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Reimagining Black Life And Death Onscreen

The Oscar-nominated short film A Love Song for Latasha, says filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison, was one way of figuring how to deal with the aftermath of a violent death, from the people who best knew the murdered teen. "So often we hear from elders, adults, or community activists, and I’m always really curious as to how our children process...

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 and historian Peter Domankiewicz believes Friese-Greene will soon be reinstated as one of the great figures in the development of the moving image: the one who got there before Thomas Edison, the Lumière brothers and...

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 of a problematic system in which insiders rewarded their friends and punished their enemies. More recently, a number of high-profile Black artists — among them Drake, Frank Ocean and Sean 'Diddy' Combs — have suggested...

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 been missing and wanting for years - community. "There was a deep moment where we sort of were committing to building a network, building a community, taking up space, being loud, being bold. This festival...

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 if she needed a new revenue stream. But her weekly chats with herself, which now have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, are a form of self-care. - The New York Times

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 to fruition — in whole or in part — designs by an array of award-winning international design stars, including Richard Meier, Renzo Piano, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and, most famously, Frank Gehry. Or perhaps most...

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 the pickup truck for a 20-foot shipping container atop a semi truck, which will visit four parks around New York City for weekend-long residencies through May. ... Tricked out with a foldout stage, video wall...

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 written that way since she began her decades-long love affair with the language, and with Rome. - The Guardian (UK)

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 'matinee') comments: 'It’s interesting. It’s different. In fact, it’s bizarre enough to become a museum piece. But its sacrifice of simplicity to eccentricity robs it of distinction and general entertainment value,' adding: 'I only know...

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. I’m Native American and I’m transgender, but I want to be a film director? That’s insane. That isn’t going to happen.’ But I wanted to see what I could do anyway." - HuffPost

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 Holbein's clue (and an art historian's tenacity), we now think the portrait is of Anne of Cleves (the second of the divorced wives, or in this case, annulled). - The Observer (UK)

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 whole new (basket)ball game. - Oregon Artswatch

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 predicament, what she did with her rage and frustration, remains deeply instructive. Of Woman Born lays bare the cultural and medical and economic practices that define motherhood, and exposes how our everyday experience of mothering is shaped...

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 of about 40 activists before marching from Columbus Circle to the museum." The institution, and the NYPD, disagree. - The New York Times

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 of a house in 1985 have shook the world outside of college forensic anthropology. But inside those worlds? It's not a surprise that the bones of Black children would be used for teaching. "Museums and...

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