“The first sign there’s something different about ‘Alice for the iPad’ comes when … the White Rabbit’s old-fashioned pocket watch, dangling by its chain from text, starts swinging whichever way the reader is holding the iPad. … There’s something fitting about the sensation of gravity that the animations bring to a story with so much body-shrinking and mind-blowing going on [in] it.”
Tag: 06.17.10
Once Proudly Original, Pixar Puts Its Money On Sequels
“The surfeit of sequels for a studio that had produced only one –‘Toy Story 2’– since its first movie premiered 15 years ago, marks an important turning point for Pixar” and “shows how the … digital animation pioneer, which has held itself aloof from the grubby realities of Hollywood, is [no] longer immune from the economic laws of the entertainment marketplace.”
Broads, Bloomberg Back Buffett-Gates Philanthropy Pledge
“Buffett, 79, and the Gateses have been assembling billionaires at private meetings to drum up support for their challenge,” which asks “rich Americans to give at least half of their wealth to charity.” Said Michael Bloomberg: “I am a big believer in giving it all away and have always said that the best financial planning ends with bouncing the check to the undertaker.”
Downtown, Can The Whitney Live Up To Its Past?
“Critics don’t normally weigh in at this stage of a design or dwell on the many tricky decisions involved in maintaining the design’s integrity in the face of financial pressures. But in this case those pressures are unusually intense, and the way they are resolved will determine the answer to [this] question … : Will the final result be an experience as good as — or better than — Marcel Breuer’s Whitney?”
Maureen Forrester, Contralto And Canadian Icon, Dead At 79
“[She] was 20th-century Canada’s incarnation of the prototypical 19th-century diva. She sang incomparably, gave generously of her rare musical gifts and her worldly goods, and lived life ‘in the large’.”
Where Would Film Scores Be Without Wagner?
Composer Max Steiner (King Kong, Gone With the Wind) “was once complimented as the man who invented modern movie music. ‘Nonsense,’ he replied. ‘The idea originated with Richard Wagner. … If Wagner had lived in this century, he would have been the No. 1 film composer.’ That last point is debatable. (Try to imagine Wagner working for Harvey Weinstein.)”
We Can’t Go Home Again, Nicholas Ray’s Final Film, To Hit Screen After 32 Years
The director of Rebel Without a Cause spent the last seven years of his life (re-)developing, (re-)shooting and (re-)editing this experimental, multiple-image project. “Now a new finished print of the film is being prepared by Ray’s widow, Susan, for a premiere at the Venice International Film Festival next year to celebrate the centenary of her husband’s birth.”