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Finally, There’s A Distributor Willing To Handle Errol Morris’s Steve Bannon Documentary

“After [premiering at] Venice, American Dharma screened at the Toronto and New York film festivals and picked up strong reviews. But the idea of Bannon getting a platform at all ignited a backlash … that made the film radioactive for buyers. … [Now] Utopia, co-founded in February by musician and director Robert Schwartzman (nephew of Francis Ford Coppola), has acquired U.S. rights to the film from the Oscar winner behind The Fog of War.” – The Hollywood Reporter

David Zimbalist: Time To Clean House At Curtis Institute

“The program at Curtis is one of the most intense and stressful of any educational programs in the world. My cousin [a former director of the school] believed in its mission. It will and must continue, but it is time for Curtis to clean house. The fact that there were those who allegedly used their roles as mentors inappropriately is bad enough, but the cover up that has been waged in their defense is far worse.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

Yeah, The Nicholas Cage New York Times Magazine Interview Is As Weird As Everybody Says

Not David Marchese’s writing; he does a fine job. But Cage showed up for the interview wearing “oversize sunglasses, a dragon ring the size of a walnut and a black velveteen jacket over a Bruce Lee T-shirt.” He says that he has based various performances on his pet cobras, Woody Woodpecker, Stockhausen, and Pokey. (That’s Gumby’s sidekick, the orange horse.) He talks about his grail quest that was and was not metaphorical. (The Holy Grail, he has determined, is the Earth.) And he says about his acting, “I’m [now] at the top of my game.” – The New York Times Magazine

The Shanghai Symphony Has Been Playing For 140 Years, Even Through The Cultural Revolution

It was the first symphony orchestra in the entire Far East, founded in 1879. (That’s only 37 years after the New York Philharmonic, the United States’ oldest orchestra.) Says music director Long Yu, “You can find all the programs through the First (World) War, Second (World) War, Cultural Revolution and till today – they have not stopped playing concerts. … They did function in the Cultural Revolution – Chinese folk songs, but they still played. It is amazing.” – Chicago Tribune

Woodstock May Have Been An Amazing Event, But It Derailed American Rock Festivals For Decades

“In almost all the ways that concert promoters measure the success and smooth operation of their events, Woodstock was a failure.” Crowd control. Sanitation. Traffic. Profit. (The producers ended up more than $1 million in debt.) What’s more, “what young fans saw as groovy gatherings, with clothing optional, were viewed by local governments around the country as dangerous and disruptive events that they did not want in their backyards, and they passed laws accordingly.” – The New York Times

Can The Man Who Saved Waterstones Turn Around Barnes And Noble?

Britain’s biggest bookstore chain was near bankruptcy when James Daunt became CEO in 2011, and “[he] steered Waterstones out of a death spiral by rethinking every cranny of the company, from small (those shelves) to large (the business model).” Now, as he takes over B&N, which has been contracting for two decades, “his guiding assumption is that the only point of a bookstore is to provide a rich experience in contrast to a quick online transaction. And for now, the experience at Barnes & Noble isn’t good enough.” – The New York Times

Facebook Finally Settles With Teacher It Banned For Posting Courbet’s ‘Origin Of The World’

“A French street art association is the unexpected beneficiary in the years-long legal battle brought by the French schoolteacher Frédéric Durand-Baïssas against Facebook over censorship claims. The Paris-based group Le MUR (The WALL), which works with artists including A1One and BK Foxx, is due to receive an undisclosed amount from the social media giant.” – The Art Newspaper

Tourists Are No Longer Allowed To Sit On Rome’s Spanish Steps

If they do, they can get €400 tickets. And if they try to wade in the Trevi Fountain the way Anita Ekberg did in La Dolce Vita? €450. Those guys in centurion costumes who pose with tourists at the Colosseum are now forbidden, and there are plenty of other new rules “intended to ‘guarantee decorum, security and legality’ by prohibiting actions that are ‘not compatible with the historic and artistic decorum'” of the historic center of the Eternal City. – The New York Times

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Loses Its Director. What Does That Mean For The Yet-To-Open Building?

“Where they are right now — making that transition between heavy construction and the other things a museum does — is the most fragile and sensitive time for any organization,” said Justin Jampol, director of the Wende Museum of Cold War History, which opened in Culver City less than two years ago. “It’s a big switch and it has a very stressful impact on the organization.” – Los Angeles Times