Blogosphere
More Brahms, please, and pass the popcorn From Peter Dobrin's ArtsWatch www.philly.com/philly/blogs/ artswatch/ The Philadelphia Orchestra could end up in pictures.
More Brahms, please, and pass the popcorn
From Peter Dobrin's ArtsWatch
artswatch/
The Philadelphia Orchestra could end up in pictures.
And sound. In a deal with SpectiCast and Bryn Mawr Film Institute (BMFI), nine of the orchestra's 2010-11 concerts will be offered live starting this fall to North American movie houses with high-quality projection and audio systems.
SpectiCast is already simulcasting Philadelphia Orchestra concerts to about 55 assisted-living and community centers in Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, California, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and is utilizing BMFI's familiarity with theaters and film societies to expand the audience, said SpectiCast president Mark Rupp.
The moving of orchestral music into movie theaters follows a similar effort started by the Metropolitan Opera in 2006.
"There is a market out there for this. The Met proved this," said Rupp. "There are audiences willing to view stuff like this."
SpectiCast's chairman is Philadelphia Orchestra board member Derek Pew. The company also simulcasts concerts from the Curtis Institute of Music and lectures from the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Under the arrangement with the orchestra, SpectiCast provides the production and technology, as well as preconcert chats, and BMFI will help identify potential art-movie houses. A revenue-sharing arrangement splits proceeds among the partners, including the orchestra, Rupp said.
Rupp said his company was also looking to sign colleges and universities as subscribers to the series, and would consider taking on a sponsor, whose support could be acknowledged with either a "presented by" credit, or in the form of a commercial that would run before the concert. This aspect of the plan is similar to one previously developed, but not executed, by orchestra leaders.
The goal is to have 100 subscribers by the first simulcast of the season, in October.
But as for the total potential number of movie houses, Rupp said, "We think there may be a thousand who may be interested in this kind of content."
What's never not funny?
From Carrie Rickey's FLICKgrrl
blogs/flickgrrl/
Enjoyable, profanity-laced round table in the August 2010 Esquire on the inexhaustible subject of what is never not funny. The players: Judd Apatow, John Landis, Adam McKay, Todd Phillips, and Edgar Wright.
An excerpt:
Adam McKay: Animals. We always have animals in our movies - bears in Anchorman, a cougar in Talladega Nights, a German shepherd in Step Brothers.
Judd Apatow: True. Narcoleptic dog videos on YouTube: Never not funny.
Todd Phillips: What about talking animals?
McKay: Ooh. Todd just found the hole in the argument. Animals talking are very rarely funny. But animals behaving as animals - always funny.
In general outline, I agree with the round-table participants - and must add that the piglets in Nanny McPhee Returns had me in stitches. But there is that rare exception to the talking-animals-are-not-funny rule: Babe. (Confession: While I didn't love the movies, I laughed at Drew Barrymore's voice as the Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Bill Murray's as Garfield, and Owen Wilson's as Marmaduke.)
Other things never not funny: Steve Martin's deadpan, Diane Keaton's dither, Groucho Marx's punctuation of a crack with a puff on his cigar, Chris Rock's bug eyes, Bill Murray's We are not amused silences, Queen Latifah's He didn't just say that, did he? double take, Cary Grant's triple take, Hugh Grant's polite stammer, Owen Wilson's coinages (chipichawa, kachow!), the leopard in Bringing Up Baby, Asta (the wirehaired terrier in The Thin Man and The Awful Truth), Gromit (of Wallace & Gromit), Monty Python. ...
Thoughts? Nominations?