Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
Move Over, Thomas Edison And The Lumiere Brothers
Britain may no longer have an empire, but at least it could have this: the title of the "true" father of cinema. "Film director...
The Grammys Overhaul Again, Eliminating Secret Committees
The scandal-plagued Recording Academy is making the change after decades of complaints. Instituted in 1989, "the committees’ work began to be seen as evidence...
Asian American Choreographers And Dancers Demand Recognition
After the shootings in Atlanta, the already planned 10,000 Dreams Virtual Choreography Festival transformed into something that Asian American ballet dancers and choreographers have...
The Pivot To YouTube
For Oscar-winner Brie Larson, who won for Room and has since played Captain Marvel in the eponymous movie and Avengers: Endgame, it's not as...
Evaluating Eli Broad In Los Angeles
He was a friend and foe to museums, writes Christopher Knight. And Carolina Miranda writes, "Over the course of his life, he helped bring...
The NY Phil Goes Traveling, In A Shipping Container
Last year it was a Ford F-250 pickup truck that saved the day, and the audiences around the city. "Bandwagon 2 will trade in...
Jhumpa Lahiri On Living In Linguistic Exile, And Translating Her Own Work
That would be the book (Dove mi trovo, or Whereabouts) she wrote first in Italian and then translated into English - her first novel...
Rotten Tomatoes Added A 1941 Review That Wrecked Citizen Kane’s Perfect Rating
Citizen Kane used to have a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Then things changed. "The writer, credited as Mae Tinee (a play on...
Writing Mainstream TV Shows About Native American Families
It's normal - but an exciting kind of normal - for Sydney Freeland. When she started film school, "I remember thinking, like, ‘OK, wait....
Holbein Left A Clever Clue In A Portrait Of Henry VIII’s Wife
Which wife? Well, for centuries, everyone thought it was Catherine Howard (the second of the beheadeds in the old rhyme). Instead, thanks to Hans...
Directing Isn’t Easy At The Best Of Times
But for an Asian American director during the pandemic, kicking off Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month via an online platform, it's a...
Motherhood Can Be Radical
Just ask Adrienne Rich. "Rich’s predicament, as a mother who was also an artist, remains a predicament today. And what she did with that...
MoMA Blocks Demonstrators From Entering Museum
"'We want to take over these institutions; they do not belong to the oligarchs,' Amin Husain, one of the demonstration’s organizers, told a crowd...
The Grim, Open Secret Of College Bone Collections
In recent weeks, revelations that both Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania used the bones of teenaged victims of the city of Philadelphia's bombing...
Europe Has A Banksy Of Potholes
The Lyon-based artist Em Emem (a pseudonym, of course) uses mosaics to fill in gaps in street infrastructure, but also to make them gorgeous....
Eli Broad, Who Spent Billions To Reshape Los Angeles’ Art, Architecture, And Education, 87
Broad, whose money came from homebuilding and insurance empires, truly changed L.A. "Dogged, determined and often unyielding, he helped push and prod majestic institutions...
Olympia Dukakis, 89, Star Of Screen And Stage
Dukakis was well-known as a working actress in the theatre when she took a role as the mom in Moonstruck. Then she won an...