Category: media

“The ABC is dismantling its historic sound and reference libraries across the country and making 10 specialist librarians redundant to free up floor space and save on wages. Radio National, Classic FM, JJJ and all the other ABC programs rely on the Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Hobart libraries, which are packed full of CDs and vinyl as well as books and journals after 85 years of collecting.”

“Wizards like Gandalf and Romans like Russell Crowe’s gladiator share a common trait: Hollywood’s insistence that all of its fantasy and epic heroes speak like a Brit. And it’s not just because the British accent sounds grandiose and glorious. Well, a little bit. The real answer is rooted in the obsession with Empire – and how accents were actively cultivated by society elites as signifiers of global power and stature.” (video)

It’s time – during the celebrations of a century since his birth – to reevaluate the women who anchored Bergman’s films (and, often, his romantic and sexual life as well).

Del Toro took the top honor for The Shape of Water while Peele won best first-time director for Get Out. Peele said it was the best year of his life, and added, “For everyone in this room, what we do is important, what we do is powerful. … Keep doing the only thing we know how to. Keep using your voice. It’s the most powerful weapon we have against evil.”

The lawsuit is from a current vice-president at the basic cable station. The woman suing the station, Leslie Isaacs, “contends she was unfairly passed over for a promotion and a raise. The suit alleges that other female employees also faced repeated crude and demeaning comments from their superiors.”

Says one of the hosts of a popular NPR roundtable podcast: “No wonder you feel as if you know them; that the sound of their voices comes to fire precisely the same neurons, arouse the same feelings, that the voices of your closest friends do. It’s purely biological, and it’s indistinguishable from intimacy — except for one minor, mundane, trifling detail: It’s unidirectional. You know them, you trust them, you love them, and they have absolutely no idea who you are.”

The truth may finally come to light. “Accounts from the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern, who has maintained he witnessed an explosive, alcohol-fueled fight between Ms. Wood and [Robert] Wagner immediately before her disappearance, have long stoked speculation of foul play. Investigators said they have two new witnesses who support Mr. Davern’s account.”

Poet Margaret Rhee writes of how she came to love the show, in which every episode is a mini-musical: “Perhaps it’s more productive then to think about Rebecca’s craziness as a source of sanity in a crazy world in which women are routinely disregarded. She is smart, successful, and yes, crazy.”

A Bachelor contestant’s mother couldn’t contact her for a while – and reported her missing to the local sheriff’s office, which kept a Missing Persons report active for months. “All the while, Ms. Martinez has been publicly active on Instagram and Twitter. After writing on Sept. 17 that she was giving up social media for ‘the next several weeks’ — a time that corresponds with the filming of ‘The Bachelor — she began posting photos on Instagram again on Nov. 22.”