“If musicals amused people in the 1930s, hypnotised them in the 40s and 50s and more or less died out in the 1970s, they have, despite their recycled storylines and arch dialogue, never really wanted for fond audiences. After a long, slow decline, the film musical appears to be coming back. There are at least five in production at the moment, among them Rent and The Producers, and one soon to be released, De-Lovely, a biopic of Cole Porter in which Kevin Kline plays the lead and the songs are performed by pop stars.”
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Theft Should Increase Munch Value
Worldwide attention for the theft of Munch’s Scream should increase the value of his work, say experts. The top price for a Munch work at auction was $7.7 million for “Girls on a Bridge,” sold in New York in November 1996, according to Sotheby’s Holdings Inc.
Scream Robbery – Sign Of Thefts To Come?
“Museum theft has historically been a genteel sort of crime, conducted, for the most part, with legerdemain and nimble-footed alarm evasion. But among those who follow the topic closely, the Munch robbery is seen not as an anomaly, but as a sign of things to come. Over the past decade, an increasing number of art thefts have taken place in the daytime during business hours.”
The Balance Between Art And Security
“Art thefts, though not often as high-profile as the broad daylight robbery in Oslo, are persistently on the increase worldwide. This latest heist once again spotlights the holes in international law, the high costs of insurance and security, and the delicate balance that institutions must strike between protecting works of art and displaying them openly.”
Art Of The Copy?
It’s bad that The Scream was stolen. But even if it never turns up again, it’s not like the image is lost. “It is not as if the world would forget what it looks like. The Scream is one of the most photographed and copied paintings of all time – and how many of us can honestly claim to be able to tell the difference between a good copy of a painting and the real thing?”
What Is “Dick-Lit?”
“Dick-lit” fits a familiar matrix: It takes the form of first-person memoir or first-person fiction, is set among striving young people in a large city (usually New York) and tells the story of a youngish man — a man who is starting to feel not so young — who works in the world of media, just like Bridget Jones. He has achieved a tolerable level of financial success and is bored or simply fatigued by the endless sexual possibilities of urban life. He is looking for a serious girlfriend and is frequently and amusingly disappointed. Career is not an issue for him, politics is not an issue, art is not an issue (indeed, art is usually dismissed as embarrassing, as cringingly pretentious and effeminate, a girly substitute for television). There are no philosophical questions at all in life other than the quest for a satisfying mate. In other words, it is exactly like chick-lit in every way, but with the genders reversed.”
The Next Big Thing In Chicago Theatre
Chicago’s House Theatre is the latest of the city’s “generation-defining ensembles that includes Steppenwolf and Lookingglass. With 26-year-old Nathan Allen as head carpenter, the House — with its boyishly playful, highly physical shows that keep a steady finger on the pop-cultural pulse as they win mostly rave reviews — has quickly become the theater for the under-35 crowd, a demographic that few other companies seem able to pry away from their date movies and ‘Friends’ reruns.”
The Air Guitar World Championship
Forget the Olympics. This week in Finland, “experts” from all over the world will be converging on Finland for the Air Guitar International Championships. “What air guitar is all about is to surrender to the music without having an actual instrument. Anyone can taste rock stardom by playing the air guitar. No equipment is needed, and there is no requirement for any specific place or special skills. In air guitar playing, all people are equal regardless of race, gender, age, social status or sexual orientation.”
Your Brain, Your Politics
Are your political beliefs dictated by the architecture of your brain? “Is there something intrinsically reductive or fatalistic in connecting political values to brain functioning? No more so than ascribing them to race or economic background, which we happily do without second thought. Isn’t it more dehumanizing to attribute your beliefs to economic conditions outside your control? At least your brain is inalienably yours — it’s where the whole category ‘you’ originates.”
Will Cable TV Peak? (In 2009?)
A media analyst predicts that cable TV’s inroads on capturing audience from broadcast networks will peak by 2009, collectively attracting about 57% of prime-time viewers. That’s up from 53% in 2004 and 43% in 2000. But that will be it, he says, unless cable networks choose to cut profit margins by ramping up spending for programming.”