“What else makes a good death scene? Good dialogue, obviously … Dignity is often helpful but not make-or-break, and sometimes it’s actually a stumbling block. Heavy symbolism is even worse, as in Willem Dafoe’s Christlike pose at the end of Platoon (1986). Get off the cross, Willem, we need the wood.”
Tag: 05.26.09
The Life Cycle Of A TV Shows Mirrors The Culture
“The history of a TV series, like the history of a nation or an art movement, falls into four periods — primitive, classic, baroque and decadent.”
Even Love Is Governed By Mathematics
“What happens to our star-crossed lovers? How does their love ebb and flow over time? That’s where the math comes in. By writing equations that summarize how Romeo and Juliet respond to each other’s affections and then solving those equations with calculus, we can predict the course of their affair.” (And then there’s the “three-body problem” …)
With Demise Of The Musical Amateur, Some Fun Was Lost
“Where once the audience bought piano arrangements and played chamber music at home, fans now are simply listeners, whether in the concert hall or at home on CD. And the term amateur has changed correspondingly. Now, it tends to imply a lack of seriousness. And music has become a very serious business.”
Dancer In A Box
“Take a 5ft-10in, 36-year-old Frenchman with a degree in maths and economics and a history of hurdling. Jam him in a room measuring barely 10ft x 8ft x 7ft, with only an eerily inquisitive Anglepoise-style lamp for company. Oh – and ensure that the resulting spectacle is 50 minutes of pure, intense, even beautiful enjoyment.”
A Personalized Magazine – In Actual Print
Farhad Manjoo: “The new magazine from Time Inc. seemed like a gimmicky, goofy effort to save a beleaguered industry: Time wanted to print a magazine just for me! … Turns out my skepticism was misguided. I’ve received two issues of Mine, and I love it.”
‘Turn The World Into A Game And It Works Better’
“We tend to think of videogames as frivolous activities – something we do to kill time, not to improve productivity. But a new generation of designers is taking a different tack: Like [Stanford professor Byron] Reeves, they’re using the principles of videogame design to transform everyday activities … Give people a competition, and it can transform a dull-but-important task into something exciting.”
When Trashing Your Rival, Please Use Spell Check
One of the infamous e-mails by Ruth Padel: “On the chair, there is still no other nomination except (so extraordinarily) Derek W and me. But thye close on 29th April so another or others may well turnup… There is aupposed to be a book called The Lecherous Professor, which has 6 pages on Derek Walcott’s two cases of sexual harassment, which might provide interestigfn copy on what Oxford wants from its professors..”
For 40 Days & 40 Nights, Museum Gets A Resident Hermit
“An artist will be unveiled as Manchester Museum’s first resident hermit, and will live in its Victorian Gothic tower for 40 days and 40 nights alone except for a computer modem connecting him to the virtual world. Ansuman Biswas fears, however, that it may be too comfortable a gig.”
Plays On TV: Great! But Why Hire Novelists To Write Them?
“I’m always banging on about the dearth of single plays on television. So I suppose it has to be two cheers for Sky Arts, who plan to show a season of six half-hour plays live,” all written by non-dramatists. “I’m all for widening the pool of dramatic talent, but writing a 30-minute play is a special skill that even hardened practitioners find difficult.”