Category: people

Why are old movie credits boring lists, while newer credits feel like part of the film? Thank Saul Bass, a graphic designer whose talents have transformed more than movies.

Maile Meloy’s won acclaim and awards for her writing, and Colin Meloy’s an international music star with the Decemberists (and now a writer as well). How did this happen? Colin: “There was a weird level of trust given us by our parents and the greater adult world. An understanding that we wouldn’t grow up to be creeps.”

“Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei vowed Wednesday to fight tax evasion charges ‘to the death,’ a day after the government ordered a company linked to him to pay 15 million yuan ($2.4 million) in back taxes and fines.”

“The artist Wim Delvoye has invited Ai Weiwei to recreate” in a manor house outside Ghent “the Shanghai studio that was demolished by the Chinese authorities in January.” Ai’s assistants have warned Delvoye that going ahead with the project would provoke the Chinese authorities.

“A sculpture of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei as a corpse has caused panic in a small German town where passersby have mistaken the work for an actual dead body. Chinese artist He Xiangyu’s sculpture of Weiwei is so lifelike that it has resulted in dozens of calls to the police.”

“[To] engage Muhly requires little more than a trivial opening gambit.” A quick observation about the composer’s youthful appearance led to a rapidly-delivered response of 270 words. “But he was just getting warmed up.” He went on for another 346.

The pair (who insist on the capitals and ampersand) talk alike, dress alike (in flamboyant, andogenous outfits), and they would not get married until Eva was officially declared female. “We’ve invented our own sex,” they say. “We are an artwork … Wherever we are is museum.”

“He was an Emmy Award-winning television and film producer and director who also directed plays on and off Broadway, the impresario of the Geffen Playhouse, and he fostered generations of entertainers as a professor and dean of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television.”

“Marzieh Vafamehr, who appeared with her head uncovered in the film My Tehran for Sale, was released from prison after her sentence of one year in prison and 90 lashes was overturned on appeal.”

“Chinese authorities have served Ai Weiwei with an official demand telling him to pay 15m yuan ($2.3m; £1.4m) within 15 days, the artist has said.”