Huge amounts of lottery money have poured into the British film industry in recent years. So, “Why are British films so terrible? So stunningly, excruciatingly, exquisitely bad? The “high concept,” Cecil B DeMille once said, can be scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet. But most Brit-flicks have the entire script actually scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet, written in the time it took for someone to buy a drink at Soho House.” – The Guardian 05/26/00
Blog
MOVIES OF THE FUTURE
Trials are being conducted with digital movie projection at 16 selected locations in the United States, Europe and Japan. Half-million movie-goers have already experienced digital cinema. “The prototype projector is called a DLP, or digital light processor. It’s basically a glorified DVD player that uses a new micro-mirror engine to interpret, then “throw” a video image on to the big screen. The result is comparable to, and in some cases better than, the way movies have been projected for more than 100 years, with a light shone through sequential, sprocketed celluloid frames pulled by a claw mechanism through a synchronized shutter.” – National Post (Canada) 05/26/00
CLASSICAL DEFENSE
BBC’s Head of Classical Music Peter Maniura defends the BBC against recent criticism that it’s gone soft on classical music programming. – The Telegraph (UK)
LAYING TRACKS
Lavish soundtracks have become an increasingly integral part of movie-making and movie-promoting. Madonna, Metallica, and U2 have all contributed new songs to big-budget movies recently. “Soundtracks have been the sleeper album chart success story of the last decade. In 1996 US music buyers were snapping up four times as many soundtrack albums as they had been 10 years before.” – The Guardian
MUSEUMS AS THEME PARK
Have museums been caught up in an infotainment vortex? “It is no longer enough to be the repository of objects and artifacts stored for presentation and posterity, presented to the public for their edification. Now museums have to engage with the public, competing with the rest of the entertainment industry for tourist dollars and leisure time. All the while maintaining their learning function.” – Policy.com
FINDING FAULT
Neil MacGregor, director of London’s National Gallery, has criticized the UK government’s recent euphoria over much-publicized museum and gallery openings, including the Tate Modern. Striking at the Government’s boast that it had increased access, Mr. MacGregor said: “There may be more access; but it is access to ignorance.” – The Independent (UK)
ART IN A CAN
Minneapolis has a graffiti problem. Some officials charge that the city’s arts institutions are encouraging the taggers by sponsoring spray can art. – The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
SECOND CYBER-THOUGHTS
The Tate Museum commissioned a web artist known as Harwood. “He proposed to make a mock version of the existing Tate website, to which one in three visitors to www.tate.org.uk would be diverted. Clicking through the various categories of the museum’s site, visitors would be dropped into Harwood’s version produced in the same structure and design, but with ‘hacked’ artworks” – work changed digitally by the artist. The work was to debut this week, but that’s been postponed, perhaps to straighten out some reservations about the concept. – The Guardian
DOME DEFENSE
Despite public outcry, shoddy attendance, and the dissenting opinions of 64 MPs, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has defended the UK government’s decision to pump £29m into the Millennium Dome. – BBC
DESIGN FOR LIVING
Israel’s architecture exhibit at the upcoming Venice Biennale attempts to answer the beguiling question: What, exactly, is a city? “In curator Hillel Schocken’s view, modern urban planning has been an utter failure; not one successful city was created in the 20th century. He proposes a new definition of the city, one that fulfills the idea of intimate anonymity.” – Haaretz (Israel)