Negotiations on a new contract between Broadway producers and musicians began this week, and musician minimums are the big issue. The two sides are well apart. “Producers have taken what one source calls a ‘blood oath’ that they will hang together in the event of a strike. They expect the union to take a divide-and-conquer approach, striking only those shows with weak box offices or that don’t yet have their ‘virtual orchestras’ in place (there are a few). Should that happen, every show will bar musicians from the theater and use pre-recorded music.”
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Pop Goes The Jingle
“With traditional sources of revenue falling, the music industry is now desperate to get advertisers to use original pop songs to sell everything from handbags to hamburgers. This trend, which media types call ‘synchronisation’, is leading to another: the decline of the jingle. Once pop songs in their own right (America’s first radio jingle, Pepsi’s “hits the spot”, became a jukebox hit in 1939) catchy jingles are being discarded. Despite the $90,000-plus cost to license a pop song (compared with $15,000 for a customised jingle), advertisers, especially those aiming at younger consumers, think it money well spent.”
British Awards Have American Taste
The Bafta Awards are the British equivalent of the Oscars. But this year the field is so crowded with Americans, the exercise looks more like a Hollywood preview. “The pre-eminence of all-American stars, films and craft talents in the nominations made by those who consider themselves the elite of the British film industry is causing a scandal. And rightly so. ‘Where are the Brits?’ is what’s being asked as the lists are scanned.”
Critical Disconnect
It seems like critics are more out of step with audiences than they have been in a long time. Critics’ favorite movies aren’t the big box office hits. Reality TV has captured viewers’ hearts, but not the critics. And pop music critics consistently pick albums and artists that don’t sell well. “So what gives? Should critics really worry about staying in sync with the masses? Should they start grading on a curve?”
Trouble Remembering?
The idea of erecting monuments has seemed so old-fashioned for a long time. “The view that memory is an impediment to modernity has been widely shared by architects, artists, and theorists. The obsolescence of the monument became almost an axiom of the modernist creed. But sometimes aesthetic theory and artistic fashion must yield before the harshness of lived history. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial began to change the prevailing opinion that the monument is dead, not least because it availed itself of a modernist vocabulary to accomplish its commemoration.”
Oscar’s Weird Foreign Policy
“The foreign language nomination committee for the Oscars isn’t the U.N. Security Council, but each year at this time it must wade through global politicking, diplomatic challenges and sometimes hard-to-fathom national preferences as it selects five nominees from the offerings presented by countries around the world.” Some of the choices are unusual – excellent films get passed up while dogs are allowed to bark. So, predictably, there are controversies. “Many of this year’s 54 entries have been bizarre or even difficult to watch.”
A £250 Million Film Studio? Who Wants That?
In an effort to bring film production to Scotland, a group has proposed a £250 million plan to build a studio complex “comprising up to 14 soundstages, an extensive back lot and the largest external water tank in the world.” But the plan has been denounced by residents nearby as “a smokescreen to allow an exclusive housing and leisure development to be built on prime, green-belt land.”
Out From Behind The Curtain – A Russian Export
When Boris Eifman started his dance company in 1977, he was spurned by Soviet authorities. ” ‘Back then, the authorities looked on me as a pornographer, not a choreographer.’ His crime was not to dissent from Soviet politics, but to choreograph in a style that challenged the orthodoxies of Soviet ballet. Today, Eifman Ballet Theatre is one of Russia’s prime cultural exports, and Eifman, its 56-year-old director, cuts an engaging ambassadorial figure.”
Moscow Theatre Reopens After Last Year’s Siege
The Moscow theatre where 170 people were killed during a siege by Chechen rebels has reopened. “Moscow’s city government has given $2.5m (£1.5m) to repair the Dubrovka Theatre which now has a high-tech security system. Nord-Ost’s producer and co-writer, Georgy Vasilyev, himself a hostage, had always vowed the show would go on despite 18 cast and crew members being killed.”
You Can Do That On TV?
“Everywhere you look on prime-time television, there is language and behavior that would have been unthinkable just a few short seasons ago. But the truth is, while the avalanche of sleaze alone may seem major to the casual observer, it’s actually just a small part of what TV insiders regard as a wholesale reevaluation of the way TV does business. The only guarantee at the moment is that more changes are on the way.”