Earlier this month, Manohla Dargis wrote: “Take a moment and consider whether flooding theaters with titles is good for movies and moviegoers alike.” Tim Wu counters: “Dargis is wrong: making lots of films to yield a few hits is not dangerous to independent film but exactly how independent film sustains itself – and ultimately how it improves Hollywood.”
Tag: 01.15.14
Translating Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’
Even the iconic first sentence is tricky – the phrase English-speakers think of as “giant insect” – “ungeheueres Ungeziefer” – isn’t nearly so simple as that.
Meet the Mipsterz: Young Muslim Hipsters Are Now a Thing
“Yasmin Chebbi describes her style as edgy. She wears vibrant colors, mixes dresses with combat boots, and sports handmade jewelry. She cites her mother, a major Vogue enthusiast, as her greatest style inspiration, and loves making outfits out of pieces that wouldn’t conventionally match. She also wears a hijab.”
The Quick Guide to Mipsterhood
“We will leave NPR, The Daily Beast and others to examine the impact of this emerging trend on American society. What GlobalPost wants to know is, ‘how do we become Mipsterz?'” A photo and video guide. (Hint: Hijabs are really easy to accessorize.)
A New Wave in Pakistani Cinema
“After years of economic doldrums and creative drought, Pakistani movies are pulling in crowds at home and garnering awards at international film festivals. … Taking the power of storytelling into their own hands, Pakistani filmmakers are fashioning much-needed, nuanced portraits of their country – and cultivating a degree of national pride that hasn’t been felt for a long time.”
See Some Renderings Of Norman Foster’s Philly Comcast Tower
It’s tall and skinny and textured and very open and well-lit.
Crystal Bridges Buys Frank Lloyd Wright House to Move to Arkansas
As the flood plain in New Jersey seems to rise year after year, the existing owners of the house decided they had no more hope of saving the structure from water damage than King Canute.
The Most (and Least) Oscar-Bait-y Movies Ever, According to Science
“We all have a pretty good idea of what constitutes ‘Oscar bait,’ but a forthcoming paper in the American Sociological Review by UCLA professors Gabriel Rossman and Oliver Schilke attempts to define it mathematically.”
Tea and Sympathy With Pussy Riot and a Russian Orthodox Priest
Yes, really. He’s a missionary who thinks they should have been shown mercy rather than sent to a gulag.
Is Texting Killing Our Ability To Write Well?
The popularity of “textisms,” a research team led by Australian psychologist Nenagh Kemp writes in the journal New Media and Society, “has not undermined university students’ ability to write words using conventional spelling when appropriate.”