“We have people we admire, like Einstein, saying mystery is the most beautiful thing a human being can experience. Yet everywhere in our culture everything that is truly mysterious is immediately dismissed. In a way I think science is the modern religion and at times I despise it as much as I despise other religions, because it really will only accept stuff that fits its masculine ability to define the world.”
Why Oscar Has Never Much Cared For Wes Anderson Movies
“Critics love them and audiences, represented by tickets sold, like them pretty well. But the Academy almost completely ignores them. Anderson’s eight feature films have received just four Oscar nominations total … [and] have lost every one. … Whether or not you like Wes Anderson movies, their failure with the Academy highlights several shortcomings of the Oscars.”
Painting The Town Of Johannesburg – Pink (Yes, Literally)
“Led by the Colombian-American artist Yazmany Arboleda, the group [Beware of Colour] wanted to draw attention to the neglect of the city’s downtown buildings. A good number of them sit empty, even while many South Africans live in shacks. … Which is why he and roughly 30 other artists marked them with about 264 gallons of hot-pink, water-soluble paint.”
The Percentage Of Children Reading For Pleasure Has Plummeted In The Last Few Years
“Sixty per cent of the children who enjoyed reading more when they were younger put this down to the fact there are ‘so many other things that I now enjoy more than reading,’ and 47% blamed the fact that ‘I have to read so much for school that I just don’t feel like reading for fun,’ with others citing the fact they now have to read on their own, rather than being read to.”
Hollywood Is Deeply Whitewashed, And Producers Don’t Have An Incentive To Change That
“The absence of color is egregiously noticeable in the sci-fi and fantasy genres, where characters can be any ethnicity.”
Theatre Needs Excellent Regional Critics If Plays And Directors Are To Improve
“Newspapers barely cover those theatres now – so building a career regionally is becoming harder than ever. Even with greater funding, until we can resource bloggers and journalists to make those trips and build the national profile for regional work, directors will continue to scrape by in London.”
The Cartoons Of Charlie Hebdo Were Firmly In The Long French Tradition Of Lampooning Religion
“Anticlerical French thought traces its origins to rambunctious early Catholic practices such as Carnival, in which Christian morality was temporarily and gleefully suspended, as well as to Renaissance literary representations of priests as importunate louts.”
The Man Who Secretly Filmed A Shakespeare Play Right After Directing The Avengers On How To Be Prolific
“This comes from Kai, my wife, who produced the film. She [quotes from] Rio Grande: ‘Get it done, Johnny Reb.’ It’s like, don’t make excuses. There aren’t any anymore. If you’re talking about it, you should be doing it and she doesn’t like to see talent go fallow. She doesn’t like to see people repeat themselves. She likes people to get it done, purely out of love of the person and then joy for the product itself.”
If You Want To Be Fair, Get Enough Sleep
“Selfishness may be the default, automatic response — and the one that takes energy and self control to overcome.”
What Makes ‘Selma’ Director Ava DuVernay Different
“Selma could have been a run of the mill biopic—following a tremendous man who made tremendous changes. But DuVernay makes Martin Luther King Jr. more than the myth—she makes him human. … DuVernay looks at Selma as a story of the community and all the people who were integral to making change happen, showing the quiet moments in between the escalating tension.”
This Is How Theatre Becomes Essential For Local Communities
“First, the theatre-makers must ensure they reflect those communities. Second, they need to be trained to work alongside the communities, to channel their lived experience into art, with skill and authenticity and often for community members themselves to perform. And third, the whole theatre industry needs to be open to members of different communities becoming new theatre artists themselves, and commit to supporting and encouraging that.”
The Ballerina Who Started Her Life As A War Orphan [VIDEO]
Michaela DePrince saw an image of a ballerina in a glossy magazine in the orphanage. “I didn’t know what she was, but I thought that this beautiful creature was something I’d never seen before. She looked happy, and I wanted to be happy.”
Kickstarter Crowdfunded A Ton Of Publishing Ideas In 2014
Comics publishing, journalism, and regular publishing were separate categories last year – and the total raised for those projects was almost $34 million.
The Golden Globes Are Mostly Meaningless, But Watch A Few Special Races
“The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. and the film academy have envy issues. The HFPA craves respect. The academy wishes the Oscars, bound by its rigid format, could be as fun as the Globes. So the jealousy spiral continues, with the academy jostling its dates to mess with the Globes and the HFPA retaliating by hiring talented hosts like Fey and Poehler.”
French Media, And Google, Will Help Charlie Hebdo Survivors Publish Next Week
“The remaining staff aim to print 1m copies of the satirical weekly, which has a typical print run of 60,000.”
Gospel Legend Andraé Crouch Dead At 72
“A dyslexic who in childhood had a bad stutter, Crouch was known for pioneering a gospel sound with a contemporary feel – sometimes to the dismay of critics who felt his work was too secular. But he and his group the Disciples received multiple Grammys for their efforts. In 2004, Crouch became only the third gospel artist to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”