DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Jerry Seinfeld Can No Longer Be About Nothing
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-04 | by ( Matt Flegenheimer | Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jerry Seinfeld became a mic-cradling, cereal-eating, “did-you-ever-notice”-ing avatar of American Jewish life with a brazenly shrugging persona: a merry indifference to weighty material as a comedian and in his megahit TV show about nothing, as petty and apolitical as he seemed to be. Now — off-camera, at least — Mr. Seinfeld appears to have reached his post-nothing period. Since the attacks of Oct. 7 in Israel, and through their bloody and volatile aftermath in Gaza, Mr. Seinfeld, 70, has emerged as a strikingly public voice against antisemitism and in support of Jews in Israel and the United States, edging warily toward a more forward-facing advocacy role than he ever seemed to seek across his decades of fame. He has shared reflections about life on a kibbutz in his teens, and in December traveled to Tel Aviv to meet with hostages’ families, soberly recounting afterward the missile attack that greeted him during the trip. He has participated, to a point, in the kind of celebrity activism with which few associate him — letter-signing campaigns, earnest messages on social media — answering simply recently when asked about the motivation for his visit to Israel: “I’m Jewish.”

Persons: Jerry Seinfeld, “, Seinfeld, ” Locations: Israel, Gaza, United States, Tel Aviv

☆ Comics Artist Dies After Sexual Misconduct Accusations
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-09 | by ( Marc Tracy | George Gene Gustines | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The comics artist Ed Piskor, who was best known for his multivolume “Hip Hop Family Tree,” died last week after posting a lengthy note to social media about an accusation of sexual misconduct that led a gallery in Pittsburgh to indefinitely postpone an exhibition of his work. The death of Piskor, who lived in Munhall, Pa., was confirmed by a funeral home, but no cause was given. Many people read his note on social media — in which he repeatedly spoke of his death — as a suicide note. Two of Piskor’s relatives declined to comment. The chief of the Munhall Police Department said Piskor died outside of Pennsylvania.

Persons: Ed Piskor, ”, Piskor Organizations: Munhall Police, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Locations: Pittsburgh, Munhall, Pa, Pennsylvania

☆ ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech Is Defended by Jewish Film Artists
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

More than 150 Jewish actors, filmmakers and other artists signed an open letter that was published on Friday in defense of remarks about Jewishness and the war in Gaza that the director Jonathan Glazer made in his Oscars acceptance speech for “The Zone of Interest,” his film about the Holocaust. Glazer’s speech has become one of the most hotly debated in Oscars history, drawing an open letter of strong denunciation from other Jewish film professionals last month and now one of support. “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”The new letter expresses support for Glazer. “In his speech, Glazer asked how we can resist the dehumanization that has led to mass atrocities throughout history,” it says. “For such a statement to be taken as an affront only underscores its urgency.”

Persons: Jonathan Glazer, ” Glazer, Glazer, “ Locations: Gaza, Israel

☆ Woody Allen, Reputation Bruised, Finds Muted Reception to 50th Film
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This weekend, 13 movie theaters around the country will be showing “Coup de Chance,” a brisk French-language thriller about a bored wife in Paris who cheats on her wealthy, aloof husband with an old high school classmate, triggering fatal consequences. Minus the opening credits and certain trademark elements — jazzy score, moneyed setting, themes of murder and luck, dry cosmopolitan banter — a typical viewer could watch the movie without knowing it is the 50th film directed by Woody Allen. The foreign language (one in which Allen is not fluent — his original script was translated for filming), the absence of the kinds of American stars that typically crowd Allen’s casts, the low-key reception with which this milestone has been greeted: All suggest the awkwardness surrounding this new release by a filmmaker as distinctive as he is polarizing. “We just continue to do what we’ve been doing, and we’re happy that it’s opening,” Letty Aronson, Allen’s sister, who has produced his films since 1994, said in an interview this week. She said “Coup de Chance” was financed in Europe, and declined to disclose its backers.

Persons: Chance, ”, Woody Allen, Allen, ” Letty Aronson, Allen’s, Chance ” Locations: Paris, Europe

☆ Literary Magazine Retracts Israeli Writer’s Essay as Staffers Quit
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-12 | by ( Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Guernica, a small but prestigious online literary magazine, was thrown into turmoil in recent days after publishing — and then retracting — a personal essay about coexistence and war in the Middle East by an Israeli writer, leading to multiple resignations by its volunteer staff members, who said that they objected to its publication. In an essay titled “From the Edges of a Broken World,” Joanna Chen, a translator of Hebrew and Arabic poetry and prose, had written about her experiences trying to bridge the divide with Palestinians, including by volunteering to drive Palestinian children from the West Bank to receive care at Israeli hospitals, and how her efforts to find common ground faltered after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent attacks on Gaza. It was replaced on Guernica’s webpage with a note, attributed to “admin,” stating: “Guernica regrets having published this piece, and has retracted it,” and promising further explanation. Since the essay was published, at least 10 members of the magazine’s all-volunteer staff have resigned, including its former co-publisher, Madhuri Sastry, who on social media wrote that the essay “attempts to soften the violence of colonialism and genocide” and called for a cultural boycott of Israeli institutions. Chen said in an email that she believed her critics had misunderstood “the meaning of my essay, which is about holding on to empathy when there is no human decency in sight.”

Persons: ” Joanna Chen, Madhuri Sastry, Chen Organizations: West Bank Locations: Israeli, Gaza

☆ Activists Deface Portrait of Balfour, Who Supported Jewish Homeland
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-08 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A pro-Palestinian group slashed and spray-painted a century-old portrait of Arthur James Balfour at the University of Cambridge on Friday, defacing a painting of the British official whose pledge of support in 1917 for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” helped pave the way to Israel’s founding three decades later. The group, Palestine Action, said in a statement that the destruction of the portrait in Trinity College, Cambridge, was intended to call attention to “the bloodshed of the Palestinian people since the Balfour Declaration was issued,” particularly in light of the current conflict in Gaza. A spokeswoman for Trinity, whose alumni include King Charles III as well as Balfour himself, said in a statement on Friday that the college “regrets the damage caused to a portrait of Arthur James Balfour during public opening hours” and that it had notified the police. A Cambridge police statement said officers were on the scene to investigate a report of “criminal damage.”Palestine Action posted a video of a protester first spraying the portrait, painted in 1914 by Philip Alexius de László, with red paint and then slashing it with a sharp object. The group’s statement said Balfour had given away the homeland of the Palestinians — “a land that wasn’t his to give away” — touching off what it described as decades of oppression.

Persons: Arthur James Balfour, defacing, ”, Balfour, King Charles III, “, Philip Alexius de László Organizations: University of Cambridge, British, Palestine, Trinity College , Cambridge, Trinity, Cambridge Locations: Palestine, Gaza

☆ Donna Summer’s Estate Sues Ye for Sampling ‘I Feel Love’
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Ye and Ty Dolla Sign asked last month for permission to sample Donna Summer’s 1977 song “I Feel Love,” the disco singer’s estate firmly told them no. Yet when their joint LP, “Vultures 1,” was released weeks ago, a song with strong similarities to Summer’s famous tune was there on the track list. A copyright infringement lawsuit detailing that timeline was filed against Ye, the rapper once known as Kanye West, and Ty Dolla Sign on Tuesday by Summer’s husband and executor, Bruce Sudano. Summer, known as the “Queen of Disco,” had three consecutive double albums reach No. He has apologized in a Hebrew-language social media post.

Persons: Ye, Ty Dolla, Donna Summer’s, ”, Ty, Summer’s, Bruce Sudano, “, ” Ye Organizations: Creative Artists Agency, Adidas Locations: Los Angeles

☆ ‘The Ally,’ a New Play at the Public Theater, Hashes Out the Headlines
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Before his audition for “The Ally,” a new play by Itamar Moses, the actor Michael Khalid Karadsheh printed out the monologue that his character, Farid, a Palestinian student at an American university, would give in the second act. The speech cites both the Mideast conflict’s specific history and Farid’s personal testimony of, he says, “the experience of moving through the world as the threat of violence incarnate.” Karadsheh — who booked the part — was bowled over. “I don’t think anyone has said these words about Palestine on a stage in New York in such a clear, concise, beautiful, poetic way,” said Karadsheh, whose parents are from Jordan and who has ancestors who were from Birzeit in the West Bank. Farid’s speech sits alongside others, though, in Moses’s play: one delivered by an observant Jew branding much criticism of Israel as antisemitic; another by a Black lawyer connecting Israel’s policies toward Palestinians to police brutality in the United States; another by a Korean American bemoaning the mainstream’s overlooking of East Asians. These speeches are invariably answered by rebuttals, which are answered by their own counter-rebuttals, all by characters who feel they have skin in the game.

Persons: ”, Itamar Moses, Michael Khalid Karadsheh, Farid, Karadsheh —, —, Karadsheh, Israel Organizations: West Bank Locations: Palestine, New York, Jordan, Birzeit, United States, Korean American, East

☆ Navigating Israel’s War When One Spouse Is Jewish, and One Is Not.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Marc Tracy | Emma Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Ava Friedmann and Michael Henein were married, they used a tablecloth from Ms. Friedmann’s grandmother as a huppah, or ritual canopy held above the couple in a Jewish wedding. That same braiding of their cultural traditions has steered them over the last three months, as they have talked about the Israel-Hamas war. They decided to read identical news sources about the war to help make sure they stayed on the same page. Many American Jews have reconsidered how they feel about Israel and even their own Jewish identity since the Oct. 7 attack, in which Israeli officials say Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people. Israel’s reprisal, a bombing campaign and invasion, has killed more than 26,000 people, Palestinian officials say.

Persons: Ava Friedmann, Michael Henein, Friedmann’s, Henein’s, Henein, ” Ms, Friedmann Locations: Egypt, Israel, Gaza

☆ Joni Mitchell Takes the Grammy Stage for the First Time
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-04 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It’s hard to believe that at 80 years old, after a groundbreaking career in music, there are still new achievements left for Joni Mitchell. But on Sunday night, she did something for the first time: performed on the Grammys. Joined by Brandi Carlile, Jacob Collier, Lucius, Blake Mills, Allison Russell and SistaStrings, the singer-songwriter played “Both Sides Now.”Carlile, one of Mitchell’s most high-profile champions, is largely responsible for bringing her hero back to the stage, and she introduced Mitchell, who earlier won the Grammy for best folk album for “Joni Mitchell at Newport.” Nine years ago, Mitchell had an aneurysm and largely vanished from the public eye; her legions of fans feared that her singing days were complete. But the writer and unmistakable soprano behind classics like “Big Yellow Taxi” and “A Case of You” was not finished. She made a surprise appearance at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival alongside Carlile, as well as musicians including Wynonna Judd and Marcus Mumford.

Persons: Joni Mitchell, Brandi Carlile, Jacob Collier, Lucius, Blake Mills, Allison Russell, SistaStrings, ” Carlile, Mitchell, “ Joni Mitchell, ”, Carlile, Wynonna Judd, Marcus Mumford Organizations: Newport Folk Locations: Newport

☆ Is Israel Part of What It Means to Be Jewish?
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-14 | by ( Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last month, on the first night of Hanukkah, more than 200 people packed an old ballroom on the third floor of a restored synagogue in Brooklyn. A few came fresh off the subway from a protest in Manhattan that was organized by left-wing Jewish groups calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. They were there to hear from Shaul Magid, 65, whose long, thin white beard and shaved head made him look more like a roadie than a rabbi. A professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth as well as (yes) a rabbi, Mr. Magid was there to spread the message elucidated in a new book, “The Necessity of Exile,” that Jews today outside Israel — 75 percent of whom live in the United States — should embrace diaspora, the state of living outside a homeland, as a permanent and valuable condition. “If there’s a diasporic reality where Jews have been able to live as Jews, flourish as Jews, not to be oppressed and persecuted — whether they choose to be a Satmar Hasid or Larry David, it doesn’t matter — if they’re allowed to live the Judaism they want, why would that be a tragedy?” he said.

Persons: Shaul Magid, Magid, Larry David, they’re, ” Organizations: Jewish Studies, Dartmouth, Israel — Locations: Brooklyn, Manhattan, Israel, United States

☆ Susan Sarandon Apologizes for Comment About Jews at Rally
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon apologized Friday for saying at a pro-Palestinian rally last month that people feeling afraid of being Jewish right now were “getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence.”The remarks drew widespread criticism and soon afterward her agency, United Talent Agency, let it be known that it had dropped her as a client. In a statement posted to Instagram Friday night, Sarandon said that she had been trying to communicate her concern for rising hate crimes. “This phrasing was a terrible mistake,” she said, “as it implies that until recently Jews have been strangers to persecution, when the opposite is true.”“As we all know, from centuries of oppression and genocide in Europe, to the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, PA,” she said, referring to the synagogue shooting that killed 11 and wounding six others in the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, “Jews have long been familiar with discrimination and religious violence which continues to this day.”

Persons: Susan Sarandon, Sarandon, ” Organizations: Palestinian, United Talent Agency Locations: Europe, Pittsburgh , PA

☆ Susan Sarandon’s Most Controversial Roles Have Been Offscreen
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For decades, Susan Sarandon’s acting career thrived alongside a robust interest in political activism, which often placed her well to the left even of Hollywood’s liberal mainstream. As she starred in films like “Bull Durham,” “Thelma & Louise” and “Dead Man Walking,” for which she won an Academy Award, she became a familiar, outspoken figure who appeared at rallies, took stances on issues at awards shows and made political endorsements. Over the years her brand of progressive politics led to clashes with others on the left, most notably in 2016, when she decided to back a Green Party candidate over Hillary Clinton, who went on to lose to Donald J. Trump. Some in the industry were expressing alarm about rising antisemitism and felt that their community had not sufficiently expressed support for Israel after Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 captive on Oct. 7. But questions were also being raised about if and when political speech should affect a career, as others in the industry lost positions and acting jobs after criticizing Israel for killing thousands of civilians in Gaza.

Persons: Susan Sarandon’s, “, “ Bull Durham, ”, Thelma, Louise ”, Hillary Clinton, Donald J, Sarandon, Israel Organizations: Green Party, Trump, United Talent Agency, The New, Hollywood Locations: “ Bull, New York, Israel, The New York, Gaza

☆ It Ain’t His, Babe: Bob Dylan Has Been Playing City-Specific Covers
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Bob Dylan famously does not do fan service. And in his live act, Dylan is also not a crowd-pleaser, at least in the conventional sense. It started on Oct. 1, when Dylan, playing Kansas City, Mo., for his first American date in more than a year, opened with “Kansas City,” the Leiber and Stoller standard first made famous by Wilbert Harrison and then the Beatles. A few days later, Dylan opened his St. Louis show with “Johnny B. Goode,” in presumed tribute to the city’s native son Chuck Berry. Next up was Chicago, where Dylan opened with … “Born in Chicago.”

Persons: Bob Dylan, Dylan, “, Leiber, Stoller, Wilbert Harrison, Louis, Johnny B, Goode, ”, Chuck Berry, … “ Organizations: Bloomberg, Kansas City, “ Kansas Locations: Mo, “ Kansas City, Chicago

☆ Susan Sarandon Dropped by Talent Agency After Remarks on Gaza War
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

The Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon was dropped by United Talent Agency after comments she made at a recent pro-Palestinian rally drew criticism online. An agency spokesman, Richard Siklos, confirmed Tuesday that Sarandon was no longer represented by the agency but declined to elaborate. Sarandon was dropped after making remarks at a rally in New York City last week. Sarandon said at the rally that being critical of Israel should not be considered antisemitic. “There’s a terrible thing that’s happened where antisemitism has been confused with speaking up against Israel,” Sarandon said.

Persons: Susan Sarandon, Richard Siklos, Sarandon, ”, “, ” Sarandon, —, — Sarandon, “ Bull, “ Bull Durham ”, Thelma, Louise ”, Maha Dakhil, Israel, Aaron Sorkin, Maha, she’s Organizations: United Talent Agency, Palestinian, The New York, New York City, The Post, United Nations, “ Bull Durham, DC Comics, Hollywood, Creative Artists Agency Locations: New York, Gaza, Israel, New York City

☆ Hunter College Pulls Screening of Film Critical of Israel
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Jennifer Schuessler | More About Jennifer Schuessler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

The screening of “Israelism” at Hunter had been planned since June, according to Tami Gold, a professor in the film and media department who organized the screening. “Otherwise, there was no safety or security issue prior to Oct. 7,” he said. Since then, some venues have asked to postpone, and a screening at Grinnell College in Iowa was canceled. There is never a time to air this film, but especially not at a time when the A.D.L. On Friday, Anderson and Gold said, they were approached by the dean, Andrew Polsky, about security issues.

Persons: ”, Hunter, Tami Gold, Simone Zimmerman, Eitan, Cornel West, Jeremy Ben, Ami, Abraham H, Foxman, Daniel J, Chalfen, ” Kelly Anderson, It’s, “ It’s, Anderson, Gold, Andrew Polsky, Polsky, “, Kirschner, DiMiceli, ” Anderson, ” Marc Tracy Organizations: West Bank, Jewish, Defamation League, University of California, Grinnell College, Facebook Locations: Israel, Los Angeles, Iowa

☆ How Philip Roth’s Raunchiest Novel Made It to the Stage
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The production, directed by Jo Bonney, leans into the novel’s frank depictions of unbounded lust, gleeful disloyalty and bodily functions. Yet the story’s undertones of grief also attracted Turturro and Levy. Turturro read Roth’s memoir of his father’s death, “Patrimony: A True Story,” after his own father died and identified profoundly with it. Enacting the novel’s fragmented nature by jumping back and forth in time was crucial to its dramatic success, she added. “When you’re just writing, all you have is words, words, words, words, words,” Levy said.

Persons: Jo Bonney, Turturro, Levy, ”, ” Levy, “, John, Sabbath’s, Nikki, Mickey’s, ” Bonney, “ We’re, you’re Organizations: National Theater Locations: London

☆ Don’t Stop Believin’? Considering a TV Golden Age, 10 Years Later
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-19 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Was there one show that provoked you to write the book? It felt extremely daring in being one of the first shows where 9/11 was being treated in a fully rounded way. Have any of the shows in the book not stood up as much as you expected? Quite the opposite: The shows you think might have been dated have proven riveting in ways they maybe weren’t even when they were on. Not surprisingly, because the book ends making the point that one doesn’t have to be that difficult to create these wonderful shows.

Persons: ”, Tony Soprano, Walter White, Vince Gilligan Organizations: Teamsters, HBO Locations: America

☆ The Artistry of Her Baskets Is Complex. So Is the Story Around Them.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-05 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“It’s not right for the rest of us to tell our basket weavers how to weave their baskets,” he said. For Horton, the professor, Keyser’s story is important to understanding her baskets, if not in the way the Cohns intended. Image Abe Cohn outside of his Emporium in Carson City, Nev., in 1923, holding two of Louisa Keyser’s baskets. Another, titled “Brotherhood of Men,” was the one the Ellis Gallery sold in 2007 for $1.2 million. Then as now, the degikup evident in four of the show’s baskets is a source of much of the enthusiasm around them.

Persons: Herman Fillmore, “ It’s, ”, Horton, Abe Cohn, Louisa Keyser’s, Donald Ellis, Ellis, Keyser, “ Organizations: of, Ellis Locations: Washoe Tribe, Nevada, California, Washoe, Carson City, Nev, “

Interest in “Rich Men North of Richmond,” which was streamed 17.5 million times on services like Spotify and Apple Music in its first week of release, partly grew in the manner of a typical viral track, according to the service Luminate, whose data fuels the Billboard charts. Much of the consumer activity that drove the track to No. 1 came via 99-cent digital downloads from outlets like the iTunes Store — an outdated format that is declining in popularity faster than CDs. Despite streaming now accounting for more than 80 percent of music consumption overall, paid downloads are weighted more on the charts, a quirk exploited regularly by pop superfans devoted to acts like Ms. In often coordinated efforts, they use downloads to show support and earn chart milestones that are celebrated like wins in sports or political elections.

Persons: Jason Aldean, “, Anthony, Christopher Anthony Lunsford, —, Oliver Anthony, ”, Mr, Walsh —, superfans, Swift Organizations: Country Music Television, North, Apple Music, Daily, Korean, BTS Locations: Tennessee, Rich, Richmond, ”

☆ Leonard Bernstein’s Children Defend Bradley Cooper’s Prosthetic Nose in ‘Maestro’
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Leonard Bernstein’s three children came to the defense of the actor and director Bradley Cooper on Wednesday after he drew fresh criticism for wearing a large prosthetic nose in his portrayal of the midcentury American composer and conductor, who was Jewish, in the forthcoming movie “Maestro.”When the makeup was first revealed last year, some questioned the decision by Cooper, who is not Jewish, to play Bernstein, who died in 1990. In the Netflix film, he stars opposite Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein. The debut of a teaser trailer on Tuesday prompted further discussion on social media about both the prosthesis, which critics said played into an antisemitic trope, and about whether an actor who is Jewish should instead have been cast to play Bernstein, the “West Side Story” composer and music director of the New York Philharmonic.

Persons: Leonard Bernstein’s, Bradley Cooper, Maestro, ”, Cooper, Bernstein, Carey Mulligan, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein Organizations: Netflix, New York Philharmonic Locations: American

☆ Digital Replicas, a Fear of Striking Actors, Already Fill Screens
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To pack three seasons’ worth of English soccer stadiums with exasperated or exhilarated crowds, the Apple TV+ comedy “Ted Lasso” turned to dozens of background actors and powerful visual effects technology. The show’s makers also used crowd sprites, in which actors were filmed individually on green screens and then arranged to appear as part of the crowd. There were even digital doubles: three-dimensional models whose movements were informed by a motion actor. Innovations in digital technology and artificial intelligence have transformed the increasingly sophisticated world of visual effects, which can ever more convincingly draw from, replicate and morph flesh-and-blood performers into virtual avatars. Those advancements have thrust the issue toward the top of the grievances cited in the weekslong strike by the actors’ union.

Persons: Ted Lasso ” Organizations: Apple, SAG

☆ How Phish’s Lighting Designer Jams With the Band
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“I will in the subtlest way shake my head and say, ‘No, I’m not there,’” Anastasio said in an interview, “and from way back in the room he always gets this little message. I can take it around eight more bars, or four more bars, this peak, and he’ll make some incredible move right when we make the move. I don’t think anyone would notice this happening other than us.”Last Friday night at Madison Square Garden, Anastasio’s interlocutor was standing behind five monitors and a lighting control console, wearing a black T-shirt, jeans and Hoka sneakers. He controlled 100 base lighting looks — different permutations of 302 lights, with 79 colors preprogrammed for Phish — some mounted on 30 movable pieces of truss above the stage. It was his 1,752nd Phish show lighting the band.

Persons: Trey Anastasio, ’ ” Anastasio, ”, Anastasio’s interlocutor, Chris Kuroda Organizations: Madison Locations: Vermont

☆ ‘Oppenheimer’ Fans Are Rediscovering a 40-Year-Old Documentary
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One morning in the 1950s, Jon H. Else’s father pointed toward Nevada from their home in Sacramento. “There was this orange glow that suddenly rose up in the sky, and then shrank back down,” Else recalled. Growing up in the nuclear age left an impression on Else, now 78. But before all that, in 1981, he made a documentary about Oppenheimer, the scientist whose bony visage graced the covers of midcentury magazines, and the bomb. Decades later, viewers are flocking to Else’s film, a nominee for the Academy Award for best documentary feature, as a companion to Christopher Nolan’s biopic “Oppenheimer,” which grossed more than $100 million domestically in its opening week this month.

Persons: Jon H, ” Else, Robert Oppenheimer, Else, ”, Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s, “ Oppenheimer Organizations: Trinity, Academy Locations: Nevada, Sacramento

“Obviously, the little girls that are going to see Barbie, none of them are going to have any idea what those dashes mean,” Mr. Cruz told Fox News. “This is really designed for the eyes of the Chinese censors, and they’re trying to kiss up to the Chinese Communist Party because they want to make money selling the movie.”The response on the right is not a one-off. For a generation of conservative personalities, weaned on Andrew Breitbart’s much-cited observation that “politics is downstream of culture,” Hollywood and other ostensibly liberal bastions are to be confronted head-on, lest their leanings ensnare young voters without a fight. Recent years have provided ample evidence, some on the right say, for a “go woke, go broke” view that progressivism is bad business. (Of course, there is no way to trace exactly what determines any movie’s success or failure, and many observers adhere to the screenwriter William Goldman’s axiom: “Nobody knows anything.”)“Barbie” cannot be said to have gone broke.

Persons: Mr, Cruz, Andrew Breitbart’s, ensnare, ”, Mario, Halle Bailey, ’, William Goldman’s, Barbie, Rich Cromwell, ” Kyle Smith Organizations: Fox News, Chinese Communist Party, Mario Bros, Black, Wall Street

Search resuls for: "Marc Tracy"

25 mentions found