If the movie they came from was a hit, the props could have quite an afterlife. Nobody wants mementos of, say, Heaven’s Gate, but Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Rocky’s boxing gloves are in the Smithsonian; Steven Spielberg paid $60,500 for Rosebud and the Ten Commandments tablets went for $81,700. (Bargains can, however, be had.)
Tag: 02.19.08
Study: Music Helps Stroke Victims
A new study reports “that music helps people recover more quickly from strokes. And patients who listened to a few hours of music each day soon after a stroke also improved their verbal memory and were in a better mood compared to patients who did not listen to music or used audio books, the researchers said.”
Libraries Go Open Source
“Some libraries, fed up with software that doesn’t fully meet their needs, have decided to take matters, figuratively, into their own hands. With a bit of grant money and some eager developers, institutions have begun creating their own open-source solutions that are fully customizable, free for others to use and compatible with existing systems.”
Ancient Oil Painting Discovered In Afghanistan
The oldest known oil painting, dating from 650 A.D., has been found in caves in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley, according to a team of Japanese, European and U.S. scientists.
Italian Police Recover Ancient Art
Police in Rome have recovered dozens of looted artifacts, including a fresco believed to have been stripped from an ancient Roman villa.
Economic Toll: What The Writers Strike Cost LA
The 100-day Hollywood writers strike took a $2.5 billion toll on the Los Angeles County economy — less than previously estimated.
Your New TV Season: 24/7/52/365
“NBC announced Tuesday its plans to present a 52-week television season. Other networks are also likely to change the way they do business, from how they develop shows to when they air them. Taken together, this would signal your first post-strike revolution.”
Music A La Mode (But Why?)
A composer writes music, it disappears, then reappears, seemingly spontaneously, decades later. How is it, asks Frank Oteri, that music goes in and out oif fashion?
How To Build A Musical Season
Orchestra programming has become a complicated process of give and take…
Will Oscar Ratings Sink Because Of Low-Box Office Movies?
This time out, the top-grossing best-pic contender is Fox Searchlight’s “Juno,” which has a worldwide cume of $134 million — a tidy sum for a little indie, but not exactly in the same league as “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (which sports two noms and a B.O. gross of nearly $1 billion).