Belfast playwright Marie Jones’ play “Stones in his Pocket” has become a big hit on the West End. Now, Pam Brighton, who directed some Jones’ earlier plays, is claiming that she should get a share of the credit and profits because she “contributed a great deal to the ideas and script of the play.”
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Hollywood’s Record Year (Despite The Pirates)
Hollywood movie studios took in almost $11 billion in 2003 – a record. “The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) put the 5% rise since 2002 down to rising ticket prices. Although ticket earnings have risen, the total tickets sold has dropped 5% internationally and 12% in Europe.”
Recreating The Parthenon Marbles
The Parthenon Marbles are deteriorated and “strewn across 10 museums in eight countries” and wouldn’t give much of a sense of their original condition even if they were reunited. But the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies is scanning the fragments and recreating them in full as computer models. “It has produced 152 high-resolution models of the sculptures, and produced images which show each in its original position.”
Big Music Sues 500 More Downloaders
Music sales are up this year (and profits too) but that isn’t stopping Big Music from suing downloaders. “The Recording Industry Association of America said Tuesday it is suing another 532 people — including 89 on university campuses — in its latest wave of lawsuits against alleged file swappers. Since September, the industry trade group has tried to sue 1,977 people in various parts of the country for allegedly trading music illegally on file-sharing networks. Most of the suits are pending. This time, the RIAA made a point of targeting people who trade on university campuses, who are most likely students.”
A New Yorker In LA
Where do most of the New Yorker magazine’s readers live? Obvious, right… but only if your answer was California. According the magazine’s “latest publisher’s statement, almost a million copies were sold during the second half of 2003. During the same period, the magazine’s total paid circulation in California reached 167,580, exceeding sales in New York for the first time. (Paid circulation in New York for that period reached 166,630.)”
Ludmilla Tcherina, 79
“French dancer and actress Ludmilla Tcherina has died in Paris at the age of 79. Tcherina, one of the leading ballet dancers of her generation, appeared in several films including The Red Shoes and The Tales Of Hoffmann.”
TV: Taking A Chance On Youth
Television is breaking its long established talent pipelines. “Network television was a strict dues-paying culture. Writers sweated it out for years on other people’s shows — earning arcane titles like ‘executive story editor’ and ‘supervising producer’ — before getting a shot at creating their own. But lately those rules are being rewritten. Networks are now clamoring for fresh voices that they otherwise would not have looked toward.”
Abe Lincoln As A Theme Park?
Civic boosters in Lincoln, Illinois want to build an “Honest Abe” theme park, complete with animatronic figures from history. “Invoking images of Disneyland, the project’s backers promise to build a dignified family attraction, not a kitschy carnival. “There would be nothing degrading about this. It’s a great idea. It’s called edu-tainment.”
What About The V-Chip?
Indecency on the TV? What about the V-chip? “Eight years after Congress adopted the Telecommunications Act of 1996, about 80 million of America’s 275 million television sets have one. But it’s not easy to find anyone, outside of trivia contestants, who knows what a V-chip is. Rarer still are those who can actually make one work.”
US Anti-Cuba Policy Hurts Artists, US
Why is the US government refusing to allow Cuban artists into the United States? “In a profound way, our government takes on the role of oppressor when it tries to control which artists will be allowed access to our minds and our hearts. We may think we are isolating Cuba with our embargo and our travel restrictions, but it is we Americans who are becoming isolated. People travel to Cuba from Australia, Britain, Canada, Italy and Spain — countries we consider staunch allies.”