HBO has begun making movies for theatrical release rather than for its TV network. “Making movies for theaters would seem counterintuitive for a premium cable channel, but it’s a strategy that HBO Films is following on select titles to burnish its reputation and direct attention to projects that may otherwise be overlooked.”
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Gamer – Hollywood Ties Itself To Video Games
Hollywood movies are increasingly thinking video games. “For studios, they represent a lucrative opportunity to introduce “catalog” products to a new generation of players and broaden a gaming universe that is already red hot. According to the NPD Group, a New York-based sales and marketing research firm, video-game software accounted for $7.3 billion in revenues in 2004, and sales rose 23% in the first quarter of this year. Games such as “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith,” released last week, are developed in conjunction with the film. And recently the DVD world began cashing in too, offering simplified versions of video games as “extras” with films such as “Hulk” and “Van Helsing.”
Spamalot Leads Tony Nominations
“Monty Python’s Spamalot” leads this year’s Tony nominations with 14. “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and “The Light in The Piazza” got 11 each. The Pulitzer Prize-winning “Doubt,” John Patrick Shanley’s drama of uncertainty set against the backdrop of a Catholic school in the Bronx, received eight nominations.
Did Buena Vista Composers Get Ripped Off?
A court in London considers whether composers of the music played by the wildly popular Buena Vista Social club were properly compensated. “The argument centres on whether the composers of music that took the world by storm in 1997 were properly rewarded or, instead, received “at most a few pesos and maybe a drink of rum”. The plot is complicated by allegations that the Cuban publisher is under the direction and control of the Cuban ministry of the interior.”
Mark Boyle, 71
Boyle was a creative original. “With Joan Hills, his partner since 1957, he took part in Britain’s first “happening,” which scandalised Edinburgh in 1963, developed early light shows for rock groups like Soft Machine, toured America with Jimi Hendrix and, in his lifelong project, worked with Hills and their children, Sebastian and Georgia, on events, assemblages and their extraordinary “earth pieces” – lifelike facsimiles of the surface of the Earth.”
Yahoo! A New Music Store
Yahoo! launches a discount music download service it hopes will attract downloaders away from illegal downloading. “Yahoo Music Unlimited is more like a cable TV service than a record store, letting subscribers play as much music as they wish for as long as they pay $6.99 a month or an annual subscription of $60.”
Adelaide Symphony Gets A Bailout
“South Australia’s government will give more than $2.1 million to help clear the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s (ASO) debt. The state funding comes amid reports the ASO will get at least $5 million in federal funding in Tuesday night’s budget.”
Boyle – Unsung Hero
Mark Boyle was one of the great unsung British artists of the late 20th Century. “Outside such circles, the Boyles have never fully achieved the degree of popularity merited by their art, although an important retrospective staged by Edinburgh’s Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2003 did much to redress this oversight.”
Frankfurt Hires Paavo Järvi
The Frankfurt Radio Symphony has signed up Paavo Järvi as its new music director. Järvi is also music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The Estonian-born conductor has signed a three-year contract, effective with the 2006-07 season.
Aussie Orchestras Get Funding Boost
Australian orchestras will get an additional $25 million in funding, says the government. “The extra funding for symphony and pit orchestras announced yesterday is to be spread over four years. It is designed “to help them become independent organisations with responsibility for their own artistic and financial future”, Arts Minister Rod Kemp said.