The US Copyright Office asks for public comment on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And gets it. “Respondents, including several well-known digital rights activists, overwhelmingly favored carving out exceptions to the DMCA for certain uses of music files, text and video technologies. Many argued that buyers of copyrighted works should have the right to make content accessible on more than one device.”
Blog
Singing Of A Christmas Way From Home
Across America, actors and crews working in touring shows spend the Holidays away from home. “It is a peculiar lifestyle. And no matter what, it can be kind of a lonely, weird time.”
Arab Groups Protest Exclusion of Palestinian Film From Oscars
“Arab-American and Palestinian groups have denounced the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for allegedly keeping the acclaimed film ‘Divine Intervention’ out of the running for a foreign-language movie Oscar on the ground that Palestine isn’t a state. But the academy denies excluding Divine Intervention, saying the film was never submitted.” The film’s distributor says it wasn’t submitted because the Academy made it clear ahead of time it wouldn’t be considered.
Cyberspace Artists Run Afoul Of Internet Rules (What Rules?)
“For some digital artists, these are perilous times. With the Internet’s rise have come increased concerns about everything from online privacy to digital piracy. Naturally artists are addressing these matters in Internet-based works. So an online project about copyright violations inevitably violates some copyrights, and a work that warns how a computer could be spying on you could very well be spying on you.”
Chinese Come to NY To Learn Broadway Secrets
A team from the Chinese Ministry of Culture comes to Broadway to try to learn its secrets. “We want to know how your Broadway musicals could attract such large audiences. And why our comprehensive art forms — with singing, dancing and drama — could not attract such a large audience.” They “hope to find a way to stem a troubling loss of audience from hundreds of traditional, state-supported Chinese opera houses. Attendance at these houses has dwindle as more modern, youthful entertainments have multiplied.”
Dave Barry Vs. Ballet
Dave Barry knows that saying he doesn’t like ballet is wrong – way wrong. But he doesn’t care. “My problem – and it’s MY problem, NOT ballet’s problem – is that, because I am culturally unsophisticated, all ballet looks to me like — even though I know there is MUCH more to it – a troupe of mincing mimes. Whatever the ballet plot is about – love, hate, joy, sorrow, the Russian Revolution, measles – the reaction of the dancers is: ‘It’s MINCING time’!”
The End Of Star Power?
Who rules at the box office? The big stars? Not this year. The top-grossing movies didn’t feature big stars. “Taken a gander at Variety lately, Mr. Big Studio Executive? Because if you had, you’d see something that’ll set you back on your heels faster than a casting-couch lawsuit. The big stars this year are pipsqueaks whose names you’re still trying to figure out how to pronounce…”
What Denver Theatre Needs
Denver has theatre – good theatre. But things seem to be going down rather than up. There are 56 theater companies, but only one (League of Regional Theaters) playhouse. “Ten folded or went dormant the past year. And the one it has, the DCTC, is clawing its way out of budget shortages that resulted in $1.6 million in cutbacks the past 18 months. Chicago, by comparison, has 20 professional LORT theaters. Seattle has five; San Diego three. The best theater cities also have thriving, definable theater districts, something that would be impossible to chart here outside the Denver Center.”
Too Depraved To Be Art?
A new genre of movies is so sexually and violently explicit, some critics wonder if they’re too depraved and should just be ignored. No. “These movies shouldn’t be rejected. They are too well-made, too challenging, too unsettling to be ignored. Certainly, they raise questions – particularly about whether or not art must remain ‘decent’ in order to be effective – that can’t be sidestepped. But if this is a disturbing trend, then it is also disturbing in the best sense of that word – disturbing our preconceived notions of what constitutes art, and forcing us to consider and question our own responses to graphic images on the screen.”
The Chicago Way (How To Adapt A Musical)
“From a legit theater perspective, ‘Chicago’ is the first good cinematic adaptation of a Broadway musical since a very good one, ‘Cabaret.’ (Some would argue for ‘Hair,’ which came out in 1979.) ‘Cabaret,’ directed by Bob Fosse, came out in 1972. So: Let’s call it 30 years.”