Reporter Nicholas Barber gives a refresher on the calamitous three-decade long history of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the run of good luck that finally saw the movie completed, and the last-minute monkey wrench that has been thrown into the works.
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Terry Gilliam Suffers Stroke As ‘Quixote’ Curse Seemingly Rages On
“French newspaper Nice-Matin reports that a minor stroke prevented director and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Terry Gilliam from attending May 7 court arguments on whether his The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will be permitted to close the Cannes Film Festival. … Paulo Branco (Cosmopolis), a onetime producer on the project, sought an injunction to stop both, claiming he has held the rights to the film since August 2016.”
Hit BBC Gangster Series To Be Adapted For – Ballet?
While the creator of Peaky Blinders, a drama about a criminal family in 1920s Birmingham, was making an announcement about plans for future seasons, he revealed that he is in talks with Rambert, Britain’s oldest dance company, for a ballet version of the property.
Pierre Rissient, Great Mover And Shaker Of French And World Cinema, Dead At 81
“Type multi-hatted Rissient’s name into online cinema database IMDb, and barely a dozen credits appear. Behind the scenes, however, Rissient was a legendary figure in the film world at home and internationally, respected for his deep knowledge of cinema, his nose for talented directors, and his ability to promote them and forge connections on their behalf. The Cannes Film Festival once described him as ‘a figure who cannot be categorised’, while Clint Eastwood, who is one of the many stars and directors whom Rissient nurtured and supported over the years, nicknamed him ‘Mister Everywhere.'”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.08.18
Simon Rattle’s landmark 3-D high-def Mahler festival with the London Symphony Orchestra
So often when star musicians such as Simon Rattle hit a golden spot in their late 30s and early 40s, you stand back and ask, “Where can they possibly go from there?” … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2018-05-08
The Problem of “Engagement”
In March I had the privilege of participating in the Intersections Summit hosted by Milwaukee Repertory Theater. It was a heady gathering of community engagement practitioners from theaters (mostly) across the U.S. As frequently happens, … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-05-08
A Little Masterpiece in Central Asia
There are many reasons to visit Uzbekistan, which I did last fall. … [One of them is] the Samanid Mausoleum in Bukhara. The little structure not only survived the 13th-century marauder Genghis Khan but also many earthquakes and other natural shifts … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-05-08
“Are We All Done?” Christie’s Delivers a Dull (but effective) “Sale of the Century” Debut
Maybe I’m getting jaded, but tonight’s first installment of the “Sale of the Century” — the David Rockefeller estate disposals at Christie’s — seemed to me as exciting as a wet blanket. (I suppose that would be me.) … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-05-08
Propwatch: the fans in The Way of the World
There’s no limit to how much bad acting you can do with a fan, if you’re in a folderol frame of mind. Point it for emphasis. Snap it shut in high dudgeon. Make peekaboo … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2018-05-08
An Edgier, Warier Cannes Festival This Year?
Things start to feel edgier. Those hotels have made it more difficult to access their lobbies; La Croisette, the main boulevard, has huge new planters in place to prevent the kind of truck attack that devastated nearby Nice two years ago; and according to the Hollywood Reporter the city “recently doubled its annual anti-terrorism budget by adding a hefty $2.4 million,” including a new K-9 force. And the ongoing Netflix fight got even testier this year with the streaming service pulling its slate to protest the festival’s rules requiring that all films in competition have theatrical release in France. The festival itself is undergoing changes.
The Most Optimistic Cannes Festival In Years?
Local challenges remain, there’s no doubt. Consolidation, polarization and fragmentation are the watch words in many territories. The UK continues to be “depressing” with acquisitions few and far between. France’s tough VOD laws bring another set of challenges and Spain remains dented by piracy. Plenty for naysayers to complain. But overall, for the first time in recent memory sellers and buyers alike are enthused.
Smartphones Are Ruining Museums
We’ve become so accustomed to interacting through our phones that we’ve forgotten about everyone else in the room. That obliviousness has found its way into more and more exhibitions across the country, as museums rebrand themselves as community spaces that foster “interaction” with hashtags and tweets. Encouraging that interaction has come at a cost.
The New Higher Ed: Less Time Teaching And Learning, More Time Measuring And Admining
In most universities nowadays — and this seems to be true almost everywhere — academic staff find themselves spending less and less time studying, teaching, and writing about things, and more and more time measuring, assessing, discussing, and quantifying the way in which they study, teach, and write about things (or the way in which they propose to do so in the future. European universities, reportedly, now spend at least 1.4 billion euros [about 1.7 billion dollars] a year on failed grant applications.). It’s gotten to the point where “admin” now takes up so much of most professors’ time that complaining about it is the default mode of socializing among academic colleagues; indeed, insisting on talking instead about one’s latest research project or course idea is considered somewhat rude.
The Problems With Trying To Define Beauty
Sometimes, the word ‘beauty’ aspires to the solidity of a proper noun, grand and true. Other times, it seems a more nebulous term for an elusive kind of experience. We can be careless about the beautiful, shrugging it off as a matter of mere appearance. It is not grave like the stuff of our political lives, or profound like our moral considerations. Certainly, we know to admire the beautiful in its different forms – a painting, a song, a building, sometimes even an act or a gesture – and we might go so far as to believe that our engagement with beautiful things constitutes a deep and meaningful experience, as though it were a momentary pause in the hectic thoroughfare of our lives. But we rarely permit matters of beauty the same seriousness that we customarily grant big ideas such as ‘democracy’ and ‘justice’.