“Pauline Kael thrived on a prickly, combative relationship with her editor; Gilliatt operated more like a bird under Shawn’s protective wing. Kael became, and still remains, the most famous film critic in America not named Roger Ebert. Gilliatt, on the other hand, was undone by scandal and faded into obscurity, where she remains nearly 20 years after her death.”
Tag: 01.12.12
The End Of Honesty?
“Nowadays, when cheating is considered by some teachers to be an excusable response to a difficult assignment, or even a form of pro-social activity, our society risks a future of moral numbness brought on by a decline of honesty and all the virtues that rely on it.”
Should A Piece Of Music Ever Be ‘Finished,’ Or Should It Adapt And Change?
“When I was younger, I shied away from revising after imbibing the notion that making changes to my work indicated weakness or failure; but now I’ve realized that my work needs to grow, change, and react to stimuli from audiences and collaborators in order to truly be its best.”
What Do The Critics Like? ‘The Artist’ (And George Clooney)
While Harry Potter was cleaning up at the People’s Choice Awards, the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards tipped different movies and actors – and helped them speed farther down the road to the Oscars.
The Long Goodbye Of Newspapers (Think Of Sears And Kodak)
“Let’s call the slow disappearance of familiar brands the newsonomics of the long goodbye. Take companies that have huge imprints in our culture and habits — and cashflows to match — and their disappearance from our lives can seem like it is moving in glacial digital time. But that disappearance is no less real.”
Paul DeMasson, 57, Australian Ballet Principal And Ballet Master
The Australian Ballet’s Artistic Director David McAllister: “Paul was one of the great dance actors, most recently returning to the stage as The Bonze in Madame Butterfly and Njegus in The Merry Widow with us last year. … He was extraordinary to watch on stage and was an inspiration to many of us.”
Streaming Video May Kill The TV Star, Or Just Morph The Entire Internet
Video may soon account for 90 percent of web traffic. “Netflix, which got its start in 1998 mailing DVDs to subscribers in its trademark red envelopes, streamed 2 billion videos in the fourth quarter of 2011. Hulu now boasts 30 million monthly users. And YouTube attracts about 800 million viewers a month.”
Getting The Real Banksy (Photos Can’t Touch This Art)
“The pleasure you get from a Banksy comes from the whole process: the chancing upon on an artwork in the unlikeliest of places, the speculation over how it got there, the uncertainty over whether it’s his or not, the subsequent authentication, and then the knowledge that it might have been rubbed out by the time you return.”
Some Theatre Companies Prefer No Home, Just A Cityscape To Perform In
“With a stagnant economy and a decline nationally in audiences for traditional dance and theater, there is renewed interest in performances outside darkened black- box theaters. Unusual spaces are also popular with patrons of the arts, who give grants for ‘creative place-making’ — art that can reach broad audiences and help revitalize downtrodden neighborhoods.”
Are We Deluding Ourselves With Newly ‘Finished’ Artworks By Dead Masters?
“Literary necrophilia” runs amok thanks to, well, greed – and maybe a desire to know the end of the story. But when should we let unfinished art, left behind when the artist or writer died, simply exist as it is?