must reads: “What *Could* Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2012?”
Under the law that existed until 1978: works from 1955…
Broadway
question of the day: If they asked you, would you be willing to replace Julie Taymor as director of ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’?
A classic conundrum, says reader Bruce: risk being known as the fool who agreed to take over as captain of the Titanic in mid-sink or, if you succeed in turning the $65 million debacle around, become the greatest savior in show biz history.
Christian Bale ranting again; Keith Olbermann goes to Current; Morgan Spurlock, plagiarist?; more: leftover links
Plus: more trouble for Broadway’s ‘Spider-man’; what’s so hot about crazy chicks?; does journalism have a surprising savior?; more…
James Franco takes on ‘Three’s Company’; making the pilgrimage to Middle Earth; ‘The King’s Speech,’ awards bait; more: leftover links
Plus, Tyler Perry, misunderstood genius; from Winter’s Bone to X-Men; cable subscribers flee; more…
why Peter Jackson should direct ‘The Hobbit’; ‘Showgirls 2’ trailer is terrible; lost Charlie Chaplin film; more: leftover links
Every week my browser gets cluttered up with tabs for stuff that I stumble across and figure I might be able to use as a Question of the Day or a WTF Thought for the Day or grist for some other post. And inevitably, I end the week with most of that material unused. But … more…
December 23-25: DVD alternatives to this weekend’s multiplex offerings
We know how it is: You’d like to go to the movies this weekend, but… prezzies! toys! candy canes! snowball fights! big holiday dinner! But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, “Hey, did you see Sherlock Holmes this weekend?” … more…
Me and Orson Welles (review)
The best ever love letter/horror story about the seductions and anxieties of life in the theater is the Canadian television show *Slings & Arrows.* This enchantingly bittersweet little film might be the second best.
Frost/Nixon movie review: all the president’s mien
This was the sort of hopeless dread the news that Ron Howard was directing this left me with. I felt like Robert Stack in *Airplane!*: ‘It’s a goddamn waste of time — there’s no way he can land this plane!’
the show goes on without Tennant
As reader BillM (and others) noted in comments, David Tennant has had to drop out of West End performances of Hamlet through at least Christmas. At first it was just a nonspecified “back injury” that forced him to miss one performance, then a second, then it was “out for weeks to recover from surgery for … more…
