Eric Schneiderman, in a press release, said, “Any sale of the Weinstein Company must ensure that victims will be compensated, employees will be protected going forward, and that neither perpetrators nor enablers will be unjustly enriched.”
Blog
Is The Oscar For Best Picture Pretty Much Inevitable At This Point?
Hint: We’re talking about The Shape of Water, which won best movie at the Producers Guild this weekend, while its director, Guillermo del Toro, snagged the feature film award at the Directors Guild. (Note: La La Land won both of those awards last year, and as everyone knows, did not win the Oscar.)
Podcasts, Coming To A Screen Near You
HBO, which has had massive success with its scripted programs, has been searching for nonscripted hits for a few years. Last week, the network released the first of a series of four specials with the hosts of the podcast “2 Dope Queens,” and now they’ve made a deal with the hosts of “Pod Save America” for content that will run through the midterm elections.
Radio Theatre, Coming To An Audiobook App Near You (And Giving Playwrights A Boost)
Audible, the massive audiobook company that’s owned by Amazon, just announced a “first round” of commissions for playwrights including Lauren Gunderson and Leah Winkler. But the plays won’t just be recorded and downloadable: “Audible intends to stage live productions of these plays. Katz likes the idea of limited runs that will allow producers to recruit big-name actors.”
Making *Mudbound* Required The Director And A Star To Dig Deep Into Their Own Lives
Mary J. Blige, who plays Florence, says: “My mom used to send us down to Georgia every summer. So I knew what it felt like to have my hands in the dirt and to pick beans, and to pick whatever was in the field and to watch my grandmother, who was a sharecropper — and a sharecropper’s wife. They had a farm; they had chickens. And whatever they killed, we had to eat, and whatever they pulled out of the field, we had to shell beans, we had to pick peas, we had to cut greens. We had to do all that stuff. So I guess it was already in my DNA and embedded in me.”
Reg Cathey, Of ‘House Of Cards’ And ‘The Wire,’ Has Died At 58
David Simon, writer and creator of The Wire, announced Cathey’s death on social media. “Though he earned credits in dozens of television shows and movies, it was Mr. Cathey’s portrayal of Freddy Hayes — an empathetic, salt-of-the-earth barbecue pit owner whose restaurant provides a respite for Francis Underwood, the scheming politician in House of Cards — that earned him three Emmy nominations and one win for outstanding guest actor in a drama series.”
Amazon Studios Snags President Of NBC Entertainment To Replace Accused Harasser Roy Price
Jen Salke’s appointment “comes at a critical juncture for the Seattle-based retailing giant. It must craft a cohesive programming strategy, mend relations with some Hollywood producers and develop more mainstream hits to better compete against deep-pocketed streaming rivals, including Netflix, HBO and Hulu.”
Top Stores From AJBlogs For The Weekend Of 02.11.18
Three Women Meet and Make a World
Dana Reitz premieres Latitude at New York Live Arts Dana Reitz in her Latitude. Photo: Kate Enman “Exquisite.” That was what a colleague whispered to me as he emerged from New York Live Arts’ theater … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2018-02-11
Weekend Listening (And Viewing) Tip: Brent Jensen
Bassist Bren Plummer’s live radio broadcast a couple of days ago (scroll down two items) prompted me to check out the KNKX-FM website. There, I found a post about another Pacific Northwest … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-02-11
Wesla Whitfield, RIP
Wesla Whitfield, a singer of uncommon talent, taste, musicianship and courage, died yesterday in St. Helena, California. Her husband and accompanist of more than three decades, the pianist Mike Greensill, announced her … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2018-02-10
Berkshire Debacle: The Attorney General Caves
Read it and weep. The Massachusetts Attorney General has acceded to a plan for the Berkshire Museum to sell as many of its 40 deaccessioned worksas necessary to come up with the $55 million … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2018-02-09
Southern Literature and the Drive-By Truckers
CELEBRATED Yale historian C. Vann Woodward used to talk about the irony of Southern history, and the burden of Southern history, both phrases drawn in part from the novels of Faulkner. Patterson Hood, a … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2018-02-09
London’s King’s Cross Got A Three Billion Pound Upgrade, And For What?
Says Olly Wainwright: “For sure, it is more dry digestive than gelatinous trifle, but that is generally to be welcomed. It is also refreshing to find a development where as much, if not more, attention has been paid to the streets and spaces as the buildings that frame them. It may be the usual kind of overly managed pseudo-public space, but accusations of privatisation are unfounded, given that most of the site was off-limits to the public before.”
Does Disneyland Have A Superfan ‘Gang’ Problem?
Or are the so-called gangs – groups of families and friends, with vests and patches, who go to Disneyland together – just harmless fun, as they claim? “A lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court has revealed a dark undercurrent to the pastime. The head of one club has accused another of using gangster-like tactics to try to collect ‘protection’ money for a charity fundraiser at the park.”