“These days, any film for which a studio’s marketing department has sufficiently high commercial expectations is issued on DVD in a ‘special’ or ‘limited’ or ‘collector’s’ edition that makes an Arden Shakespeare look skimpy by comparison. The contemporary desire for interactivity in the experience of art derives, obviously, from the heady sense of control over information to which we’ve become accustomed as users of computers. The problem with applying that model to works of art is that in order to get anything out of them, you have to accept that the artist, not you, is in control of this particular package of ‘information.’ And that’s the paradox of movies on DVD: the digital format tries to make interactive what is certainly the least interactive, most controlling art form in human history.”
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Policing Piracy – Movie Studios Turn Up The Security
Warner Bros. is so anxious about piracy with “Matrix Reloaded” that security is fierce. “Reporters attending a preview of ‘Reloaded’ on Thursday night at Warner’s Burbank studios were subjected to the kind of high security normally seen at airports, not movie theatres. Journalists were required to present government-issued photo I.D., either a driver’s licence or passport, to the super-serious Warner guards, who ominously resembled evil Agent Smith from the movie. As the scribes entered the theatre, they were told to empty their pockets, so as to prevent anyone from smuggling in a miniature digital video camera.”
Where Will Federal Arts Money Go If State Arts Agencies Disappear?
Forty percent of the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts – $116.5 million this fiscal year – goes directly to state arts agencies, which then pass most of it on to local arts groups and projects. But what happens if states eliminate their arts agencies? “By law we cannot write a check if there is no agency to write a check to,” says NEA chief Dana Gioia.
Politically Incorrect – What’s It Take To Sell Political Theatre?
Political plays don’t have to be serious and hard to sit through. “Most great political plays aren’t about politics. It’s obvious to say they are about people, but some of the best are about people who are as far away from the political process as you can get. As in politics, the answer in the theatre seems to be: make plays appear cool, which only alienates people even more. It’s now extremely difficult to get a play produced unless it stars her out of EastEnders or him out of The Bill.”
Tiny Almeida Reopens After Makeover
The Almeida, “one of the most creative and fashionable theatres in London,” reopens this week after a £7.6m makeover. “Now Michael Attenborough takes over with a strong programme pretty much guaranteed to fill the revamped theatre’s 321 seats. And he has to fill them – this is a very small number of seats and the economics of the Almeida have always been of the wing-and-prayer variety.”
Shocked® And Awed® We Are
Americans rush to lock up the rights to anything. “So it’s only natural that, by last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had received 26 applications for the use of ‘shock and awe’ for everything from hot sauces to bath toys.”
Wanted: Actors Who Can’t Dance
When producers of “The Full Monty” went out looking for a cast, they purposely went looking for actors who couldn’t dance. But wouldn’t it have been easier to teach real dancers to fake like they couldn’t really dance? No. “You have to go back to a time when you couldn’t dance, when your leg wasn’t straight, your arms were not always in the right position. Some dancers can’t do that. It’s like asking somebody who’s learned how to walk, ‘Don’t walk.’ It’s difficult.”
See Our Collection..No Wait, we Can’t Show you These…
The Tate Museum put up a website Friday that it claimed would “let internet users around the world see the entire permanent collection from its London gallery plus loaned exhibits. But just hours after it was launched with a fanfare by comedian Michael Palin, almost four out of 10 pictures were replaced with a message saying they were unavailable for copyright reasons.”
Leonardo Online
“Using digital technology, the Louvre Museum is making [Leonardo] da Vinci accessible as never before, photographing 12 of his notebooks – which have not been exhibited together for 50 years – so visitors can flip through them with the click of a mouse. The effect is breathtaking – like touring the great genius’s mind. Normally kept in a Bank of France vault, each yellowing sheet testifies to the insatiable curiosity of the artist, architect, engineer, inventor, theorist, scientist and musician some describe as the ultimate embodiment of a universal man.”
Are comic Books Dying?
“Distributors used to deliver a bunch of comics to every newsagent every week, and many kids who had trouble with books got into reading that way. Now newsagents have to place a special order to get a comic, and most of them don’t bother. Even if they see a comic like The Simpsons or Archie, a lot of parents think $6 is too expensive. Result: kids are playing video games instead of discovering the pleasure of print. The few hundred comics that sell in Australia each week are mostly bought by collectors over the age of 16.”