2.28.2012

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Oscars 2012: The rundown



We got an upset, cheesecake, the Muppets and Billy Crystal in blackface. We got the pure emotional joy of Octavia Spencer and the international pride of Iran and Pakistan. We got the lyrical beauty of Cirque du Soleil and the, uh, presence of Sacha Baron Cohen. Oscars 2012 was a mixed bag. Let Melissa Bell at The Washington Post’s Celebritology blog sort it all out. So you don’t have to.
Photo: Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

2.26.2012

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Critic Howard Kissel dies at 69



The tousle-haired, bespectacled theater critic beloved on Broadway for decades, died Friday night in Manhattan from complications from a 2010 liver transplant. Kissel was lead theater critic at the New York Daily News for 20 years; former chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle and the New York Drama Critics Circle; and a prolific author. A frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, he blogged there as "The Cultural Tourist." Robert Simonson reports in Playbill
Photo: Still from "Theater Talk" TV program.
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White House of Blues



Tuesday was blues day in Washington, as a number of blues and rock luminaries came to the East Room of the White House for a performance celebrating the blues and marking Black History Month. Some British bloke with moves like Jagger made the best of it, ripping into “I Can’t Turn You Loose” (an Otis Redding classic) and “Commit a Crime” (from Howlin’ Wolf). “In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues” airs Monday on PBS stations nationwide. Watch the video for a taste:



Short Sharp Shock: Sonny Boy Who?: Blues and the absence of memory
Photo: whitehouse.gov/PBS.

2.23.2012

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Ava after Sundance

It’s been three weeks since Ava DuVernay won best director honors at Sundance for her film Middle of Nowhere, a surprise choice that caught festivalgoers off guard. Now that the dust has settled and the phone’s stopped ringing as much, the indie darling sat down with Nsenga K. Burton of The Root to make sense of what the ‘‘big hug’’ at Sundance means for DuVernay, and for other black women filmmakers struggling for a voice. See Movies
Photo: Ava DuVernay via The Root
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The Help tops NAACP film honors

The serious 2012 Academy Award contender wins best picture at the NAACP Image Awards, one of the last awards ceremonies before the 84th Oscars (this coming Sunday night). Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer took home honors as best actress and best supporting actress. CBS News reports.
Photo: Getty Images
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Seattle: Another Oklahoma!

The 5th Avenue Theatre's staging of the vintage Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, still "a valentine to America," in the words of producer Peter Rothstein, weds folkloric homage with multiculturalism, via cross-racial casting and a vision of inclusion a far cry from its early stagings in the 1940’s. Misha Berson of The Seattle Times reports. See Stage
Photo: Promotional still, 5th Avenue Theater, Seattle, via boradwayworld.com
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NYC: Asian and absent in the arts

In an increasingly diverse American society, Asian American actors are battling for wider acceptance. In the hothouse of competition on the New York stage, they find it harder and harder to find roles that white and even African American actors gain with more regularity. One actor said it plain: “There's this real subconscious perception in society that Asian-Americans are not actually American.” Lucas Kavner of The Huffington Post reports. See Stage
Image: Asian American Performers Action Coalition, via Facebook
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A new home for the blues

The National Blues Museum, said to be the first dedicated to the indelible genre of American music, is set to open sometime next year in St. Louis, a city whose DNA is steeped in the blues experience. The project, part of a $500 million riverfront renovation, will have a tech-centric feel, but one that strives to celebrate blues as “a state of mind ... the human condition ... a way of life.” More at The Huffington Post
Photo: Central Iowa Blues Society

2.12.2012

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Goodbye, Whitney

The investigation
Los Angeles Times: Authorities probe possible bathtub drowning scenario
New York Times: A voice of triumph and pain: “She was, alongside Michael Jackson and Madonna, one of the crucial figures to hybridize pop in the 1980s ... Jackson and Madonna built worldviews around their voices; Houston’s voice was the worldview.”
Mashable: The social world explodes
L.A. Times: The Grammys plans tributes
THR: Houston dominates iTunes



Michael E. Ross: One nation, two minutes in Tampa, indivisible
Photo: REUTERS/Gary Hershorn
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