Month: March 2010

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Intermission Impossible Theater

Be Thou Verdant: Rhodes to host “Green Shakespeare Symposium”

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In the immortal words of King Lear, “Nothing will come of nothing: speaketh of sustainability!” Okay, maybe that’s not exactly what Lear said but you can take that up with the experts later this month when Rhodes College hosts Green Shakespeare: A Symposium on Ecocriticism and the Bard. The event promises to bring together a group of international scholars to “discuss how ecological concepts and green issues apply to the interpretation of works by William Shakespeare.”

This will be a unique opportunity for audience members to converse with leading scholars in this emerging field of ecocriticism, which is the application of environmental studies to literature. For example, the discussion will explore ways in which Shakespeare’s works explore the idea of “nature;” fantasies of rural retreat from the city and court; connections between humans and animals; anxieties about manipulation of genetic stock; and contemporary ecological disasters.

I’ll have more on this as the event gets closer.

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Intermission Impossible Theater

Bright Lights Big City: Ballet Memphis is going to the Kennedy Center

In a recent interview Ballet Memphis’ founding director Dorothy Gunther Pugh speculated that her company might currently be developing more original work than any other ballet company in America. It looks like all that hard work is paying off.

Ballet Memphis will make its John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts debut as part of Ballet Across America, an exploration of the breadth and depth of the art form that showcases the best companies from across the country.

Ballet Memphis will perform Trey McIntyre’s In Dreams set to the music of Roy Orbison.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Links: And This Little Piggy Got Sewn onto a Chicken

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On eater.com is a clip from Heston’s Tudor Feast, in which English chef Heston Blumenthal preps a “Cockentrice” from an old Tudor recipe. It involves sewing the front end of a pig to the back end of a chicken and then attaching the pig’s tail to that. And, yes, it is disturbing.

Something sweeter from slashfood.com: a chance to find the golden ticket in a Willy Wonka candy bar and win a trip around the world.

Finally, this one’s making the rounds: the Food Lift.

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Intermission Impossible Theater

Going Commercial: ArtsMemphis debuts five 30-second advertisements.

It was a little bit like being in church. While debuting a series of promotional videos last Tuesday ArtsMemphis‘ CEO Susan Schadt mentioned Memphis’ third-place ranking on Forbes “most miserable” cities list and the room erupted in shout-backs. “We are not,” affirmed Chris Reyes the founder of Live from Memphis, ArtsMemphis’ multimedia collaborators. Schadt called for an antidote to all the negativity, a directory of all the people and things that give Memphians pleasure Then she introduced LFM’s creative director Sarah Fleming who said a few words about the new spots which will appear on TV, the Internet, and on the big screen at Malco’s Cinema Paradiso.

I think “Pleasure-maker is going to be my new moniker,” Fleming said before screening “Art is…” a compilation of five 30-second spots using local performing artists to promote themselves and ArtsMemphis. “It’s a good representation of the work we’ve done over the past several years,” said Fleming who is also a co-creator of ArtsMemphis TV.

“Art is,” thoughtfully shot by Memphis artist and videographer Eric Swartz and scored by local composer Alan Hayes is a throbbing montage of dance, welding, painting, acting and musical performance stitched together by a pair of actors, and a trio of dancers monologuing about the meaning of art.

The commercials are edited like Nike spots with dynamic visuals that never overwhelm the personality of the artists being interviewed. Some of the more up-front dialogue may flirt with arty cliche but Reyes & Fleming’s team have managed to dig a little deeper and cram a lot of actual content into these 30-second bites.

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Film Clips: Big Night at Brooks, Oscar Party at Minglewood

News and notes related from the local film scene:

Big Night at the Brooks: The Brooks Museum of Art screens the much-beloved 1996 film Big Night Thursday as part of a special event at the museum’s Brushmark Restaurant. The 1996 film about two brothers (Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub) trying to save their family’s struggling Italian restaurant with one “big night” is arguably the gold standard of foodie cinema. It will screen in the restaurant with local chefs Wally Joe and Andrew Adams replicating the menu from the movie. Doors open at 6 p.m. with the screening starting at 7 p.m. Prices range from $8 to $18. For more information, go here.

Local Oscar-Watch Party: There are sure to be many Oscar-watching parties going on across the city Sunday night, but only one of them will be an official Academy Awards event. Minglewood Hall will host Memphis Oscar Night America party, one of 50 such events around the country, benefiting Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis. The party starts at 6 p.m., Sunday, March 7th. Tickets are $100 and are now on sale online at www.rmhmemphis.org or by calling (901) 312-7479. The broadcast will be shown on large screens and attendees will receive the same official program given to those at the actual awards ceremony in Hollywood. Food will be provided by more than a dozen area restaurants and Stax greats the Bar-Kays will provide live entertainment.

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News

Oscars Toss-Up: Part Three

Herrington and Akers take a look at some special categories today. Read it all at “Sing All Kinds.”

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Sing All Kinds We Recommend

Herrington and Akers on the Oscars, Part 3

At the mid-point of our week-long Oscars dialogue, we’re going to take a quick look at some of the “secondary” categories before picking back up with the Big Four categories tomorrow and Friday.

Up: The obvious favorite for Best Animated Feature

  • Up: The obvious favorite for Best Animated Feature

Best Animated Feature
The Nominees: Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess and the Frog, The Secret of Kells, Up.

CHRIS HERRINGTON: Still a relatively new category for the Academy Awards and one that seems to be growing up a little as the Academy seems to be finally expanding its definition beyond movies with fast-food tie-ins and we seem to be in a new golden age for animated features. (This is only the second time in nine years of giving the award that there have been a full five nominees.) Still, despite the growing diversity in the field, this award has so-far seemed pretty much designed to recognize the union of art and commerce that is Pixar, the studio that accounts for a full half of the eight winners in this category since it began in 2001 (Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL*E). This year, Pixar makes it five of nine. Will Win: Up.

Should Win: I haven’t seen two of these nominees: The Princess and the Frog, which was surprisingly tagged the year’s best film by Time magazine, and which my normally Disney-hating wife thought was pretty decent, and the obscurity The Secret of Kells, which did not screen locally. The other three — all of which made my 15-film Top Ten list for 2009 — are all films I really like, but I’ll give my nod here to the underdog of the bunch, Coraline, Henry Selick’s stop-motion animation story of a young girl who finds an alternate universe via a path through the wall of her new house. Not only are the visuals beautiful, but the characterizations are surprisingly detailed and perceptive, and the film’s feel for the emotional and psychological terrain of childhood makes it every bit the girls’ answer to Where the Wild Things Are.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Big East, Here We Come!(?)

I sure wish R.C. Johnson had called me last summer. Instead, he called old friend Mike Tranghese, the former commissioner of the Big East Conference, with an offer (or challenge): How can the University of Memphis better position itself for membership in a major conference? Tranghese would be paid $5,000 a month for six months for his advice.

Based on what I’ve read today, Tranghese had three major observations at the end of his consulting gig (December 31st):

1) The Tiger program has deep and widespread support throughout the community.
2) The facilities need an upgrade.
3) The football program needs to win more games.

Hmmmmmmm. Somehow, Tranghese overlooked the enduring popularity of Larry Finch, or the fact DeAngelo Williams was a pretty good college running back. We’ll assume he recognized the Mississippi River flows south.

These are tough economic times. $30,000 doesn’t buy you what it once did.

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Style Sessions We Recommend

Evening at Boscos

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JOEY MILLER

For starters, let’s just say how cute that cat is, right? Now that that’s out of the way …

On this particular day, Amy was going to the Grizzlies Academy benefit at Boscos. She wore an FCUK blouse under a Banana Republic dress and tights. With yes, her boots from Crazy/Beautiful.

“Man, I wore those boots a lot last week,” she says. “Oh, well, they’re new.”

I’m a fan of this dress and, given Amy’s skill at layering, I’m thinking this is one that can be worn all year round. The bodice has a very pretty lace overlay, and she included a little roadrunner broach.

“I think that black dresses can be a little blah, and this one is pretty conservative, but popping a pin on there adds a little fun,” she days.

Thanks so much to Amy Gregory for being my first fashion guinea pig to do the Fashion Week feature (and to her husband/photographer Joey Miller for taking the snaps). I think she really showed how different a person’s style can be from one day to the next, even if some pieces, such as the boots, remain constant.

Also I think I may have to go into Crazy/Beautiful.

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Daily Photo Special Sections

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