The writer and director J.C. Chandor narrates a sequence from his film.
Video by Mekado Murphy on Publish Date January 8, 2015. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima/A24 Films, via Associated Press.Directors offer behind-the-scenes narration on their films.
In this video, the writer and director J. C. Chandor narrates a sequence from his film, featuring Oscar Isaac as the intimidating owner of a heating oil company.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s first novel, “Mycroft Holmes,” which stars Sherlock Holmes’ brainy older brother, will be published this fall by Titan Books.
Set in England and Trinidad, the story centers on Mycroft, a recent university graduate working for the British Secretary of State for War. Mycroft learns from his best friend of troubling events occurring in Trinidad — mysterious disappearances, dead children and strange, backward facing footprints in the sand. Mycroft goes to Trinidad to investigate and to follow his fiancée, Georgiana, who was raised on the island. Sherlock has a cameo as a King’s College student.
Mr. Abdul-Jabbar, a 19-time N.B.A. All-Star, began reading Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories more than 40 years ago, during his rookie season. “I was fascinated by Holmes’s ability to see clues where other people saw nothing,” he said in a statement released by his publisher. “Mycroft Holmes” was written with the screenwriter and producer Anna Waterhouse.
Mr. Abdul-Jabbar later read “Enter the Lion: A Posthumous Memoir of Mycroft Holmes,” a 1979 novel that was written by Michael P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright, and features Sherlock’s older brother. He was taken with the character, who appears in several of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories and works for the British government.
“I realized more could be done with this ‘older, smarter’ character and his window onto the highest levels of British government — at a time when Britain was the most powerful country in the world,” Mr. Abdul-Jabbar said in a statement.
Mr. Abdul-Jabbar, who has published an autobiography, as well as nonfiction and children’s books, will also release his third children’s book, “Streetball Crew – Stealing the Game,” in February.
The Tony Award winners Chita Rivera and Roger Rees will star on Broadway this spring in “The Visit,” a darkly romantic musical that has been evolving over the last 15 years; its creators are the acclaimed theatrical songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb (“Chicago,” “Cabaret”) and their frequent collaborator, Terrence McNally. The producers announced on Thursday that “The Visit,” directed by the Tony winner John Doyle (the 2005 Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd”), will begin performances March 26 at the Lyceum Theater and open on April 23 – the eligibility deadline for 2015 Tony nominations.
Ms. Rivera, in a telephone interview on Thursday, described herself as “very emotional” about the arrival of “The Visit,” which she has been working on since 2001 with Broadway as the ultimate dream destination. She turns 82 later this month, and said she was grateful to have a role – as a vengeful widow reckoning with a broken heart from her youth – that suited her at this point in her life, much like some of her past characters on Broadway such as the young Anita in the original “West Side Story” in 1957 and the glamorous movie star in “Kiss of the Spider Woman” in 1993.
“I think this character is right in time with who I am, and how old I am, and my maturity and my life in the theater,” said Ms. Rivera, a two-time best actress Tony winner for “Spider Woman” and “The Rink,” which were also by Messrs. Kander, Ebb and McNally. She then seemed to start reflecting on whether “The Visit” might be a swan song.
“Will this be – it doesn’t feel like it – but is the universe painting a picture for me? I’m wondering, is this going to be sort of like – no, I’m not going to say it. I feel like I’ve been given a gift with this show, and when you’re given a gift, you really respect it,” she said.
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Russell Brand, the comedian, actor, author and activist, will take the spotlight at the South by Southwest Film Festival: he’s the subject of the opening-night film, “Brand: A Second Coming,” organizers announced Thursday. The documentary, directed by Ondi Timoner (“We Live in Public”), offers an intimate look at the British entertainer, whose film credits include “Get Him to the Greek,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and, in the title role, the remake of the 1981 comedy “Arthur.”
The festival, taking place March 13-21 in Austin, Tex., also announced premieres of a handful of other films, including Michael Showalter’s “Hello, My Name Is Doris,” featuring Sally Field as a woman who, motivated by a self-help seminar, pursues a younger co-worker and becomes a part of the Brooklyn hipster scene. Karyn Kusama will bring her thriller “The Invitation,” about a reunion of friends that takes a turn for the worse. The documentary “Son of the Congo,” about the N.B.A. player Serge Ibaka, is the first first film from Grantland Features. And the documentary “Mavis!,” from Jessica Edwards, looks at the life of the singer Mavis Staples.
Other events on the schedule include keynote speeches from Ava Duvernay, Mark Duplass and RZA. More of the lineup will be announced Feb. 3.
The composer John Luther Adams continues to ride the wave. Mr. Adams, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year for his mesmerizing,
environmentally aware orchestral work “Become Ocean,” will be awarded the $50,000 William Schuman Award this fall, Columbia University’s School of the Arts announced on Thursday.
The award, which has been given out periodically since it was established in 1981, recognizes “the lifetime achievement of an American composer whose works have been widely performed and generally acknowledged to be of lasting significance.” Previous winners include Gunther Schuller, Milton Babbitt, Steve Reich, John Zorn, and, most recently, Pauline Oliveros.
Mr. Adams will be presented the award to coincide with a three-night tribute at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University beginning Oct. 7 that will include the New York premieres of three of his works: “Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing,” “In the White Silence” and “for Lou Harrison.” The works will be performed by the JACK Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble and conducted by Steven Schick.
Graham W. J. Beal, one of the most battle-scarred directors in recent American museum history, announced plans to retire in June after leading the Detroit Institute of Arts through an unprecedented threat to its world-class collection during Detroit’s federal bankruptcy.
The collection, which some of the city’s creditors demanded be sold to help pay municipal debts, was saved late last year in an agreement, known as the “grand bargain,” in which foundations, private donors, the State of Michigan and the museum itself agreed to raise the equivalent of more than $800 million. The money was pledged help shore up public workers’ pensions, in exchange for the protection of the museum and a transfer of its ownership from the city to an independent charitable trust.
The museum, which has struggled financially for decades, achieved operational stability during Mr. Beal’s tenure with the passage in 2012 of a three-county property tax dedicated to the museum’s budget. In almost 16 years as director, Mr. Beal also oversaw a $158 million renovation of the museum’s Beaux-Arts building and a comprehensive reinstallation of its galleries, completed in 2007, that has proved popular with visitors. (Attendance has increased significantly over the past several years, to more than 700,000 last year.)
“It has certainly been quite a ride, with some amazing highs far outweighing the other kind, said Mr. Beal, 67, in a statement, adding a wry thanks to the museum’s staff and board for “success in so many different areas: among them artistic, scholarly, pedagogical, political and legal.”
LONDON — Yesterday and today cartoonists around the world created drawings responding to the attacks in Paris that killed 12 staffers at the satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo. Many of the responses quickly gained traction on social media, gathering likes, shares and retweets.
A cartoon by the Canberra Times political cartoonist, David Pope, was among the most popular on Twitter with nearly 69,000 retweets. Mr. Pope shared the image — which shows a gunman saying “He drew first” as he stands over a dead body — from his personal account with the words: “Can’t sleep tonight, thoughts with my French cartooning colleagues, their families and loved ones”
Can't sleep tonight, thoughts with my French cartooning colleagues, their families and loved ones #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/LqIMRCHPgK
— David Pope (@davpope) January 7, 2015
How do you design a book for the ages?
When it came to the Murty Classical Library of India, whose first five books were published this week by Harvard University Press, part of the answer turned out to be: think pink.
“When you look at a shelf of Harvard University Press books, this isn’t a color you see,” Timothy Jones, the press’s director of design and production, said of the series’ covers, which come in a deep, rich rose known to designers as Pantone 220.
“In some small way,” he said, “it announces right away, ‘A classic isn’t what you think.'”
The Murty Library, a series of volumes of pre-1800 Indian literature that is projected to reach 500 books over the next century, is modeled on the Loeb Classical Library, founded in 1911 as means of getting accessible dual-language editions of the ancient Western classics into the hands of ordinary readers. Over the past century, the trim red (Latin) and green (Greek) Loeb volumes, also published by Harvard, have become fetish objects, beloved of book-design geeks and shelter-magazine art directors alike. Read more…
Jazz & Colors, which has twice presented a bounty of jazz ensembles at picturesque locations all over Central Park, will return this year. But the festival is moving indoors — to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, according to an announcement scheduled to be made today. “Jazz & Colors: The Masterworks Edition,” as it’s being called, will be held on Friday, Jan. 30, with sets at 6 and 7:30 p.m. It will be free with museum admission.
Established by Peter Shapiro, the owner of Brooklyn Bowl and the Capitol Theater, Jazz & Colors had its inaugural edition in 2012, running into a few logistical hurdles but earning enough goodwill to repeat the whole production the following year.
As in those previous editions, Mr. Shapiro has solicited the programming savvy of Brice Rosenbloom, who books Le Poisson Rouge and the Winter Jazzfest. This time around, Mr. Rosenbloom worked with Limor Tomer, who as general manager of concerts and lectures at the Met has been responsible for some innovative programming, including a marathon museum takeover by the composer and saxophonist John Zorn, in 2013.
The new Jazz & Colors lineup will be smaller — a dozen groups instead of 30 — and the experience will surely be a little less freeform. But there are opportunities presented by the museum’s celebrated collection, and the assigned set lists, to be played simultaneously by all 12 ensembles, will probably bear some relationship to the setting.
While the roster is still being finalized, confirmed artists include the clarinetist Don Byron, the trumpeter Amir ElSaffar, the saxophonists Lakecia Benjamin and Avram Fefer, the bassists Ben Williams and Linda Oh, and the percussionists Mino Cinelu and Allison Miller. The Cellar and Point, a contemporary chamber-jazz ensemble, will also perform. Full festival details can be found at jazzandcolors.com.
Season 2, Episode 12: “Paradise Lost”
Yes, I realize that there are few things more useless than a recap of an episode that aired two days ago, but the flu bug that Moloch apparently unleashed just before he was vanquished in the Dec. 1 show packs a Hades of a wallop. It knocked me out for the last half of the holidays, and I’ve only just now caught up with Monday night’s “Paradise Lost,” the first “Sleepy Hollow” episode after a month-long hiatus.
First, if you’re going to introduce an angel into a TV series, aren’t you obliged to dig a little deeper into the special-effects budget? Orion (Max Brown), the angel who turned up in this episode, was given a not-at-all-convincing pair of wings and some airborne moments that recalled “The Flying Nun” in their cheesiness. The Angels Union, if there is one, ought to be writing letters of complaint to Fox.
Anyway, as the hour began we learned that — duh — Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie) and Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) had survived the cataclysmic ending to the previous episode and had been knocking around for weeks without much to do, the apocalypse apparently having been averted. But then Orion turned up with the news that the skewering of Moloch had opened up purgatory and allowed the escape of assorted creatures who were now looking for a new dark lord to follow. He, Orion, was after those creatures, and Abbie and Ichabod teamed up with him.
Perhaps they should have been tipped off by his black garb — what angel dresses in black? — that Orion wasn’t what he seemed. Yes, he was an angel, but, as they eventually figured out, he was an angel gone rogue; he wanted to vanquish evil only to absorb its power for himself and pass vengeful judgment on everyone else. I don’t want to pile too much baggage onto a frivolous TV show, but watching the episode when I did — that is, Wednesday morning — gave it a weird current-events resonance. The world is full of false angels eager to claim exclusive access to the truth and judge everyone else.
This was, again, an episode with very little of the show’s trademark humor, except for a brief flourish in which Ichabod was mystified by the farm-to-table food trend. (See, in the century he’s from, there was nothing BUT farm to table.) Me, I wish the writers would lighten up a little. There used to be humor sprinkled throughout the episodes; now, it seems as if they throw in one obligatory comic scene, then get all gloomy.
The best thing about the episode, of course, came at the very end: the reappearance of Frank Irving (Orlando Jones), who had seemed to be dead back before the hiatus. Perhaps he is dead — perhaps he’s now a zombie, or demon, or whatever? — but there he was in a convenience store, gulping milk from the carton. I guess we’ll find out next time what his deal is.