Tyler Green sees some important subtext in Judge Ott’s decision to delay ruling on the Barnes move. “In a backhanded way he acknowledged that the Barnes’ management has underwhelmed him. If they couldn’t do the right and obvious thing the first time, does Ott really think they’ll get it right now? Ott chose not to simply rule against the Barnes, but I wonder if (instead) Ott is giving the Barnes leadership the rope with which to hang itself…”
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Melbourne Festival Takes A Hit
The Australian state of Victoria has slashed its contribution to the Melbourne Festival by AUS$1 million. The festival receives a recurring grant of $2.5 million, but that has been supplemented in recent years with a “top-up” grant which the festival expected to amount to $4 million this year. Instead, the top-up grant will be $3 million. The cut was not unexpected, and the festival has been negotiating with the government for some time over budget issues.
Inside Job
Taking a page from the music industry’s playbook, Warner Bros. film studio is suing several people in believes have been distributing pirated versions of its films online. One of the individuals on the receiving end of the studio’s wrath is a Hollywood actor whom the studio says passed the ‘screeners’ he was sent to an electrician in Illinois, who then began distributing them online. “The lawsuit also lists 10 unnamed defendants as part of the alleged plot to distribute digital copies of the movies on the Internet.”
Pixar Severing Ties With Disney
Computer animation studio Pixar has broken off talks with the Walt Disney Corporation for a new distribution deal. Since 1995, when the fledgling company released Toy Story, Pixar has generated $2.5 billion in revenue, at a time when Disney’s overall hold on the animation market has been slipping. Pixar’s latest film, Finding Nemo, has generated $500 million in global ticket sales, and was nominated this week for four Academy Awards.
Trying To Make TV Suck Just A Little Less
With traditional network television continuing to hemorrhage viewers, and cable networks splintering the market more with every passing day, the landscape of American television is on the verge of revolutionary change. Among the options being looked at by the over-the-air nets are flexible schedules, eliminating reruns (unless they can be strategically used to draw new viewers,) and maybe – just maybe – the eventual elimination of the absurd and indefensible “sweeps” periods.
It’ll Cost $30,000 Less Than The Ivy League
It is an issue so divisive that British Prime Minister Tony Blair came dangerously close to losing his government over it this week: how to properly fund the UK’s impoverished universities, while maintaining a reasonable level of access for students of varying economic backgrounds. “Past governments have preferred to posture, expanding the universities while allowing them to decline.” But Blair proposed, and then eased through Parliament, a controversial plan calling for major tuition hikes, which are expected to generate £1 billion of new revenue for the system by 2009.
Why Your Congressman Can’t Hardly Talk Good
What in God’s name has happened to the great art of American political oratory? Where exactly, in the gaping chasm of history between William Jennings Bryan and George W. Bush, did our elected representatives lose the ability to inspire us with impassioned speeches choked with dangerous metaphor? Some blame the ’60s (just out of habit, most likely,) and some blame the triumph of the individual over collective experience. But whatever the reason, “in both oral and written English, talking is triumphing over speaking, spontaneity over craft.”
Is Pomo Finally Irrelevant?
The idea of viewing literature through the lens of one “-ism” or another has been a pervasive part of academia for decades. But increasingly, scholars are beginning to question the value of pigeonholing individual works of fiction, and trying to bend them to fit within the confines of a previously defined set of values. No one is arguing against the value of context, but “some academics say that postmodern theory is on the way out altogether and that the heady ideas that once changed the way literature is taught and read will soon be as extinct as the dodo and the buggy whip.”
Because, As We All Know, The F-Word Causes Cancer
The U.S. Congress is strongly urging American broadcasters to take the initiative in scaling back the amount of sexual innuendo and coarse language on the nation’s TV screens. The FCC may be on the verge of issuing stricter rules regarding on-air obscenity, and more than two dozen congressmen are sponsoring legislation to increase the maximum fine for obscenity violations tenfold. The renewed push to clean up TV comes in the wake of a flap over the FCC’s decision not to punish NBC for allowing a curse word uttered by a rock star to air during a live awards show broadcast.
The Economy, The War, and… um… Maybe The Arts? Please?
The arts don’t often register even a blip on the national political radar screen these days, but that didn’t stop the American Arts Alliance from asking presidential candidates to sign a “Pledge for the Arts,” and to detail what their hypothetical administrations would do to promote and support America’s cultural scene. John Kerry was the first to sign, and he was followed this week by Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and Joseph Lieberman. President Bush did not respond to the Alliance’s request, although one could assume that he intends for his new proposal to boost funding for the National Endowment for the Arts to speak for itself.