Thursday, December 26

Tag: Arts/Entertainment

Hollywood’s Box Office Recovery Needs Rewrite
29Dec By adminNo Comments
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Hollywood’s Box Office Recovery Needs Rewrite

2023 may be over, but Hollywood’s painful reckoning isn’t—especially at the box office. This year’s holiday season has largely been a lump of coal for the movie industry. Domestic box office receipts for the season starting the first week of November have barely crossed the $1 billion mark. That is actually below the same period in each of the past two years, which had been helped by the release of mega-blockbusters like “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” It is also less than half the $2.3 billion average for the holiday season in the prepandemic years of 2015 to 2019, according to Box Office Mojo. Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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‘Extended Family’ Review: A Subversive Split From Sitcom Tropes
28Dec By adminNo Comments
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‘Extended Family’ Review: A Subversive Split From Sitcom Tropes

A network situation comedy that is genuinely funny doesn’t come along every weeknight at 8:30, or most weeknights at 8:30, and even if the producers passed on the most obvious title—“Post-Modern Family”—their new “Extended Family” has legs. Jokes. Jon Cryer’s scrupulous comedic timing. And a premise that even 20 years ago would have had the old Legion of Decency writhing on the floor: happy divorce.Does it help that it isn’t so happy? The creation of writer-actor-producer Mike O’Malley starring Mr. Cryer and Abigail Spencer, “Extended Family” is based on two pillars of classical sitcom philosophy—people’s intentions are good and they are not as smart as they think. As we are told by Jim and Julia—directly to the camera, which is how much information is exchanged—their marriage had basical...
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‘Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc’ Review: Creativity Under Soviet Constraints
28Dec By adminNo Comments
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‘Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc’ Review: Creativity Under Soviet Constraints

MinneapolisThe freezing half-mile walk from my hotel to the Walker Art Center on an early December morning here was a bit dreary and difficult, given that the park between me and the museum was basically one vast sheet of ice. Perhaps that was as it should have been, since the exhibition I was on my way to see was “Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s-1980s,” a comparatively cold, gray, but occasionally lively gathering of contemporary art created under repressive political regimes. (The show is up through March 10, 2024.)Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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Tom Smothers, Comedian of Smothers Brothers Fame, Dies at 86
27Dec By adminNo Comments
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Tom Smothers, Comedian of Smothers Brothers Fame, Dies at 86

Tom Smothers, half of the famed Smothers Brothers comedy duo that helped shape network television, has died. He was 86. Smothers died Tuesday, according to the National Comedy Center. He recently had cancer, said the comedy museum in Jamestown, N.Y. Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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Getting Cut From ‘American Idol’ Was the Best Thing to Happen to Alan Ritchson’s Acting Career
26Dec By adminNo Comments
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Getting Cut From ‘American Idol’ Was the Best Thing to Happen to Alan Ritchson’s Acting Career

By Marc MyersDec. 26, 2023 11:04 am ETListen to article(2 minutes)Alan Ritchson, 41, is an actor who stars in the upcoming films “Ordinary Angels” and “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” He is best known for his starring role in Prime Video’s “Reacher,” now in season 2. He spoke with Marc Myers. Niceville, Fla., had plenty of mean kids when I grew up there. The city is on the state’s panhandle so it’s part of the South, which means sports. As a kid who was an artist but didn’t know it yet, I had my share of bullying.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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Hank Williams at 100: A Country Crooner With Heartfelt Depth
25Dec By adminNo Comments
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Hank Williams at 100: A Country Crooner With Heartfelt Depth

About 10 years ago, I made a pilgrimage to the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, Ala., about an hour’s drive from Butler County—where the country-music legend was born 100 years ago—and where Williams grew up from age 13 on. It was overwhelming to be surrounded by over a dozen of his suits and performance outfits, his 1937 Gibson, and even his 1952 Cadillac—the very car he died in, at 29 years old, on New Year’s Day 1953, essentially from heart failure related to his longtime alcoholism. The artifact that touched me the most, however, was a brightly painted, 7-foot-tall wooden statue of a Native American, what we used to call a “cigar-store Indian.” This was in honor of “Kaw-Liga,” one of Williams’s final recordings—released shortly after his death—and one of his most profound songs. Wr...
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Macron Stirs Fury by Praising Gérard Depardieu, French Actor Accused of Rape
24Dec By adminNo Comments
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Macron Stirs Fury by Praising Gérard Depardieu, French Actor Accused of Rape

PARIS—France is losing its patience with renowned artists and intellectuals whose work has long given them a free pass against sexual-misconduct allegations.So it came as a shock to many this week when President Emmanuel Macron strongly praised the actor Gérard Depardieu, once the face of French cinema, who has been accused of sexual assault and rape by a number of women. Macron rejected the suggestion by his own culture minister that Depardieu should lose the Legion of Honor, one of France’s highest awards, arguing it is merited for great artists who might be bad people.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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