“A dozen activists from a liberal Italian party held up Ukrainian and European flags in a quiet demonstration removed from the La Scala hubub that aimed ‘to draw attention to the defense of liberty and European democracy, threatened today by (President Vladimir) Putin’s Russia.’” - Seattle Times (AP)
Please, please, please, PLEASE do not screw this up, Netflix. We want HBO to be HBO, Warner Bros. to be Warner Bros. - and we need movie theatres. Cinemas. Big screens … maybe for your movies, Ted. - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: “They can take away the world you live in, but they can’t take away what’s happening in your mind, your imagination and your creativity. Holding on to that was how we survived.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Nearly a year into a second Trump presidency and 50 years after Arendt’s death, she is still routinely invoked as the key to understanding our moment. It’s been a strange afterlife for an idiosyncratic thinker who believed that politics was inherently contingent and unpredictable.” - The New York Times
“There is no escape in the Sphere. The walls are screens. The ceilings are screens. The floor, swooping underneath you at an impossible angle, is a screen, too.” - Slate
Such events being HBO’s Mad Men remaster that showed a little too much. “We always tried to camouflage ourselves as much as possible, but these days they tend to just say ‘we’ll erase it in post.’ Only this time, apparently they didn’t erase us.” - The Verge (Archive Today)
“Some artists are … making very young children a part of the choreographic process, or creating music designed to get them moving. They’re considering why these tiny dancers bring us such joy, and what lessons they might have for grown-ups.” - The New York Times
Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, and the Netherlands have all withdrawn from the 2026 competition. The Dutch broadcaster: "After weighing all perspectives, Avrotros concludes that, under the current circumstances, participation cannot be reconciled with the public values that are fundamental to our organisation.” - The Guardian (UK)
The book is not only made up of words but also concerns words. The author, who co-wrote the screenplay: "To make a 400-page novel into a 100-page script, there’s a lot of stripping back.” But then they had to add in more Shakespeare. - The New York Times
Youn Yuh-jung, Oscar winner for Minari, doesn’t want to be seen as an icon, however. “In Korea, they usually say, ‘Is there any message for the younger generation?’ So I usually say, I’m not the Pope, I don’t have any message.” - Variety
The deal with Warner Bros. “gives the streaming giant an identity it didn’t have before and a back catalog that will rival that of Disney+. It could also transform the streaming giant into something far more akin to a traditional movie and TV studio—if that’s what it wants to be.” - Wired
Well, good, anyway. “Staffers at the company are taking comfort in what Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said about HBO on a call with Wall Street analysts just after the deal was announced. … ‘They are saying all the right things,’ the WBD insider said, somewhat hopefully.” - Vulture
Rather than construct an imagined past as a universal tradition, as with conventional monuments... contemporary artists understand ambivalence and impermanence as key conditions of resistance, whether in the form of ephemeral materials, representations that flit across binaries, or speculative propositions for the future that challenge linear readings of history. - Hyperallergic
