Last year was an awful year for the Toronto film industry. “This year, the industry, weary but determined, slept with one eye open as it watched the Canadian dollar buoy to its highest level in decades. The players had to wonder, would American producers choose to make their big-money movies at home? Was this the end for Hollywood North? Hardly.”
Tag: 03.21.04
The Man Inside The Actors Studio
James Lipton is the popular host of “Inside the Actors Studio.” “He’s a figure both revered and mocked for his highly researched, forelock-tugging, truth-inducing encounters with some of the most famous members of the acting profession. In real life, Lipton is an intriguing contrast to his TV persona. To begin with, he’s shorter than his imposing air might lead you to believe. (He’s always sitting down on the program.) But he’s also surprisingly shy, self-effacing and the possessor of a little-boy-lost charm that’s at odds with his actual age of 77.”
Packaging Adult Books For Kids
Plenty of adults read kids books. But, in a search for crossover audiences, can publishers turn kids on to adult books? Maybe a little different pacakging helps?
Why Advertisers Like Youth
Why do advertisers value younger consumers over older, even though older buyers have more money? “It’s complicated. First, advertisers believe that by the time you reach a certain age, you have pretty much decided which brand of dishwashing detergent you like and you’re going to stick with it. Younger viewers, on the other hand, are still trying to figure out whether they prefer Excedrin to Bufferin and whether they look better with hair dyed by L’Oreal or Clairol. Second, advertisers believe that by the time you reach a certain age, you are much less likely to buy a product just because Michael Jordan is wearing it.”
A Museum-Quality Thomas Kinkade?
A show of Thomas Kinkade at a real art museum? Really? Fullerton’s Main Art Gallery at California State University is hosting a show of the self-proclaimed “Painter of Light.” “Having Kinkade at Grand Central is kind of like having McDonald’s pitch its Big Macs on PBS, or having Pepsi and Coors Light throw a rock concert on Washington, D.C.’s Mall. ‘There’s no financial motivation for us to do this. It’s for the sake of stirring things up, creating dialogue.’ Apparently, the strategy has worked. CSUF students and faculty have been buzzing about the upcoming show, and many are furious.”
Colorado Symphony Finalists
The Colorado Symphony has narrowed its list of candidates to replace Marin Alsop as music director to four…
Idolizing Talent – Is It Valid?
There has been much criticism of Lit Idol as a way of judging literary talent. But “Lit Idol, for all the apparent crassness of its format, is as good a means as any to truffle out new talent, and is only a pop-culture-friendly revamp of the short story competitions run by newspapers in the old days. But it has reinforced the perception that in contemporary writing, the words are no longer enough. The author must be all-singing, all-dancing, good looking if possible and, if not, with a sufficiently troubled past to keep the public interested.”
How Pavarotti Got To Say Goodbye To The Met
Last year, when Luciano Pavarotti canceled two performances at the Metropolitan Opera, it looked like his career at the Met was done. Met impressario Joseph Volpe intimated as such. But there the tenor was on the Met stage two weeks ago singing his farewells. So how did it happen?
The Community Powers Of Weather
Olafur Eliasson’s Weather Project installation in the Tate Modern’s vast Turbine Hall has been a phenomenal hit with visitors. But it’s coming to an end and Eliasson reflects on why it appealed to people. “I wanted a subject that implied `community’ and that was open-ended. Predicting weather is one way we collectively try to avoid the unforeseeable, which our lives are always about. The weather is a subject about which a community may also permit a high degree of disagreement: I can say `I hate the rain,’ you say, `I love it,’ and you may still think I am a nice guy.”
Of Obscenity And Small-Time Politics
Why is the US Congress making such a big deal about obscenity on the broadcast airwaves? Frank Rich says it’s politics: “While the current uproar over broadcast indecency is ostensibly all about sex, it is still all about politics, especially in an election year when a culture war rages. Washington’s latest crew of Puritan enforcers — in the administration, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission — are all pandering to a censorious Republican political base that is the closest thing America has to its own Taliban. The media giants, fearful of losing the deregulatory financial favors the federal government can bestow, will knuckle under accordingly until the coast is clear.”