Movie trailers have become an artform intheir own right. “At the multiplex, it is now common for a theater to present seven, sometimes 10 trailers before the feature film (as is the case now with the latest “Star Wars” episode).” Now there’s a festival to screen the best of them. “At the Golden Trailers, known as the Trailzees, organizers showed 95. It was like some kind of extreme scientific experiment you would perform with crack monkeys in cages. If it were legal.”
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Stars Bid To Save London Theatre
“Leading figures in British theatre have made impassioned pleas for London’s Arts Theatre – which staged the director Sir Peter Hall’s English-language premiere of Waiting for Godot 50 years ago – to be saved from demolition.”
Illinois Legislature Votes Video Game Ban
The Illinois legislature votes to ban sales of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors. “Under the legislation, clerks who knowingly sell adult video games to minors could be fined $1,000. They could defend themselves by showing they did not know the buyer was a minor or that they followed the industry ratings on the games.”
Bye Bye Rock (On The Radio)
More and more radio stations are abandoning the rock music format. “With the share of people age 18-34 listening to modern-rock stations down more than 20 percent in the past five years – and with thriving numbers for 13-21-year-olds, a demo some big advertisers don’t care about – rock radio should be on a quest to redefine itself. But it’s not. “
Sound Of Music At 40
“Forty years ago this Memorial Day weekend, “The Sound of Music” was not just the summer movie of 1965. It was the spring, fall and winter one, too, and in inflation-adjusted dollars, it remains the third-biggest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office, according to Box Office Mojo. It hit the Billboard Top 40 video sales chart shortly after it became one of the first movies ever released on home video in 1979, and still holds the chart’s longevity record, of more than 300 weeks and counting.”
Vilar In Jail
“Alberto Vilar, a New York money manager and benefactor to that city’s Metropolitan Opera, the Los Angeles Opera and other leading cultural institutions worldwide, was arrested late Thursday and charged by U.S. authorities with stealing $5 million in client funds, which he allegedly used to pay bills and continue his philanthropy.”
Rolling Over Star Wars
Star Wars is a juggernaut that has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie (which many critics say it is not). “Whether the final Star Wars installment is good or bad seems largely irrelevant. Regardless of what ink-stained critics aver, the benighted masses that queue up at theaters at 3 in the morning will continue to debate the philosophical intricacies of C-3PO, Anakin Skywalker and Count Dooku with all the gravity and entrail scrutiny with which monastics once pondered Cartesian dualism.”
Opera – Age Of The Director
“It’s a fact that today opera is increasingly emphasizing theatrical values rather than musical ones. This may or may not be a good thing, but it’s the way it is. And until conductors begin mentoring singers again, until opera houses work harder to understand voice types rather than mounting productions like “Turandot” and “Norma,” according to what the audience wants to see, directors will continue to play a significant role in the art form.”
Rebirth Of The Broadway Musical
“The resurgence of the musical as a creative form, evidenced in the length and diversity of West End queues, is no mere coincidence. Seeing several hits in close succession suggests a chain reaction, a common attitude. The Producers introduced a genre of self-mockery in which the action halts momentarily to reflect sourly upon itself. This hiatus device appeared at the NT as the so called Jerry Springer Moment and now, in Billy Elliot, as the episodes at the start of each act when the audience is exposed to the legend of British coalmining without the requirement of empathy that came with Daldry’s film.”
Ringing Endorsement – Ringtone Tops Music Chart
For the first time, a cell phone ring tone is set to top the British music charts. “Crazy Frog Axel F,” a ring tone based on the sound of a revving Swedish mo-ped, is the first tune being used on mobile phones to cross into mainstream music charts.”