixth installment, the project was the idea of Peter Martins, balletmaster in chief of City Ballet. And he had an enthusiastic sponsor in Irene Diamond, a feisty former Hollywood script and talent scout who became a philanthropist. Today her fund is a major sponsor of the project.”

The New Seven Wonders?

The list to choose the new seven modern wonders of the world has been narrowed to 21. They include: Acropolis in Athens; the Alhambra in Granada, Spain; Angkor, Cambodia; Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico; Christ Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro; the Colosseum in Rome; Easter Island Statues, Chile; Eiffel Tower, Paris; Great Wall, China; Hagia Sofia, Istanbul; Kyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan; Kremlin/St. Basil, Moscow; Machu Picchu, Peru; Neuschwanstein Castle, Füssen, Germany; Petra, Jordan; Pyramids of Giza, Egypt; the Statue of Liberty, New York; Stonehenge, Amesbury, United Kingdom; Sydney Opera House, Australia; the Taj Majal, Agra, India; and Timbuktu, Mali.

Actress Quits Broadway Over Baldwin

Actress Jan Maxwell quit the Broadway production of “Entertaining Mr. Sloane,” complaining about actor Alec Baldwin. In the e-mail, Maxwell said Baldwin put his fist through a wall and was “throwing things around with all of us cowering,” and Maxwell accused Baldwin of giving the Roundabout an ultimatum: refusing to go on with her.

UK Theatres Seek Smoking Ban Exemption

Theatres in the UK are looking for onstage exemption to a general smoking ban. “Exemptions are now being considered where smoking is integral to the plot. The government is considering providing a specific exemption from smoke-free legislation to ensure that smoking can take place on stage during live theatrical performances, or during film and television recording.”

Dartmouth Review At 25

“For a quarter century, its jaunty pages have enlivened the idyllic campus in Hanover, N.H., challenging liberal presuppositions — sometimes raucously — while earning recognition as a model for conservative newspapers nationwide. Distributed door to door to every student and mailed to subscribers across the country, the Review has been at the center of stormy cultural and political debates since its inception.”